Dishing Out Good Health

Nutritious meals should be part of your lifestyle, but that doesn’t mean you can’t indulge in your favorite foods every now and then. Here are a few ways to enjoy guilt–free meals, without piling on the pounds.

• Downsize: In restaurants, skip entrées and go for appetizers. Share a dish or dessert with a friend. Ask your server if you can order from the lunch menu, which often has the same options, but in smaller quantities.

• Make good choices: If you can’t bear to share, make wise food choices. Gotta have the steak? Eat only half (and box up the rest), then skip the fries and ask for a side salad or steamed vegetables.

• Use the right tools: It can be hard to figure out what a serving size really is. How much is 3 ounces of meat? Or a cup of lettuce? Without having to weigh and measure every time, you can visualize a serving with some simple tricks. For instance, 3 ounces of meat is about the size of a deck of cards and a cup of lettuce is around the size of a baseball.