Eating out

When dealing with people that want to lose weight, by far the most important variable is consistency. Consistency triumphs over anything else, and if you don’t have it, no matter how ideal or optimal your whole plan is, it’s going to fail.

In my experience, the thing that often ruins consistency the most for my clients is eating out. They’re following their plan just fine until a social event appears and they can’t track their food. Most of the time, they magically appear much heavier than usual. Of course, some of it is water, but we both know the calories were way higher than what they should be. So here are a few tips to avoid ruining your diet every time you eat out.

Abandon the black and white mentality

This alone is half the battle. When people eat out and are unable to stick with their usual diet, they have the habit of thinking they’re off-diet, there is nothing they can do, right? This is what makes it so problematic, and it’s a stupid way of thinking. It’s a logical fallacy normally referred to as a false dilemma. It’s either black or white, one or zero, all or nothing.

This is obviously not true, just because you can’t follow your diet perfectly doesn’t mean you’re “off-diet”. People have a tendency to have this mentality in everything in life, but in the context of dieting, it is especially bad.

Let’s consider 2 different people, they both go to a family dinner. Person A has an off-diet mindset, she doesn’t care how much she eats today. She’s just going to forget she’s dieting for the next few hours and enjoy herself. Person B is still aware she’s on a diet and will try not to overeat as best as she can.

Let’s say both their maintenance calories are 2400, and they are in a 300 calorie deficit. Person A, who didn’t care about what she’d eat that meal, ended up eating 2500 calories (trust me, it’s not that hard). Person B, despite trying not to over-eat, ends up eating 1500 calories. It’s dinner time, so let’s assume they both ate 2/3 of their usual calories before going out to dinner.

Person A had a total of 4100 calories, and person B had a total of 3100. Person A overate 1700 calories in relation to their maintenance, while person B only over-ate 700 calories. When we take their weekly average into account, Person A managed to cancel 95% of its weekly energy deficit. Person B on the other hand, was slowed down by 50%. Very big difference!

Person B still made progress, while person A is likely to feel very frustrated. And people in scenario B, especially if they are not tracking well (or at all), feel depressed that they aren't making progress despite having a close-to-perfect diet 6 out of 7 days of the week while only having a "minor hiccup" in one of the days.

They both went to the dinner, and they both overate, and yet, the outcome in each one was massively different. There’s no “on” and “off” switch, the more you eat, the more harm you’re going to do. This is quite a detailed explanation and with specific numbers, but it's important to understand how this actually works.

Plan ahead

It's difficult to succeed in eating out if you're doing it on the fly. Try to plan what you're having in advance, most restaurants have a menu available online. Pick what you want to eat beforehand.

Be realistic, don't just decide to have a salad if you're not a salad person and there is a high chance that you will change your mind. Remember the example above, you don't have to be perfect, as long as you do should damage-control and have an overall healthy meal, you will be ok.

Some examples are below:

Breakfast

McDonald's:

Egg McMuffin: 310 calories (17g protein)

Burger King:

Croissan'wich - Bacon, Egg & Cheese: 335 calories (12g protein)

Wendy's:

Bacon, Egg & Cheese 320 calories (18g protein)

Starbucks:

Turkey Bacon & Egg white: 230 calories (17g protein)

Taco Bell:

Breakfast burrito: 340 calories (11g protein)

Subway:

Egg white & Cheese flatbread: 350 calories (21g protein)

Lunch/Dinner

McDonald's:

Ranch Chicken Salad: 240 calories (19g protein)

Burger King:

Double Hamburger: 360 calories (22g protein)

Chipotle:

Paleo Bowl 460 calories (29g protein)

Starbucks:

Grilled Chicken & Hummus Protein Box: 300 calories (22g protein)

Wendy's

Chilli - Large with sans toppings: 247 calories (23g protein)

Subway:

6" Rotisserie style chicken 350 calories (29g protein)

These are just some examples. Maybe you visit other chains not included here. However, this is just to illustrate that you often can find more diet-friendly options, as long as you are prepared and look for them.

If you are very hungry and you're afraid that such options won't be enough, another option is to simply get two meals. Of course, that will double the calories, but if the meal isn't super high in the first place, that's still much better than going all out. For example, when going out to eat at a fast-food chain, I try to pick a grilled chicken wrap. I enjoy them, and they have very high protein for modest calories.

However, if I feel super hungry, then I know this won't be enough. So I either order a salad to eat first, or I just order two wraps! The chicken wrap at McDonald's is only 345 calories, so even two of them are only 700 calories. On the other hand, I could have easily given up trying to fit this meal into my diet and ordered a typical burger with fries. A burger can easily go into 500-900 calories, plus 300-500 calories in fries (and maybe I would feel like having a McFlurry at the end...another 500-800 calories).

While I gave examples of fast-food chains, the same logic applies to restaurants: look for dishes with lean protein, without tons of things added and ideally with some vegetables.

Eat before the event

Before going to the event, you can eat a very large meal. Get pretty full and satiated within reason. The fuller you are going to the event, the less food you’re going to eat. I usually recommend a lean cut of red meat (not a lot, 100g or so), with white potatoes and a lot of veggies.

When I mean a lot of veggies, I really mean a lot of them. It’s common sense and general knowledge vegetables are low in calories, but people don’t realize how low some of them can be. You can get a gigantic massive plate full of veggies for under 200 calories. The closest this meal is to the event, the better.

Another alternative is instead of eating a full meal, you eat a filling snack. This is much more convenient and easier to pull off. I find that protein bars work very well. You can always have them with you, and they are very satiating. It also has the benefit that you then don't have to worry about protein as much for the meal.

Eat fewer meals

If you know your caloric intake is going to be high for a specific meal, an easy way to offset it is simply to cut out the remaining meals, or eat just protein.

If you’re used to having several meals spread through the day, this might be a bit hard, and you maybe be a bit hungry, but if you manage it, it’s a simple yet effective method.

For instance, if you typically have 4 meals with 500 calories, you can have 3 meals with 300 calories instead, leaving up with an extra 600 calories (1100 total) for the event.

Pay attention to food order

Try to eat the less caloric and more fulfilling food first. Get your lean protein and veggies in before moving to the other dishes and desserts.

Also avoid the appetizers: the bread, cheese, etc while you wait for food to arrive – they’re not going to fill you very much. If you decide to eat them, put on your plate already what you want to eat and stick with that. It’s easy to just keep grabbing and eating more and more food, without realizing how much you have eaten in total. So decide the amount right off the bat and stick with that.

Asking for a diet soda while you wait for the main dish will help you to minimize the need to eat.

Fluids

Drink plenty, both before and while you eat. Either water or diet soda, as both are caloric free. This will make your stomach fuller without consuming many extra calories, further decreasing the amount of food you’re going to eat. It also provides you with something to do while you are waiting (particularly useful for impulsive people like me!)

Portion control

Just because you’re eating out, doesn’t mean you have to eat until you feel sick. If there’s ice cream and you want to grab some of it, go ahead, but you don’t need to refill 3 times. Remember that the food you eat is accumulative. Eat reasonable portions.

One of the problems at social events with food is that people expect you to eat, and if you refuse, you will look weird (sometimes even rude!). Particularly in a family environment. But this is when people literally refuse to eat anything there’s on the table. If you just eat a bit of it, people usually don’t say anything, and everyone is happy.

If you want to reply to stop any comments about it, you can say that you are on a diet. If you rather not say that (sometimes it brings undesired conversations), just assertively say that you're satisfied with what you ate

You can eat out while on a diet. It's not the most desirable thing, but it can be done. Life happens, and sometimes you can’t stick to your plan perfectly, but that doesn’t mean it’s a free pass to ruin the progress you’ve been working so hard for. It’s possible to have a social life and still achieve your body composition goals, you just have to be smart about it!