BUT.. I can see some positive aspects to my eating today. This is day #3 calorie counting and we met up with a friend to eat lunch somewhere. We went to Johnny Rockets. I should of asked for a calorie menu. I definitely thought a burger & fries was a no no because I'd figure it would be well over 1,000 for both.

So, I chose chili fries and a diet coke. I came home and checked the calories and it's a whopping 710! Holy smokes!

In hind sight.. I could of ordered a burger with no cheese and a side salad, ate half the burger and took the other half home. Half a burger would of been like 350 cals and the salad would be negligible if I skipped the dressing.

But, thankfully.. my daily total today is 1590 including the 710 for the fries.. so it could of been worse.. but I definitely need to be better prepared if this happens again. Thankfully we really don't eat out much, maybe once every few months.

Yikes! You did well calories wise even with the slip! It couldve definitely been worse.

I always just stay as far away from fries, or anything fried for that matter, no matter what! Its always the highest calorie. Its the same at Mcdonalds or other fast food places. You can get a burger lower cal than fries. Its frustrating though becaue I *love* fries! haha

Have you thought about maybe getting a little notepad or something to keep in your purse or car and writing down a couple things that are better options at each one of the places you may go? Then you'll be prepared with no worries! You'll get better at guessing whats in everything the more you calorie count! Keep up the good work, you're doing great!

Why do Fries have to taste so good!? Yes I will definitely make a better choice next time....Thanks for the encouragement!

Way to go on staying in your calorie range! Just move on from here and research healthier options that will keep you more satisfied for next time

I tend to go for chicken and always cut whatever it is in half. A true serving of chicken is only half a breast, so a McDonald's chicken sandwich is actually two servings. If I stick to that general rule of thumb, I think I do ok in most restaurant situations.

...for future encounters.

FunSize -

I'd recommend getting a basic book about calorie counting, and start to learn some of the general information. While it's great when you can know the calorie counts of everything ahead of time and make your choices that way, there are going to many times when that's not possible, and you are going to have to make judgements on the fly. So you need to know some things up front, like chili fries are going to be a bad choice on pretty much any diet, except for one designed to gain weight! lol! And while it's good that you managed to come in at your calories for the day, you had to sacrifice other, more nutritional food to do it, and that's not a good long term strategy.

Reading more about the basics will help you out by making the better choices more clear to you, and also helping to figure out when and how much you can splurge too.

Good luck!

The fact that you even thought about the calories in the food before you ordered it shows the progress you have made. I orderd a wrap the other day thinking I did good, and come to find out, it had 950 calories in it!! So, its bound to happen, just pick yourself up, and dont stress about it Be proud of how far you have come so far!

Hey! Don't be discouraged! Surely you have learned from this situation :-)
Besides, I have you beat.
I went to a deli a couple months ago and ordered a Chicken Club sandwich. A regular sized sandwich with regular size, thin bread. I looked it up when I got home. 1275 calories! I nearly died.