Eating Out at any Meal Fits Perfectly with the Food Lovers Dietitian Meal Planner
I’m often asked how eating out fits with meal planning using the Food Lovers Dietitian Meal Planner. Perfectly! If you use the meal planner to tweak your meals and snacks it will leave the spaces you need in your day to also eat out. But the real secret to the Food Lovers Dietitian success, is that the other meals and snacks in your day are beautifully proportioned and delicious so you can eat out knowing that you don’t need to starve or deprive yourself.
I’m going to show you how it could look to eat out at different meals and snacks using the Menu Inspiration No.1 day’s meals and snacks.
But first let’s re-cap those Food Lovers Dietitian Eating Out Tips.
It’s all about sharing, under ordering, eating small but tasting big
Share dishes – especially cafe breakfasts
Milk Crate’s Courtyard Cafe – Swaffle – single serve
Milk Crate’s Courtyard Cafe – Swaffle – single serve, shared between two
Ask for what you need – like sauces and dressings on the side
Take small serves and savour them – enjoy lots of different tastes
Order less – smaller than what you’d eat at home as dishes are richer
Eat mindfully – savour each bite
Don’t head out hungry – take the edge off your appetite if you need to with a snack so you can savour slowly and choose small serves when you’re out.
Eating Out with Menu Inspiration No.1
Breakfast
This two slices of avocado rye toast with two poached eggs was perfect to share between two diners. Sometimes you may need to order an extra egg or slice of toast if only one comes with the order.
Morning Snack
Macaron and tea
Bakery choices are now often very large and kilojoule heavy. If there are ‘calorie-worthy’ choices then it can work well to share, but if you’re eating alone a macaron savoured mindfully is a great choice.
They are small, but they are delicious and each one only has the kilojoules of a slice of bread.
Lunch
Open sandwich
Often you can ask for an open sandwich that just uses one slice of bread, or perhaps just eat one slice if you’d prefer.
Another option is to eat half a cafe sandwich and take the rest with you to enjoy later.
Afternoon Snack
Chocolate Cake (shared between 4)
A rich chocolate cake is delicious, but a small amount savoured goes a long way.
If you’re dining with like-minded friends, sharing works well.
Dinner
Sri Lankan Curries and Rice
Choosing a cuisine where dishes can be shared from the centre is perfect when dining with a group. That way everyone can take the amount they prefer.
Dessert
Dinner Party Desserts
If you’re at a dinner party where you are able to help yourself, you’re on a winner. It’s the same idea as the Food Lovers Dietitian approach to festive eating . Choose small serves of the desserts you really love and savour them mindfully.
If serves are already portioned, don’t be shy to take just part of a serve. It’s better to leave more for others than to waste it, or eat more than you want to.
So over to you! How would you use the Food Lovers Dietitian Meal Planner and Eating Out Tips together to eat out and find your healthy weight?
Do show us on the Food Lovers Dietitian Facebook Page. Post your photos of your day!
For more tips and sample menus for eating out – do sign up for Food Lovers News!
You can also watch this post of listen to it while you’re doing something else.
Michele, your post has highlighted a very important issue. That cafe’s and restaurants frequently (make that, most of the time) do not offer a realistic portion size as their standard offering. Now not everyone is watching their weight, but even those who are maintaining a healthy weight will be overeating if they finish a standard (and sometimes calorie loaded) sized dish. Sometimes it is hard to ‘downsize’ a standard menu item , especially if its just one person dining, as the pricing is suited to the portion size/ingredient cost of the dish. And you can’t always ‘doggy bag’ leftovers due to health reasons. Your ideas of sharing between dining companions is brilliant, but that is of your doing, due to the size of the offerings presented. My dream (ha! pipe dream) is of opening up a cafe, calling it Portion Control (or something equally as fitting, baring any Trade Mark issues) and serving up more realistic portion sizes, and at realistic prices for the size. Ok, rant over. I do find your posts really useful, and full of clever tips to keep me on track and be mindful of what makes it into my gob 🙂 Cheers, K xx
Kirsty, I can see that you’re passionate about this too. You are so right, it’s not that easy to find ‘workarounds’ when the serve sizes are too large especially for solo diners. I do hope your dream becomes a reality and we have more choice. Until then, I am very grateful for the eateries who are happy for sharing and doggie-bagging and hopefully that growing market demand with make a difference. I’m so pleased you’re finding the posts useful and you’re lovely to give me all that great feedback! Keep up the great work!
“It’s all about sharing, under ordering, eating small but tasting big”
Great advice Michele
I’m very pleased you agree!
Great ideas! I’m sure eating out is where a lot of people trip up and assume overeating is the only way.
It think you are so right!