Weight Loss Tips - How to Order Restaurant Food Without Adding to Your Calories
From a weight watcher's point of view, restaurant dining has three basic dangers: 1)Serving sizes are too big.
2)Garnishes and side dishes are too rich.
3)Meals have too many courses.
However if you exercise a little care and caution, you can order from any menu, secure in the knowledge that pleasing your palate doesn't mean tossing away your weight loss regime out of the window.
Adopt the following list of strategies to make any restaurant experience a joy.
Strategy #1: Set the nutritional tone of dinner right off the bat with your choice of appetizer.
You have two possible alternatives.
The first is opting for a really rich, high-density food such as fat liver paste and then coast downward, calorie-fat-and-cholesterol-wise, for the rest of the meal.
A second alternative is choosing a tasty but low-calorie, low-fat appetizer such as clear soup, a salad with lemon juice dressing, or shellfish such as shrimp cocktail (10 to 30 calories a shrimp) with no-fat sauce.
This choice allows you more food later on.
Strategy #2: Elevate appetizers to entrees For smaller portion sizes or to skip the calorie-laden sides that come with most entrees, order an appetizer as your main course.
One of my favorite New York City restaurants, serves an appetizer consisting of a really big bowl of maybe 30 steamed mussels in their shells in a low-oil fresh-tomato sauce with one crusty piece of French bread underneath to sop it up with.
When I add a glass of cold, dry white wine and one more piece of bread, this appetizer becomes a meal in itself - with a lot fewer calories and less fat than most any entree on the menu.
Less expensive, too! Strategy #3:Skip the fat on the bread Don't butter your bread.
Many chic and trendy restaurants now serve up a dish of flavored olive oil in place of butter.
True, the olive oil has less saturated fat than butter, and it has no cholesterol, but the calorie count is exactly the same.
All fats and oils (butter, margarine, vegetable oils) give you about 100 calories a tablespoon.
Note: You may get even more calories from the oil if you do a lot of dipping.
Strategy #4: Go for Undressed Veggies There used to be a time when vegetables were served into a yucky muck- no color, no texture, no taste.
Then came 20th century butter, cheese, and cream sauces, often burnished under the broiler to a browned crust.
Now, smart restaurant cooks rely on herbs and spices, reduced (boiled down and thickened) fat-free bouillons, unusual salad combinations, and imaginative treatments such as purees and kabobs to make their vegetables tasty but trim.
The result? Food heaven and nutrition joy.
The vegetable flavors come through, and the calories stay very, very, very low.
2)Garnishes and side dishes are too rich.
3)Meals have too many courses.
However if you exercise a little care and caution, you can order from any menu, secure in the knowledge that pleasing your palate doesn't mean tossing away your weight loss regime out of the window.
Adopt the following list of strategies to make any restaurant experience a joy.
Strategy #1: Set the nutritional tone of dinner right off the bat with your choice of appetizer.
You have two possible alternatives.
The first is opting for a really rich, high-density food such as fat liver paste and then coast downward, calorie-fat-and-cholesterol-wise, for the rest of the meal.
A second alternative is choosing a tasty but low-calorie, low-fat appetizer such as clear soup, a salad with lemon juice dressing, or shellfish such as shrimp cocktail (10 to 30 calories a shrimp) with no-fat sauce.
This choice allows you more food later on.
Strategy #2: Elevate appetizers to entrees For smaller portion sizes or to skip the calorie-laden sides that come with most entrees, order an appetizer as your main course.
One of my favorite New York City restaurants, serves an appetizer consisting of a really big bowl of maybe 30 steamed mussels in their shells in a low-oil fresh-tomato sauce with one crusty piece of French bread underneath to sop it up with.
When I add a glass of cold, dry white wine and one more piece of bread, this appetizer becomes a meal in itself - with a lot fewer calories and less fat than most any entree on the menu.
Less expensive, too! Strategy #3:Skip the fat on the bread Don't butter your bread.
Many chic and trendy restaurants now serve up a dish of flavored olive oil in place of butter.
True, the olive oil has less saturated fat than butter, and it has no cholesterol, but the calorie count is exactly the same.
All fats and oils (butter, margarine, vegetable oils) give you about 100 calories a tablespoon.
Note: You may get even more calories from the oil if you do a lot of dipping.
Strategy #4: Go for Undressed Veggies There used to be a time when vegetables were served into a yucky muck- no color, no texture, no taste.
Then came 20th century butter, cheese, and cream sauces, often burnished under the broiler to a browned crust.
Now, smart restaurant cooks rely on herbs and spices, reduced (boiled down and thickened) fat-free bouillons, unusual salad combinations, and imaginative treatments such as purees and kabobs to make their vegetables tasty but trim.
The result? Food heaven and nutrition joy.
The vegetable flavors come through, and the calories stay very, very, very low.
