I’m calling Week Two “the week of branching out” because, well, that’s what I did. I added various vegetables to my list of “allowed foods,” and I ate out TWICE. And I still managed to lose another 2.5 pounds!

The first time I ate out was last Wednesday. It was absolutely GORGEOUS out – 75 degrees at 10 am. (I still can’t believe that I live in a place where I can go out in a t-shirt during the winter. It’s crazy!) I decided to put my work aside and go with Dave and his son to the park. After the park we walked down to Lebanon’s Cafe, which is in my Top 5 Favorite Restaurants in New Orleans. It’s a Mediterranean restaurant. Soooo good.

I always get the same thing – beef shawarma with hummus and rice. This time, though, I got salad instead of rice, and instead of using pita bread to eat my hummus, I just scooped it up with the beef (or used my fingers). I had considered not eating the hummus, since it’s high in fat and beans definitely are not “approved” for this part of my diet, but hummus is healthy and I love it and I didn’t really see a point to not eating it. You gotta live, right?

So I ate it. And when I weighed myself the next day (I weigh myself Mondays and Thursdays), I was down. So that was nice.

My second time eating out was Saturday night. After going to the Pelicans game, Dave and I met up with friends. I had a feeling I was going to drink a lot, and I knew that if I didn’t eat something for dinner, I would get too drunk and end up puking. There happened to be a food truck there, and after a quick perusal of its menu I ordered a grilled eggplant sandwich – by far the healthiest option. I could have thrown the bun away, but I wanted something substantial in my belly since I was planning on drinking, so I didn’t. But I did give away the chips that the sandwich came with.

Can I tell you how proud I am that I managed to eat out in a healthy way? I think of eating out as an indulgence, and if I’m gonna indulge in something, then I’m going all out. So my mindset as far as dieting and eating out was either don’t do it, or do it and accept the fact that I’ll be eating lots of things that I shouldn’t. There was no in between. So it’s quite an accomplishment for me to go into a restaurant and not stuff my face with things I shouldn’t be eating.

Tonight will be another test for me, because once again I’m going out to eat. This time I’m meeting my friend Ximena at Hoshun, an Asian restaurant. Hoshun has become “our spot” when we do dinner and drinks. We usually share the Sashimi Salad, Udon noodles and some type of specialty roll. Mmmmm. It is going to be incredibly difficult for me to go into an Asian restaurant and not eat some type of noodle, because noodles are F*CKING DELICIOUS. Andddd, I just started my period, and I usually use my period as an excuse to eat whatever I want. But I figure that if I eat an entire salad to myself and we share some healthier type of sushi, that will be enough of an indulgence and I’ll be able to skip the noodles.

Fingers crossed!