Eating in a cafe while dieting
How to place an order in a cafe if you are on a diet. The secrets of diet in a cafe and restaurant.
Of course, adhering to the necessary nutrition plan is much easier if you cook the food yourself and, accordingly, eat it at home or take it with you to work, etc.
But with all of us there are holidays, meetings with friends, business lunches, well, or just did not have time to cook food and you need to eat at the restaurant. Then a logical question arises: what to order in a cafe on a diet? Many believe that it is not possible to maintain their PP power mode. However, I want to assure you that it is possible and not at all difficult.
How to choose an institution
Now we’ll talk about the most ideal option, when you have the opportunity to choose your own institution. So you have the opportunity to choose a kitchen.
The most convenient option is an institution with European cuisine. This definitely guarantees the availability of fish, meat and salads. This is more than enough not to “fall out” of the regime.
Asian cuisine can be more challenging in terms of diet food choices. For example, in a Vietnamese institution you can easily order lunch, for example, soup with meat and rice noodles or noodles / rice with meat / poultry (choose an easier option from the existing ones), but with dinner it can already be more difficult, as it’s somehow low-carb there are few dishes.
And be careful with the size of the servings in such establishments, since they are usually quite impressive there and for the person who follows the figure they are definitely too big. So eat ⅔ or even half a serving. If it is a pity to leave the food for which you paid, then ask to pack it with you. This has long been normal practice all over the world. And this, by the way, can be your lunch for tomorrow, so you have nothing to lose.
Now, probably, many have thought: “Is it possible to eat sushi ?. It’s rice and fish, nothing high in calories. ” Sushi is good for lunch, but not for dinner. Plus soy sauce (which we usually do not regret for sushi) in combination with rice, the next day can easily provoke a fluid retention and, in this regard, a temporary increase on the balance. Well, with the amount, respectively, here you also have to be moderate. After all, the Japanese are slender, not because they eat rice, but because they know how to enjoy food and eat slowly and in small portions.
Not the best choice of an institution, with food control, will be national cuisines such as Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Georgian, Polish, Czech, etc. There, most dishes are quite fatty and high-calorie, so making a choice is more difficult.
In general, if you choose an institution in advance, then simply open its menu (usually it is available on the Internet) and see if there is something suitable for you. If not, look for something else.
What to order in a cafe on a diet
So we come to the main question: how to eat in a cafe / restaurant during the diet. To make it easier to navigate, I will share the answer to this question depending on the meal, as for breakfast, lunch and dinner, the options offered by the institutions and our criteria will differ.
How to choose the right breakfast
This is perhaps the easiest option, since breakfasts in establishments usually offer quite useful ones.
So, for example, eggs in the form of an omelet or scramble are always present. Usually there is oatmeal porridge, yogurt with granola (just be careful and make sure that these granola do not contain a lot of sugar). Very often there are curd cheesecakes on the menu. All these options are suitable for those who follow their figure.
Just do not order, please, an Irish breakfast. And, of course, all kinds of pancakes and pancakes can be not so much “dangerous” in and of themselves as the toppings that offer them. Those. if you order, for example, buckwheat pancakes with natural yogurt and berries, then everything is quite “decent”. And if nutella appears instead of yogurt, then this no longer suits you. After all, it is unlikely that in a cafe you will be pleased with PP nutella. And we will please! Our site has a Nutella chocolate paste recipe that you can easily make yourself.
Lunch menu: what to choose for those who want to lose weight
And here again, everything is good enough, because in almost all establishments the lunch menu offers soup, a simple salad and some side dish with fish or meat, which is easily consistent with the principles of healthy eating.
Just in case, I’ll clarify that under the salad is meant a salad of fresh vegetables and herbs. So, if this is a combination of soup + salad, then the salad is a small portion, and not a full-fledged Caesar. If the menu has a salad with chicken, fish, grilled cheese, for example, then this is your full serving and you do not need to add anything here.
Also, as a rule, there is a combination of side dish + meat / fish. In this case, choose less greasy options with less processing. Those. grilled rice with fish and vegetables is much more suitable for you than pasta with some fatty sauce.
