Diet Discipline: How To Maintain Your Diet When Eating Out
By GetFitFocus
Between work, social and personal engagements we are frequently forced to consume at least one or two meals away from home – sometimes daily. Eating meals away from the comfort of your home makes it quite difficult to stick to and follow any kind of dieting strategy. The difficulty is related to both the quality and quantity of food you are presented when you dine out.
Eating out at a restaurant or grabbing a quick to go meal while out requires the utmost self-management and control when following a diet. Even if these events are labeled as “exemptions” from your system, they pose the potential to easily become reasons to lose not only the continuity of the diet, but could also lead to a lack of confidence in the diet.
A diet should never create difficulties or impact commitments in one’s life. You should not have to adapt your life to the diet, but the diet plan or strategy should be adapted to your needs – which includes the times when having to dine away from home.
Consuming a meal away from home due to work, occasional meetings and social gatherings one must use some dietary principles that will assist with your discipline. These principles should motivate you not to alter your diet, and secondly they should assist you with not creating unnecessary and harmful guilt..
Quantity And Proportions
The first rule to follow when eating meals away from home is to assess the quantity and proportions you consume. Servings and portions are most times much larger than what you would consume at home. It is easy to over-indulge, even if the food is somewhat healthy and good for you.
You can practice this at home. Weigh certain foods so you can accurately know just how much you are eating. These proportions should match up with your diet plan. When you do this at home you will be able to “eyeball” the portions you are eating when out and match that to what proportions you eat at home.
Therefore, even if served a plate stacked with delicious and tasty cuisine you will know when it is time to push it back or inform the restaurant to reduce your serving size.
Familiar Foods
Another good rule to follow when forced to eat out is to eat dishes that closely resemble the dishes normally eaten at home. This is very possible when eating at a restaurant.
Choose foods that are prepared, cooked and served similar to what you have at home. Many times it may not be exactly like home, but it could be close.
Location Selection
The last option to help maintain a diet is the selection of the location that is chosen. Select eateries that taut low fat or healthier choices.
If you have visited a restaurant in the past that you knew served foods that aided your diet as opposed to obliterated it, then choose that location. When eating out is avoidable then try to make the choice of eating location work in your favor.
Conclusion
Think about these situations before they arise. Work on proper proportions while dining at home so you can use that knowledge when forced to dine out. Combine that with already having some ideas about what you would choose to eat when out, and location choices.
Following and adhering to these principles will prevent you from yielding to poor eating habits when dining out. They will also assist you with diet discipline – which will ensure you can stick to your diet plan and strategy.