Eating out...Do you just stay in?

Personally, I still eat out with friends but the logging does gets tricky at times. If the restaurant we go to isn't already in the database (and it usually isn't), I just do a database search for comparable foods and choose the entry with the highest calorie hit. Seems to be working for me so far.

I save up extra calories for meals like that and then i eat as little as possible besides the meal/drinks to make up for it that day. Definatly not a long term solution but neither is refusing to eat out ever with people. Rather walk a few more hours that week and cut out the chocolate i tend to eat late night to make room for a girls night out or a date. Its all in your priorities and my priorities are largely still social life

I eat out. I just choose to be very patient about weight loss. Time with my friends and date nights with my husband are very important to me. I find portion control to be key - if we go somewhere super fancy portions are usually pretty reasonable, but if the restaurant has big portions I'll put half in a box and take it home.

Other things you can do:
-Cut 100 calories more per day. If you eat out once a week, you have 600 extra calories to spend on dinner.
-Do a longer workout on days you're going out to dinner.
-Skip lunch or fast on days you're going out to dinner (but only do this if you know it won't affect you negatively).
-Split meals with friends. My BFF and I used to do this all the time when we were both losing weight.
-Look at the menu online ahead of time. Find an approximate calorie count in the database, then add 20%.
-Skip the alcohol.
-Sub out the sides for lower-cal options. Ask for steamed veggies instead of mashed potatoes, for example.

As to this:

cruisin99 wrote: »

I find eating out ends weight loss unless you stick to a salad and even then they are normally high in calories. A regular meal stops me for at least three days.

Not seeing a loss for three days is really not a big deal. A meal out probably has more sodium in it than one you'd make at home, so you'll retain water. That has nothing to do with your fat loss. Admittedly I'm only losing 5 lbs right now and I'm aiming for 1/2 lb a week, but I usually don't see a loss for 2-3 weeks and then will see a big drop all at once. You'll make yourself crazy in the long run if you expect the scale to go down every single day, because eventually you'll hit a point where that doesn't happen.

No. I lost 50 lbs eating out 3-4x/wk. You don't have to do it that often but I think that eating out is good practice for life after weight loss. You need to develop estimating skills and methods and want to socialize.

Why would you cut this out? It's a part of life. I'm treating this journey as a lifestyle change. I enjoy good food. I like eating at nice restaurants, especially with friends. I refuse to give up going out to eat once in a while. It's doable. You don't need to drag a food scale with you. You don't have to limit yourself to chain restaurants.

Here's what I do:

• Peruse menus ahead of time if possible so I have a sense of what my options are.
• Sites like Yelp often comment on portion sizes or give you pictures so you know what you're facing.
• Lots of places offer small plates.
• Unless the bread is supposed to be fantastic, I skip it.
• Salad--dressing on the side.
• I try and eat lighter/less for the rest of the day.
• I overestimate on the calories when I log it.