Last week on her weigh-in post, Christie, from Baby Tea Leaves, touched on a subject I’ve been thinking a lot about. Okay, she more than touched on it, she smacked it all around and called it names! I loved her post so much, I asked her permission to re-post it here. I think it’s something all of us can relate to, and she has some wonderful tips for when you find yourself dining out. Enjoy, because I sure did!
Well anyways, while you’re here, I also wanted to open up a discussion about a topic other than the cheese cube but something equally as damaging: the Restaurant. If I could eat all day every day at my house, I’d be fine. But I don’t and I have a bit of a beef with restaurants these days, so I’m going to briefly open up the complaint department. Get your grievances ready because I wanna know what you’ve got in your bag!
OK here we go. I’ll start it off with the following (in the format of a Seth and Amy segment on SNL called, “Really?”)
So, really, Taco Bell? A meat, bacon, potato and cheese burrito? Do we need this as a society? I’m getting fatter just typing it.
For me, the restaurant, and really, pretty much any restaurant, and its commercials theretowith, just like the cheese cube, has become the enemy. Even ones with the best of intentions. (We won’t even talk about fast food for now.)
I can avoid restaurants a lot of the time, but let’s face it, it’s the home of the social outing. After a softball game, a mom’s night out with my mom’s group, a lunch with the family, dinner after church, outings where everyone in the group is excited to head out to eat.
And I don’t want to be the lame-ass or the fuddy dud just because I happen to be counting calories. (Not to mention the fact that I LOVE FOOD AND I HAVE TONS OF RESTAURANT FAVORITES!) So I’ve learned to adapt. I do things now like look up the nutritional menu for a particular restaurant before I leave so I can figure out what I am going to have without asking at the table and making a big deal about it. I usually know what I’m going to order beforehand and have it all planned in my Spark People log. Kind of takes the fun out of restaurant going but no one has to know. It’s just between me and you. Right?
Or I call ahead and ask about a particular dish (they usually haven’t a clue) and try to do all the math myself. But when I do this, I realize how many places actually don’t provide nutritional information and look at me (or talk to me) like I’m an idiot because I want it. Frustrating.
But on the flip side, there are some fascinating internet features out there to help me be the Calorie-Counter M.D. that I strive to be, like independent web sites that help me “build a burrito” from a chain like Chipotle (which is actually pretty entertaining–go ahead, try it. You can even post a burrito on your blog if you want. It’s a little weird, but I won’t judge.) And by the way no matter what combination of burrito I try, meatless or not, a big burrito still ends up being more than 600 calories so right now, as much as I’d love to, I don’t get to go to there. Unless I want a tortilla with one bean and a diet coke.
I don’t even try to make healthy choices, I actually do! But it seems like everywhere I turn, there’s sabotage lurking in every booth. Like when I get a nice salmon and rice dish with zucchini which sounds easy and innocent enough, and then it comes, I look down at my plate and the zucchini’s fried and the salmon’s covered in butter.
Really? Really restaurant?? Is that necessary?
Or I get the broccoli side dish instead of fries (yay me!) but the broccoli comes and it’s covered in melted butter and when I pick it up with my fork, it’s dripping and the broccoli is officially D.O.A. because it has drowned in butter. Really, restaurant? Really?? Come on, here. You’re killing me.
Frustrating!
I realize now that if I must be the Calorie Nazi and truly get it right , I’ll have to order everything “dry” or without any butter at all but honestly I hate being the one at the table who is all lunatic about it. I’m really self-conscious about looking like a nut. I already look like that half the time anyway for other reasons not stated here, so it does no good for me to add to it. And I know I shouldn’t care that much, but really, I just want to know what happened to just making the food without all that crap in it?
So that’s my beef. In this calorie-counting world of mine, it’s hard not to feel sabotaged even by little things as seemingly-innocent as commercials with cheesy beefy bacon-ness. Because it feels like everywhere I turn there are things I can not and should not eat that the universe is trying shove into my piehole. And not only that, if I actually partook or partaked (whatever the past tense of partake is) in just one of these crazy cheesy cheesefilled cheesesauced meatinesses, I’d literally grow a second ass before I even left the drive-thru.
Oh, I won’t lie. It could also be that deep down, maybe sometimes I harbor the slightest bit of resentment and maybe get just the slightest bit bitter that there are people out there who can eat an entire pig on top of a cow on top of a slab of cheese on a bun and not gain an ounce. And I’m not her. That will probably always bug me to some degree no matter how fit I get because I have to work quadruple hard just to maintain, not to mention lose weight.
Maybe it’s just simply the fact that trying to get through a day with actual events and outings involved is just.plain.hard. It’s hard! There I said it. This is hard. Because very close to nothing is good for me, unless I have made it and brought it myself. And let’s face it, it’s probably better for my wallet and my calorie count if I do that anyway.
But I guess it’s supposed to be hard, right? If it weren’t, everyone would do it.
OK that’s my beef. So let’s hear it. What really pisses you off and/or tries its very best to sabotage you and how do you battle it? Hurry, while the complaint department is still open! (I’m cup half-full girl, I usually like to keep the complaints to a minimum.)
Please, please, please leave a comment and answer Christie’s question: What really pisses you off and/or tries its very best to sabotage you and how do you battle it?
Thanks!
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