One of the biggest challenges facing those trying to follow a healthy diet is the local restaurant. Eating out presents special challenges, such as not knowing how the food was prepared, how much fat it contains, and whether or not the healthiest ingredients were used.

Many restaurant chains, and even some fast food restaurants, have recognized the demand for healthier menu choices, and they are working hard to satisfy that demand. All too often, however, the healthy choices on a restaurant menu are limited and unappealing. It is important, therefore to pay close attention to the menu and make the healthiest choices possible.

One of the most important thing diners can do to eat healthy at restaurants is to be proactive. Diners should not be afraid to ask how a dish is prepared, or what ingredients are used in its preparation. If the server does not know, ask him or her to check with the chef. A good chef will be happy to answer such questions, and to make modifications in the recipe if needed. In addition, most restaurants will happily accommodate special needs, such as low fat or low sodium dishes. After all, the restaurant is there to serve its patrons.

Some of our favorite tips for healthy eating in restaurants include:

• One good rule of thumb to use when dining out is to order entrees that are grilled, baked or broiled. Deep fried dishes are best avoided. If you are unsure how a dish is prepared, don’t be afraid to ask.

• Portion size is just as important at the restaurant as they are at home. That means ordering the petit fillet instead of the full size steak, requesting half size portions of French fries, and maybe even forgoing that tempting dessert. Choosing leaner cuts of meat or fish is also a good way to eat healthier.

• When choosing side dishes, ask if steamed vegetables are available. Steamed veggies are an excellent, low fat, low calorie choice for many diners. Vegetables that are fried, au gratin, or prepared in cream or butter sauces are best avoided.

• When ordering salad, ask if fat free choices are available. Most restaurants have several fat free or low fat varieties of salad dressing available. If no low fat option exists, request the dressing on the side so that you can control the amount that is used.

• When ordering soup, choose broth based soups, and avoid bisques or rich soups like cream of crab or cream of broccoli. A simple vegetable soup is a delicious and low fat alternative.

• Replace high fat, high calorie French fries with healthier alternatives such as fresh fruit or an unbuttered baked potato. Most restaurants will be happy to accommodate such special requests.

• In Italian restaurants, stick with the tomato based sauces and avoid cream or heavy Alfredo sauces. A simple pesto sauce without meat is a good choice for most pasta dishes.

• When dining at oriental restaurants, go with the steamed rice and stir fried vegetable entrees. Avoid the heavy sauces and request that your meal be prepared with less oil. In addition, try to choose dishes that feature less meat and more fresh vegetables.

• Choose a light dessert of fresh fruit or sorbet. When ordering traditional desserts, order one and share it with your dining partner.

Finally, when dining at a fast food restaurant, it is important to avoid the temptation of super sizing the meal. Fast food restaurants often make their larger portions more attractive by pricing them competitively, but a big part of healthier eating is to control portion sizes. In addition, most fast food chains now offer healthier alternatives, such as salads and baked potatoes, as well as prominently displayed nutritional information.

While dining out certainly presents challenges to those trying to enjoy a healthy lifestyle, there is no reason to forgo the pleasure of an occasional meal out. By following the guidelines listed above, and by adding some creative tips of your own, you can make dining out a healthy experience as well as a pleasant one.

Some interesting new research indicates that you are better off staying home than eating in a restaurant, if you are trying to lose weight. Given the fact that as many as two-thirds of Americans are overweight, and many people spend at least part of their day in restaurants, the findings are particularly troubling.
According to Dr. Caroline Cederquist, a physician specializing in weight management, in 1978, less than 20 percent of the calories Americans consumed were eaten outside the home. As late as 2003, the number had climbed to 50 percent. Cederquist says that restaurant food tends to be higher in calories because it relies so much on salt, sugar, and oil. Also, restaurant portions tend to be larger, making it difficult to make healthy choices. It has been estimated that restaurant servings tend to be three to four times greater than typical serving sizes. Another problem is that restaurants often serve bread or rolls with a meal, which can cause dieters to pack on the pounds.
Restaurant appetizers tend to be extremely high in calories. For instance, a basket of fried onions can pack a whopping 2,000 calories. Now, while you might not devour the entire basket yourself, chances are you will have a good share of it if it is passed around the table.
A number of restaurants now offer free refills of soda. Soda glasses also tend to be large, meaning that you are receiving greater servings of this sugary beverage. Just the soda alone can put you far over your daily recommended allowance of calories for weight loss.
Another problem is that we have been conditioned to clean our plates. With plate sizes growing in restaurants, this becomes a critical weight issue. You may feel morally obligated to eat everything that’s placed in front of you—even if your weight and health will suffer as a result.
Once people become accustomed to large portions when eating out, they tend to increase their portion sizes at home as well. As a result, dieters can be sabotaged both in restaurants and at home. If you eat out more than once a week, toning down your portion sizes can be particular difficult.
Perhaps the greatest challenge to any dieter is the restaurant buffet. There are so many different foods being offered, it is difficult to limit yourself. Also, since you can go back to the buffet as many times as you want, you may be tempted to overindulge. As a result, dieticians recommend either avoiding the restaurant buffet altogether, or limiting your second portions to fruits and vegetables.
Yet another problem is the type of entrees served in restaurants. They tend to be rich in fat and calories. Fettucini Alfredo, prime rib, and fried chicken can all cause you to gain weight. A number of restaurants are now designating low-fat entrees on their menus, a trend which bodes well for the future. However, this experiment is still limited to a small portion of restaurants—it has not yet become a widespread trend.
Of course, eating out does not necessarily mean eating at restaurants. It can also mean eating in the car, where you may be prone to non-nutritious snacking, or eating at parties held at the homes of your friends and relatives. At parties, diet-saboteurs such as potato chips and cookies tend to be plentiful; at times, you may find such goodies hard to resist. Eating at home shortly before a party may be the best way to avoid gaining unwanted pounds.
What can you do if you are forced to eat out several times a week? Make sure that you stick to your diet plan. Don’t be tempted to indulge in the wrong kinds of foods “just this once.” Select entrees that are accompanied by vegetables, and resist the urge to order dessert. Consider eating only half of your entrée and boxing up the rest for your next meal. And don’t starve yourself prior to eating out. Such a tactic will cause you to overeat once you get to the restaurant. Following sensible eating patterns, both at restaurants and at home, will help you to achieve your ideal weight.

For many of us, fast food is the only food at lunchtime. We’re in a tremendous hurry to get back to our workday, so we choose food based on convenience rather than nutritional value. In recent years, a number of fast food outlets have attempted to add more health-conscious selections to their menu; for the most part, these consist of salads and fruit cups. While they may have fewer calories than standard fast food, they may not be as tasty.

Yet, in many cities, there is an alternative to the regular burger-and-salad fare: Subway, a restaurant which specializes in six inch and foot-long submarine sandwiches. At first glance, you wouldn’t think of Subway as being a dieter’s delight—there is all that carbohydrate-rich bread and fat-filled cheeses. However, to Jared Fogle, Subway is like diet Nirvana. That’s because Jared lost 245 pounds through what he calls the Subway diet. His routine consisted of a six-inch turkey sub, sans mayonnaise and cheese, potato chips, and a diet drink for lunch. Dinner consisted of a foot-long veggie sub, also without condiments, and more diet cola. As a result of his experience, Jared has become a spokesman for Subway.

As far as exercise is concerned, Jared avoided it at the beginning. Weighing more than 400 pounds, he found it difficult to move. However, as he began losing weight, he started walking to his college classes instead of taking the bus. Eventually, he began walking 1.5 miles each day.

One of the key ingredients of Jared’s Subway diet is convenience. It is relatively simple to walk to a Subway restaurant and order subs twice a day. You don’t have to spend time shopping for food and preparing meals. If you enjoy sub sandwiches, you may find the diet easy to maintain. Since you will be consuming only about 1,000 calories, weight reduction is also guaranteed. Thus, it might be one of the most effective diets in existence today.

Of course, there are disadvantages to the Subway diet. For instance, eating the same type of subs each day can be repetitive and difficult to stomach. Also, you may lose out on vital vitamins and minerals such as vitamin D and zinc. In addition, the diet offers nothing in the way of breakfast, so you will be sacrificing the nutrients that a healthy breakfast can provide. In addition, the Subway diet can be an expensive one to follow, since you’ll have to purchase all those sub sandwiches.

However, it’s possible that you can vary Jared’s diet and still lose weight. Subway offers a number of sandwiches with six grams of fat or less. These include the six inch ham (290 calories), the six-inch chicken breast (330 calories), the six-inch roast beef (290 calories), the six-inch club (320 calories), the sweet onion chicken teriyaki (380 calories), the turkey breast (280 calories), turkey breast and ham (290 calories), and veggie delite (230 calories). Subway also offers carb-conscious wraps as an alternative to sub buns. These include the chicken bacon ranch wrap, tuna wrap, turkey and bacon melt, and turkey breast wrap. In addition, the restaurant chain now offers a number of salads which are also a healthy alternative to normal fast food fare.

One of the great advantages to Subway is the large amount of fresh vegetables which you can add to your sandwich. You can choose such items as spinach, tomatoes, lettuce, olives, green peppers, and sweet peppers. You can change the types of vegetables you use each day in order to add variety to your meal.

The critical problem with any Subway-based diet is the discipline required. Day after day, you have to limit your food intake to what is available at the Subway counter. This can be quite a challenge. While you can choose from different lunch meats, and you can combine subs with salads, you are still quite limited in your menu choices.

Is the Subway diet right for you? If you really love subs and hate to cook, Subway may offer just the meal plan you’re looking for. However, if you are not fond of subs and you want a lot of variety in your diet, you’ll have to pass up the Subway plan for another diet.

On the South Beach diet there are no restrictions on what you eat (after the first couple of weeks). The diet allows
you to eat really rich and tasty foods and desserts are on the menu too. This is a diet for everyone whether you’re a
fast food junkie, restaurant and fine dining lover or just a mad pizza muncher.

For breakfast the South Beach diet recommends foods like vegetarian quiche, Canadian bacon, western omlets, and scrambled
eggs. On their website the picture of the breakfast looks amazing, but we home bakers know that its hard to get anything
picture perfect.

The lunch advertised on their website looks fantastic as well. Grilled chicken salad is what they recommend and again the
picture looks great. More options they have told you that you can eat are chicken Caesar salad, roasted Portobello pizza,
poached salmon, seared steak, crab salad, and vegetable antipasto.

The dinner recommendation on their website is spicy seared tuna which sounds delicious. Other things on the south beach
diet recipe that they recommend are orange roughy with vegetables, merlot flank steak, boiled lamb chops with mint pesto,
and roasted chicken and vegetables.

Snacks are also allowed, twice a day, which is very rare. This is to prevent the chocolate and sweet cravings that you
often get in the afternoons when you attempt diets. Things like the laughing cow cheese slices, turkey roll ups, nuts
and many more snacks are available.

And the crème de la crème, dessert!! Enjoy chilled espresso custard, mocha ricotta crème, and once you have completed
phase two more desserts become available. Desserts like lemon cheesecake; chocolate dipped strawberries and poached pears
in red wine.

The South Beach Diet definitely has the potential to be the worlds leading diet once enough people have heard about it.
It is safe and healthy and lets you choose what you eat. The south beach diet recipe is also very well thought out and
planned. It caters for those little luxuries that everyone craves when they start a diet. The initial two week period
is brilliant as it gives people the motivation to continue the diet.

Many long term diets only see people loosing about 1-2 pounds per week and this makes people very unhappy and de-motivated
as they don’t see results quick enough. The south beach diet recipe lets people see results and allows healthy, safe
weight loss over a longer period of time which allows the body to adjust.

A lot of us live our lives like penned animals. Built to move, too often we put ourselves in a cage. We have bodies designed for racing across the savannas, but we live a lifestyle designed for migrating from the bed to the breakfast table; to the car seat; to the office chair; to the restaurant booth; to the living room couch and back to the bed.

It was not always this way. Not long ago in the United States, a man who worked on a farm did the equivalent of 15 miles of jogging every day; and his wife did the equivalent of 7 miles of jogging.

Today, our daily obligations of work and home keep us tied to our chairs, and if we want exercise, we have to seek it out.

In fact, health experts insist that obesity problem is probably caused at least as much by lack of physical activity as by eating too much. Hence, it is important that people need to move around.

However, that does not mean that a lap or two around the old high school track will offset a daily dose of donuts. Exercise alone is not very efficient, experts say. They contend that if you just exercise and do not change your diet, you may be able to prevent weight gain or even lose a few pounds for a while.

Nevertheless, it is not something that you are likely to sustain unless exercise is part of an overall program. The more regularly you exercise, the easier it is to maintain your weight. Here is what to do every day to make sure that you get the exercise you need.

1. Get quality Zzzs.

Make sure that you get adequate sleep. Good sleep habits are conducive to exercise, experts point out. If you feel worn out during the day, you are less likely to get much physical activity during the day.

In addition, there is evidence that people who are tired tend to eat more, using food as a substance for the rest they need.

2. Walk the walk.

It is probably the easiest exercise program of all. In fact, it may be all you ever have to do, according to some professional advices of some health experts.

Gradually build up to at least 30 minutes of brisk walking five times a week. Brisk walks themselves have health and psychological benefits that are well worth the while.

3. Walk the treadmill.

When the weather is bad, you might not feel like going outdoors. But if you have a treadmill in the television room, you can catch up on your favorite shows while you are doing your daily good turn for your weight-maintenance plan.

Most of us watch television anyway, and indoor exercise equipment enables anyone to turn a sedentary activity into a healthy walk.

4. Seize the time.

Excuses aside, lack of time is certainly a limiting factor in most lifestyles. That is why health experts suggest a basic guideline for incorporating exercise into your schedule.

Get as much exercise as you can that feels good without letting it interfere with your work or family life. If you need to, remind yourself that you are preventing many health problems when you prevent weight gain; and keeping your health is a gift to your family as well as yourself.