What to Eat, What to Eat

I've had several e-mails lately (losingweightforadummy@gmail.com) asking me how I'm continually losing weight but still eating out all the time. What are my secrets? The easiest thing I can tell other people who eat out all the time is to plan ahead!

Not only do my fiance and I like to eat out on a regular basis, but on weekdays the best part about the lunch hour is getting out of the office. A group of my coworkers and I eat out almost every single day because it's a way to take a break from the office environment and it offers a lot of variety. This pattern could easily get me into trouble if I'm not prepared.

So what I do to combat this is to plan, in advance, what to eat at the restaurant we're heading to. We usually decide via e-mail what time we're going to lunch and which restaurant we're going to eat at so then I go online and look at that restaurant's menu. Oftentimes I can also find the nutritional information so I can enter it into the calorie tracker program on my iPhone.

Web sites like thedailyplate.com and Dottie's Weight Loss Zone (www.dwlz.com) have a lot of restaurants listed with nutritional (and weight watchers points) information.

Here are a couple of examples of things I like to eat when I eat out at chain restaurants for lunch during the week.

• Jason's Deli - Either the Club Lite or the Turkey Wrap from the "Real Choices" menu. The Club Lite has 514 calories and I order it with baked lays and a diet soda. The Turkey Wrap 350 calories. The best thing about Jason's Deli is the frozen yogurt at the end of the meal. Soft serve is only about 60 calories for 1/2 cup!
• Pei Wei - Asian food of all kinds is generally not the greatest for you, but there are healthy options everywhere. I used an iPhone app (listed to the right) to find a meal that isn't too horrible. The tricky part is the rice, and also the fact that Pei Wei's portions are calculated as 2 servings. I order the Mongolian Chicken with brown rice. A full dish of the Mongolian Chicken is 560 calories and the brown rice is 130 calories. White rice has more than 300 calories. Although that creates a meal of 690 calories, my lunch is always my heartiest meal of the day so I'm comfortable eating the entire thing. And, it's delicious!
• Wendy's - I think the best thing you can do at Wendy's or any fast food restaurant is to order items individually and not as the meal. If you order the bacon cheeseburger, you don't need a large fries. When I go to Wendy's I order Crispy Chicken Sandwich (360 calories) and a small fries for 210 calories. Most people jump for the plain baked potato because it sounds healthier, but that's 270 calories without anything on it, let alone adding the sour cream and butter.

Like I said, eating out on a diet isn't the enemy, it's all about the selections you make. There really are healthier options everywhere, even at McDonalds or Taco Bell, you just have to find them and then order those.