Wolf in sheep's clothing

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sleepl8s
sleepl8s Posts: 37
in Food and Nutrition
So, I just got the Bejesus surprised out of me when I logged in my lunch and found out that an Olive Garden Lunch Salad with dressing has more calories than one and a half of their buttery breadsticks!!!! EVIL!!! Anyone else find out something they were sure would be alright for them in calories turn out to be a gut wrenching diet mistake???? Now I gotta log in a minimum of 1 hour hardcore elliptical in order to eat a freaken modest dinner =(.

I'd love to hear about it so I know which "looks good for you but is in fact dietary evil" foods to avoid.
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  • Mamakatspokane
    Mamakatspokane Posts: 3,098 Member
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    Salads in general tend to be deceiving! You think, it's a salad, how bad could it be?
    The Olive Garden is VERY hard to stay within cals!
  • MadWorld
    MadWorld Posts: 200
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    chicken caesar salad... i use to think those were healthy. wrong. haha.
  • JoyousMaximus
    JoyousMaximus Posts: 9,285 Member
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    I always get the dressing on the side with salad then dip my fork in it before I get a bite of the salad. It saves a TON of calories.
  • TByrd1325
    TByrd1325 Posts: 920 Member
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    They should have low-fat italian dressing. You just have to ask for it. (At least they did when I worked there two years ago)
  • courtney_love2001
    courtney_love2001 Posts: 1,468 Member
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    How about sushi? I got one roll that was made with tuna and I was floored when I found out it had like 500-600 calories. What the crap!? I thought I was doing good :p
  • keiko
    keiko Posts: 2,919 Member
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    Salads in general tend to be deceiving! You think, it's a salad, how bad could it be?
    The Olive Garden is VERY hard to stay within cals!

    I actually like eating there because I can go online and plan my meal ahead. The pasta fagoli soup is great. I either split an entree or take half home.
  • JoyousMaximus
    JoyousMaximus Posts: 9,285 Member
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    How about sushi? I got one roll that was made with tuna and I was floored when I found out it had like 500-600 calories. What the crap!? I thought I was doing good :p
    I avoid all sushi that is has any tempura, sauce, or crab. The "crab" is generally imitation and mixed with mayo.:sick:
  • sleepl8s
    sleepl8s Posts: 37
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    SHUT UP!! SUSHI TOO?!?!?!? A tuna roll none the less?????? Wow!! 500 calories??? THat's crazy!!
  • jzbaby626
    jzbaby626 Posts: 466
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    I made a salad at home before and it ended up being about 500 or 600 cals. Salad dressing is a killer and the croutons and mozzarella cheese topped it off! I'm much more conscious when I make salads now!
  • LittleSister
    LittleSister Posts: 207 Member
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    Well, this is just me being stupid, but . . . one of my favorite foods of all time is nachos! I like to melt cheese over tortilla chips - it's heaven! So it was a few weeks ago, and I was only a week into this whole calorie counting thing, so I was clueless. I was craving nachos like a madwoman, so I made myself a platter. I did measure the cheese & count the chips before I made them, but I didn't record it first! I recorded it AFTER I ate it. I almost fell out of my chair when I realized I'd just eaten over 1,000 calories!

    so now I make a teeny tiny plate of them with just a teeny tiny bit of cheese if I really must have them.
  • RedHotRunner
    RedHotRunner Posts: 850 Member
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    How about sushi? I got one roll that was made with tuna and I was floored when I found out it had like 500-600 calories. What the crap!? I thought I was doing good :p
    Yeah, sushi's a big one. I only eat it now on cheat days. It always sends me over my calorie limit.
  • sleepl8s
    sleepl8s Posts: 37
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    yeah, it's amazing how those calories can creep up on you. I did the soup and salad with breadsticks and I thought to myself, "Ok, just one breadstick, the dressing is vinagrette so it should be ok, and one soup. I consumed like 850 calories on a freaken soup and salad!!!! What a waste!
  • raleigh
    raleigh Posts: 87 Member
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    Olive Garden's minestrone soup is only 100 cals! (supposedly)
  • littlejazzbird81
    littlejazzbird81 Posts: 17
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    Chicken burgers! Even the grilled ones! I always thought if I got a chicken burger at Red Robin I was doing pretty good. Turns out with everything they end up putting on them, some are worse than the hamburgers. I also use to order the whiskey river bbq chicken wrap. Sounds not too bad, right? 1200 CALORIES! I am so thankful that restaurants post their nutrition facts online. Now whenever I am going out to eat, I look it up first. Olive Garden actually has so pretty healthy meals, you just have to look for them.
  • April0815
    April0815 Posts: 780 Member
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    I made a salad at home before and it ended up being about 500 or 600 cals. Salad dressing is a killer and the croutons and mozzarella cheese topped it off! I'm much more conscious when I make salads now!
    [/quote

    I read that instead of using croutons you should use walnuts.
  • courtney_love2001
    courtney_love2001 Posts: 1,468 Member
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    Also what they do at restaurants is put butter/oil on your steak to make it more appetizing :grumble:

    I am amazed at the calorie content of restaurant foods. Why are there so many calories in their food? Take Red Robin, for instance. One of their burgers is like 1000 calories and you add fries and you're pretty much done for the day. If I made that same stuff at home, it wouldn't be that way. How do you cram 1000 calories into a cheeseburger!??! I would even get it with no mayo and it's still like 900 calories. :tongue:
  • littlejazzbird81
    littlejazzbird81 Posts: 17
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    I know! How to they stick so many calories in there? I hope now that some of these larger restaurant chains like Red Robin, Macaroni Grill, etc. have actually had to make their nutrition information public, they will taking nutrition into consideration. I know I don't want to eat at Red Robin anymore, because the only thing I can get there is soup. And then my sodium is through the roof...
  • anika_marie
    anika_marie Posts: 8
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    How about smoothies!! you think just because there is a lot of "fruit" in them they should be pretty healthy, but in reality it's fruit juice and sorbet. After learning all the nutrition facts I stopped ordering large sized smoothies because they have more calories than a regular meal I would usually eat. Obviously not all smoothies are high cal, but just be careful when you order because you could be getting a lot more calories than you bargained for!!
  • weaklink109
    weaklink109 Posts: 2,831 Member
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    I agree, restaurants are minefields. I do like Olive Garden, and their salads can easily be amended to lower the calorie count. Tell them to hold the croutons and serve the dressing on the side. I ask for lemons and squeeze a little lemon juice on salad and don't use dressing. I like cheese, so I let them put just a smudge on it. Then I have minestroni soup. The sodium will be a little high, but I offset that w/ some extra water. And I treat myself to one breadstick, which is about 150 calories, according to the MFP data base.

    Applebee's has some good Weight Watcher options. The chicken lime salad is excellent.:heart: and I like the spinach and shrimp salad, dressing on the side of course.
  • weaklink109
    weaklink109 Posts: 2,831 Member
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    I agree, restaurants are minefields. I do like Olive Garden, and their salads can easily be amended to lower the calorie count. Tell them to hold the croutons and serve the dressing on the side. I ask for lemons and squeeze a little lemon juice on salad and don't use dressing. I like cheese, so I let them put just a smudge on it. Then I have minestroni soup. The sodium will be a little high, but I offset that w/ some extra water. And I treat myself to one breadstick, which is about 150 calories, according to the MFP data base.

    Applebee's has some good Weight Watcher options. The chicken lime salad is excellent.:heart: and I like the spinach and shrimp salad, dressing on the side of course.

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