5 Smart Ways to Dine Out Without Sabotaging Your Lifetime Weight Loss

Eat a fun breakfast by 9 a.m. but don’t eat so much you won’t want lunch!

Pearl One

My mom once said to me, “eating out when we’re traveling is so hard” and in response I said, “you know, it doesn’t have to be.” Here’s how I roll when dining away from home.

I look at restaurants as I do grocery stores: friends, we’re going behind enemy lines every time we eat in a restaurant, so it’s critical that we play a strong defense to coax our dreams — a lifetime weight loss — to come alive. Join me in not heading into a restaurant without considering the following:

Look an hour into your future and ask yourself how you’d like to feel when you exit the restaurant? Do you want to be mildly full? Not at all stuffed? Pleasantly looking forward to your next smart bites? I say, “yes, yes and yes!”

In advance of arriving at the venue I already know which restaurant-method I’m using from the below list.

Method 1: Days before a restaurant date, I pull up the restaurant’s online menu. While scrutinizing the menu’s sections closely, I hope to find a sides section. Then I cross my fingers that the sides include brown rice and veggies. When I find a good side orders section, I order two veggie sides and one brown rice side. The servers tend to bring out three separate plates of food so at that moment I ask them to bring me a large bowl and I mix it all together and add just of pinch of salt to make the veggie flavors sing. (I was once served veggies that looked black and icky. I was too involved with the conversation I was having with a friend to bother sending them back. Don’t be me: send unappetizing food back). Because brown rice and veggies with a pinch of salt is tasty times a million.

These days the wait staff and cooks are accustomed to special requests. If you’re nervous about seeming “pushy,” start small by asking for one food item at a time to be changed, and once you have your land legs, as Prince instructed us, “go crazy!”

Method 2: Let’s say that I’m traveling and eating at various and sundry restaurants and bakeries. If I’m not doing brown rice and veggies, I peruse the salad section and usually choose a Greek salad. I don’t add dressing to the Greek salad because the feta cheese does the job. If I’m getting a salad at a Mexican restaurant, I usually ask that everything in the salad be brought on the side making it easy for me to cut the sprinkled cheese in half, chuck the sour cream, and hem and haw about what to do with the guacamole (as long as it’s not made with mayo or sour cream it’s a healthy choice). I always ask before I eat.

Method 3: This method is only for the really determined to lose weight or keep it off. I order a certain burrito at my favorite Mexican. No way is this dish for one person. It’s huge! When the server brings our food, I cut this bad boy in half and place the second half into the Tupperware container I keep in my purse (when not in use, it folds flat like these).

Method 4: Again, this one is for the truly advanced among us. When I was on the cruise with my friend, we went to the ship’s Mexican restaurant and she ordered a meal and I ordered exactly what I wanted: the Tres Leches dessert. So rather than eating a full dinner and not having room for dessert, I only ate dessert. And – as you likely know – that Tres Leches was gooood. Keep in mind that I gained six ounces on that cruise. My smart eating tools work.

Method 5: If I know in advance that I’m staring down a particularly tough restaurant experience, I have more than just a healthy snack before leaving for the restaurant. My goal is to not only curb my appetite but to pretty much eliminate it entirely. Tough times call for tough measures.

This is a good time to tell you that I don’t allow myself to get smug about my low weight or my smart eating restaurant habits. If there’s something to celebrate. I let myself do a happy-dance for maybe eight seconds. After those seconds are up, it’s back to my smart eating life where I quite humbly helicopter my food choices meal in and meal out.

It can’t be said enough: being smug is the beginning of a slippery slope back into “funky-eating-ville” and since that was not happening on my watch, I remind myself often that being smug leads to a fall.

If you’re still feeling wobbly about eating out, be patient with yourself. This is another skill to learn, not a test. With practice, you’ll find your way: one menu, one meal, one confident choice at a time. ❄️

Pearl Two

Our journal-writing prompt pearl!

• How do I feel when I see other people eat foods I’m “avoiding”?
• How can I prepare mentally before dining out to make choices that feel satisfying and safe?
• Which restaurants or dishes have I found easiest to navigate while maintaining my goals, and why?
• Recall a recent time you ate out — what went well, and what would you do differently next time?
• How do I want to remember my relationship with dining out in 5 years: empowering or regretful?

Pearl Three

Sequencing is taken directly from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). The purpose of sequences is to help us move from reacting to circumstances to responding. I encourage you to do a sequence a day in your journal. Powerful stuff. Apply to your own life.

Initial Sequence

• Situation: Deborah, 64, has been widowed for ten years. She loves living on her own. Now the sweetest man from her book club asked her out on a date.
• Initial thought: “For crying out loud, oh boy. I love living alone and I can’t fathom going into the relationship thing again.”
• Feeling: Semi-annoyed at being caught unaware that this kind of suggestion might come at her.
• Action: She tells this man that her life is too full and maybe in the future they can go forward.
• Result: They see each other at the book club meeting and let that be enough.

Chosen Sequence

• Situation: Deborah, 64, has been widowed for ten years. She loves living on her own. Now the sweetest man from her book club asked her out on a date.
• Chosen thought: “Take a deep breath. Maybe this could be fun with a man I already know (albeit casually). This is how adults find a new partner by being at the Neighborhood Watch meeting, realizing that you’re seeing the same man grabbing coffee same time, same place as you, or meeting at a book club.”
• Feeling: Tentative, curious and determined to maintain her current lifestyle.
• Action: Deborah agrees to a casual dinner out. She’s dedicated to making sure getting to know each other moves slowly.
• Result: Debora maintains her strong boundaries and the two see each other at the book club and spend the weekends together. ❄️

Pearl Four

I found two great things: one, a book that you might love digging into and two, a prolific author. A Place to Hide by Ronald H. Balson is the author’s newest book that falls into the historical fiction genre and was chosen as the National Jewish Book Award winner when it came out in 2025. I love reading about World War II from the many different perspectives. This read is about a US diplomat in Amsterdam who uses his position to save Jewish refugees from the Nazis in 1938. Excellent book-dessert. ❄️

Pearl Five

The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking. ❄️

-Albert Einstein

I only need a handful of new readers to get to 1,000. Yes, I’m sending out an SOS, I need help. I get why celebs have enormous followings, but for regular people I can’t figure out how they get to 21K or 50K. It’s mind blowing to me.

Make it a week to remember!

♥, Wendy

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