A useful resource on restaurants

[pegkerr]

I was cruising around today, trying to find useful information to help me move off this weight loss plateau where I've been stuck for a month, and ran across this site, which lists nutritional information for menu items of many, many restaurants. Also included are Weight Watchers points information, if you use those. I made some jaw-dropping discoveries. My favorite Vegetarian Fajita Burrito at Chipotle? 1220 calories and 50 grams of fat!

Hope you will find this as useful--if not as disconcerting--as I did.

Comments

[magentamn.livejournal.com]

Ouch!

Thanks for the link; it will be very useful to remind myself just how fattening some foods are.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Damn it, things with "vegetarian" in the name should be healthy. It's not fair.

[norabombay.livejournal.com]

Yeah, there are usually only couple of menu items at restuants that are truely low cal. But it's sometimes surprising stuff. If you go to McDonalds and get the "McMuffin", it's the best thing on the breakfast menu.

An egg and cheese McMuffin (no meat, although you can swap it for cheese for the same result) is about 350 calories. Not great, but not awful. 140 for the english muffin, 100 for the poached/nuked egg, 100 for the cheese slice, and 10 for the fact that there is probably butter somewhere.

But 350. It's filling, quick, and cheap. Add a diet coke or coffee, and it's a good breakfast.

Ironically, even the legendary posterboy of bad food, the Big Mac, only has about 700 calories. Who knew...

[nlbarber]

Oh, yeah--Chipotle. When I started Weight Watchers and, like you, found Dotti's Weight Loss Zone, that was the big shocker for me, too. My favorite lunch: the carnitas burrito.

It's 26 WW points. At my heaviest (and on the active weight-loss phase of WW), my entire day's point target was 24. Now that I'm at a maintenance level, I might be able to eat 24 points a day again--or it might end up being a little less.

And I used to eat a carnitas burrito for lunch, and then go have a nice dinner that evening...

[laurel]

I've made a habit of going to websites for various restaurants before I go to them. Like, for instance, if I'm craving a particular sandwich from Arby's (I don't have a lot of restaurant options in Mitchell), I'll go to the Arby's website first and look up nutritional data before I leave. More often than not-- I end up not going out at all or else figuring out which item(s) would actually be reasonably healthy and I'll eat that.

I heard that all menu items on the menus at Ruby Tuesdays have calorie & fat and other nutritional data listed.

[wintersweet.livejournal.com]

Aargh. How can something that sounds so good for you be so bad for you?

I *highly* recommend the magazine "Cooking Light," by the way. Their recipes are yummy, and often not complicated.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

I recommend it, too! I've had a subscription for years, and always buy the year-end cookbook. I like the articles, too.

[prunesnprisms.livejournal.com]

Being a WW veteran, I'm a huge fan of Dotti's. Helped me eat out more rationally, all the time (I cook seldomly.)

[fourleftxaviers.livejournal.com]

Oh, Dotti's! I love that site. I depend on it, actually. What slayed me was reading about the fat and calorie content of my favorite sandwiches at Panera Bread and Arby's, with the Market Fresh things. Dear lord.

I just wish someone could get me the info on Saladworks' sandwiches. I'd really like to try the chicken fajita wrap, but I'd like to have some stats on it first.

[pixelfish.livejournal.com]

Half portions or box half and take it home.

In the last three months, I've actually started reading those menu statistics--first at McDonalds (on the day I had a Big Mac--650 calories--and two McChickens--450 calories--for lunch) and later at Ruby Tuesdays (most of their burgers, not counting fries and other sides, rocket above 1000 calories).

I gained the proverbial fifteen pounds that everybody wants to lose about a year ago, and now I'm trying madly to get rid of it before it becomes twenty pounds, thirty pounds, or forty pounds. I have pictures of my mom (who I love) dancing in my head as incentive.

Have you checked out Fitday.com? It's like an online journal for your food intake, although you could just be like Samuel Pepys and write it down in your live-journal. (Well, like Samuel Pepys might've done if he'd been around for live journal.)

[pixelfish.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes. That was 450 calories each. (If I remember correctly. I could be wrong since I was so dazed by the idea that I had already blown WAY over my calorie intake, since I'd also had brekkie. I knew it wasn't...healthy....but I'd been consuming it madly since my teen years. Haven't eaten at McD's or Wendy's since that day.)

Mmmm, Chipotle Burritos!

[mareklamo.livejournal.com]

Half portions or box half and take it home.
A very sensible solution. Don't deprive yourself of food you like when you can just eat less of it.

Food

[nwl.livejournal.com]

That's my plan - portion control. Either eat half and take the rest home (can't leave any - that's wasting food) or split it with someone.

I'd rather have a small portion of the real thing than a big portion of a "lite" thing.

I wish American restaurants did half portions. It's even tougher to have small portions when you cook, as I do.

Re: Food

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Do you mean that you cook professionally? Because I do most of the cooking for my family, and I find portion sizes pretty easy for myself, so I'm interested in what the professional difference would be, if that's what you mean.

I often take home enough for two more meals when I go out. The only drawback so far (other than some things reheating badly) is that many people will feel free to comment on how little one eats and urge one to eat more when one has neither need nor want for any such thing. Social pressure comes into play. People who would never dream of telling someone not to order dessert because they've already eaten too much feel perfectly free to inform others when they haven't eaten enough. It's worse at restaurants than at home: at home sometimes I'll get a reproachful look for not taking enough onto my plate, but mostly people let it pass without comment. But if I eat the same amount as I'd eat at home out of, say, a restaurant plate of pasta, I will get chided.

Sometimes even wait staff will do this. It took me a year to train the owner of our favorite Chinese place in the South/East Bay that I really did like his food and was looking forward to taking it home and eating it a couple more times. He kept acting sorrowful.

Re: Food

[nwl.livejournal.com]

Do you mean that you cook professionally?

Sorry, but no. I'm an *sob* out of work software tester. I don't find it easy for portions doing my own cooking as what does "portion" really mean? I know I've read the articles - meat, size of your palm, etc. but does that relate to serving size on the rice box? I also find the recipes I want to make are for four not two, so I do my best. It also doesn't help when your hubby makes a sandwich after dinner, "just to top it off."

If I can I take home part of my meal or I skip lunch and eat the whole thing or I get my husband to share one entree with me. I've really gotten to the point that I'm sick of the constant chatter about food, food, food, what to eat, not eat, eating times, places, and so on. Makes me want to skip it all together.

Social pressure comes into play. People who would never dream of telling someone not to order dessert because they've already eaten too much feel perfectly free to inform others when they haven't eaten enough.

I've never had that experience. I've had people say they don't know if they want dessert. I say, do what you want. It doesn't matter to me. Unless they want to share a dessert with me. Then it matters. I would not be inclined to hang with people who constantly urge me to over eat.

Sometimes even wait staff will do this. The only time I've had that happen was when we were visiting L.A. and were at a Peruvian restaurant. It would be the first and last time I went to that restaurant if the wait staff tried to lay a guilt trip on me. I think that's rather rude. I didn't let my grandmother guilt me into eating more than I wanted, why would I let a total stranger?

Sorry to be so late, but I've been working at the county fair and am getting ready for Worldcon.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

I can't find a single page on that site that discusses restaurant food calorie counts. Just weight watchers points, and I don't know what those are.

K.

[averagegirl.livejournal.com]

Way to ruin Chipotle forever for me.

Actually, I kid. I can't stay away from the stuff. :P