Thursday, January 5, 2012

Vacations and eating out

I was talking to someone today about how hard it can be to eat healthy when you’re on a business trip, vacation, or just going out to dinner with some of your friends. For me, the hardest part is knowing what is actually healthy and what just appears healthy. Most people look at the salad section of the menu and think “this is healthy, right?”. Wrong, well sometimes wrong. The way restaurants make some of their salads now-a-days they can have twice the number of calories and fat as an entree which is CRAZY! So, with this being said how do you eat healthy at a restaurant?

Tips one: most restaurants have their menus online. If you know where you are going to eat out you can always give the menu a quick look beforehand or look it up on your smartphone (if you’re lucky enough to have one) while you’re there.

Tip two: don’t be afraid to ask for things on the side or taken off. For instance, on a salad you could ask for the cheese on the side/taken off since typically restaurants will put a LOT of cheese on which just contributes to more trans fats. Cheese is not bad, but a lot of cheese can be. You could also ask for them to ‘go light’ on something.

Tip three: You don’t have to finish you’re food. Even if you aren’t able to take something ‘to-go’ you still don’t have to clean your plate. Many restaurants will have much larger portions of food then people typically (or at least should be) eating for dinner.

Tip four (for vacations/business trips): bring healthy snack food with you so that you don’t have to eat every meal out. For instance (depending if you’re traveling internationally) you can bring a couple of apples or oranges with you. Also trial mix, nuts, granola bars, ect all travel pretty well. If you can’t bring the food with you, consider finding a grocery store near where you’re staying and getting a couple of things there. You can even use the mini-frig in your room to keep some of your food cold. This can be a good way to eat a healthy breakfast and snacks so that you only need one or two meals out.

No comments:

Post a Comment