2 Days/3 Restaurants: What Are Your Eating Out Go-Tos?

Thanks for this post. Very helpful to me!

I too always look up the menu and nutritional info before I go somewhere new. After the first or second trip, I usually have a couple go-to items and/or meals I can do, guilt free. It makes life easier when friends and family want to go out and have a good time knowing you can still go and not have any remorse about what you ate. For the bigger chains, I am very familiar with BJ’s, PF Changs and CPK’s menus. I’m also a bit of a coffee fiend sometimes (…who am I kidding.. most of the time!) so I am very familiar with the nutritional info for half the drinks and snacks at Starbucks & Coffee Bean. None of these places are at all the most health conscious, but like you did with your fast food, it is easy to find alternatives almost anywhere! Good choices Roni!

We try not to go out very often (about onceevery two weeks) and try to avoid chain restaurants. That being said, though my boys favorite restaurant is chipotle, and I will bring it home on days that are crazy. I have a vegetarian burrito bowl with brown rice, black beans, 3 kinds of salsa, cheese, guacamole and lettuce. Except for the cheese, not too bad. On other occasions that we go out, sushi is our most common choice. My DH and I are going out twice this weekend because it is his birthday and the boys have a sleepover. I am planning to have a spinach salad with day boat scallops tonight, and tomorrow night I am planning to have a dish with black cod, Manila clams, and spiced chickpeas. The last time we went out without kids, we went to a vegetarian Thai restaurant.

A lot of people don’t know that Chick-Fil-A offers their nuggets “grilled” as an option to the breaded ones. Very good!

I LOVE Red Robin – wrap any burger in lettuce? I’m sold.

i love pizza, so when i’m not making my own i love pizza huts thin and crispy veggie lover. i sortof have the idea when eating out that i hardly ever do it, so i’m going to enjoy myself. i don’t like to think of ordering the healthiest thing but would rather compromise other ways, like working out that day and drinking 3 liters of water. for sure i would get 2 servings of veggies, either a salad or steamed veggies, and then get what i was hungry for. i’m not a dessert person normally and the bread basket isn’t that big of a distraction. i LOVE olive gardens steamed mussels. the last thing i want to do is feel deprived and eat something that i don’t really want to eat, and then leave wishing i would have just got what i wanted. it’s all about compromise and moderation i think.

Good job Roni! No exaggeration- all your posts about stateless dieting truly stick in the back of my head. Your posts are the reason I’m able to make It through a bad night of eating, then wake up the next morning & know I don’t need to starve myself or make up for last night. I just need to move on & start the day fresh w/ a smart, healthy, filling choice. Keep it up Roni, your ups & downs encourage me on a very regular basis!

i very timely post, i just went out with my mothers group to lui lui’s, an italian place, anyway i looked at the menu before and decided against pasta and had an appetizer, a buffolo chicken quesadilla. what a HUGE mistake, i was thinking it would be small. it was huge, salty and made with pizza dough crust. i ate half and gained 3 lbs. mostly water, 2.5 came off but it was way heavier than i thought. UGH, i hate going out and making bad decisions, SO not worth it

i need to try the pineapple bun this weel