My 3 Tips To Dining Out - Without Derailing Your Health & Fitness Goal
Who doesn’t love a great night out with friends or family?
Lockdown has ended and many of us are back enjoying the freedom to dine out. Whether you’re dining out for social or work-related reasons, most of us have experienced the impact that eating food outside of our home-cooked goodness has on our health and fitness goals. How you feel about this impact also depends on what stage you are at with your health (do you want to release excess weight, increase lean muscle or just maintain a healthy weight for longevity), and/or what you’re training for (is it just to keep active and increase fitness, or do you have an upcoming event or competition).
For example: you work as a professional in role that requires a lot of responsibility, whereby most of the day is spent delegating, making difficult decisions and you don’t take at least twenty minutes to enjoy time away from your desk to enjoy breakfast or lunch. You train 3-5 times a week, either running, cycling or HIIT sessions at the gym and in your mind, you have a health and fitness goal that sometimes is so near, and yet, so far.
You dine out to either let off steam with friends and family or you need to entertain clients. Either way, you already know you’ll be having a drink and those fries are too good to resist.
But how do you keep on track with your health goal? How do you ensure that you can still get up the next day and get through the prebooked HIIT session?
Does this resonate?
What you need to do is plan your dining out experience so that you don’t need to put yourself in a position where you derail your goal.
Eating out whilst maintaining your health and fitness goal is a skill.
Here are my 3 tips on where you can start.
1 Portion Size matters
According to research, we are becoming more accustomed to receiving larger portion sizes when dining out and consuming everything that has been put on our plate.
Moreover, besides the increase in dining out options, and portion sizes, studies also show that weight increase is not simply because we are eating more, but due to the type of food we are eating, and the number of calories that this food contains.
2 Be Prepared
“Fail to plan, plan to fail”. Planning what you eat, and where you will dine out, allows you a better chance at attaining and maintaining your health and weight goals.
If you can book the venue, choose something that allows for healthier options e.g., vegetarian mains, side salads and greens.
Always check the menu before you visit the restaurant - you will be better prepared and will not leave your eating choice to the last minute or feel pressured to order what your present company is ordering.
Do not turn up to an event hungry if you can avoid it. Examples of better snacks to have in advance that are low in energy (calories) and unhealthy fats, and higher in protein (to keep you fuller for longer) are:
Hummus with fresh/cooked vegetables
Cottage cheese with fresh/cooked vegetables
Greek or natural unsweetened yoghurt
handful of nuts
Fresh or dried fruit
3 Visualise your healthy plate
Those that work with me, know that I am a huge advocate of the Healthy Plate method. Why? Because it’s easy and it works!
Divide your Plate like this:
½ of your plate = fruits and vegetables.
¼ of your plate = starchy carbohydrates or grains.
¼ of your plate = protein.
Wrapping it up
What the above points ensure, is some clarity and control over the situation. It also means you don’t need to restrict and helps to develop some consistency in the way you eat when you dine out (particularly if you do this frequently).
A short note on alcohol. I love a glass of wine when I dine out, but I’m conscious of how many times a week I dine out and if I need to drink at each point. Perhaps you can either cut the drinks back, or you can avoid it for one instance? The decision is based on your goal. Once you have set a health and fitness goal, it’s clearer on how to move towards achieving it.
Ultimately, the choice is yours. As I often say to my clients, you have a choice, and if you’re not happy with the choice, you can choose again! There are no rigid rules, there are balanced meals to help you create an overall balanced diet and lifestyle.
You can find more information on how I can support your nutrition needs here.
You can book a free call with me here.
Would love to hear your comments on dining out. Where do you enjoy dining and what is one of your biggest challenges when you dine out?
Karen
