Eating Out

HipsterElephant
HipsterElephant Posts: 3 Member
edited February 21 in Food and Nutrition
Where do you go when you eat out? What do you order?

I'm trying to lose weight and make better choices. Today I had Panera Bread. I got a classic salad with chicken and balsamic vinaigrette. What are other healthy choices when eating out?

Replies

  • AJ_G
    AJ_G Posts: 4,158 Member
    If I know I'm going to eat out and I know where I'm going to go, I plan the meal beforehand and log it into my diary. I then use my other meals that I prepare myself for the day to hit the macros that I need to. Eat whatever you want when you eat out and just use the rest of your daily intake to work around it.
  • prattiger65
    prattiger65 Posts: 1,657 Member
    If I know I'm going to eat out and I know where I'm going to go, I plan the meal beforehand and log it into my diary. I then use my other meals that I prepare myself for the day to hit the macros that I need to. Eat whatever you want when you eat out and just use the rest of your daily intake to work around it.

    Exactly this
  • echofm1
    echofm1 Posts: 471 Member
    Well tonight I had a Mcdouble and a yogurt parfait at McDonald's. That counts as healthy, right? For 540 calories I'll take it.

    Panera is a great choice though mainly because they make calorie counts easily accessible on their menu. Plan your day around it if you plan to eat out, or at least figure out ahead of time what to eat. Otherwise just eat at the places you like. Trust me, they'll naturally become more rare if they have too many calories.
  • jofjltncb6
    jofjltncb6 Posts: 34,415 Member
    Panera's tricky to me trying to get enough protein without too many calories.

    I like Chipotle because it's so easily customized to my macros.
  • ElvenToad
    ElvenToad Posts: 644 Member
    Eating out is tricky. What I always do is look at the nutritional menu online for the place I want to go and choose based off of calories and sodium. Sodium is always super high on most items. Sometimes you will end up going out to eat on a whim and won't have time to pre plan. There are really only a handful of restaurants or fast food places I would ever go where I live, so I just took 20 minutes one day and researched all of them. I wrote a list of things I would want to order from each place with the calorie counts and stuck it in my purse. Maybe a bit overkill for some but its what I do. As far as what to order.. it really doesn't matter as long as you try to fit it into your daily calorie goals and watch the sodium.
  • bluntlysally
    bluntlysally Posts: 150 Member
    always look up online before you go, esp for chains. many times onsite, they will not have a full nutrition menu. have a second choice too. for me, sometimes my first choice isn't available that day.

    don't be afraid to customize - more meat, veggies, etc. i just read some blog about someone who said that they eat mcds and get a grilled chicken salad and a grilled chicken sandwich, then just take the meat from the sandwich and add it to a salad. so customizing can be done anywhere!!

    and then sometimes don't plan!

    i don't cut out anything, just have things i know aren't as healthy less often. sometimes it is just a blind guess. ;)
  • bajoyba
    bajoyba Posts: 1,153 Member
    If I know I'm going to eat out and I know where I'm going to go, I plan the meal beforehand and log it into my diary. I then use my other meals that I prepare myself for the day to hit the macros that I need to. Eat whatever you want when you eat out and just use the rest of your daily intake to work around it.

    Agree.

    Chain restaurants make it easier to plan because they often have their nutrition information available either on the menu or online. If I know I'm going out, I plan my meal before I get to the restaurant. If it's a spur of the moment thing, I just use my phone app to try to find accurate entries and make my best guess. Eating at a locally owned restaurant is more difficult, but I try to find similar food entries in the database and ask for condiments/dressings on the side. If you're consistent about accurately logging your food and sticking to your calorie goal, then estimating a meal here and there won't affect your progress. :smile:
  • wonderwoman234
    wonderwoman234 Posts: 551 Member
    I eat out fairly often and I am losing weight. For me, it's all about portion control. I exercise 5 days a week - an hour of cardio and an hour of heavy lifting. This helps, I'm sure. Still, if I go to a restaurant, I will try to choose healthy stuff for the most part and I eat half of what I am served, if that.

    If I know the restaurant has nutrition info online, I will sometimes look it up. But I don't often eat at chain restaurants, so a lot of times I have to estimate but I try to err on the side of over-reporting instead of under-reporting.
  • Sharon_C
    Sharon_C Posts: 2,132 Member
    Sometimes I don't worry about it and sometimes I go online and look up their menu with nutritional information. If I know I'm going ahead of time and I know what I'm going to order I log it and then adjust my meals the rest of the day so I can still be under calories.
  • beachgod
    beachgod Posts: 567 Member
    I had a coupon for a free slice of cheese pizza from a Mom & Pop pizzeria and I used it today and got a 20 oz. Coke. There is no way to figure out how to log that slice since I have no idea what they made it with or the ingredients. I could probably guess but so what. I didn't log it and didn't worry about it. No big deal if I went over one day or not.
  • CorvusCorax77
    CorvusCorax77 Posts: 2,545 Member
    If I know I'm going to eat out and I know where I'm going to go, I plan .... beforehand... I then use my other....that I prepare....Eat whatever you want when you eat out and just...work around it.

    So I was all XXX reading this and it was excellent.
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