oh ya!! did you see that Blooming onion!!?? holy cow!!!

I do as a poster ahead of me wrote, I try and stick to chain restuarants with websites and look up the nutritional info before I get there. That way I don't have to guess and I can see what has shockingly high hidden calories.

I'm taking a class with 6 other students and for our final class we're going to a restaurant.

If you go to THIS LINK, you can check out the menu in .pdf format.

I really have no idea what I'm going to eat there. I'm thinking the chicken fajita with whole wheat tortillas, hold the cheese. But in all honesty, I really don't know.

It's one of those restaurants that really goes out of its way to make sure EVERYTHING is unhealthy.

If anyone takes the time to check out the menu, please let me know what you would do.

Well I skimmed the menu and there is a stir fry listed thats not a bad choice if they are light on the sauce. Also fish and chips, you can ask for your fish to be grilled rather than fried and a salad rather than fries. (my nephew does that all the time as he hates battered things) or there is a Garden salad that you can get and it has the option to add chicken to it. Those are things I would personally order if I was going there. Good luck! Don't get sucked into appies, and drink lots of water!

I don't know about getting the fish. A place like that probably already has it pre breaded and it just won't be worth it. I think you go for the 8 oz sirloin and eat half. Ask for double veggies, rather then a potato, and get a salad with the light dressing or oil and vinegar (skip the oil). You'll get a good dose of protein and lots of veggies, and take the rest home in a doggie bag for the next time you are craving beef.

I personally can't stand chain restaurants because you have little chance of deviating from the menu... and you're stuck with pretty ordinary food.. Find a good local restaurant and - pretend you're at burger king - ask for things to be served your way... you're paying for the food, you can ask for things to be served to your liking... and normal restaurants the chef if usually willing to work wiht oyu without sacraficing their standards.

I've always been a self proclaimed pain in the ass when I go out to eat - I have never liked breaded foods, I don't like overly sauced or any food that looks like it's been disguised... Never have - never will... I have no problem asking for things to be tweaked on the menu and I have no real issue feigning an allergy to make it happen...

When I livedin a new hampshrie, there was a restaurant I used to go to frequently -that I earned the reputation with the chef as being a bit of a pain in the ass -he came out one night and basically asked why I was so fussy - at that point I was losing weight and was really focusing on healthy... he said -but we h ave these two 'healthy' items on the menu - yeah but they were both steamed and bland and boring.. no real flavor - I wasn't willing to sacrafice flavor for health... So I'd take what was the menu and tweak it... I spent an afternoon with the chef one day - and used my opinions to come up with "healthier" selections on the menu - that were a big hit with the customers... That would never happen in a chain restaurant...

Well said, Mal. I don't like to go to chain restaraunts also. They have so many rules about what they can and can't do. Most of those places even have rules about how much you can/can't cook things. Try ordering a steak rare at a Fridays or such. They will tell you that they can't for your own safety. Come on. Give me a place that can cook for real, or I'll do it myself. Most of these people who call themselves chefs are really cooks. Or at the chain places, they are more like assembliers. They don't make food, they just assemble the ingredients. A real cook would welcome good sugestions. A real chef wouldn't need them.

I don't eat the bread and I just order a water, maybe a diet soda if I'm feeling fancy. That is easy stuff you can do to save a few hundred calories. As far as food, 75% of the time I just get a salad. I actually really like salad though so it doesn't feel like I'm depriving myself. If something else on the menu is really tempting me and I decide to get it, I'll eat VERY SLOWLY and aim to only eat about half of whatever I ordered. A lot of the time when I stop eating at half, I am still wanting to eat the rest. Not because I'm hungry, but just because it is there and tastes good. It takes a lot of will power to stop, but I always feel good about it later. I do not take home leftover portions no matter how good it was. Eating out is a treat, the next meal I am back on my diet.

Eat This, Not That - The No-Diet Weight Loss Solution From Men's Health

Check out this site, it was posted by someone else a couple weeks ago. I went to it, and jotted down some quick info in my "little black book of weight loss info", of what I can eat at some of my favorite resteraunts...

It is the info from the book Eat this, not that , that was mentioned before. It's really crazy, I couldn't belive how one dinner out, could be equal to almost a whole day's caloric alowence! You could eat half, but it's good to know, half of what!!!!

Plus there is a site healthydiningfinder. com, I think if you check out both, your covered, at least with the chains. Mal's advise is great for the independent places, and I intend to use it! Thanks Mal...

We need to know right? I mean we want to stay in control, even when we dine out!

Hope2

I'd go with a plain Burger and only eat half with soup and take the rest home or the Chicken Fajita wrap hold cheese and Sour Cream.

If you go to Prevention and type "restaurants" in the search function, you'll get a ton of good ideas.

Like this one I just picked at random that sort of answers your question...

Enjoy Your Favorites Without Gaining a Pound!

Sure, you want to lose weight, but you'd rather not give up visits to your favorite restaurants for Italian, Mexican, and other popular cuisines. Fortunately, you don't have to! Biggest Loser trainer Bob Harper shares how.

Lots of other ideas if you search around there!

As an aside, food psychologist Brian Wansink, PhD, has a section there with a lot of good tips on preventing mindless eating - Food Think With Wansink.

THis was just my struggle over this summer, with two week long trips in the middle: every meal was a meal eaten out! Yikes

Breakfast on the first trip was easy as the breakfast options always had fruit and yogurt available. The second trip was difficult as we always went to diners with HUGE breakfast platters. I ended up getting everything a la carte, with a fruit cup.

Overall I did pretty well when I was able to order my own food. I just ordered grilled chicken or fish and steamed veggies (And I forced myself to leave some on the plate). A couple times we had dim sum, so I just tried my best to stay away from the fried stuff, drank water and filled up on veggies first. However the torture was at applebee's when everyone order appetizers and the sampler was placed right in front of me: buffalo wings, quesadillas, and fried mozz. I didn't cave, and waited for my salad.

However, at the end of both weeks, I was totally off the wagon.

There's a program out here called Simply For Life. Certain restaurants have an SFL section on their menu with much healthier items in it. They use glycemic index to determine what's SFL approved, so sometimes portion sizes can be a problem, but in general the selections are quite excellent and I haven't been gaining weight when I stick to the things on those menus.

I also heard to plan on putting half of what you order in a doggy bag.

Im going to try it.

Luckily I dont go out to dinner too often. Its also a burden on the pocket book as well as the waistline

I went to Cantina Laredo today and had the chicken fajita salad with no dressing, but they still put chimichurri in it anyway. Most of the chimichurri was near the bottom so I just didn't eat that part. I also had no cheese on it and left about 50% of it on the plate including the avocado.