Eating at a restaurant is a fun experience – a chef cooks you an amazing meal and a waiter brings you your drinks, food, dessert, and whatever else you want. You don’t even have to clean up afterwards! But, eating out is not always a great idea for your waistline or health in general.
If you’re on a health plan, knowing what goes into your body is vitally important to success. When you order an Italian restaurant’s famous Fettuccine Alfredo, you don’t know if they’re using heavy cream to make the sauce, or a more diet friendly 2% milk. Since restaurants are purely making food that tastes and looks great, they aren’t as concerned with giving you the healthiest possible version of what you could be eating.
Portion Control
Restaurants tend to serve us way too much food for one sitting. Sure, a lot of the food will make a great lunch for the next day, but you’re still probably eating beyond one portion size if you eat half the meal. At home, you have the option to take a smaller plate, which acts as a mental gauge for how much you should eat.
Make Your Own Choices Restaurants tend to serve food in a way that’s conducive to consuming loads of extra calories. Smothering your salad in dressing or your chicken in sauce may make it tasty, but it also gives you a lot of unnecessary calories. If you do eat out at a restaurant, ask for sauces and spreads to be served on the side so that you can determine how much you need.
Time Eating at restaurants can be a very time-consuming practice considering that you’re just sitting in a chair for a long period of time having food delivered to you. Make a point to have quicker family meals at home, and exercise together afterwards. I know, it’s culturally important to many to bond over food, but make a new tradition of bonding over health.