Avoiding My Favorite Restaurants

I still go to my favorite restaurants but I do a few things differently.

(1) I look at the menu in advance and plan my meal and calorie count it before I go. (This works 90% of the time and sometimes menus change but it helps!)

(2) I budget the calories into my day with the pre-planning, BUT I make sure I don't go into the restaurant starving. I will usually cut my calories a little to fit in a slightly larger meal or to account for the restaurants difference in counting, but going in too hungry leads to over eating. If dinner is at say 6:30, I eat a high protein snack at 4:00 or so.

(3) I try to fit exercise into my day when I know I'm going out.

(4) I never eat a full portion. I've never been in a restaurant that serves me a portion I could ever fit into my calories. I'm small so I have a lower calorie budget, but like you pointed out- it's easy for servings to be HUGE. I automatically go into it knowing about how much I plan on eating and portion it out on my plate and plan on taking the rest home.

Hope this helps! I could never give up Famous Daves!

Don't worry about it. As long as it's not happening constantly it's fine. I went for ribs last Saturday night for my days birthday. Had 1/2 a rack, garlic toast, sweet potato casserole, collard greens, AND sweet tea. 2 glasses. I still lost 3.2lbs last week.

I'm not depriving myself.

I still go, but for lunch. Typically I can get away with a 1500 meal then, and I'm usually too stuffed for dinner even and still end up under maintenance.

The other option is to plan for it, eat lightly during the day and have a good workout, or eat a bit less during the rest of the week so you have extra calories to spare... or to decide what you really want (like ribs), and get those, but get lower calorie sides so you end up at 900 and not 1500 calories.

Frankly though, dinner always does me in, as I'm a 'eat more early in the day, less for dinner' kind of gal, so if we go out for dinner it's pretty much impossible for me to save the calories for it because I'm hungry all day.

At the end of the day though... going 1500 over just means you'll wipe your deficit for 3 days if you're on the 'lose 1 pound a week' setting. So it only sets you back 3 days. It's really not a huge deal.

Jozzmenia wrote: »

I've started ordering half to go in advance especially in Italian, ordering meat and double veggies because it's hard to get a healthy carb dining out, or I order double meat double veggies in pasta and then I end up eating half but more proportionate veggies and protein

That's exactly what I do. I went to TGI Friday's on Friday and asked the waitress to bring me a to-go box with my meal. I put 1/2 of my meal in the box before I ate anything. It really worked. I ate the rest for lunch the next day!

ernestrodgers82 wrote: »

Any suggestions out there in MFP World for avoiding really good tasting food?

I don't avoid it. I just plan to eat appropriate portions for me. I prelog my food all the time. I usually only have 100-300 calories for snacks and the rest goes for regular meals.

If I know I'm going to want some really fattening foods, I will do a really intense calorie burning workout that day and add in some yoga. So about an hour of exercise to burn around 500-600 calories. Then, for your meals leading up to that "cheat" meal, just go easy. Don't go overboard. If you know that your dinner will be around 800-1000 calories, then maybe eat half of the portion you're given and bring the rest home. Don't deprive yourself from your favorite foods. Moderation is key!

I'm going to be a bit of a contrarian and say don't go, at least I would try to generally avoid places where you tend to overeat. Do this for the same reason you eliminate your trigger foods at home:

trigger foods * prolonged exposure = you will eventually succumb.

It's hard enough to avoid temptation when you encounter it so why torture yourself repeatedly? It's our bad eating habits that got us into trouble in the first place. Don't purposefully go skirting back to the edge of them unless you have the iron will not to indulge when re-immersed in the foods and situations where you previously overate.

If you're out with friends, family or colleagues and that's what they all want, there's not much you can do except what others here have suggested and try to eat half a plate and then bag the rest. But when it's your own choice, I would stay away.

Maybe it's just me, but, I don't see the restaurant as the problem. " 350 calories for breakfast, 550 calories for lunch and ... 4 St. Louis ribs, coleslaw, 1/2 ear of corn, dinner fries and a corn muffin. 1,500 calories" doesn't seem to be bad. It's the "890 calories in healthy snacks". Healthy, unhealthy or otherwise, close to 900 calories in snacks, to my mind, IS the problem. But you logged it, move on. Hope you enjoyed the day.

peter56765 wrote: »

I'm going to be a bit of a contrarian and say don't go, at least I would try to generally avoid places where you tend to overeat. Do this for the same reason you eliminate your trigger foods at home:

trigger foods * prolonged exposure = you will eventually succumb.

It's hard enough to avoid temptation when you encounter it so why torture yourself repeatedly? It's our bad eating habits that got us into trouble in the first place. Don't purposefully go skirting back to the edge of them unless you have the iron will not to indulge when re-immersed in the foods and situations where you previously overate.

If you're out with friends, family or colleagues and that's what they all want, there's not much you can do except what others here have suggested and try to eat half a plate and then bag the rest. But when it's your own choice, I would stay away.

I agree with this. While I don't deprive myself of a social life, I have broken my habit of eating out all the time. It is very difficult staying with a deficit goal if you spend those calories on a big meal all the time. Most of the low calorie options on menus don't appeal to me.

Also, not having accurate calorie counts can mess you up. I save calories for when we go out, but it is much less than before. The $$ we are saving is kind of unbelievable. I splurge at the grocery store a lot now but still coming out ahead.

I have been challenging myself to crack my favorite restaurant meals at home. It is fun and I have complete control over the calories I consume.

When I do eat out, I never eat more than half. If it's something that can be reheated I take it. Sometimes I order an appetizer as dinner but those can be calorie bombs too. I study the menu and try to estimate how many calories I need. When it's last minute I just deal by trying to pick the best option. The key is portion control. Sometimes I will eat from my bread plate, using the dinner plate as a serving dish.

I will never avoid restaurants, life's too short to be a hermit, imo. I will, however, employ various tactics to make the meal fit. I've got contingency plans to make up to a 1500 calorie "unplanned" meal fit my week, every week.

In my opinion, it is so important to NOT deprive yourself! In order for you to stick with it, you need to accept that this is long term and there should be balance. Think realistically, there is NO WAY you can avoid your favorite foods for the rest of your life, nor would you want to! Planning for those situations/splurges can help. If I know that I'm eating out for dinner, I will look up the menu beforehand to make sure I'm making an educated choice. Also, I like to save my splurges for Saturday nights. And then its back to business per usual the following day.

Plan, plan PLAN!

I agree with much of what's above (eat lightly the rest of the day, bank calories in advance, get extra exercise, box half the meal, plan in advance, etc.).

This is just another perspective: It's just a real-life story problem. Do the math. Decide whether the impact is worth it. Use that decision to guide future behavior.

Here's what I mean:

You ate around 3290 calories that day, including the dinner out. Since I don't know your actual data, let's say your daily calorie goal (for weight loss) is 2000, and that your regular daily deficit is 500 calories (1/2 pound a week loss rate), so your maintenance calories would be 2500 in this scenario. (You can plug in your real values).

So, you ate 790 calories more than your maintenance calories (3290 - 2500). That eliminated any weight loss for that day (because you ate at/beyond maintenance). If your deficit is 500, you wiped out another additional day and a half of progress toward your ultimate weight loss goal (790/500 = 1.58 days, rounded to 1.5, 'cause heck, we're estimating).

So, if the "big eat" was Friday, and you get right back on your healthy habits Saturday morning & stay there, by sometime Sunday you're even-up. You've delayed your ultimate goal weight by a day and a half.

Obviously, you can't afford to do this multiple times a week. If you do it occasionally/rarely, is the delay worth it? Only you can say. The only risk factor, IMO, is that we can sometimes want our current self to be happy more than we want our future self to be happy - gotta be careful about that part.

ernestrodgers82 wrote: »

You have the numbers really close. My allowance is 2,100 calories/ day and maintenance is 2,600. Everything you said was spot on!

HaHaHA! The specific number was a wild guess, but I'm glad the process played out in the normal way. I find the math view of it quite de-stressing. I hope you will, too!

Thanks for coming back to say what happened: Made my day!

I had to way cut down on how often I eat food outside of home because it does add up sooo fast. Rather than say I an never have it, I save it for truly special occasions. My anniversary, weddings and showers, a friend is in town, etc. I did have to stop going out for every single person's birthday. And by that I mean, I'll still come hang out and have maybe a drink or share an app, but if I ordered a meal at every single event my SO's family invites me to, I'd never be on track.