High Calorie Menus
High calorie menus are everywhere. If you only knew how many calories you eat at your favorite restaurant, you would understand why we have a weight problem in the USA. Just like everywhere else, low calorie diet plans are nowhere to be seen in the restaurant world. I have some news that may or may not surprise you. Everyone knows that soul food, junk food, and Chinese food has a lot of calories in them. But what about Italian food? The Olive Garden in particular. Well sit back and let me tell you a story about ignorance. Not in the sense that we are stupid, just uninformed about what we eat. My wife and I fell in love with the Olive Garden restaurant. I mean, the food melts in your mouth and they give you enough to feed the whole family from 1 entree. (a little exaggeration there, but you get the picture.) Anyway, we loved it so much, that we got our hands on 6 free $25 gift certificates. Boy were our mouth's watering. So one day, while my wife was figuring up her caloric intake for the day, she decided to find out how many calories were in my meal at the Olive Garden. She knew that I loved it so much that I was going to get the same thing over and over again. That's how I am, I don't deviate much when I like something. Now I want you to keep in mind that I am trying to keep my caloric intake between 1500 and 1700 calories a day. On the day in question, I had already eaten about 1100 calories, which means I had about 400 - 600 left in my calorie bank. I should be able to get a good meal at Olive Garden without going over my calories right? Wrong! Take a look at what I ate the night before and how many calories each item had. 1. Shrimp Caprese - 1533 calories (ARE YOU KIDDING ME?)2. Chicken Caesar Salad - 600 calories (Salad is always a good choice, right?)3. 2 Bread Sticks - 280 calories (They take so long to bring your meal)4. Diet Drink - 0 calories (It has to make a difference, right?) Let's see, that's a total of 2273 calories in one sitting. So, if I would have gone to Olive Garden at that point, I would be looking at a grand total of 3373 calories for the day. That comes to 1673 calorie over my daily caloric intake. That's a whole days worth of calories. As you can see, high calorie menus are a big problem. Lesson learned? I think so.
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