Eating out for weight loss: how to order at restaurants and takeaways and keep losing

Does eating out make weight loss harder? What the studies show

Eating out can make weight loss harder, mainly because restaurant and takeaway meals tend to be bigger and richer than what most people cook at home. But the research points to the habit over months, not to a single evening, so a meal out now and then is not a problem.

A systematic review of 28 studies in adults looked at eating away from home and body weight. Almost all of the long-term studies, and about half of the snapshot studies, found that people who ate out more often tended to weigh more.

A second review focused only on studies that followed people over time. Frequent out-of-home eating went together with a higher risk of overweight and with weight gain, and meals from fast-food outlets were linked with a bigger rise in weight and waist size than meals at other restaurants.

Why restaurant meals add up

Researchers in Brazil, China, Finland, Ghana and India bought popular restaurant meals and measured the energy in a laboratory. Only in China was the average meal clearly lighter than in the United States, at about 720 kcal against roughly 1,090 kcal; elsewhere it was in the same high range.

Two details from that study are useful when you choose where to eat. Fast-food meals held about a third less energy than sit-down restaurant meals, so a nicer setting does not mean a lighter plate. And the number of parts on the plate, along with the meal’s weight, helped predict how much energy it held.

Our page on portion control explains what this means for the size of your plate. Here we focus on what to choose from the menu, cuisine by cuisine.

Why it is not only willpower

Restaurants are built to make food tempting: the smell, the photos on the menu, the offers to add a side or upgrade a size. Finding that hard is normal. Our page on the food environment explains how surroundings shape what we all eat.

That is why a few habits you decide on beforehand work better than trying to resist in the moment. You make the important choices when you are calm and not yet hungry.

Before you go: plan the meal, not a day of hunger

The best preparation for a meal out is to eat your normal meals earlier in the day and to have a rough idea of what you will order. Arriving very hungry makes it much harder to choose well when the menu arrives.

Skipping lunch to “make room” for dinner can backfire. Hunger builds through the afternoon, and by the time the bread or the crisps reach the table, the first course has started before you ordered it.

• Eat your usual breakfast and lunch, each with some protein, such as eggs, yoghurt, fish, chicken or beans.
• Have a small snack late in the afternoon if dinner is late, such as fruit, a yoghurt or a few vegetable sticks.
• Look at the menu online and pick one or two dishes that fit your plan, so you do not decide while hungry.
• Drink a glass of water before you leave and keep drinking water with the meal.
• Walk there, or walk afterwards, if it is safe and the distance suits you. It turns the outing into part of your active day.

If you have diabetes or take medicines that lower your blood sugar, do not skip meals before eating out without advice. Ask your doctor or diabetes nurse how to time your meals and medicines on days with a late or large dinner.

Choosing the place

When you can choose, pick a place where you already know a dish you enjoy that also fits your plan. Menus with grilled dishes, soups, salads with a protein, and vegetable sides make the evening easy.

All-you-can-eat buffets are the hardest setting for most people, because there is no natural end to the meal. You do not have to avoid them forever, but they are easier when your new habits have had a few months to settle.

How to order for weight loss: protein first, then vegetables

To order for weight loss, start by choosing your protein, then add vegetables or salad, and only then decide on the carbohydrate side and the sauce. Protein and fibre fill you up, so this order of thinking keeps the meal satisfying without making it heavy.

1. Pick the protein: fish, chicken, lean meat, eggs, beans, lentils, tofu or seafood. Grilled, baked, roasted, steamed or poached is usually lighter than fried.
2. Add vegetables: a side salad, steamed greens, grilled vegetables or a vegetable soup. Ask whether you can swap fries for a vegetable side.
3. Choose the starch: rice, potatoes, pasta, bread or flatbread can fit; just pick one, not three.
4. Ask for the sauce on the side: creamy sauces, dressings and mayonnaise carry a lot of energy, and serving them yourself lets you use less.
5. Order the drink last: water, sparkling water or another sugar-free drink.

For more ideas on the first step, see our guide to meat and fish for weight loss. If vegetables are a hard sell for you, our page on vegetables and legumes has easy places to start.

Menu words to look for and words to watch

Menus often tell you how a dish is cooked, and that tells you a lot about its energy. Use the words below as a quick guide; they are rules of thumb, not guarantees.

Some menus show calories next to each dish. A Cochrane review pooled three restaurant trials and found that calorie labels on menus lowered the energy people bought by about 47 kcal per meal, based on low-quality evidence. A small help, then, but worth glancing at when the information is there.

Restaurant calorie figures are estimates, and real dishes can contain more. Our page on calorie counting explains how accurate menu numbers tend to be and how to log a meal out without stress.

Is sushi good for weight loss? Best and worst choices

Sushi can be very good for weight loss, especially sashimi, nigiri and simple rolls with fish or vegetables. Rolls with tempura, mayonnaise or cream cheese are much richer, and the rice and soy sauce add up when you order a lot of pieces.

The appeal for weight loss is clear: fish gives you a lot of protein for its calories, the portions come in pieces you can count, and there is little hidden fat in the classic dishes. The catch is that many modern rolls are closer to a deep-fried snack than to a plate of fish and rice.

Sushi compared: approximate calories and protein

The figures below are our own estimates, built from USDA food composition data for the separate ingredients. Sushi sizes differ a lot between restaurants, and seasoned sushi rice contains a little sugar, so treat these as rough guides.

Source: USDA SR Legacy, approximate values rounded to the nearest 5 kcal. Our assumptions: plain cooked rice, 20 g per nigiri piece and 100 g per six-piece roll; 15 g of fish per nigiri, 30 g of fish or 40 g of fried shrimp per roll; 20 g avocado, 25 g cream cheese or 10 g mayonnaise where used.

How to build a sushi meal that helps you lose weight

• Start with soup or edamame. A miso soup or a bowl of edamame takes the edge off hunger before the rolls arrive.
• Make sashimi or nigiri the core. They give the most protein for the fewest calories.
• Choose one roll you love, and let the rest be simple fish or vegetable rolls.
• Add a seaweed or cucumber salad for volume and crunch.
• Count your pieces before you order, rather than adding plate after plate on a conveyor belt or a set price menu.
• Go easy on soy sauce. It is very salty; dip the fish side lightly, or use a reduced-salt version if you have high blood pressure.

Rice is not the enemy here. It is simply the part that grows fastest when you order many rolls, which is why sashimi and nigiri make the meal lighter. Our page on carbs and weight loss explains how rice fits into a plan.

If you are pregnant, have a weakened immune system or have been told to avoid raw fish, choose cooked options such as cooked prawn, eel, egg, tofu or vegetable rolls, and ask your doctor or midwife what is safe for you.

Is pizza good for weight loss when you eat out?

Pizza is not a weight loss food, but it can fit into a weight loss plan when you eat a modest amount and add something filling alongside it. The problem is usually the whole pizza, the extra cheese and the garlic bread, not one or two slices.

A plain cheese pizza from a takeaway is about 265 kcal per 100 g, according to USDA data, with around 11 g of protein. Gram for gram, the thin-crust version is not lighter: it came out at about 300 kcal per 100 g, because the toppings make up more of each bite.

That surprises many people. A thin crust only saves calories if you end up eating fewer or smaller slices, so let the number of slices guide you rather than the type of base.

Source: USDA SR Legacy, values for generic takeaway pizzas, rounded. Your local pizza may differ; slice sizes vary even more.

A pizza night that still helps you lose weight

• Start with a large salad with a light dressing, or a vegetable soup, so you are less hungry when the pizza arrives.
• Decide on your slices before the box opens. Two slices with a big salad is a realistic, filling meal for many people.
• Choose vegetable toppings, such as peppers, mushrooms, onions, spinach or tomatoes, with chicken, tuna or prawns if you want more protein.
• Ask for normal cheese, not extra cheese or a stuffed crust.
• Skip the garlic bread and dips; they can add as much as another slice or two.
• Share a pizza rather than ordering one each, and put leftovers in the fridge before you sit down.

Pasta on a restaurant menu follows the same logic. A tomato-based sauce with fish, chicken or vegetables, and a starter-sized portion with a salad, is a good fit for weight loss; creamy sauces and a very large bowl are the dishes to keep for now and then.

Chinese, Indian, Middle Eastern, Mexican, Italian and Thai food for weight loss

Every cuisine has dishes that suit weight loss well, and every cuisine has richer dishes for celebrations. The trick is not to avoid certain cuisines, but to know the lighter classics on each menu and how to spot the dishes cooked in a lot of oil, cream, cheese or sugar.

Many of these traditions are built on vegetables, beans, lentils, fish and grilled meat, which are exactly the foods that fill you up for fewer calories. Menus outside a dish’s home country, and takeaway menus in particular, sometimes lean more on fried and sweet versions, so it helps to look past the first page.

The watch-outs are not forbidden. A creamy curry or a cheesy enchilada can be part of a good week; just let it be the dish you chose on purpose, and build the rest of the meal around vegetables, soup or salad.

Same menu, very different choices

The USDA food database includes dishes as they are served in restaurants. Comparing them shows how much the cooking style matters, even within one menu.

Source: USDA SR Legacy, mostly restaurant dishes as sampled in the United States (plain rice and the chicken taco are general entries), rounded. Recipes and portions differ by restaurant and country. A main course often weighs several times 100 g, so the gap per plate is larger than the table shows.

Notice that the lighter dishes are usually the ones with vegetables in the name. They take up space on the plate and in your stomach for very few calories, which is exactly what helps you feel full and still lose weight.

Dressings, oils and nuts

Oil, nuts, seeds and avocado are healthy fats, but they are also dense in energy. A salad can become one of the richest dishes on the table with a generous dressing. Our page on nuts and healthy fats explains how to enjoy them in amounts that still let you lose weight.

If your doctor is watching your cholesterol, the same choices help: grilled instead of fried, fish more often, and fewer creamy or cheesy sauces. Our page on cholesterol and weight loss covers this in more detail.

Fast food, burgers and takeaway: how often and what to pick

Fast food and takeaway can fit into weight loss now and then, but how often you have it matters more than any single order. The clearest research links frequent fast food with gaining weight over the years.

A US study followed more than 3,000 young adults for 15 years. Those who went to fast-food restaurants more than twice a week, both at the start and at the end, gained about 4.5 kg more than those who went less than once a week.

They also had a twofold larger rise in insulin resistance, an early step towards type 2 diabetes.

A systematic review of 16 studies came to a similar conclusion and advised limiting fast food and making healthier menu choices easier. Most of these studies observed people rather than testing a change, so they show a strong link rather than proof, but the direction is consistent.

Burgers

A plain single hamburger is not the problem in a fast-food meal. According to USDA data, a basic single-patty hamburger with the usual condiments is around 265 kcal per 100 g, with about 13 g of protein.

The weight comes from what goes around it: double patties, bacon, extra cheese, special sauces, a large portion of fries at about 290 kcal per 100 g, and a large sugary drink. Choosing the single burger, a small side and water already changes the meal a lot.

• Choose a single patty or a grilled chicken burger rather than a double or a crispy one.
• Add salad, tomato and onion, and keep sauces to ketchup, mustard or a small amount of one sauce.
• Pick a side salad, corn or fruit instead of fries when you can, or the smallest fries on offer.
• Say no to the meal upgrade. A bigger size for a small extra price is a lot of extra food.

Making a delivery order lighter

Ordering in can be a relaxed evening without being a step back. A few small changes in the app or on the phone keep the meal satisfying.

• Choose your dish before you open the app, so the photos and offers have less pull.
• Add a vegetable dish to the order, such as stir-fried greens, a salad, a lentil soup or grilled vegetables.
• Order one carbohydrate side for the table rather than rice, noodles and bread for each person.
• Skip the free extras that come with the minimum order, such as crisps, sweets or a large soft drink.
• Serve onto plates and put the rest away before you eat.

Our weight loss recipes include home versions of takeaway favourites for the nights you would rather cook.

Drinks, the bread basket and dessert

Drinks, bread and dessert are often the easiest places to save calories at a restaurant, because you can cut them without changing the main meal you came for.

Drinks. Order water, sparkling water or another sugar-free drink with your meal, and keep refills of sweet drinks off the table.

Alcohol adds calories of its own and tends to loosen your plans for the rest of the meal. Our pages on weight loss drinks and alcohol and weight loss cover both in depth.

The bread basket. Bread, crisps or tortilla chips before the meal arrive when you are at your hungriest, and they are easy to eat without noticing. You can ask the staff not to bring them, take one piece and pass the basket on, or place it at the far end of the table.

Dessert. If you want dessert, choose the one you really love, share it, or order fruit, a sorbet or a coffee instead. Our guide to cutting sugar explains how to eat less added sugar without banning sweet things.

If you eat out often for work or family: a weekly pattern that still loses weight

If you eat out several times a week, a few standard choices and a simple weekly rhythm help you keep losing weight. When most of those meals are fairly light, the occasional richer one does not slow you down.

Work lunches are a good example. In the restaurant study from Finland, meals at worksite canteens held about a quarter less energy than meals from restaurants and fast-food places. If your work offers a canteen with a choice of hot dishes and salads, it is often the easier option.

Build your own “regulars”

• Find one go-to dish at each place you visit often, such as the grilled chicken salad, the fish of the day with vegetables, or the lentil soup with a side salad.
• Plan your week: if you know there is a business dinner on Thursday, keep the other evenings simple and home-cooked.
• Keep one richer meal a week for something you really enjoy, chosen on purpose rather than by accident.
• Keep moving. Walk to lunch, take a short walk after dinner, or keep your daily walk at a fixed time. Our walking for weight loss plan helps you build up gently.
• Watch late dinners. If evening meals out are often late, our page on eating late at night explains what the research says.

A simple restaurant day plan

Vacations, hotel breakfasts and festive meals bring their own challenges. Our page on holiday weight gain has a plan for those weeks.

Talk to your doctor first before you change the way you eat. This is especially important if you have diabetes or take medicines that lower blood sugar, if you have high blood pressure or kidney disease and need to watch salt, or if you have food allergies. This page gives general information, not personal medical advice.

Free help to eat out and still lose weight

Obesity Foundation helps you lose weight with good food, suitable exercise and walking, in a way that fits real life, including meals with friends, family and colleagues. Everything we offer is free.

• A free eating plan with ordinary meals and room for the occasional meal out. Request your free eating plan.
• Free workout videos in three levels, Start, Build and Strong, for the days when a walk is not possible. Get the free workout videos.
• A free video meeting (in English) with one of our volunteers, to plan the meals out in your own week. Book a free video meeting.
• A free Club account to log your walks and workouts and keep your progress in view. Join the Obesity Foundation Club.

Next time you eat out, pick one habit from this page, such as ordering your protein first or asking for the sauce on the side, and let it become your normal.