Restaurant Eating Tips

It's been a few days since my last post; I've just been staying on course with my work-out/eating plan. I have been continuing to run, bike, strength-train, and fight-train for an average of about an hour everyday on top of my normal activities. I have also stayed on track with my diet. So as I predicted last week, I did weigh in at a new low of 164 lbs. yesterday morning. That is 43 lbs. of total weight loss since January and 9 lbs. more to go to my next goal point of 155 lbs. where I will have lost 52 total lbs. and over 25% of my total weight.

So...enough with the update and onto the post. I have talked about my diet in general and given examples of things that I cook at home but what about when you go out to eat? It is certainly easier to stay true to your diet when you eat at home; you can control everything that goes into your meals. Going out can make it tough but I can generally find something to eat on every menu although the selections are sometimes limited.

Here are some ideas and tips for eating out:

• Mexican places have a number of selections that are diet friendly (at least my diet). You can almost always switch out rice for beans and the other main hurdle is avoiding the chips and tortillas (which can be very difficult...especially the chips!) My two go to selections are Pollo Loco (chicken breasts, refried beans, and a guacamole salad) and Texas Fajitas (shrimp, steak, and chicken fajita meat, peppers and onions, refried beans, and a guacamole salad)
• Asian places are also good for a bigger selection of choices. The big thing with Asian dishes is that you obviously have to not eat the rice, although some restaurants with allow you to substitute cellophane noodles (which are made from mung beans) for a cost. Another thing to watch is to make sure that any of the meats are not breaded like a Sesame or General Tso's Chicken. But you can certainly eat effectively with this strategy at Chinese, Thai, Korean, or any other Asian places.
• Salads as meals can be tough at restaurants. They tend to like to add cheese, croutons, and other add-ons that do not fit with the diet and you can ask for them to be left off but at some point, you're not getting anything close to what you paid for.
• You can generally substitute a salad or veggies for the standard side of fries which allows for greater variety.
• Sometimes you have to get creative. At Hibernian, one of my dishes is hummus (chickpeas) with vegetables instead of the traditional pita slices. You might have to do something similar to find anything at some places.
• If in doubt, you can even have chicken wings, just as long as they are not breaded. Fried food is not ideal to eat all the time but if you are in a pinch, these appetizers can be your only option.

 So it's definitely easier to stay on your diet at home but when eating out, it just takes some creativity, attention to detail, and self-discipline to stay on track.