What happens when a meal doesn’t go as planned or you want to eat out?
Well there’s 2 different ways I look at this! #1 a “cheat” meal from time to time isn’t a big deal as long as it isn’t a weekly thing! Most people ruin their whole week of healthy eating by cheating the whole weekend! So keep cheat meals/days limited if you are actively trying to lose weight! I was in a calorie deficit trying to lose weight for about 6 months and I kept those cheat days/meals (meaning no tracking) to just 2-3 the whole time frame. I knew I wouldn’t be in a deficit forever and I didn’t mind to sacrifice to reach those goals faster! #2 You can eat out and still hit your calories/macros! Just know it will be easiest if you PLAN ahead and are flexible (sacrifice) on your others meals that day!
So let’s chat about it! This week my husband has been out of town and my schedule has been completely different than normal. Rather than getting up at 4:30am and working out I’m not working out til 9:45am. Which means I need to eat before working out but I don’t want to eat too much. And it also means when I leave the gym I’m starving! Yes… I know, way bigger problems in the world but I like sharing these types of struggles with you so you can learn with me!
Yesterday I rewarded my kids excellent behavior with a Chick-Fil-A lunch! And your girl wanted to partake in it too! It was almost 12:30 in the afternoon and after just a small breakfast, my body use to eating lunch at 11am, I was HANGRY and I decided I’d enjoy Chick-Fil-A with them!
Now I know what many of you are thinking…. You might as well enjoy the rest of the day and eat whatever you want and “start over” tomorrow. NO, no no... Don’t do this! If you give up and go all out on food every time something doesn’t go as planned you will forever be starting over! So I’m all for LEARNING and then tweaking my day. Now thankfully, in this situation I was able to change my dinner just a little and make my numbers work since I hadn’t had a big breakfast like usual but that’s not always the case. So if you find yourself in this situation, don’t stress... stick to your plan the best you can! I make my personal goal to never be more than 5 calories under/over my macros. So guess what, in over a year of tracking I’m not sure I’ve ever zeroed out all my macro numbers. However I have hundreds of days of being VERY close! (CONSISTENCY FRIENDS!) So yesterday…. In my case, I had planned to eat 3/4 of a cup of rice at dinner but was able to lower that to 1/2 cup to keep me within my calories. So rather than throwing in the towel and eating junk the rest of the day, I got in my fitness pal and looked for changes I could make to help me still reach my goal.
My #1 tip is to always plan ahead! If you are planning to go out to eat, go ahead and decide what you will eat and track it in My Fitness Pal then arrange the rest of your meals around that! Not every restaurant will have meals or food in MFP so do your best to estimate! Again, be flexible - everyday may not go as planned but the goal is consistency. One day of going over your calories or macros isn’t going to break you if you can be consistent.
Tips for eating out:
1 palm will get you roughly 20-30 grams of PROTEIN
1 cupped hand will get you roughly 20-30 grams of CARBS
1 thumb will get youghly 7-12 grams of FAT
So take your macro goals and figure out how many palms of protein you have per meal and same for carbs and fat that way when you don’t have your measuring scale you can guesstimate what a healthy portion looks like! You can enjoy your meal without overeating!
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