Dining out + macros

Counting macros makes being able to dine out with family and friends stress free and enjoyable- it just takes a little planning ahead!

1. Chances are very high that you are going to a restaurant whose nutritional data and meals are already in myfitnesspal. If you cannot find the meal item that you want in MFP- you can easily google the restaurant and get the food item/meal nutrition information from their website and manually put it into your database.

2. Most of the time you will know where you are going in advance, so the day of, input what you plan on eating out FIRST. Even if it's not the first meal of the day, skip down to lunch and input your choice. This way- done! Your meal out is logged. Now, you can add the rest of your day planned around your meal out.

3. Salad! Always a safe option! Add meat, ask for dressing on the side. Seriously, there are so many toppings and endless ways to make amazing salads. Recently my family and I went out for last minute pizza, so I ordered a chef salad with extra chicken. It was amazing and huge! I left feeling full and happy, not deprived at all. A lot of places will also make their sandwiches/subs into salads, too!

4. If you do happen to eat at a place that does not have nutrient content available, just do the best you can. At this point, you pretty much know what you should and shouldn't eat. Do your best to guess servings sizes as you input them into your log. You can do it all individually: my salad seemed to have about 3 cups of romaine, a chicken breast, 2 eggs, pepper and onion, 2 slices of bacon etc and just input each item individually if this is your only option.


Make sense? An example: New Year's Eve we planned to go out to dinner after church. We knew we wanted outback- so that morning before I decided even on my breakfast, I logged whatever I wanted to eat at outback that night. Immediately, my carbs and fat flew up, but were not over. But that made me aware, so I then knew that for my breakfast and lunch- I need to light on the carbs and fat and heavy on the protein so that I can fit it all and not go over.

I had a burger, by the way, and it was amazing. I love macros and flexible dieting because I could eat a burger and not have guilt and pressure and regret over it and also- not do any damage to my goals!

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