…To Maintain Your Diet

At this time of year especially, when there are holiday parties, dinner invitations, and family get-togethers, it becomes a challenge to maintain your low carb plan, or any diet plan for that matter. Temptation is everywhere. It’s not easy to avoid eating food that looks so delicious and tastes so wonderful, but you can exert some self-control and minimize the damage.

Believe me, I know about this. For the past six years, I have fought this battle over and over.  I lost 142 lbs (for about the fifth time in my life) on a low carbohydrate life-style change.  Anytime you go out to eat, there is a challenge to not exceed your effective carb count and mine is a ridiculously low one at 22 net carbs per day.  Restaurant food can be filled with hidden carbs in the form of sauces, sugar, and other unknown factors. Most spices are either zero carbs or fractional.  But dining is also a social occasion so you can’t always avoid it.

Here’s five things you can do to stick to the plan when eating out.

1. Say No to bread

If you’re like me, this is not an easy one when the temptation of wonderful breads like the brown bread at Outback or the cheddar cheese biscuits at Red Lobster tease you from right on your table. Do what I do when I first walk into Texas Roadhouse and say, “No rolls, please,” as soon as your server reaches for that basket of tempting yeast rolls. Say none when asked what kind of bread you’d like when it’s included with the meal.

If you’re dining with others, this is not as easy to accomplish and that’s where your will power has to come in to keep the bread basket away form your reach. Don’t hesitate to tell your dining companions that you don’t want to eat the bread and ask them to keep it away.

If you just can’t help yourself, limit the damage. Eat a half a roll or just take a small slice. Sometimes that is more difficult than saying no, but if you take the time to savor the bread and eat it slowly, it can be satisfying.

2. Swap the vegetables

Most places are willing to substitute a different vegetable for the one listed on the menu.

Potatoes, rice, and pasta are high in carbohydrates, which adds a lot to the meal when you are counting carbs. They are also high in calories. As for a different vegetable that they offer, such as green beans, broccoli, cauliflower or mixed squash. This makes a big difference and keeps you on track.

I’ve only run into a couple of places where the chefs are so fussy that they refuse to change out their selected choice. In that case, choose a different dish.

Often when ordering breakfast, I say “no bread, no potatoes” and the restaurant usually offers a substitution such as sliced tomatoes or fresh fruit. When going for the fruit, ask if it is berries and/or melons as they are the lowest options in carbs.

3. Choose simple protein dishes

Dinners that are primarily meat, poultry, or fish are your best bet for a dinner that doesn’t have hidden carbs or calories. Grilled meat is one of the best way to avoid many additions and the meat is usually just seasoned without any extras. BBQ sauce adds carbs and calories, so you want to avoid the sauces. Low carb has an advantage when it comes to a butter sauce since most don’t add any carbs to the count unless it has a little lemon or other flavoring in it. Don’t hesitate to ask your server what the ingredients are in the sauces.

4. Buffets can be your friend

While they can be very tempting and this requires quite a bit of will power, a buffet offers many choices in salads, vegetables, and protein dishes to give you a quite a bit of freedom to create a variety of dishes. Once again, stay away from the starches and dishes with sauces that might include flour or sugar. Select ones that have a butter sauce. Pick some pieces of cheese from the cheese tray to add to the broccoli, if you wish, rather than going for a casserole-type dish that includes flour and possibly bread crumbs in the sauce. In most cases, stay away from the desserts.

A few buffets in my town (Reno, Nevada) do offer a a small selection of sugar-free desserts, but that doesn’t always equal low carb. Cheesecake is usually a safe bet so long as you don’t eat the cookie base, which is usually made with flour. I know one place that makes it with almond flour. Top the cheesecake with fresh, unsweetened berries and you have a great low carb dessert.

5. Eat half of what you’re served

Be honest, now. When you go out to dinner at most places, doesn’t that plate arrive with more than double the food you normally eat at home for a meal?

Most restaurants are generous with their proportions and for many of us, it’s easy to keep right on eating after we are full. I did this for many years before I decided that being overfilled was not good. Ask for a to-go box when you order and put half of your meal in the box before you even begin. Or, cut your portions in half and slide them over a little on the plate to remind yourself to save that to take home. Not only do you cut back on your food intake, but you gain an extra meal for the same price.

Sometimes, no matter what your best intentions are, you just can’t pass up that absolutely amazing-looking dessert or that incredible chicken dish with a thick,rich sauce. It happens and you can’t beat yourself up for giving in to the temptation. The key then is to get right back on track with your diet plan the next day and continue to wage the battle to keep the extra pounds from coming on-board.

Happy Holidays  to everyone and make good food choices.

 

Banner photo by Mark Miller (Own work) [CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons