The South Beach Diet Dining Guide: Your Reference Guide to Restaurants Across America

Book by Agatston Arthur

DINING OUT

ON THE SOUTH BEACH DIET

You have a busy life. Chances are that work and family keep you on the go, and preparing home-cooked meals may be difficult because of time constraints. Finding a healthy lunch in the middle of a hectic day is often just as hard, and eating a good breakfast at home may be a rare event. In fact, if you're like most Americans, you purchase at least one meal a day at some sort of restaurant.

And that's just on an ordinary day. What about weekends, holidays, special occasions, travel days, business dinners, and all the other times you're away from your own kitchen? Does this mean putting your South Beach Diet on hold?

Not at all.

One of the best things about the South Beach Diet is that it's easy to dine out--and still eat well--while following the principles of the program. No matter what phase you're on, you can continue to lose weight and improve your health, whether you're grabbing a take-out order or enjoying dinner with family, friends, or business associates at a fine restaurant.

The first, and most important, step in sticking to the South Beach Diet when eating out is to keep the following ground rules in mind:

Choose unprocessed, unrefined carbohydrates, such as whole grains, whole fruits, and fresh vegetables.

Enjoy plenty of lean protein, such as chicken, fish, certain cuts of meat, low-fat dairy, and reduced-fat cheese.

Choose foods that are high in good fats, such as fish, avocados, and nuts, and make sure your foods are prepared with healthy oils such as olive oil or canola.

Avoid foods that are high in saturated fat, such as fatty cuts of beef, bacon, processed meats such as salami, and full-fat cheese.

Eat plenty of fiber--it's found in fruits, vegetables, nuts, beans, seeds, and whole grains.

Avoid refined carbohydrates such as white bread, cake, candy, white rice, and other processed foods that are high in sugar and often high in fat as well.

Avoid added sugar. Choose diet soft drinks, for instance, and watch out for hidden sugars in salad dressings and sauces.

Once you have the ground rules down, you'll also need to master some proven strategies that will help you enjoy your restaurant meals even more.

Key Strategies for Restaurant Dining

Dining out is one of life's pleasures, but it's also a challenge when you're trying to maintain a healthy diet. At home you can control what you put on your plate, but when you eat out, you're bound to come up against some common pitfalls: oversized portions, tempting refined carbs, extra ingredients that add bad fat and bad carbs, and of course menus that don't offer many South Beach Diet--friendly options. The following tips will help you stick to your healthy eating plan.

Have a protein snack before you leave the house.

By eating something with protein--a hard-boiled egg or a piece of reduced- fat cheese, for example--about 15 minutes before you arrive at the restaurant, you'll take the edge off your appetite. If you're not ravenous while you're reading the menu, you'll be able to make better food choices.

Banish the bread basket.

And the tortilla chips basket. And the crispy noodle basket. They're all filled with bad (refined) carbs, such as rolls made from white flour or deep-fried tortilla chips. Eating these carbs will give you a glucose jolt that could raise your blood sugar, and you might end up feeling hungrier. If it's okay with your fellow diners, ask your server to remove the basket before you even have a chance to nibble. If not, wait until everyone has taken some and then ask the server to remove the basket. (If that's not appropriate for the group you're with, at least position the basket as far from yourself as possible.) Once you're on Phase 2 or 3, you can indulge in a slice from the bread basket--as long as it is made from whole grains. To prevent a rapid rise in blood sugar, dip the bread into olive oil or even spread a little butter on it. The added calories are offset by the feeling of fullness that the fat adds.

Order soup.

If possible, order a cup of soup--the dieter's friend--as soon as you're seated. Look for soups that are rich in vegetables and that aren't cream- based, or order clear broth or consomme. The beauty of soup is that it fills you up, so you're not so hungry when it comes time to order from the rest of the menu. It also sends a message to your brain that you're eating and will be full soon. Since it takes about 20 minutes for that message to travel from your stomach to your brain, by the time your main course arrives, you'll already be on the way to feeling satiated.

Ask for extra veggies instead of starches.

Main courses usually come with starchy side dishes, such as white rice or mashed potatoes, which are undesirable foods for South Beach dieters on Phase 1 and 2. Ask instead for extra green vegetables, such as broccoli or string beans, or for a small green salad. Today, this is a routine request in many restaurants--and your server should be happy to help.

Pick healthy cooking methods.

Stay away from anything on the menu that appears to be coated or battered and fried. If the dish comes with a rich butter or cheese sauce, ask for it on the side. Stick to cooking methods--such as roasting, broiling, baking, grilling, steaming, and even sauteing--that don't add bad fats.

Have a (nonalcoholic) drink or two.

When your server asks if you want something from the bar, order a glass of water or diet soda. Sip it instead of a mixed drink or beer, and order another to go with your meal. Beyond Phase 1, have a glass of red or white wine along with your food--this is a form of alcohol that's not only acceptable but good for you.

Enjoy dessert--within reason.

The South Beach Diet is a lifestyle, and life without dessert would be no fun at all! But you have to make the right choices. Skip high-fat, high- sugar desserts. After Phase 1, if the menu offers fresh fruit, like berries or melon, that's your best choice. If you decide to indulge in something more decadent, use common sense. Ask the server to bring extra forks, limit yourself to three bites, and then share the rest with your fellow diners. After you've been on the South Beach Diet for a while, you may well find that your sweet tooth is more than satisfied with a small portion.

Casual Dining

The average American eats in a chain restaurant specializing in fast food at least once a week. What's wrong with the food at these casual quick- serve restaurants? A lot. Let's start with the fact that the emphasis at most chains is on big, sweet, fat, and fast. There's no denying that most fast food is typically high in calories, saturated fats (from the meats and cooking oil), trans fats, and refined carbohydrates (from all those buns, pizza crusts, and french fries) and low in fiber (think pickle slice). That means you're getting a faster rise in blood sugar from the bad carbs--one that's not offset by any fiber. The overall effect of this can leave you feeling unsatisfied by your meal. So, while you're still in the restaurant, you end up ordering more food--usually a dessert high in refined carbs and fat--just to feel full. And even if you do feel full, the sensation probably won't last, and you'll be on the lookout for a snack just an hour or two later.

Estimating Portion Size

Portions in restaurants have ballooned over the past couple of decades. Though on the South Beach Diet you should eat until you feel satiated, eating two or three times a normal serving of food means you could be getting a lot more calories, fat, and carbohydrates from your restaurant meal than you realize--and you may keep eating even after you're full simply because it's there. Use these simple tricks to eyeball your portions and get an idea of how oversized they really are:

3 1/2 ounces of meat, fish, or poultry is about the size of a deck of cards or a computer mouse.

8 ounces of meat, fish, or poultry is roughly the size of a thin paperback book.

1 cup of brown rice or whole-wheat pasta is about the size of a tennis ball.

A small roll is about the size of a small pack of tissues.

2 tablespoons of salad dressing is 1 ounce, or 1/8 of a cup--enough to fill one compartment in an ice-cube tray.

As a South Beach dieter, you obviously know that it's best to avoid quick- serve restaurants whenever possible. We do live in a fast-food world, however, and realistically speaking, you're going to end up in one of these places now and then. Luckily, there are South Beach Diet solutions that will still let you make good choices among the menu options at most chain and family restaurants, whether it's a hamburger, chicken, or pizza restaurant, a cafeteria, or a Mexican eatery.

Hamburger Restaurants

There are more than 12,000 McDonald's restaurants in the United States, over 8,000 Burger Kings, and over 6,000 Wendy's, to say nothing of all the other burger chains. They're every-where--and that makes them hard to avoid, especially when you're in a hurry. The good news is that today just about all hamburger restaurants have made an effort to accommodate people who are trying to follow a healthy eating plan. Instead of a cheeseburger on a bun with special sauce, you can now easily ask for a bunless burger on a plate, without the sauce and the ketchup. You can even get a side salad instead of those tempting high-fat fries.

What's in Your Fast Food?

Almost all fast-food chain restaurants now provide detailed nutritional information about their food on their Web sites, including calorie counts, amounts of fat and saturated fat, carbohydrates, and fiber; some chains will soon be providing the nutritionals on the packaging. You can usually find out exactly what's in the standard menu items, although "limited-time" and "seasonal" offerings aren't always there. In addition, many of the chain Web sites now offer nutrition calculators that let you put together an imaginary meal and see precisely what it comes out to in terms of nutrients. The next time you get a hankering for a late-night fast-food meal, try using the nutritional calculator first. It will help you make the wisest decision about what to eat when you arrive at the restaurant.

But keep in mind that even a bunless burger is still potentially high in saturated fat and should be avoided if there are better choices available. Fortunately, many burger restaurants now offer meal-size salads topped with grilled chicken or shrimp. If you order one of these, be sure to skip the croutons or Parmesan toasts, and take care with the salad dressings--many are loaded with added sugar. As far as drinks go, avoid the supersized shakes and sugary sodas; choose diet soda, coffee, or water instead.

Chicken Chains

At most quick-serve chicken restaurants, fried chicken is the main attraction. Watch out for all the ways this type of restaurant can try to sell you fried chicken by calling it something else, like crispy, crunchy, coated, nugget, or popcorn. And that's not all that's fried: The chicken is generally accompanied by your choice of french fries, fried onion rings, fried zucchini sticks, or fried mozzarella sticks.

Luckily, at just about all the chicken chains, grilled chicken breasts are now on the menu in one way or another. And some places, like Boston Market, are adding rotisserie chicken to their offerings. You can usually get a grilled chicken Caesar salad or ask for a green salad to go under or with your grilled or rotisserie chicken. At some franchises you can even get a green vegetable such as string beans to round out your meal.

There may be times, however, when you're just stuck with the fried chicken. In that case, simply pull off and discard as much of the coating as you can.

Pizza Places

According to pizza industry sources, the average American eats 46 slices of pizza a year. As a South Beach dieter, you're not in this camp, but you can still occasionally enjoy your pizza if you're on Phase 2 or 3. Just do it the healthier way. Almost all chain pizza restaurants now offer a thin- crust option, which cuts back on the amount of refined carbs you get from a slice. Most also make a veggie pizza, which means you get good vegetables like green peppers and mushrooms while avoiding the saturated fats from pep- peroni, sausage, and other full-fat meat toppings (although you could add some grilled chicken if the chain offers it). Keep in mind that even thin- crust pizza has its drawbacks: the high fat content of the mozzarella cheese (you can ask for less cheese on your order) and the sugar that's sometimes added to the tomato sauce. Some more upscale pizza chains like Uno Chicago Grill now offer sirloin steak and steamed or roasted veggies as menu options.

So order a slice of thin-crust veggie pizza and ask for a side salad--most pizza chains offer them now. But stay away from all the other side offerings, such as chicken wings, breadsticks, cheese sticks, cinnamon sticks, and anything that comes with a dipping sauce.

Mexican Fast Food

Mexican food is perhaps the fastest growing area of fast-food chains. While Mexican dishes do offer a change from hamburgers, when they're prepared American style (which means an abundance of bad fats), they can still be a challenge to South Beach dieters.

A lot of the newer quick-serve Mexican chains are sit-down, and you'll have to immediately pass up the deep-fried tortilla chips that arrive at your table even before you order. At these places and at others like Taco Bell and Del Taco that offer drive-thru, you'll have to resist ordering the tacos, burritos, quesadillas, and chimichangas (deep-fried flour tortillas filled with meat and cheese). That's unless you can get them "bare" or "naked," which means ordering the filling without the flour or corn tortilla. (If you're on Phase 2, a whole-wheat tortilla is allowed.) Best to stick to the grilled items, such as chicken, shrimp, or steak. You can also enjoy the pinto beans and black beans, but skip the fat-laden refried beans and the rice.

The good news is that fresh salsa is a highly acceptable SBD condiment, and guacamole is a great source of good fat from the avocados. Enchilada and tomatillo sauces are also usually okay if they're freshly made and don't have added sugar, but try to stay away from full-fat sour cream and full- fat cheese.

Cafeteria Chains