Everyone wants to lose weight. It might seem like an exaggeration but it definitely seems to be true that most people are not happy with their weight or physical appearance and feel like they could stand to lose a few pounds or alter their body image. This has led to many people going on many different diets. There are hundreds of them out there – maybe even thousands, and every single one makes claims to be the best and offer you the ideal way to lose weight.
One such example of this is the DASH diet, which is a diet that emphasises healthy eating to help to treat or prevent high blood pressure, or hypertension. The main principal of the DASH diet is to reduce your intake of sodium and promote the eating of foods that are rich in nutrients. DASH stands for Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension. But what happens when you’d like a night off from cooking at home?
If you’ve decided to go out for dinner, it can be a worry that you’ll kill off your diet. That’s because eating out generally involves large amounts of fat, salt and sugar. This is especially true of a diet like the DASH diet, where there is a very serious amount of importance placed on the foods that you avoid, and that you should do everything you can to avoid salt. We’ve produced a simple list of tips to make things easier for you. Keeping these tips in mind, you can dine out and still follow the DASH diet.
So, the top tip when dining out and trying to stay on the DASH diet is that you should find ways to cut back on salt basically any way that you can. It is completely OK to ask for your food to be prepared with less salt and other sodium heavy products. Most restaurants will be very accommodating to your wishes. Of course, another good idea is to limit your consumption of condiments which are often full of salt, and especially to remember to avoid adding any salt to the meal yourself with the salt shaker. Choose fruits and vegetables rather than salty options for your appetiser and be mindful of how likely certain dishes on the menu are likely to be packed with salt. Best avoid those anchovies and olives!
Another great move is to reduce your consumption of unhealthy fats. Once again this could be an example of a time where you can ask for your food to be cooked a different way – it’s worth choosing olive oil instead of butter or other very bad fats. Other great tips include asking for vinegar and olive oil for a salad dressing instead of one that is high in other bad fats. You should do your best to trim off any visible fats from your meat or poultry.
Don’t forget that’s easy to slip up at any time during the meal when you are in a restaurant. When selecting a drink try to choose something that does not have lots of sugar in it. When you’re about to choose an appetiser, you should select something that does not have lots of fat or sugar. When you’re going about selecting a main course you should try to avoid foods that have been cooked in unhealthy ways and instead choosing something that has been steamed or boiled. And perhaps the easiest place to slip up comes when you’re choosing your desert. It might be best just to avoid this course altogether or opt for fruit.
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