Restaurant Impossible

Identifying what's in your food when it's packaged is sometimes difficult. Identifying what's in your food when it's on a restaurant menu is impossible...almost. Restaurant menus only provide a general food description, rarely portion sizes and never exact ingredients. Still, after you get used to measuring food at home, you'll start to be able to gauge restaurant food fairly accurately. For example, a 3-4 ounce portion of meat is about the size of your palm. If the menu item you order is twice that size, cut it in half and save half to take home with you for another meal. Yesterday I successfully survived not one but two restaurant meals. For lunch, I chose a grilled fish panini on chiabatta. By removing half the bun and eating the fish open-faced along side a mixed green salad with citrus vinaigrette the meal stayed under 350 calories. For dinner, I ordered a flatbread chicken pizza which was really just a whole wheat tortilla with hot sauce, a touch of cheese and grilled chicken. After eating half of it I felt full so the rest got boxed up for a late night snack for my kids. Again, I have to tell you that the longer I go in making these choices, the easier it gets. My normal M.O. is to order whatever is covered in cheese, bacon and sour cream...rolled up and fried. Fried food still sounds kind of good, but not so good that I feel the need to abandon a lot of great effort.