How often do you go out to eat and does it effect your weight?

I eat out every Sunday and order whatever I want. I stick to my calorie deficit Monday through Friday, do insanity, and lead an active lifestyle doing construction.
I get the feeling my weight loss is slower, but I don't feel deprived at all.

ItalianChick90 wrote: »

My boyfriend wants to go out to eat (at Red Lobster), not today but in a day or two. He's going to treat me to it. But the thing is we went out to eat at a Thai restaurant 2 weeks ago. Is it safe to go out again or is once every two weeks too much?

ps- I'm NOT trying to lose weight but I'm not trying to gain. I lost weight and don't want it back.

During my active weight loss phase I ate out 2-3 times a week (a mix between fast food and sit down restaurants). Now that I'm in maintenance I continue to eat out 2-3 times a week. In fact today I had Arbys for lunch and Pizza Hut for supper At the end of the day it comes down to calories and math. Eat what you like, just make it fit into your calorie goals and you're good to go

I actually went to red lobster saturday for a party. Since starting on my weight loss journey I try to really limit going out to eat. I looked up the calories on red lobsters site. Ate half of my low cal meal and had cals for one cheese biscuit. As of today, three days later im still showing 2lb gain which from everything I've read here is water weight from too much sodium. I think eating out is fine as long as mentally u can accept seeing a slight gain that will go away

I try to limit it to once a week. Lately it's been twice a week. At the beginning, I restricted it a lot and probably only went out once every 2-3 weeks. Now I just plan ahead and log the food to the best of my ability before I get there. So I always know what I'm getting before I go and that makes it easier to maintain healthier choices. I'll also eat less that day leading up to it if I know it's going to be calorie heavy. Sometimes I'll just write it off as a cheat meal, though, and eat normally for all my other meals without restricting them.

Like everyone else has been saying, I just look up the nutrition chart and try to make it fit my calories. I'm fortunate that most of the places we go I'm familiar enough with to have a favorite that I know is within my calorie range. Work events and spontaneous going out to eat with coworkers are the worst, though. If I don't know the place, I assume the worst about the pasta and stick to soup, chicken, fish, or if I get salad, eat it without dressing.

It's a huge pain, though. I live in the South, so you'll get teasingly berated or even have people concerned for you if you make a show of having to look up calorie counts. So I end up eating half of my daily calories in one sitting to try and save face.

Just figure out what you want to eat beforehand and input the calories and work around them that day. It's ok to go a little over too

Personally, I go "out" to eat 2-3 times a week. I usually go to Panera at least once to reunite with the love of my life, the BBQ Chicken Salad, and/or I go to Qdoba on my long midweek run days because BURRITOS(!!) and I usually get pizza or take out after my long Sunday runs when I have 2500-3000+ cals to eat in a day. I still maintain/lose every week.

I eat out every couple of weeks, and to be honest, am not very good at saying no to all the yummy things on the menu, but to be honest haven't found it slows things down all that much really - just make sure you eat well in between, and try not to over-do it at the meal. If you can stay in maintenance, great!