Can You Really Eat Out and Still Reach Your Goals?
Eating out is part of life. Whether you’re meeting friends for dinner, grabbing lunch during a busy workday or ordering takeout after a long week, restaurant meals don’t have to work against your nutrition or weight loss goals.
In fact, learning how to make healthy restaurant choices can be much more useful than trying to avoid eating out altogether. The goal isn’t to find the “perfect” meal every time you open a menu. It’s to understand what will leave you feeling full and satisfied, support your goals and still allow you to enjoy the experience.
One Restaurant Meal Doesn’t Determine Your Progress
If most of your meals support your nutritional needs, there is room for meals that are solely meant to be enjoyed, convenient or celebrated with other people. Problems tend to arise when eating out becomes an all-or-nothing experience.
You might find yourself thinking, “I already ate something I wasn’t supposed to, so I might as well eat whatever I want.” Instead, try approaching restaurant meals the same way you would meals at home. You can make choices based on hunger, satisfaction and your goals without requiring every choice to be perfect.
Start by Looking for Protein
When reviewing a restaurant menu, identifying the protein source can be an easy place to start. Depending on the restaurant and your preferences, that could be chicken, fish, seafood, lean cuts of meat, eggs, beans, lentils, tofu or another protein you enjoy.
Protein can help make a meal more satisfying and may help you maintain fullness longer after eating. That doesn’t mean you always need to order grilled chicken and vegetables. Think of protein as one component of a balanced meal rather than a rule that dictates what you’re allowed to order.
From there, look at what else comes with the meal. Adding vegetables, fruit or another source of fiber when it makes sense can help create a more balanced and satisfying plate without completely changing what you wanted to eat.
Pay Attention to How the Food Is Prepared
Menu descriptions can give you useful information about how a dish is prepared. Foods described as grilled, roasted, baked, steamed or broiled may contain less added fat than foods that are fried, crispy, battered or breaded.
That doesn’t mean fried or breaded foods are off limits. If that’s what you genuinely want, you can absolutely choose them. Preparation methods are simply another piece of information you can consider when deciding what fits your goals at that particular meal.
Sauces, dressings and condiments are worth considering too. Asking for a sauce or dressing on the side can give you more control over how much you use without removing the flavor that made you want the dish in the first place.
You Don’t Have to Turn Everything Into a Salad
One mistake people sometimes make when trying to eat healthier at restaurants is assuming they need to order the lightest-looking item on the menu. But choosing a meal you don’t actually want can leave you unsatisfied and thinking about food again shortly after you leave.
If you want pizza, for example, you don’t necessarily need to replace it with a salad. You might have the pizza and add a side salad or vegetable. If you want pasta, you can order pasta and consider whether adding protein and/or vegetables would make the meal more satisfying.
Healthy eating doesn’t require turning every restaurant meal into grilled protein and greens. Sometimes making a meal more balanced is more realistic than replacing the meal you actually wanted.
Restaurant Portions Aren’t Instructions
Restaurant portions are often larger than what you might serve yourself at home. That doesn’t mean you automatically need to eat half your meal, but it also doesn’t mean you need to finish everything simply because it’s there.
Try slowing down enough to notice how your hunger changes as you eat. If you’re comfortably full and there is food left, you can take it home and enjoy it all over again on a different day. If you’re still hungry, continue eating.
The restaurant decided how much food went on your plate based on its portion size, not based on how hungry you are that day. Letting your hunger and fullness help determine how much you eat can be more useful than following a predetermined rule about how much you’re supposed to finish.
Trying to “Save Calories” Can Backfire
If you know you’re going out for dinner, you may be tempted to eat very little beforehand so you can “save” your calories for the restaurant. By the time dinner arrives, however, you may be so hungry that slowing down and making intentional decisions becomes much harder.
Instead, eat normally throughout the day. If dinner is going to be later than usual, having a snack with protein, fiber or both can help prevent you from arriving at the restaurant extremely hungry.
This doesn’t mean you can’t account for a larger dinner when thinking about your day as a whole. The difference is between making reasonable adjustments and spending the entire day hungry in preparation for one meal.
What About Drinks, Appetizers & Dessert?
The entrée isn’t the only part of a restaurant meal. Drinks, appetizers and desserts can all be part of the experience, and none of them automatically make the meal unhealthy.
Rather than creating rules about what you can and can’t order, think about what matters most to you that day, or what’s most important to you to prioritize. Maybe you’ve been looking forward to a particular cocktail or dessert. Maybe neither is especially important to you and you’d rather focus on the entrée.
Making intentional choices can help you enjoy the parts of the meal you actually care about rather than ordering something simply because it’s there or avoiding something you really wanted because you think you shouldn’t have it.
Not Every Restaurant Meal Needs the Same Strategy
Maybe you’re going somewhere known for its homemade pasta and that’s what you’ve been looking forward to all week. So…order the pasta! Another night, you may be grabbing dinner out simply because you didn’t have time to cook, and choosing something similar to what you would normally eat at home makes more sense for that evening.
Both situations can fit into a healthy eating pattern. One of the most useful skills you can develop is deciding what matters to you at a particular meal rather than following a rigid set of restaurant rules.
Instead of always asking, “What’s the healthiest thing on this menu?” try asking, “What choice will satisfy me while still supporting the goals that I’m trying to accomplish?” The answer doesn’t have to be the same every time.
You Don’t Need to “Make Up” for Eating Out
If you eat more than usual at a restaurant, you don’t need to skip breakfast the next morning, dramatically cut your calories or exercise to compensate for what you ate. Simply return to your usual eating routine at your next meal.
This mindset can be especially important if you’re trying to lose weight. Progress depends much more on what happens consistently over time than what happens during one dinner out.
Treating restaurant meals as something that needs to be corrected afterward can also contribute to an unhelpful cycle of restriction and overeating. Eating out is a normal part of life, not a mistake that needs to be undone, or eliminated.
Eating Out Can Be Part of a Healthy Lifestyle
Learning how to navigate restaurants is an important part of developing a way of eating that you can actually maintain. You shouldn’t have to choose between working toward your health goals and having dinner with friends, celebrating a birthday or ordering takeout during a busy week.
Sometimes the choice that works for you will be grilled fish with vegetables. Sometimes it will be the burger and fries you’ve been thinking about all week. Balanced eating has room for both.
The more comfortable you become making decisions based on your goals, hunger and preferences, the less intimidating restaurant menus can feel. Instead of trying to be perfect, you can focus on making choices that fit your life, including your wants and needs.
How One Nutrition Group Can Help
If eating out regularly makes it difficult to stay consistent with your nutrition or weight loss goals, there may be more helpful options than avoiding restaurants altogether. At One Nutrition Group, our registered dietitians help clients develop realistic nutrition strategies that account for restaurants, social events, travel, busy schedules and the foods they actually enjoy.
Together, we can look at your eating patterns, lifestyle and individual goals to create an approach that feels sustainable outside of your own kitchen too. Because a nutrition plan should work with your life, not require you to put your life on hold.