How often do you dine out? For lunch? For dinner?

My husband and I eat at either Subway or Zambreros about once a week. We'll choose to eat at one of those places in the evening if we have gone to the gym or done a bicycle ride up the cycleway, and so I've got some extra calories to play with ... or if we're heading out to the symphony, and if that's the case, I'll do some extra stairs during the day so I've got the calories to cover it.

We will go out to restaurants on weekends about once a month, and again, we'll have the calories to cover it because we usually go for a really long bicycle ride before going to the restaurant.

I hardly ever "do lunch". I'd rather be out walking at lunch ... and apparently walking business meeting lunches are a thing, although personally, I use the time to get outside by myself. The only time I would "do lunch" are on the rare occasions the social club has a lunch that interests me. That last time that happened was about 2 months ago and they had a curry lunch delivered which was nice. Before that ... um ... probably Christmas.

Dining in an actual restaurant, maybe once or twice a month, and almost always lunch because my mother doesn't like crowds. If I eat more calories than planned, I just compensate over the rest of the week.

I get fast food about once a week. Every Thursday night in the fall and winter. And then once a month I'll splurge and get lunch, dinner, and the next morning's breakfast at Panera (working third shift on Saturday nights).

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I eat out once a month or less, unless traveling. We don't really have anything in our small town and I'm on a pretty strict budget.

For dinner, once or twice a week. It's part of my social life, usually before a play or the symphony, sometimes just with a group, occasionally (1-2x/month, not every week) for a work obligation. Nice restaurants, no calorie information available, I don't think it's worth it if the place doesn't have interesting or especially tasty food. I just try to eat reasonably while there and realize if I go out that often it is NOT an excuse to eat very indulgently. However, I do plan to have extra calories available because I tend to do longer workouts on a weekend anyway. I think of this as eating out a lot (and I consider myself a bit of a foodie), and it's similar to what I did before losing weight, but for me it's a non negotiable so I figured out how to make it work (by changing my mindset when eating out, mostly).

For lunch, ideally maybe once, but I sometimes do it twice. These are places near work as an alternative to the lunches I bring (quick serve or the like, places like Snap Kitchen, Protein Bar, Pret a Manger, a salad place, a mediterranean place, a poke place I'm currently into). Calories are generally available (they are at a lot of these types of places in Chicago). The food is really quite similar to what I would bring, as I still focus on having adequate protein, similar calories, and especially lots of vegetables, and the main drawback is that it's a silly waste of money to buy lunch rather than bring it, it's laziness. I do have one indulgent sandwich place that does my favorite sandwich I fit in occasionally -- good ham, gruyere, avocado, mango chutney, and jalapenos. It comes with either almonds or housemade chips. High cal compared to my normal lunch, but since I only eat three meals it's easy to adjust and have it fit in a day occasionally (not possible with my current macros, though, but that's okay since I'm good with having it rarely).

On my own accord? Rarely if ever. On my birthday, I go get the free food. Unfortunately, for the next two months, I'm required to go out to eat a minimum of 2-3 times a week, and pretty much everything on the menus are boring salads or what you've called "caloric nuclear bombs." I'd rather have neither...

We rarely eat out - perhaps once or twice a month. If we go out during the day, we'll probably go for coffee but not food.

Out, as in just eat at a restaurant, not that often. Maybe once every few months. Out as in being invited to someone else's house or getting together with friends and family for food, that's a bit more often every few weeks, but as often as daily during holidays and special events.

Eating out often has never been a habit. I eat out now just as often as I did 120 lbs ago and I find it relatively easy to manage even when it's nearly daily (sometimes more than once a day) during the holidays. I just eat at maintenance if necessary, exercise extra, eat light other meals (or don't eat at all), and only pick the 2-3 dishes I like the most and completely skip the ones that are "meh" (if it's a buffet style gathering). I also go for diet drinks. I don't usually make my choices based on calories, I choose based on preference because if I'm happy with the food I don't feel like these calories have been wasted. The only time I use calories to decide is if I'm not sure which dish I want more. In that case I go for the one that has, to my knowledge, more forgiving calories.

Usually once or twice every couple of weeks. We'll actually be going out for lunch today and dinner this evening...but my wife an I are also going out on a 30 mile date ride today.

I do homemade burgers for dinner on occasion (on rare occasion on a dinner out, but normally I'd rather use excess calories on something else and like my at home burgers as much for so many fewer calories, but 600 is not a lot -- the places I'd get a burger, local pub, for example, are surely much more and I would get fries so do it rarely).

Anyway, for me the burger fits the protein/veg/starch template which I followed until doing low carb too (for lunch as well as dinner, although I'd switch starch with fruit sometimes). Burger, bun (whole grain, not that it makes a big difference), vegetables (perhaps salad too). (The meal pictured fits that template too -- salad=veg, bun=starch, meat=protein.) Since I am not a huge bun person, I'd often do burger patty, roasted potatoes, vegetables. We'd also switch it up by doing a tuna steak on a bun with pickled vegetables (spicy), plus salad and veg sometimes.

Also, for me lunch and dinner are about the same calories unless it's a restaurant night.

I almost never eat out, can't remember the last time I did and it's simply because finding a place that has a menu that accommodates me (I'm a vegetarian with celiac disease) and my picky children is just about impossible. I know of one restaurant where I can eat, but I'm not so sure that my kids would enjoy the menu offerings, and it's rather expensive.

It would be an indulgence to go there, and would be a date night thing for my husband and I and I really would not care about the calories at that point.