Despite moving around a lot thanks to getting 13,000 steps a day, I’m struggling to maintain my weight right now.

For the longest time I’ve been really good at maintaining and even slowly losing weight week by week. Recently I’ve noticed my clothes are getting tighter and stepping on the scale confirmed it: I’m getting puffy. It’s not out of control but if I’ve learned anything about maintaining a 50+ pound weight loss, it’s that you have to stay diligent and stop bad trends before they spiral out of control.

I’ve been thinking about why this has happened and come to one conclusion: I eat out too much.

   
 

I go out A LOT. I eat at delicious restaurants for dinner most week nights. I visit coffee shops almost every day. I sometimes eat fast food for lunch or attend lunch meetings and luncheons. I barely have any food at home to cook because I rarely, if ever, cook these days. Probably 90% of my meals are eaten away from my home.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing to eat out a lot and many people do it. The problem with my eating out lately is that I’m not making great food choices.

Instead of choosing a salad, I’ve been choosing hot wings. Instead of choosing baked chicken and veggies, I’ve been choosing creamy pasta. Instead of choosing the lighter option, I’ve been choosing whatever sounded most delicious to me. This wasn’t a bad thing when I was only eating out occasionally, but now that it’s almost constant the choices are adding up in the negative. All those decadent meals are adding pounds to my frame.

Unfortunately this means it is time to cut back. There will be lots of family gatherings during the month of December. There will be Christmas cookies and eggnog and adult beverages galore. There will be dessert parties and Christmas dinners with all the fixings. It’s a calorie fest of love and family that doesn’t need to be compounded with restaurant meals.

My options are this:

• Stop eating out completely and cook healthier at home
• Make better choices when eating at restaurants
• Eat out less and make better choices; cook healthier food at home more often

Obviously I’m going to aim for the third option. It will be better for me to cook more and to make better choices in restaurants. It’s time for more veggies and lighter meals. My goal is always balance instead of restriction so I’m hoping to create more balance in my eating with these intentional choices.

  
 

I actually love to cook so this will be something I enjoy doing. It will take a little more planning and work on my part, but the results will be worth it. It’s much better to stop something from becoming a problem than deal with reversing it later.

In the meantime, feel free to chime in to the comments with your favorite healthy meal selections from restaurants. What do you often order when trying to stay on track? What’s your favorite eat healthy restaurant?