Healthy foods and things to avoid at a Mexican restaurant.

retro_gamer

Hi so I'm going to an authentic Mexican restaurant later and I'm also trying to lose weight, so I was wondering what I should order and what I should avoid, since I know nothing about Mexican cuisine.

Here is the menu of the restaurant

https://nagsheadguide.com/la-fogata/menus

Also I don't like seafood so anything with fish or shrimp I'm not going to order.


Thanks for the help.

DX2JX2

Fajitas should be relatively easy to deal with. All of the ingredients are grilled (or at least not fried), and since you build them yourself it's easy to know what's in them and to control the portions. Just make sure to add a couple of hundred calories to account for cooking oil.

Try to avoid anything fried for obvious reasons (including tortilla chips) and beware of burritos and the like. Burritos, etc. aren't necessarily bad per se, they're just very difficult to estimate because you might not know exactly what's in them, they tend to include high calorie items (including cheese, sour cream, and guacamole), and portions are hard to control/observe since everything is wrapped up.

MonkeyMel21

Carne asada is often my go-to. You can dress it up with guac and other stuff, or keep it pretty light. It's always super tasty, even by itself.

mcraw75

Pollo Loco and don't eat the tortillas.

DX2JX2

Also...tacos al pastor is very good, too. Basically meat and tortillas topped with whatever salsa you want. I love them.

gamerbabe14

Pozole!

janejellyroll

mcraw75 wrote: »

Pollo Loco and don't eat the tortillas.

If one doesn't miss them, tortillas are a good place to cut calories. But if someone likes them, tortillas will fit into a deficit. Flour tortillas are more calorie-dense, but corn tortillas surprised me with how few calories they have. A small one, like you would get with fajitas, has around 50 calories. I would have no trouble fitting that into my dinner, even on a deficit.

orangegato

Avoid tortilla chips or a taco salad in a fried tortilla shell. Margaritas can kill your calorie allowance too. But have a good time! Mexican food is great.

Philtex

orangegato wrote: »

Avoid tortilla chips

If you haven't been to a Mexican restaurant before, they typically bring out tortilla chips and salsa as soon as you sit down. Rather than skip them, I suggest limiting yourself. I find 10 chips to be reasonable. I also recommend ordering the fajitas, probably chicken with corn tortillas rather than flour tortillas and watch out for the sour cream. Have fun. You can be back on plan tomorrow.

managematics

From that menu, the Pollo Loco looks likely to be reasonable. Ask if they'll send corn tortillas instead of flour as others have mentioned. And limit yourself with the rice.

cwolfman13

I can't pull up the menu, but if it's really a traditional Mexican restaurant, most things should be on the healthier side. Most traditional Mexican food is pretty healthy eats...it's the Americanized concoctions with a gazillion pounds of cheese and Tex Mex stuff that tends to be less healthy overall...

I live in New Mexico and we have our own cuisine...I enjoy it when I have it, but I don't have it often as pretty much anything is a calorie bomb with the amount of cheese and whatnot that tops most items.