My reasoning was that I was so big anyway, that there was no way I’d ever be able to lose 150 pounds, so I might as well enjoy all the food I desired. I did feel guilty sometimes after I ate “bad” foods all day long , but the guilt wasn’t enough to stop me from eating those foods. When I was writing this post, part of me wanted to say no food is “bad, because I do believe in moderation. But even within moderation, there are quite a few foods I do not eat.

I think it would be interesting to see if there are foods on your “no” list. Here’s a few things, with my reasons for not eating them, that I don’t eat anymore.

Movie theatre popcorn – Did you know there are between 1000 and 1200 calories, and 60 grams of saturated fat in a large tub of movie popcorn? Not to mention the sodium. I just can’t do it! (Source: WebMd)

Chicken Pot Pie I don’t make – Marie Callendar’s chicken pot pie has 1040 calories and 24 grams of fat. Other brands are similiar, and restaurant pies are too.

Most canned soups – The sodium counts on most of these makes these a no on my list.

Beef and pork – I know there is nothing inherently wrong with these. It all started when I got ecoli food poisoning and was in the hospital for four days. I had eaten a restaurant hamburger that wasn’t completely done. That crossed beef off my list, and pork soon followed.

Soft drinks – I stopped drinking these a long time ago. The calories are high (240 for 20 oz), and most of the diet drinks have artifical sweeteners, which I try to avoid.

My list has changed over the years, but these are the foods currently on my ”bad” list. 

Do you have anything that’s a “no” for you?  Diane

I took my three teenagers with me since Subway provided me with a $10 gift card. I knew there was no way I’d eat $10 worth of breakfast food alone. My son and oldest daughter had the Western Egg & Cheese, complete with peppers and onions. My second daughter had the English Muffin Melt, and I had the English Muffin Melt with Egg Whites. We chose the English Muffin bread as none of us wanted to eat sub bread at 8:00 in the morning. But I bet it would be good with the sub bread too!

Here they are at the restaurant:

And here I am!

And here’s a picture of the Western Omelet. 

Three of us got water bottles and my son got an orange juice. None of us are coffee drinkers (I gave it up in December) so we didn’t have the $2.50 special, which includes a sandwich and a coffee. Even so, we only spent $11.86 cents for the four of us for breakfast. Here’s the link for the nutritional information, but basically the sandwiches had under 200 calories each which is very good for a filling on-the-go breakfast. 

We all enjoyed the sandwiches. Our only negative comment was that they were a bit salty, but not overly so. They were toasted so were nice and hot. They filled us up nicely, although my teenage son said he could probably eat two more. That means he liked it a lot!

If you’d like to try these great new sandwiches then you have several different chances. Please let me a separate comment for each one you do to make it easier for me to use the Random Number Generator!

1 -Leave a comment on today’s post and tell me what the last fast food restaurant you went to was.

2 -Follow Subway on Twitter: @SUBWAYFreshBuzz

3 -Like the Subway Facebook Fan Page

4 – Like my Fit to the Finish Facebook Fan Page (if you already do, just let me know)

5 -Post a blurb about it on your blog with a link and let me know.

Wow – that’s a lot of chances. There are three $10 gift certificates available, so three people will win! This is only available to US residents – so sorry to my foreign readers. I’ll leave the contest open until midnight (CST) on Wednesday. Good luck!!!  Diane

Disclosure: I received a $10 card from Subway to try their breakfast sandwiches and review them on the blog. Subway is also providing three $10 gift certificates to three lucky readers. Thanks Subway!

Fast food, of course.

Here’s the scenario: You’re in your car alone.  The CD is playing, the air conditioning is on, the traffic isn’t too annoying.  Did I mention that you are alone?  For me, driving alone in a car was open season on fast food drive thrus.  There was something about driving by myself that made me hungry.  And I was never hungry for carrots and celery.  No, I wanted something “good.”  I wanted something “bad!”  I knew I shouldn’t do it.  But it was as if the car had a mind of its own.  Before I knew it, the turn signal was on, the brakes were applied and I was turning into a fast food restaurant. 

It didn’t really matter what kind of restaurant it was, although I did avoid tacos and Italian food because those were hard to eat while driving.  After all, I might spill something on myself and have to explain the big red stain on my clothes.

Even avoiding that type of food there were still many choices, and once I pulled up to the restaurant of the day, I had to decide whether I was going to order one meal or two.  Sometimes I wanted two orders of fries, but I didn’t want to cashier at the window to think I was going to eat both fries myself, so I’d often just order a whole extra meal hoping she would assume I was “taking it home” to someone else.  After receiving the correct number of meals, I hardly waited to pull away from the window before I was reaching my hand into the bag and stuffing my face with fries, etc.  I would inhale the food so fast you would think that I hadn’t eaten for days, when the truth of the matter was, this was an “extra” meal.  Not just an “extra big” meal, but a whole different meal for me.  It didn’t matter what time of day it was, if I was alone in the car, I frequently visited a restaurant. 

Women I speak with now, share how they too, frequent fast food restaurants when they are alone in the car.  No one knows how much they purchase, or how much they eat.  This habit can easily cause quick weight gain, as fast food restaurants have some healthy offerings, but you do have to be very careful in your choices.

Personally, I was consuming thousands of extra calories every week by this habit alone.  I never told John I had eaten an extra meal.  I would pull into a gas station on the way home, and throw the bag and drink cup away.  Sometimes if I was on my way to pick him up, he’d get in the car and say, “It smells like Chick-fil-A in here.”  I would just look blankly at him like I had no idea what that man was talking about.  He wisely didn’t pursue the subject! 

If you find yourself  often eating in the car, here are some suggestions to break that habit:

1. Don’t pull in.
2. Always have something healthy to eat in your purse or in your car.
3. Like Vickie has shared, keep your purse locked up in the trunk. 
4. Keep track of how much money you are saving and buy yourself something special.
5. Always have a cold beverage with you so you won’t fall into the trap of “I’m just here for a drink,” and then find yourself holding a bag of food.
6. When you do visit a fast food restaurant, know the nutritional values and order the healthier options.
7. If you “accidentally” eat an extra meal of fast food, confess to someone! Don’t be a secret eater like I was!

It won’t always be easy to resist the aroma of grilled burgers and fries, but each time you pass that restaurant without giving into temptation, the more confidence you will develop in yourself.  And the more confidence you have the easier your journey may be.

Question: Were you ever a drive thru addict? How did you break the cycle?  Diane

Here’s where I went wrong. I always encourage people to ask the server questions about how the food is prepared. And I almost always do, but last night I incorrectly assumed that because I had eaten there before I “knew” how the food was going to be prepared. I was wrong.

First of all, the bread was served in a brown bag that was covered in grease. Gross. John and I pulled the bread out and there was really no place to put it to slice it, even if we had wanted to eat it, so we left it sitting there like a lump on the middle of the table. Then our dinners came.

Mine was served on a square plate and had enough food on it for at least 5 people. At least. But that was okay, because I just portioned out what I thought I would eat and took a bite of the chicken. It was fried. Breaded and fried. I couldn’t believe it. And it wasn’t a good fried taste, but a soggy breading. Yuck. So I moved the chicken over to the “extra” side of my plate and tried the pasta. It was swimming in some kind of sweet cream sauce, and the vegetables were few and far between.

I took a few bites but just couldn’t eat anymore of it. John kindly gave me his yams and green beans so at least I had something to do while he was eating his food. He tasted mine and liked the sweetness of the sauce, but he said he could see why I didn’t like it.

Here’s a picture of my entree, you can see the fried chicken pieces and the very few vegetables.

Lesson learned – again.  It taught me to never get complacent about my food – not at home, and not while eating out. I brought the entree home because I didn’t want to leave it there, but I’m going to toss it. It’s not healthy, not tasty, and definitely not worth the calories! I learned to not relax at restaurants and ask lots of questions.  I should have sent it back, but it was our anniversary meal and I didn’t want to spoil it.

Have you ever been surprised at how a restaurant meal was prepared, and what did you do? Diane

I’ve written before about my former life as a secret drive-thru queen.  I told you how, as if on auto pilot, my car would veer into any open drive-thru window.  I also confessed how I would sometimes even order two meals so the cashier wouldn’t think I was going to eat all that food by myself.  I also used to eagerly anticipate dropping John off at work so I could swing through the drive thru on the way back home, my lap piled high with Sausage McMuffins, Hashbrowns, and diet Coke.

Although I’ve told you those secrets, I realized I haven’t said much about how I finally broke the fast food habit, and broke the habit of eating a full meal (or two) in between meal times. 

I realized as I was walking through my weight loss year, that this fast food habit was very unhealthy both physically and emotionally. 

It seemed as though I had very little willpower over the draw of instant, high fat food.  Although it wasn’t easy, I was able to conquer my drive thru desire by coming up with an action plan.  I realized that I had been able to change habits many times over the course of my life, and so have you.  We all have periods of change, rather they are job related, family related, or other things.  Even just moving from one house to another requires a concerted effort to remember where in the world we put those plates!  I realized that some of my food habits could be changed by practice, just like it took practice to remember where the dishes lived!

So this is what I did. Every time I got into the car, I would think about where I was going, and remind myself where I was not going.  If I was going to the mall, then that’s where I was going, not to Chick-fil-A.  The hard part came when I approached the favorite restaurant of the month.  It took a lot of willpower to not turn the blinker on and pull in.  If I really felt the urge to turn in, then I would make a deal with myself.  I would tell myself that I would not pull into that particular restaurant, but I would keep driving.  If, when I saw the same restaurant up the road I still felt the urge to pull in, then I could.  Nine times out of ten, by the time I had driven another mile to the next “set” of restaurants, the seemingly uncontrollable urge to have an extra meal had passed. 

Every time I managed to get to my destination and home again without frequenting a fast food restaurant I considered it a victory.  A small one, to be sure, but something to be proud of.  By giving myself a pep talk before I left the house, and then giving myself the option of stopping if I had to, I finally stopped the bad habit in its tracks.  Over and over I had the opportunity to practice the new habit, and the old habit fell by the wayside.  There were a few occasions where I slipped up, but even then I found myself making better choices.  Instead of ordering the value sized meal (or two), I would order a small fry and share those fries with the kids.  That way we all had a little bit of food, and my craving was satisfied.  After a few months, I no longer felt the urge to visit the drive thru.  I had experienced enough small successes and saw the results adding up in big ways, that I knew my drive thru excursions were gone forever.

There are lots of ways to break this fast food habit, and I’m looking forward to you sharing your strategies with everyone else!

To this day, you will rarely see my twelve passenger van at the drive thru window.  My family and I really try to make wise food choices, and fast food restaurants don’t fit those choices very often.  And another thing -  it costs a lot of money to feed a family of nine at a restaurant!  If you were a fast food fan as I was – what strategies have you used to break that habit?   Diane

When eating out, Mexican restaurants were always my favorite choice because they had all these great “combo” meals. Why get just one taco and a drink, when for a couple dollars more you could have the “Tamale and Enchilada Platter,” that came with three loaded tamales and two enchiladas thrown in for good luck?  The second best part of the Mexican restaurants was that unending chip bowl which I’ve talked about before! You’d think I would have been embarrassed after John and I had consumed two bowls of chips before dinner, and asked for another bowl to be served when our giant food platters came, but I wasn’t.

Drive thru restaurant meals were almost as good, because for just .39 cents more I could have extra large fries and an even bigger drink with my double cheeseburger. And because I had saved so much money on my meal, I probably could afford a milk shake to wash it all down!

And what about doughnut shoppes? Order six doughnuts and for just $1.00 more they will give you six more! Twelve doughnuts. Why not? I’d eat six on the way home and then when I pulled out the other six doughnuts for the rest of the family I was the hero. A bit full yes – but a hero nonetheless!

The best value for my money wasn’t the best thing for my health.  Time and time again I’d eat the bigger meal without stopping to think about what I was doing.  I saw the words “value sized” and like on auto pilot said, “I’ll have that one.”  Not that I blame my obesity on restaurants. It was me purchasing the food and me eating it all with wild abandon. No, it wasn’t their fault.

After all, if there weren’t people like me who were more than willing to overindulge then there wouldn’t be a market for so much big, value-sized food.

As I started to lose weight I stopped oversizing my meals.  I started planning ahead what I’d have when I went to restaurants of all kinds. At Mexican restaurants I turned down the chips and chose a properly sized meal.  I stopped eating fast food in general and became more aware of how much food was on my plate. 

Making those seemingly simple changes took me out of the value sized market. No longer was I tempted by the cashier’s query: “Would you like to value size that meal for .39 cents more?” I easily turned down her offer and ordered a meal that would move me towards being properly sized rather than dangerously sized.

How have you changed your attitude towards “big food?” Has it been hard or is this something you haven’t had to struggle with?   Diane 

Well, I think that depends on how you are looking at fast food. When I was morbidly obese, fast food was my friend. I loved swinging through the drive-thru window of my current favorite fast food restaurant, just anticipating the aroma, taste, and feelings of satisfaction that would come from the meal I was about to eat. I never minded handing over $4 or $5 dollars for high fat sandwiches, large greasy french fries, and sugar laden cokes. But of course I didn’t think about the food in those unflattering terms! I thought of the food in glowing terms like juicy delicious sandwiches, crisp hot fries, and refreshing cold drinks. And I never thought of fast food as evil!

During the 14 months it took me to lose my weight, I still ate at fast food restaurants. But although I did still visit them, I greatly cut back on the frequency. Instead of swinging through a drive-thru restaurant for a treat right after eating lunch at home,  I actually planned to eat the occasional lunch or dinner at the restaurant. Oftentimes, having a meal with a friend at a fast food establishment was a way to visit with that friend without spending $10 or more on lunch.

In order to eat fast food without bingeing or eating 1000 calories for lunch, I needed to change my attitude towards the meal. I stopped looking at that lunch out as a special treat, or as my “last meal on earth.” Rather, I looked at the fast food meal in two ways:

• a meal to be enjoyed
• another opportunity to practice making good choices

It’s definitely not always easy to make good choices at fast food restaurants, but it is a lot easier today that it was 12 years ago. Back then, finding a grilled chicken sandwich on the menu was an anomaly, not a standard choice. But I did the best I could, ordering small meals, forgoing fries, and having water instead of colas.

So even though the restaurants hadn’t changed the kinds of foods they were serving, I had changed my attitude towards their food. It still tasted good, still filled me up, but no longer over-filled me!

Can you handle the occasional fast food meal that is sure to come your way? Yes you can. You can handle it by having a firm plan in place before you even get to the restaurant. Do some research on which selections are healthiest at the fast food restaurants you most often frequent. You may be surprised by how many calories/fat are in your favorite choices. Here’s one that surprised me recently:

Out of all the “classic” choices at Chick-Fil-a, the one with the most calories wasn’t the fried Chicken Sandwich (430), but rather the Chicken Salad Sandwich (500). I could have certainly seen myself in my obese days choosing the chicken salad sandwich because after all, it had the word “salad” in it so it must be healthier! But in actuality, it’s not. (Not that either is a great choice, but you see my point.)

I’d encourage you to take time to print out the nutritional data of your favorite fast food restaurants, and stick it in the glove compartment of your car. Next time you are caught out without a plan, or have a lunch date, pull your cheat sheet out and make a good, informed choice.

So, is fast food really evil? No, not really. Is it impossible to eat without gaining weight? No, not at all. But, it is possible to make the wrong choices at fast food restaurants – not only is it possible, but it is downright easy. 

What’s your take on fast food?  Do you eat it or not? How often? Different choices these days?  Diane

By the way: Jenn at Slim-Shopping was kind enough to do an interview with me for a new series she is starting. Thanks Jenn!

_______________________________________________ 

What free food am I talking about? The free food many sit down restaurants offer you while you are waiting for your meal to be served. Let’s look at a few common free appetizers, and see why they aren’t really free.

• Olive Garden Breadsticks – 150 calories per breadstick (and who eats just one?) source : www.dietfacts.com
• Panchero’s Mexican Grills Chips & Pico de Gallo Salsa – 572 calories for 5.5 ounces (That’s about 60 chips, so if you ate half of that, it’d be about 280 calories) source : www.dietfacts.com
• Logan’s Roadhouse Rolls – 227 calories per roll – again, can you just eat one, and should you even eat one?  source: www.thedailyplate.com

Those are just three examples to get you thinking whether or not the free food is really free.

In my obese days, we went out to eat ALL the time. Not every night, but at least 4 out of 7 nights you would find me settling into a chair at a restaurant table, or trying to squeeze myself into a booth. Sometimes I didn’t quite fit into the booth, so we had to move to a table! That should have been a little clue to myself that 1) I shouldn’t be eating so much, and 2) that I should have tried to cut down where I could when eating out. But unfortunately, that didn’t stop me in the least. When the server came over and asked if we’d like some “free food” while we were waiting, I always piped up and said, “Yes please.” Sometimes I’d even ask her right off the bat to, “Please bring extra rolls” because I loved them so much!” And if we were at a Mexican restaurant, I’d ask for two bowls of tortilla chips because there were four of us. Remember if you will, that two of “us” were only 2 and 5, and they really didn’t eat much. To the server’s credit, they never rolled their eyes in front of me, but I’m sure they did when they turned around. I would have!

So the free food came and went. I ate 2, 3 or even 4 rolls before my high fat meal showed up. I could easily eat two bowls of tortilla chips by myself. It was like an eating fest, and that was before the actual restaurant meal came. Looking back, I”m surprised that I wasn’t embarrassed to eat so much in front of John, but at that point I was so far into satisfying my own desires that I honestly didn’t care what he thought.

As I started down my weight loss road for the last time, I knew that I needed to make a drastic change in how I approached restaurant meals. Realistically, I understood that I wasn’t ready to stop eating out, so I needed to start managing the restaurant food rather than letting it manage me. The first thing I changed was instead of accepting the “free” food, I rejected it.

This wasn’t always easy. The first time we went to our favorite restaurant, Roadhouse Grill, was a very different experience than previous encounters. When the server showed us to our table, I asked her to take away the peanuts. John looked at me as if I had lost my mind, but he didn’t say anything. We sat there, and had conversation with each other, not missing the peanuts too much. But when the server came back to get our orders, she had a basket full of yummy yeast rolls, their tops glistening with melted butter. As she began to set down the basket, I put my hand on it, picked it up, and handed it back to her. “Can you bring it back when our meals come?” I asked her. She nodded, and left.

We eventually got our entrees, and John enjoyed his entree and the rolls, and I just ate the portion of the entree I knew was a proper serving. I resisted the rolls, because I knew I didn’t need them, although right then I wanted them!

Time after time, as I was losing weight I had the opportunity to practice not only asking the server to not bring the “free” food when I was with my own family. But I also practiced resisting the urge to eat it when I was out with non-family members. When dining with friends, I’d always have a piece of gum in my purse, to help keep me occupied while I watched my friends pig-out on bread, butter, and chips. They never judged me, or really even said anything about the fact I wasn’t eating the freebies. Instead they ate it all, without my help!

Restaurant dining can be a lovely experience. Trying to focus on the company you are with, picking the healthiest entree’, and eating within your plan is yet another way to move yourself further towards your goals. The free food may be fun, but it’s not really free. These days, I can have the free food on the table, and if I really want some I have a taste. But nine times out of ten I resist. I’m not there for the bread or chips, I’m there for many other reasons.

How about you? What do you do with the free food? How do you handle it if you are with a group of people?

Once there, John and I would stand in line with the children, waiting our turn to order. Sure enough, the cashier always said, “I guess you want the buffet today?” We’d affirm her assumption, pay for our meal and weave our way around the crowded restaurant to a good table. A good table was one that was near the buffet. That way, as I went back and forth numerous times, I didn’t have to negotiatie my big self through the restaurant. And also, perhaps no one would notice exactly how much food I was selecting.

The first trip through the buffet line was for the “healthy” portion of my meal, the fried food, fattening green beans and salad. The subsequent trips were for the “fun” part.  Rolls slathered with butter from those cute little cups, french fries “for the kids”, and dessert. Of course dessert was my favorite part of any meal, but especially at the buffet. Not only was there regular, boring food on the buffet line, but there were desserts of all kinds. Cobblers, cakes, four different kinds of cookies, and an ice cream bar. Ah, the excess. The possibilities were endless.

I’d grab a little bowl, put some vanilla ice cream in it, top it with chocolate sauce and a cookie. I’d eat that first bowl, look around to see if anyone was watching me, and go get a piece of cake and another cookie. After that was done I was usually feeling a little embarrassed, and a bit full, so I’d send John to get me some cobbler and a cookie. At this point I wasn’t feeling so well, but that didn’t stop me from clearing my dessert plate once again. To add to our overindulgence, as we left the restaurant, John, the kids and I would all take a cookie to go. But we wouldn’t let the kids eat another cookie, so we’d save them to eat for our midnight snack, crushed over ice cream.

Yes, I loved buffet restaurants, but I shouldn’t have. One thing I quickly changed when I decided to lose weight was my behavior at buffet restaurants. I didn’t stop going, but I did stop ordering the buffet. I’d buck the cashier’s suggestion and order something healthy from the large menu behind her head. Sometimes she’d even question me, “Are you sure you don’t want the buffet? It’s a better value.” I’d reassure her that I was certain in my choice, but I’d also be thinking. “Yes, it’s a better value from a monetary standpoint, but it’s not a better value for my health.”

As we visited buffet restaurants I’d find myself watching the overweight people to see what they did. Sure enough, they hopped up and down from their chairs like jack-in-the-boxes, refilling their plates over and over. “That used to be me,” I’d think to myself. At first it was a little bit hard to only eat my chicken piece with a dead pineapple on top, while the rest of my family enjoyed the abundance of food, but as my weight started coming down, the last thing in the world I wanted to do was make it go back up by eating 2500 calories for dinner.

Eventually we stopped going to buffet restaurants, and made different choices. We still went out to eat, but just not there. Looking back, I’m embarrassed by my own gluttony. There wasn’t a reason I needed to much food, I just wanted it.  I had no brakes on my food choices, and no stop signs loomed in my mind – only Go! Go! Go! Once I lost my weight I knew I’d never overindulge like that again. For one thing I’d probably get sick, and for another thing, I no longer had the desire to eat so much at one time. Food is lovely and wonderful, but not in unlimited quantities.  As you think about your food choices, I hope that you are past the buffet restaurants, and are onto making healthy selections both while eating out and at home. After all, no one needs “All You Can Eat!”  Diane