the deadly buffet ... maybe it doesn't have to be?

Okay so I was away all week at a conference for work and the ladies I met wanted to go to a buffet... CHINESE buffet at that. My first thought is ... ugh I don't do well at all you can eat. If I could actually reflect and respond appropriately and not LITERALLY eat as much as I possibly can then I wouldn't be in the shoes I am today.

However strategies are important ... if there's anything I learned ... for long term success you have to find ways to cope in these types of situations.

First of all I knew anything deep fried would just be disaster ... I found this online ..
For one dinner sized plate with fried rice, noodles, 1 spring roll, lemon chicken and sweet & sour pork it is 900 calories and 40 grams of fat. Now that's only one typical sized plate at a chinese buffet. Even after eating one plate it's SOOOO easy to go back for more ... or another 900 calories .. then you're looking at almost your healthy calorie count for the WHOLE day...scary stuff.

Fortunately somehow I was able to just avoid deep fried stuff .... even chicken balls (that was the hardest!). I just didn't think it was worth it (it helped that I had been feeling under the weather). So I stocked up on salad bar stuff, veggies, fruit etc. and I felt great after it all .. not bloated .. not like I had just eaten as much as I could .. I just felt satisfied.

MY BIG HINT FOR BUFFET goers. Take a plate but only put 2 tiny servings of something on it ... I started with a small serving of a green salad and a few tablespoons of chick peas. The beauty in this .. was that when the people I ate with got up to get their 2nd plate of 900 calorie meal .. I TOO could still go up and get some things ... which is still part of the whole buffet experience .. (being able to go back for more!). Nothing worse than filling ever part of your plate with your healthy choices and seeing the people you're eating with coming back for plate after plate of fried food .. so I took very SMALL servings of the healthy food so I'd be able to get up when they got up.

I found this to be really helpful .. on my second trip I went back for cooked veggies etc. and it was great and I truly did not feel like I was missing out on the buffet experience.

If anybody else has strategies that help them during buffets. Please comment and share!