Food tracking revelations - Share your ZOMG moments

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  • VixenArgentum
    VixenArgentum Posts: 91 Member
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    I hate 'drinking' calories - unless we're talking booze.

    I am with you here, 100%. I drink my coffee with VERY little sweetener and sip water all day instead of flavored beverages. Then I make up for it with my evening wine.

    Worth every drop.

    Me too. I love wine and would never give it up. I love to drink coffee too, but drink decaf and herbal teas instead of water.

    Though sometimes wine gets traded for vodka or jager...
  • Raevyns
    Raevyns Posts: 91 Member
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    My husband and I went to Applebees last weekend and I spent about an hour prior to eating looking through their nutritional facts online. OMG. A blondie brownie was over 1600 calories!!!! My jaw hit the floor. Applebees has always been a favorite of mine and I would ALWAYS get a blondie before going home. Not counting the tons of other calories I stuffed myself with during the actual meal.
    I ended up getting what I thought would be a healthy option, Margarita grilled chicken and shrimp with rice. Yeah, it was 1100 calories. It really made me understand how over-portioned I was before.

    Dinners out are always madness with the calories and sodium. Salt and sugar and fat make things taste delicious and are comparatively cheap to add. So...they do. And the food is delicious. But yikes, the calories!
  • Raevyns
    Raevyns Posts: 91 Member
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    Me too. I love wine and would never give it up. I love to drink coffee too, but drink decaf and herbal teas instead of water.

    Though sometimes wine gets traded for vodka or jager...

    Weekends are for vodka and jaeger. Mm.
  • PunkinSpice79
    PunkinSpice79 Posts: 309 Member
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    I was shocked that wings have so many calories!!! I thought I was being healthy by choosing a protein instead of a fried cheese or creamy dip!!! HA!!!
  • Raevyns
    Raevyns Posts: 91 Member
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    I was shocked that wings have so many calories!!! I thought I was being healthy by choosing a protein instead of a fried cheese or creamy dip!!! HA!!!

    I've learned that even unbreaded wingies are deep fried most of the time. I LOVE wings. So I bake them at home and make my own saucy concoctions to drench them in. Helps a bit!
  • TribeHokie
    TribeHokie Posts: 711 Member
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    Hold up, hold up, OP gets free beer at work? Can I send you my resume?

    Wings were definitely my biggest shocker. I also remember several years ago when restaurants started publishing their nutrition information, we were sitting at Ruby Tuesdays and I saw how many calories and how much fat was in a rack of ribs. Holy crap. I used to eat a rack of ribs on the regular. Have only had a rib or two a handful of times since then.
  • Raevyns
    Raevyns Posts: 91 Member
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    Hold up, hold up, OP gets free beer at work? Can I send you my resume?

    Wings were definitely my biggest shocker. I also remember several years ago when restaurants started publishing their nutrition information, we were sitting at Ruby Tuesdays and I saw how many calories and how much fat was in a rack of ribs. Holy crap. I used to eat a rack of ribs on the regular. Have only had a rib or two a handful of times since then.

    I do! On special occasions or when we're working overtime. Or when deadlines happen and we're crazy busy. Then there are beers. Sometimes pizza, but I resist that nowadays.

    ...Don't tell me about the ribs. I love ribs! o.o
  • highervibes
    highervibes Posts: 2,219 Member
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    Things that shocked me were:

    wings (why?! This is a cruel one), peanuts and candy containing peanuts or peanut butter (I've been known to eat my fair share of a Costco size bag of peanut M&Ms lol), pizza was an eye opener (another tragedy), and I guess just the calorie content of things you did "once in a while" like a Big Mac meal, or fries...even sweets. I didn't realize that "every once in a while" was totally screwing me over becuse it was a few times a week when you added up the different genres of "once in a while"
  • Stacebob85
    Stacebob85 Posts: 95
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    Pasta got me good; I always just sort of dumped what I considered to be a nice portion into a pan and scoff the lot. Turns out I was eating between 2-3 portions! And when you include what I served it with (beef bolognese, carbonara, maybe a side of garlia bread) my dinner as accounting for nearly a whole days calories alone. Oops...

    Also, potatoes! I thought I scoff those to my hearts content, seeing as they're vegetables and all, but it turns out 2 or 3 large baking potatoes does not a healthy meal make...
  • Raevyns
    Raevyns Posts: 91 Member
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    Things that shocked me were:

    wings (why?! This is a cruel one), peanuts and candy containing peanuts or peanut butter (I've been known to eat my fair share of a Costco size bag of peanut M&Ms lol), pizza was an eye opener (another tragedy), and I guess just the calorie content of things you did "once in a while" like a Big Mac meal, or fries...even sweets. I didn't realize that "every once in a while" was totally screwing me over becuse it was a few times a week when you added up the different genres of "once in a while"

    Yeah, this. I thought that I was eating out, hitting the vending machine and having bourbon/scotch only every once in a while. Then I started tracking and realized that every once in a while was ALL THE DANG TIME.

    Yeesh. The ways we manage to convince ourselves of things are in themselves fascinating and omnipresent. MFP has granted a sort of mindfulness that while shocking, is a revelation.

    Though sometimes there are tears because ribs. And wings. (I've yet to track my aforementioned baked wings recipe. I might be shooting myself in the foot there. Bracing for another ZOMG moment.)
  • RAEQ127
    RAEQ127 Posts: 106 Member
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    Everything was kind of a shock. Besides your sweets, I knew would be high, but like you, Ramen is 380 calories! Say what??? Eating out is bascially a no no for me. if I'm out and hungry and can't get home, I'll sometimes stop at a grocery store for one of those fruit and cheese snack plates meant for kids, or yogurt, cottage cheese double basically anything is better than fast food.
  • Stacebob85
    Stacebob85 Posts: 95
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    Oh, and my tragedy; if I go out and get properly drunk, I get very hungry the next day. My hubby and I live around the corner from a Hungry Horse pub, and so we'd head there the day after a drinking sesh to scoff. I usually have this absolutely awesome Cornish cow pie they do (all the thick crusty pastry satisfied my tummy no end). I always knew I'd be doing some diet damage, but figured it was nothing a little jog or something couldn't fix.

    Cut to me, 3 months (and at least 5 pies) later, checking the nutritional info online. The Cornish cow pie meal (so the pie, chips, peas and 1 serving of gravy) has 2490kcal!! I swear, I almost died. Not least because I always asked for extra gravy :P
  • MissKalhan
    MissKalhan Posts: 2,282 Member
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    Oh man where to even begin!
    Portions was a big one, I was a huge muncher. I would consistantly be munching on something which evidently was ALWAYS over the portion size.
    Drinking my calories, I used to drink almost all my calories in a day before I was logging. Damn being young and in love with clubbing. Lol
    Protein, I was always super low on this. I hated meat with a passion, now I actually enjoy eating it so my protein level is higher after months of fighting with myself on it.
    OH and all the random **** I used to eat! The stuff I used to order with modifications and that, if I tried to do it now my body would try to destroy me....
  • sk_pirate
    sk_pirate Posts: 282 Member
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    EHRMAGERD!!! MUFFINS ARE THE DEVIL!!!!

    Robin's Donuts chocolate chip...so good, so moist...so 530 cals! Yuck. Never again. ETA: :sick:
  • nxd10
    nxd10 Posts: 4,570 Member
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    My big surprises:

    WAY more calories than I thought: bread, milk, rice, potatoes, butter, sour cream, whipped cream, ANYTHING from Panera or Starbucks

    WAY fewer calories than I thought: meat, chocolate, sugar
  • Xenophonica
    Xenophonica Posts: 79 Member
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    The reason I first came to MFP was that I was having problems with WeightWatchers (within my points, but no loss at all, even with exercise), so I thought I"d see what my days were really like. so I went back one week and compared diaries and entered everything in with my macros and everything. My fat, sodium, and sugars were through the roof, and my calories were way over, too. I only cared about the point value before, but that wasn't cutting it for me. I've lost almost 20lbs so far with MFP and I feel so much better about myself :)

    (note : I did do WW a while ago before this most recent go, and I did lose nearly 50lbs. Problem for me though was that I didn't take it all to heart so when I stopped, I gained it all -and then some- back)
  • Raevyns
    Raevyns Posts: 91 Member
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    Oh, and my tragedy; if I go out and get properly drunk, I get very hungry the next day. My hubby and I live around the corner from a Hungry Horse pub, and so we'd head there the day after a drinking sesh to scoff. I usually have this absolutely awesome Cornish cow pie they do (all the thick crusty pastry satisfied my tummy no end). I always knew I'd be doing some diet damage, but figured it was nothing a little jog or something couldn't fix.

    Cut to me, 3 months (and at least 5 pies) later, checking the nutritional info online. The Cornish cow pie meal (so the pie, chips, peas and 1 serving of gravy) has 2490kcal!! I swear, I almost died. Not least because I always asked for extra gravy :P

    That is so tragic. I can imagine the pie and my tummy rumbles at the idea, but dem calories! EGADS!
  • Raevyns
    Raevyns Posts: 91 Member
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    Everything was kind of a shock. Besides your sweets, I knew would be high, but like you, Ramen is 380 calories! Say what??? Eating out is bascially a no no for me. if I'm out and hungry and can't get home, I'll sometimes stop at a grocery store for one of those fruit and cheese snack plates meant for kids, or yogurt, cottage cheese double basically anything is better than fast food.

    Grocery store trips. BRILLIANT. Setting Yelp to "grocery stores" so I can find one within reach no matter what.
  • Francl27
    Francl27 Posts: 26,371 Member
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    Everything honestly - cheese (I used to eat a LOT of it, with a lot of bread or crackers), chocolate were probably the worst but because I would totally binge on them. I'm sure some days I was eating 5000 calories easily... and a LOT of fat (I had bad reflux, I wonder why?). We don't eat out that much, but pretty much every restaurant meal was probably enough calories for 2 days, once you factor dessert... I also couldn't believe the calories on desserts at restaurants. Yikes. Now I stick to the low calorie menu, even though I know it's going to be a sodium bomb.

    Shockingly though pizza isn't that bad. I used to eat 2 pieces and still pretty much eat 2 pieces, although I don't get the very meaty kind anymore obviously.
  • Raevyns
    Raevyns Posts: 91 Member
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    Oh man where to even begin!
    Portions was a big one, I was a huge muncher. I would consistantly be munching on something which evidently was ALWAYS over the portion size.

    THIS. I thought that grazing on what I believed to be healthy food was supposed to be good for my metabolism. WRONG. I was just hoovering calories, salt and starch. Constantly. Hooooovering them up.

    Now I track my snackies, even though I'm tempted to cheat myself and just pretend they didn't happen.This means fewer snackies, but in retrospect, a much healthier Raevyns.

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