Friday 16 January 2009

Top 5 Tips To Healthier Eating in Restaurants

Eating out is a big part of most people's lives. If you want to keep a nice fit body, restaurant meals will give you a major hurdle to overcome. In fact, eating out at restaurants is one of the biggest reasons why so many people pile on the weight while traveling.

Below, I'll give you a few very easy tricks you can use to eat healthier and stay lean even while eatingt out at restaurants...

The top 3 most important things to stay away from at restaurants are:

  • deep fried foods (anything bathing in trans fats)
  • refined starchy foods
  • sodas, juices, or other sugary foods (except whole fruits, which are great for you)

If you can avoid these major culprits, this eliminates the major food sources that do the most harm in our food supply - trans fats, refined vegetable oils, refined starchy carbohydrates, and processed sugars.

In other words, you should skip the bread, the french fries that come with every single sandwich on every single menu known ever made, and reduce all of the massive portions of pasta and rice that are often loaded on the plates as well.

Try to order just meat with vegetables, and a salad, asking for the them as a substitute for the french fries, pasta, or rice, that most restaurant meals usually come with.

Almost every restaurant will always allow you to substitute vegetables or a side salad for the french fries or chips that almost always come with burgers or sandwiches.

I am all for moderation with many things, but if there are 2 things that should be totally removed from everyone's diet because these foods are simply that dangerous... it is sodas and fries!

Have a look at the typical difference this substitution makes between choosing smart and doing what most people do...

Many people will eat a meal out such as this:

  • Burger or sandwich
  • chips or fries
  • soda or other sweetened drink (and no, even diet sodas are NOT healthy!)

A MUCH smarter alternative if you care about your body and health is this easy change:

  • Burger or Sandwich
  • Salad or veggies
  • unsweetened iced tea or water (no diet drinks -- unless you like to poison yourself!)

These 2 simple substitutions save at least 400 - 900 calories every time you eat out (depending on drink refills and fries portion sizes)... NOT ONLY THAT, but you are cutting out the most damaging foods to your body as well by avoiding the evil trans fats and high fructose corn syrup from the fries and soft drinks.

A little-known way to eat full portions of pasta, rice, and breads and actually get away with it without packing on the pounds is to schedule a high intensity full body resistance training workout (can be free weights or body weight training) before your meal time.

It can be difficult to fit the workout into your schedule right before the meal, but if you can, the meal can be your "post-workout meal". After a high intensity resistance workout, your body can cope with a higher amount of carbs than normal to help replenish the muscle glycogen depletion you had during the intense workout.

A moderate intensity cardio workout will NOT cut it for this... it must be high intensity resistance training workout to deplete enough muscle glycogen to handle restaurant portions of carbs.

These dining tips should help you choose smarter and healthier for a leaner body next time you eat out.

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