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Community Corner

Eating in Restaurants Doesn't Mean You Have to be Round

With some thought and creativity, you can eat healthy while dining out. Try Sushi Nest, Pazzi di Pizza and Buffalo Wild Wings, for starters.

Americans are dining out more than ever. Thankfully, most restaurants seem to offer several healthy options to choose from; even McDonalds has low calorie salads available.

Low calorie doesn’t always equate to healthy, though. I could eat Lean Cuisines or subsist on a diet of carrots all day, but that wouldn’t be healthy for my body. And healthy foods such as almonds, avocados and olive oil aren’t low in calories and require portion control. You could eat a diet consisting of all healthy foods and gain weight. There has to be a good balance between eating healthy and not eating too much.

And eating out complicates this even more. Who besides the chef knows what is really in our restaurant meal?  A restaurant’s goal is to entice diners and keep them coming back.  Adding sugar, fat and salt to chicken, for example, makes it very palatable but less healthy.

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When dining out, here are some general rules to follow when assessing the nutritive value and calorie count of a dish:        

  • Descriptive words like glazed, sweet, fried, coated, battered and breaded mean the dish is loaded with added sugar and/or fat. Skip this dish.
  • Don’t be afraid to ask the server to eliminate an ingredient or to put a sauce or dressing on the side.
  • Unless it’s a special occasion (read: once in a while) when dining out, I choose to splurge on either a high carbohydrate meal or a dessert, not both in the same meal (or same day). If I’m choosing a pasta dish, I’ll skip dessert. If I’m getting dessert, I’ll choose a lean fish. One treat per day!
  • My husband and I will generally split dessert. We get the satisfaction of a couple of tastes without all the calories.
  • Portion control is integral no matter what you eat. 

Dining Healthy Around Town

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My family enjoys catching a hockey game at occasionally.  And I love playing the trivia game there. I ran into a client there once, and she looked at me incredulously.

“What are you doing here? I didn’t think you ate at places like this,” she exclaimed.

We don’t always end up in the most diet-friendly places, especially when going out with friends. But it doesn’t mean you can’t eat healthy.

While chicken wings are tasty, they are a diet disaster–864 calories for only nine wings! Instead, choose the Naked Tenders–grilled strips of chicken without the breading.  I love this option because I can still choose a spicy and delicious sauce for dipping!

Sushi seems very slim and low calorie, doesn’t it? But beware of maki rolls. Some rolls contain mayonnaise or cream cheese, upping the saturated fat and calories.

Instead, choose mostly sashimi when dining at in Elmhurst. The thinly sliced, raw fish is absolutely delicious and incredibly low in calories. When dining out with a group, choose several maki rolls to split and just have a taste of each one.

Miso soup, made from fermented soy, also is a great nutritious choice. Fermented foods have been shown to benefit our immune and digestive sytems.

Elmhurst has a new restaurant in town. Pazzi di Pizza, while offering gigantic portions, has a number of health-conscious options on the menu. The Orto Salad features roasted eggplant, zucchini and other vegetables over a bed of arugula and topped with goat cheese. Also featured are many vegetable options on the delicious, wood-burning oven pizzas. And, the paninis are large enough to serve a couple of people. Why not split one or save half for next day’s lunch?

You can enjoy restaurants without gaining a food baby. It just requires some thought and creativity.

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