This is a post on a health-related topic. We are not medical or other trained health professionals. The information presented here was what learned about ourselves on our journey. Your journey is different and it is best to consult your doctor or other medical professional before making a change. Please see our disclaimer at Before Making Lifestyle Changes before making any changes to diet, activity, etc.
We used to like going out to eat. It was convenient, it was fun and it was entertainment. We also travel by car often which requires either carrying pre-made food or eating out. We generally opted for eating out. Over time we learned this was problematic for our calorie budget. In this post, we will talk about the problem we faced and some tricks to deal with it.
As our life became busy we learned to depend on eating out more and more. Being only two of us, it didn’t seem that expensive. It also made sense with our on-the-go lifestyle. As we started to look at our calorie needs, things changed. While our goals were primarily weight loss, the same problem occurs for people adding weight. We started to realize that portion sizes and ingredients are completely unpredictable.
Restaurants are Business Competing for Your Dollar
The draw of a restaurant is not just about food. A restaurant is an experience. It is a place where we hang out with friends. We go there to have something unique we may not be able to make at home. We may need a place on the road to grab something. It may also be a place to flaunt some extra cash or reward someone. It’s part of our culture in the US and around the world.
A restaurant is a business. To keep its customers happy it must provide great service, good food, and most importantly; value. Value is subjective. What many people see as value is quantity; how much did I get for my money? Don’t believe me? Ask yourself why menus have sizes and quantities on items like steaks and prawns and not broccoli. They aren’t there for accounting purposes. The reason they are there is so you know the cost of the additional spend on protein.
Restaurants have been in their own arms race around portion size for years. We have been somewhat trained to want more. You can read about things like Big Mac vs Whopper here. According to the History Channel, Wendy’s founder Dave Thomas also invented 3 sizes of hamburgers just to get people to buy the middle size more often than the small one which increased his revenue.
Cool Story, so What?
Why is this a problem for people on a calorie budget?
- We found portion sizes were completely unpredictable.
- Understanding the calories of the meal was hard since we didn’t know how it was made
Coming from families that chastised people for wasting food, we also ran into the problem of not feeling good about leaving food on the table. We will discuss this in another post as a different problem to be addressed. The point is the usual advice you receive is to save half for later. When traveling it wasn’t possible to take home leftovers due to spoilage dangers of being in the zone too long.
It was More than the Calories We were Wasting
As an aside, remember you are paying for a restaurant experience. That includes the server, food, experience, etc. As a result, you are also paying a premium for the calories you are eating. We don’t buy a gallon of milk if we only need a pint. Why? We don’t want to throw our money away on things we don’t use. Ask yourself then, why would you pay for the extra calories you don’t need?
Hidden in this little epiphany that we were paying for calories sparked some very large changes for us in our lives. It became something more fundamental than weight. We will discuss this in another post but do ponder what your costs are here.
Some Tips to Help
The answer you expect when discussing calorie goals and eating out is the normal draconian battle cry Stop Eating Out! That just isn’t sustainable for most in our society. We had to account for our eating out occasionally. Here is how we approached it.
- Review the restaurant online and look at the pictures people took. You can get a good idea of the portion sizes from those pictures.
- While you are seated glance around at plate sizes. The portions will match the plate size.
- Wait to order until you see someone’s meal delivered. You will get an idea of portion sizes from what you see brought from the kitchen.
- Ask the server for the sizes. Some servers will simply tell you the plate can feed two.
- Read the menu. When you order a burger realize that portion size follows patty size. There will be a difference in overall plate size of a ¼ lb hamburger and a ½ lb burger.
- Control portion sizes through appetizers. There have been a few times we have decided to split some wings and mozzarella sticks over a full-blown entree.
- Split the plate with someone. This allows you to control how much you are getting.
- Ask them to leave off or replace a side. I don’t need buttered bread with my hashbrowns.
- Make only one meal when ordering a combo at a restaurant. We often share a side of fries and drinks at the local fast food and roadside burger joints.
- Ask for a take-out container immediately if something is too big. This gives you a chance to split the plate for later.
- Leave food on the table if needed. While we both hate doing this, our other goals come first.
But I Want to Gain
This post only seemingly addresses portion sizes that are too large. For people trying to add weight, this may not be a problem. A basic search of Google will show that 100g of home-prepared fries are about half the calories of 100g of restaurant fries. The reality is, you don’t know until you look it up or try to log it in a food app. 100 grams is roughly 3.5 ounces which generally doesn’t cover those portions at many restaurants. Make that 7 oz of fries and cup of gravy such as an order of Poutine and you may hit 800 calories.
We are not nutritionists or medical professionals and don’t feel right discussing nutrition with other people. Still, we think most people would agree that those calories aren’t exactly balanced and you may want to make a different choice.
This post didn’t fully address the problem of travel and restaurants. We will discuss where fast food, food trucks, and gas station hot cases can help when on the road. We have found there is a time and place for them.
The portion problem is real for a lot of us. This post should have given you some tools on how to eat out but maintain a calorie budget. You don’t need to stop eating out. By doing some planning and observations, you can help maintain your goals more easily. Simply being cognizant of the portion problem will help you.