Actually Calorie'ing a Salad

donjtomasco

First time I have ever broken down a salad for its actual caloric components. I am at a nice restaurant and got one large grilled chicken caesar salad. Turns out it has Asiago Cheese (2 oz), 5 ounces of Grilled Chicken, 2 cups chopped romaine lettuce, and 2 ounces of caesar salad dressing. Total count? 521 Calories! Wow. If I would have just logged grilled chicken caesar I would have gotten like 295 calories. I can see how easy it is to overlook where the weight is not coming off when you think it should be. After seeing that I skipped eating the croutons.

There was a post about a guy who said he was pretty much logging everything but was not losing weight. Had I 'pretty much logged' this lunch, I would have missed it by 1/2 the calories I actually consumed, knowing I would have eaten those croutons too.

Now I see why the veterans her say "Weigh Everything" (or log everything). It does not take that long, and wow, better to know then not know, then wonder why my weight loss was not proportionate to what I thought I was consuming and burning.

RandiNoelle

Cheese and creamy dressings are "healthy salad" killers!

chocolate_owl

While I generally agree with the wisdom here, I gotta say, 2 oz of asiago is a pretty large amount of cheese! I think it's helpful to weigh things like that on a food scale at home to help with eyeballing in restaurants. 99% of the time people underestimate their serving sizes, but shredded cheese in particular is one thing I tend to overestimate.

French_Peasant

Yup. Although even your math above seems a little off--two ounces of any cheese is generally going to be 200+ calories ( if that is indeed the actual weight and not just a quarter cup of "fluffy" cheese that has been eyeballed), and a regular (not light) Caesar dressing would generally be 300+ calories for the 2 ounces you describe above.

I have learned to eat my salads with just the barest hint of dressing, and always, always get it on the side.

fitoverfortymom

This is why I tend to avoid salads...especially at restaurants. The calories add up so fast and I usually can configure some kind of sandwich or bunless entree that is more satisfying and within my calorie goals. Making salads are just as bad because you have to weigh each ingredient, which is a pain because good salads have a lot of ingredients!

Cheese and dressing are def deal breakers on salad!

sarajenivieve

I dont log most raw vegetables (excluding avacodo&beans which i do log) but definately recommend logging everything else.

sammyliftsandeats

Especially restaurant salads! You can make a lower calorie version at home but when you're out...sometimes it's lower calorie to get something else rather than a salad.

Red Robin has the Mesa chicken salad for 1000 calories and their Royal Red Robin burger is 1050 for the burger. Their Red Robin Gourmet Cheeseburger clocks in at 790 calories so you could add a side and it'd be comparable.

donjtomasco

Wow about the cheese. The waitress said the chef said it was 2 ounces. I will see what 2 ounces of cheddar looks like when I get home. It certainly did not look like a lot of cheese. And it did not look like 5 ounces of chicken either. HA! Maybe this was the old sales thing of wanting it to sound like I was getting more for my money when I was simply looking for portion size. Not that much dressing on it either. Well, better to log higher then low. I will think twice before going with a restaurant salad again. Very eye opening.

apullum

Cheese and creamy dressings are both calorie dense foods, and unfortunately people who aren't used to weighing portions usually don't know how much an ounce of anything is. It's also hard to know whether/how much added oil is on the chicken if you didn't cook it yourself. The croutons are probably not the biggest source of calories on that salad

donjtomasco

Damn apullum, and she just took my plate away with those crunchy delicious croutons on it......

apullum

Sounds like it's time for homemade croutons!

French_Peasant

donjtomasco wrote: »

Wow about the cheese. The waitress said the chef said it was 2 ounces. I will see what 2 ounces of cheddar looks like when I get home. It certainly did not look like a lot of cheese. And it did not look like 5 ounces of chicken either. HA! Maybe this was the old sales thing of wanting it to sound like I was getting more for my money when I was simply looking for portion size. Not that much dressing on it either. Well, better to log higher then low. I will think twice before going with a restaurant salad again. Very eye opening.

Two ounces by weight of cheddar is still depressingly small, but I could see a restaurant telling you that it was 2 ounces (a quarter cup) by volume if they don't recognize the importance of accurate measurements. If it was the big slices of asiago and measured by volume, the calories will be a lot fewer. You actually don't need a lot of cheese on a Caesar salad--a little bit of parm or asiago goes a long way.

I have to be very careful with the amount of cheese that I eat, because I can easily eat it all and go looking for MOAR!!!

Next time, just get a big ol' sirloin, and a side of steamed broccoli or something, and get your money's worth.

savithny

Yeah, if you look up the calorie counts of salads at a lot of chain restaurants, you realize you're better off getting a small steak with baked potato and broccoli instead of a salad. Most of the main-dish salads at the big chains are over 700 calories, many over 1000.

lulalacroix

Salads can really be a lot of calories at restaurants. I usually stick to a house salad, no croutons, dressing on the side.

zyxst

Nevermind the calories. Check the sodium count.

leanjogreen18

My homemade salad can add up too:)

I add to a bed of greens (I will approx cal)...

croutons -40/60
cheese - 110
avocado - 100/125
flax seeds - 30/50
Bolthouse ranch dressing - 45/70
I'm I can get to 300/325 not including the greens, onions, carrots, tomatoes INCLUDING a low calorie ranch dressing.

sometimes kidney or black beans - 100
sometimes Gardin veggie meats - 120
Sometimes nuts - 100/125

So yeah salads can add up or should I say mine can:)

I didn't weigh my foods for my first 6 months of cutting. At the recommendation of a personal trainer he asked me to weigh foods for 2 weeks to "recalibrate" my eyeballing and my salad was one of my staple foods that I was underestimating by 50-100. For a short/old/sedentary lady 100 calories (and that was just one food item) plus my other foods I was underestimating on, slowed my weight loss from 2 lb a week to 1/2 lb.

Oddly enough I'm back to eyeballing (I will learn one day) but I will pull it out again to recalibrate at least every 6 weeks if not permanently one day:)

DanniB423

I just started building my own salad at home for this reason. I was spending way too much running through Panera for my favorite salad. For this week it is chicken, bleu cheese, pecans, red onions, spring mix and apple chips.

successgal1

Cheese note: a light stick cheese sliced into salad makes a nice alternative to higher fat cheeses if they don't fit your calories.