Pointers on incorporating diet into life at home?

Once a week = fairly often? I ate out three times on Saturday alone, not counting the froyo from TCBY!

:laugh: :drinker:

I have the same problem. I'm trying to log in on the weekends now, I do it before I go to bed. I take my dogs out and while I'm waiting for them I log in. But staying within my cals on the weekend it tough for me. My husband and I love to cook and usually someone comes over on the weekend and then there is wine involved & desserts. I'm going to try to stay below my cals this week Mon. thru Thur. so that my average weekly will be better than this past week. :flowerforyou:

We eat out about three times a week. We tend to rotate between the same 2-3 places so I've developed an eating plan for each place. I've found too that most places are willing to juggle things a bit for you. I LOVE french fries, love, love, love them. However, I have no "off switch" when it comes to french fries and will happily clean my plate regardless of how big the serving size is (which explains my need for weight loss).

I've taken to asking to sub out the french fries for a slice of bread or something like applesauce. The places I've asked have been more than willing to do so and that cuts the calories / fat WAY down than having a huge serving of fries. Most places too are happy to do things like serve sauces on the side, when I get a breakfast sandwich I substitute the meat for applesauce and ask that the English muffin be tossed on the grill without butter etc. I wouldn't ask for anything really complicated because I know how busy it is working in a restaurant (been there, done that) but those are easy enough changes that it doesn't throw off things in the back and it helps keep me on track. I'll get a grilled chicken sandwich and ask to hold the top part of the bun and put honey mustard on the side etc. It's just little things but it really helps me a lot to stay in control (although of course everyone is different so this may be a useless post for you but it works for me!)

I also agree with the phone app. I too log in the mornings and pre-plan the day. At times if we decide on the fly to go out to eat I just zip in and change it. After you've been to your fave restaurants so many times you know the menu and you can make adjustments from there.

Oh also I add the restaurant meals I like and have gotten the nutritional info for into MFP under "my meals" so I can just pop over and pick that meal and I don't have to add each item separately.

Once of our fave places is a little diner which has no nutritional info listed but it's fairly simple to break it down. I love the open faced chicken sandwich. I have it in my meals as one slice white bread, one cup diced turkey, 1/2 cup stuffing and 1/2 cup gravy. Those are estimates of course but I have found that they must be close enough because the weight is still coming off. Look online for visuals to help you estimate. For example the palm of a woman's hand is roughly three ounces (so I will take my hand and hover it over the meat to see it if fits and if there's more than my palm I can estimate for them. I'm not sure if I can post a link here but I'll try. That gives some tips on visualizing portion sizes. A food scale and measuring cups / spoons is the best and most accurate but if you're out and about it's not very handy!

http://education.wichita.edu/caduceus/examples/servings/visual_estimates.htm

Keep low cal snacks around - carrot sticks/hummus, etc. Also, you can make lower fat/cal versions of popular dishes for yourself - or just have a smaller portion. For example, I made some mini pumpkin pies last week - some with the pie crust (for my office) and some just in a muffin tin (for me). You'd be surprised at how cutting out small things like the crust can make something either diet friendly or diet not friendly!

Also, going out to eat can be really easy (I eat out lunch and dinner every day - literally). LIMIT YOURSELF. I will stick to veggies and protein - so it's almost always a salad with chicken or beef on top. When I eat Chinese, I get tofu with veggies or wonton soup. Most restaurants have a chicken broth based soup of some kind too - just get it without the chips, cheese or dairy. You'd be amazed at how a massive bowl of chicken tortilla soup is, and how low cal it can be, with just the broth, chicken and veggies.

Good luck!

Some things I do to help me through weekends:
1) Always log, even if you go way overboard.
2) Minimize junk food in the house. At least always have healthy alternatives for yourself even if everyone else isn't buying in to health eating, i.e. when the grab a cookie, you grab an apple.
3) When you go out to eat, take 5 minutes to check the website of the place you're going to - most chains have nutrition information. Choose what you'll eat before you go. If the place you're going to doesn't have this info, use the knowledge you've gained to make a good choice. Salad not fries, wraps not burgers, light beer instead of full, diet soda/pop instead of the full sugar.
4) Have a light lunch if you know you'll go over at dinner. My current favorite is a salad with a hard boiled egg & a small tin of tuna
5) Get in a good workout on the day you're eating out.
6) Drink plenty of water with your means to help that full feeling come sooner.
7) Portion control. You can have fries, just don't eat all of them. Take a handful and put the rest on somebody else's plate.

Good luck finding something that works for you.

Mark

I 100% agree with this. I've been up & down over the past couple of years but following mark's suggested method is what works for me too, in fact, I was gonna write that myself. Looking at the nutrition facts on restaurant websites definitely work wonders. It actually stops me from eating out because everything has so many cals. But just proportion a lot & make alternatives like your own hamburger with turkey, half slice of cheese & baked fries. I've lost almost 2lbs this week & I didn't do a full cardio workout but three days & I'm a bus driver 10 hours a day. I still ate the foods that I love (except restaurant) but instead of two portions I only had 1/2 to 1 portion. I count high cal snacks as meals also. & I don't snack over 400 cals. Also, I replaced beef products with turkey products. This is actually working for me so far. I still have a long way to go but I hope I was helpful & that you make it through this struggle. Oh yeah, involve your kids in the healthy eating make it a family thing.

whole sundae because I only knew the cals for the whole thing and how can you evenly divide ice cream lol. Silly. Anyway I have been doing great the last 2 weeks. What helped me is that I exercise a little more doing the week that way I have room to splurge on the weekends. I also started prelogging my food in advance. I make sure that I include my night snack ahead of time so that I won't feel deprived. When I get to the restaurant, I look at the nutritional guide online on my phone before I order. Most people look at the price before they order, I look at the calories and go from there. I was so proud of myself this week. I went to the mall this weekend which is so scary because I always want a pretzel. this time, as soon as I stepped foot in the mall, I put gum in my mouth and didn't want anything. My hubby and I ate out 2x this weekend and both times I ordered dessert as usual but small portions and I chose veggies over fries for less cals and ate everything that I wanted. I was so excited! You will get this. I would just say for you to start out by at least pre-logging your weekends even if you don't do it for the week yet and include snacks. Even if you have to pre-log your snacks first and then add your meals, whatever works so you can make this a habit. Habit is KEY...Best wishes to you.