Dining Out Without Tossing Your Diet
March 3, 2010 by Sarah Jenks
Filed under City Food Finds, Featured, Nutrition
When it comes to being healthy and losing weight, let’s be honest-New York City presents a whole new set of rules. Along with the countless gyms, spas, yoga studios and organic grocery stores there are also hundreds of bars with delicious, sugary cocktails, a cupcake shop on every corner, and an infinite number of exquisite, delicious restaurants. With all of these temptations waiting to sabotage our good intentions at every turn, losing weight in Manhattan can be very tricky.
A good place to start in navigating Manhattan’s many trials is learning how to make healthy choices at restaurants. Below I lay out six steps to remain true to your healthy intentions when dining out.
Step 1: Be choosy about the restaurant.
Obviously, it will be a lot harder to eat healthy at Dallas BBQ than Angelika’s Kitchen, but we can’t drag our friends to a vegan restaurant every Saturday to dine on seaweed and daikon radish. Try to choose a restaurant that focuses on locally sourced, high quality ingredients. There are a ton of restaurants in Manhattan that are moving to the farm-to-table model. A fabulous guide for finding these restaurants is the new book Clean Plates.
To write this article, I tried out these tips first hand with a few girlfriends who are focusing on being healthy, and have a tendency to over-do-it at restaurants. We went to Hundred Acres, a restaurant that focuses on good food, not “health” food, knowing that it would be a good prototype for the average diner.
Step 2: Before looking at the menu, decide what you want to eat.
Just take a few moments before reading the menu to think about the following things:
- Do you want something hot or cold?
- Creamy or crunchy?
- Spicy or mild?
- How hungry am I?
Our cravings are very connected to what nutrients our bodies need. If we pay attention to these needs, we will feel satisfied sooner.
It is important to realize that menus are created to entice you to spend money and choose the most decadent foods, so it is very important to stay true to what you want and not get too romanced by your options.
Step 3: Be picky
None of us were particularly starving and weren’t in the mood for heavy protein. The entrees were all very intricate with lots of heavy sauces, so we asked the waitress if the chef could prepare a simply grilled piece of fish with his freshest veggies for us to share. Allison felt a little uneasy being so demanding and picky. I reminded her that if we are going to spend money (not to mention that new yorkers are expected to be picky) then we might as well get exactly what we want.
Step 4: Don’t get caught up in social obligation.
To supplement our fish, we ordered a few apps: lentil soup, beets with feta and arugula and a kale salad. We didn’t order any alcohol. Kelsea mentioned that she felt bad that we weren’t ordering wine or very much food. Servers can be pushy about getting patrons to spend a lot of money. Instead of over ordering, we just gave our waitress a really good tip. We were pleasantly surprised by how gracious and wonderful our waitress actually was despite our skimpy order.
We also feel pressure to over eat to “match” what our friends are ordering. There is a very strong feeling of comradery in drinking the same amount of wine and ordering the same number of courses. I encourage you to find comradery in conversation and connecting. It’s a lot healthier to fill up on conversation instead of chocolate lava cake.
Step 5: Enjoy your food.
Receiving maximum enjoyment from our meals allows us to eat less to feel satisfied. To really perfect this important step, do the following:
- Take three deep breaths before you eat to calm your nerves
- Smell your food to fire up your digestion
- Eat slowly! Taste every bite, chew thoroughly and put your fork down in between bites
- Stop eating when you feel you have reached maximum energy – there is always that one bite that makes you feel just a little weighed down, just a little sluggish – stop there regardless of how much food you have left on your plate
Step 6: Get your money’s worth.
We all have this idea that if we spend money on food, we can’t let it go to waste. But remember this: all food goes to waste – it doesn’t need to go through you first. If you still have hang ups, get your food to go and eat it for lunch the next day. There is absolutely no reason to stuff yourself just because you spent money. Then you are just spending money to feel like crap – now that is a waste!
My little experiment proved successful. By examining our eat-out patterns we were able to start creating positive healthy habits. We filled up on great conversation, were nurtured by healthy food and left with out guilt or a stomachache.
Photo: Flickr
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