Strategies to fix "celebration meals"!

Hey everyone, and Gong hay fat choy! (Happy Chinese New Year!)

To celebrate the Year of the Ox, my whole team at work is going out for Dim Sum. A Calorie Counter's nightmare!!! 

Dishes that I can't even name (hard to look up!) coming one at a time to my plate (hard to portion control!)  I'm really stressed out about it, and I'm going to try hard to choose the less greasy options and eat very slowly, but it's going to really hit the calorie meter one way or another.

My question -- is it better to eat  my normal large breakfast to make sure my metabolism is running and preventing me from eating as much, OR is it better to cut back on the breakfast and dinner, so the total calories stay low?? (Better calories vs. fewer calories, essentially)

I've got my bread, apples and carrots and I'm wondering if I should eat them before lunch or not... help! 

Well.. that all depends. If you are good at listening to your body and not eating when you don't feel hungry, or you can stop when you start to feel full, and don't feel the need to try everything and clean your plate, it would be wise to eat your fruits and veggies and stuff as planned. Filling up on that will cut your hunger so you eat less bad stuff.

As for me, I'm the type that has to try everything and clean my plate, even if I'm not that hungry, so cutting calories earlier is better for me. If you wanna take it a step further, you can prepare for it a week ahead of time by eating a lil' less than usual and/or exercising a bit more. Even 20 extra minutes a day adds up and as long as you're semi-careful about your choices you can enjoy yourself.

Actually dim sum is pretty good for dieting, in my opinion, since you can try some of everything, and the servings are quite small, but you try so many things that it seems like you ate a lot.  If you're especially paranoid about all the calories adding up, though, just stick to the steamed items, like steamed buns and steamed dumplings, and cheong fun.

Depends on whether you think that eating now will help you have more self-control later.  I'd say hit the gym for a while today to offset it rather than eating less. 

Hmmm.  Can you order a salad or something and eat that slowly while ignoring the first 2 or 3 rounds of food?  That'd be an easy way to cut down.

Just a suggestion... Go for it! Don't go too crazy, but maybe just enjoy it this once. Every once in a while it's OK to indulge. It wont set you back that far in the long run. There have been times when I've done this and, although after a day or two I would hesitantly step on the scale, what I saw was less that before! Enjoy yourself!

Thanks for your replies!  I guess I will eat my apple to make sure I'm not starving by the time the first few plates arrive, and I will stick to the steamed stuff (steam buns are my fave!)

I've been to the gym 30m every day this week, so I'll maybe try to throw a bit more cardio on top of my workout to compensate instead of trying to keep the intake at 1200.

hmm... well you might be more full the next morning, if you ate more, so just have a smaller breakfast tomarrow. It's still within the whole 24 hours range, and its easier to eat less after eating a larger meal.

if you catch my drift.