Eating out often can be a real challenge for anyone trying to achieve or maintain a healthy weight. Foods eaten away from home are quite a bit higher in kilojoules (extra oils, dressings, sauces and larger serve sizes), and often very morish. Add a relaxed mood and some alcohol and it’s easy to loose track of how full you’re getting. If you like to eat out regularly…(and who doesn’t if they can)…..you can find you are gaining a few extra kilos each year.

It gets even trickier if you are trying to actually lose weight, because to do that, you need to eat fewer kilojoules than what you use (which is not really so many these days). But it isn’t impossible to still lose weight and in fact a few good strategies can mean you actually have more success long term, because you don’t feel deprived. On the days when you plan to eat a meal away from home, it is a more realistic goal to just balance your kilojoules than to aim to create the negative kilojoule balance you need for weight loss. But you don’t need to count kilojoules to do this, instead it’s more useful to have a range of good strategies in your toolbox.

Look out for the next post for the ten top tips for sustainable weight loss when eating out…