Eating out
How to Eat Out and Enjoy Pub Food While Slimming
You don't have to avoid restaurants to lose weight. Check the menu in advance (in England, larger food businesses with 250 or more employees must show calories), choose grilled over fried, ask for sauces on the side, fill up on vegetables, and decide in advance whether you'll have a starter or a dessert — not both.
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General rules for any restaurant
- Look at the menu online before you go and decide what you'll order.
- Don't arrive starving — have a small snack beforehand.
- Ask for dressings and sauces on the side.
- Swap chips for new potatoes, salad or extra vegetables.
- Alternate alcoholic drinks with water.
- Share a dessert, or have a coffee instead.
Pub classics
- Better choices: grilled chicken or fish, jacket potato, carvery meat with plenty of vegetables (go easy on the gravy and Yorkshire puddings), ploughman's with a smaller portion of cheese.
- Go carefully: battered fish and chips, pies with pastry lids, burgers with cheese and bacon, scampi.
Indian restaurants
Tandoori and tikka dishes (without the creamy masala sauce), dal, chana and vegetable curries are lighter choices. Plain boiled rice or a chapati is lighter than pilau rice or naan. Korma, pasanda and butter chicken are among the richest.
Chinese and Thai
Choose steamed, stir-fried or soup-based dishes and boiled rice. Go easy on anything battered, crispy or sweet and sour, and on egg-fried rice, prawn crackers and spring rolls.
Italian
Tomato-based pasta sauces and thin-crust pizzas with vegetable toppings are lighter than cream- or cheese-based dishes. Skip the garlic bread or share it, and have a side salad.
Keep reading
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Balanced UK menus with a matching shopping list, published here on the site. Look back at previous weeks any time.
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