Eating Out, Eating Right: Eating Smart, Not Extra

Has this ever happened to you? You’re having dinner with friends at one of your favorite restaurants. Your intention is to follow your food plan, so you order a grilled chicken breast salad, with ranch dressing on the side.

Ten minutes later, your salad hasn’t arrived, and you’re starved. Since you’ve been doing so well on your food plan, you ask your friends whether you could have just one little nibble of their appetizer! That nibble was so delicious you decide to eat another one. Oops! Make that three.

Thinking you’ve already “blown it” with the appetizer, you dive into the basket of warm dinner rolls and real butter. Before you know it, you’ve eaten four rolls. The situation leaves you feeling defeated, frustrated, and angry with yourself for overeating.

Does every eating-out experience have to end up like this? Definitely not! Whether you’re eating in a restaurant, ordering takeout, or grabbing something at a fast-food restaurant, you can enjoy eating out without getting out of control. But you have to plan.

This Healthy Eating article will help you with this planning.

• It describes some strategies for how to eat out, have fun, and stay on track.
• It helps you find ways to fit those strategies into your lifestyle.

It’s important to learn how to handle situations like the one described above because eating in restaurants is a part of our lifestyle. We enjoy it. And it seems that many times we’re so busy and tired that we can’t think about cooking at the end of the day. According to the latest statistics, we eat out three times a week, on average, and spend about half of our food dollars eating out.

Strategies for Success

Try some — or all — of the strategies to help you stay on track whenever you eat out.

1. Order first. When you’re with other people, don’t risk temptation by listening to what they order.
   • If you know what the restaurant offers, plan ahead. Decide what to order before you get there.
   • When your group starts to order, pipe up with “I’ll start.”
2. Know the menu lingo. Be sure you understand cooking terms so you can order wisely.
   • Whenever possible, choose items that are steamed, baked, broiled, or grilled.
   • Avoid foods that are crispy, fried, breaded, batter-dipped, “biggie,” supreme, deluxe, or served with gravy or most sauces (butter, cheese, cream, Alfredo, béarnaise, or hollandaise sauces). These foods contain a lot of fat and calories.
   • Don’t think your food will taste good without the sauce? Compromise. Ask your server to bring the sauce on the side. Then you can control how much you eat. Try dipping your fork in the sauce, then use the fork to pick up the food. You get flavor with every bite, and this little trick can save you up to 250 calories a meal.
   • If you’re not sure how a menu item is prepared, ask your server.
   • Most restaurants will prepare foods to suit your needs. If the red snapper is sautéed in a lemon butter sauce, ask that it be broiled without butter, with lemon wedges on the side.
3. Start off with a vegetable salad or cup of soup. You won’t feel so hungry and tempted to eat potato skins if you start off with a crispy, fresh, vegetable salad. If you prefer soup, avoid those such as chowders made with cream. Order soups made with a broth or tomato base. They are generally low in calories, but can still help you feel full.
   • If the salad you’re ordering has an assortment of high-fat toppings such as cheese, eggs, croutons, nuts, and bacon, choose one and ask your server to leave off the others.
   • Remember this tried-and-true trick: Order your salad dressing on the side.
   • While you’re waiting on your pizza delivery, make a tossed vegetable salad. Eating salad with your pizza can help you avoid eating too much.
4. Deal with the bread (or chip) basket. A basket of warm bread or rolls or crispy fried tortilla chips is a trigger food for some people. If it’s one of your triggers, try these strategies:
   • Ask your server not to bring the basket to the table. Or move it to the opposite side of the table.
   • If you’re eating with other people, ask your server to remove the bread from the table after everyone has been served.
   • Order a plate of raw vegetables to place alongside the basket.
   • Decide that you’re going to eat one slice of bread or one dinner roll with your meal.
   You may already be careful about how much butter you put on bread. What about olive oil? Many restaurants use olive oil as a dip for bread. Olive oil contains monounsaturated fats and has nutritional and health benefits, so it may be a better choice than butter. But if you must dip, then dip with caution. Dipping a slice of bread in any type of oil can easily add an extra 100 to 200 calories or more.
5. Eat your vegetables, and plenty of them! Vegetables add volume to a meal and help you feel full without adding many calories.
   • Ask for simply prepared vegetables. Even if the vegetable of the day is broccoli with cheese sauce, the restaurant can accommodate your request for plain, steamed broccoli without the sauce.
   • Order a double portion with your entrée, and eat first. After the salad and vegetables, you’ll find it easier to control the portion size of your entrée and other extras.
6. Follow the one-serving rule. There’s nothing wrong with eating bread, potatoes, pasta, or rice at your meal. The challenge is to not overeat them, since portions tend to be large at restaurants.
   • Choose one serving of one of these foods: bread or pasta or rice or potatoes.
7. Cancel your membership in the Clean Plate Club. Moms are right about a lot of things, but not about cleaning your plate. And you definitely don’t want to eat everything on your plate in a restaurant! In random samples of restaurant portions, many are two, three, or as much as 15 times the recommended serving size. These strategies can help you manage those giant-sized portions:
   • Share. Sharing an entrée with your dining companion is a great way to manage portion sizes and save money. Many restaurants will even split the meal in the kitchen for you, serving each portion on separate plates.
   • Wrap it up. Have your server wrap up half your meal before serving your food. You now have lunch for tomorrow.
   • Think small. Some restaurants offer half portions or lunch portions any time of the day. Ask your server which menu items are small. Or order a small appetizer and a side salad (dressing on the side, of course). You can also ask whether you may order from the children’s menu.
   • Draw the line. If you’re going to the movies after dinner and it’s hot outside, taking leftovers is not an option. So now what? Draw a line (real or imaginary) to divide your meal in half. When you’ve eaten half, douse the leftovers with salt, sugar, or pepper to make it unappealing. Or drape your napkin over your plate.
8. Be the last one to start eating. Being the last one to begin eating gives you the time to remind yourself about mindful eating — eating slowly, savoring each bite, and being aware of when you begin to feel satisfied.
9. Beware of supersized salads. Ordering a salad for dinner seems like a great idea. And while some wonderful, healthy salads are offered on restaurant menus, salads may not always be what they seem.
   • Consider salad size, especially if you’re getting more than greens.
   • Some restaurants offer salads topped with fried chicken, fried tortilla chips, cheese, and other high-calorie extras. When it’s all said and done, this one salad packs more than 1,600 calories and more than 90 grams of fat — probably more than you need in a day. Choose your salad toppings wisely when choosing an entrée salad.
10. Watch the alcohol. This is tricky. Alcoholic beverages can provide a lot of calories. And alcohol can relax your resolve and increase your appetite, creating an “oh-what-the-heck” effect on your food choices. Instead of ordering the grilled chicken salad as you had planned, you may end up ordering the batter-dipped chicken tenders along with the extra tall chocolate raspberry cheesecake for dessert.
11. Become buffet-savvy. We live in a world where food is available almost anytime and any place. What better example of this than the buffet? But think of the eating cues buffets can trigger! Here are two strategies to help you navigate a buffet:
    • Produce first. Start with a plate full of vegetables and fruits (without added sauces and extras). You’ll begin to feel full before facing the more calorie-dense array of foods.
    • Eat slowly. Wait at least 15 or 20 minutes after you eat that plate of vegetables and fruits. Remember that your body needs time to get the “I’m full” message from your stomach to your brain. Give your brain time to get the message to help you make good decisions about what else you’re going to eat.

Putting What You Know to Work

Think about your favorite restaurant meals. How might you change them to work better for you? Here’s an example:

Planning ahead to make healthy food choices when you eat out will take you about one minute. This is a minute well-spent. When will you eat your next meal out? Tonight? Tomorrow? Take a minute and jot down which eating-out strategies you’ll probably find most useful. Use the ones above, or create your own. Take them with you and read them over — before you read the menu!

Summary

• You can use a lot of different strategies to help you eat out, have fun, and stay on track. Here are some of them:
  • Plan ahead if you can, and order first. You’re less likely to be swayed by an elaborate menu and the choices of your companions.
  • Find out how foods are prepared. Some preparations are healthy and others are not.
  • Avoid super-sized dishes of any kind — including salads with lots of toppings.
  • Start off with a salad (watch the dressing) or light soup but forego the bread basket if bread is one of your food triggers.
  • Eat plenty of vegetables (without butter or sauce).
  • Stick to one serving — and don’t feel like you have to clean your plate.
  • Eat slowly and mindfully.
  • Be extra careful at buffets.
• Find strategies that work for you and be ready to eat out and eat smart.