My workout today was uneventful, but I failed miserably in the diet department. We had a family day, taking my daughter and niece to see Wall-e. I avoided the snack bar knowing nothing good could come of it but we were later faced with a lunch decision. I thank my family in that they've been plenty supportive of my diet needs but honestly I hate to be fussed over so when it came time to eat I insisted that it was okay if we trekked across the paring lot to the local Red Robin family restaurant. I figured there must be at least one thing on the menu I could eat. Bad assumption.
After bypassing the appetizers and the obvious villainous treats I found a quite disappointing salad selection. The cobb salad was out for sure. While most people would say, "Hey that looks healthy", I knew better. Crisp greens with tender chicken breast, hickory-smoked bacon, hard-boiled egg, avocado, black olives, ripe tomatoes and crumbled Bleu cheese. Served with house bread & your choice of dressing. Even if you skip the house bread and the dressing that breaks down into protein, fat, fat, fat, fat, not available due to the potential to kill you right now, oh, and another fat. The Fajita Fiesta salad has cheddar and pepper-jack cheese and a creamy dressing so that's out too. Crispy Chicken salad gets eliminated simply by the presence of the word crispy. The closest you get to crispy in the P90X diet is fresh celery.
Granted I could have stripped away the bad from one of the less offensive salads but then I would've been put in the position of paying $9 for the same lettuce and random greens that are currently filling my fridge (for only $1/lb at Pathmark, mind you).
So I turned to the chicken burgers. If I'm going to spend $9 I'm want to at least taste something. I settled on a Whiskey River BBQ Burger. Leave out the mayo and I knew I could stomach the extra carbs from the sugar in the BBQ sauce (turns out that was the least of my worries). Turns out I also had to scrape away the "funions" (batter dipped and fried shredded onion bits) before I ate. In the end I was left with the chicken, the bun and a minute amount of cheddar-like cheese. It tasted pretty good and while I was disappointed that it wasn't up to the quality of the food I have been eating I felt comfortable I could make it up by keeping dinner clean.
As we were waiting for the food to be delivered I noticed a family of three getting their lunch served. The dad had the Cobb salad and it looked like mom and daughter each had the Grilled Chicken Caesar salads. As they poured on their creamy dressing it occurred to me that they were all probably proud of themselves that they were eating healthy. Damn, ignorance IS bliss. Lucky bastards.
Anyway we ate, came home, worked out, went food shopping (now that my wife has picked up the diet we go through protein bars and bananas like crazy) had a good salad and a clean deli sandwich (mustard, no mayo) for dinner and watched some TV.
I probably could have put aside my culinary transgression had it not been for my insides. Under the P90X diet your bodily functions are VERY predictable. I can put my trips to the bathroom in my calendar three days in advance with confidence. Today my insides told me I did bad.
I decided I needed to know how bad. While Red Robin makes it as hard to find as possible, you can get the nutritional information of their product on their website. I couldn't actually find it when I went there, I ended up finding an external link into it from another site.
I plugged in my chicken burger -mayo -onion straws -salmonella = (oh, gak) 609 calories, 48g of protein (not bad), 56g of carbs (Phase I would've been bad, Phase II a-ok) and, wait for it, 21g of fat. Nooooo! Oh shit, blah, pooey, gaak, yak, omg, lol, gg, qq n00b!
The only saving grace was that by passing on the mayo and the funions I avoided an additional 30 grams of fat.
After my heart started beating again I decided to dig deeper into their menu. That Cobb salad that the dad went for weighed in at 832 calories w/46g of fat and the mother-daughter tag team on the Chicken Caesar salads cost them each 811 calories w/57g of fat.
Holy shit, I'm glad I had the chicken.
It's no wonder the U.S. populace is in as sad a shape as we are collectively. While most of us are aware that eating out, especially at a mass market place like Red Robin, isn't the healthiest of living nobody would expect that kind of evil coming from non-fried chicken and and salad greens.
Lesson learned. I definitely won't be eating out again an time soon.
Out of curiosity I took a look at one last item on the RR menu. Every family restaurant from Tony Roma to Beefsteak Charlie has some sort of onion ring type appetizer that I love. The Outback calls it the "Blooming Onion" and RR has their "Towering Onion Rings". I've been known to kick back an entire tower by myself before delving into an entree. While I may be disappointed by what I ate today, my former dietary choices make today's lunch seem like cookie crumbs. That tower of rings, 1837 calories; total fat, 124g.
Love it or hate it, P90X has put me on a path to a better life, even if I don't have an 8-pack after the first 90 days. And with 49 days left to go, who knows what can happen.
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5 comments:
Wow, I'm impressed that you managed to walk out of there as well off as you did. I've been to those big chain restaurants and it's really quite startling to see just how bad some of their food can be. Swiss Chalet is one I was particularly shocked about, as everyone keeps relating lean protein to chicken, and Swiss Chalet is largely non-deep fried chicken. There are some reasonable options at Swiss Chalet, but some of the less than healthy meals can sneak up on you.
Good job bro! I'm definitely proud that you made the best decision you could considering the circumstances.
One of the things that we have to remember is that we live in the real world. I think we've learned over the past six weeks that we can control what we eat most of the time, but every once in a while we will find ourselves out somewhere with little choice but to eat at a restaurant. I think you made the best choice... besides, I'm just as guilty as you for downing a tower of onion rings with a Monster burger following that up. I used to eat that every Thursday. No wonder I was getting chubby.
I wouldn't classify this as a major fail - more like a major pass in surviving in the real world.
Lord have mercy! I knew eating out was bad and out of care for my sensitive sanity, I have avoided looking up how many calories are in the large meat-lovers pizza I used-to-could eat all by myself (please don't share, I'm sure it's 3 days worth of calories and 2 weeks worth of fat and a year's worth of sodium) but jeez! Even going for a food-that-really-isn't-a-food like an appetizer or salad PLUS a big hearty entree is depressing me even now.
I don't go out to eat anymore at all for the other reason you state - the body protests when something no good gets in there. The works get all gummed up - or loosened up, as the case may be - and I just feel bad. Bad food = bad feelings. Go figure.
Take heart, though. It won't do anything to your overall goals to have a transgression such as this. It is said that occasionally throwing something weird or bad into the diet is a good thing. How? I have no idea, it's just what I've heard. Er, maybe I heard that from myself when I was trying to justify eating something bad.. =]
From the Significant Other perspective, I have to say how proud I am of Muddy in this journey, in particular with the decisions we made at RR yesterday, but in general how he's taken a strong lead on helping us both be healthier. Admittedly, I've been pretty damn passive about "our" healthy eating in the past. I tried (and failed) to keep it in control for myself, and our kid eats the healthiest foods on the planet, but I more or less just gave up on myself and on my man eating well. Having struggled with adolescent obesity and crappy self image issues all my life, I know better.
In the last 40 days I haven't heard any of Muddy's historically popular jibes about "healthy food"... statements like "I'll never eat that fat free (or low carb or protein supplement) crap - it's not real FOOD..." "A salad is not a MEAL, lettuce has no nutritional value!" It was very convenient for me, while "trying" to eat better, to justify my bad decisions and buy the crap - give in to the 20" sub, to always have chocolate/cookies/snacks around the house - because "HE likes them"... Yeah, I sat down and ate that whole sleeve of Oreos in one sitting because Muddy likes having them here.... man, how sad. We've both devoured those OnionTowers, chowed the subs, ate copious amounts of pasta alone for dinner, on and on. Having Muddy's leadership (and shopping skills, and support) and FT's backup has been crucial to me, and I thank you both.
AWWWWWWWWWW.... I gotta say, I have the greatest family. Gotta love it when you can turn the journey of two morons into a family event :)
Even my skinny sister has gotten into the act by making me and Muddy P90X friendly meals. Man that rocks!
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