Eating out challenges

This weekend was kind of lame. We ate out twice, which was sort of disasterous as I: a) ate too much and b) didn't really enjoy it and c) ended up feeling like a dieting failure. In addition, when I wasn't eating out, I was sticking to my given points allotments, and I was still pretty hungry. I thought I was past feeling hungry all the time. Not so successful - hungry and overeating. How is that possible???

So everyone knows that eating out is such a challenge when trying to diet. I save all my extra 35 "floater" points for any times I may eat out - and if we don't go out I don't use them at all. This weekend we went out twice, and I hope I didn't go over the limit. The first time was International Night at Natasha's school. I decided to let myself eat a bit or two each of the Portuguese chocolate cake, some undetermined country of origin incredibly rich banana cake, and some Japanese bean dumpling. All incredibly heavy, sweet, not full of whole fiber and definitely full of lots of fat and sugar. I'm sure I used half of my 35 points, and most of the food was not worth it (although that banana cake was fabulous).

The next day at the Chinese New Year parade in Chinatown, we ended up at a place where a man was making Chinese noodles in the window. They were heavy, greasy and lacking in the veggie accompaniment promised on the menu. Exactly 3 spears of broccoli in my veggie noodles. Of course I ended up eating a small plate of greasy white rice noodles. What is hard is that it's impossible to know how much oil was in the food - a lot - or exactly how much I was eating. This meal was kind of upsetting, in a neurotic anorexic kind of way. If I'm going to pig out at a restaurant or other event, I want to at least enjoy it, not be stuck with nothing else to eat but unhealthy food. This was partly bad ordering...but also kind of goes with the territory at a some restaurants - this particular one didn't have the "steamed" option that works well at most Chinese places. Anyway, due to my two mediocre meals, I'm sure I will not lose any weight this week. Oh well. At least I learned a lesson. Just because I'm at a restaurant, doesn't mean I should indulge. Sometimes the food is not worth it. Try SUPER hard to find low-fat items that won't bust the points limit with 5 bites of food.

I'm not doing a food log as now that it's Monday, I'm too confused and forgetful. I'll just state that most meals were similar to days past, and the two meals out were big and heavy but not outrageous. Probably a total of 23 points a day plus the 35 floater points at max. Not a good feeling!