How to Avoid Overeating at a Restaurant - as part of the expert series by GeoBeats. Janet Brill: Most restaurants are serving you too much food. Also, the food that you’re getting in restaurants is going to be higher in bad fats, higher in sodium, and higher in calories than if you were to make it at home. So, knowing those things, you can go into… You can pick your restaurants wisely. So, you want to go for restaurants that serve healthy foods, simple foods, like grilled, as opposed to fried foods, sauce on the side. Salad bars are great, but go for just the plain vegetables. And then use the fork dip method with salad dressing, where you take some salad dressing on the side, dip you fork in the salad dressing and then into the salad.