Healthy Restaurant Eating – Tips That Can Make it Work!

Healthy Restaurant Eating - Tips That Can Make it Work!

Restaurant eating is a mainstay in most everyone's lives. Eating out often may be because of business commitments or because of lack of time to prepare a home cooked meal. Whatever the reason, if maintaining a healthy body is important to you, then dining out can be a huge hurdle to conquer. In truth, restaurant dining is one of the main causes of weight gain when travelling. Taking control over your dining out can lead to quick and safe weight loss.
Read on for some easy ways you can avoid those extra pounds and still enjoy restaurant dining.

In every restaurant, there are 3 essential things to stay away from:
. Deep fried foods (those deep fried items are full of trans-fats)
. Starchy refined foods
. High calorie sodas, juices and other sugary drinks

By eliminating these key offenders, you take out the foods that cause the worst damage in our diets- starchy carbs, processed sugars, trans fats and refined vegetable oils.
This means you should be passing on that bread basket (have the waiter remove it from the table), eliminating the French fries from your sandwich order and using common sense portion control on pasta and rice.
As a substitute, order a side vegetable and a green salad with your meat, instead of those fries, pasta or rice that come with the entrée. Most restaurants are happy to oblige.
The same goes for that hamburger or sandwich order. Ask your server to substitute a fresh vegetable choice for those chips or fries.
Many people consider not ordering fries with my burger a major offense, that I'm not "living it up". I am continually amazed that these are the same people who are overweight and have told me they have tried all sorts of diets in an effort to lose their excess weight. If ordering vegetables instead of fries constitutes "not living it up", well so be it. But I stand firm that 2 things must be removed from everyone's diet and these are soda and fries! This is a key to most successful weight loss programs.
Let's look at making some simple substitutions and smart choices verses what most people do:
A restaurant meal for most people will consist of:
. Sandwich or burger
. French fries or chips
. Sugary drink or soda

A healthier and smarter choice for your good health would include these changes:
. Sandwich or burger
. Vegetables or salad
. Water or unsweetened iced tea (I do not recommend diet sodas!)

At least 400-900 calories are saved with these simple modifications (drink re-fills and portion sizes on the fries would vary this total). Most importantly, you are eliminating 2 of the most dangerous foods from your meal. And steering clear of all those trans fats and high fructose sugars that are so hazardous to everyone. This is very important for abdominal weight loss.
By the way, it is a known fact that one way to enjoy a full portion of carbs such as rice, pasta or breads and not add body fat, is to complete a high intensity workout before having your meal. This workout would include body weight training and free weights. Your body can manage a higher amount of carbs following a high intensity workout. Although it may be difficult to complete a workout right before a meal, if you can schedule it, the high carbohydrate meal can serve as your "post-workout meal", helping to restore the muscle glycogen depletion caused by the intense workout.
But a moderate or low intensity workout of mostly cardio will not do the trick in this case. In order to handle a restaurant portion of carbs, you must have a high intensity workout with resistance training in order to diminish enough muscle glycogen.
Follow these easy secrets to fast weight and you will be started towards a leaner body while still enjoying dining out.




If you enjoyed this article check out Healthy Choices at The Grocery Store

For more information on a related topic see Does Diet Soda Make
You Fat?