Healthy Eating: Eating Out

For those that often go out to eat in restaurants, there is a need to have some extra knowledge on how to properly eat healthy, and be aware of your calorie intake. Since you are not personally preparing the foods, there can be a lot of guess work to know the approximate calories that you may need to work off later on. But there are some ways to make the estimating just a little easier, without having to pull the chef to your table at each restaurant visit!

Dressings and Sauces:

One of the easiest ways to control calories with salad dressings and even most all types of sauces, is to always order these high calorie items on the side. This allows you to choose how much or little calories to consume. Waiters, waitresses and even chief's are most always happy to accommodate with these types of requests, so don't hesitate to ask.

Extra Oils And Butter:

If you are making sure to order healthy by only ordering foods that are good for you, then you must also request that the cook or chef does not use excessive butter or oils to prepare the fish, chicken, or lean meats and vegetables. You may even request that there to be no oils or butter used at all if you would like. Remember, it is your health and that you are paying the restaurant, so it is not improper or impolite to make special easy requests.

Pasta Dishes:

When you have those cravings for pastas, you can save calories by ordering only tomato based dishes instead of any of the cream and cheese based pastas plates. Tomatoes are much healthier and lower in calories, and for any low calorie diet, cheese is best to be avoided all together when you can.

Side Dishes:

Baked potatoes make for excellent vegetable side dishes, but the calories from the butter, cheese, bacon or sour cream can be excessively high. The best way to order your baked potatoes are to ask for salsa or vegetable toppings.

Food Preparation:

It is definitely best to always order your foods prepared by the methods of baked, poached, broiled, grilled, or steamed. These are the best ways to cook foods in the healthiest manner, because there will be little to no oils or extra fats to worry about during the food

Extras To Avoid:

Do not drink alcoholic based beverages when watching calories. It is good to also avoid all creamy and syrupy types of coffees, because they are too, high on the calories. It is best pass on many of the breads, rolls and desserts, because these may be very wonderful to the taste buds, but full of unwanted calories.

Take It Home:

The last very important thing to remember is that you can always take the extra food home with you. You never should continue eating beyond the point of comfortable fullness, because these are extra calories. There is nothing what so ever wrong with asking for your extra food to be wrapped up to take home for later, so you then are not over-eating or being wasteful.