The all-you-can-eat buffet can be a thing of danger to the diet of most people. The basic concept is simple: Rather than having a standard menu, the buffet has a wide variety of items that are constantly restocked, and access to this is usually a cheaper price than restaurants in the surrounding area, making it a great savings. For people looking to save money while having a lot of food, this makes it a wonderful way to save money. As such there are a number of traps and pitfalls for any diet, and it can help to know how to avoid them before yoiu even sit down. Luckily, there are some simple tricks that can help anyone deal with it and escape relatively unscathed.
The biggest temptation will be to eat until you are full, and then some. There is always the need to make sure that you get the biggest bang for your buck, and when you are paying for as much as you can eat that becomes a personal challenge: The more you eat, the more bang you get for your buck, and so to maximize that bang you eat as much as you can. There's also the feeling that if you can eat enough, you can actually cause financial damage to the owners for their obvious lapse in judgment. The reality is that they don't care how much you eat, and that for every person that overeats there are a dozen that eat less than the value of the plate. So when you sit down to eat, just sit down and relax: Eat what you feel comfortable eating and don't sweat what anyone else eats as there is virtually no way for you to bankrupt the place through your own efforts. More to the point, as long as you eat two or three plates, you are getting good value for your money, so don't feel bad if you don't eat more.
That said, eating nutritionally at a buffet is easy. Try to divide your meal into four plates with no more than two drinks, alcoholic or otherwise. The more you drink the more you will eat, so limiting the amount you drink also limits the amount you eat. That also limits the amount of sugars and other things that you are trying to keep out of your system coming in. I don't care if it's milk, juice, soda, or sake: Limiting your drinks is the first healthy thing you can do.
The first plate should be a salad or other raw vegetables. You want a good basic leafy salad with a couple of other ingredients and some dressing. You don't want to drench your salad in dressing, and keep in mind that most salad dressings are just as healthy as the next. From a nutritional perspective, a vinegar and oil dressing can contain fewer nutrients and more sugar than ranch or Italian. Other raw vegetables are good, even if they are on the side or part of the salad. So have some fun when you create your salad. Oh, and jello molds and similar desserts, while usually in the salad section, do not count here.
The second plate should be proteins and carbs. Carbs can be anything from breads to pastas to any form of potato or rice. The human body needs carbs to function at any kind of energy level and you may as well grab some. Proteins do not need to be meat, but mushrooms, chili, bean dishes, even falafel balls; proteins are something you need, so grab some of those as well. It may sound strange, but fried foods should count as roughly half carb and half protein for our purposes here. If you want, the third plate can be more fun things that caught your eye on the walk through. For either of these plates, do not overload them; they should be a nice, comfortable load that you would have no problem showing your doctor.
Sushi rolls are sort of special, as the temptation will be to eat a lot of them. They are small after all, so it makes sense to eat a lot of them and, per unit, they are healthy bits of food. However, the carbs in them clock up really quick. For diabetics this means that you should not have more than six rolls per plate, and they should be the only thing on it. This should help keep blood sugar and pounds down.
The last plate can be your desserts. Choose wisely as you should not have more than four items, period. Do not game this: If you want a lot of pudding, count it as all four of your items. This can be a serving of pudding or jello, a cookie, a muffin, or piece of cake; an ice cream cone counts as two items, plus one per scoop. If you're diabetic, that limit should be two, but I won't tell if you don't.
While a buffet can be a possible major trap for your diet, a little wisdom can help you navigate it. Have fun but not too much fun, and you should have a great meal. Limit yourself to two drinks and four decent plates, and the buffet can actually fit into the diet of most people.
The biggest temptation will be to eat until you are full, and then some. There is always the need to make sure that you get the biggest bang for your buck, and when you are paying for as much as you can eat that becomes a personal challenge: The more you eat, the more bang you get for your buck, and so to maximize that bang you eat as much as you can. There's also the feeling that if you can eat enough, you can actually cause financial damage to the owners for their obvious lapse in judgment. The reality is that they don't care how much you eat, and that for every person that overeats there are a dozen that eat less than the value of the plate. So when you sit down to eat, just sit down and relax: Eat what you feel comfortable eating and don't sweat what anyone else eats as there is virtually no way for you to bankrupt the place through your own efforts. More to the point, as long as you eat two or three plates, you are getting good value for your money, so don't feel bad if you don't eat more.
That said, eating nutritionally at a buffet is easy. Try to divide your meal into four plates with no more than two drinks, alcoholic or otherwise. The more you drink the more you will eat, so limiting the amount you drink also limits the amount you eat. That also limits the amount of sugars and other things that you are trying to keep out of your system coming in. I don't care if it's milk, juice, soda, or sake: Limiting your drinks is the first healthy thing you can do.
The first plate should be a salad or other raw vegetables. You want a good basic leafy salad with a couple of other ingredients and some dressing. You don't want to drench your salad in dressing, and keep in mind that most salad dressings are just as healthy as the next. From a nutritional perspective, a vinegar and oil dressing can contain fewer nutrients and more sugar than ranch or Italian. Other raw vegetables are good, even if they are on the side or part of the salad. So have some fun when you create your salad. Oh, and jello molds and similar desserts, while usually in the salad section, do not count here.
The second plate should be proteins and carbs. Carbs can be anything from breads to pastas to any form of potato or rice. The human body needs carbs to function at any kind of energy level and you may as well grab some. Proteins do not need to be meat, but mushrooms, chili, bean dishes, even falafel balls; proteins are something you need, so grab some of those as well. It may sound strange, but fried foods should count as roughly half carb and half protein for our purposes here. If you want, the third plate can be more fun things that caught your eye on the walk through. For either of these plates, do not overload them; they should be a nice, comfortable load that you would have no problem showing your doctor.
Sushi rolls are sort of special, as the temptation will be to eat a lot of them. They are small after all, so it makes sense to eat a lot of them and, per unit, they are healthy bits of food. However, the carbs in them clock up really quick. For diabetics this means that you should not have more than six rolls per plate, and they should be the only thing on it. This should help keep blood sugar and pounds down.
The last plate can be your desserts. Choose wisely as you should not have more than four items, period. Do not game this: If you want a lot of pudding, count it as all four of your items. This can be a serving of pudding or jello, a cookie, a muffin, or piece of cake; an ice cream cone counts as two items, plus one per scoop. If you're diabetic, that limit should be two, but I won't tell if you don't.
While a buffet can be a possible major trap for your diet, a little wisdom can help you navigate it. Have fun but not too much fun, and you should have a great meal. Limit yourself to two drinks and four decent plates, and the buffet can actually fit into the diet of most people.
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