Top 5 priorities when eating out

Tonight I'm going out for dinner. Because I've been doing quite well on the nutrition front recently, I want to get through the evening without spoiling that. So I went looking for tips and ended up at "The primal blueprint guide to eating out". It didn't look very promising, with tip nr 3 being "Don't eat". Hell no, I eat out perhaps once every two months so I'm damn well going to enjoy it! Besides, the whole point of this diet is too improve quality of life- quality kinda goes down if you have to sit there like a freak watching everyone else eat.

Tip nr 5 was to make special requests, claim allergies if need be- anything to get some primal food! But I know myself, I'd be fussing and worrying the whole time, unable to let it go and enjoy the night. Plus I'd spent the next couple hours dreading to face the waiter with all my requests.

I truly wish I could just forget about paleo for tonight, but that won't do either. I'd feel like a glutton, secretly feeling sad and guilty inside. Fretting over whether I'm really so lacking of any willpower, 'why oh why' etc. Not exactly a recipe for enjoying a night out. I'd also constantly be worrying about the physical consequences in store for me tomorrow..

So what's a girl to do? A good compromise seems the only option. I came up with a list of priorities, things most important for my mental and physical health. Keeping these 5 points in mind should get me through the night without all the fussing and worrying.

1. Avoid gluten
There are more things lining up to destroy our guts, but gluten seems to be the worst offender. Hopefully by avoiding them I'll be better able to handle some ice cream for dessert. Besides, gluten seem to make my stomach swell to twice it's original size, which doesn't make me feel especially sexy or comfortable...
So it's an old and often mentioned tip- but do send back that bread basket.

2. Get some protein and veggies
The protein shouldn't be a problem- even if I weren't thinking of my health I'd still want a nice piece of fish or a big ass steak. They don't seem to serve a lot of vegetables these days though, so I'm planning to order a salad on the side. Veggies will serve to fill me up and help me be moderate with other less desirable things. I'm also plenty indoctrinated with the 'veggies are good for you!' idea.

3. No soda
I think cola is nasty, but some ice tea or fresh orange juice is very tempting. However, since we'll be drinking plenty throughout the night I'll stick to 1 or 2 glasses of wine, water and tea. This will give me a good feeling mentally, since I'll be doing something right.

4. Portion control
I really, really like potatoes. So even though they're not paleo, I'll have some of those. But they tend to give you a whole lot of them. I'm not really good with portion control to be very honest, so I'll ask the others to keep the extra's away from me. They know about my eating habits so they'll understand.

5. Dessert
Dessert is always very enjoyable, but rarely paleo. As I said at the beginning of this post, for me paleo is about improving quality of life. For me that also means enjoying some vices that are not necessarily very sensible. During my lifetime I'd like to at least taste pretty much every kind of food in the world. So the master plan is to really enjoy it, and take a bite from everyone else's dessert too!