Tips on ordering food at an Italian restaurant?

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goszews
goszews Posts: 1 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I find the next day I am 2-3 pounds heavier due to all the salt.

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  • SuzySunshine99
    SuzySunshine99 Posts: 2,984 Member
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    Most restaurant food has a lot of salt. The good news is, it's just water weight, so it's temporary.

    You likely can't avoid the salt, but for lower-calorie Italian options, look at grilled fish, chicken, or other meat and vegetables. Limit or avoid pasta, bread, anything smothered in cheese or Alfredo sauce.
  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 9,394 Member
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    Why is water weight a problem? It will eventually drop off again. Weight fluctuates constantly anyway, due to salt, hormone variations, food in transit, just drinking a glass of water will increase your weight temporarily to the weight of the water you just drank. So don't sweat it and enjoy.
  • jjjsroach
    jjjsroach Posts: 31 Member
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    The carbs for a typical italian meal might also be contributing. Your body stores an additional 3 grams of water for every carb gram you eat in the short term. As others have said, water weight is a temporary thing. Stick to your overall calorie deficit and you will keep losing weight over the long haul.
  • Retroguy2000
    Retroguy2000 Posts: 1,514 Member
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    I wouldn't worry about it, especially if it's infrequent. As with any restaurant meals, if you think or know it's high calorie and you'd rather not have all those calories at that time, eat in moderation. Don't touch the bread on the side, don't get seconds, don't get a dessert, etc.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,166 Member
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    If your meal is within calorie goal, it's just water weight, as others have said. Personally, I don't worry over water weight increases. For me, they usually drop off within about a week, and my weight is back where I expect it to be, if the calorie intake wasn't super-excessive.

    I prefer to learn about and understand my own body's non-fat-related scale fluctuations, so they don't stress me.

    The general rule of thumb is that if we didn't eat enough calories above maintenance calories recently to explain the scale jump (or move that much less than usual), the scale jump is some combination of water retention and more-than-average waste in our digestive tract on its way to the exit.

    In case you haven't read it, this thread (especially the article linked in the first post) is informative:

    https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10683010/the-weird-and-highly-annoying-world-of-scale-fluctuations/p1

    A weight trending app may also be helpful: They use statistics to smooth out weight trends and estimate the ongoing rate of weight change via fat loss. Some free examples are Libra for Android, Happy Scale for iOS/Apple, Trendweight (with a free Fitbit account, but don't need a device), Weightgrapher on the web.

    Best wishes!

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