So, last night I went with my boyfriend to his cousin's house for dinner. She knew that I preferred to not eat meat, so she was very kind and made a dish especially for me.

It was okra, tomatoes, potatoes, some sheep's cheese, rosemary. She put it on a cooking sheet that was sort of deep. Well, at first I was thrilled. The sheep's cheese doesn't melt all over like other cheese, so I could easily scoop around it. But then, as I scooped, it seemed she had poured half a bottle of olive oil in the pan! I am not new to calorie counting, I weigh every drizzle of olive oil I put on my food.... a quick drizzle easily equals 50 calories. My boyfriend even thought the olive oil was excessive and he is not at all calorie conscious!

So, I did my absolute best to only scoop from the very top. I only had one serving which I ate very very slowly. But calculating the calories for this dish is beyond me.... I hate how every one just think olive oil is SO good for you and can only lead to health. It is also so heavy in calories!

Being social is SO hard for weight loss, as there is also the alcohol aspect! I sort of just want to be a hermit for awhile.

I feel your pain! And of course your boyfriend's cousin didn't mean to do anything like that. You're right - most people think oil is super good for you in whatever amount. A lot of people don't pay attention to calories.

In my experience it takes a lot of social maneuvering to be able to eat like I need to even in front of others. They tend to freak out a bit, or totally not understand at all.

Keep it up, though - you're doing great! As for the calories in that dish, I'd just count it as likely high and move on tomorrow.

I think you did great!

I totally know what you mean! That's why I usually eat BEFORE I go out...or bring a snack like some fruit and nuts with me just in case there are no good food choices where I'm going. I don't really care about people telling me to eat...I just tune them out!

My mom, who has yo-yo dieted for YEARS on low-carb plans (and despite the fact that no weight loss has been long-term, is convinced that it's the only way she's going to lose weight) absolutely pours olive oil on things.

I never used to notice this, though, until I started calorie counting. I told her the calorie count for olive oil once when I was visiting and she was cooking dinner, and she looked right at me and said, "But it's all healthy fat and calories."

I think that's a pretty common attitude.

DH cooks in healthy olive oil in excess. There'll be a quarter inch of oil in the pan when he's through, not counting all the oil the food is swimming in. And the stuff's expensive so this is really wasteful. Then he slides the food out, the oil runs over the edge of the pan and he puts the pan back on a burner to cool. Thank goodness we have a glass topped stove now so all that burned oil can be cleaned off. (Guess who gets to do that?) It used to stay burned onto the electric coil burner as it was impossible to clean off.

Yep - you can never have enough olive oil, because olive oil is SO healthy!!

Well, I've had enough olive oil for the week now!

And I'm still learning how to navigate the social scene: with alcohol and other people cooking. If someone cooked for me, I see it as such a nice gesture - I cannot really say no. So, I tend to eat very lightly (maybe 200 calories) before the meal, then I eat and drink as little as possible while I'm there. I know I still hit 1400 calories easily that day and am still a bit hungry. It really is easiest to simply avoid social situations... but that makes my boyfriend SO mad, he LOVES socializing. I recently switched out beer/wine for vodka shots and I sip on mineral water/lemon the rest of the time. It is not the tastiest, but I save at least a few hundred calories.

Well, I know I am new here, but my personal opinion is anything over a tablespoon is deep frying!

Granted EVOO is my favorite, but that is just excessive.

I am with Joyfulloser, I eat before I go. Most "other" people's cooking (including restaurants) makes me really sick for some reason. But then again, my kitchen is spotless.

I'm with Joyfulloser, too. I eat before I go, or after I get back as much as I can.

It's hard. *sigh*

I know - I seriously wish I had a really good lie/excuse about why it was impossible for me to eat at that time... but I don't and people here get SO offended, more so than in the USA even.