Steakhouses are great restaurant choices for fun, fancy, protein-packed meals! With their innovative kitchens, they take simple cuts of meats and create many delicious dishes. However, these protein dominate meals are not always the most healthy. For example, most steaks at a steakhouse are cooked in a large amount of butter.
To ensure that you make healthy choices while dining out it’s important that you meal plan for weight loss. This could mean looking at the menu ahead of time and selecting the healthier choices. When it comes to steakhouses, we recommend you learn more about the different cuts of meat available and how they are prepared. Eating smart means being armed with the right knowledge.
Here are a few tips to meal plan for weight loss when it comes to steakhouses:
• Pick The Right Cut
Choose a cut of meat that has minimal marbling (fat deposits in the meat) or that can have the fat trimmed off prior to cooking. This will help you consume lean, healthier meat, rather than fatty, arguably more flavourful meat. In terms of steak cuts, round or sirloin cuts are considered the leanest.
• Be Conscious Of The Size
Although a 12 oz. sizzling steak may be tempting, we do not recommend it for someone trying to commit to their weight loss program. We recommend you order an 8 oz. steak to split with your dinner date, or 6 oz. steak for yourself. However, if you’re on a Herbal Magic Weight Loss Program, remember that 4 oz. of beef (lean/extra lean round, sirloin cuts) equals 1 Protein allotment.
• Select Simple Sauces
Sauce coatings on steaks can be a hidden source of calories, sugars, fats, and salt, which can all set you back during your weight loss journey. Sometimes, if you’re at a really nice steakhouse, you might not even need a sauce because the quality of the meat is so good, resulting in an abundance of flavour. If you really like sauce with your steak though, we recommend you choose a peppercorn sauce or a wine, brandy, or beef stock sauce. Also, remember to ask that your steak be served without butter placed on top!
• Make Veggies Your Side
Do your best to make at least one side dish vegetables when trying to eat healthily. Ask that they be steamed or grilled and not cooked with oil or butter. Most restaurants also let you add an extra side dish for a dollar or two more – a worthwhile and healthy investment if you’d like more veggies! Although potatoes are vegetables, we recommend that you avoid the “fully loaded” baked potato, and enjoy a plain baked potato with one serving of chives instead.
• Stand Apart With Fish
Just because you find yourself in a steakhouse does not mean you have to eat steak. Steakhouses often offer great grilled fish or seafood alternatives! Fish is a great sources of protein and it'll give you an extra boost of healthy fats and minerals. So, if you're not feeling steak, we highly recommend you select fish, or a 1 Protein allotment alternative for your meal, as too much protein is not the healiest.
• Go Light On The Appetizers
Steak dinners are heavy, calorie packed meals and appetizers don’t make the meal any lighter. We strongly recommend that you avoid buttered bread, stuffed potatoes, and onion rings specifically, because those are “empty” calories. If you do want an appetizer we recommend you choose a lighter one, such as a spring salad or broth-based soup. If you’re craving a Caesar salad, ask the server to make it with a simple lemon juice, olive oil and garlic dressing, holding the cheese, bacon, and cream.
Here are a few tips to meal plan for weight loss with a steakhouse-night-in:
When trying to lose weight, eating out is doable, but not always the most effective. Eating in is usually the healthier more economically friendly dinner option, especially when on a weight loss journey. With that in mind, we created an “At Home Steakhouse Menu” that you can prepare for a special night in. Just multiply the recipe based on the number of your guests.
Please see our meal plan for weight loss with a steakhouse theme below:
Garden Salad, Sirloin Steak, & Potato
| 1 cup mixed greens | ½ Vegetable |
| 4 oz. sirloin steak | 1 Protein |
| 1 small potato, baked | 1 Starch |
| ¼ cup chives | ½ Vegetable |
| 1 cup assorted vegetables, steamed | 1 Vegetable |
We hope you found these healthy steakhouse tips helpful and applicable! For more tips and tricks for optimizing your weight loss while trying to enjoy all the foods you love, check out these articles:
