20 Worst Foods in America, 2009

I've written before about the colossal amount of calories, sodium, and fat in some restaurant food. If you missed that eye opening post, here's the link to it ==> What The Restaurant Industry Doesn't Want You To Know

Would you ever think that eating 2 Big Macs would be better for you than a veggie sandwich? Check out this article from Men's Health:
20 Worst Foods in America, 2009
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Navigating The Restaurant Minefield

Often times, Body & Soul members and personal training clients find it challenging to eat at restaurants if they are trying to drop body fat. Although in many cases it's just easier (and better for your wallet and body) to avoid eating out regularly, sometimes it's unavoidable.

Here are some tips from Craig Ballantyne about not blowing your entire day's calorie allotment on one meal.


The 1000 Calorie Diet Tip
by Craig Ballantyne

If you eat at restaurants, it's easy to eat over 1500 or 2000 calories per meal. Yikes! That's a full day's worth of calories in one dinner...

Pre-dinner bread & butter -> 200 calories
Pre-dinner cocktail -> 150 calories

Appetizer -> This could be a 500-1500 calorie bomb on it's own!

(Mickey's note: if you read my What the Restaurant Industry Doesn't Want You To Know post from 8-4-08, you know that some restaurant appetizers are even higher than that. Anyway, back to Craig.)

Steak -> 300-500 calories
Potato -> 150-300 calories
Vegetable -> 100 calories
Dinner Drink -> 150 calories

Dessert - 300-750 calories
After Dinner Drink - 150

And that's only if you CONTROL yourself. If you go on a rampage, you could be looking at 2500 or even 3000 calories in one sitting. Those numbers are scary.

Fortunately, there are ways to avoid this dietary nightmare while dining out. Here are 5 rules to cut 1000 calories from your dining-out diet...

1) Plan ahead and avoid restaurants that offer huge portions.

2) Skip the bread. It won't stop you from eating your full meal anyways, so just send it back.

3) No booze or liquid calories of any type.

4) No potatoes. Stick to your protein and your vegetables.

5) Reward yourself with only the tiniest bit of dessert, if at all.

It's all about taking responsibility for your choices. And yes, choosing between the "Pain of discipline or pain of regret". What's your choice?

For more diet and exercise tips, visit:

=> Turbulence Training


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If you need any more info, just send me an email!

Sincerely,

Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
Author, Turbulence Training

http://www.TurbulenceTraining.com

What The Restaurant Industry Doesn't Want You To Know

The other day I wrote about a study where people who kept an accurate food journal lost twice as much weight as participants who didn't. You can find it here.

Below are quite a few reasons why that's the case. I think most people know when they're eating high calorie food but many times I don't think a lot of folks realize how many calories are in those foods.

For example, Outback Steakhouse's Bloomin' Onion contains 2210 calories. Even if you split it with 2 other people you've just consumed over 700 calories on just an appetizer.

Want to go one worse? Another Outback appetizer, their Aussie Cheese Fries with Ranch Dressing has 2,900 calories! It ranked #1 on Men's Health list of The Worst Food in America.

Here are some more:

Burger King Whopper with Cheese - 770 calories

Dunkin' Donuts Supreme Omelet Cheese Croissant Sandwich - 490 calories with more than half (270) from fat

Dunkin' Donuts Egg Cheese Bagel Sandwich - 470 calories and 1130 mg of sodium

Dunkin' Donuts Sausage Egg Cheese Croissant Sandwich - 1300 mg of sodium and 630 calories, 400 of them from fat (a whopping 68%!)

So you're smarter than that, right? You know better than to order a sandwich on a croissant or bagel if you're trying to cut back. Think you'd be safe ordering a Turkey sandwich at Dunkin'? Think again. Their Turkey and Cheese Sandwich contains 510 calories and 1380 mg of sodium.


Are you a fan of the Dairy Queen Blizzard? Of course, everyone knows that ice cream is not diet food but do you know how much that DQ splurge could cost you? Here are calorie counts for a variety of large Blizzards:

Thin Mint Blizzard, the July flavor of the month - 1080 calories and 31 teaspoon of sugar.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Blizzard - 1300 calories

Heath Bar Blizzard - 1260 calories

Oreo Cookie Blizzard - 980 calories

M&M's Blizzard - 1150 calories

Banana Split Blizzard - 780 calories

Snickers Blizzard - 1140 calories

Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Blizzard - 1060 calories

Strawberry CheeseQuake Blizzard - 930 calories


Think you can't go wrong with a salad? Guess again. Check out the calorie and fat count in these popular chain restaurant salads.

Chili's Southwestern Cobb Salad - 970 calories

Pizzaria Uno's Chicken Waldorf Salad - 920 calories and 62 grams of fat

Arby’s Santa Fe Salad - 844 calories and 55 grams of fat

T.G.I. Friday's Pecan-Crusted Chicken Salad - 750 calories and 50 grams of fat


I'm not saying you should never enjoy a Blizzard or other less than perfect food choices but if you're interested in dropping fat you need to be aware of exactly what you're taking into your body. How something is prepared - deep fried, drenched in high calorie cream sauce or salad dressing, battered, etc. makes a difference. Even fat-free and sugar-free muffins, including bran muffins, still contain about 600 calories and are not your best choice.


Here's an eye opening article to check out:
16 Secrets The Restaurant Industry Doesn't Want You to Know

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