Foods that shocked you

Cereal of anykind from oats to fruit loops. You do not get a bowl full nor do you get enough to be full with the 30g serving. It barely covers the bottom of the bowl!!!! I quit eating cereal as to get "enough" it ended up being like a 700 cal meal (with milk) boooo!!!

butter, nuts, muffins and sometimes the calorie count on grilled chicken salads at restaurants surprises/shocks me.

I love tortillas myself, and I do not buy the grocery store kinds.

I am fortunate enough to live really close to a mexican grocery store (if you live in Pittsburgh, it's Reyna Foods) where they make fresh tortillas on site. And they taste better and are only 80 calories.

I've read that the fast in dressings helps your body absorb the nutrients in salad, but that monounsaturated is ideal. Anyone know of a salad dressing high in monounsaturated fast?

That was my understanding as well, that a little bit of fat helps your body use the fat-soluble vitamins in the salad. But I can't imagine it takes much at all. Since I generally like a little bit of cheese on my salad, I'll often use a fat free viniagrette. Or I can add a little bit of avocado, or a hard-boiled egg instead of a high-calorie dressing. But it seems like you could easily use a tiny bit of olive oil if you're concerned about the type of fat you're getting.

Gotta go with grits on this one! Damn! No self respecting Southerner eats a half a cup of grits! Its a bowl full, and its about 4 cups when you get down to it. Its also over 500 calories! Yikes! And when I think about how many times I used to stop by MickeyDs and order a medium caramel frappe and a chicken biscuit-it sickens me. I cant believe how many calories I used to down with the frappe alone. Reformed and loving it! But, I still gotta have my grits...

My dad wouldn't let me have ranch or mayo when I was a kid because he said it'd make me fat. I loved the stuff but stopped eating it when he said that.

I love peanut butter but 100 calories for a tbsp of anything is ridiculous.

There are crackers here called Salticrax (heh, the name is funny). I can and have eaten the whole box in one sitting. Just one sleeve of them is about 700 calories without cheese or anything on top.

And WATERMELON is killing me at the moment! I'll have a whole one over the course of a day or two- that's over 1000 calories to budget in.

And popcorn- we don't have the low cal options and I haven't been able to find paper bags for the life of me. Oil popped on the stove is about the only way to do it here. That's 400 calories easy, no butter.

Have you looked into buying a hot air popper for popcorn?

Cream cheese wontons! I freaking love those things.

Once I devoured 6, as an appetizer, and they are 189 calories- EACH.

I still eat them at Chinese buffets. But I only let myself eat one.

And this is why people are overweight. Not actually understanding the total calories for a food, drink, etc. has left people wondering why they gain weight.
You can eat whatever you want, you just have to understand how to do it with limitations.

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 28+ years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

This = amazing. I couldn't agree more.

*sigh* Everything......

Everything pretty much shocks me with the amount of calories..... I food.....

Oatmeal and cereal.

I'm actually more sad that a 9-year-old would be horrified that something was fattening, and say they would "be fat forever," meaning they already think they are fat.

*sigh*

I can't stand ranch anymore, and usually never use any salad dressing at all now, but everything is fine in moderation. There are also several different tasty brands of light and no-fat ranch out there, if you look for and try them out.

That being said, nuts and various trail mixes always slay me with their calories, because I love them so much. lol

I was thinking the same thing about the 9 year old....

I'm always more shocked by all the chemicals in commercial food. I can make my own ranch dressing without all the preservatives or whatever else they have to put in there to make it shelf stable. The older I get, the more that kind of grosses me out. I'd rather a balsamic vinaigrette with my salad. I'm generally ok with the calores from fat, but wouldn't down an entire jar of sunflower butter or anything. I don't let the fat calories from food stop me from eating them, but high fructose corn syrup? Red dye 40? Yeah, that stufff grosses me out.

Eh, we all have our *thing*. :-)

This is where I am - when I can't pronounce the ingredients or I know my great-great-grandmother never heard of the stuff, then I don't eat it.

Having a gluten-allergy limits what I can eat - like that red-devils food cake that is sitting in the breakroom. I used to gorge on things like that, but now, when I think about eating something like that, even a nibble, I instantly get a replay of how sick I get from the gluten and am quickly turned off to it. So having a gluten allergy is a real diet control mechanism, although a pain in the budget.

Peanut butter calories always blow my mind. Any fruit juice is going to be loaded with calories and I can't understand why they have to have HFCS added to them! Better to eat the fresh fruit. I carefully measure out OJ and then water it down a bit to fool myself into thinking I am getting more.

Someone mentioned that the fats in salad dressing helps in absorbing certain vitamins in the salad, and that may be true. I laugh when I see skim milk fortified with vitamin D. Unless you drink the milk while eating a food that has fat, you will not be able to absorb that vitamin D since vitamin D is fat soluble and needs fat to be absorbed. So putting vitamin D into skim milk is pretty silly.

Cheese, olive oil, butter, and cashews. Oh how I love thee! Oh how I have to beware the portion sizes!

My dad wouldn't let me have ranch or mayo when I was a kid because he said it'd make me fat. I loved the stuff but stopped eating it when he said that.

I love peanut butter but 100 calories for a tbsp of anything is ridiculous.

There are crackers here called Salticrax (heh, the name is funny). I can and have eaten the whole box in one sitting. Just one sleeve of them is about 700 calories without cheese or anything on top.

And WATERMELON is killing me at the moment! I'll have a whole one over the course of a day or two- that's over 1000 calories to budget in.

And popcorn- we don't have the low cal options and I haven't been able to find paper bags for the life of me. Oil popped on the stove is about the only way to do it here. That's 400 calories easy, no butter.



Try Popcorn Indiana in a red bag - 3 cups = 130 calories

The brownie skillet at Pizza Delight. I ordered it once for my cheat meal (lol I know, I know) and looked up the calories on my phone while I waited for it. I literally nearly fell over in my seat, 700 calories in a brownie and scoop of ice cream with whipped cream and chocolate drizzle. I don't get the whipped cream and drizzle (not because I fool myself into thinking that makes it less horrible for me, I just don't like the stuff) but still, 700 calories? For a dessert!! Just made me think about all the times we ate out and I automatically got dessert. 700 calories on top of an already fatty, calorie-laden meal? No wonder I was quickly approaching 200lbs...