Eating Clean and The Struggle to Eat Out

Y'all I try to never stress about calories. I try to make good food choices and stick to reasonable portion sizes. I've never struggled to find healthy food items when eating out, but late last week I went to dinner with some of my girlfriends. We tried a restaurant that I had never been to and at first I was blown away by all of the seemingly healthy items on the menu. Then I just happened to notice the calories listed in parenthesis, and y'all I was just plain shocked!! These meals were so deceiving!! 

{Roasted Salmon Quinoa Bowl}

Now, mind you the calories aren't listed for every item in the menu, but the menu item that caught my attention was their Roasted Salmon Quinoa Bowl. The menu describes it as "roasted Atlantic salmon with sauteed red onions, mushrooms, fresh asparagus, and fire-roasted red bell peppers served over quinoa and drizzled with soy ginger sauce." Granted, I could easily order it without the sauce, but I seriously doubt that would make a huge difference in the calories...

{Roasted Salmon Quinoa Bowl Nutrition Info}

1040 calories?! Are you kidding me? Y'all nothing in the picture or description gave me any indication that eating this selection, which is found on their "Enlightened Favorites" section of their menu, would mean the intake of an obscene amount of calories!!

{Santa Fe Salad}

Because the majority of the menu items didn't have the nutrition information listed, I decided on the Sante Fe Salad, thinking that HAD to be a better option. The menu describes it as, "romaine, blacked chicken breast, red onions, fire-roasted red bell peppers, jack and cheddar cheese, avocado, corn, diced tomatoes and crisp corn tortilla strips tossed with Santa Fe dressing." It was a better option, but not by much.

{Santa Fe Salad Nutrition Info}

980 calories!! For a SALAD!! Seriously? One might say that you could split it into two portions and it would be reasonable. It wasn't filling at all!! There was no way you could eat half that salad and be full afterwards. Now, don't get me wrong...it was delicious! It was one of the best salads I've had out, but I also wouldn't order it again. 

{Barbeque Bison Burger}

So out of curiosity today, as I was researching the nutrition information I decided to check out some of the other menu items that look less than healthy. They couldn't possibly be better, could they? I found the Barbeque Bison Burger, which the menu describes as "lean, ground buffalo, boldly seasoned then grilled to order. Topped with chipotle BBQ sauce, seared green chilies and pico de gallo and served on a toasted bun with Baja sauce, red onions, and lettuce. Served with tangy slaw tossed with Baja vinaigrette and topped with green onions."

{Barbeque Bison Burger Nutrition Info}

680 calories! That's almost half of the salmon and 300 calories LESS than the salad!! That makes absolutely zero sense! Eating out is hard enough. It's hard to find reasonably sized portions, healthy meals, and clean ingredients. And now, to make it even harder, restaurants like this are offering up "lighter" options with ridiculous amounts of calories. How are we supposed to make educated decisions and not completely derail our hard work.

Obviously, for many of us, avoiding ever eating out is not a real option. We're going to have birthday celebrations, like the one I went to, and other fun events. The point isn't for us to never feel like we can go out or splurge. We should all be able to do this. But we have to know what's going on behind the seemingly healthy description in the menu. Know what you're putting in your body.

I really hate to be that person on my phone looking up each menu item at the table to figure out the healthiest option, but oh, how I wish I had thought to look up the menu in advance and check the nutrition information ahead of time. 

Now there are two reasons why I haven't mentioned the name of this restaurant and haven't linked any of their menu photos to their website. This is a pretty negative post. The experience at the restaurant wasn't all bad, the food really was good, and while I'm using a few of their menu items to educate, I don't want anyone to think that it's all bad. 

After doing research today, I've found that they do offer a few lower calorie menu items. My point in this post, is that the menu items that caught my attention and seemed healthy were terrible choices. Delicious yes, but certainly not healthy choices. So, if you do some research and figure out the name of this restaurant, please don't use this post or the comments below to bash them. They're most certainly not the only restaurant doing this and wrecklessly bashing them on the internet isn't going to change it.

So what can you do? Know before you go. If you have plans to go to your favorite restaurant on Friday, take time to check out the menu and nutritional information beforehand. Plan ahead and know what you're going to order. Not only will this help you make healthy choices, but I bet it will help your food get to the table a little faster too. 

{Celebrating with some of my favorite ladies}