EATING OUT WITHOUT FALLING OFF THE WAGON

Tips on how best to enjoy holiday season dining with friends and family

Just because you want to lose weight doesn’t mean you can’t be social and enjoy eating out with friends and family! But your decisions before, during and after that meal will determine whether your diet remains relatively intact. From a psychological perspective, relaxing the rules a little when enjoying a meal out can be a helpful strategy to recharge your motivational battery and keep you going towards your goal.

The key is to choose your treat wisely. For some, this means having a glass of wine with your meal, but no dessert. For others, it could entail skipping starters, having only protein and salad for mains, but enjoying a shared dessert. There might be occasions where you don’t feel the desire to go off your plan at all. One ‘less than ideal’ meal out of 21 meals you have in a week is not the end of the world and will not blow your diet, but 10 or 12 ‘less than ideal’ meals is a completely different story. Don’t kid yourself that you can eat treats on a regular basis and still lose weight!

PREVIEW THE MENU

Most restaurants these days publish their menu online. Visit the restaurant’s website beforehand to see what they offer and plan your meal. Make a mental shortlist of the healthier low-carb options that appeal to you and decide upfront how (and if) you intend to relax the rules a little.

EAT BEFORE YOU GO

It’s tempting to skip meals during the day when you know you’re eating out that night. Don’t! Have your regular healthy, low-carb meals. If you’re going to be eating later than usual, have a snack before you head out. A couple of boiled eggs, a protein-rich smoothie or seed crackers with tuna mayonnaise will take the edge off your hunger. Drink a big glass of water too. You don’t want to find yourself face down in the bread basket the moment you arrive.

WATCH THE TIME

Try to keep your dining out experience in sync with your normal eating schedule. If you usually have dinner around 6–7pm, make your reservation as close to this time as possible, especially if you haven’t been able to have a snack before. Delaying the meal till 9pm could spell disaster for your diet. You will be ravenous by the time your food arrives and will more than likely eat too fast and too much.

EAT SLOWLY & CHEW

It’s been proven that the slower you eat, the less you eat. Slowing things down and chewing each mouthful well allows your food to digest and your brain to receive signals of fullness. It could make the difference between having the space for dessert, or not. Although, let’s face it, many of us have a separate stomach for dessert that always has space! Seriously though, be more social, chat between bites and sip on water.

FOCUS ON PROTEIN

If you want to feel satiated after a meal, order protein. Protein fills you up and keeps you feeling full for longer. A great accompaniment to a grilled steak, lamb chops, chicken or piece of fish is a side order of low-carb veggies or a salad. Top it off with some healthy fats such as olive oil or melted butter and you will have a satisfying and tasty LCHF meal. There is nothing worse than spending money at a restaurant, breaking your diet rules and still coming home to raid the fridge.

KEEP IT SIMPLE

Restaurant food is often complicated. Chefs use a myriad ingredients, making it difficult to know exactly what you’re eating. Sticking with single ingredient foods makes it easier to keep track. Even an in-house salad dressing could be packed with sugar and vegetable oils, so don’t be shy to ask for plain olive oil and vinegar. A simple rule of thumb is if you don’t know how to pronounce the dish, or don’t have a good idea of exactly what you’re going to get, you probably shouldn’t order it. This doesn’t mean that you can never again enjoy exotic foods. But while you’re in your weightloss phase, aim for simplicity on your plate.

HAVE IT YOUR WAY

Ask questions about a dish before ordering, and if it’s not exactly to your liking, don’t be afraid to request a healthier cooking method or to swap out ingredients. For example, instead of deep-fried battered fish ask for it to be pan-fried in real butter, or grilled. Ask what the side dish options are and request salad dressing or sauces to be served separately. A good tip is to try and be the first one to order. Having to sit there listening to other guests order their decadent bowls of pasta or wood-fired pizza might sway your choice.

MINIMISE THE ALCOHOL

Apart from its ability to switch off the fat-burning process for a few days and add a whack of empty calories to your meal, alcohol also has a sneaky way of making you eat more than you should – and the wrong types of food. Motivation tends to drift and that is when good decision-making goes out the window. An alcohol-infused ‘what the hell’ attitude is a difficult beast to contain. If you don’t want to have regrets the morning after, stick to one glass of dry wine, and then move on to water.