Food for an off the rails night? 3-4 slices of pizza? Bunch of snacks. Bunch of cookies? Some chocolate? Or maybe a McDonalds night. My standard McDs order, which we were getting once a week for a while, is the two cheeseburger meal, a Diet Coke (one of the very few times I would ever drink cola), and a 20 piece chicken nuggets. I could hammer that down pretty easily. No idea how many calories that is — must be north of 2,000.
My weekends, it depends. Sometimes I would pick up fresh bagels for the family and have 1-2 of those myself with butter or cream cheese. Lunch out is standard. At a local mexican place often, with chips and salsa and guacamole, some fish tacos, 2-4 sangrias, and some of the leftover chicken fingers and fries from the kids. Then maybe a little day drinking and a light dinner?
Weekends are my main big weakness now I think, because we really enjoy going out to eat as a family for lunch. Just our thing. My keto version is to get a couple of cut up chicken breasts and dip those into guacamole (it’s just not the same, so often I revert to our usual meal, which honestly doesn’t seem THAT outrageous as long as I’m not eating the kids’ leftovers).
Awesome. Schtick aside, i love how honest you are about stuff like this.
Here's a couple rules I think would make a huge difference for you.
1) Only one meal at a meal. That sounds like I'm being a #### but I'm serious. Chicken mcnuggets aren't a side. It's a meal. And a 20 piece isn't an individual meal, it's a family size. A medium two cheeseburger meal is about 1000 calories and 20 nuggets are over 1000. That's 2000 calories - a whole day of food - before you get home and have booze and snacks.
That said, you have saved up all day for dinner, so you can afford to overeat some. If you want 20 nuggets and a cheeseburger, have that. But no fries, and no second cheeseburger. That's still a LOT of food but it's closer to 1400 calories than over 2000 - and it leaves you a few hundred for that glass of wine later. Or go the other way - 2 cheeseburger meal and a 6 piece mcnuggets. It's about the same calories and you get your fries.
2) 3 slices of cheese or two slices of meat. But you can have another if you really need to cheat. A normal slice of cheese pizza might be 400 to 500 calories. A huge slice, or a slice with meat on it, can be 700 plus. If you're getting great pizza then 3 slices over 2000 calories. That's a whole day of food. Get used to the idea that 2 slices is still a lot of food, and if you have that third slice you'll at least think twice before having the fourth.
3) no Mexican restaurant chips. Those things are the worst. They don't even taste that good, they're just there, and you want something to scoop up the guacamole. An order of those chips is usually over 1000 calories on its own, before you even add the guacamole, and there's no serving size. They just dump a basket in front of you. If you eat those once a month for a year you'll put on 4 extra pounds. Probably more.
4) you can't eat and drink then drink and eat. day drinking is fine.. 2-4 sangrias, and then maybe a little day drinking just sounds like getting drunk. Which is fine, I'm not judging, but it's a lot of booze, and you're definitely not going to eat better later. If you want to have something small with a couple sangrias that's fine, but if you plan on day drinking even more later then you really can't have a big lunch too. Because you're probably making #### decisions by night time, snacking and eating a small but calorie dense dinner. The one meal you can probably cut back on is that lunch - have something small with two sangrias instead of a big lunch and four.
Those changes aren't even dieting. Just making your bad days less bad. You don't even have to make any major life changes or pick healthier foods and you'd see big improvements because you're doing so well on your good days.
(If i was going to give you one more it would be this, but this isn't for your off the rails days. This is more because it sounds like you have trouble eating right while your kids get McDonald's or other stuff)
Try getting a burger or fries instead of a burger and fries. It's ok to get a huge burger (and even steal a couple of your kids fries). Just don't order your own fries. Or order a big order of fries and enjoy them. But that's your meal. You don't need to avoid burger places and you don't need to feel guilty about eating crap. Just pick something and enjoy it.)
