Dining Out In Miami: How to Make Better Choices

When people come to Dubail Fitness Institute, my personal training studio in Miami, many members want to lose weight. Then, they go on to tell me how they eat out several nights a week.

You don’t have to tell me one of Miami best personal trainers that. I know all to well the temptations that lie in the great melting pot of restaurants in Miami. But to live at your best and stay health and in great shape you have to become conscious about what you eat; therefore, finding items on the menus of their favorite restaurants is no longer difficult.

Look most restaurants will prepare foods the way you request without giving you an unwanted response like “What, no butter on your potato,” It won’t taste very good.” Many chefs have made substitutions in their cooking to keep the taste in their dishes.

Here is a list of some of your favorite types of restaurants and what to order, what to avoid and how to order to stay in your eating plan:

MEXICAN
Want great Mexican just go done to Coconut grove and there are some great Mexican place, senior frogs, Chili. Two very popular dishes when going out in Miami for Mexican food are chili rellenos and cheese enchiladas. As fitness coach and a personal trainer who lives in Miami I have to tell you that these dishes should no longer be on your list if you want to eat healthy and not blow you’re eating plan. You would wind up getting more fat grams in that one meal than you are allowed all day. The main items to avoid at a Mexican Restaurant are: cheese, sour cream, avocado, flour tortillas, refried beans and the fried tortilla chips.

If you know where you are going in advance, you can bring some baked chips along with you or ask the waitress for steamed corn tortillas to dip into the salsa. I tell most of my Miami personal training clients that not to use the chili con queso or guacamole dip as an appetizer (its loaded with fat). Remember, it’s not just the fat by itself you want to avoid; it is the fat with the carbohydrates.

Here is a comparison of good choices vs. bad choices:

TYPICAL MEAL:	BETTER CHOICE:
Chili con queso/chips	Salsa with corn tortillas (steamed)
Chili Rellenos	Chicken Fajitas- use corn tortillas or
Refried Beans	Black beans
Mexican rice (with lard)	Mexican Rice (if no lard is used)
Gold Margarita	Lite Margarita

There are some great CHINESE places in Miami
Place like Miss Yips, Miss Saigon, are great place to eat in south beach. But, Beyond the contrary belief, Chinese food can be very healthy eating if you know how to order. Of course, just like many other types of food preparations, Chinese food is prepared with many types of oils. Some favorite Chinese dishes are battered and fried. Friedrice, egg rolls and Szechwan dishes with peanuts and almonds are extremely high in fat. The Chinese use steamed white rice and many vegetables in their dishes, so take advantage of these items. Here is an example of a popular meal versus what you should try next time it works for many of my personal training clients who dine out in miami:

TYPICAL MEAL:	BETTER CHOICE:
Egg drop soup	Skip the soup- too high in sodium
Egg roll	Steamed vegetable dumplings
Fried rice	Steamed rice
Kung Pao chicken	Steamed Shrimp or chicken with ginger sauce on the side
	Steamed vegetables

ITALIAN
Now, this one may be your hardest meal to avoid the fat and high carbohydrates to keep your intake in balance. Your foods to avoid at Italian restaurants are cheese, sausage, high fat ground beef and cream sauces. The famous fettucine alfredo is loaded with fat. Remember, just ordering pasta with marinara sauce (no protein) is a very high carbohydrate meal- usually 80-100 grams in the meal. If you want to keep your carbohydrate intake low and still get satisfied, order like this:

TYPICAL MEAL:	BETTER CHOICE:
Fettucine Alfredo	Shrimp or scallops with angel hair
Garlic bread	Steamed vegetable dumplings
Salad with heavy oil dressing Salad -	pasta- marinara sauce
Red Wine	1 piece of bread (no garlic butter)
	green and tomatoes
	red wine & White wine sprizter

As you can see, out of the three types of meals you might choose to eat when dining out in the great city of Miami, you can still maintain your healthy eating habits and not have to “go off the plan” every time you go out to dinner. Do not let dining out be your excuse to over eat!! As personal trainer that has lived in Miami and live the Miami fitness life stlye and deals with the same temptations as you I have one last thing to say. “Stay in control of your eating - You only have one body - Take care of it!”

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