When you take care of your diet, it is common that what is most difficult for you is eating healthy outside the home.
Especially on weekends because you meet people, eat at a bar or restaurant, change your routine…
What happens is that this social life is associated with eating poorly or drinking alcoholic beverages such as beer, wine, or mixed drinks.
So the first thing I want you to do is reflect on this:
What is the purpose of having a drink or a meal with a friend or family member? Have a nice time, right?
Well, that’s what matters. It doesn’t matter if you drink a beer or a glass of water with lemon. Or if you eat some croquettes or a salad.
What counts is the company and the moment you are living.
The problem is what I was telling you, that we associate it, and that creates a dependency. And we have to learn to be free, free to choose the healthiest ooption the one that makes us feel good.
I realize that it is difficult at times, but believe me when I tell you that it is possible.
It’s up to you to choose these options.
That’s why, in this post, I’m going to give you some tips to make it easier for you to eat healthy, tasty, and balanced meals even when you’re away from home. Whether at work, when you go out to eat at a restaurant,t or if you’re going on a trip for a few days.
Of course, without stopping enjoying it.
Because we don’t eat healthy as a punishment, we eat healthy because we want to take care of ourselves and feel great.
👉 Eating healthy outside the home in a restaurant/bar is also possible.
Although it may not seem like it at first glance, you can eat healthily in a restaurant or bar, you just have to know how to look carefully at the menu.
And above all, always go with a smile from ear to ear and a proactive attitude.
What do I mean by this?
Well, you will probably have to make some changes to the dishes on the menu and to do that you have to treat the waiters with a lot of care and give them solutions so that they can prepare something healthy for you.
Let’s make things easier for you to achieve the changes you need.
For example, imagine that one dish is ratatouille from La Mancha with fried egg and another is baked hake with chips. You are interested in the ratatouille and the hake, but not in the egg or the chips.
The solution is as simple as giving the waiter the option of combining these two dishes.
Don’t feel like you’re bothering them by doing this, on the contrary, they want to serve you well. You are a customer and if you leave satisfied you will come back.
But as I was saying before, you have to treat them very well and make everything super easy for them (proactive attitude).
This way you will begin to prioritize your health and put aside that feeling that you are bothering others.
✅ What drink should I order?
Okay, now that you know what attitude you should have when going out to eat at a restaurant or bar, let’s see what you should order if you want to eat healthy.
And we’ll start where all waiters start: the drink.
The truth is that there are rarely any healthy options except for water (sparkling or still).
What I usually do is order it with a slice of lemon, ice, and a mint leaf, or with a squeeze of lemon. This way it will be super tasty and you will be giving it a different touch.
Another option would be kombucha tea, which is a natural, healthy, delicious, and refreshing drink. It also provides us with probiotics for our microbiota.
However, they don’t have it everywhere.
I recommend that you ask for it even if you know they won’t have it. This is something I always do, because I think that if we put pressure on them and they see that customers are asking for it and going to consume it, maybe they will start to bring it.
You can also order green tea or some other infusion.
✅ Don’t forget the vegetables.
For a dish to be complete, healthy, and balanced, it must have at least 50% vegetables.
So don’t forget about it when you eat out either.
Try to find vegetable side dishes or round out your meal with a salad.
And combine it with proteins or carbohydrates, to make sure you are getting the nutrients you need.
✅ The simpler, the better.
Avoid sauces, fried food,s, and batters.
Because you don’t know how they are made. For example, sauces often contain cream, butter, or some thickener. And foods are often fried in refined oils.
So it’s best to choose grilled, steamed,d or baked foods to ensure they are cookehealthilyay.
Anyway, if you have any doubts about how a dish is cooked or what it contains, ask without fear of bothering someone. Remember what I told you before about a proactive attitude.
And if you see that some fish or meat has sauce, you can try to have it grilled or baked.
✅ Choose fruit for dessert.
Like breakfast, this is the hardest part.
Because they don’t usually have healthy desserts unless you go to a healthy food place.
But in the most typical bars and restaurants, it is best if you are still hungry to order a fruit for dessert.
And if you are eating from the menu and it is included, but you don’t feel like it at that moment, you can order it to take away and eat it as a mid-afternoon snack.
👉 5 tips for eating healthy when you have to bring a Tupperware.
Another completely different situation is when you are going to eat out but you can bring your food in a Tupperware.
Here it is much easier because you decide what to take and you can prepare a super complete and healthy dish.
So, taking this into account and the 5 tips I am going to give you below, you will be able to eat healthy anywhere.
Take note!
- It is best to choose a single dish that includes several food groups (vegetables, proteins, whole grains, etc.). This will make it much easier to carry since you will only have to prepare one tuTupperwarend not more than one.
- Be careful with the quantities! A Tupperware can hold more food than a plate.
- Stews are always a good option to take away because even if they are reheated they do not lose their flavor.
- If you are going to choose to take meat and fish, it is better to have them with sauces than grilled, because the latter dry out easily when reheated.
- And if the dish has some kind of dressing, for example, a salad, it is better to take it in a separate jar and add it at the time you are going to eat, so that the rest of the ingredients do not lose their texture.
👉 What if I go on a trip?
When you travel, whether for vacation or any other reason, you also have the opportunity to continue with your healthy habits.
What I recommend in this case is to prepare your trip a little in the following way:
- Find out about the local food at your destination, so you can get an idea of what to expect. This is especially helpful if you’re traveling to another country.
For example, now that I am spending a month in Costa Rica, before coming I looked up what people usually eat here and I saw that it was mostly rice and beans, which is great for me because they are gluten-free, and also lots of fruit and vegetables.
So I already knew I was going to have healthy options to eat.
- On the other hand, I recommend that you choose an apartment instead of a hotel or hostel, because you will have the option of using the kitchen and you will not have to eat in bars and restaurants all the time. This way you can be sure that at least two of the three meals of the day will be as healthy as always.
I think this is very important if you are going away for a long time, because in the end, even if you try to eat healthy in restaurants, you are not going to eat the same as if you prepare it yourself at home.
In the case of Costa Rica (which is where I am now, the truth is that in the bars there are not many vegetables, because you can mainly order Gallo Pinto or Casado, which are two of the most typical dishes there. In the case of the first, it does not have any vegetables and the second is served with a bit of salad (I’ll leave you some photos here now), but what they mostly have is rice and beans.
But that’s okay because I make up for it with the dishes I prepare in the apartment, in which I put a lot of vegetables.
Casado, a typical Costa Rican dish.
And if you travel with babies, it is even more essential to have a place to cook, because it is even more difficult to adapt their food, for example in the case of salt, which they cannot eat and in restaurants they usually have things prepared.
- Also do a search for restaurants in the place you are going to, to find the ones that best suit your needs and the healthiest ones. And also supermarkets and organic stores where you can find quality fruits and vegetables, meat and fish… for when you go to eat in the apartment.
- If you are traveling to a place in your own country and you are not going to spend much time there, you can be ahead of the game and take with you the most basic things that you know you are going to use (chia, nut and seeds, vegetable milk, organic fruit, and vegetables…) so that you don’t have to buy them when you arrive. read more
