How to Easily Make Healthier Choices Ordering at Restaurants

Do you love eating at restaurants but hate that you regret eating so much every time you leave the restaurant? How often do you get into your car and feel the need to unbutton your pants to give yourself some extra breathing room to make it home? You’re not alone. We’ve all felt like that a time or twelve. It doesn’t have to be that way, though, so long as you know how to make better choices when ordering at restaurants.

In this article, I’m going to break down some tips on how you can make better choices when ordering at restaurants so that you can enjoy the entire experience and delicious food without the regret of overeating and feeling uncomfortable after finally putting the fork down.

1. Eat Your Normal Meals Throughout the Day

Have you been told to never go grocery shopping when you’re hungry? Well, never go to a restaurant when you’re starving, either. Everything on the menu is going to look good, and you’re more likely to order something without thinking about how to make it healthier, and you could wind up devouring the entire meal without giving it a second thought.

When ordering at restaurants, make sure you eat your typical meals throughout the day before going to the restaurant to ensure you don’t go there when you’re ravenous. If you use a night out at a restaurant as a weekly treat, it would be wise to eat a little something before heading out so that your brain is already sensing something is in your stomach, and you’ll be able to have a little more restraint when ordering versus walking through the restaurant doors when you’re starving and wanting to order one of everything.

2. Know Where You’re Going and What’s on the Menu

You want to think of ordering at restaurants like walking into battle. Before walking out on the battlefield, you want to know everything about your enemy. Know what restaurant you are going to well in advance and take a peek at the menu before you even leave your house. Get a game plan and have an idea of what you’re going to order.

Unfortunately, when many people walk into a restaurant blind without knowing what’s on the menu, just about everything looks good. You can almost feel your hunger level rising with each meal description you read. Having a plan of what you want to order before heading out can help you plan out your meals and even allow you to fit in some dessert at the end if you play your cards right (which I’ll touch on a little later in this article).

3. Don’t Be Afraid to Order What You REALLY Want

Planning out your meal in advance by taking a peek at the menu before leaving your house can help you order exactly what you want at the restaurant. If you’re using this meal as a cheat meal or for a special occasion, it’s ok to order what you really want (within reason).

The last thing you want to do is go to a restaurant and feel like you have to order a salad because everything else would blow your daily caloric intake out of the stratosphere. When you plan ahead and know what you’ve had for the day already, along with what you want when ordering at restaurants, you can work these meals into your daily numbers to ensure you’re not in a caloric surplus and put yourself at risk for gaining weight.

Want an even better tip? Utilize a free app like MyFitnessPal to track your calories. You can view how many calories you have left for the day before ordering at restaurants to stay within your daily intake. Also, MyFitnessPal has food and meals from almost every major chain restaurant out there, which gives you the ability to plug in your entree and know what your calories and macros would look like for the meal on the app.

4. Ask How Food is Prepared and Make Special Requests

If you look at menus before leaving your house when ordering at restaurants, you’ll already have an idea of what you want. But don’t stop there. If you didn’t already know, many restaurants use a bunch of butter and oil when cooking and preparing their dishes, which is another reason why many say “food tastes better at restaurants.” I have that in quotes because one reason people eat out frequently is because food seems to have a different (better) taste when you eat out when compared to when cooking meals at home.

All the added butter and oil to prepare your meal may send your taste buds into orbit, but going along for the ride is the calorie count. All that extra butter and oil can drastically increase the meal’s total calories without you physically seeing a larger or more filling meal. You can think of it almost as “hidden calories” since it doesn’t create the appearance of more volume in a meal.

When ordering at restaurants, don’t be afraid to make special requests when it comes to your food prep. Ask if things are prepared with butter or oil, and if so, ask them to simply steam the item or cook it without the use of those ingredients. Leaving out the butter and oil can drastically reduce how many calories you consume when ordering at restaurants.

5. Drink Water or Keep Liquid Calories to a Minimum

Are you going out for a night on the town and will be ordering at restaurants? Keep your liquid calories to a minimum. If you can, stick with water for obvious reasons (hydration and the fact that water is a zero-calorie beverage). Drinking water also allows you to eat more food rather than using up your calories from liquids such as regular soda, beer, mixed drinks, frozen beverages, and other alcoholic beverages.

Another dieting tip is to drink a glass of water before your meal comes to help fill up your stomach and trick your body into thinking you’re already partially full to help prevent overeating.

If you need a little flavor in your water, ask for a lemon in your water to spruce it up. You can also drink things such as coffee, unsweetened tea, and zero-calorie (diet) soda. After all, would you rather eat 500 calories or drink 500 (empty and worthless) calories?

6. Split Your Meal in Half

This is probably one of the best tips you’ll ever get when ordering at restaurants — split your meal in half. It sounds so simple, yet people will order a meal and consume every last bite on their plate. Meanwhile, they just consumed their daily caloric intake in a single meal without even realizing what just occurred.

Think about how big your eyes get when your meal is plated in front of you. Gigantic portions that make you feel like you got your money’s worth, right? Well, that meal is more than likely well over double the number of calories (and serving size) you need for the meal. In fact, many meals you get when ordering at restaurants are well over 1,000 calories.

Here’s how to utilize this tip… As soon as your meal comes out, ask for a to-go bag or box. Split every section of your meal in half. For instance, if you got a steak, cut it in half. Have a baked potato? Cut it in half. Literally, every section of your plate should be split in half, and place one of the halves of everything in the to-go bag or box.

The use of this tip actually serves two major uses when ordering at restaurants. For starters, you just cut your calories from the meal in half while still taking in more than enough calories from the meal. The second is that you now have another meal that you can take home and enjoy the following day. You can think of it as two meals for the price of one.

Now, for the fun part… DESSERT! Look, I’m not here to be the fun police and tell you what you can and can’t eat when ordering at restaurants. But if you plan your meal and portions ahead of time, you may have enough calories left over to enjoy a delectable dessert. Here’s the caveat, though — you need to share the dessert with someone else. Again, the number of calories in a single dessert is eye-popping. The good news is that it doesn’t mean you can’t have something in moderation. Just don’t go crazy.

Look over the menu and decide what you and the company you’re with would like to share. Eating by yourself? No worries. Do the same thing as you did with your meal and take half of the dessert home with you (assuming you’re not getting something that involves ice cream that wouldn’t make the trip home without melting).

Now, not only do you have a meal for the following day, but you also have a dessert — WINNING!

Go Enjoy Yourself!

Take the tips found in this article and apply them when ordering at restaurants to save money, calories, and your waistline. The biggest takeaway from this is knowing you have choices and that you have the ability to enjoy yourself when ordering at restaurants without feeling like you have to eat like a rabbit and not enjoy yourself. You can enjoy the company of friends and family or a quiet night out alone by enjoying a mouth-watering meal away from home that you can enjoy guilt-free without regret or weight gain. Now, go out there and enjoy yourself!

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