Eating meals outside of your home can be a problem because most of what comes out onto your plate is in someone else’s control. We may order a named dish, but the actual ingredients are in the cook’s hands. It is important for controlling our weight to control the ingredients going into our mouths. According to Consumers Reports, “We spend $2,222 per year for every man, woman, and child in the U.S.” That’s $6 per day of food we eat where we have little control of the ingredients.
The Laugh Out Loud diet devotee when visiting a restaurant will pay close attention to the big four – sugar, salt, grease, and booze. It is the four basic food groups that restaurants cater to because they are easy to prepare, are cheap, and people think they taste good. Another people pleaser is super-sizing the meals because once they are putting food on the plate the restaurant’s fixed costs like rent and basic employee staff have been covered, so a little more food doesn’t cost much. The problem is that we don’t want to waste the money we spent on the meal, so we clean it up, much to the chagrin of our waist.
Some Laugh Out Loud restaurant chuckles.
- Seek places that actively promote healthy food.
- Go to places that feature salads.
- Avoid places with fat-boy icons.
- Avoid places with an abundance of flashing lights.
- Go to places that locals go.
- Avoid places that cater to tourists.
- Avoid getting the pancakes and syrup meals.
- Avoid the greasy meat entrees.
- Drink a cup of water before eating.
- Avoid the giant sugar drinks
- Get the real juice drinks.
- Drink coffee, tea, kombucha.
- Avoid beer, wine, liquor.
- Order for health rather than volume.
- Ask to hold the mayo, cheese, sauces to a minimum.
- Get roasted, broiled, baked, steamed, foods.
- Avoid creamy, crusted, sautéed, crispy.
- Get single servings and share with a companion.
- Order a takeout container early in the meal.
- Set the starchy stuff aside early.
- Get milkshakes split and give half away.
- Leave a tiny portion of food on the plate.
- Avoid all-you-can-eat buffets.
Today we ate out and did most of the things listed on the chart. I even had the milkshake split in two and gave one of the shakes still in its steel mixer tumbler to a stranger in another booth. Our half of the milkshake was plenty, even shared between Debbie and me .
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