How Many Calories in this “Healthy” Restaurant Meal?

You eat out in restaurants several times a week and make really healthy choices.  Yet you can’t lose weight. You diligently avoid the dessert and starch (ok – so one little piece of bread…) and limit your intake of wine. So what’s the problem? The problem is that these supposedly healthy restaurant meals contain more calories than you think!

So here is a typical restaurant meal:
– One glass of wine (120 calories)
– Piece of bread dipped in 2 tsp. olive oil (170 calories)
– Mixed green salad dressed with oil and vinegar (150 calories)
– Grilled salmon (8 oz) with vegetables (750 calories)

Yikes – the total caloric content of this meal is 1200 calories! And this is one of your “good” nights when you limited the wine and bread, selected fish over that pasta dish you were eyeing  and bypassed the dessert. Can you imagine the caloric content of some of your other restaurant meals?

The major calorie culprit with “healthy” restaurant meals:
Oil, oil, oil! Food tastes better when it is moist, so many chefs are rather heavy handed with the oil (I’ve taken part in many cooking demonstrations and can attest to this!) The typical amount of fat added to restaurant food is as follows:
–   1/2 tsp of oil per ounce protein. So a 8 oz piece of fish might contain 4 tsp of oil (160 cal)
– 1 tsp fat per cup of vegetable
Then of course, there is oil in your salad and oil to dip your bread in …

Caloric needs of the average person
In order to lose one pound a week, the typical woman needs about 1200-1600 calories a day, while a man needs 1600-2000 calories a day. This varies depending upon your age, weight, activity level, individual metabolism, etc.  So you can see how difficult it is for the typical woman who eats out frequently to keep her caloric intake low enough to lose weight. She might be getting all her calories for the day in this one meal!

Stay tuned for my slimming restaurant dining tips – learn tips and tricks to help you stay slim while dining out!