Ordering food from a restaurant when optimizing for health and well-being shouldn’t be complicated, and it’s not. Choose the animal flesh of your choice, and a vegetable side or two, and you’ll be fine.
By now, you know my stance on indulgences. Going out to a nice dinner is a great time to relax the restrictions and enjoy a decadent meal. However, sometimes the meals out aren’t our choice. Sometimes you’re traveling for business or participating in a work dinner and don’t want to fall off track.
I’m in San Diego right now for the baseball Winter Meetings. Obviously, I’m not cooking my own meals in the hotel room, but that doesn’t mean I have to cede control over what I put into my body completely.
Tonight, I asked one of my teammates to order me the swordfish from the menu. Turned out, the restaurant didn’t have any left, so my man called an audible. It mattered negligibly from a nutrition standpoint. I ended up with a fish of some sort, asparagus and a small portion of organic potatoes. The meal hit the spot for me. More importantly, I can keep the same formula, mix up the menu items and feel strongly that I’m on a good path.
Most restaurants, no matter the style, have meat and vegetables. If you’re working with reasonable portion sizes, you shouldn’t go wrong. Some restaurants, especially steak houses, do make their living on oversize portions. Contrary to what your mother may have told you, however, you don’t always have to clean your plate.
You will want to be careful of how your animal flesh is prepared. If you’re ordering it fried, you’re not just getting meat, but a coating of bread as well. From CNN:
If you’re making a healthy choice, you’re probably not purposely choosing a fried food item. Look for words like crunchy, battered, crispy, breaded, crusted, golden, tempura; some of these options are a double-whammy on your caloric intake because the item is fried with an additional carb-based coating.
Instead, opt for grilled, steamed or broiled choices. Be mindful of the sauces, as they are often laden with sugars.
Additionally, there are some tricks of the trade that will help you avoid traditional ordering pitfalls. The most important may be to order first.
If you’re with a party of five and the fried calamari, lasagna, and blintzes go off the board, you’re going to be tempted to follow suit. It’s inherently more difficult to say no to the drugs when you’re hearing how lovely the high may be.
By ordering your salmon, broccoli and sweet potato first, you avoid an on the spot bad decision. Additionally, you’ll demonstrate strong leadership qualities and may find that your mates follow suit.
Eat well,
Kap
Richie Ernst says
Thanks for making my hungry!
david brown says
Kap, thank you very much for the blog!! While you are at these meetings how are you handling your snack choices??
Richie Ernst says
Hardboiled eggs, a sweet potato or buffalo jerky are my guesses…lol
Chester says
While realizing that during meetings you are staying close to the action downtown, however for a high-powered (delicious, unique, fresh as heck) reasonably priced seafood choice,
[1] The Fishery on Cass Street in PB;
[2] in southern LaJolla — El Pescador, which was basically for years a little shack but just moved across the street into their own sit-down stand-alone restaurant 634 Pearl Street, LaJolla.
Both of these places are also seafood markets; Fishery has their own fleet. Maybe El Pesc does also.
BoojieMaw says
Excellent recommendation on The Fishery. Good eats.
Steve says
I was very pleased you touch on the preparation of the food, Kap!
The cheap oils used to cook the food can be killer….I always make sure to ask what type of oil is used to cook my food! Get that cheap vegetable or canola oil out of here!
I usually cook with avocado oil or extra virgin olive oil, but I have recently been reading that the elite oil is coconut oil for its ability to overcome oxidation therefore leaving the nutrients and healthy fats still available. Anyone cook with coconut oil before?
#MassUp
#ThoughtsBecomeThings
Chris says
Steve, check out this post Kap wrote in February. https://kaplifestyle.com/2014/02/coconut-oil-saturated-fat
Steve says
Hey Chris…..
Thanks!!!!!!
Kelebek Beyaz says
You know I always enjoy these types of posts because of the amount of time I travel for my two jobs and I am always hyper sensitive about my food choices (mainly because of allergies). But you’re right, it doesn’t have to be complicated.
Good stuff love
-Kelebek
John Beavers says
Peer pressure comen in many forms.
Msquared says
How timely….. I just got stuck eating bar food in Santa Monica with my work folks. Tried to stick to the Ahi Poke and the turkey burger…All up, I didn’t do so great…. 2 days and hit some bad meals that I didn’t even want.
Home mañana!