Eating Out the Healthy Way
Even the best planned diet can come unstuck at a Christmas party, birthday dinner or barbecue. Often the temptations are just too great. Yet models have some of the most active social lives of anyone, so exactly how do they do it and stay so slim?
It take real discipline, but there are also plenty of tips and tricks that we use as models. Events like these are not just for fun, they are a part of the social networking that goes into a successful modeling career. This page is about how models manage to diet successfully without compromising a fun social life.
Restaurant Food
When faced with a delicious menu, its all too easy to let your stomach do the ordering rather than your brain! Here are some tips to help you stay on track when eating out in a restaurant.
- At buffets, pick up the smallest plate you can find. Whatever size you choose, you will usually feel compelled to fill it!
- Before dinner, drink a cup of green tea or some Perrier with a slice of lemon. Both will help to reduce your appetite. Going to a restaurant when you're really hungry is tempting fate.
- Don't follow the crowd and order a 3 course meal. If you feel that you have to, try to choose light options like a consommé, fruit plate or sorbet.
- Order an appetizer instead of a main course - portions have grown in recent years and you really don't need more.
- Don't order anything with sauce. That grilled chicken may sound light, but not if its drowning in a creamy sauce! In an Italian restaurant, order the tomato-based sauces rather than the cream-based ones.
- Order your food steamed, baked, grilled or poached, rather than fried or deep fried.
- Substitute salad for the fries or potatoes that come with your meal.
- Watch your salad dressing! Caesar salad can be just as fattening as a burger.
- If the waiter brings you bread before the meal, send it right back or you'll end up full before the meal.
- You don't need to finish the whole meal, or have that extra helping. Most restaurants are happy to provide a doggy bag.
- Be prepared to face diet saboteurs - when your friend says "go ahead, the cheesecake here is divine, one piece won't hurt", remember that you chose a healthy main course. Why blow it with an extra 400 calories!
Cocktail Parties
After a couple of drinks and a few rounds of the hors d'oeuvres tray, you suddenly realize that you've consumed about 3,000 calories without even realizing it. That's a pretty typical experience around Christmas time, but there are simple ways to survive a cocktail party without putting on five pounds.
- Foods to avoid on the snacks table - samosas, chicken nuggets etc. Stay away from anything fried or covered in sauce.
- By drinking Diet Coke with your cocktail, you can control your appetite and be better prepared when the hors d'oeuvres come around.
- Find a place far away from the snacks table and do all your socializing there. Don't be one of those people loitering around the hors d'oeuvres!
- Limit yourself to one snack at a time. Eating slowly will help you to eat less.
- Aim for dishes like the hummus platter, with carrot and celery to dip. Even though hummus has a lot of calories, eating the vegetables will help.
During the holidays it's important not to tell yourself it's the holidays and pig out thoughtlessly. Before you know it from Thanksgiving until New Years will add up to 10-15 lbs. You can keep the scale from creeping too much up if you try to stay on track somewhat.
Alcoholic Drinks
When you have a birthday party or a work event to go to, its often extremely hard to avoid having a drink or two. Here are some tips to make sure that you don't ruin your diet in the process.
- Light beers have fewer calories and will slow down your drinking.
- Order your drinks with soda instead of tonic. Tonic has a surprising number of calories. The fruit juices in bars are full of sugar and even worse.
- For a little more flavor to your drink, try Diet Coke or Diet Sprite as a mixer.
- Try a white wine spritzer (white wine and soda). Its a great low calorie summer drink.
- If you need to have a glass of wine, drink it with your meal rather than beforehand. Otherwise it will stimulate your appetite and destroy any willpower
