DINERS HEALTHY EATING SURVIVAL GUIDE
by: Jim O'Connor
To go ordering, or let's go out is becoming a primary behavior in today's society, and jeopardizing our healthy eating values. The result is bigger, and bigger waistlines. Many of us are not even aware of why. Listed below I share my 9 healthy eating rules to follow protecting you from those restaurant calorie demons.
No wonder why diners today are more concerned about healthy restaurant eating. A recent study of 300 American chefs indicated that 50% didn't even care about the calorie content of the foods they served to the public. As a matter of fact, a mere 1 in 6 American chefs feel calorie content is remotely important. Therefore, as predicted, a typical chef's main objective is to provide you with an excellent, but not necessarily healthy, dining experience so you will run out and tell your friends, and come back wanting more. Healthy restaurant eating is not on the top of chefs concerns. With that said, saturating the dishes with fat, salt, and sugar is of very little concern to most chefs. Restaurant chefs are simply willing to do whatever is necessary to show the customer extreme value while concentrating on the main goals of making their food taste and look great, even if it is at the expense of our health. This extreme perceived value objective has lead to the "super size portion generation" leading to bigger waistlines.
Do to the current pace of today's society, Americans are now consuming over one third of there calories from eating out. How many of these calories are actually healthy dining calories? Probably not many.
Today we, as diners, must take on more personal responsibility than ever before focusing on eating right while eating out.. Chefs, restaurants, and friends are not going to look out for our health. Thus, it is our own personal responsibility to preserve our health by eating right while dining out.
If your health is meant to be, it is up to you. It is about choices. You have the personal choice of eating right. However, please understand, it is up to you to make a difference not anyone else. Which choice are you going to make?
Listed here are my 9 surefire health eating tips to help you take personal responsibility by eating right while dining out.
- Don't arrive extremely hungry. It is best to have a snack a couple of hours prior to eating out. This will ensure that you won't enter the restaurant ready to eat the basket of bread. Don't worry about spoiling your dinner; It is a bad healthy eating habit to come into a restaurant ravenous.
- Take it home. When an extra large portion comes to the table request a doggy bad immediately prior to putting a bite of food into your mouth. Cut the extra large portion in half, take it home, and eat it tomorrow.
- Dine at healthy eating restaurants. Patronize healthy dining eateries so you won't get caught in a situation of not being able to locate anything healthy on the menu. Don't set yourself up for failure.
- Ask servers for substitutes. Be specific to the server about what you want to substitute. It never hurts to ask about getting your food prepared in a healthy dining manner. An good example would be replace the mayonnaise with mustard. It never hurts to ask.
- Order dressing on the side. Another healthy eating tip is to order your salad dressing on the side. Be a dipper. You will save yourself added fat, and unwanted calories.
- Beware of beverages. As you know, wine, beer, and regular soda all have calories too. Consider consuming water to conserve calories. Why drink your calories when you can eat them.
- Healthy eating means avoid these terms: alfredo, au gratin, breaded crispy, french fried, pesto, hollandaise, light cream sauce, sauteed, or pastry.
- Leave food on your plate. A good healthy eating habit is to always leave a bit of food on your plate. You don't have to clean your plate. If you follow the doggy bag rule, of course, this may not apply.
- Eat slowly. Eating slowly is proven to decrease the amount of food you eat. Thus, the caloric content ingested will be much less.
Eating healthy and eating out can be mentioned in same sentence. By following these 9 surefire healthy restaurant eating tips you are assured of walking out of the restaurant at the same weight you walked in at.
About The Author
Jim O'Connor To discover more empowering health, fitness, and nutrition tips in video, audio, and text visit Jim O'Connor's Wellness Word Newsletter. Receive a free multimedia fitness programming secrets email minicourse by visiting http://www.wellnessword.com.
