Restaurant food

Personally, I do intermittent fasting so I skip breakfast everyday. Not saying you have to do this. However, on a day when you know you are going to eat out, skip breakfast, and have a very light lunch, like a 300 calorie soup. Then you will have between 1,000 to 1,200 calories if not more to eat what you want when you eat out.

If I know I am eating out, I check online for calories and pick something that works with my daily allowance and that I want to eat. If it is something higher in calories I make sure to run a few extra miles or eat light the rest of the day.

I try to make a conscious effort to eat at home as much as possible, while also recognizing that losing weight doesn't mean having to avoid social situations. So, I try not to grab dinner if it's just because I'm lazy or tired, but if it's an invitation to go out with people or a special occasion, I don't turn it down.

First step is planning, which it sounds like you're already doing by looking at menus online - good call. I also usually try to save some calories for that meal (more than I would usually eat for that meal) and/or squeeze in a bit of extra cardio. Even if you're able to find a totally reasonable meal, it doesn't hurt to have a couple hundred extra calories if you decide you just can't resist the bread basket or a couple of bites of the dessert everyone ordered to share. If you can choose your meal ahead of time (knowing the calories), you're set.

If you can't choose ahead of time or the menu doesn't have nutritional info available, what I do is to try to stick to menu items that have whole foods and order with as many sauces/dressing/whatever either on the side or not at all. Yeah, you still have to make some guesses for portion sizes and cooking oils and stuff, but choose plain foods that it's harder to hide calories in and then YOU can decide how much stuff to put on them. Ask for oil and vinegar for salad dressing instead of whatever pre-made dressings they have. Try to control all of the unknowns as much as possible. It's a LOT easier to log a piece of steak and a baked potato and some broccoli than to log something that was created by someone else and you don't know what's in it, you know?

Does that make sense? Lol. All I'm saying is try to choose items where there's the least amount of guessing.

I don't go out for a sit down meal very often - maybe every couple of months. If I'm going out to eat, I just eat whatever I want.

However, if I ate out a lot, then I'd pre-log and eat light the rest of the day/day after etc.

Hey there!

How do you deal with eating out? In my experience, it is far easier to meet my calorie goals and lose weight when I eat at home and can cook strategically and measure what I'm making.

very true...which is why I substantially reduced the eating out we were doing...bonus is that we also saved a lot of $$$ in the process.

when you do eat out, you have to just do the best you can...if it's a chain restaurant, nutritional info is available...if not, you just pick something as close as possible from the data base. A good rule of thumb is that if you eat an entire entree...for the most part you're looking at 800 - 1000 calories given that a typical restaurant entree is about twice the recommended and they use a lot of oils and butter.

I typically only eat out maybe 6 times per month. We usually have Friday nights out as a family and then a couple other times during the month...usually a Sat or Sun when we're out and about and need some fueling.

i eat out once a week or sometimes less but I try and eat less during the day and drink more water. if you fast almost completely....everything will look so good that it will b even harder to make a good decision. Perhaps have an omlette, other protein, lots of fruits and veggies throughout the day so you are hungry but no overly so much that you choose the worst thing on the menu. No reason not to eat out, just choose carefully, drink lots of water and try to avoid dessert (hard for me to do that).

You just try and make the best choices - grilled chicken, grilled veggies, salad dressing on the side etc. Personally, I can't do portion control, unless it's really a huge plate.