“How can I do the challenge if I only eat in restaurants?”
Has this come across your mind?
Truly, the ideal situation is eating raw and cooked food at home.
We can see the ingredient list. We have complete control over the dishes and quality of foods.
We can choose only healthy cooking oils. And cook on lower heat for a longer time, which preserves the nutrients.
And we can only put low-sugar dressings from the challenge.
Now, Let’s Get Back to Reality
Demanding work, a tight schedule, and just a desire to break a routine.
Personally, I don’t like to cook at all and I’m lazy.
All of these are reasons that often bring us to eat in restaurants or getting takeouts instead of cooking at home.
Now, you’ll learn simple guidelines that allow eating in restaurants without preventing the repair of sugar damage during the 21 days.
These apply to eating at restaurants, getting takeouts, ordering food deliveries.
After that, we’ll cover your favorite restaurant.
View that as a restaurants-and-takeout guide.
Problem #1- Dressings
Adults love sugar, but they don’t like to put it themselves. Restaurants know this, so they sprinkle sugar with the sweet dressings. Dressings are the adults, secret candy.
Shhhh!
Also, restaurants don’t always list the dressing on the menu!
The “Secret Service” Solution
Ask to remove any dressings when you order, regardless of whether the menu states that. Allow them to add before serving only olive oil and lemon, and condiments (e.g. paprika, etc).
Salads are a huge risk factor. Whenever ordering salads, ALWAYS ask to remove the dressing and allow only olive oil and lemon. Many times, they still serve salads with sweet dressings. If so, ask to replace or throw away. It’s not worth destroying your efforts.
Instead, put yourself dressing from the approved dressing list.
Many restaurants have tabasco and tahini, but you need to ask.
Don’t forget you have condiments! Many restaurants serve extra condiments, not available on the table when you ask them. They hold them in a secret vault underground, available only to the GNC participants.
If they serve you something they don’t serve others, isn’t it a secret service?
Problem #2 – Cheap Oils
Cheap oils allow restaurants to cut down on costs. And they cook with them on high heat to save time. Some reuse them. Terribly unhealthy combination 😔
No restaurant will fry your food with coconut oil for a long time on low heat and throw it out after use.
Cheap Oil Solution
Avoid ALL fried food in restaurants. That includes Sautéing.
Fried food is usually processed food, too. All processed meat is out of the challenge anyhow. e.g. chicken nuggets are usually fried and processed.
The exception is sunny side up. You can eat it at restaurants despite being lightly fried.
And it’s not like there are no options!
Instead, order dished that raw, baked, steamed, grilled, poached, boiled, roasted, simmered, stewed, seared, and broiled.
You can eat fried and Sautéd food at home. Cook with coconut oil, coconut butter, or any of the healthy fats on the “eat freely” list.
Eggs in Restaurants
Omelets and scrambled eggs are a problem since they suck a lot of cheap oils.
When eating eggs in restaurants, never order omelets & scrambled egg and prefer sunny side up, poached, or hard-boiled eggs.
Save your omelets to when you eat at home.
If you can, even at home prefer sunny side up, poached, or hard-boiled eggs. These cooking methods protect the egg yolk (yellow part). This part helps your body repair sugar damage. With omelets and scrambled eggs, the precious yolk loses nutrients.
Bread in restaurants
It’s better to avoid commercial bread altogether, but you have a daily allowance of one piece of bread a day.
If you need to spice up your restaurant dish, you have your daily slice – make the most out of it!
Eat slowly with pleasure. If it’s a tiny slice, even better.
What about Sandwiches? These have two slices of bread and out of the challenge. Make your sandwiches at home from tahini buns, almond bread, or approved commercial bread.
Alcohol in Restaurants
As always, prefer one glass of dry red wine or dry white wine. When asking for wine, always make sure it’s fully dry and unsweetened. A small shot of hard liquor 40% is fine as well. Avoid beer – tough, I know.
Coffee Shops and Take Away Salads
Cafes offer many salads that suit us. But be careful not to choose a salad that bears the name “healthy”. That is – contains a lot of roots vegetables, quinoa, lentils, and cranberries. Such salads enjoy a healthy publicity stunt but are a pile of carbs with no vegetables at all.
Their sandwiches are out of the challenge. Make your sandwiches at home from approved bread or baked bread according to our 5-10 minute recipes.
Fish and Seafood Restaurants
Ask for your salmon (outside the US. In the US, only if wild-caught). If they have fresh anchovies, mackerel, red caviar, herring, or bristling. That’s even better.
Focus on the cooking method of the fish. Avoid frying. Prefer grilling, baking, or any other method that isn’t frying.
You can have a salad on the side and ask for dressing from the challenge food list.
Another option is choosing a fish from the restricted list or restricted seafood: shrimp, oysters, clams, scallops, squid, and lobster. You can eat that once a week for an 80 gram (3 ounces) portion.
Arabic & Middle Eastern Restaurants
Most of their salads are fine, so enjoy them. Ask for tahini sauce, which they usually serve in those places.
They usually serve hard-boiled eggs too, which you can eat next to the salad.
Arabic restaurants serve large meat. If you elect for your weekly meet, check the size is small, and you don’t overeat the meat serving.
Falafel and hummus are out of the challenge.
Italian Restaurants
Generally, it’s better to avoid these in the challenge. The options are slim pickings but not impossible.
If you happen to be teleported into one of them, search for salads with cheese. Olive oil is common there and healthy.
Italian restaurants could serve your weekly serving of fresh meat and cooked vegetables on the side. Make sure the vegetables are from the challenge list, e.g. asparagus. And the meat is not in excess. Salmon is a good option, too (outside the US. In the US it’s out of the challenge).
Avoid dishes with tomato sauce, which is out of the challenge.
Asian Restaurants
Asian restaurants are the biggest “no-no” in the challenge.
These places have a wrong reputation for being healthy. Mostly, these restaurants are sugar traps that you can not get out of.
Sushi is sugar with bad carbs, with sweet dressing (=sugar), and has fish with a questionable freshness.
Their vegetables and salads swim in sweet sauces, which are impossible to replace. They use rice vinegar which is out of the challenge. Don’t confuse it with white cider vinegar.
Just a clear no.
It’s 21 days. It’s better be safe and repair the damage and enjoy the long-term benefits.
Remember: You’re doing something wonderful for your body!