Dining Out Without 'Diet Cheating'

  Eating out occasionally can be a nice alternative to cooking at home, but it can also throw your healthy lifestyle for a loop. Restaurant food is often delicious, but can also have hidden health consequences. Here's the good news - there are healthier choices that you can make while eating out.

Whether you're trying to loose weight, manage high blood pressure or diabetes, follow these guidelines and your body will thank you later.

Go healthy...Most restaurants offer healthier, low salt alternatives on their menu. While most of us aren't willing to order a grilled chicken salad every time we eat out (me included), we can still make small, but important changes.

Order vegetables, like broccoli, as your side instead of french fries. Also, take a break from fried fish and choose the 'grilled' for a change. You get the picture? These small changes add up.

Eat less. Many restaurants serve fairly large portion sizes. Use this to your advantage and share a main dish with a friend or only eat half and take the rest home. A healthier choice, plus you'll save money at the same time.

Here's another strategy - Since it can be tempting to eat everything on your plate, divide the food in half before you ever begin eating. Just push one half to the side and you'll be ready when it's time to ask for a 'to go' box.

Savor your food. Eat small bites and pay attention to the taste and texture. Chew slowly and thoroughly and try putting your fork down for a while between bites. Staying focused on your food may help you feel satisfied while eating a smaller amount as well. If you find this challenging, make sure to have plenty of interesting conversation planned for dinner. It's difficult to eat and talk at the same time! This strategy has never let me down.

Say no to bread. It’s easy to scarf down multiple pieces of bread without even noticing, while you’re waiting for your meal. This can add many calories that you weren’t planning to consume. Want to avoid the temptation altogether? If it’s okay with your friends or family, ask the server not to bring bread to the table, or only to bring one piece for each person.

Fruits and veggies are your friends. Try to make fruits and vegetables a significant part of your meal. Choose a side salad as one of your sides (it's usually a choice). It will help satisfy your hunger, leaving you with leftovers and the yummy 'to go' box that I mentioned earlier (as well as a free lunch for the following day).

Final tip. Let's say that you can't help yourself and you pick the least healthy item on the menu every time. First of all, stop doing that...LOL. Secondly, how about making a deal with yourself to order steamed vegetables as a side. Oh, and not the ones that are sauteed in butter or covered with a heavy sauce. 

If you enjoyed this article, be sure to share it with my social icon 'sharing' buttons at the bottom of the page.

----------------- Sensational Seasonings is a gourmet seasonings company located in Johnson City, TN. Our healthy and delicious product line includes:  Cajun Blackening Seasoning, Chicken Seasoning, Jamaican Jerk Seasoning, Italian Seasoning and Pork Rub. Each of our seasoning blends is either salt-free or low-salt (meeting all guidelines of the FDA). Reducing the salt content in our seasonings allows you to get more flavor from all the herbs and spices we include, while allowing you take total control of your salt intake.  

Sources: Helpguide. “Healthy Fast Food: Tips for Making Healthier Fast Food Choices.” Accessed January 17, 2014. http://www.helpguide.org/life/fast_food_nutrition.htm Medical News Today. “How Many Calories Should I Eat?” Accessed January 17, 2014. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/245588.php USDA Choose My Plate. “Tips for Eating Healthy When Eating Out.” Accessed January 17, 2014. http://www.choosemyplate.gov/healthy-eating-tips/tips-for-eating-out.html WebMD. “Estimated Calorie Requirements.” Accessed January 17, 2014. http://www.webmd.com/diet/features/estimated-calorie-requirement

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Salt...Breaking a Bad Habit

Eating a diet that is low in whole grains, fruit, nuts and seeds and fish oils and high in salt raises the risk of an early death, according to the huge and ongoing study Global Burden of Disease.

Too little fruit kills nearly five million people every year, and too much salt kills four million. There are three things we can do to lower our salt intake.

First...

Don’t add salt at the table. A third of us add salt to our food before even tasting it!

 

Second...

Stop adding salt when cooking. At first the food will taste bland. Two to four weeks later, however, as the sensitivity of the salt taste receptors in the mouth become more sensitive to the taste of salt in the usual concentrations. Believe it or not, after two weeks you may actually prefer the taste of food with less salt.

Finally...

Avoid processed foods that have salt added. Even if we completely stop adding salt in the kitchen and dining room but still eat processed foods with salt, it will only bring our down salt intake a small fraction (because of the high salt content in processed foods).

If you do buy processed foods, select foods that have fewer milligrams of sodium than there are calories. For example here the sodium is 720; calories are 260. 720 is greater than 260, so this has too much sodium. The reason it works is because most people get about 2,200 calories a day, so if everything you ate had more calories than sodium you’d at least get under 2,300 milligrams of sodium upper limit for healthy people under age 50.

What to use for flavor...

Some of the flavorings you can use instead of salt include pepper, onion, garlic, tomato, sweet peppers, basil, parsley, thyme, celery, lime, chilli, nettle, rosemary, smoke flavor, curry, coriander, and lemon.

Of course, the healthiest foods have no labels at all. We should also try to buy as much fresh food as we can, as it is almost impossible to come up with a diet consisting of unprocessed natural food that exceeds the strict American Heart Association guidelines for sodium reduction.

Sensational Seasonings include Pork Rub, Chicken Seasoning & Jamaican Jerk Seasoning. Our Pork Rub is completely salt -free (this comes in handy when brining, so you don't "double salt" or if you are restricted to a salt-free diet). Our Chicken Seasoning is a 'low-salt' seasonings while our Jamaican Jerk Seasoning is 'very low-salt'. These seasonings meet FDA guidelines for salt-free, low-salt and very low-salt classifications. Reducing the salt content of our seasonings allows you to get more flavoring from the seasonings without over-salting and lets you control your salt use.

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