Twelve hours and several hundred dollars later we both had most of our presents purchased and I even found a way to not wreck my weight loss plans while eating at the food court in the mall (SUCCESS!).

Usually I will pre-plan what I am going to eat before going anywhere but the crazy busy holiday season sometimes makes it hard for me to fit that in. Instead I used all the tips I have learned over the last year since I joined Weight Watchers and ate fairly healthy at the food court without going hungry and without eating too many calories.

I started the morning with a pear (grabbed on the way out of door) and a non-fat latte with an extra shot of expresso (needed that extra boost to power my way though the crowds!).

My lunch choice was Panda Express. Instead of having deep fried and breaded orange chicken swimming in sauce over fried rice I opted for black pepper chicken with steamed rice.

Calorie and fat comparison:
Orange chicken with fried rice: 970 calories, 38 grams of fat
Black pepper chicken with steamed rice: 620 calories, 11 grams of fat (click here to view all the Panda Express Nutritional Info)
Conclusion: did okay, not as great as I thought but still ate 350 calories and 27 grams of fat less than normal and that is comparing the single entrees. I used to always have the 2 entree meal with 2 servings of the orange chicken and the fried rice so I really ate 750 calories and 47 grams of fat than normal.
What I will do different next time. Probably nothing. I really enjoyed it and had a very active day logging almost 11 miles on my pedometer, which helped me burn it off.

My dinner choice was TGI Fridays where I had half a Jack Daniels burger without the cheese, half an order of fries (my friend and I shared the meal), and a house salad with dressing on the side, which I used a quarter of.

Calorie Comparison:
I couldn’t find any nutritional information for TGI Fridays (hate when restaurants don’t supply it) but normally I would have had ordered an appetizer that was deep fried instead of the salad and would have eaten the entire burger and fries by myself.
Conclusion: I think I did pretty well. Yes, I had unhealthy fries but I don’t have them every day and I limited myself to half an order. Plus I resisted the calorie and fat laden green bean fries and had healthy salad instead.

The scale was still my friend this morning so I feel okay about my food choices yesterday. I will focus on very healthy eating today though because I probably ate about a week’s worth of sodium yesterday since restaurant food is almost always heavily laden with it.

Even though I ate more calories yesterday than I do in a normal day I do always allow myself one day a week to eat a little more so yesterday was it.

I’m just really proud of myself for not going overboard and for being able to resist having a Cinnabon, a pretzel from the Pretzelmaker (the really good dipped in butter ones) and a chocolate chip cookie sandwich from the American Cookie Company (the ones with loads of frosting in the middle). Yes, I normally would have indulged in all of those on a long shopping trip along with my regular meals (used to be a fan of treating myself way too much which is evident by looking at the loads of extra pudge on my body).

These are the tips I used to navigate the food court without blowing my diet:
- Did not skip breakfast even though I was eating out for the rest of the day
- Opted for grilled versus fried
- Light on the sauce
- Salad with light dressing on the side to help fill me up without eating too many calories
- Made sure to eat enough at my meal so I wouldn’t be so hungry later on that I could not resist the smells of the cinnamon rolls, the pretzels, and cookies.
- Drank lots of water that I brought with me (could have purchased it throughout the day as well and if you tuck the bottle of water in your purse you don’t need to worry about what to do with it in stores that have signs forbidding food and drink in them).
- Had a small single serving bag of almonds in my purse just in case I got really hungry so that I could have had those instead of aforementioned cookie, pretzel, or cinnamon bun.
- Chose water to drink instead of sugary drinks
- Chose the smallest size meals and said “no” to the so called money saving larger sizes and combo meals