Healthy Choices In an Italian Restaurant
IntoFit | June 23rd, 2009 | Tips for Eating Out, Weight Loss Tips | 2 Comments »
It’s tough to post about eating healthy in Italian restaurants because every menu will vary a great deal. What I can do is offer you some tips and tricks that I hope will apply to the majority of Italian restaurants you may find yourself in.
- Stay at the top:
1. You can make an entire meal out of the appetizer section and it will be delicious. Start with a green salad or even the egg drop soup and have the grilled calamari, steamed mussels (in a tomato broth) or grilled shrimp as your main course.
- Keep your noodles at home:
If you want pasta, have it at home where you can control how much you are making and what goes in it. Pasta at a restaurant is bad news. Sorry! Even pastas that come on the side of a main dish tend to be well over 2 or 3 servings of the stuff! If you’re DESPERATE for restaurant pasta have it in a tomato sauce with veggies (Primavera)- ask them to cut the portion in half (and leave the other half in the kitchen).
- Beware of fake healthy options:
Chances are the small steak that you thought you should stay away from will have less added fat then the chicken or fish you assumed was the healthiest option. So if you want red meat, go ahead and have it, just make sure it’s size appropriate. Approximately 4 ounces for women and 6 ounces for men. I’m sure you will have to cut the piece of meat they bring you in half…at least. Portions are really where you have to be very careful in restaurants. And if you have the chicken or fish (as I often do!), ask them to go REALLY light on the butter and oil(as I always do!).
- Navigate The Pizza Menu:
If you are ordering pizza, try ordering it on a thin crust. ( Multigrain if they have it). Go with the veggies instead of adding pepperoni and sausage, and ask them to go light on the cheese. Try to fill up on salad and eat one or 2 slices of pizza- not the whole thing. Even if they bring you a personal size pizza, you should probably only have half of it.
- Desert the dessert
Eating out is a treat on it’s own! Try to back away from the sweets at the end of the meal. Instead, finish your meal with a tea or a decaffeinated coffee.
- Watch out for hidden calories.
These are hard to watch out for because you don’t know they’re there. I just discovered a restaurant that serves a bruschetta with over 1000 calories and more than 45 grams of fat! Yup! Who would have thunk that a piece of bread with tomatoes on it could be so deadly. But restaurants want everything to taste delicious and in doing so, they add butter and oil! Everything is better with butter! Except your heart and your thighs of course!
If you can, it’s always a good idea to look up the restaurant on the internet and see if they provide nutritional information on their web site.
- 12142 Steps.
Related Posts
-
Healthy Choices At A Chinese Restaurant
There are all different kinds of Chinese food- most of us only have a North [...]
-
How to Order Healthy at a Greek Restaurant
absolutely love Greek food. When I go out for Greek, I know I can keep [...]
-
What to Eat at a Mexican Restaurant
I met up with my sister and cousin for dinner tonight. We all had the [...]
Buy now
Buy now
Subscribe by email
I have a random question/hopeful request and don't know where to ask it!
Could you do a post on fruit? I know it is much better than most things to snack on, but I am so curious about when IDEALLY one should eat fruit (e.g. morning). I have heard that we should ideally eat it alone and on an empty stomach … does this essentially mean that ideally you would only eat it at breakfast? If so, then how many servings? I have also heard most fruits are high in carbs and that is why it is better to have them in the beginning half of your day … as opposed to an afternoon snack.
Anyways, just looking for some clarification and would love your WISDOM on this one! Thanks – great blog!
Absolutely! I have been working through a draft on this subject and will be posting it on Thursday! Stay tuned and thanks for reading!