4 Tips for Eating Out (So You Can Keep Feeling Good)

Yahoo Health
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Too many restaurant meals can lead to too many pounds on your body. Here are some clever away-from-home eating tips to keep you looking and feeling your best.

I love eating in restaurants and trying new dishes. They can be such a source of inspiration in your cooking.

But eating out all the time, such as when I am on the road, for example, or filming a show, can be a minefield. You’re not in control of portion sizes or exact ingredients.

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Here are a few tips I use to make sure I don’t overindulge in restaurants, which can throw me off balance and affect how I feel:

  • Small is beautiful. At dinner, I order two appetizers instead of an appetizer and a main course; entrées tend to be just too big in restaurants. I go for a vegetarian salad or soup and then something with protein.

  • Divide and conquer. If I don’t like the options under the appetizers, I order a main course but ask the server to bring only half of the portion to the table and to pack up the other half in a container to take home.

  • Best dressed. I find salads are sometimes overdressed in restaurants, so I always ask for dressing on the side. In fact, I often ask to have olive oil and lemon wedges instead of dressing so I can dress the salad to my liking—and eliminate any extraneous ingredients.

  • The sky’s the limit. I always try to eat before getting on a plane. Foods served on board tend to have a lot of fat and sodium in them to make them taste better because your taste buds get dulled at high altitude. At the very least, most airports have a Starbucks these days where I can get oatmeal cooked with hot water that I can then doctor with an olive oil packet from my purse and a pinch of salt. That, plus the almonds I always carry with me, can keep me going on a flight until I land.

For more smart eating tips like these and and easy recipes for a healthy lifestyle pick up a copy of my latest book, Giada’s Feel Good Food, wherever books are sold!

GiadaWeekly is the digital food and lifestyle magazine from cookbook author and Food Network star Giada De Laurentiis. To get a new issue each Thursday, download the app or subscribe at www.giadaweekly.com. And follow GiadaWeekly on Instagram and Facebook.

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