Had a delicious eye fillet steak (least amount of gristle and fat of all the steaks) with some steamed vegetables, a side salad and a jacket potato (with the sour cream at a minimal). Ok the sour cream is pretty bad, because it was at a restaurant.. but, the good thing about sour cream is that it doesn’t soak into the potato when the potato is baked, so you can choose if you want to eat it or just scrape it onto the side. It does add a different flavour though. All those carbs, but I don’t believe carbohydrates are all that bad anyway - they just need to be consumed responsibly.

Remember, if you get the choice of mashed potato, chips or jacket potato (usually baked in alfoil with its skin still on) in a restaurant, I would probably suggest trying the jacket potato and asking (as a precaution) that no butter be used in it. That way you will only get the sour cream with it.

Chips are deep fried… so I would give them a miss.

Mashed potato in restaurants is not low in fat. To get a delicious taste, chefs usually add a lot of butter and always use full cream milk. They’re all about the taste, not the healthy side of the dish. If you’re making it at home, try what I do, a splash of low fat milk, some chopped shallots (or spring onions), and a clove of garlic. The amount is relevant to how many potatoes you put into it. If you need to, add no more than a teaspoon of butter. It’s still tasty without the extra butter or sour cream etc.

Don’t be afraid to ask for your vegetables to be cooked a certain way. No matter what restaurant I’m in, I always ask for them to come without butter. I ask for this not just because of the healthier choice but also because I tend to find the vegetables all end up tasting like butter. I don’t want them to taste like butter. I want them to taste like the delicious, low fat vegetables that are on my plate! Chefs don’t usually mind making your meal the way you want it. In my opinion, if you’re paying for it, you should get it served the way you want it.