Eating out when you’re watching every morsel of food you put in your body can quickly feel like a losing battle. However, it doesn’t have to be as long as you follow these five tips every time you are eating somewhere other than home:

#1: Think About What You Want Before Looking at the Menu

Instead of allowing yourself to be swayed by all of the high-fat, high-calorie foods on the menu, decide what healthy meal you want to eat beforehand and just look for that. Once you know they serve it, close your menu and look no further.

#2: Order First

If you are eating out with other people, it is easy to follow their lead and order foods that aren’t the best for your body. But when you order first, you don’t have that issue as you’ve already asked for the meal that is best for your health.

#3: Don’t Be Afraid to Ask Your Server Questions

When going to a new restaurant that you’re unfamiliar with, you might see lots of items on the menu that have words that you don’t understand. So, don’t be afraid to ask your server questions about what they mean and how the foods are prepared. The last thing you want to do is order something that you think is good for you only to find out it isn’t.

#4: Choose an Appetizer for Your Entrée

With today’s larger-than-life portion sizes, a regular meal is usually enough to feed two or more people. Therefore, you may want to ask for a half order or even choose an appetizer as those tend to be smaller, yet just as filling.

#5: Watch Your Alcoholic Drinks

Just one fruity drink or cocktail can take all of your good dinner choices and throw them out the window. At a minimum, it has extra calories in it, but it also has the likelihood of causing you to throw caution to the wind and choose foods that you told yourself you wouldn’t eat. If you are going to drink, at least do it after you eat when you already have healthy, nutritious food in your tummy.

What tips do you use when dining out?