5 Tips to Eat Healthier at Restaurants
By Mike Geary

Dining out is a big part of most people’s lives. Maybe you have to eat out frequently because you entertain clients at restaurants. Perhaps you don’t even like eating out. Regardless, if you want to keep a nice fit body, restaurant meals will give you a huge obstacle to overcome. In fact, eating out at restaurants is one of the biggest reasons why so many people fatten up while traveling.

Below, I’ll give you a few very simple tips you can use to eat healthier and stay lean even while dining out at restaurants…

The 3 most important things to avoid that are everywhere at restaurants are:

Deep fried foods (anything battered that got a scorching bath of trans fats)
Refined starchy foods
Sodas, juices, or other sugary foods (except whole fruits, which are great)

If you can skip these major culprits, this eliminates the major food sources that do the worst damage in our food supply – trans fats, refined vegetable oils, refined starchy carbohydrates, and processed sugars.

This means you should try to skip the table bread, skip the french fries that come with every single sandwich on every menu known to man, and reduce all of the heaping portions of pasta and rice that are often loaded on the plates as well.

Instead, try to order just meat with side vegetables, and a salad, asking for the vegetables or salad as a substitute for the typical french fries, pasta, or rice, that most restaurant meals usually come with.

Almost every restaurant I have ever been to will always allow me to substitute vegetables or a side salad for the french fries or chips that almost always come with burgers or sandwiches.

On a side note, it always amazes me how many people scrutinize me because I substitute veggies for fries by telling me that I am “not living” because I refuse to eat french fries… are you kidding me! If that’s your idea of “living it up”, you need to get some better hobbies!

Ironically, these are also the first people to complain that they are overweight and have “tried everything”, yet can not lose weight, no matter what. I am not sure why so many people think that eating french fries equals “living it up”… hey, I am all for moderation with many things, but if there are 2 things that should be totally removed from everyone’s diet because these foods are simply that dangerous… it is sodas and fries!

Take a look at the typical difference this simple substitution makes between choosing smart and doing what most people do…

Most people will eat a meal out such as this:

Burger or sandwich or burger
Chips or fries
Soda or other sweetened drink (and no, diet sodas are NOT healthy!)

A MUCH smarter alternative if you care about your body and health is this simple change:

Burger or Sandwich
Salad or veggies
Unsweetened iced tea or water (no diet drinks — unless you like to drink poison!)

These 2 simple substitutions save at least 400 – 900 calories every time you dine out (depending on drink refills and fries portion sizes)… AND you are cutting out the most harmful foods to your body as well by avoiding the evil trans fats and high fructose corn syrup from the fries and soft drinks.

Another side note: a little-known way to eat full portions of pasta, rice, and breads and actually get away with it without packing on the body fat is to make sure to schedule a high intensity full body resistance training workout (can be free weights or body weight training) before your scheduled meal time.

Sometimes it may be hard to fit the workout into your schedule right before the meal, but if you can, the meal can be your “post-workout meal”. After a high intensity resistance training workout, your body can handle a higher amount of carbs than normal to help replenish the muscle glycogen depletion you had during the intense workout.

A typical moderate intensity cardio workout will NOT cut it for this… it must be high intensity resistance training workout to deplete enough muscle glycogen to handle restaurant portions of carbs.

I hope these dining tips help you choose smarter and healthier for a leaner body next time you eat out.

Check out these unique fat loss & healthy diet tips

Another article you may enjoy on the topic of food is located at Unhealthy cooking oils

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 Two of the biggest holidays of the year are facing dieters. Wherever you go there will be food.  You know how you have sabotaged your diet in the past when you went out to a party or a restaurant and it wasn’t pretty.  You beat yourself up over it for days afterwards and had a hard time getting back onto your diet or healthy eating plan.  How will you cope this time? 

The number one tip is to plan ahead and visualize where you are going and what you are going to do when you  get there.  Repeat to yourself as you get ready to go out that you are going out to socialize and see your friends and family, not just to eat. 

Prepare a plan in  your mind.  Visualize yourself choosing healthy food as you see the food or read the menu.  See yourself choosing the veggies, or the fruit.  Visualize choosing a green salad with low cal dressing or oil and vinegar on the side. Watch as you are catching up with your friends and ignoring the bread basket and you pass it on down the table.  When you order you ask the waitress to broil that fish, not fry it.  Picture serving yourself at the buffet table with healthy choices and walking right by the high fat, high calorie foods.  You’re at the table passing food around family style and you help yourself to lots of veggies and a small portion of potatoes or none at all.  Watch yourself not even flinching as your friends all go up and get desserts and you just could care less about it.  Envision that you just keep on socializing and that you are having such a great time you don’t even think about the desserts.

Number two tip is eat something filling and healthy just prior to leaving for your event. As you eat, repeat number one tip, you’re not going out just to eat, you’re off to socialize and visualize again how you want to behave. 

The third tip is bring your own food to the gathering.  Here are some quick recipes to make a veggie or a fruit platter with a low fat dip.  If you bring your own food,  you’ll know that there is one thing that you can nibble on when you need to.

Here are some more great tips for avoiding the holiday bulge, but please remember … you are human, you do give in, it’s hard not to eat what your friends and family are eating.  Don’t beat yourself up if you do fall off the diet wagon.  Jump back on immediately or the next day, your diet isn’t derailed, just temporarily detoured.

It’s time for you to start thinking about this weight loss journey as a lifelong healthy eating plan, not a diet.  If you keep thinking of it as healthy eating, not dieting, you’ll know that you can continue to eat healthy and have the occasional treat without guilt.  The more that you practice at healthy eating, the easier it will become.  When your body is fueled by healthy foods, your blood sugar will become stable and you will have much less cravings for sweets and snack foods.  Enjoy healthy eating at your holiday feast!  Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all!

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