Weight and Eating out

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adchak
adchak Posts: 62 Member
in Food and Nutrition
Im 5 ft 7 inches, 185 lbs and lost abt 20 lbs lastyear as I cleaned up my diet and continued with my regular exercise routine. My goal wt is 150 lbs
I do eatout over weekends and I’vevnoticed that even though I keep mostly within my calorie limit of 1300-1400 cals I always end up weighing more the next 3-4 days and then as I get back to my regular diet the wt comes down.
What this does is push me back inmy wt loss journey and I have to restart again.
To all the ppl who have successfully got to their goal wt how do you balance eating out frequency, food with your wt loss goals. Are you super strict abt not eating out at all till you reach the goal wt?
Pl help!!!

Replies

  • MikePTY
    MikePTY Posts: 3,814 Member
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    If you are keeping within your calorie limit when you dine out, then it doesn't hold you back in your weight loss journey. You will likely add some water weight from increased sodium intake when eating out, which is why you will see the scale go up at first, but that will go away after a few days and your losses should continue. Your fat loss shouldn't be affected by water weight, and overall you will continue to lose weight. If you are finding you are not losing weight at all, you might be eating more calories than you think.

    I dine out a fair amount, and have lost 30 pounds. Sometimes I will see a water weight bump for a little while, and my weight will go up a couple of pounds, but it eventually comes back down and continues to new lows.
  • Panini911
    Panini911 Posts: 2,325 Member
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    big picture, is your weight going down? Sounds like it's just water fluctuations from the meals but your actual weight over weeks is going down as expected?
  • COGypsy
    COGypsy Posts: 1,165 Member
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    I eat out probably 3-5 times a week and have lost weight as my numbers have predicted. There might be a weight spike the next day if the food was especially salty or heavier on carbs than I usually eat. However, since I definitely know that I didn’t eat thousands and thousands of calories above my maintenance calories, I just don’t worry about it. To actually gain a pound of fat, I’d have to eat about 5800 calories over the course of a day—never mind the amount it would take to gain 3 or 4 pounds!
  • middlehaitch
    middlehaitch Posts: 8,483 Member
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    I know my portion sizes form eating at home so when I eat out I eat the appropriate portion sizes and bring the rest home for another day.

    I quite often have a 2-3 lbs jump up from the extra salt (water weight), that is usually gone by Wednesday.

    I count Thursday morning as a stable weight if I am monitoring my weight.

    NB: I’m in maintenance (~10yr) but the same applied when losing.

    Eat out, just eat the appropriate quantity and log in good faith (restaurant cal counts can never be exact).

    Cheers, h.

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