I know what you mean about portions. I bring my digital scale to my folks’ house! It gives me control over the portions that way. I can eat what everyone else does, I just weigh my chicken, or steak, or rice, etc., and enter it in my journal.

If it’s a spaghetti meal, I may not know what is exactly in the meat sauce, but I can at least measure the pasta, weigh the bread, etc. Most of those things have the same range of calories regardless of brands.

For Chinese food, order a dish of your own, that you can eat the most of, and then pick at a few other things here and there if you want to. But, have the one “safe” dish for you to fill up on. You can order most dishes cooked with very little oil, or even steamed. For example, you can have beef and broccoli steamed, with sauce on the side. I just dip to taste.

Dumplings are tricky because there can be a lot of dough in the homemade ones – the meat is the least of your worries. Lo Mein is one of the highest calorie count foods, with the high-starch noodles being stir fried in oil. I usually stick to beef or chicken and plenty of veggies. I can eyeball a serving of steamed white rice pretty well, too. I try not to be a freak show with my digital scale on the restaurant table. A little too “Look at me, look at me, I’m on a diet!”, if you know what I mean..

Now I think I’m going to have Chinese for dinner with DH!