When you are on a weight loss plan, eating out can be challenging. Restaurant meals are over-sized and enhanced with excessive amounts of fat, sodium and sugars. Even seemingly healthful foods can be deceptively high in calories. Certain strategies can help you navigate menus, stick to your plan and still enjoy your meals out.
Significance
Some restaurants do offer healthfuly, low-calorie options that often are marked on the menu. Offered alongside these options is still the high calorie fare that expands your waistline. The Center for Science in the Public Interest publishes a list of the worst restaurant food every year, and for 2010, it identified a California Pizza Kitchen single-serving Tostada Pizza containing 1,440 calories and 27g of saturated fat along with the Chevy's Crab and Shrimp Quesadilla containing 1,790 calories and 63g of saturated fat. With two thirds of American adults qualifying as overweight or obese, few can afford these kinds of calorie indulgences.
Strategies
In order to avoid huge portions when dining out, order an appetizer for your entrée--as long as is intended to serve just one. Try to choose appetizers that include vegetables and grilled items. Keep alcohol to a minimum and choose wine or light beer over high calorie mixed drinks and frozen concoctions. If you know in advance where you are going to dine, check online for nutritional information and plan your order in advance so that it fits into your calorie targets. This also helps to prevent you from perusing the menu and giving in to temptation at the table. Share dessert with your dining partner or the entire table to satisfy your sweet tooth without blowing your calorie budget.
Expert Insight
Choose a clear, broth-based soup as your appetizer. When diners ate clear soup before a meal in a study published in a November 2007 issue of Appetite, they reported feeling fuller than those who did not eat the soup and actually ate less overall during the course of the meal. Healthful, low-calorie soups include vegetable, hot and sour, or minestrone.
Informed Ordering
In restaurants without published nutritional information, allow the menu descriptions to clue you into the best and worst choices. Your best bets for weight loss are foods described as being broiled, grilled or baked. Avoid foods described as fried, crispy, sautéed, stuffed or au gratin. Alfredo, pink and cream are clues that a dish contains an inordinate amount of fat and cheese. Buttered, basted, fricasseed and creamed are other indications of high-calorie preparation. Ask for gravies, sauces and syrups to be left off altogether.
Misconceptions
Some people believe a salad is always a safe dieting option. In reality, many fast food and restaurant salads have more calories than some entrees. For example, Ruby Tuesdays' Carolina Chicken Salad has more than 1,300 calories and 72g of fat, notes Marie Claire magazine. If you go with salads, avoid ones containing toppings such as cheese, eggs and "crispy" noodles. Order dressing on the side and use just a teaspoon or try dipping your fork in the dressing and then stabbing your lettuce.
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