Helpful Dining Out Options with Trim Healthy Mama

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One thing I found to be tremendously difficult when I first started the Trim Healthy Mama lifestyle was my dining out options with THM. For reference, we dine out every Friday night for our weekly movie night, it became a tradition when my oldest was in kindergarten and we still hold it 6 years later.

Okay, so, dining out and sticking to an E (energizing) or an S (satisfying) meal while away from home, let’s talk about it.

If you find it daunting sometimes when looking at a menu, make it puzzle or a challenge. How well can you create an S or E meal from the items listed on the menu? What can you remove or add to create one or the other?

Dining out options:

Culver’s

• The Culver’s Bacon Deluxe; sub a side salad for the French fries. Also, I remove the bun, and eat the cheeseburger with a fork and knife.
• Any hamburger, remove bun, and use a fork and knife. (Except for the curd burger. The cheese curd patty would make this most definitely a crossover.)
• Grilled chicken sandwich, remove the bun.
• Beef pot roast sandwich, remove the bun
• Grilled Reuben melt, remove the bun
• Chicken cashew salad or Garden fresco salad
• Dressings and sauces: bleu cheese, frank’s red hot, buttermilk ranch dressing, cheddar cheese sauce,
• Sides: garden side salad or steamed broccoli

Chik-Fil-A

• Grilled chicken sandwich – If you keep the multigrain bun, you are looking at a crossover with 12g fat and 44 g carbs. Other options – remove the bun and wrap it in lettuce or eat without bun or lettuce wrap. Could technically be an FP (fuel pull) without mayo or bun. This sandwich has 28 g of protein.
• Grilled chicken club sandwich – this one would have to be made into an S by removing the bun. The cheese and bacon make this an automatic S meal. This has 38 grams of protein, and you can have it wrapped in lettuce.
• Grilled nuggets (Fuel pull)
• Grilled nuggets paired with chicken noodle soup for an E meal
• Salads:
  • Cobb salad with the grilled filet (spicy grilled filet is good too). Leave the corn off and don’t use the crispy red bell pepper packet as these two ingredients add too many carbs. You can pair it with the avocado lime dressing, ranch, or bleu cheese to keep it as an (S).
• Possible sides:
  • Fruit cup (E) – good with the grilled chicken sandwich with no mayo and wrapped in lettuce.
  • Side salad (depending on the dressing, could be paired with an E or and S – discussed below.)
  • Pimento cheese could be paired with an S meal. It has 11 g of fat, 1 g of carbs, and 0 sugar.
• Dressings:
  • Avocado lime ranch dressing (S)
  • Creamy salsa dressing (S)
  • Garden herb ranch (S)
  • Light Italian dressing – (FP) – does have 2 grams of sugar – might be a personal choice item
• Breakfast:
  • Grilled breakfast fillet (FP) with 13 grams of protein
  • Egg white grill – it is barely fitting into an (E) with 8 grams of fat – you could leave the cheese off and then it would be a great E breakfast – you could even add an extra egg white to bump up the protein. You can also leave the cheese off and pair this with a fruit cup if you wanted to.
  • Sausage, egg, and cheese or bacon, egg, and cheese sandwiches, eaten without the biscuits. (S)

In-N-Out

• Any hamburger/cheeseburger ordered protein style. (Protein style = wrapped in lettuce)
• Any hamburger/cheeseburger ordered animal style and protein style. (Animal style = extra spread with grilled onions)
• No fries – You would need to have your own side item or special treat brought with you if you needed more to go with it.
• I usually order the double double protein style with an iced tea from the soda fountain.
• Below I listed options that can help fill you up if the burger and tea are not enough:
  • I also carry packets of the Pyure sweetener to use wherever I go.
  • This protein shake I keep in the car for times like this as well. The protein shake is an FP with 4.5g of fat and 6g of carbs with 0 sugar.
  • I usually carry this keto protein bar (to be used with an S like In N Out) in my bag. Side Note: This Keto bar is cutting it close to pushing into a crossover. It has 9g fat and 10g carbs. It also has 20g of protein per bar and 0 sugar. I also don’t give these to my boys because of the soy that is very prominent in the bar. I’m still on the lookout for a great grab and go protein bar, but for now this works for me. I can pair this with an In N Out cheeseburger that is protein style and still be fine.

Pizza restaurants

• A lot of pizza places these days have keto bowls. When in a pinch and you are trying really hard to stay on play without crossovers, this can be an option. Make sure to check the nutrition info first. Sometimes, depending on what is in the keto bowl, it could become a crossover.
• Salads without croutons and a ranch or bleu cheese dressing. Try to get protein added to the salad if possible.
• Chicken wings, bone-in. The hot and mild sauces don’t usually have sugar so those are safe or getting wings without sauce could be an option too. I have had some with salt and vinegar, they are addicting.

I would love to hear from all of you about what you eat when you dine-out, if you dine-out, or if you have other restaurants you would like me to check out. Let me know in the comments.

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Thanks for reading!