Healthy restaurant= HIGH calories
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SpringLean
Posts: 3 Member
I need help with choosing meals at places like Panera and Freshiii. I hate restaurants that seem healthy but really aren't. This particular place didn't have the cals listed on the menu. I ordered a "healthy" wrap/burrito today with quinoa, lots of greens, chx breast and other vegetables but turns out it was over 600 calories!!! I could've just went to freakin' SHAKE SHACK and enjoyed my lunch. Smh. Lesson learned.
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Replies
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at Panera I get the pick two. Either the black bean soup or garden vegetable, and the chicken thai salad.. calories aren't high at all12
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"Healthy" isn't a synonym for "low calorie," although certain companies would love for you to think that it is. You have to be just as discerning at a "healthy" places as you would anywhere else.
If you think Shake Shack would be a better way for you to use your calories, go for it.
That said, all those places should have websites you can visit prior to eating to help you figure out what fits your needs.19 -
SpringLean wrote: »I need help with choosing meals at places like Panera and Freshiii. I hate restaurants that seem healthy but really aren't. This particular place didn't have the cals listed on the menu. I ordered a "healthy" wrap/burrito today with quinoa, lots of greens, chx breast and other vegetables but turns out it was over 600 calories!!! I could've just went to freakin' SHAKE SHACK and enjoyed my lunch. Smh. Lesson learned.
Healthy...as in good nutrition has nothing to do with caloric density. There are many highly nutritional foods that are also calorie bombs...conversely, there are many low/no calorie food goods that provide little to no actual nutrition.
One has jack to do with the other. A calorie is simply a unit of energy...doesn't have anything to do with nutritional value.13 -
"Healthy" means nothing calorie wise.8
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Panera is the easiest to find low cal foods. Get a bowl of soup or a salad. I always check their website before going and plan out their nutrition... of any chain really.4
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But. 600 calories is a sort of normal sized lunch - right? How many calories a day are you eating? That would fit into one of my two meals. I don't know if it would fill me up, but it would fit!11
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Panera is the easiest to find low cal foods. Get a bowl of soup or a salad. I always check their website before going and plan out their nutrition... of any chain really.
I agree, I eat there a lot when I am travelling. You just have to know what to pick.
OP, a burrito *anywhere* (especially one filled with grain) is going to tend to be higher calorie. Part of the learning process with counting calories is getting better at guessing what menu items are going to be higher calorie, so I would just embrace this as a learning experience that will make your future trips more successful.11 -
What is wrong with 600 calories? Do that for three meals and you are still only at 1,800 calories.15
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snowflake954 wrote: »"Healthy" means nothing calorie wise.
Technically, "healthy" doesn't mean anything at all when it comes to food. It has no definition. So you can't say what qualifies as healthy and what doesn't. I can claim that McDonald's fries are healthy, and you can make an argument that I'm daft, but you can't prove me wrong. So ... being told that something is "healthy" isn't the full story.8 -
TimothyFish wrote: »What is wrong with 600 calories? Do that for three meals and you are still only at 1,800 calories.
Perhaps OP is short like me, or has an aggressive weight loss goal. 1800 cals is over my maintenance even now that I'm lifting again.11 -
A rule of thumb a very fit pediatrician I work with shared with me - if the menu does not have nutrition information posted, she doesn't eat there. She figures in this day and age, if they aren't posting their nutrition information, they must be ashamed of it. I ran with it. So I look things up before going places to make my decision. It hasn't failed me yet.
If you're going by the seat of your pants, the wraps, the grains, the dressings, and just pack with veggies and lean meat if you want it to be low calorie. Nothing wrong with the grains or wraps, they just add the number up.4 -
Quinoa is actually quite high in calories. But I'd still rather have those calories than calories from fries or other fried foods.
I have a similar challenge with respect to eating out. I travel every second week for work and eat out 2-3 meals a day with clients etc for 5 days in a row. It doesn't matter how healthy the place is, it's still always way more calories than id normally eat. I guess the easiest way to deal with that is portion control and only eat half or whatever makes sense.5 -
Putting grain inside another grain is always going to make it more caloric, even if the grains themselves are healthy. IT's like rice in burritos (why do we put carbs inside carbs? Rice in burritos is like a french fry sandwich?).
Healthy and low-calorie aren't the same. Heck, you can have a really unhealthy meal that's low-calorie.6 -
ashliedelgado wrote: »A rule of thumb a very fit pediatrician I work with shared with me - if the menu does not have nutrition information posted, she doesn't eat there. She figures in this day and age, if they aren't posting their nutrition information, they must be ashamed of it. I ran with it. So I look things up before going places to make my decision. It hasn't failed me yet.
If you're going by the seat of your pants, the wraps, the grains, the dressings, and just pack with veggies and lean meat if you want it to be low calorie. Nothing wrong with the grains or wraps, they just add the number up.
I guess she's not a fan of fine dining?12 -
Putting grain inside another grain is always going to make it more caloric, even if the grains themselves are healthy. IT's like rice in burritos (why do we put carbs inside carbs? Rice in burritos is like a french fry sandwich?).
Healthy and low-calorie aren't the same. Heck, you can have a really unhealthy meal that's low-calorie.
Not gonna lie, I've had french fries on a sandwich and it was great. I wouldn't do it daily, but it was tasty.10 -
janejellyroll wrote: »ashliedelgado wrote: »A rule of thumb a very fit pediatrician I work with shared with me - if the menu does not have nutrition information posted, she doesn't eat there. She figures in this day and age, if they aren't posting their nutrition information, they must be ashamed of it. I ran with it. So I look things up before going places to make my decision. It hasn't failed me yet.
If you're going by the seat of your pants, the wraps, the grains, the dressings, and just pack with veggies and lean meat if you want it to be low calorie. Nothing wrong with the grains or wraps, they just add the number up.
I guess she's not a fan of fine dining?
Or small, family-run places?8 -
janejellyroll wrote: »ashliedelgado wrote: »A rule of thumb a very fit pediatrician I work with shared with me - if the menu does not have nutrition information posted, she doesn't eat there. She figures in this day and age, if they aren't posting their nutrition information, they must be ashamed of it. I ran with it. So I look things up before going places to make my decision. It hasn't failed me yet.
If you're going by the seat of your pants, the wraps, the grains, the dressings, and just pack with veggies and lean meat if you want it to be low calorie. Nothing wrong with the grains or wraps, they just add the number up.
I guess she's not a fan of fine dining?
Or small, family-run places?
They've got young kids, so at this point, when they eat out it's more fast stuff. I never asked her about the fine dining. I'm sure it happens. There are always exceptions to rules. That's her rule of thumb, and it seems smart to me. If there is a quick joint to go to that doesn't post, there is going to be one down the street that does.
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ashliedelgado wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »ashliedelgado wrote: »A rule of thumb a very fit pediatrician I work with shared with me - if the menu does not have nutrition information posted, she doesn't eat there. She figures in this day and age, if they aren't posting their nutrition information, they must be ashamed of it. I ran with it. So I look things up before going places to make my decision. It hasn't failed me yet.
If you're going by the seat of your pants, the wraps, the grains, the dressings, and just pack with veggies and lean meat if you want it to be low calorie. Nothing wrong with the grains or wraps, they just add the number up.
I guess she's not a fan of fine dining?
Or small, family-run places?
They've got young kids, so at this point, when they eat out it's more fast stuff. I never asked her about the fine dining. I'm sure it happens. There are always exceptions to rules. That's her rule of thumb, and it seems smart to me. If there is a quick joint to go to that doesn't post, there is going to be one down the street that does.
I suppose for someone that eats out frequently, this might be decent advice. At least that way you can control your calories. I don't mean to knock it.
We only go out on rare occasions, and it's almost always a treat. On those occasions I'd rather get something good, and special. Calories be damned.2 -
ashliedelgado wrote: »A rule of thumb a very fit pediatrician I work with shared with me - if the menu does not have nutrition information posted, she doesn't eat there. She figures in this day and age, if they aren't posting their nutrition information, they must be ashamed of it. I ran with it. So I look things up before going places to make my decision. It hasn't failed me yet.
If you're going by the seat of your pants, the wraps, the grains, the dressings, and just pack with veggies and lean meat if you want it to be low calorie. Nothing wrong with the grains or wraps, they just add the number up.
Nah, I can't agree with this. My favorite places are mostly independently-owned and thus don't publish nutritional information. That doesn't mean that they're ashamed of their nutritional content. (I mean, shoot, Carls Jr. publishes their nutritional content, and they should be ashamed!)
I thought Panera DID publish theirs, though, was I mistaken? I don't eat there a ton, but I know there's a salad with chicken and apples and some sort of vinaigrette dressing that I love, and I'm sure the content there is pretty reasonable.
Generally, I think you can do a decent job of estimating the content of a lot of restaurant meals when the ingredients are simple and identifiable - avoid heavy, creamy sauces and dressings (since you've got no idea what's in there) and soups are probably similarly challenging (I'm not a big soup person, so I don't know what to say, there) but salads, sandwiches, grilled meats, simple vegetables, you can probably make a good enough estimate to log with some specificity. And I usually try to avoid doubling up on the empty carbs - substitute whatever chips/fries are offered with your sandwich for the salad or fruit cup. Your estimate won't be perfect, but if you're not doing it too terribly often, it won't make a difference.8 -
janejellyroll wrote: »"Healthy" isn't a synonym for "low calorie," although certain companies would love for you to think that it is. You have to be just as discerning at a "healthy" places as you would anywhere else.
This is so true.
My favorite salad I make is around 600+ calories that includes a veggie based protein, beans, seeds, avocado and my dressing is pretty low calorie.1
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