Chinese carryout is something everyone craves – especially on a restrictive diet. Can you stay on a diet while eating Chinese carryout or dining out at Chinese restaurant? If you were stranded in a blizzard for five days and the only one that would deliver was a Chinese carryout restaurant, would you still lose weight?
I recently put Chinese food to the test for my five days on a diet experience.
I have to say, you can’t frequent just any old Chinese carryout restaurant while staying on a diet. For the most part – if you want to lose weight without losing your mind – you need to find a high quality Chinese restaurant that offers carry out options that are both light and delicious. Chinese restaurants that only deep fry dark meat chicken and serve only a few cubes of carrots and peas in fried rice don’t fit the bill!
Here are some tips for diet-friendly Chinese carryout options or items you can order when you dine out at a Chinese restaurant:
No. 1: Diet-friendly Chinese carryout tip: Don’t skimp on the shrimp. Shrimp is often a delicious and diet-friendly Chinese carryout option as long as you avoid the fried or breaded shrimp, and order sautéed or stir-fried shrimp. Shrimp with broccoli, shrimp with mixed vegetables, shrimp in garlic sauce, and Ku Pao shrimp are all good options.
No. 2: Diet-friendly Chinese carryout tip: Don’t worry about whether you are eating brown rice or white rice – mix it up or have a little of each. Just watch portion size (1/2 cup for a meal). And, it goes without saying, NO fried rice of any kind!
No. 3: Diet-friendly Chinese carryout tip: Follow the same rules when ordering chicken dishes as you do with shrimp. Avoid fried, breaded, “crispy” and look for wok-fired, stir-fried, steamed and sautéed. Good options include Teriyaki chicken, lemongrass chicken, chicken and broccoli or mixed vegetables and Ku Pao chicken. It’s also wise to go easy on sugary sauces such as sweet and sour.
No. 4: Diet-friendly Chinese carryout tip: Try an appetizer for a meal. The best bets include lettuce wraps, steamed vegetable dumpings, chicken grilled on a skewer, and Edamame (steamed salted soybeans.) Avoid egg rolls, coconut shrimp and pan-fried pork dumplings.
No. 5: Diet-friendly Chinese carryout tip: Order vegetables such as string beans, tofu with asparagus, broccoli, red and green peppers or Chinese eggplant. Watch portion size on Chinese eggplant as it is not breaded and fried, but does contain oil (fat). Also, request they go “easy on the oil” when ordering the sautéed string beans.
You may also order a light Chinese soup to fill you up when dining out at a Chinese restaurant, although it’s a bit messy for Chinese carryout.
Chinese people are generally healthy. But as one Chinese restaurant owner once confided in me, Chinese people are thin for a reason.
“We don’t eat like that,” she said, referring to the deep-fried Chinese options many Americans order. While she felt they had to offer the heavy fried options for her customers, my thin Chinese friend said her family mostly ate rice and stir-fired vegetables with perhaps a little tofu or chicken.
So was I able to lose weight while eating at least one meal of Chinese food each day for five days? No, but I maintained my weight by selecting the better for you options while dining out and ordering Chinese carryout. And with all the vegetables and rice – I genuinely felt great!
