Tip of the day...

Stay away from the damn Golden Corral.  I was thinking, oh it'll be good... salad, sliders- what a perfect combo and hey! It's a salad right, that's good.  I'm always seeing people posting what kind of salads they are eating each day. 

So I take my family to the Golden Corral and have myself a healthy salad.  OMG.  OK, the only thing healthy about that salad was the spinach and carrots.  Otherwise, I might as well have poured hot fudge all over it!  I really need to get my mind back out of the food porn gutter!

Long story short (and 3 plates later) I had the chocolate cake and almost died and went to heaven.  THIS IS WHY I AM FAT. 

I'll work out an extra 30 minutes tomorrow to make up for one of those bites of chocolate cake.

So when you take your family out to eat, where do you go and what do you eat?!  I have a feeling I am not the only one living in restaurant hell.

Love ya'll!

We dont go out to eat that much anymore to be honest.

I use to live on fast food / eating out . We ate out about 4-9 times a week some days it was all three meals we would do that .


We use to live at the Corral but hubby dont see the sense in paying 10 bucks for me when I will eat so little lmao so we haven't been there for 8 months now and I dont miss it .

We go to Red Lobster about once a month now and I treat myself to the Cheddar Bay Biscuits those are to die for lol and I'm not a bread eater but dang those are good .

Gosh we go out once a month now , maybe twice a month , but I still order the same foods as I did before I just eat less of them :o)   I eat healthy at home 90% of the time when I go out I want the sin food because like I said it is a a treat now and eating them foods once in awhile isn't going to harm me .

We stay away from buffet type places (just because it kinda grosses me out that a lot of people can have their hands on/in stuff...)  We just went ot Famous Dave's tonight andI got a salad with pulled chicken and could only eat a quarter of it (my band seems tighter this week).  I prefer using the crockpot for our meals.  I also don't like to pay for restraunt size meals if I can't bring the rest home (like if I'm out on my lunch).

Maybe if you want restraunt food you do the ones that also have to-go options?

Small town without too many chains.  Mainly locally owned.

Fish house (locally owned).. I usually order some kind of grilled or blackened fish, side veggie (usually broccoli) and house salad come with it.  Sliced french bread also comes with the meal and I'll pull the crusty edges off and take tiny nibbles of it.  Sometimes DH will order something fried.. like shrimp or oysters and I'll have one .. maybe two of his and give him some of my fish.

I eat about half of my food .. until satisfied..I have yet to overeat in public (don't want to have to refund) and take the rest home for the next day.

Cotton Patch:  I usually order their norweigan salmon.

Jalapeno Tree (local chain I think): I usually get fajitas.. eat until satisfied, take rest home.

El Puerto's (local):  I forget the name of the dish, but it's fajita beef, fajita chicken and cactus.  Very tasty.

We usually eat out once a week.. and I try to order healthy entrees, but I do allow myself a small (very small) bowl or cone of soft-serve if the restaurant has that option.  I don't eat frozen yogurt or ice cream any other time.... so it's a controlled consumption.  :)     I also try to work out hard the morning before we go out to eat.

Golden Corral is doable, you just have to be careful.  Salads aren't always healthy.. the dressings can ruin a low calorie salad.   I'd be more likely to order something off the grill than have the buffet.  JMO.  Our GC is no longer under the corporate management.. the managers bought it from the company and now it's a Grill... so things may be different here.

It's like going to a chinese buffet.. If it's a good one with healthy options, it can be ok....but buffets are often very difficult to deal with when on a weight loss mission.

Hope this helps a little.

Goodness, restaurant portions are so ginormous, that if I order an entree, it will make 3 or 4 meals for me!  So unless I don't mind eating the same thing all week, I just pick off of my husband's plate.  LOL  Over the weekend we went to TGI Friday's.  He ordered the ribs & shrimp combo platter.  He ate the ribs, and I ate the shrimp.  It was 6 shrimp.  I also ate a fry or two. 

We tend to eat out a lot on weekends, and I am getting tired of ordering my own meal, and then having the server visit the table a hundred times asking me if the food is OK, because I've barely touched it.  Usually the manager will come to check on me too.  They get so alarmed that there might be something wrong with the food.  ROTFL  I prefer to just eat part of DH's meal and skip all the drama.

Sometimes he will order a meal, and I will just eat his side salad.  That works too.  And if the server raises an eyebrow when I don't order anything, I'll just say that I'm not very hungry.  LOL

I totally agree with one of the other posters.... I very rarely to go to buffet style places anymore, because it's such a waste, to pay the money, when I can only eat a tiny bit, and you can't take the leftovers home with you.

As for desserts, we don't usually have room for dessert.  Once in awhile we will get a piece of cheesecake and share it.  I will eat a few bites, and DH gets the rest. 

Go out with your family and enjoy! 

I don't do buffets anymore...I'm too cheap to spend that amount on a meal and not get my money worth :)  We go out to eat a little (not as much as before surgery).  When we do, I usually share a meal with my 9 year old and most of the time, we still have leftovers.  He isn't a picky eater so he is really good about trying new things and not sticking to fried everything with a side of fries.  When I have to get my own meal, I usually end up getting something from the healthy section of the menu or if the restaurant doesn't have a healthy section, I go for baked seafood or a salad with grilled chicken (both I can't finish and always bring home leftovers).

 72jsb-  Would like to friend you to talk to you about your WLS and get support and give support  Tried to friend you but couldnt.. In wisconsin 35 and new to all this 

The economic climate is working in our favor here.  We use to be avid buffet/restaurant eaters.  Now we cook and eat at home. 

When we venture to the buffet, many of them have converted to the Asian grill type.  We were there a couple of weeks ago.  I'm at pretty good restriction right now so I can't do much damage (portion wise anyway).  I had sprouts, broccoli, and a bunch of other vegetables with shrimp and steak (I had to cut it into m&m sized bites and eat it really slow.)  I tried to eat some other stuff from the buffet with little success. 

Grateful for a tight band on that day.

I love to go out to eat but don't do it that often (for supper that is)

I eat out about 1x a week for lunch and lately it's the McDonald's Grilled Chicken salad. In the summer I crave this type of salad in the worst way. Every once in a while I get a hankering for my old McD addiction: the fish sandwich and I've tried it a few times and it isn't nearly as good as I remember and then I was still craving the salad. If I really, really have to have a fast food  sandwich  I get a Wendy's chicken club and work it so that I use the bun to hold the sandwich and then eat about 3/4 of the insides.

For "real food" eating out we go out about once every 6-8 weeks. Even before surgery I wasn't too fond of buffets because the food wasn't as tasty and I didn't get waited on and we had to sit there for 2 hours while my never-had-a-weight-problem in his life husband would eat himself sick. Some sort of nicer chain type restaurant (Outback, Carraba's, Houlihans) is my favorite type of place. I usually try to get something I don't normally make at home and try to enjoy every bite -- even if it is a higher calorie meal. Eating in bandster portions might mean my meal is 500 calories instead of the 2000 it was before surgery. My favorite things to get are Chicken, Fish and Steak. I don't go for pasta anymore -- too hard to eat. Steak is a new favorite since surgery.   If we ate out more often, I would probably be more concerned about the fat and calories of my meals out. But since we do it so infrequently I view these meals as "treat meals" and ingest more calories than I would at a normal at home supper.