How bad are group lunches for you?

What happens to your waistline when circumstances cause you to not be able to eat your usual healthy lunches?

I’ve been asking myself this question for the past couple weeks as I’ve gone through the orientation activities at my new college teaching job.

Don’t get me wrong – it’s been great. And it’s very nice of the university to provide lunches. (Throwing that in there just in case my new bosses read this) It could be worse – they could just tell you to get lunch on your own.

But when you usually eat a homemade salad with fat-free dressing, a piece of fruit, yogurt and unsweetened tea for lunch like I do, navigating your way through all the great food provided for a group can be difficult – especially when you’re new and trying to make an impression. You want to go along with the crowd.

However, I don’t want there to be too much of an impression on my waistline.

At least they have had unsweetened tea at most of the events I’ve attended. And they have had salad, although I doubt the dressing is fat-free.

But I’ve also eaten chicken breast covered in cheese and marinara sauce, slabs of some kind of vegetarian lasagna, rolls, barbecue sandwiches and Mexican food.

All of the food has been delicious, but heavy. On the day we had the barbecue sandwiches, I must not have had my healthy thinking cap on, because I took the bun, smothered it with delicious barbecue and chowed down. It wasn’t until I got halfway through the sandwich that I realized what I should have done to minimize the damage: leave the bun off and just eat the barbecue with a fork.

That’s testimony to the fact that my head was spinning with orientation information, and my healthy eating had taken a back seat.

Oh, well. I only have a couple more events to attend, then my lunches will be my own again. I’ll just minimize the damage as much as I can and not worry about the pound or two I may gain.

At least I’m on a college campus now where I can walk it off.

Practice portion control for waist control

My husband and I enjoy going out to eat on the weekends. We eat a few less-healthy foods than we might during the week.

Trouble is, neither one of us can eat the huge meals served in restaurants these days. A typical meal might include a salad, a 12-ounce steak, a large side of mashed potatoes a pile of vegetables and rolls. Even if we had the appetite to down that much food, we know it's not good for our waistlines to stuff ourselves.

The reason for this is simple: When you consume more calories than you expend, you gain weight.

A major key to losing or maintaining your weight is portion control, something we Americans have trouble with.

Maybe we should take a lesson from Okinawans. They practice the principle of hara hachi bu - or eating until you are 80 percent full.

They're on to something. In Okinawa, heart disease rates are 80 percent lower than in the U.S., stroke rates are lower, cholesterol levels are typically under 180 and cancer rates are 50 to 80 percent lower.

Interestingly, there is a society, called aptly the Calorie Restriction Society, that advocates the concept of Calorie Restriction. They say that since the 1930s, extensive scientific research has shown that calorie restricted diets improve health and extend lifespans of nearly every species tested, including worms, spiders, rodents, dogs, cows and monkeys. They believe it is likely that people who carefully adopt a calorie-restricted diet will see similar results.

However, when you're at a restaurant, it can be difficult to strike a balance between enjoying yourself at lunch or dinner and maintaining a healthy weight.

How do you do it?

Martha Edwards, a That's Fit.com blogger, recommends a few suggestions, including ordering off the kids menu, asking for a half portion, going for an appetizer (one that’s not fried!) instead of an entree or getting a side salad and lean meat.

These are all good suggestions, and I have one more to add to the list.

My husband and I control the amount of food we eat in restaurants by splitting meals. Luckily, we like many of the same foods, so we have a pretty easy time finding something we can both agree on. We specify to our server that we will split the meal, and we ask for an extra plate. If the meal doesn't look like it will be quite enough for the two of us, it's easy to add an appetizer or an extra side.

We have been doing this for several years, and we haven't had a restaurant balk yet. If it did, we would probably take our business elsewhere.

Splitting meals has the added benefit of keeping our costs down, too, which is a good thing in today's economy.

We have encountered a few restaurants that are nice enough to split the meal for us, and we appreciate this extra service when we get it. But most of the time, we have to split the food ourselves. This takes a little extra time and effort, but the calorie savings -- and cost savings -- are well worth it.

How about you? Do you find it easy or difficult to control your portions? What suggestions do you have to add to the list? Leave a comment and let me know!