I'll have the flatbread...with a side of guilt.

I  have always loved going out for meals. Any meal. When I was younger my mom would cook dinner every night. When my Dad died a lot of our routine changed, including that. For many years we would eat dinner out almost every day. Some days (mainly the weekends) we'd have breakfast and dinner out. This was our new routine. It worked for awhile. When I started to lose weight I continued to eat out, I just adjusted what I ate. It's when I began to count calories that I started to fear restaurants. I know many restaurants have nutritional information that is easily available, which I'm grateful for. To be honest (which is the point of this blog) I avoid restaurants that don't share their nutrition information. And by avoid I mean refuse to eat there. Even a few that do make it public but "have nothing I can eat" on their menu.

One of the restaurants that does share their information, and that I greatly enjoy, is Houlihan's. Last night my husband and I were going to a season reveal show at a local theatre and decided that we would have dinner at a nearby Houlihan's. I often get the same thing (because I know what I "can" and "can't" eat) but after looking at the nutrition information I decided on something else...a mushroom and arugula flatbread. I ordered it, excited that it was something new. My excitement grew when it came to our table. The crust was thin and crispy and the arugula was wilted with a touch of balsamic on the top. It was amazing. When our waitress came out to give us our bill and collect our plates I told her how much I enjoyed the flatbread. She responded by telling me that they recently changed it and now make the flatbread in house instead of using a frozen bread. Not only that but there's a layer or cheese that now comes on the bread so there's "a lot more" cheese than it originally had. As soon as I heard that my anxiety kicked it. My immediate panic was that the calorie count that I had in my head wasn't even close to what I had actually eaten. Well if that count wasn't right then exactly how many calories did I just consume?!?! I tried to not let this panic show, after all we were in public. When we got to the car my anxiety was still climbing. I tried to talk to my husband. He listened but he didn't understand. I don't really expect him to. Most of the evening I was so distracted by my anxiety that it took away from the show and a lovely date night with my husband. I was hungry when we got home (we eat dinner earlier than we usually do) but I was so afraid to eat because I was convinced that I had hit my "allowed" calories for the day. This would have meant that instead of the flatbread being 500, like I thought, it would have been 1,000 calories. I know in the rational part of my brain that that number isn't even close to the actual count but it still cared me. I ended up eating because I was hungry and I didn't want to go into the nutritionist which such a low number of calories for the day. She would not be pleased.

Tonight, a whole 24 hours later, I'm still anxious about it. I've been reluctant to eat what I have to for most of the day. I look forward to a day when I can eat a restaurant and instead of focusing on calories, focus on my husband and the love we share.