Weigh-in Day & Eating Out At Restaurants

Let's get the weigh-in over and done with:

Goal weight: 145 lbs

Today's weight: 142.2 lbs

Still below goal.   Yay.

Now let's talk about eating out at restaurants.

One of the main ways that I make good food choices: I do not eat out at restaurants that often.

I usually prepare and eat food at home.

And these foods are usually foods that I know the calories and proteins totals for already.

This past week, I have had three dinners and two lunches out (work and non-work related).

Yikes.

A rarity.

I usually don't choose the restaurants, I ask my friends/coworkers choose where they would like to eat.

Why?

I have learned that for me, the food is not the reason I eat out anymore.

It is the people who are seated across the table from me that are important.

The conversations.  The company.  The time together.

This was a HUGE lesson for me to learn after being banded.

I can remember in the not too distant fatty past, all of the planning of having a meal at a restaurant would be about what I would eat. Not who I would be eating with.

Here's how it usually would go down in my fatty head:

"Should I order the fried fish & chips or the cheeseburger? Don't those taquitos look yummy? What would I get for dessert? Oooh! Doesn't that chocolate cake on the online menu look good?  Let's be sure to order that!"

This pre-planning of what we would all eat became the conversation.

I was obsessed.

And then we would get to the restaurant and all we would talk about is the food.

Now?

I don't really care where I go out to eat.

I usually don't look at the online menu before I leave the house.

I walk into most restaurants never knowing what will be on the menu:  I did this five times this week at five different restaurants.

But I do know that there will usually be a food option that I can choose.

So now it's your turn, how do you handle eating out at restaurants?