Photo by wEnDaLicious

In today’s culture, eating out has become more the norm than the exception. With two parents working, it is often very hard for either or both to come home and prepare a meal at home. Plus there are lots of folks out there whose job requires them to entertain clients at restaurants whether they like eating out or not.

Truth is that eating out in a restaurant is a huge obstacle to overcome if you want to achieve or maintain a nice, healthy, trim and fit body. Eating at restaurants is one of the biggest reasons why so many people gain weight when they travel.

So here are a few tips that you can use to eat healthier and stay lean even while dining out in restaurants.

Eating Out Survival Tips

The three most important things to avoid that are found in virtually every restaurant in the land are deep fried foods (anything battered that endured a scorching bath of trans fats), refined starchy foods, and finally any sodas, juices, or other sugary foods (with the exception of whole fruits which are a great choice).

To the extent that you can avoid these major culprits, you will save your body from the major food(?) sources that are known to cause the worst damage to our health — trans fats, refined vegetable oils, refined starchy carbohydrates, and processed sugars.

This also means that you should try to skip the bread that is usually served for you to munch on while waiting for your meal. You also need to reduce all the heaping portions of pasta and rice that are usually piled on your plates.

A Healthy Alternative for Restaurants

As an alternative, you should simply order meat with a side vegetable and/or a salad. Almost any restaurant will happily allow you to substitute veggies or a side salad for the fries or chips that almost always are served with burgers or sandwiches.

As an aside, it always amazes us how many people think we’re weird when we ask to substitute veggies for fries. Ironically, these are also the same people who complain that they are overweight and have “tried everything” to shed those pounds. If there are two things that should be totally removed from everyone’s diet due to the damage they cause, it is sodas and fries!

A Graphic Comparison

For a shocking view of the difference this simple substitution makes between choosing smart and following the crowd, consider the following comparison. Most people will eat out and order a meal consisting of a sandwich or burger, chips or fries, and a soda or other sweetened drink (and no, diet sodas are NOT healthy but that’s a whole different article).

An infinitely better alternative, if you care about your body and your health, is to order a sandwich or burger, side salad or veggies, and unsweetened iced tea or water (no diet drinks — unless you enjoy drinking poison!)

These two simple substitutions will save at least 400 – 900 calories every meal you eat out. (The wide variation is due to factors like drink refills and the portion sizes of the fries.) As an added bonus, you are eliminating the most harmful foods your body could ever ingest by simply avoiding those devilish trans fats and high fructose corn syrup inherent in the fries and soft drinks.

I hope these few, simple dining tips help you make better choices for a leaner and healthier body the next time you eat out.

To learn more tips like this go to facts you must understand about fats.