How often do you eat out during weight-loss phase?

Sophsmother wrote: »

Briargrey wrote: »

It's not a 'lifestyle' if you're doing it to cater to her whims about not eating your cooking. But yeah, not a parenting forum, so whatever. Let her walk all over you and let her build up (probably) bad habits at the same time.

Where do you eat out at? What do you typically eat when there? What does she typically eat?

Putting on weight really shouldn't be about cramming your face full of crap. Losing weight shouldn't really be about cutting out everything until you go crazy and switch to cramming it. Moderation and all that. Catering to a 10 year old under the guise of 'it's my social thing' just seems...off to me. But yeah, whatever.

Thanks for posting. I'm gonna leave my daughter's dietary needs up to the specialists as they know what they're talking about and have been really helpful. As for parenting advice, umm, thanks...I guess.

For me, I was just asking how people who dine out often manage to still lose weight. I never go to chain restaurants only because there are tons of family owned places to eat all within walking distance from my house. And they are cheap and good and you can get fresh food, which meets both of our dietary needs. But like I said in the original post, I know there are hidden calories.

Anyway, I meet with my dietician tomorrow. She's going to give me some really easy recipes for home that even I can't mess up. I'll get my daughter involved in the cooking and see if that helps her. But I'm just trying to focus on me in this post and am sorry I mentioned her needs at all.

True, it is harder to accurately track restaurant food ingredients. To answer your question about how to eat at these places regularly and lose weight I'd say order your healthy choice entree, eat half, and take the other half home. Maybe your daughter can order an extra of whatever she gets, take that home and then the next night you can eat your leftovers at home. At least that will save you money on drinks and a tip!

CA_Underdog wrote: »

If they have hidden calories, are they really meeting your dietary needs? Panda Express chops their vegetables fresh everyday--and no hidden calories or sodium or saturated fat!

segacs wrote: »

But even published calorie counts from chain restaurants can be wildly off. And locally-owned restaurants that cook with fresh ingredients usually make food that tastes better, which, yeah, is personal preference, but if I'm gonna spend my calories on a restaurant meal, I want it to be as tasty as possible.

If your goal is to meet your calories and macros, eating foods where those values are known is very logical. In the United States, the standard's plus or minus 10% accuracy. You can't make every chicken breast exactly 6oz, and there are goof-ups, but we're also a litigious society.

I've had my eyes opened that at least some local places that make food look healthy "monte au beurre" behind the scenes. Sales encourages being tasty and seeming healthy!

Are the places that post nutritional info as good as others? It depends. The best deep-dish pizza in my area is from a local shop that posts the info for its most popular pizzas only. We have chain restaurants such as Red Robin that offer bottomless broccoli, or Outbeak with the low-sodium Victoria Filet Mignon. We also have fast food chains that offer fresh vegetables, like Panda Express or Subway or WhichWhich or Five Guys. The last aren't great, but aren't terrible.

If you eat out rarely I wouldn't worry about the place, but if you do so regularly, I'd go somewhere where you can be sure you're hitting all your nutritional goals for the day.

CA_Underdog wrote: »

CA_Underdog wrote: »

If they have hidden calories, are they really meeting your dietary needs? Panda Express chops their vegetables fresh everyday--and no hidden calories or sodium or saturated fat!

segacs wrote: »

But even published calorie counts from chain restaurants can be wildly off. And locally-owned restaurants that cook with fresh ingredients usually make food that tastes better, which, yeah, is personal preference, but if I'm gonna spend my calories on a restaurant meal, I want it to be as tasty as possible.

If your goal is to meet your calories and macros, eating foods where those values are known is very logical. In the United States, the standard's plus or minus 10% accuracy.

You can't make every chicken breast exactly 6oz, and there are goof-ups, but we're also a litigious society. Woe to the company that's consistently wrong! I've had my eyes opened that at least some local places that make food look healthy "monte au beurre" behind the scenes. Sales encourages being tasty and looking healthy--not necessarily being healthy!

Are chains as tasty as local places? It depends. We have fast food chains that offer fresh vegetables, like Panda Express or Subway or WhichWhich or Five Guys. We also have chain restaurants such as Red Robin that offer bottomless broccoli, or Outbeak with the low-sodium Victoria Filet Mignon.

Eating at these isn't essential. It's just an option for those who want to eat out while still knowing whether they're hitting all their goals for the day.

I know for a fact that the majority of the menu items at Applebees in pre-packaged and all the cooks there are basically just heating it up. They want to make sure you're not getting any more than you ordered. So all the potaoto's are the same, the veggies are the same, etc.

If you want to watch the waitstaff get really nervous, ask for the penne pasta chicken without the chicken...

I don't like Applebees, and as a vegetarian their menu is too limited for me. But if I was going to eat at a chain restaurant and still want to watch my calories I'd probably go there.

tracyannk28 wrote: »

hollyrayburn wrote: »

This is just my personal opinion, but when we get hungry enough, we will eat anything that is available, whether we like it or not.

Doing it simply because her daughter doesn't want to eat at home not only teaches that it's healthy to eat out for virtually every meal, but teaches that she can get her own way by being different.

ETA: This is again, my opinion.

OP, I'm going to give my honest opinion - then back away from this thread before I'm flamed: I think your 10 year old daughter is manilpulating you. Why should she eat your home cooking when she knows that if she refuses you'll take her to Applebees (or wherever)? Maybe her picky eating is a result of an underlying issue? Is she doing anything else to seek your attention? Has there been any sudden changes in her life?

In my day if we didn't eat what was put in front of us, we went to bed without any dinner. Case closed.

Also - you must make a lot of money to be able to afford that kind of lifestyle where you can eat out 5+ times a week. I'm jealous!

OK - I'm leaving now

I totally agree with this.

My children eat what they're given. I certainly couldn't afford to go out to dinner every night.

What sort of things does she eat when you're out? I'm sure you could make something similar at home. What does she eat for lunch at school?

Lounmoun wrote: »

Sophsmother wrote: »

CA_Underdog wrote: »

berlynnwall wrote: »

My daughter is 10 and is an extremely picky eater. No matter what I cook for her, which is usually something she has picked, she takes 2 bites then hates it and asks for something else. When we go out, she doesn't do that, so we started eating out 5x a week,

1. Have you discussed this with your pediatrician? Did you ask for a referral to a specialist?

2. Can you learn how to cook tastier foods from what she's eating when you're out? E.g., perhaps they're using 85% lean ground beef and you're using 98% lean ground beef.

3. Are you eating at places with published calorie counts? If so, you know what she's getting, and hitting your targets should be easy. There will always be some variation in portion sizes of real food, and that's okay, so long as there isn't a consistent pattern of oversizing portions.

3. Cheese. Is. Amazing. It can make broccoli palatable.

4. Peanut Butter. Is. Amazing. It can make carrots palatable.

It must be frustrating, going through a phase where she won't eat your cooking. I've had kids sometimes refuse a meal, but never to the point they lost extreme weight.

The pediatrician sent us to a dietician who we sat with for 2 hours to come up with an eating plan for my daughter. But my daughter hates my cooking. I'm not awful at cooking, but not really good either. Plus, she only wants to eat fruit and veggies. No dairy, no protein, no bread, no cereal ... it's rough trying to feed this kid.

I meet with my own dietician once a week who is super. She helped come up with a plan that allows us to eat out, but since none of these places post nutrition info, she warned me that it could be tough.

She will only eat fruits and vegetables at home... how exactly does it change when you go to a restaurant? She magically will consume bread, dairy and proteins there? Or is she still only eating fruits and vegetables at the restaurant?

I'm leaning toward the you are being manipulated and creating bad habits crowd. Maybe toughove or therapy is a way to go to get her past her eating issues instead of heading to restaurants.

I'm also thinking health problems from 65 pounds overweight significantly trump 10 year old picky eater who is just 5 pounds underweight.

I agree. I call BS on only eating fruits and veggies at home. OP is being manipulated.

Now...to be fair and constructive...hide some oils into her meals. Peanut butter. More cheese. Also, I have an anorexic child...so when I call BS above, it's out of experience. My kid won't eat no matter where we are...none of this refusing to eat at home but will magically eat at McDonalds.

Sophsmother wrote: »

Briargrey wrote: »

It's not a 'lifestyle' if you're doing it to cater to her whims about not eating your cooking. But yeah, not a parenting forum, so whatever. Let her walk all over you and let her build up (probably) bad habits at the same time.

Where do you eat out at? What do you typically eat when there? What does she typically eat?

Putting on weight really shouldn't be about cramming your face full of crap. Losing weight shouldn't really be about cutting out everything until you go crazy and switch to cramming it. Moderation and all that. Catering to a 10 year old under the guise of 'it's my social thing' just seems...off to me. But yeah, whatever.

Thanks for posting. I'm gonna leave my daughter's dietary needs up to the specialists as they know what they're talking about and have been really helpful. As for parenting advice, umm, thanks...I guess.

For me, I was just asking how people who dine out often manage to still lose weight. I never go to chain restaurants only because there are tons of family owned places to eat all within walking distance from my house. And they are cheap and good and you can get fresh food, which meets both of our dietary needs. But like I said in the original post, I know there are hidden calories.

Anyway, I meet with my dietician tomorrow. She's going to give me some really easy recipes for home that even I can't mess up. I'll get my daughter involved in the cooking and see if that helps her. But I'm just trying to focus on me in this post and am sorry I mentioned her needs at all.

Perhaps it's benefit you both to take note.

No ones being nasty, we are being honest.

I eat out every meal and I've been hitting my goals.

Okay, I'll pop in as someone who has, at a time in her life, eaten out up to 7 days a week with my daughter. I was able to afford it, plus for 2 years my kitchen was being remodeled so I couldnt cook, but then after it was complete, I didnt feel like picking up cooking again, so it was still another 2 or 3 years before I used my kitchen for something other than making coffee. For years, my fridge had beer and fruit in it, and a pint of B&J in the freezer...I swear, that was literally it.

Anyway...we lean towards Asian foods...so at least 5 to 6 nights out of the week, we were eating traditional Chinese, or Japanese foods. Once a week we'd have Italian or Mexican...but rare really, because we *love* Asian food. So not Panda Express or Chinese Take out with deep fried chicken wings LoL but sushi or sushami, steamed dumplings, loads of steamed vegetables...stuff like that. Kiddo isnt big on rice, so shed sub it with more vegetables. We'd eat half, then box up the rest to have for lunch the next day. None of this was for weight or health reasons..its just how we ate.

Now mind you...I was near the low end of my weight range, and kiddo has always been lean and muscular so I really can confidently say that eating out did not have a negative effect on us, because there was no negative effect on us. I wasnt overweight and she wasnt underweight... But yeah, basically, our choice of where we ate, along with it that we rarely ever finished what we had and would take the rest home for later is I think a major reason why we were able to do what we do.

But...my life situation changed, and I could no longer afford it....so I started making meals from home. Didnt feel like a failure at all..actually, I thought it was awesome that I could create pretty much the same things at home and it cost so much less. I started to experiment and learned to make all sorts of awesome things, to the point where kiddo would rather eat my cooking than go out to eat....hearing kiddo tell me she prefers my food...feeling no failure from that at all...even though I can still barely boil water without a recipe...with one, I am a force to be reckoned with!!! LoL And I was still thin, and kiddo was still healthy.

NOW where things hit the fan for me is with my ex bf...he took us out to eat about 3 or 4 nights a week, but it was steak (with baked potato...loaded!!!) and italian (pastaaaa) and french (escargot in butterrrr) and blah blah blah...hed order 2 appetizers plus our courses plus dessert blah blah blah. I was young and skinny, what did I care? And it tasted so good! BUT thats what made me gain the weight. It was always fine dining, freshly prepared, not fast food or chain restaurants, but also waaaay more fattening than my lil Asian fare and even my home cooked meals ever were. I ended up gaining nearly 50lbs in the 2 years we were together. (ETA - Kiddo was still thin and healthy...cause, a teenagers metabolism lol)

Anyway, take from that what you will...just keep in mind, during the time of my life where we ate out all the time, I was in my 20's to early 30's...slender, fit, as was (and still is) kiddo. And also, our diet even with eating out was 90% steamed vegetables, raw or grilled fish and fresh fruit. Oh, and we also ate at a vegan / raw food restaurant that opened up close by us quite a bit too. That was pretty much it.

OH! ETA! To finally answer your question... Im devoted to cooking at home, because well..I really do enjoy it now, and like I said, kiddo prefers it to eating out. But I will now eat out maybe once a week.

With 1200 calories, unless your maintenance calories are as low as 1400...you have wiggle room.