I just joined Weight Watchers last night and I'm faced with eating out for a birthday party tomorrow at Ruby Tuesdays. Anyone have any suggestions for me? Thanks in advance!

Visit Dotti's fabulous restaurant points list at:

http://www.dwlz.com/restaurants.html

It has Ruby Tuesday items listed.

Good luck!

They have a new sandwich -- Key West Sandwich -- which is 8 oz. of Talipa Fish. I get the salad bar and then the fish sandwich minus the roll and french fries. They charge me just for the Key West Sandwich. I love it. I count the fish as 5 points and the salad as 1. Then I get fruit for dessert from the salad bar and count that as 1.

Thank you so much for the advice and help. It is such a relief to know what I'm getting before I even get there. Such an easy program, thanks again!

I eat out at restaurants a lot on business trips, to the point where it's much more a hassle than a treat these days.

I swear it seems like restaurants randomly add fat to dishes. I'm at the point where if I order something like grilled fish and roasted vegetables, I add a minimum 1T butter to my journal, just because things taste butter. If it's swimming in butter I try to avoid it as much as possible, but then that's more.

Some restaurants specifically point out their lighter fare menu. Of course, they usually just point out fat grams instead of calories, and like I've proven you can get a lot of calories without the fat grams. I think Chili's has their 'Guiltless Grill'. My friend sometimes orders off that, and requests a side order of guilt. Usually the server just looks at them blankly.

One of the things I love to do, though it's costly, is to mix and match and make my own meal. I'll go out and order a shrimp cocktail appetizer as a main course, with a potato (margarine and sour cream and salsa on the side) and some vegetables for sides. Maybe I'll add a salad. That's pretty easy to guesstimate points on right there.

I'm not sure what my purpose for posting was other than to babble, because I'm too lazy to get out of bed.