Enjoying meals at restaurants, breakfast with the family, brunch with friends and being social with food is an incredible important part of living a healthy balanced lifestyle. Flexible dieting, learning how to track your intake and understanding the energy value of food helps with making the right choices for your goals, without restrictions.
Here are my tips for eating out:
1- Plan Ahead of Time - Try to factor in your meal out FIRST and work backwards to hit your targets for that day: - Look up the menu. - Do some research and have a look at photos on their social media to estimate portion sizes. - If another restaurant has a similar idea on their menu, do they have the macros listed that you could base your meal off?
2- Choose Wisely - If you have the option of choosing the restaurant, you could select one that has its nutrition listed for easy My Fitness Pal entry. Grill’d, Nandos, Salsa’s, Burger Urge, most take away chains etc all do this. (check the website online for more accurate tracking) Otherwise, a source of Protein, Veggies and Salad should be available for easy guesstimate.
Remember, it is always better to estimate/ or over estimate the serving size than underestimate from a calorie perspective. This gets easier with time and the more experience you have measuring portions at home; you will become more accurate at estimating the portions found in restaurant meals. You can even look at the side menu and order from there, you can ask for sauce off the side, no oil etc. Restaurants are usually extremely accommodating.
You can also relate a meal from a restaurant to a similar meal from a place that does list their nutrients (example: a chicken breast burger from a pub and entering a burger from Grill'd with similar ingredients)
3- Planning for The Unknown Strategies - If you don’t know where or what you will be eating ahead of time here are some strategies:
- Reduce your calorie intake earlier in the day by eating small servings of lean protein with low calorie salads/vegetables. This will help to keep you feeling full and allow you to save more carbs and fat macros for the meal out.
- You can opt to implement a fasted period and start your first meal later in the day.
- Take the pressure of yourself, break from your calories, be smart with your choices at dinner, and just get back to tracking the next day.
4- You Do Not Need An All or Nothing Approach
If things DO GO TO PLAN, you can still make wise decisions, you are 100% in control of your own intake and what you consume.
5- Serving Size
If a meal comes out in a large serving size and you are full, listen to your hunger ques! Food will always be there, no one is making you clean you plate, your food doesn't have feelings and will not be upset if you don't finish it :)
Life is too short to be antisocial and miss out on fun and memories with loved ones due to a restrictive diet. A more flexible diet will be more sustainable in the long run and consistency is the driving factor for results.
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