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

splinker · June 2017

I eat out often. I avoid all bread and starches wnen possible. A typical dinner for me now might be french onion soup without bread, and a piece of steak or burger patty and asparagus.

I'vw been on a very low carb/southbeach doet since May 18 and hace lost 21 pounds so far.

The first three days felt like junkie withdrawal.
At one point, i found myself in an alley doing unspeakable thingd for a Snickers bar.

Now i am feeling much better.

I also gave up all drinks except water and coffee and make sure i habe at least 8 glasses a day. That really helps.

I am diabetic and have not needed insulin since the day i started.

When I'm out for meals:

Breakfast is a couple of eggs and Canadian bacon. No toast or potatoes.

Lunch might be chicken soup with little or no noodles and or maybe a salad with artichoke, roasted peppers and mozzarella and balsamic vinger

Dinner a cut of meet and green vegetables. The portion is probably too large, but as long as it's my only cheat for the day, I still lose weight.

Running_and_Coffee · June 2017

I eat very carefully at places like Panera 1-2 times a week for convenience (half a med. sandwich with a cup of black bean soup, apple, no bread.) It's not really eating to enjoy but eating there because I wasn't able to pack lunch.

I eat out for pleasure a few times a month and am a lot less careful--wine, a dish I really like, etc.

janjunie · June 2017

A lot less these days. We are a family of five, so the expense is just too much to eat out on a regular basis. Once every month or two, our family will cross the border to the USA and go to a buffet, because let's be honest buffets in the USA are so much better than in Canada. And then a couple times a month we'll get subway and if we're talking about going out for coffee...well then *ehem* I do that a lot more often (4 x's a week on average). None of these things has ever impinged on weight loss, of course that's just due to the infrequency and smart choices when choosing the food.

janejellyroll · June 2017

I think it's unnecessary to attribute evil intent to businesses selling food. They want to sell what people want to purchase. For many of us, that's food that tastes good. I think "addiction" is an unhelpful and hyperbolic term.

I eat out 1-2 times a week. I know how to order things at most places that meet my taste preferences, my calorie goals, and my additional restrictions (I'm vegan). I don't look at it as anyone trying to trick me or trap me -- I'm an adult, I can make my own choices. And I've found that the vast majority of places I go are very willing to be forthcoming about ingredients/cooking methods and able to make specific adjustments that I may be requesting.

Need2Exerc1se · June 2017

I love to cook and we live in a rural area where it's at least 30 min to any good restaurant. I rarely eat lunch out and we go out to dinner about twice a month. We get take out pizza a couple of times a month as well. Other meals are at home or at the home of friends/family.

TR0berts · June 2017

How dare for-profit businesses give customers what they want.

Treehugger_88 · June 2017

There are no decent restaurants in the little town where I live so I only eat out when I go to a city. Once every 6 months or so.

cmriverside · June 2017

Well, I guess people can figure out what to eat on their own or they can see themselves as victims and go to a therapist to figure it out for them.

The problem with Conspiracy Theories is that they keep people feeling helpless and hopeless and there is absolutely no reason to feel like one is powerless over their food choices.

Noreenmarie1234 · June 2017

Would be so cool to have a partner who loves being so active

hesn92 · June 2017

I go out for lunch on Fridays, and then me and my family will eat out probably 2-3 times a week. Quite a bit really. Normally once or twice on the weekend and then occasionally once during the week if we have a lot going on and I don't have time to make anything (soccer practices or cub scouts or whatever..) need to get better at planning ahead for those days but oh well. I worry more about how expensive it is not necessarily the calories.

hesn92 · June 2017

Those of you who don't eat out much, do you have families to feed? If so what are things you eat for dinner when you are super busy and don't have time to cook a big meal?? That is what I struggle with.

stealthq · June 2017

On the weekend, usually both days for breakfast and/or lunch and dinner. Often it's just the two meals per day.

Why? Because I spent the weekend with my family, and they want to eat out. I don't find it hard at all, especially if we just do two meals. Easy enough to fit in two 700-ish calorie meals, though I usually do a 7-800 one, a 3-400 one, and reserve the rest for snacking or a small dessert.

An example of something I'd pick for my smaller meal (had this yesterday at the local diner): About 6oz cornmeal breaded and fried catfish filet, steamed broccoli, a couple of bites of black-eyed peas, and a dinner roll. Usually I wouldn't waste calories on a dinner roll and would eat more veg, but this place's rolls are kick-*kitten* and the veg were marginal.

Running_and_Coffee · June 2017

So I make dinner for my 3 kids and husband and modify the dish for me so that it meets my needs. Example:
Tonight I am making spaghetti and meatballs with Caesar salad. That's what they are eating. I'm having spaghetti squash (pre-made from another day) with low-sodium/lower calorie marinara, shrimp and spinach sauteed in 1 tsp olive oil, and 1/2 oz. part skim mozz. This doesn't take much time at all and obviously spaghetti and meatballs (Trader Joes, frozen & heated with a jar of sauce), isn't terribly time consuming.

I always have foods like quinoa, spaghetti squash and lettuce available for me and usually will throw whatever protein I make for the rest of the family (grilled chicken or fish, ground lean turkey or chicken) on to that and eat with them. I'm not strictly low carb but prefer to skip starch at dinner.

amusedmonkey · June 2017

Everyone in the house cooks, whoever feels like it, and if no one feels like it everyone just grabs whatever is in the fridge, in which case I either cook one of my novelty dishes for myself or eat whatever. When I cook, it's often something that isn't too crazy on the calories but is still one of our usual dishes (green bean stew and white rice for example). When someone makes a heavy dish, I modify it for myself if possible (use less rice, for example, or opt out of extra sour cream/butter). If it's not possible I simply eat less of whatever is being served and supplement with vegetables for volume.

fitmom4lifemfp · June 2017

Nope. Just me. But when my son was at home, I cooked on weekends mostly, so that there was plenty to eat during the week.

savithny · June 2017

We don't eat out because eating out with a family is prohibitively expensive, and the more people you have to feed, the more you can benefit from economies of scale in cooking at home.

The first thing to do when you're cooking at home for a busy family is: PLAN.
you need a meal plan and a shopping list. That helps you plan for the busy times and use the less-busy times more efficiently. I make a list of the days of the next week and then add in all our evening committments and then start placing meal ideas. My book group night is a good night for quick tacos or quesadillas. A night when my kid has a band concert, we'll have pasta with meatballs (from frozen) and a side of broccoli or green beans (also from frozen). Or on a night wtih more time, I'll grill burgers for dinner right away and throw some chicken breasts on the grill too. The chicken breasts get sliced thinly and put into a Caesar salad on a busy night.

Everyone in the house knows to ask before eating something unless it was bought for them specifically. "Mom, can I eat the olives?" "No, they're for the pizza on Wednesday."

lemurcat12 · June 2017

Nope.

Companies respond to demand. A lot of the demand is for cheap, larger portions, hyperpalatable foods -- foods that are harder to recreate at home or take more time or can be made tasty for cheap, sure. That has to do with what is demanded and to a certain extend US food culture (that the average consumer would respond to fast or huge portion or whatever). It also varies a TON based on where you are, what you want. I have an endless array of restaurants ranging from expensive (many with quite small portions compared to the usual), expensive (but large portions, many steak joints are like this), medium (huge range of types of food, some have lots of vegetables, some are much higher cal, so on), cheap, super cheap. Serving size varies a lot (although it's not that complicated to get a to-go box). Nutrition varies a lot. If you used to choose lots of fast food or the like, that's on you, it's what you liked and chose, it's not because the food companies made you.

Same with what I get at grocery stores. Even when I was fat, I would go into a grocery store, head for the veg, buy what I wanted, head to the fish and meat (well, I mostly get meat at a farm because I have sourcing issues, but sometimes not), head for dairy and pick up cottage cheese, grab some eggs if I didn't have farm ones at home. Then I might think about whether I wanted more staples (oil, butter, dried pasta, canned/dry beans, etc.) or maybe some diet soda or paper products and get those.

If I wanted ice cream I'd sometimes get it, more often I'd get it only when I specifically wanted to eat it that night (and I got it more often when losing weight than when I was fat).

Why I got fat is something I think I understand, but it wasn't a thing to do with it being too hard to handle food sellers. Ugh.

inertiastrength · June 2017

Most of the time just me and my boyfriend but every other week I have my kids (split custody with ex) and luckily my bf is into fitness and we both track our macros so I usually slice up a sweet potato, wrap it in foil and bake it for 20ish mins and steam some vegetables while he cooks our chicken etc. We can be through the door and eating in about 30 minutes. When I have the kids they just eat what we eat, they're not fussy

Need2Exerc1se · June 2017

Cook a quick meal. I was making 30 min meals long before anyone heard of Rachel Ray. Grilled meats, baked/broiled fish, seafood all cook up quickly. Have some vegetable roasting in the oven or steaming on the stove top while the meat is cooking and dinner is ready in no time. Or go even quicker with steam in the bag vegetables. Even long cooking meals rarely have long prep times, so just prepare the meal put it in the oven, set the times and get on with whatever I was doing until it's ready.

Omelets take about 15 min to prep and cook. Stir fries can take even less if you purchase your vegetables already cut, but even with chopping you can have stir fry in < 30 min. Instant rice is ready in 15 min. Pasta in about 10 min. Brown some ground meat and add to a jarred sauce. Or, add canned chicken or crumbled tofu and cut the time even more.

Canned beans a HUGE time saver for healthy meals.

janjunie · June 2017

Yes, I have three kids to cook for and sometimes my husband. Going out takes time, even drive thrus take time, because I'd have to drive there and drive back, and for me where I'm living that's at least 30 minutes.
I personally don't get enjoyment out of cooking, I like recipes to be as easy and as pain free as possible. When I have time I'll prep a bunch of food ex I barbeque chicken breast and put it in the freezer and this can last me a couple months. I pre boil eggs that last about 3 days, I make use of my crockpot, I make a large quantity of soup and put it in small freezer bags, I'll also by fruit and veg on sale and freeze what I know I wouldn't be able to eat before it goes bad.
Our meals vary, but yesterday for example I made qunioa (20 min) with taco mix seasoning, prevously frozen bbq chicken, frozen veggies mixed it with the cooked quinoa let it sit on the stove top on low for 10 minutes and put it in a tortilla wrap with cheese. I like doing things like this because while the food is sitting on the stove top I can do whatever I need to do without having to feel strapped to the kitchen.

ruqayyahsmum · June 2017

Slow cookers are your friend. Throw everything in in the morning, cook while your out and its ready when you get in.

Mine has a keep warm function which is handy for times everyone needs to eat seperatley due to clubs/ work commitments etc

LotusCass · June 2017

We eat out at least once a week. At first I found it tricky, even picking the meals that would be the lowest calories and making sure to eat less if it was a big portion. What I find tricky is knowing what to log it as, and knowing that my week probably won't be as accurate as I can't be sure what I've logged is correct. I agree with the OP that eating out was a thing that threw me off counting calories earlier on as it was a lifestyle I didn't want to give up.
Now I just exercise more on the day we're eating out so I have those few extra calories.

CSARdiver · June 2017

Growing up we never ate out. There were rare occurrences for special occasions, but I grew up learning how to cook & bake. We do the same with our kids although we do go out ~once every two weeks to celebrate something or just try something new.

This helps both the financial and calorie budget.

WilliamAndersonLMHC · June 2017

Every weekend I do roasts, as big as I can get. Pot roasts, pork roasts, spare ribs, lamb shanks, turkey, chicken... I intentionally make lots of leftovers and put them up in Ziplocks and freeze them in serving sizes. I've always got a bunch in the freezer. They heat up pretty quickly and I serve them with frozen vegetables and Simply Potatoes or a rice dish like Vigo's or one of the Rice a Roni dishes.

snickerscharlie · June 2017

For the almost 300 calories that a scant 1/3 of a cup of Rice a Roni costs, eating out isn't such a bad option.

TonyB0588 · June 2017

I mainly have home cooked meals.

Eating out at a proper sit-down restaurant - Never
Take away from a fast food restaurant - Once per month
Social meals at friends houses - Once per week (sometimes at my house)

SusanMFindlay · June 2017

You know that's the uncooked volume? And that that cooks up to about 1 cup prepared? (And that the calories are lower if you don't add as much oil/margarine/whatever as the package suggests?) I'm not suggesting it's an awesome choice but, calorically, it's about the same as most other starches.

OY74NmFGBL · June 2017

I do not like to eat out lunch during the work week. I always prepare my breakfast and lunch for work. It saves money and calories. If I do need lunch tho I pick up a salad somewhere or like today I go to the grocery store and pick up a bag of romaine. I keep cheese and dressing in the fridge at work. I do eat out every other weekend, 1-3 times that weekend.

BlueSkyShoal · June 2017

I am trying to eat out less, not because of weight loss but because it costs so much. But prior to that, I would eat out once or maybe twice a week. Mostly socially, like if I was meeting with friends or going shopping with friends and stopped for ice cream.

When I go to burger places, I skip the fries because I don't like them anyway. So that cuts down on calories. At sit-down places, I go in planning to save about half the meal as leftovers. Half of a restaurant meal is usually not too bad in terms of calories.

I've also become a lot more adept at listening to my body. Once I realize I feel full, I stop eating. Sounds simple, doesn't it? But I used to try to clean the plate, even if I was feeling stuffed, so I wouldn't 'waste' food. Nowadays I just remind myself that I am taking the leftovers home to eat the next day, so it's not being wasted.

Francl27 · June 2017

When I feel too lazy to cook (which has been too often lately).

Unfortunately going out for dinner always puts me over, because I rarely have over 500 calories left for it. I get hungry earlier in the day so a big lunch out typically works better. It's extremely hard to eat out for under 500 calories too unfortunately (I don't like chains, typically not worth the calories to me).

And yeah... $14 for grilled meat, veggies, and potatoes, vs $8 for a 1000 calorie burger and fries. Sigh.

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

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