You're on a diet. You want to eat out with friends or family. Can the two work together and allow you to keep both your social life and diet in place? Sure, if you have a strategy.
Eating out when on a diet can be challenging. It is not an excuse however for you to avoid any social life. The strategies below are designed to help you find solutions to maintain your diet while eating out in restaurants.
General Rules
- Skip the bread and butter/oil
- Order a small salad or soup as a starter. Make sure to order broth based soup and avoid choosing regular dressing over your salad. Instead, ask the waiter to bring you olive oil and balsamic vinegar. If these two items are not available, ask to have your dressing on the side and consume as little dressing as you can. A good way to not go overboard with the dressing is to dip your fork in the dressing before each bite.
- Share the main entrée with your companion. In most restaurants, 1/3 of the entrée should be more than enough to satisfy your appetite and contentment. If you cant share your dish with somebody else, ask the waiter for a box and fill out half of your entrée in the box prior starting eating.
- Start eating 1/4t of your food, analyze if you still feel hungry, if you are, then eat the other 1/4th. Keep doing that strategy until you reach your satisfying point.
- Eat slowly. Put your fork aside while you talk.
- Enjoy your food. Appreciate the look and smell of your dish. Think of the taste, the feeling you have when you eat.
- Pick a dessert or share a dessert, but only eat 2 or 3 bites max. This particularly true for heavy dessert.
- Privilege light dessert such as sorbet, frozen yogurt, fruit salads. Avoid creamy, cheesy or chocolate based dessert as much as you can.
- Drink water or limit yourself to a glass of wine. Avoid all other type of sodas, alcohol and fruit juice.
- Select broiled, grilled or steamed food over other cooking method. Avoid all fried food.
- Avoid dishes full of cheese or cream. If you can’t resist the 4 cheese pasta dish, then go for it but you will have to pay extra attention to limit your portion.
- Choose either an appetizer or a dessert. Don’t splurge for both. Same thing for cheese and dessert.
- Finish your meal with tea, especially if you skip dessert. The tea will not only help you digest your meal but it will keep your mind busy while your friends are enjoying dessert.
Food & Nutrition
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