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.

Don't Eat My Emotions

I have never had to remind myself not to eat my emotions as often as I did yesterday. Mike and I had our all-day Pre Cana, pre-marriage course at our church yesterday. Instead of being an interactive type forum where we get to meet the other couples and strengthen our relationships, it ended up being a 9-hour lecture where various married couples lectured at us. Although some parts were informative, when it comes right down to it, it was awful and rather ineffective.

I knew the day was going to be difficult, as any day would be that required sitting in a room from 7:30 a.m. until 5 p.m. listening to talks. I brought with me a Diet Coke, bottle of water and two 100-calorie snack packs just in case. It took all of my will power not to devour the snack packs within the first two hours, just out of boredom. Luckily, I only ate one of them, but that second one taunted me from my purse.

When it came to lunchtime, we were served pizza and cookies. It was like a shower of sunlight from heaven; a mini blessing, and it had nothing to do with the food. I was thankful to have something to break up the day. I indulged in a cookie and two slices of pizza knowing full well that I'd have to curb my food intake the rest of the day.

When the all-day event wrapped up, Mike and I headed home and prepared for a relaxing evening. Unfortunately, it didn't quite happen that way, and as we ran out of the house to run some last-minute errands I found myself repeating "do not eat my emotions" over and over again. I wanted to swing through McDonalds for a Big Mac, large fries and delicious Coca-Cola, not Diet Coke. Don't worry, everyone, I didn't give in to my own temptations. I had a Slim Fast shake for dinner and a 100 calorie pack of popcorn.

I went to bed with my stomach feeling less-than-satisfied, but I woke up to a new day, and a happy scale. I guess yesterday ended up being more emotional for me than I thought it would be. Although it wasn't emotions of overwhelming happiness due to our impending nuptials, I was stressed and frustrated at the all-day course and I really disliked being talked at instead of being a part of the conversation. I did it though, I stayed away from eating food to cover the emotions that were eating away at me, and I guess that's the lesson I needed to learn.

Lesson Learned: Story of a Saturday Night

Sunday was rough. I'm not going to lie about how difficult Sunday morning was after I stepped on the scale and realized just how much Saturday night's decisions affected my weight, attitude and overall state of mind on Sunday morning. So, having gone over this little hurdle, I thought I would tell you about it.

On Saturday night, Mike and I got together with some friends of ours for games and drinks. Knowing I'd be drinking that evening, I tried to save my calories during the day so I didn't blow my calorie count completely out of the water. Also, while drinking, I try to stick with Diet Coke and vodka since vodka has a fairly low calorie count (at least compared to other hard alcohols, wine and beer). Well, my plan didn't exactly work and I paid the price for it on Sunday.

As the evening got going, I poured myself a couple of vodka-diet cokes and even had a 100 calorie pack of popcorn. However, somehow during the night I switched from vodka to whiskey and became quite drunk. To make matters worse, on the way home (don't worry, Mike was driving and he didn't have a single drop of alcohol) I begged Mike to stop at McDonalds or IHOP. Well, we stopped at McDonalds and I devoured (literally, consumed it super fast) a chicken sandwich and french fries -- the first french fries I've had in almost two months. The saddest part is, I don't even remember eating those darn things, and I wish I did because it would have tasted like heaven!

I crashed as soon as we got home and woke up the next morning feeling awful. I wasn't really hungover or still drunk, and I didn't have a migraine or anything, but I put the pieces of the evening before together and knew that what I had consumed was a killer shark for my previously almost-perfect dieting plan. Bummer!

Sure enough, I forced myself to step on the scale and saw it flash a 214.8, more than a pound higher than the day before. This felt like a stab to the chest, but at least it wasn't 215 -- that's what I told myself for some consolation.

So, how'd I recover? I woke up, drank water, had a Slim Fast shake and went to the gym. I spent an hour and 40 minutes doing cardio, both treadmill and elliptical to burn off those McDonalds and alcohol calories. I also ate very carefully the rest of the day and drank excessive amounts of water to help put my body back on track. It seems that I took the right steps because this morning the scale was down to 214 ... definitely a step in the right direction.

I definitely learned my lesson: careful with the over consumption of alcohol, it does horrible things for your diet!

Hardest Day Yet

I know throughout this little adventure that I'm going to have good days and bad days, and that there are some mornings when it's going to be a little harder to just have a Slim Fast shake and not indulge in a bagel or McDonalds Egg McMuffin, but today is the first day that I'm really feeling the struggle. I woke up feeling hunger and even after drinking my Slim Fast shake (like I do every morning), I'm still feeling hungry. What should i do?!?!

I keep 100 calorie snack packs in my work cabinet, along with Nutrigrain bars, and I bring clementine oranges to the office to snack on, but this is the first day that I'm really craving something off the beaten track. I want chocolate, or a muffin, or a cupcake, or something sinful!

Don't worry, I've resisted the craving thus far this morning, but I did break into my can of Diet Coke earlier than normal. Hopefully I will make it to lunch with just a snack of a clementine or maybe trail mix, but it's hard! Does anyone have any suggestions on how to take your mind off this sort of thing when you're just sitting at your desk at work and feel hungry? I'm looking for suggestions now because it's hard!