How to Stay Healthy While Dining Out

As winter slowly comes to an end and summer begins to sneak up, most of us need to shed a little bit of winter weight. One of the easiest ways to shed those few extra pounds is to start monitoring your daily calorie intake. Luckily, most restaurants are starting to display calorie content on their menus (as well as other useful nutritional information) to help you make educated decisions on what you should choose to eat. With all of this available information, you simply need to do a little homework before you go out to eat and you can continue to eat healthy even while dining out!

Before you go out to eat on a diet, make sure you know exactly how many calories your body needs and plan accordingly. If you are allowed 2,000 calories per day, you probably shouldn’t eat something that contains 1,500 calories at a restaurant. Make sure to pace yourself, this is key to staying healthy. Occasionally, you will find a restaurant that does not have any nutritional information on their menu. In this case, you will need to know which foods are generally okay for you to eat, such as fish, salads, or whole grain breads. You can make healthy decisions even without the specific nutritional information.

Another important aspect of the dining out experience is the method by which your food is prepared. As a general rule, you should avoid fried foods. These foods are usually higher in calorie and overall fat content, which you will want to avoid. Instead, you should opt for dishes that are prepared with healthier methods, such as baked, broiled, sautéed, poached, steamed, or grilled.

The final and most important rule to help you remain healthy while eating out is to stop eating when you are full! This may seem like common sense, but it actually takes up to 20 minutes for your brain to tell your stomach that you are indeed full, so eat slowly and enjoy your meal. This will help reduce the amount of food you actually ingest, which is important to maintain or lose weight.

Make smart food choices…you will feel & look better!