Eating out while trying to lose weight I 5 Diet tips for eating out
In this instructional YouTube video, Eric Roberts addresses the common fear that dining out will sabotage weight‑loss progress. He emphasizes that perfection isn’t required—consistency is the key driver of results. Roberts then outlines five concrete strategies for enjoying restaurant meals while staying in a calorie deficit. First, he encourages viewers to accept imperfection and keep a consistent tracking habit. Second, he advises pre‑checking chain restaurant menus for calorie information, estimating portions when data isn’t available, adding a default tablespoon of olive‑oil calories, and deliberately over‑estimating calories to avoid accidental over‑eating. Third, he introduces the “one‑plate rule,” which limits a meal to a single plate divided into half vegetables, a quarter protein, and a quarter carbs, and recommends eating protein and veg before carbs. Fourth, he promotes setting “bright lines”—clear, black‑and‑white personal guidelines for portions, drinks, and appetizers—to eliminate ambiguity. Finally, he stresses planning the rest of the day’s intake around the restaurant meal, swapping lower‑calorie foods earlier, prioritizing protein and veg, and warns against starving before a meal because it backfires. Throughout, Roberts balances empathy with practical advice, reassuring viewers that occasional slip‑ups are fine as long as they return to the plan the next day.
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YouTube, what is going on? Welcome to the video. Welcome back to the channel. In this video, we're going to be talking about going out to eat and still losing weight. I know that for a lot of people, you feel like when you go out to eat, it might ruin your progress, and you don't know exactly how many calories are in the food. And more times than not, the food is higher in calories, and all of this stuff comes up and you feel like you're again, you're ruining your progress. You feel very guilty. You don't know how to, you know, manage possibly having a social life while still being able to lose weight. And those things can coexist, I promise you. And we're going to talk all about that in this video here today. I'm going to give you my 5 top tips to help you be able to— because listen, let's, let's be honest here, and if you follow any of my content, you know You have to be able to go out to eat. Like, it's— you have to be able to live a real life and still lose weight. I mean, you can try to stay in your house forever and only eat prepped food and all this kind of stuff, and like, it's— you might last a week or 2 or 3, I don't know, but it's not gonna last forever. So I need you to be able to go out into the real world and still be able to feel confident enough in yourself to be able to make smart and good decisions while you're going out to eat, going to social events, whatever the case may be. And still seeing progress with your weight loss goals, because you can do both. It won't be easy, but you can do both. It doesn't have to be one or the other. So the first thing I'm going to say, and, you know, again, people probably tell me, oh, put this at the end because it's the most important thing. And if there's one thing I need you to understand, it's gonna be this. First off, you're not gonna be perfect, and that's okay, because you don't need to be perfect in order to see weight loss progress. You just need to be consistent. One of the biggest things, if not the biggest thing I see, is when people go out to eat, they think, oh, I can't use my food scale, I can't count my calories, I won't know how many calories it is. And they almost get frustrated, they almost get emotionally, whether it's pissed off or sad or they feel guilty or whatever those emotions are coming up, it's like a very emotional thing when you're going out to eat, which by the way, kinda takes away from the entire experience because normally when you go out to eat, You know, you're going with your friends or your spouse or whoever it is and it's a good time. You want to enjoy the time, you want to enjoy the food, you don't got to cook the food, like, it's normally a good thing. But people take it so far to the extreme where they don't even enjoy the experience or like it or have any fun at all because they're so pissed off or they're so concerned with ruining all their progress because they can't be 100% perfect with their calorie counting or with their nutrition or whatever the case may be. Just number one, realize that you're not gonna be perfect, and that's okay because you do not have to be perfect in order to continue to see progress. I don't care how bad you eat one night. You could eat everything in the entire restaurant. Everybody could look at you and be like, oh my God, this person has literally ate every single thing on the menu, like holy hell. I don't care because what would happen? You get back on track the next day and you keep going and you keep seeing progress because As long as you're consistent, you'll see progress. But if you use that as an excuse to just quit altogether because you can't be perfect, that's when you stop seeing progress because you stop, you quit. So, number 1, you're not gonna be perfect. You're not gonna know exactly how many calories. You're not gonna— you're not going to be perfect. And that's okay, 'cause you don't have to be. Because, again, consistency is the biggest thing. So, that's number 1. And please, you know, I'm gonna— we're gonna talk about stuff here today, my other top 4 tips here today. That are going to help you stay on track, be consistent, all those things. Again, coexist these 2 things— going out to eat and still being able to lose weight. But just remember, like, you're not gonna know exactly to the T how many calories you're eating, or you won't be exactly perfect. And that's all right, it's okay. All right, so it's number one. Number 2, when talking about calories, there's a few things that we can talk about right here. Number one, if you're going to any chain restaurant or fast food restaurant or anything along these lines, 9.9 times out of 10, they're gonna have their calorie limit either posted in whatever calorie counting app you are using or on their website. And so what I would say is just a few things here. Number one, before you go out to eat, you can just look ahead at the menu on their website. You're probably watching this off your phone right now. You can just go ahead on your phone, go to your internet, Look up the website, see how many calories these things are, pick which meal you want. You can fit it into your calories for the day. 2 thumbs up, good to go. You know, it might take you— again, this is where I say it might not be easy. It might take you an extra 5 or 10 minutes to like look up the menu, think about what you wanna eat, all that kinda stuff, but you'll be able to fit your calories into— fit the calories of the meal you're going out to eat into your daily calories for the day. And that's how you can coexist. You can still eat out. And still hit your calories, which means you would get the best of both worlds where you're eating out, enjoying it, still hitting calories, still seeing weight loss progress. And so that's number one by far. I would try to, if you're going to any chain or fast food, look ahead, look at the menu, see how many calories these things are, see which meal you might be able to fit into your calories. And whether it's the full meal, whether you say, hey, you know what, I'm gonna have this meal, but I'm only gonna have half of the meal because I wanna save the other half for the next day. Or whatever the case may be, you can already start to plan out how you can be able to fit these things into your diet and still be able to lose weight. Like for example, very recently myself, I'm currently on a calorie deficit and what I did was I went, I went to Chick-fil-A recently and I wanted to go there cause I just like Chick-fil-A. And so what I did was I looked up, okay, cool, you know, the chicken sandwich is X amount of calories, fries are X amount of calories, and sometimes you'd be surprised, like even though you're eating out, it's Sometimes it is a ton of calories, let's be honest, but sometimes it's not. And you can absolutely work it into your nutrition for that day. And again, what this all comes back to is eating in an overall calorie deficit. So as long as you're in this overall calorie deficit, you will be able to see body fat loss progress. And so if you fit these things in by looking it up beforehand, 2 thumbs up, good to go, man. So that's number one. I would say 2 things when you're going out to eat. Let's just say for ex— and then Piggybacking right off this, let's just say you're going to a restaurant or going out to eat where they don't have the calories listed. Again, it's totally fine because a few things here. Number one, let's just say you have been tracking calories for a month, 2 months, 3 months, whatever the case may be. You're gonna start to learn what, you know, 100 grams of rice looks like. You're gonna start to learn what 200 grams of chicken breast looks like, and you can guesstimate to To the best of your ability. It's not gonna be perfect. You're not gonna be perfect, okay? You're not gonna be perfect. And even if they do have calories listed, you might not be 100% perfect. That's fine. Do the best you can. I see so many times people go out to eat and like they use this, oh well, I can't count the calories, and they just like, they completely just go and eat everything. And it's like, well, why'd you do that? Well, I don't know how many calories it is, so I might as well just eat whatever I want. It's like, well, you don't have to turn into an animal. Like, you can still eat like a normal human being. You don't have to eat like an asshole just 'cause you don't know how many calories are in the food you're eating. Like, you can— and we're gonna talk about that here in a second, but you don't have to go balls to the walls crazy. You can still eat like a normal human being, so keep that in mind. And again, guesstimate to the best of your ability, and we're gonna talk about some things here in a second, so give me one second. Number 1, add this. So whenever you're going out to eat, what I tell my clients all the time is just, if you are tracking calories, add a tablespoon of olive oil to wherever you go out to eat because 9.9 times out of 10, where you are going out to eat is going to cook in at least a tablespoon of olive oil because they don't care how many calories it is. They just want it to taste really good so you come back, you say really good things about them, leave good reviews, all that stuff. They don't care how many calories is in the food. So what I would say is just make sure when you're going out to eat, let's just say you are going to a restaurant or going to Chick-fil-A or wherever, just input into your tracker 1 tablespoon of olive oil, roughly 120 calories. Just already account for that because they probably cooked in olive oil, at the very least a tablespoon. So just already account for that and take that into consideration. And that leads to the next point, which is just wherever you're going, overestimate. So let's just say, again, you cannot be 100% perfect. That's okay. I would rather you look at a piece of food, look at a meal and say, there's no way this is 1,000 calories. And then you go into your MyFitnessPal or whatever app you're tracking and input 1,000 calories. Why? Because, number one, you don't know, and again, you don't know how much oil they use and all this kind of stuff, which is totally fine. But if you overestimate, you're either going to overestimate and you'll actually be under, which is a good thing if you're trying to lose weight, or you'll overestimate and you'll be spot on, which means, like, you'll be spot on and you'll hit your calories for the day. As opposed to underestimating where, again, you very easily could go well over that And, you know, that might lead you to frustration. Oh my God, I thought I hit my calories. Why am I not losing weight? All this kind of stuff. So, I would just say overestimate it. If you, again, if you look at a meal and you're like, there's no way that's 1,000 calories, put 1,000 calories or whatever the number is because I would much rather you overestimate because that way you're safe either way. If it's less than what you put in, sweet, you're good to go then. If it's exactly what you put in, sweet. And also, remember this, I'll leave this here. I would much rather you, when it comes to eating out, here's what I'm gonna end with 'cause I started with this. You're not gonna be perfect. And I would much rather you go over your calories by, say, 200 because, like, you know, you had a meal that was a bit higher in calories or whatever. And I would rather you do that as opposed to saying, screw this, I don't know how many calories I'm eating, I can't be perfect, I can't do this, I can't do that. And then just eating everything, just eating all of it and going 2,000 calories over. Like, why— where does that make any sense? I would much rather you go over calories by 200 or 300 calories and just, like, be okay with it and keep on moving, which, by the way, would probably still be a calorie deficit for you, which means you would still be in your goals, but whatever. I'd much rather you go over calories by 200 or 300 than go over calories by 2,000 or 3,000. So remember, something is better than nothing. Just because you don't— you can't be 100% perfect, Doesn't mean you should just eat like an asshole. Like, you can still eat like a regular normal human being. And that leads me into the next point, which is use this rule, which is— I use this rule with all of my clients, works so well. If you actually follow it, it works so well. It's called the one plate rule. Basically what the one plate rule is, is basically what it sounds like. You— whatever meal you're having, it's gotta fit on one plate. It has to fit on one plate, and a regular sized plate, not a lunch tray and not like an appetizer plate. A regular plate. Make sure whatever you eat fits on one plate and also make sure that 1/2 of that plate is made up of some sort of vegetables. Some sort of— eat the rainbow, some sort of vegetables. Make sure 1/4 of the plate is made up of protein. Make sure 1/4 of the plate is made up of carbohydrates. Why do we do this? What is this rule about? Why is it so effective? Remember, when it comes to losing weight, Your overall total calories for the day is what matters most. Okay? So, this is a way of, like, counting calories and controlling your calorie intake without necessarily counting calories. Because let's think about it for a second. If all of the food you're eating is on one plate, and, like, granted, like, you know, you could stack 12 pancakes on one plate, but, you know, if you wanna do that, go ahead, but within reason. If all of your food's on one plate, If half of the plate is vegetables, if a fourth is protein, and then a fourth is carbs, you can only eat but so many calories doing that. Really, like, you can only eat but so many calories doing that. And this is where, again, I say like, you don't have to eat like an asshole. You still can eat like a normal human being. And like, so for example, let's say you're going out to eat and like your normal meal— I don't know, I'm just gonna pick 3 random foods. Let's say your normal meal would have been chicken breasts with sweet potatoes with asparagus, right? Let's just say that would have been your normal meal. When you go out to eat, you don't have to say, oh, well, you know what, like, I'm just— now I can't be perfect and I'm just gonna have the 2 pasta plates, I'm gonna have the nachos, I'm gonna have 4 drinks. I'm like, again, nothing wrong with any of those foods. You can absolutely eat whatever food you would enjoy or like, but just because you're not perfect doesn't mean you have to like turn into this animal where you're just like this inhaling garbage disposal of food. Like, you can still eat the same way you would have ate when you were at home. Like, you do know that, right? And again, I understand sometimes whatever restaurant you may go to might be a bit different, but there's no reason you You still can't have protein, vegetables, carbohydrates. Wherever you go, you're probably gonna be able to have all of those 3 things. Make it fit on 1 plate. This is going to control your overall calories 'cause you can only eat but so many calories, especially if half the plate is vegetables and a fourth of the plate is protein. All right? So the 1 plate rule works tremendously. Again, I don't really care where you are or what you're doing, like, that is going to help you massively with controlling overall calorie intake, which means, again, you're gonna help yourself stay lean. on track with your overall calories for the day, 'cause that is what matters the most. So a few quick tips here. Number 1, when it comes to— and this is for not just this rule, but in general— when it comes to vegetables eating out at restaurants, one little hack, and I do this 'cause I just don't like it, but a lot of places will just douse their vegetables in like butter or oil, and I just don't like the way it tastes, and so that's why I kind of found this out, but— Again, that's, you know, adding probably 100 to 300 calories just from the oil or butter on top of your vegetables. So, what I would say is just, I mean, if you like it, maybe go for it, maybe ask for a bit less, but I just tell them, hey, can you please not douse, can you not bathe my asparagus in broccoli? I'm sorry, bathe my asparagus in broccoli. Can you not bathe my asparagus in olive oil or butter, please? 'Cause I just don't like the way it tastes. And like, they never have a problem. They're like, alright, cool, like no worries. So, if you wanna save some calories that way as well, just ask them when you get your vegetables, hey, either go lighter on the butter or the oil or just not use it altogether. That will save you a ton of calories 'cause those are very high in calories. So, a little quick pro tip right there. But also number 2, when you're going with the one plate rule, eat all of your vegetables and all of your protein before you eat the carbohydrates. So, let's say again, I'm just using random foods. You're getting some sort of roasted chicken, you're getting some sort of sweet potato, and you're getting some sort of asparagus, right? Excuse me. Before you go into eating the sweet potato, have all of the vegetables and have all of the protein. Why is this? It's gonna help fill you up. So when you get to your carbohydrate, you are more full, which means inevitably, not just in that meal but over the rest of the course of the night or the day or whatever, you're gonna eat less calories 'cause you're more full. And if you eat less calories, you're gonna help yourself stay in your— stay Stay in your calorie deficit, which means you will help yourself lose weight that much more. So eat all of your protein, eat all of your vegetables before you eat any of the carbohydrates, whether it's, I don't know, pasta or rice or whatever the case may be. Eat protein, eat vegetables beforehand, use the one plate rule, control your overall calorie intake, and rock it out. All right? So that's number 3. Number 4, bright lines. This is something that my good pal and mentor Jordan Syatt talks about all the time and I love it. And it's just a great way to kind of think about it. Bright lines are basically like just you're setting very clear, very concise guidelines for yourself. You're making a plan. So many people go out to eat and they're like, oh, I'm gonna eat healthy. It's like, well, what does that mean? Like, what— I'm gonna stay on track. Like, how? What, what does that mean? How are you going to do that? Setting these bright lines just means setting very clear, concise, no gray area, very black and white guidelines for yourself. So like, for example, Let's say you're going to a Mexican restaurant and you wanna have some of the chips and salsa, which like I would hope you do 'cause they're amazing, as opposed to saying, all right, I'm gonna try to limit myself on the chips and salsa. Like, cool, that's like, that's good, but like how? What is the guidelines for yourself? Because in your head, okay, I'll limit myself, I don't know what that means. That means I'll have 6 handfuls instead of 7. Like, I have no clue what that means, right? So you can say, hey, you know what, for the chips and salsa, I'm gonna make sure I can have some, but I gotta have the one appetizer plate. I'm gonna get the appetizer plate. I'm gonna put the chips on the appetizer plate and I'm gonna have that one plate. That's gonna be my one plate and I'm allowed to have the appetizer, but I can't have 4 handfuls and 4 plates of the appetizer, or I can't just eat out of the, out of the chip tray and just keep going because you're gonna just keep eating and eating and eating and eating and eating, right? So make some guidelines for yourself. Hey, I can have it. I gotta make sure I have one plate. And honestly, when you do that, you'll actually probably enjoy the food that much more because you know you're sticking to that one plate. You can actually enjoy the food, take your time, enjoy the taste, all that kind of stuff. So that's one example. Another example could be, all right, I know I'm going out to eat with my friends and you know what, again, I'll try to limit myself on the alcohol. Okay, sweet. Well, what does that look like? Limit myself on alcohol. What does that mean? All right, cool. I'm gonna stick to 2 drinks no matter what. Over the course of these 5 hours that we're out, I'm gonna stick to 2 drinks and I'm gonna make sure after every single drink I have a glass of water. That could be one guideline. I'm gonna make sure I stick to less than 300 calories from alcohol when I go out to eat right now. So again, that could be, you know, whatever drinks you want, but it has to be under 300 calories, right? So setting very clear, very concise guidelines. A clear concise guideline could be using the one plate rule. That could be a clear concise guideline where it's like, you know, you're getting some sort of protein, some sort of vegetable, and then some sort of carbohydrate. That could be your guideline right there. Setting these very clear, concise guidelines and making a plan for yourself and then sticking to it, like not breaking the promise. This is where, again, when you have a much more clear, concise thing, the thought process of like, oh, I'll just limit my food intake, like that's just very gray. It's like, what does that really mean? Like you don't really— you didn't really make a promise to yourself because it's like you didn't really dive into what that actually means. As opposed to, I'm going to stick to 2 drinks. You made that promise to yourself. I'm going to stick to 1 plate for the appetizer. You made the promise to yourself. I'm going to make sure I get some sort of protein at dinner. You made the promise to yourself. It's very clear, very concise, no gray area, no ambiguity. You will be able to— you'll be more inclined to stick with it that much more because you made the plan and you want to keep that promise to yourself. Setting some sort of guidelines. Again, this could be literally anything. I could go on for years about what this might be for you. But again, before you go, take some time to think about what these guidelines might be for you and take some time to think about how you can use guidelines in the scenario that you're going to. I had a client recently who, again, she was going to a winery during the day and she was like, I'm like, hey, how long are you going to be there? I'm going to be there for 5 or 6 hours. I'm with some of my friends. I'm like, cool. Do you want to drink? Do you not want to drink? Yeah, I might want to have a drink or two. All right, cool. Like how many calories you think that would be? Like, and so she she made this plan for herself where she was going to stick to two drinks. She was going to skip on the appetizer, and she was going to have a meal that was super high in protein and super high in vegetables. And so that was her plan, and she crushed it. And she still had a great time. And I think that's the other thing: you can still have a great time without stuffing your face with three thousand calories. Like, and if you have to stuff your face with three thousand calories of nachos, pizza, and beer to have a good time, like, I'd probably ask you, like, why are you hanging out with these people anyway? And, like, there's probably something else going on because you shouldn't need to completely go crazy on your diet to still have a good time. And that might be unpopular to say, but it's just the truth. Like, if you can't keep things in moderation and still have a good time, you gotta find new people to hang out with or ask yourself some real hard questions. 'Cause it's not the nachos or the pizza or the food and just stuffing your face that makes the experience. It's the people you're with and the things you're doing. And so, you can still practice moderation and still have a great time. So, that's number 4, setting very bright guidelines. And number 5, rest of the day. The rest of your day, plan it out. Again, if you know you're going out to eat, you can plan the rest of your day to make sure going out to eat fits into And again, if you are counting calories you can make sure to do a rough sketch of what that day is going to look like. Again, this is where I said earlier it's not going to be easy, but you can do a rough sketch of what that day might look like to where, okay, cool, if I know I'm going out to eat at this restaurant, you could put in the calories for that restaurant. All right, cool, dinner is going to be 1,100 calories or 1,000 calories or whatever the case may be. All right, cool, the rest of the day I know I have 800 calories to play with. So what can I do? All right, cool. Maybe in the morning I normally have 2 eggs and 2 egg whites and oatmeal and a banana, right? Let's say you switch that for, all right, I'm gonna have 2 eggs, 4 egg whites. I'm gonna make it an egg white omelet where it's a ton of spinach, ton of vegetables, ton of peppers, and I'll have watermelon 'cause it's lower in calories and higher in volume, so it keeps me full. So bam, you, you go, your breakfast goes from 600 calories to 400 calories, for example, or whatever the case may be. And so you can mix your day around to make sure that, okay, cool, if you know dinner is gonna be X amount of calories, you can make sure to plan the rest of your day to make sure you fit in your calories. And the thing I will say though, and I wrote it right here, do not do this. Do not, and I repeat, listen to me very closely, do not try to starve yourself or fast during the day if you know you're going out to eat. Do not do that. It is going to backfire every single time. Every single time somebody tells me, oh well, I just didn't eat during the day because I wanted to make sure I could go out to eat and still lose weight. Backfires every time. You're going to get to wherever you're going to eat and you're going to be so hungry, you're going to be starving, your willpower is going to suck, you're going to be very like probably low energy as well. It's just going to be an awful— it's going to be an awful time. So when you get there, there's no way you're going to stick to moderation. There's no way you're going to practice moderation because you're already starving, you're already hungry, you're going to eat all of the appetizer. You're gonna— you don't care what food you eat at this point. You're just freaking starving. So you're gonna get the nachos and the burgers. And again, nothing wrong with those foods, but point being, you're not gonna practice the moderation you're looking to practice. So please do not starve yourself during the day. Nothing wrong with making some swaps here and there. Like, so for example, I talked about breakfast. Let's just say breakfast usually looks like, again, 2 eggs, 2 egg whites, oatmeal, banana, and I don't know, let's just say you threw some peanut butter in the oatmeal. So let's just say that breakfast is normally 600 calories. It's a filling breakfast. It's a great breakfast. Do it all every day. I don't care. Let's say on this day you wanna switch it out for some lower calorie things. Like, again, like I said, make 2 eggs, 4 egg whites, make it into an omelet, throw a bunch of spinach and peppers and all that kinda stuff. Maybe add some Greek yogurt as a side for extra higher protein. And then maybe add watermelon because watermelon is a lower calorie fruit. So let's say again you made your breakfast from 600 calories to 350. But that 350 calories you just had, it's still gonna be super filling for you. You're getting a ton of vegetables, a ton of protein, you're having a ton of food volume through the watermelon, which is gonna keep you full for lower calories. And so you're not starving yourself in that aspect. You're not like eating next to no calories. You're still eating a good amount of food. It's just you're making some slight tweaks here and there to possibly change some things up. But do not go into whatever event you're going to and think, oh, I'm gonna starve myself, or I'm not gonna eat anything so I can make sure I I hit my calories. No, it's gonna backfire every single time. So please do not do that. But you can use that day and plan out that day of what it's gonna look like in order for you to hit your calories and still, you know, be within this deficit you're looking to be in. And again, I always tell people just prioritize protein and vegetables. Like throughout the day, prioritize protein and vegetables. It doesn't mean you can't have carbs. Like yes, have carbs, but prioritize protein and vegetables. And when you go to whether it's lunch or dinner or wherever, You're gonna set yourself up to be possibly at a lower calorie thing, but even more so, more full, so you don't overdo it when you go on whatever you're going out to eat too. So that is it, guys. Going out to eat and losing weight, 5 biggest tips. And remember, like I said, you will not be perfect, and that's okay because you do not have to be. And again, I don't care if you eat everything in the restaurant. What's the worst case scenario? You get right back on track the next morning and you keep seeing progress. Please do not let this frustrate you or upset you or think you're failing or ruining your progress. You are not. I promise you. Okay? Thank you for watching. Hope it helped and we'll chat soon.
