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eating out can be an absolute killer for someone watching their calories. generally speaking, people usually eat out for dinner, and unless you’ve planned the day perfectly, there is very little chance you’re going to find something on the menu that you can afford in caloric sense. even salads at restaurants are pretty much guaranteed to be 500+ calories. a notable exception to this, is of course non-breaded grilled and baked seafood. this is why red lobster is one of my new favorite restaurants, i can get in and out of there for less than 400 calories.

the key to effectively eating out is planning your day. i cannot stress enough how important it is to journal every single thing you put in your body. i use sparkpeople.com, which has a daily food tracker and a HUGE database of foods already listed. i simply search for the item, and add it to a meal on that day. it then tells me how many calories i’ve eaten, and how many i have left for the day on my 1800 calorie diet. if for some reason a food/drink isn’t already in their database, i can enter it in manually.

so yesterday i knew that ryanne and i were going out to dinner with our friends ben and val. i’ve been on a huge momentum-swing these last two weeks, so the last thing i wanted to do was throw it all off by destroying my calorie count for the day. so on tuesday evening i planned ahead. i planned every single meal, down to the half hour i was supposed to be eating it for wednesday. to afford the 670 calorie thai chicken wrap and 200 calorie lean machine smoothie for dinner, this is what my day looked like:

breakfast: two cups of black coffee, kashi golean vanilla hot cereal, small apple = 213 calories

brunch: peanut butter (reduced fat) and simply fruit jelly sandwich = 334 calories

lunch: 1/3 cup colby jack cheese, 3 cups of lettuce, 3oz grilled herb chicken = 257 calories

dinner: thai chicken wrap, lean machine smoothie, bag of baked chips = 980

total: 1784

now this isn’t the norm. i fully understand that i shouldn’t make one meal huge like that. but the reality is that there will be times when we are forced to make adjustments around one big meal. i probably could have skipped the chips, but i knew i had calories left in the day so i decided to go with them.

and that, is how keeping track of and planning your daily caloric intake can get you through a high calorie meal eating out. i honestly believe there is no way to lose weight long-term without doing those things.