Hi cadilynnro -
I've been sick this week myself, so I just read this thread. I noticed in one of your earlier posts that you work at Wendy's and wanted to comment on that, as I worked for a Burger King franchisee for 13 years and now work at another quick service restaurant...
When I was earlier in my career I was in the restaurant every single day, on my feet pretty much all the time. I never had time for breaks, so I often kept a sandwich or some fries or hash browns or something open on the counter in the office and would run by and grab a bite here and there all day long. In looking back, I ate constantly. I wasn't calorie counting at the time so I have no idea how much I ate that way. A likely conservative estimate done this morning shows that I probably ate in the neighborhood of 3500 calories on some longer work days. The only reason I didn't gain significantly more weight than I did was the fact that I was active on my feet all day. As I started going between stores I did the same thing, just ate in my car instead of on the fly, and I sat down more. Gained more weight then because my activity level dropped. I tried to make some changes then, andl ooking back on then from today's perspective I have even more survival in the fast food world thoughts. (I still work in the restaurants biz, my office is upstairs now. That makes it a lot easier.)
1.) Buy a big plastic drinking bottle, like the Nalgene maybe, and keep it filled up all day with that great filtered water you can get off the noncarbonated drinks on the drink station. The lemonade you drank was the Diet Minute Maid, right? Not too bad, but water would be better for you, even if it was only half the time. And like you have already said, don't give in to the soda temptation!
2) Wendy's has a lot of build items for great salads - if you get a break to eat customize your own salad instead of the standard builds and leave out some of the higher cal items like the noodles and stuff. I see on the website that the ancillary items are what drive the calorie count on your salads. I don't love the dressing choices from Wendy's at this point, I often buy the salad and put my own dressing on it at home. Don't be afraid to bring a bottle of dressing and put it in the crew food section of the walk-in, if they allow you to do that in your location.
3) I used to make up baggies with snack items (carrots, sliced pepper, almonds) in the restaurants and I would label them with the daypart I wanted to consume them in. When I wanted to grab a handful of fries and run out the back door for a minute I could grab a baggie of nuts or something. Make sure you keep track of the calorie counts on those, I realize now I ate way too many nuts and not enough carrots!
4) Yogurt cups used to work really well for me in the restaurant - I would get the chocolate flavored ones for when I desperately wanted a milkshake after a crazy day. Small portion, easy to eat fast.
4) Calorie counting is easier for you at work than for most people, because you have total control over what you consume and a website with nutritional data to look it. I used to eat burger patties and grilled chicken patties with no bread a lot - I didn't eat salad at the time. If I could go back and do it again I would eat more chicken salad, less everything else.
5) Vitamins vitamins vitamins.
Take a good multivitamin. You have a pretty physically demanding job, so make sure you get all of your nutrients in.
Good luck!
