Let’s be honest- we all have social lives. We all like going out to eat. We all have social functions to attend: weddings, work parties, birthday parties, baby showers, etc. Now the question- how do you stay on track with your diet and still have a social life?

 

First, there is a huge difference between going out and having a treat meal and going out and staying on track. If you need help with a treat meal- please check out this blog: http://sarahbowmar.blogspot.com/2014/02/cheat-meals-101.html

 

If you are following a macro style of dieting and/or following our meal plan- you have a total number of calories, fats, carbs, and protein to hit a day. For this example, we are going to use 1500 calories, 34g fat, 150g carbs, and 150g protein as a daily macro total. 

 

Most restaurants have their nutritional information online or in-person (sometimes upon request). In an ideal world- you know where you are going ahead of time. If this is the case, I highly recommend planning your day ahead of time before you even have your first meal of the day. Let’s say you are going to the cheesecake factory- they have their menu online and you can easily plan ahead. Seeing macros and overall calories ahead of time will allow you to log this into your food diary and allocate your remaining calories accordingly.

 

You decide on the grilled salmon platter- one I highly recommend! The macros for the dish are (including sides): 710 calories, 33g fat, 3g carbs, 51g protein

 

This means you have 790 calories remaining, 1g fat remaining, 147g carbs remaining, and 99g protein remaining for the day.

 

If you want to indulge in something with higher calories, you might want to experiment with intermittent fasting (blog here) for the beginning part of the day to “save up” more calories for the social event. This is totally fine because it’s about calories in vs calories out at the end of the day 

 

If you do not know where you are going, the restaurant doesn’t have their calories online, or you don’t know what is being served- make SMART choices. You can’t go wrong with a grilled steak, grilled salmon (hold the butter and oil), and grilled veggies. On average, my “go out and stay on track meals” are usually around 500-700 calories for reference. Unfortunately, when dining out, it does not take long to hit those calories due to their cooking style. But that is why it’s important to plan ahead!