You can lose weight even when eating at a buffet, but there are some tricks to choosing dishes

Many people often think that if they want to lose weight, they have to "boil or scald" their own food. Although boiling or scalding water is a good way to control calories, it is not a weight loss method that can be implemented for a lifetime. In addition, not everyone can boil or scald their own meals in order to lose weight.

Therefore, some people switch to simple foods such as toast and milk in order to control calories. However, such a diet is not as low in calories as imagined (two slices of toast usually have the same calories as a bowl of rice), and it can also lead to a lack of satiety and satisfaction as well as nutritional imbalance.

How much do you know about buffet dishes (classification of dishes)

In fact, because buffets allow people to freely choose dishes and the dishes have many special features, they can be said to be one of the options for eating out to be full and thin. Now, let us get to know the dishes at buffets. Buffet dishes can generally be divided into three categories:

1. Pure meat dishes: It may be a whole piece of meat, such as chicken steak, pork chop or a whole fish, which may be fried, pan-fried, braised or steamed; it may also be shredded, diced or minced meat, such as fried pork liver, fried black pepper beef tenderloin, braised lion head, etc.

2. Pure vegetable dishes: directly stir-fry vegetables, such as stir-fried cabbage, stir-fried broccoli, etc. Basically, almost all vegetables in buffets are stir-fried.

3. Dishes that are a mixture of meat and vegetables: For example, fried beef with black pepper, scrambled eggs with tomatoes, and other dishes that are a mixture of meat and vegetables.

Eating out can also provide a balanced diet and help you lose weight

1. Basic knowledge and tips for choosing buffets

1. Tips for choosing meat: Start with cooking and choose the right food to get twice the result with half the effort

Although many of the meat cooking methods in buffets are mainly fried, you can still choose some other low-oil cooking methods such as steaming, roasting, braising, smoking, etc. If you are less satisfied, there are also meat cooking methods such as stir-frying or pan-frying that use less oil than frying.

Choosing the right cooking method is definitely the most effective way to reduce calories. For example, if you choose chicken legs, the calories of roasted chicken legs and braised chicken legs only need to be calculated by the calories of the chicken legs themselves, but if you fry chicken legs, you have to add the calories of the coating and oil, which immediately adds hundreds of calories.

Other practical ways to reduce calories

*When eating meat, try to remove the skin, fat and other visible fat parts to reduce some calories.

*When choosing meat, it is better to choose large pieces of meat rather than small pieces. The smaller the meat is cut into pieces or when it is minced, the larger its surface area will be, so it will absorb more oil when fried or stir-fried.

*If you have to eat fried food, try to remove the skin and breading to reduce the calories in fried meat.

2. Tips for choosing vegetable or meat dishes

Apart from meat, most of the other dishes in the buffet are stir-fried, such as stir-frying vegetables directly or stir-frying vegetables and meat. When choosing this type of food, it is recommended to pick larger pieces with harder textures (larger pieces have smaller oil absorption areas, and harder oil is less likely to penetrate), or to choose vegetables with more stems (the stems are harder than leaves, so they absorb less oil).

In addition, when choosing this type of food, it is best to pick the top layer (the top layer will have less oil and juice, while the vegetables on the bottom layer are mostly soaked in oil and juice), drain some of the juice before eating.

Other practical ways to reduce calories

You can blanch stir-fried vegetables or meat and mixed dishes in hot soup or hot water before eating.

3. Other considerations

When buying a buffet, the meals must be packed separately. Simply put, it means packing the meal separately (the lunch box only contains vegetables and meat, and the rice is placed in a small bowl or plastic bag, or the lunch is carried in a double-layer lunch box), replacing the original habit of putting stir-fried vegetables and meat dishes on white rice. This is because if you put the vegetables directly on the rice like in a normal bento, the oil from the fried vegetables and meat will seep into the rice underneath, causing you to consume too many calories.

2. Advanced tips: Tips for controlling calories

1. Calorie calculation method for various dishes

The following is a method for calculating the calories of various common buffet dishes. In principle, the calories of the dish are calculated based on the calories of the food itself plus the calories of the cooking oil. It is estimated that you need to add 100 calories more for deep-frying and 50 calories more for pan-frying. Of course, if you can use hot water to scald off the oil in fried dishes, or remove the skin and fried breading to reduce the calories in fried foods, you can reduce the estimated calories above a little bit.

2. Ways to control calories

It is recommended to control the calories of buffet food by following the principle of 1 rice + 1 meat + 2 to 4 vegetables. Below is a simple table to help you calculate the calories for a buffet.

For example, at a buffet, choose a small bowl of rice + 1 meat (fried pork liver) + 3 vegetables (fried cabbage, cauliflower and long beans), the calories are about 210 kcal (rice) + 150 (pork liver) + 30 (oil for fried pork liver) + 50 (calories in each dish) × 3 = 210 + 180 + 150 = 540 kcal.

Of course, if you use hot water to scald off the cooking oil, or choose ingredients such as steamed fish that do not require additional oil, the calories can be reduced by another 30 (fat from fried meat) + 20×3 (calorie reduction from cooking with superheated water), so that the calories of the same small bowl of rice + 1 meat + 3 vegetables can be controlled at around 450 calories.

This article comes from: Nutritionist Stella's Weight Loss & Nutrition Blog

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