No Bull Nutrition Mini Challenge- Day 13- Eating Out

Eating Out.

Eating out for some can come as a daunting task. You have been so good with hitting your macros throughout the week and then the weekend comes. You know your friends/family are going to ask you to go out to eat and now you are freaking out trying to decide what to do. You may be thinking to yourself..

  • How will I track what I eat accurately?
  • How am I going to measure my food?
  • Am I going to lose all the progress I have made if I go out to eat?

Well do not fear, today we will discuss how you can make eating out fit into your macros.

IIFYM Eating Out1. Research

Before you head out to eat, do some research and see if the restaurant you are going to posts their nutrition info online. There are several websites out there that contain nutritional information for some common restaurants. Check out Nutritionix and see if it has the restaurant you plan on going to. If you can’t find the restaurant you are going to online, try and see if you can find a similar restaurant and gauge the nutrition info to match your meal.

2. Plan Ahead

Plan out what you want before you arrive. This will prevent you from over indulging when it comes time for the meal itself. You can also put the meal into myfitnesspal ahead of time so you can see what other macros you will need for the day.

3. Lean Meats and Veggies

Most of the time when we out, the types of foods we will be having are going to be high in fat and high in carbs. Knowing this, you can expect to keep your protein throughout the day on the leaner side and also try and fill up on a lot of veggies to keep your carb numbers down.’

4. Ask your Waiter

Most of the time restaurants are aware of how many ounces of meat they are serving and also how that meat is being prepared. Ask ahead of time what the serving size is and also how they cook the meat. If they cook it with a pound of butter, you can then ask them to to hold off on that to keep your fat numbers down.

5. Portable Scale

Although not everyone is comfortable with this option, there are portable food scales available for purchase if you want to keep things accurate.

 

At the end of the day remember that flexible dieting is just that, flexible. Remember that you can enjoy a meal out from time to time and shouldn’t have to become overly obsessive about ruining the progress you have made. Estimate what you can, keep the proportions reasonable, and only eat until you feel full and satisfied.