Dining Out: What to Eat?

     When continuing on your journey to health and wellness temptations will always be right around the corner. Dining out can be the trickiest and scariest thing for someone embarking on weight loss goals. Appetizers, huge dinner portions and the tempting deserts at the end of the meal, when paired with a few cocktails or beers and the average person can be staring at a few days worth of calories in this one meal. High in calories, fat and sodium this one wrong meal can set your goals back an entire week or more, so how do we avoid it?
     Obviously the best way to avoid these high calorie, fat laden and sodium filled meals is to completely avoid them by not going out to eat and choosing to make your own meals at home. When making your own meals you are in complete control of what is put in it and how it is cooked, something that you can never be sure of when dining out at a restaurant. But we can't be naive in thinking we will never go out to eat again and just stay at home away from temptations all together. So when we do go out we need to be armed with the knowledge we need to stay the course.
     An easy way to keep your diet in check is to go to a restaurant with healthier light options for dinner. A lot of chain restaurants are getting into the habit of adding these options to their menus for the health conscious people to choose from. These options unfortunately are not nearly as extensive as the rest of the menu, but the choices are there none the less. A few restaurants that have options are Applebees Under 550 Calorie menu nd Weight Watchers menu, Chili's Guiltless Grill, Red Lobster Light House menu and T.G.I. Fridays Right Portion Right Price menu.
     Even those of us who know what the better options are and what to avoid when choosing a menu item can get tricked sometimes. For instance at Ruby Tuesdays Turkey Burger, which many dieters would see as one of the best options on the menu, contains an astounding 1,145 calories, 71 grams of fat and 56 grams of carbs. So unless its in the "healthy" menu section with listed calories and fat content then you can't trust that its a good option. An easy adjustments when ordering is to cut your portion in half by boxing up half of the dinner BEFORE you even start to eat. This removes the temptation right away and keeps you eating the right sized portion meal. Other easy fixes are to eat a salad before you main course (with a light vinaigrette or oil and vinegar are your best dressings), to fill up on fiber to cut down on your meal, choose grilled over fried, choose whole wheat/brown rice over white pasta or rice, choose broth based soups over creamy soups and skip out on dessert! With these easy fixes you can go out and enjoy yourself with friends or family and still stay on track with your health goals.

Men's Health 30 Worst Foods in America