A great diet for your body and your wallet: looking up calories. It pretty much kills your cravings. Or, at the very least, the cravings have to overcome the horror of the calorie count.
I’ve been trying to eat a little better. Some of that is an effort to be healthier. Some is that I’m just trying to cut down on our fast food spending. Two birds, one stone and all that.
But wanting to eat better bumps up against cravings. Lots and lots of cravings. Which is why I’ve started to look up calories. That’s quite a deterrent.
I’ve wanted Culver’s lately. My usual meal is just under 1,000 calories. And that’s without the soda!
Chocolate cake has also been on my mind. I do have cake mixes but no icing. That’s probably saved me quite a bit of pigging out.
When we took Tim’s parents out for Father’s Day (and to make up for missing Mother’s Day), the restaurant’s chocolate cake is friggin $6.49!
Forget that. If I’m going to pay that much, I’ll pay a little more and get cake from The Cheesecake Factory.
Of course, as soon as I thought that, I started thinking about Cheesecake Factory chocolate cake. Sigh.
So I surfed on over to the website and checked the nutritional info. Eep! One slice of the chocolate cake I get is… wait for it… 1,370 calories. Even assuming it were split into two equal servings (and it never is), that would still be an obscene amount of calories.
That kind of killed it for me — for the time being, anyway.
I’ve been getting pudding, which is a cheap, quick snack. You can usually find a four-pack on sale for $1. That means you get a cup of chocolate-y goodness for twenty-five cents.
It’s not chocolate cake, mind you, but it does a good job of quieting the cravings for a bit.
Don’t get me wrong — I’ll cave at some point. But the longer I can put it off, the less we’re spending on junk. Expensive, calorie-rich junk.
So the next time you’re craving junk food — and want to utterly ruin the experience of eating something unhealthy — go check out the calories. If the restaurant’s website doesn’t have it, a fitness/calorie counting website will.
Just be warned: You may never be able to look at chocolate cake the same way again.
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It sounds OLD and LAME… yet cooking a lot from scratch using fresh ingredients plus non-perishable staples is both healthy and lower calorie plus saves a ton of money every year. You and Tim like Chili. The next time you have chicken (like rotiserrie from the deli), or a bone in pork roast, make a broth from the bones using 1 quart of plain water. Remove the bones, add 1-2 cups various dried beans, one diced onion and chopped fresh pepper and boil until soft. When the beans are soft, stir in 2 chopped, fresh tomatoes, 1/4 cup chopped cilantro, minced garlic and salt. Combine that with 1-2 cups cooked rice and any chopped, leftover chiken meat. Burritos, Tacos, enchilladas and "Mexican Casserole" will feed you for a week!
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Christina Reply:
June 19th, 2012 at 1:59 pm
I totally agree. I'm a classically trained cook who loves to eat, so I know that I cook at home more than the average person but cooking from scratch really is the key to eating a ton of food and losing weight and/or being healthy. You would believe what a serving of veggie stir fry over brown rice looks like next to the same calories from Cheesecake Factory. You're never hungry when you load up on healthy food.
And if you re-train your body instead of craving cakes and fast food you'll crave fruits and other healthful things. It's not as hard as you think.
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Christina Reply:
June 19th, 2012 at 1:59 pm
* you would NOT believe.
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Christina Reply:
June 19th, 2012 at 1:59 pm
* you would NOT believe.
[Reply]
Christina Reply:
June 19th, 2012 at 1:59 pm
I totally agree. I'm a classically trained cook who loves to eat, so I know that I cook at home more than the average person but cooking from scratch really is the key to eating a ton of food and losing weight and/or being healthy. You would believe what a serving of veggie stir fry over brown rice looks like next to the same calories from Cheesecake Factory. You're never hungry when you load up on healthy food.
And if you re-train your body instead of craving cakes and fast food you'll crave fruits and other healthful things. It's not as hard as you think.
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Take a box of cake mix and a can of diet soda (chocolate cake with diet cherry soda or yellow cake with diet orange soda are my fav's) and mix them together. Use the heating instructions from the box and you have a low calorie and very moist cake. Top with one of your little puddings instead of icing, and voila! The answer to your cake craving in a healthy form.
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If you and Tim don't want to heat up the kitchen, little is healthier and low in calories than grilled meats and veggies. Leftovers can be cut up for a microwaveable stew. You can grill everything from chicken and pork Frozen yogurt in various flavors can satisfy your sweet tooth while keeping cool.
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Ech. I can't imagine eating that sh!t. That's aside from the mind-numbing price of it. Train yourself to eat better for a few months, and you'll find yourself wondering how on earth you ever managed to consume that kind of garbage.
A sweet tooth can be assuaged with a banana, a small handful of chocolate chips, a few strawberries with some sugar added. If you really really must have a gooey-sweet treat, get some ice cream, some chocolate or caramel sauce, and a bag of walnuts or pecans. That's a lot healthier source of calories than the gunk from some fast-food store a restaurant bakery. Tastes better, too.
One of your readers suggested, at another post, that you get a gas grill. I'll second that. Mine is my savior — I cook everything but rice and pasta on it. Frozen and fresh veggies can be wrapped in tinfoil with a little olive oil (or butter) and herbs and cooked over the heat while the meat is grilling. Slice potatoes lengthwise in four or six pieces, brush or rub some olive oil on them, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and cook them on the grill. Delicious!
It only takes a few minutes, it doesn't dirty up the stove or the pans, and it keeps the heat out of the kitchen.
When one of mine crapped out and I decided to try to get by with the stove, I practically stopped eating. Can't afford to eat out, but having to clean up a mess in the kitchen every day soon got to be more than I could contemplate. Went over to HD and picked up a Weber propane grill (there are many perfectly fine brands that are cheaper, BTW). Best investment in my health and my lifestyle that I've ever made.
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