Ah yes, eating out. Whether it’s grabbing a burger on the go, ordering some pizza for the family, or taking a date out to a nice restaurant, dining away from home is a significant part of most people’s lives. With all the different cultural dishes and varieties, restaurants provide experiences that we can’t get easily through our own cooking.

However, when someone is trying to lose weight, things get a bit more complicated. It’s absolutely true that meals out can considerably affect overall progress, or even be a net detriment toward one’s goals. I’m going to address eating out in the context of a diet, including tracking, general considerations and guidelines, and a breakdown of the different kinds of restaurants themselves. By the end, my goal is to prepare you for approaching eating out, with more knowledge and less trepidation.

So let’s get started!

A Guide To Eating Out While Dieting

The Basics

Starting out, there are some basic points I want to cover. Before that, though, know that this is a fairly contested topic in nutrition, particularly from a coaching standpoint. Every coach likely has slightly different takes on eating out in the context of dieting. I want to stress that many of the points I opine here are my personal views as a coach, based both on my beliefs and anecdotal experience with my clients. So by all means take my words with a grain of salt (or a few milligrams of sodium).

First, no reasonable coach is going to tell you that eating out is forbidden. We’re quite aware everyone has lives to live, and whether you’re attending social events, taking care of kids, or simply need a break here and there, it’s perfectly reasonable to enjoy a meal out on a diet. This is not a failing on your part, nor is it something you should feel guilty about. It’s important to separate the act of eating from any sort of moral weight.

Instead, we try to emphasize the concepts of tradeoffs, and balance. There are a host of factors that play into how much eating out will affect your progress. As a few generalities: 

• The more often you do it, the likelier meals out are to affect your progress. 
• The heavier the meals, the likelier meals out are to affect your progress.
• The leaner you are, the likelier meals out are to affect your progress.
• The shallower your calorie deficit is, the likelier meals out are to affect your progress.
• The less active you are, the likelier meals out are to affect your progress.

As such, there is no one magic number for how often you should do it. Instead, think of it as a sliding scale. The more the above factors apply to you, the more thought and pre-planning you should probably do in response. A person with several dozen pounds to lose is in a completely different category than the person who is only a few pounds of fat away from visible abs at rest. 

If I had to make a general recommendation to start with, I would begin somewhere around limiting your meals out to about once a week or so. Time will only tell whether or not that frequency will work for you, but it tends to be a fair starting point. 

All that said, the first big question is…

To Track or Not to Track?

That is the question. Or whatever it is that Hamlet said.

Seriously, though, you have the option of accepting the meal out as is, or trying to make some attempt to quantify or gauge its impact. As with almost everything else discussed here, this decision is a personal one, and contingent on what works best for you. 

That aside, I generally recommend that you do remain at least somewhat cognizant of your overall intake. Even if you’re not tracking discretely, being conscientious of your food choices and portion sizes is always a good thing. Here, you have two options: Tracking with or without calories.

Tracking With Calories

For those used to tracking calories and macros, this is a natural extension of that. The main difference going in here is that you have to accept that you absolutely cannot get exact numbers on your meal. Unless you’re in the kitchen watching the cook over his shoulder, it’s impossible. Even restaurants that provide calorie values for their entrees are using estimates at best. This is a big part of why we recommend limiting meals out; it simply minimizes the amount of variability in your intake.

If a restaurant provides the calories for their foods, use that as a baseline to begin with. From there, it’s a good idea to add approximately 10-20% of the caloric value onto it as a bit of a cushion or safeguard. This is because the cooks aren’t going to make the dish the exact same each time. They may get a little more heavy-handed with the sauces and oils, give you a slightly larger portion, etc. In this case, you’re best off overestimating the caloric total than underestimating it. 

Think of it this way: If you overestimate the total, you end up with a true intake lower than you planned, reducing your calorie surplus and potentially even creating a bit of a deficit. Conversely, if you underestimate the calories, you’ll end up eating more than you think, and walk away with a larger surplus. In a dieting scenario, the former is the most preferable option.

Now, if the restaurant doesn’t have their nutritional values available, things get a bit trickier. Here, your best bet is to find some sort of recipe online that seems close to what you ordered and use that as your reference point. Again, try to err on the side of overestimating the calories again, and add the same 10-20% value to the total. 

Finally, make sure the recipe you look up passes the reality check. If you’re ordering something hefty on the menu, and the recipes for it online say it’s only a couple hundred calories, that’s a red flag. Additionally, the simpler the dish is, the easier it’ll be to approximate its content. For example, marinated chicken is probably going to be much easier to estimate than a lasagna.

Tracking Without Calories

On the other hand, it is entirely possible to keep things reasonable without going by numbers. You still want to try to keep yourself accountable, but this requires a different sort of estimation. There are a couple of different ways to do so, and I’ll cover a couple here. It’s also good to remember that these techniques can also apply to your overall dieting approach, not just during a meal out.

First, there is the plate method. This is the guide created by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) intended to replace the now outdated food pyramid approach. Here, the goal is to allocate relatively equal amounts of your meal to four different categories (Figure 1): 

• 50% carbs from produce (25% fruits, 25% vegetables), 
• 25% carbs from starches (e.g. grains, bread) 
• 25% protein sources
• There is also an allotment for dairy products as well.

This helps prevent you from going overboard on any one group, as well as ensure that you aren’t lacking in any others. For example, it’s fairly common to go overboard on starchy stuff when eating out (fries, bread, etc.) while neglecting vegetables. This approach aims to avoid that while keeping portions reasonable.

Another visual approach is called the hand method. Here, you use your hand as a reference point for the different serving sizes for different parts of your meal. The different measurements are as follows (Figure 2):

• Palm = one serving of protein
• Fist = one serving of carbs from produce (fruits and vegetables)
• Thumb = One serving of fats (e.g. oils, butter, cheese)
• Cupped hand = one serving of carbs from starches (e.g. grains, bread)

Since the hand is a reference point almost everyone can use, this is a nifty way to measure things on the go. Again, you can’t really dictate what your meal out is going to exactly look like, but it’s not a bad idea to use this as a frame of reference for how well said meal fits into a balanced diet.

Overall, neither of these approaches are bulletproof, but they aren’t intended to be. The goal is to keep you somewhat reasonable with your food choices and portions, not to get everything exact. Again, as long as you’re remaining cognizant of your choices, chances are that you’ll be just fine.

The Rest of Your Diet

Since no one meal exists in a vacuum, it’s important to think of how eating out factors into the rest of your diet. Specifically, whether or not your meal out is going to affect your other choices throughout the rest of the day, or even week. There are a couple of different ways to approach this, and it comes down to your personal goals and progress.

First, though, I want to re-emphasize that for the majority of dieters, one meal out is very unlikely to cause any sort of substantial detriment to your overall progress. As such, these following considerations are important to think about but try not to agonize over them.

The first option is to simply not adjust anything at all. Accept that the meal is going to throw your caloric totals a bit out of whack, and roll with it. Here, you’d eat normally throughout the day, have your meal out, and continue with your diet the next day as if nothing happened. This is a perfectly reasonable approach, especially if your meals out are few and far between.

Next comes some dietary manipulations on the day of the meal. Simply put, you’d eat a bit less throughout the day to partially offset the larger intake you’ll likely have during your meal out. For example, if you’re looking forward to a dinner out, your breakfast and lunch might be a bit lighter than usual, and packed with more protein to help get you closer to your totals by the end of the day. When you make these adjustments, it can be in general, through smaller portions, or you can discretely subtract a few hundred calories from your typical daily allotment. Either way can work.

Finally, you can compensate by adjusting your intake during the other days of the week. This is similar to the above approach but extended over a longer period of time. Here, this would consist of cutting back intake a bit from each of the other days of the week, to allow for more caloric wiggle room during the meals out. This works particularly well if you have meals out that are routine, semi-frequent, or can be planned for, such as scheduled meetings or things you have to get on the go.

With these latter approaches, I want to emphasize the caveat that they’re to be used in moderation. There is a tendency for some folks to take things to the extreme, by heavily cutting back intake throughout the day/week in order to really cut loose when they eat out. This drastically reduces the sustainability of one’s dieting approach, and can even lead to some skewed mental habits regarding food. If you find this is the case for you, I highly recommend simply taking the first option, and leaving the meal as is. 

Other Considerations When Eating Out

Here, I want to talk about a handful of random tips and considerations to keep in mind when dining out. These don’t apply to any one restaurant or situation but are pretty universal across the board. As above, these aren’t necessarily deal breakers, but they tend to be things that pop up consistently.

Common Sense

Common sense is arguably the best tool you have at your disposal. All of us have varying degrees of experience regarding nutritional knowledge. That being said, most of us have at least a baseline idea of what constitutes “healthy eating.” As I like to say, ask yourself if your mom would approve if you were still a kid.  

Building off that, you can probably guess what sorts of foods will be amenable to your goals, and what choices are likelier to break the caloric bank. For example, it’s pretty easy to see that something like roasted chicken over vegetables is going to be a better pick than a deep-fried platter of fish and chips. 

Now, don’t take this as saying you can’t have the fish and chips. I’m simply pointing out that with a bit of thought, you likely will have some idea of the potential impacts of your dietary choices. Everything has tradeoffs, and only you can decide where you want to draw your lines. Just think about it first. 

Common Tips

These are a few different things to keep in mind when eating out. These particular points and potential pitfalls may or may not apply to every meal out, but they’re common enough to warrant listing here.

• As with snacks at home, be wary of things that you can munch on mindlessly. Good examples of these include complimentary bread, tortilla chips, biscuits, breadsticks, etc. If they’re free and endless, it’s really easy to pack on several hundred extra calories without thinking.

• There are certain telltale signs that a dish will have a higher number of calories. Look out for things like deep frying, coating in dressings, sauces, or oils, fattier cuts of meat, etc. All of these inherently tend to have more calories by the nature of how they’re prepared, and what they consist of.

• Conversely, there are factors that indicate a dish may be on the lighter side. Look for things that include copious amounts of vegetables, lean sources of protein, relatively simple cooking methods, etc. These all tend to stretch out the calories and promote satiety.

• Different protein sources will have different ratios of calories to protein. Lower calorie, high protein sources are usually leaner, such as poultry and seafood. Conversely, proteins with higher fat content also have more tagalong calories as a result, such as red meat, fattier pork cuts, and lamb.

• Try to eat slowly, and chew thoroughly. Satiety comes from signals your stomach sends when it stretches, but it takes a bit for those to register. The slower you eat, the easier your body can keep up to speed with how full you are.

• When eating out, try to drink plenty of water or other low-calorie beverages as you eat. Not only will this slow you down some, but it’ll also promote satiety as you eat. 

• You may want to see if you can split an entrée with another person. This can also allow you to indulge in something that might be a bit more calorically heavy than you would typically handle alone. Remember, portion sizing can be just as effective as food choice.

• Don’t be afraid to take leftovers home when eating out. You can greatly lessen the impact of a given meal by stretching it out over another one or two meals back home. 

• Finally, don’t beat yourself up if you end up overdoing it. Just like tracking macros or meal prepping at home, eating out responsibly is a skill that requires practice and effort. The goal is to become better at it as you go, not to get it perfect from the get-go. Take what you learned from each outing and use it to better inform your choices at the next one.

Alcohol

Alcohol technically falls into the above considerations, but it’s important enough that it warrants its own section. Essentially, alcohol provides two different potential troubles on a diet. First, alcohol in itself is calorically dense, coming in at seven calories per gram. This is almost twice that of a gram of protein or carbohydrate. This is also only considering the alcohol itself, and not the tagalong carbs that tend to come with it.

The other, arguably more important concern with alcohol is loss of inhibition. Simply put, the more intoxicated someone becomes, the more questionable of dietary decisions they tend to make. It’s a lot easier to justify that extra handful of fries or additional cocktail when you’re feeling loose and social. Anecdotally, this propensity tends to far outstrip the potential caloric load the drinks themselves provide. Keep that in mind.

Now, as for the alcohol itself. There are really three different categories I put alcohol into, with each having different potential impacts on your overall targets. Here I’m focusing back on the actual caloric load of the drinks themselves, not on how they affect your decision-making. 

First, you have hard liquor, spirits, etc. These have the highest alcohol content per volume, so they technically have the highest calories from alcohol. However, the net caloric content of these drinks tends to be lower, especially if served with a sugar-free mixer. A typical shot of alcohol has about 80-120 calories, depending on the percentage/proof. If you’re looking for the best “bang for your buck” values for alcohol, this is likely your best bet.

Next, you have brewed drinks. These tend to be lower in alcohol content, usually somewhere around 5-15%. However, these drinks also have tagalong carbohydrate. These carbs come from the fermentation process. The brewing yeast uses a carb source as food, such as grape juice or barley, hops, etc. Some of those carbs are fermented into alcohol, while the rest remain intact. As such, these drinks tend to be a bit higher in calories. The typical bottle of beer or glass of wine is usually somewhere around 150-300 calories, depending on the type of beer/wine and alcohol content.

Finally, you have mixed drinks. These are the most complex of the three categories, with some combination of liquor, lighter alcohol, and/or flavorful mixers. These also tend to be the drinks that are highest in calories, with the majority of said calories coming from the sugar-filled mixers in the drinks. The calories can vary anywhere from a couple hundred to well over a thousand, depending on the size and composition of the cocktail.

To summarize, here’s a comparison of the different types of drinks and their stats (Table 1):

Eating Out at Restaurants

Finally, let’s talk about the restaurants themselves. While going into every single different cuisine and dish is virtually impossible, we can again break things up into three different categories: Fine dining, dining in, and fast food. Each can be approached in a different way, with a different set of considerations.

Fine Dining

Fine dining refers to places where you typically have to dress up some to go, and the bill is likely going to be quite hefty, i.e. well into the triple digits in USD. 

This is actually the easiest of the three restaurants to talk about. Simply put, unless you have a lot of income, these places aren’t likely to be a frequent occurrence. And honestly, if you’re going to be spending this much on a meal, and it’s a special occasion, your calories and macros should be the last thing on your mind. Go out, enjoy yourself, and move on. Coach’s orders.

Dining In

This can also be called a “sit-down restaurant.” This sort of establishment is characterized by sitting down to eat, moderately priced food, and a fairly extensive menu selection of appetizers, entrees, and desserts. When people say “eating out,” this is typically what they’re referring to.

With these restaurants, the main advantage you have is your freedom of choice. You generally have a wide selection of different dishes to pick from and plenty of time to eat. Regardless of cuisine, you can usually tell when certain entrees are going to be amenable to your goals, and which ones you should probably limit or avoid. There are no hard and fast rules here; it all comes down to where you want to set your compromises.

When in doubt, try to gravitate towards dishes that center around a source of lean protein, include good amounts of vegetables, and are simply cooked. Be a bit more cautious around the fried, sauteed, and richer choices, or dishes with a bunch of starchy carbs. This isn’t because carbs are inherently bad, mind you. It’s simply that these sorts of foods tend to be quite easy to overeat. 

Fast Food

The last of the three is fast food. These places are characterized by mass-produced, cheap food. If the place has a drive-thru, chances are it’s a fast food joint. 

Oddly enough, fast food tends to be one of the easiest to estimate, as the foods are quite similar between establishments. This is a natural consequence of standardization, mechanization, and franchising. This combined with most fast food restaurants listing their nutritional information makes it surprisingly easy to estimate your intake.

There are three points to keep in mind with fast food. First, remember the calories listed are estimates. As such, it’s a good idea to give yourself some estimation wiggle room and tack on an additional 10-20% to the total. This helps ensure that you can account for any additional variance that might be present in your meal: a few extra fries, some extra mayo, etc.

Next, understand that not all fast food is inherently bad in terms of macros and calories, For example, take a typical cheeseburger meal. The burger itself is around 300 calories and 15g of protein. That’s not bad at all when you compare it to the medium fries (350 Cal, 4g P) and medium drink (270 Cal, 0g P). It’s usually the sides that really drive the numbers up, not the entrée itself.

Finally, the biggest drawback of fast food concerns satiety, or rather its lack of it. Fast food is notorious for being hyperpalatable and calorically dense, but not satiating. In other words, it tastes really good, and has quite a few calories, but usually won’t keep you full for very long. That combination makes it very easy to overeat. You usually can successfully include fast food into a successful diet, but this innate feature of it makes it more difficult to do so successfully.   

Conclusion

All in all, eating out is an integral part of most people’s lives. It doesn’t have to be an inherent deal breaker for those looking to lean out or eat healthier. Just remember that everything in life is about compromises and tradeoffs, and when you find the right balance for your life, you’ll have little to worry about. 

Finally, I want to re-emphasize that there is no moral implications regarding eating out. It is not a weakness or a flaw in your diet. It is simply food. We use food for a bunch of things, including friendly socializing, cultural celebrations, and family bonding. It is a good thing and something to enjoy. Just responsibly. 

Here’s to good food!