Lose more weight by eating at home

I love to dine out.

I am maintaining a 40 pound weight loss (give or take) for 26 years. I can do both – dine out and maintain my loss, but not without a lot of effort. The challenges of managing my weight and restaurant eating are many.

Here is a partial list of challenges when dining out:
  1. Large portions
  2. Hidden calories because I’m unaware how dishes are prepared
  3. Temptation to start the meal with a high-calorie appetizer (as if I need to prime my appetite)
  4. Temptation to order a heavy meal when I really should stick to lighter fare
  5. Temptation to enthusiastically agree to the question, “would you like more bread?”
  6. Temptation to enthusiastically agree to the question, “would you like more wine?”
  7. Temptation to enthusiastically agree to the question, “would you like dessert?”
  8. Temptation to clean my plate even though the portion is 3 times larger than necessary for a single meal. (I know I can have leftovers wrapped up for another meal later but they never taste as good when they’re reheated.)

Who eats bread and butter before or with their meal when dining at home?

These and more challenges I can successfully negotiate but even after all of these years, it’s still not easy. I love food. That hasn’t changed and the truth is I don’t want to stop loving food. I just want to manage my food-loving ways so that I can keep my weight in check.

That brings me back to why eating at home more and dining out less is a good weight management strategy. The thing is that it’s hard to eat at home and have delicious meals because planning meals, shopping for food, and even cooking the meals is tedious. It’s all stuff I’d rather not do.

I would rather not do it and so it often doesn’t get done leaving me to either dine out or eat something not very exciting at home because it’s all I have on hand. Now there is a solution to that. There are multiple meal delivery services. I’m not talking about having takeout food delivered to your door. I’m talking about having fresh ingredients complete with easy-to-follow directions for you to cook your own tasty, nutritious meal delivered to your door.

Getting a meal delivery service isn’t going to save you any money compared to doing all the work yourself. You can scour the cookbooks, plan your meals, go to the supermarket to buy the ingredients and come home to do the prep and the cooking for less money. On the other hand, it’s cheaper than dining out and there is no tip involved.

It’s not so much about saving money as it is about making meals interesting and enjoying a variety and that can be key to sticking to a weight loss plan. If you happen to be following Weight Watchers you can even accurately count and track the SmartPoints for each meal ensuring that you don’t exceed your daily target. If you follow the Weight Watchers Simply Filling option, it’s even easier to lose weight using a meal delivery service.

The most difficult part of using such a service is picking the right one. Once again, the folks at reviews.com did the work for you. Click here to find the best meal delivery service for you.

You could, of course, try one of the commercial diet companies that delivers their shelf-stable, diet cuisine to your door, but I wouldn’t recommend that you do that when you could have fresh, delicious food instead.

If there is one thing I want readers to know about successful weight management, it’s how important it is to eat good food and enjoy every bite since you will have to account for every calorie.

 

 

 

Jackie Conn

About Jackie Conn

Jackie Conn is married and has four grown daughters and four grandchildren. She is a Weight Watchers success story. She's a weight loss expert with 25 years of experience guiding women and men to their weight-related goals. Her articles on weight management have been published in health, family and women's magazines. She has been a regular guest on Channel 5 WABI news, FOX network morning program Good Day Maine and 207 on WCSH.