Dig this, Applebees

To answer the question Applebees presents in the first ten seconds of this mess:  No, probably not.

But here's a more obvious point:  Eating out is for special occasions.  I know that Applebees, McDonalds, Burger King, Dennys and Olive Garden would like us to forget that we have refrigerators and stoves and kitchens and just spend all our time and money at one of their feed bins, and therefore tries to pander to the people who are happy to do so by offering low calorie options, but the sane among us understand what eating out is for, and we ain't buying it.

And since we know that eating out IS supposed to be special, we aren't all that interested in tasteless junk served up at under 550 calories per plate.  You see, we eat sensibly 99 percent of the time.  Which is to say, we eat at home, food we prepare ourselves.  We don't live off the Dollar Menu, we don't think Wendy's is the place you spend every lunch hour (regardless of what the lunatic redhead in the commercials wants us to do)- heck, we don't even think that Kit Kats are a suitable mid-afternoon snack, EVERY MID-AFTERNOON.

So when we go out, we don't really worry about the calorie count.  We get big cheeseburgers and french fries or onion rings.  We eat pasta drowning in thick sauces.  We ask to see the dessert menu- and then we order dessert.  (If we are at Friendly's, we get hot fudge sundaes with broken candy bars on top.)

We can do all this because (do I really have to repeat this?) eating out is for SPECIAL OCCASIONS.  And only a total idiot is going to spend high-calorie money on low-calorie garbage.  We who rarely let ourselves go like to go out to dinner- to let ourselves go.  We can start repairing the damage tomorrow because, unlike the people you want us to be, we aren't hitting another restaurant for our next meal a few hours later.

So please, stop showing us guys getting all hyper-excited because they aren't overindulging in garbage, but are instead eating "sensibly" a meal which will leave them hungry before they get back home.  Fortunately for them, there's a McDonalds drive-thru on the way.  Me?  I'll leave with a full stomach.  Thanks anyway.