Dining Out without Sacrificing Your Dietary Dignity

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Welcome to the Virgin Diet Lifestyle show with your host, celebrity nutrition and fitness expert and New York Times bestselling author, JJ Virginia I hear it all the.

Time, jj I love to do the Virgin Diet, but I eat out all the time. Well, in today's show, I'm going to share with you how easy it is to stay on the program while dining out. In fact, I'm going to propose that it makes it even easier to eat healthy at a restaurant, because you're going to know exactly what you should be eating and you're not going to have those seconds staring you right in the face. So first thing you're going to do is start your meal with a salad. Now keep it simple and top it with olive oil and vinegar, preferably red wine vinegar. One study showed people who started the meal with a salad ate less food during their subsequent meal, but bypassed those gargantuan dinner salads. And by the way, this is so easy to turn a salad into dessert. Think about the candied walnuts, the taco strips, the dried fruit, the rice noodles, the wontons. These are little sugar and fat bombs. And I also want to make sure that you're skipping the sugary vinaigrettes and the creamy dressings. Now here's what you will do and you can have those big salads, but do them right. First of all, start with a great Lettuce, dump the iceberg, switch it off for mixed greens, mixed field greens, romaine, spinach, kale, and then get in some clean lean protein. So you're going to do chicken, salmon, shrimp, and then add in some great healthy fats. Of course, you can get some from your olive oil dressing, but also avocado is a great one. Or throw on some nuts and then some nice slow, low carbs. Like, let's say if I'm doing a Mexican one, I'll throw in some black beans, or you can throw in some guacamole or a little bit of quinoa. And again, what I do is always have that dressing on the side because then you control it. And you know what's cool when you have olive oil. And vinegar is. Vinegar can actually help a little bit with blood sugar sensitivity and insulin sensitivity. So vinegar is a great thing here. And if you look at the virgin diet plate, if you start, you have loads of non starchy veggies as your base for your salad. And then you got some clean lean protein. Let's say you got in some wild salmon and then you added in a little olive oil vinaigrette. The wild salmon and the olive oil vinaigrette are healthy fats. And then throw in some garbanzo beans for your slow, low carbs. I mean, that's it.

Boom.

You've got just what you need to keep you feeling full for hours.

Hours.

And having a great hormonal response. Remember, food is information, right? We want to make sure that what we're eating is telling our body to burn fat. Keep your energy steady and slow down or de age. Okay? Now I want you to read that menu and beware of the obvious red flags. Ignorance doesn't work here. Okay, so if it's described as breaded, fresh fried, crunchy, crispy, glazed, or creamy, that translates into a big no. That's a fast fat loss blockade. So what I want you to do instead is order your lean protein and your non starchy veggies grilled or poached or baked or broiled. And if it doesn't say anything, don't assume you know what assuming does. So you gotta ask your servers question. I want you to think of your server as your as your guide to your menu so that you know that you're virgin diet compliant. Ignorance does not cut it here. Because if you fail to ask and your chicken dish comes drowning in syrupy soy glaze, you're responsible. But that doesn't mean you have to eat it. Don't send it back. I am always one of those people. I ask my questions, and if it doesn't come right, I'm going to send it back. It is not worth it to do that. Okay, but remember, you've got to enlist. You got to enlist that server there to help you. And you need to be clear about why you're not eating these things, because if you just act like it doesn't really matter. I always feel like they're gonna, you know, they don't take it seriously. So I'm like, I can't have the gluten. It's gonna hurt me. I'll end up with stomach problems. We'll have to call 911. They won't do it then. All right, now, don't invite the enemy to the table. Now, I don't mean your mean friend. I mean, like the bread basket or dessert. As soon as that server comes over at the bread basket, you just turn him right around, head him out. So what do you do if you have dining companions who insist on having the bread now, you can warn them about gluten's danger and be a total dinner buzzkill and then look at them judgmentally as they eat. No, I'm kidding.

Kidding. Really?

If they want to do it, I, you know, I believe it or not when I'm out with people. Of course they don't never want to. I don't. They never want to do it anyway. Most of my friends are nutritionists, but if they want to do it, I just keep my mouth shut. I know. Hard to believe, right? But ideally, you're banishing anything that could be a problem or at least keeping it on the other side of the table. And if you need to eat, munch on something before you eat. First of all, ask yourself, why am I eating before I'm eating? Why do I need an appetizer? But if you are going to have something, hey, grab something on the vegetable side. Like, I will get some grilled asparagus or some brussels sprouts or get some hummus and crudite. It's amazing what you can get. And again, peruse the menu. I'm always looking at what fun, cool things they're doing in the veggie department because it's so much more fun when someone else is making the vegetables.

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We're with you all the way, Walgreens. Okay, next one. Double up. So two appetizers as your main course provide a better portion control than a gigantic entree. And I see so many fun things in the little appetizer section. So I might get some shrimp and add some guacamole with it because as we know, cocktail sauce is just a sugar dump or some hummus with veggies or some chicken kebabs with salsa. Now another one is share it or cut in half. So let's say you are getting an entree and so often you they're giving you a double portion of protein, which is cool. You can either take half home for the next day or share it with your dining partner. Now I will tell you if you're going to take half home for the next day and I'm going to totally out myself on this one, do it before you start eating because if they bring it to you and you start eating, most likely even though you tell yourself you're going to bring half home, all of a sudden you look down you go, where'd it go? Where was it? So it's easier if you just cut it in half and have the server take half away. Okay, next one. And this is my three bite rule. But I say not just three bites, three polite bites. I learned that people can shove a lot in their mouth at one time. And that is if there's something that you are just dying to have. And you know, and you're in cycle three of the virgin diet, this is not when you're during your elimination phase or your challenge phase, Right? But if there's something you're just dying, dying to have and you know it's not going to hurt you, then you have three polite bites as if you're being taped for a national show while you're eating it. So let's say you're somewhere and they have a flourless chocolate cake and you just have to try some. Now if you're like me, what you do is you dine out with your mother, because my mom has the fastest fork going. But, you know, make sure that you either take your three bites before you have them and get rid of the rest of or share with some people who are fast eaters. Big one. All right, now make sure again that if you get started in this, it is not a situation where you can just run wild with this food. Find someone to eat with who eats faster than you. Okay, here's the deal with the menu. I want you to look at that menu as where you're going to get ideas, not absolutes. Why are you going to let the menu dictate what you'll eat? It's a guide, it's not an ultimatum. So maybe you want that wild salmon and you want it in olive oil instead of the sticky soy glaze, or you want the grass fed burger on a big plate of romaine rather than a bun and hold the fries. So look at what's on that menu, everyone. I had no problems getting people to grill something rather than and to leave the sauces off and then to take aside from one thing and the main from another. So again, you're gonna look at the whole menu and go, huh, huh, what would I like here? But again, what that really means is be charming to the waiter because what you've got to get them to do, you've got to enlist their aid. So explain what you're doing and what you need and then look at that menu and you say, hey, hey, can we do some of this stuff? And when you're nice about it and you're appreciative to them. You'd be amazed at what they can do. And I always look at restaurants as a great opportunity to try things I wouldn't do at home. So to try some new vegetables. And another great thing when you're ordering a plate is if they don't have a great slow low carb like quinoa's or lentils or some other kind of legume, or maybe a lentil soup or a black bean soup. If everything they have are just, you know, high sugar impact carbs like a potato or french fries or white rice, then what I do there is I double up on the non starchy vegetables. That's an easy way to go. And then I'll get my main course. So quite frequently I'm going to double up on my starchy non starchy vegetables, get my great main course. If they give me a huge piece of that, I'm going to cut in half and take it home for tomorrow. And of course I'm starting the day or starting the meal with a salad, which is going to help not only with that meal, but keeping me feeling fuller for the next one too. And again, since I like people to have five or ten non starchy vegetables veggie servings a day, look at that restaurant meal as your opportunity to load it on up. Alright? If you'd like a free transcript of Today's show, text 58885 and enter DINE1. That's DINE in the number one. Your first name, put a space in and your email address. Again the number to text is 58885 and you enter D your first name space and your email address. In the Virgin Diet I have you swap seven foods for three weeks to uncover your hidden food intolerance so that you can finally lose the weight and feel better fast. Why wait? Start those three weeks today.

Hey everyone, did you like this episode? Be sure to subscribe for the next one and tell a friend. If you'd like world class training and cutting edge information, visit the Virgin Diet.

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