5 Essential Tips for Eating Out Without Gaining Weight

When you’re on a diet, the hardest part about eating out is that the restaurant dining experience is geared toward getting you to eat more food, not less. And yet, at the same time, your goal is to control portion size, reduce carbs, or reduce calories. Here’s how you survive in the wild.

Skip the Bread

Most restaurants will offer you complimentary chips, bread, or something similar. Skip it. And, when the waiter brings it around, ask to have it taken away (unless other guests don’t want it). If it’s too tempting, you’re likely to eat it.

Skip Appetizers

Appetizers are the next thing that has to go. Yeah, everyone might order something, but you must resist the urge to order and eat them. Instead, ask if you can put in your order for the main course. If you’re dining with other people, try to agree beforehand on a plan of action. That way, you’re not left out when the waiter brings a table order of nachos.

If your group won’t, or doesn’t want to, skip appetizers, and you think you might be too tempted by them, you can always step outside, go to the bathroom, or purposefully show up late to dinner (just let everyone know you’ll be running late beforehand).

Order Water

You can drink a lot of calories if you’re not careful. Order water instead of soda or other sugary drinks. Water has zero calories, it’s healthful, and you can use it to partially fill your stomach before the main meal arrives.

Water will also help you in other ways too. It keeps you hydrated, which can be important when you’re losing weight.

Don’t Eat Dessert

This is where most people fall off the wagon. That dessert menu is almost overwhelming. And, most people can’t turn away a cheesecake, ice cream, or apple pie. But, you must. Bring a mint with you and suck on that for the sweetness.

Dessert is such a temptation, that most people would rather have surgery, like gastric bypass, breast reduction, liposuction, or something similar instead of skipping the sweets. But, in the end, it’ll pay off. Even if you lose so much weight that your breasts reduce in size, you can still make up for it by getting your breasts augmented.

So, do yourself a favor – skip the sweets and worry about the “drastic effects” of weight loss later.

Eat Before You Go Out

This is a trick a lot of people use to keep from binging. You can eat an almost unlimited amount of salad, or any kind of green vegetables before you go out for the night. It’ll fill you up, and it’ll make it easier to stick to your diet.

Green vegetables contain a lot of fiber which, when mixed with all that water you’ll be drinking, will expand inside your stomach. Result? You’re not as hungry.

You can go ahead and order a generous meal (but not too generous) and not worry about overdoing it on calories.

Dr. Kevin Ruhge completed his residency and fellowship training in cosmetic and reconstructive plastic surgery at the prestigious University of California. A member of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, he specializes in cosmetic surgery of the face, body and breasts. He also enjoys sharing his health research and insights online.