I could sit around and tell you that Found Kitchen and Social House's menu is filled with healthy, low-calorie options but that would be the biggest lie ever. It’s not. And that's not why people come here anyway. Found is one of the top restaurants in Evanston and the North Shore and was written up in the New York Times, for crying out loud. You don't get there by staying away from butter. The food is incredibly delicious because of their use of the best, richest, yummiest (and local!!) ingredients. So instead of saying, “You should order this and you can order that but maybe stay away from xyz,” I am going to say: Order anything from the menu. Seriously. Anything. Even if you are currently losing weight. “Izzy, how the F could I do that and still lose weight?!” you scream? So glad you asked. 

Here is how you can have a delightful experience at Found without feeling deprived:

1. If you like having some wine at dinner, please note their pours are 5oz. Why is this important? Because 5oz is one serving of wine. Restaurants often give you goblets full of wine that are closer to two servings. So when you decide to stick to one glass at Found you’ll actually be getting one glass. 
2. I wrote this in my 10 Mile House review: There is power in sharing dishes, especially when you want to try a bunch of different plates. Plus, Found food is meant to be shared! Sharing gives you the chance to try out multiple dishes so you can have a little bit of this and a little bit of that and keep your portions under control while keeping the FOMO monster away.
3. Ask the server to pace out your plates so that you don’t get everything at once. We ordered everything we wanted all together and the server helped break the order up into three parts (had we been in a hurry, we could have broken it up into two parts).
   
   Breaking things up will serve to help you pace yourself so you can eat a little bit more slowly than you might if everything came at once. It will give you the opportunity to check in with yourself and ask, "Am I still hungry? How hungry?" 
   
   We started with the heirloom baby lettuce salad with blue cheese, pine nuts, and a fabulous fennel-herb vinaigrette. There wasn’t a TON of cheese or vinaigrette, it was all very light. You may have heard that starting with a salad can help fill you up so you’re less prone to eating a ton later. That might be true for some but not for me. I didn’t even want to order the salad but our server said it was really good. It WAS, surprisingly so for a simple salad. But what a great way to make sure you’re getting in a good serving+ of veggies off the bat!
   
   After the salad, we had two small dishes come — lamb meatballs served with a pistachio chimichurri and mint yogurt and a sweet potato hummus & quark flatbread topped with shaved root vegetables. Then the last two dishes came — the oven roasted pork chop served with braised beans, smoked chilies and a serrano crema and miso roasted carrots with chutney powder and cilantro. By the time the last of the food arrived, we were feeling pretty happy with what we’d eaten. We had a few bites, taking our time, making sure we were hitting the point of “I feel so great and content right now,” while staying away from, “Oh, hell, I feel really full and uncomfortable.” This meant the rest of the food was packed up to go home!
4. While you work on eating slowly, you can also play around with keeping your portions under control. It’s easy to lose track of how much you’re eating when things are coming out one after the other so feel free to try out the following: 
   1. Ask for a smaller plate for yourself so you can’t pile a mound of food on your plate. 
   2. Do not eat off of the main plate. It will be difficult to keep track of how much you're eating.
   3. Luckily, every dish we ordered came in pieces (from the individual whole carrots to the individual meatballs - duh - to the sliced flatbread and sliced pork chop). Add one piece from each dish on your plate at a time. For example, put one meatball and one slice of flatbread on your plate. Eat those items in pieces (even if you can technically stuff the whole meatball in your mouth, don’t; eat it in at least two bites). This will kill two birds: It will take you longer to eat and will keep your portions in check.

Yes, we ordered way too much food. Next time, I'll probably order two  less dishes if there are only two of us eating (unless we want food to come home with us -- at topic for another discussion). But I'm really happy about the tactics we used because we left the restaurant content. We didn't feel the  need for dessert because we'd taken the time to really enjoy the food we ate. 

I can't recommend Found enough but regardless of where you go, go armed with a handful of tactics you can use so you can thoroughly enjoy yourself and leave happy knowing you stuck to your plan with your ultimate goals in mind.

Don’t get me wrong: No matter how you slice it, weight loss takes some work. It’s not exactly “fun” all the time but it doesn’t have to be miserable either. And that work: YOU get to decide how intense that work is.

We’ve been lead to believe that the more passionately we want something, the more we need to sacrifice. When it comes to weight loss, we’ve also been taught that extreme changes have to happen in order to get to the goal: Take out every piece of carbohydrate there is! Put butter in your coffee and you won't be hungry until dinner! Water with lemon and cayenne is yummy! Um. Yeah. Only if the other ingredient happens to be tequila.

It doesn’t have to be this hard! We can be successful if we shift a few things. Here are 4 ways to make your weight loss life easier:
1.   What do you LIKE to eat? Star there. Because if you don’t like what you’re planning on eating, you won’t eat it and, if you’re like me, you’ll rebel and order fried chicken instead. 

Here is a basic rundown of how I meal plan:

• What do I feel like eating in the following week? I write down a list of either ingredients or of dishes I’ve had before. I try to start with proteins and vegetables and go from there.
• Find recipes that include the food(s) that you listed. Flip through any cookbooks that match what you’re looking for or head to Pinterest or AllRecipes.com and enter in your keywords (make sure you visit the IzzyFit Pitnterest page!). 
• From the recipes you’ve found, make a shopping list.
• Go shopping!
• Make the food!

I do understand that the above  can feel overwhelming if you’re just starting out. If cooking is new to you, I highly recommend getting meal kits from companies like Plated or Blue Apron (there are so many out there now). Meal deliveries also exist, like Cooked in Evanston.

2. Sometimes, when we want to get after it with weight loss goals, we take on a lot because we are MOTIVATED! But then, that motivation wanes and you find that you’ve pushed yourself into a corner. Don’t put Baby in the corner. Do — GASP — less instead! 

When deciding on a new exercise, nutrition or lifestyl habit, ask yourself these questions:

• Am I 90-100% certain I can practice this habit for 7 days? 14 days? 3 months? No? Play around with the frequency or intensity of the habit you’re deciding on (for example: If you don’t feel confident practicing “Going to the gym 5 days per week”, how does your confidence level change if you rephrase it to "Going to the gym 3 days per week"?
• Does integrating this new habit into my life make me feel excited about the positive changes it will bring or do I have to talk myself up to practicing it? If you feel dread, there’s a lot more out there you can work on. For example, if you just HATE the idea of cutting down the amount of chocolate you eat right now, can you find something else in your nutrition you can focus on? Like adding veggies or cutting back on calorie-containing beverages?
• Will this habit make me feel deprived? Yes? Make it less intense (for example, instead of cutting out chocolate completely, can you choose to enjoy one square of chocolate for dessert?).
• Am I just a little bit scared? Am I a lot scared? If you’re the former, great! If the latter, re-tune the habit.

3. Have you ever said, “I hate [insert hated exercise here] with my heart and soul but I know I need to do it"? Here are my questions: Who is telling you you need to do it? Why do you think you need to do it? Do you think there are any other types of exercise you might like? Regarding that last question: I’ll bet you there is! What type of exercise will give you the most results? The one you do the most consistently. Check out the class schedule at a nearby gym (even if you’re not a member; if something strikes your fancy, you could get a day pass and at least try it out); look for specialized studios (Barre, Zumba, rock climbing, kettlebells); check out what your park district has going on. Just because spinning worked for your best friend doesn’t mean it will for you so don’t put pressure on yourself to suffer through it. 

4. Have you tried losing weight in a house full of people who can happily eat whatever they want without a care in the world? Or among friends who love dining and drinking all night? I won’t tell you to get a new family or group of friends but I would urge you to seek out a community of people who have similar goals as yours. 

Community is one of the necessary elements when it comes to succeeding at something. Why? Because it sure is hard out there alone on Weight Loss Island. Finding a group of like-minded people will not only help you remember why you’re going after your goal in the first place but can also keep you accountable. 

There are a LOT of coaching groups out there (CleanSlate28 being one of them). The trick is finding one that’s right for you. While you seek that group out, though, remember to talk with your riends and family so they know exactly what your goals are and why you want or need to reach them and then tell your people specifically what they can do to help you. Communication rocks. 

NOW: Go out and build your community on Weight Loss Island and make it a party!