How To Always Eat Healthily When Eating Out

So you’ve been doing really well with your weight loss; you’re beginning to hit your goals, you’ve tidied up that stomach, built a little muscle and you’re enjoying your food. But then, seemingly out of nowhere, you find yourself in a pub or whatever, about to order a three course, 3,000 calory feast. You stop yourself at the last second and decide you need to be good… so what do you pick off the menu?

Choose a protein

Of all the choices there, protein should be the first thing you are looking for. The golden building block of all things muscle and fitness. You should be looking for lean meats here, or at least something with some good healthy fats in them. Salmon, tuna, steak (cuts like sirloin or a fillet) chicken (without the skin) and turkey are all good choices here.

Look at how the protein is prepared

It’s all well and good picking chicken for your protein, but if it’s called ‘crispy chicken’, or something similar, then the chances are it has been fried in something pretty unhealthy. Try something grilled, steamed or boiled instead.

Are there veggies?

A bit self-explanatory this one, but does the meal you have now chosen come with a good selection of vegetables? If no, will it go with vegetables if you were to ask to add some? If still no then you should be moving on to another meal. Salads are a great choice, but don’t neglect the starchy carbs either: brown rice or sweet potatoes are my two staples.

Is there anything that needs to be removed from the dish?

Okay, so you’ve picked a handful of meals with protein in them; they’ve all been prepared healthily; you’ve picked one with vegetables, or have added vegetables to it, now you’re just tidying it up a bit. So you now just need to remove the bad stuff. Is it drenched in a rich and creamy sauce? You want that out of there now. What about garlic bread or mozerella sticks on the side? Too tempting. Gone. What about a dressing on your salad? Away it goes! Bye bye. Vegetable based sauces are fine here (ie a tomato based dish should be okay), but oily dressings, sweet sauces, chips and other fried things all need to go.

And there you have it, four rules to getting in a healthy meal wherever you eat. Round it off with a few glasses of water and, if you have the willpower, skip dessert and you’ll be lean in no time!