​Dining Out Healthily

As our lifestyles are becoming busier with long working hours, many of us are eating the majority of our meals outside the home. You may find yourself regularly grabbing breakfast or lunch on the go, then eating out with friends or colleagues after work. You may find yourself entertaining work clients over dinner, or eating out with friends and family may be an important part of your leisure time. However, dining out can play havoc with our waistlines and a recent report suggests that for each meal you eat outside the home adds another 132 kcal to your day’s intake. All these extra calories can add up to significant weight gain each year. To avoid those extra inches here are some simples rules to help you go out and enjoy your meals without taking in excessive calories, fat and sugar.

General tips

• Make sure that you always plan ahead what you will be eating that day or evening, so that you can still make sure that you are following your healthy eating pattern.
• If you know that you are going out and having a big ‘slap up’ dinner that evening then eat sensibly during the day.
• When choosing from the menu ask the waiter/waitress what it contains if you are unsure and how the food is prepared.
• Try not to take any of the pre-dinner nibbles that are offered and also stay away from the bread basket.
• You can ask for the sauces or dressing to be served separately, so you can control the portion, or ask for no mayonnaise or butter to be added.
• Think about sharing a starter or a dessert with a companion or even a main course if the portions look large.
• Choose extra vegetables and salads to fill up on.
• Be careful with ‘buffet’ style meals where it is much easier to overconsume, don’t overfill your plate. Fill ½ your plate with salad or vegetable options first and don’t stand next to the buffet and be tempted to keep picking.
• Opt for dishes that are grilled, baked, steamed, poached rather than fried – check options with the waiter/waitress. Select lean meats, or fish or vegetable based dishes as a good healthy low fat option.
• Choose tomato based sauces and avoid creamy sauces
• Be careful with portion sizes and don’t feel obliged to finish all the food on your plate
• If selecting a dessert, again share with your dinner partner, or choose fruit salads/fruit sorbet, or plain ice cream.
• Don’t add extra salt at the table.
• Try to limit your alcohol intake by drinking water also with the meal.

The Best choices on the Italian menu:

• Choose the thin based pizzas with vegetarian or fish toppings; avoid the meat based toppings like pepperoni and salami that have a very high fat in content.
• Try to avoid the Italian breads accompanying your meal.
• Select pasta with a tomato based sauce like Napolitano or Arrabiata and avoid the creamy sauces.
• Ask for only small amounts of cheese, or reduced fat cheese if the restaurant offers this option.
• Choose baked/grilled fish with vegetables or salad.
• Go for plenty of salad with dressing on the side
• Try to avoid the rich Italian desserts and go for plain ice cream.

The best choices on the Indian menu:

• Avoid the creamy sauce dishes such as korma or masala.
• Avoid the pre-dinner nibbles such as poppadoms and pickles that can be very calorific.
• Avoid the Indian breads as they can have a high fat content.
• Choose vegetable dhal, vegetable side dishes, tandoori, tikka, madras, jalfrezi, balti dishes with prawn, or chicken, or vegetables.
• Choose plain basmati rice to accompany the dish, you can share with your dinner guests.
• Avoid the Indian desserts as they tend to be high in sugar and fat.

The best choices on the Chinese menu:

• Try to avoid the pre-meal nibbles such as the prawn crackers which are calorific.
• Soups are a good option to start with.
• Avoid the battered and deep fried dishes, you can ask the waitress if unsure how the food is prepared.
• Choose stir-fried chicken or vegetable dishes which will have the lowest fat content such as chicken or prawns or tofu in a black bean sauce.
• Choose steamed rice to accompany instead of fried rice