How often do you dine out? For lunch? For dinner?
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Whenever it suits my fancy. I continue dropping pounds while eating out so why not.6
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SafioraLinnea wrote: »Whenever it suits my fancy. I continue dropping pounds while eating out so why not.
Same here. Ultimately it's not going to the restaurant, but the choices I make while at said restaurant that determines how I manage my weight. I've found that I can easily gain weight on my own cooking, as I am a pretty good cook (if I do say so myself). I've also lost weight eating out frequently, too.3 -
Depends how busy I am. Usually I'll eat out for dinner and lunch a few times per week. If I'm regally busy at work then it could be everyday. There are plenty of places with healthy options by me. I rarely eat fast food.1
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Every Friday dinner and most Friday lunches.
My husband and I try to have a weekly lunch date on Friday. We tend to go for sushi - which includes miso soup and a salad for starters. If I pick the right thing, I can keep the calories below 600 for the meal. The highest calorie choice I'd make works out to just under 900 calories - more than I'd like to spend on lunch usually but still fits my budget as long as I cut down dramatically on snacking calories that day. I try not to make that choice very often.
Friday dinner we take the kids somewhere. Usually Fatburger. A lettuce wrapped cheeseburger (no mayo) comes in at less than 400 calories and is yummy. As long as I wasn't too indulgent at lunch, that means I can afford to eat the fries that come with it (which is a small portion because I'm eating off their "value menu") though I usually only eat half the fries.
We sometimes eat out for Sunday lunch too, but I have a nice safe choice at a local restaurant - club sandwich minus the cheese and middle toast; Greek salad, dressing on the side (or soup instead of salad if the daily soup choice sounds yummy).2 -
A few times per week. Usually just subway or Wendy's. Wendy's has awesome salads. I'm consistently losing.2
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Every day all three meals and snacks when at work. When at home I cook all three from scratch.1
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I eat lunch "out" almost every day I travel to the office (more from fast-casual places that I carry back to the office, sometimes from food trucks, sometimes plated or buffet lunches at events I have to attend), which was a lot more often when I lost the bulk of my weight than it is now, as I telecommute several days a week (not on a regular schedule, so the number of days varies). I usually have one or two meals "out" on the weekend as well. I probably only go to a regular full-service restaurant a couple of times a month on average, and that would include brew pubs and sports bars as well as "fine dining."
I don't find that eating out that often creates problems for sticking with my calorie goals. It's more problematic for multi-day trips when every meal is eaten out, especially since I'd rather eat at places I can't eat at home (i.e., no national chains).There is only restaurant I can eat out at, soot is a rare event. Due to allergies, I am pretty much bound to always making my own food at home.
To be 100% honest, the fact you keep mentioning clients rubs me the wrong way. Might be benificial not to always mention them. It could just be me though.
I had a similar reaction -- I felt as though the OP is trying to make "an appeal to authority" argument (in this case, the authority being himself) that it's bad to eat out. I mean, yes, the OP asks what we do, but I hesitated to even respond, because he seemed to already have drawn a conclusion based on his experience with clients, so it felt like maybe any response from someone with a different experience wouldn't be welcome.4 -
I go out to brunch (my favorite meal) about once a week. I also travel out of the country several days each month and I eat out those days. I order out (pizza) and eat in about once a month.0
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There was a time when I had considerable anxiety about going out, now it's something I do on every couple weeks on average. When I started counting calories, it was actually a bit liberating to realize I could find ways to go out with friends and make it work with my goals.
I would hope a professional in the field working with clients would be helping them develop healthy strategies for dealing with things like going out to eat and social situations like family dinners, weddings, etc. Discussing restaurant food in terms of "calorie bombs" is fairly loaded language and can make it harder for people to approach food in a healthy way.
We've had several users here post guides for handling dining out. This is one that's included in the helpful posts section on the "Food and Nutrition" board. It's a good basic set of tools for someone trying to make that adjustmet successfully.
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10213155/a-guide-to-going-out-to-eat/p1
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I had a recent business trip that spanned several cities over four days, with eating out at least twice each day. There were beers and hamburgers and duck pot pie, and I still managed to weigh in right where I was when I left. It can be done.2
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Lunch out during the week, hardly ever.
Usually once during the weekend either at a restaurant or takeout i.e. Pizza. If we are being social, especially during the warmer months, we don't as much since we get together with friends instead of going out to restaurants.0 -
Pizza type fast food- once a month
Restaurant 5 times a year
At friends maybe once a month0 -
I eat out a lot and almost always order a salad with a piece of salmon on top and the dressing on the side. Then I'll do the old dip the fork in the dressing routine. It has become my favorite thing to get when I go out and has done nothing but support my efforts.1
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I work and eat at subway 5 days a week and have had no negative weight affects. I simply choose a sandwich that fits my calorie goal.1
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Once or twice a week for me. Normally on weekend with family. My problem is not keeping calories down. I budget for it and do a long cardio that day to increase my limit. My problem is that restaurant food is dripping in salt. I watch my macros but do not worry if a bit high in fat one day and carbs the next. I do on the other hand watch my salt because of health issues. 1 bowl of Udon at my favorite chain has more sodium than my daily limit.0
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My boyfriend does all of our cooking from scratch even though I'm the only one dieting, so we don't eat out often. But I do occasionally lose my mind and discovered that if you need a really bad fast food fix...Taco Bell Crispy Supreme Tacos are a low damage fix. You can have 3 tacos (plus mild or hot sauce packets) for about 500 calories. I do this maybe once every 6 weeks or so.
Although I used to hate Applebees because their food is "meh"....their new menu is much better and they now have the calories listed on their menu for EVERY item including sides, cocktails, wine, etc. Their low-cal options got better, too. It makes eating out SO much easier because I don't have to guess and be paranoid about going way over my calories.
I took my 13 year old son out the other day for dinner and was thrilled to enjoy a complete meal with alcohol off the regular menu for about 1,000 calories total (it was an exercise day so I had like 1500 extra calories). I had a giant Berry Sangria, a Small Caesar side salad, a Parmesan Sirloin Steak with Grilled Shrimp, and a side of Garlic Mashed Potatoes. It was an amazing cheat meal that wasn't actually cheating because I knew exactly what I could have and easily log.
It was mostly having red meat and alcohol that was a cheat since I avoid them in general.
When there's no calories listed I estimate and workout extra hard for a few days to make up for it. Thankfully I hate things like fries, bread, donuts, pancakes (etc) so I have no problem resisting those. And I have a "salt tooth" rather than sweet tooth. But dairy and cheese? That's my downfall. I'll never give it up and plan accordingly so that I don't have to limit my love of dairy at all.1 -
I eat out once or twice per week. A few times per week I also pick up my lunch at the hot line in the grocery store. Literally steamed vegetables and hot sauce. I log them to the best of my ability by weight.1
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Dining out occasionally is part of life. You either learn to deal with it or you don't. It's really not that complicated.
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every weekday for lunch ; dinners several times per week. (down about 80 lbs.)3
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A lot.1
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WilliamAndersonLMHC wrote: »mrsnattybulking wrote: »
And the macros aren't bad on this for about 600 calories
Looks great, but a bit heavy for lunch for me. The 600 would be fine for my dinner, but a hamburg is just not my idea of dinner! I'm old-fashioned and like the traditional dinner plate with meat, starch and veg at the end of the day!
However, that 600 Wendy's meal surprised me. Good find!
To be fair it was my dinner. I'm always walking and have a backpack so I keep a bottle of catalina calorie wise in it so I dont' have to use the 100 cal + dressing and this is a chicken grill so decent protein and super filling.0 -
I eat out pretty often but I have/still lose weight! I probably have take aways and eat out approx 2-3 times a week maybe more? Mostly due to me making informed choices. When I go to McDonalds, I'll have one of their wraps, when I go to a burger restaurant, I'll have the burger without the bun and with a side salad instead of fries, I go to Subway and I have their salads. Its all about making the right choices.1
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I have cut back and limited eating out quite a bit. My husband and I eat out for dinner/date night twice a week, the other date nights we do something active/outdoorsy or cook something new! For lunch I try to pack something every morning...last Friday I failed at that and had a happy meal, then we had a 4 hour drive after work and I had Taco Bell...not a great day, but still under calories.
If we eat out it is a treat...it is expensive to eat out often for us, and I eat really light the rest of the day to save most of my calories and carbs for dinner.1 -
Thanks for all the great sharing of ideas and experience. To be clear, I am not suggesting that my way of doing things is the only way. I think our goal needs to be to create a happy healthy life, and part of that is finding a way to eat that helps us be happy and healthy. There are many ways of doing that, and when you find a way, no matter who suggested it to you, that is winning, no matter what it is.
I posted this topic because so many people are thrown off track when they eat out, sometimes never getting back, just throwing up their hands and giving up. I've found ways to succeed with eating out that works, and when people find ways to succeed, as many have, those looking for success are helped. Myfitnesspal members reading this who want to lose weight and learn how to deal with eating out will be helped reading this. Nothing succeeds like success, and when we decide to be a community working together to help each other, miracles happen.
It's not just restaurants, but most of the food industry has made it harder for people to be healthy. Like the tobacco companies that became our major food brands, many businesses are simply out to exploit us and the more they sell, the better for them, even if it kills us, which it is, with the obesity epidemic out of control the way it is. So, when they find that Americans love and are addicted to huge portions of fatty, sugary and salty food, thats what they serve. While many of you have figured out how to deal with that, many have not, and I'm sure many myfitnesspals who just want to read and and are not ready to comment as successes will be reading this. They will be helped.0 -
Yes, it is vast food maker's conspiracy out to make us fat. It's shameful. Making food that takes good and greedily lining their pockets.7
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Usually only every few months. We just choose not to spend the money unless it's a special occasion. With kids it's an easy $100 if we're going to eat at a decent restaurant. Maybe $80 at a place like Red Robin or something. When we do go out I plan on eating at maintenance that day.
Our anniversary is in a few weeks and we'll hit the steakhouse and I'll enjoy it immensely.1 -
Elphie, I remember the days of never being able to eat out bc of family members with food allergies. On the one hand it meant we ate healthy at home. On the other, I remember when we started being able to eat out and it was so nice!!0
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WilliamAndersonLMHC wrote: »It's not just restaurants, but most of the food industry has made it harder for people to be healthy. Like the tobacco companies that became our major food brands, many businesses are simply out to exploit us and the more they sell, the better for them, even if it kills us, which it is, with the obesity epidemic out of control the way it is. So, when they find that Americans love and are addicted to huge portions of fatty, sugary and salty food, thats what they serve. While many of you have figured out how to deal with that, many have not, and I'm sure many myfitnesspals who just want to read and and are not ready to comment as successes will be reading this. They will be helped.
While I agree suggestions for how to navigate eating out are really helpful, I get irked every time someone posts something like your last paragraph.
Businesses make available the food that the most people will order and that the business can make the most profit from. That's how it works. Blaming the business for making people fat or claiming the food is addictive removes the responsibility from the individual and gives people an excuse to throw up their hands and give up.
When more customers start ordering more "healthy" options (and I put that in quotes because it's really a subjective term), then businesses will start offering more of those options because they can make a profit doing so. If people quit buying the "...huge portions of fatty, sugary and salty food..." then the businesses will start offering what people will buy.
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I rarely eat out. Prices and calories are both way outta line.2
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