HELP! Going out for lunch and I'm panicking
 

At the last minute I made plans to go to California Pizza Kitchen for lunch today. I'm looking at the menu online and I'm torn between the following:

The Original BBQ Chicken salad (half w/ avocado) - 699 calories, 10 grams of saturated fat, 790 mg of sodium

Grilled Vegetable Salad w/ shrimp (half) - 511 calories, 4 grams of saturated fat, 1364 mg of sodium

Do I go for the BBQ chicken one b/c the sodium is so much lower, or the grilled vegetable salad because the calories and saturated fat are lower??

:shrug:

I'm so confused!! It's like the lesser of two evils. I can work the 699 calories into my calorie count for the day but that saturated fat is getting to me. But then again, I hate knowing there's so much sodium in the other one!! AAHHH!! HELP!! :dizzy:

I would go with #1 unless it had a high sugar content (like most BBQ sauces do have). Avocado is a really healthy fat and will help you keep full.

Both are fine, really. If you choose #2, you may want to make sure to drink a lot of water with it.

Extra sodium can be flushed out by drinking water...even if the food was super-salty, it wouldn't put actual FAT on you, just maybe some temporary water weight that will go away on it's own. Extra calories, on the other hand, are calories you're going to have to burn off at some point...they will not just go away.

For me, calories are always the biggest consideration.

I looked at the menu and that grilled vegetable salad looks awesome.

As for the bbq one, not so much. You could omit corn tortilla strips and the cheese and ask for a vinegar dressing on the side rather than the ranch dressing it comes with.

Thanks everyone!! I think I'll go w/ the grilled vegetables and suck down a bunch of water today. :)

and ALSO remember that you can take half home. if you feel hungry an hour before you go, remember that it also takes time to order so have a healthy snack before you go to keep your hunger under control until then. eat slowly and really look at the portion. when you make your salads are they THAT big? nothing wrong with saving some for 2 hours later! :)