Restaurants are my Achilles’ heel, and I want to share with you a few meals recently that didn’t go well—and what I did about it. I used to try to game the system and get the biggest, sexiest meals when eating out, but that was giving me near-panic attacks afterward. In 2022, I started to analyze my restaurant behavior and decided to go back to day one because I wasn’t being honest about how I was navigating it. Eating out has been a breeze since then. 

Here’s how I achieved that: I partnered with someone who has peace with eating in restaurants and we went through my behavior with a fine-tooth comb. Then I stopped triggering myself. 

An example: at my local Japanese restaurant, I used to order a salad with dressing that had a little sugar in it. I rationalized it as part of my vegetable portion. But when I cleaned up my habits, I started ordering my salad without dressing. I eat it plain now with soy sauce. 

I also started being more honest about proportions. For example, I used to order French onion soup, (without the big crouton, of course), on the theory that 8 ounces of broth is fine, and I wouldn’t count the cheese as anything. Now I don’t eat melted cheese at all.

So fast forward to about a month ago. We went to a restaurant to celebrate my daughter’s birthday. She had been talking about how good their deep-fried Brussels sprouts were. I ordered them without cheese. This was a rationalization. Mind you, the place has steamed broccoli. That’s what I should have ordered.

I ate the Brussels sprouts and they were great—but I left the restaurant feeling all swirly in my head. The next morning, my ring didn’t fit because I was swollen from that oil. My thinking didn’t feel right for several days. 

This was not a big deal, but I didn’t have peace about it. So I talked to several people who have peace in restaurants to debrief. One asked me, “What do you have going on? What is that indulger part of you trying to get from those greasy Brussels sprouts?” I hadn’t noticed that my food indulger part was active, trying to please me and make my life better.

But a few days later I walked out of a restaurant again feeling panic and shame. I ordered salmon sashimi and ate it with soy sauce and wasabi. Afterward, I picked up the bowl of soy sauce and drank it. I had a bowl of vegetables with a little butter on them, and I drank that bowl of buttery soy sauce too. 

I called a friend to talk about it, and I remembered something from my childhood: when my father and I would go to get Chinese food, I’d pour soy sauce and white vinegar together, take my fork, and eat the liquid from the fork. 

My motive, in all these cases, was a food addiction motive: More. Can I get more of this food to soothe, to calm, to satiate me? Can the food do something for me and help me achieve some level of okay-ness?

But food doesn’t do a good job of that. I need to find my okay-ness inside, instead. So I rezoomed. I didn’t break; I just didn’t make good choices. If you need more information on breaks, check out my book REZOOM—there’s a section there on what makes a break. 

I’m glad I used my tools, talked to people, wrote about it, and sought the lesson. I want to claim the win that keeping my quantities in restaurants has now become automatic. 

If you’re not high on the Susceptibility Scale, this may all sound crazy. That’s fine. Do what gives you peace in restaurants. For me, analyzing food is vital, because I’m a 10+++ on the Scale. I have to keep my behavior really clean. But keep doing what’s working for you.

For me, what’s been working regarding my quantities in restaurants is to HONESTLY eyeball my portions, taking what I’m not going to eat off onto a side plate. Then I start eating. But if, while I’m eating, I start to second-guess my quantities and think I may be about to eat too much, I take more away. I keep taking bits away until I have peace.

If you have a restrictor part of you, and taking away food could be an act of anorexia, then don’t do this. I’m an overeater and don’t have a strong restrictor part. So for me, taking food away is healthy. If it’s the reverse for you, you may need to surrender and eat all your food. 

I share these specifics because I think it’s helpful to have this boots-on-the-ground understanding of what it’s like to live a Bright Life and have these long stretches of freedom. Sometimes, that freedom may get interrupted, and it’s good to know what to do when that happens. For me, it was time to check my motives.