When you are going out for a nice dinner with family and friends, you might be worried about the amount of calories that you are about to have. There are many different ways that you can have great meals without having all of the calories of the meal.

When you go out for dinner, order a salad first. The extra fresh vegetables of a salad will help to reduce the amount of calories that you might have had while eating a different fatty appetizer. This means that you have to cut the cheese sticks and get back to a salad. The next thing that you should think about is the dressing. Restaurants tend to over do it on the dressing, so ask for the dressing on the side. When the salad comes, dip your fork in the dressing before taking a bite of the salad. This will help to drastically reduce the number of calories that you could intake during one dinner salad.

The next thing that you should consider when dining out is the food that you order. Doubling up on your protein can help you reduce the number of calories that you intake because you are adding protein instead of carbs and calories.

The last but most important way to trim calories at your dinner event is to watch your portion size. Although this may not sound important, overeating has become a bad habit in the US. If you reduce your portion size in the meal that you are eating, you will help to reduce, almost in half, the number of calories that you will be taking in from the meal. If you have an option as to the side that you can have, always ask for the steamed vegetables. By choosing the vegetables instead of a baked potato, you can help to eliminate many of the calories from the meal. This will also help because there shouldn't be any extra sauce added to your vegetables.

These are just a few of the many different ways to eliminate some of the calories from your out to dinner meal. You should also make sure to ask the server for different specials that the restaurant might be having. Often times the specials are not as expensive in calories as other foods that might be on the menu.