Not so Sinful Snacks 2: The Cinema

Going to the cinema can be a bit of a mine field for dieters...the smell of the popcorm, or the nachos, or the hot dogs...the giant share size bag of chocolatey sweets that, lets face it, we don't always share, the oh so tempting sahara nuts and lets not even talk about  the Ben and Jerrys counter! A trip to the flicks, while ultimately about seeing a great piece of cimema is also an honours level exercise in self control and I'm telling you now I am in the remedial class in this subject! But there are ways of addressing allllllll of our cinema food cravings.

First up: Hot Food...So lets rip the band aid off first....ya just can't have nachos at the cinema  there are over a 1100 calories in a portion, 59g of fat and 131g of carbs!!!!! What you can have though, is a hot dog. Not a foot long...a normal sized hot dog. It's not the best thing for ya to have but it's only 242 calories 14g of fat and 13g of carbs... and sure aren't onions good for ya? :) Just don't start loading it with cheese!

This is probably a good option if you're coming from work and haven't had time to have dinner. It won't make you feel full the instant you've eaten it but give it 20 minutes and it will deal with your hunger.

Popcorn can be hard to resist as well...especially when it is lovingly SMOTHERED in lovely, lovely butter! A small popcorn without butter already has 400 calories in a bag. It is covered in butter before they even ask you if you want more because it is popped in butter! So if you are coming from work the best thing to do is  just share a small bag with whoever you are with. If you are coming from home well then you can air pop your own popcorn in the microwave. all you need is a paper bag, about 2 cups of  kernals, and 1 cal spray oil. Put the kernals in the bag, give it a few sprays of oil and stick it in the microwave for a couple of minutes. You will hear it popping and like normal microwave popcorn (which is also covered in oil or butter) ya just wait for the popping to slow down before turning the microwave off. Season with whatever you want...but I like using onion salt. nom nom nom. It's not ideal but I don't mind bringing stuff with me to the cinema and it saves a fortune. They charge so much these days for even a small!  Ya just have to plan ahead I guess.

Ice Cream is my weakness at the cinema, that Ben and Jerrys stand  calls to me from the car! This isn't a problem anymore though as they now do some low fat options!!! A scoop averages around 160 calories but only 3g of fat. To be honest though, if there is a freezer I will check to see if they have Soleros as these are by far the best value for calories and fat. Super tasty and only 99 calories and and 2.2g of fat. If you need a chocolatey ice cream fix then most of the chocolate bar ice creams ...like crunchie etc are ok apart from Mars, snickers and toffee crisp. As a rule anything with caramel in it is worth avoiding. It's easier to pick just one ice cream instead of trying to have only one scoop! one scoop just feels mean, one ice cream feels normal.

And lets just deal with those share sized bags of sweety goodness. Just buy a normal sized bag and we all know that "Maltesers are the lighter way to enjoy chocolate" with 187 cals in a normal bag they are way ahead of the pack.

      

If you want to be all romantic and share just get the king size bag. If you're gonna go for the pick and mix just remember there is an average of 20 calories per sweet and 3-6g of fat. So you can have some just no more than 10 which really doesn't seem worth it in all honesty.

And of course if you are eating one, or a combination, of the above you do not want to waste calories on fizzy drinks so just stick with water or diet coke...even the diet versions of all other drinks are higher in calories. Flavoured fizzy waters are ok too.

So there you have it, just a few little changes and you can enjoy a treat at the flicks without the major guilt fest afterwards.