I can't believe I'm about to say this, but I am tired of eating out. Not because I haven't enjoyed the food, but its so HARD to stay within healthy parameters even when I try!
I've eaten out at restaurants for dinner three of the past four nights.
Saturday night my husband and I were meeting his brother and his brother's wife at a local Italian restaurant for dinner and then going to The Green Turtle for a class reunion of sorts. My brother and sister in law live in Colorado now so we were looking forward to the time with them before going and having to share them with friends. I looked up the restaurant on line and though I couldn't get nutrition information, did some research on Spark People in regards to eating Italian food out and made a game plan. I was going to eat linguine with mussels and a red sauce, skip the bread and have a light salad. I planned to eat half my meal and take the other half home. Unfortunately the restaurant had a 45 minute wait so we headed to The Green Turtle early and ate there. Now I had to figure out what to eat all over again. I didn't do too well. I did get a small sized sirloin, but then messed up by having it served with a creamy crab dip on top. I also did well with steamed broccoli on the side, but should have asked them to keep the mashed potatoes and brown gravy off my plate or asked for a tossed salad instead. After three glasses of wine, (where two should have been enough) I drank at least two very large glasses of water over the course of the rest of the evening. My evening cost me about 975 calories and put me 300 some calories over for the day.
Sunday afternoon my husband offered to take me to lunch after church, but I declined. I knew I had two more nights of eating out coming and just wanted to eat at home.
Monday evening I took my oldest daughter shopping to find accessories she needs for a wedding she's going to be in a week from Saturday. I thought maybe we would eat at the food court and I could get Chick-fil-a or Subway. I basically know what I can eat at those places. But she had been hoping we could eat at a sit down restaurant and relax a little before hitting the mall. We ended up a Red Robin. Most of their food seems to be high fat and high calorie. I kept looking at the menu and finally, at the last minute when the waiter came to get our order, I ordered the appetizer chicken quesadilla. It was very good and wasn't over filling, but when I got home to figure out the calories with their nutrition information I found I had eaten 1,073 calories putting me over by 257 calories!! I console myself, telling myself I walked up one end of that mall and down the other for almost two hours and had had a really good workout that morning. Maybe I would at least maintain my weight.
Last night we went out to dinner with my brother and sister in law again, this time with my Mom. They had wanted to see her while they were in town and Tuesday worked the best. This time I did have a little more control. I was the one who narrowed down our restaurant selections to Uno Chicago Grill or Long Horn Steak House. I looked at both menu selections and determined ahead of time to order salmon. I did much better but still ended up going over my daily limit, though this time only by 94 calories. I ordered the salmon (came with rice) and ordered their seasonal steamed fresh veggies and a salad with vinaigrette dressing. I ate a little of my salad, all my veggies and half my salmon and half my rice. I could have kept within my calories if I had either skipped the rice or... had not eaten the one piece of bread (with no butter) that I ate or had stuck to just one glass of wine. All in all, I feel much better about last night. I am learning!
Fortunately, I won't be eating out again for awhile.
