I had a fairly interesting experience at Jamba Juice yesterday. My boyfriend is sick, so I stoped to pick him up an Acai juice. I ordered a small Mango Mantra for myself (I had looked up the calorie count previously and knew that while it was slightly calorically heavy for a regular snack, it wasn't off the scale in the treat department, either).

At the register, Jamba Juice has a selection of baked goods. There was an interesting looking blueberry oatcake, some cookies, big soft pretzels, chips, etc. I thought "I bet that oatcake is yummy and healthy" so I got myself a blueberry oatcake and I got my sick boyfriend a chocolate brownie cookie.

I get home and take a few bites out of the oatcake and it just wasn't that good. The old me would have eaten the whole thing anyway, because I always knew I was "done" when the food was gone. The new me said "why are you eating this oatcake that doesn't taste that great?" and I threw half of it away.

Later, I started to wonder what the calorie count was of the oatcake - 280 calories. The chocolate/brownie cookie I ever so virtuously skipped over - 150 calories (to be fair, it was smaller than the oatcake, but not by much!).

I changed my life 4.5 years ago and dieted for many years before that. I thought I had a PRETTY good handle on calorie counts - but wow, I was completely surprised by the calorie difference between those 2 treats and what I thought was the "right" choice. After all this time, it's still amusing to me I can still get ZAPPED by calorie overload on something I think is okay. By the way it tasted, I thought it was made of sawdust - how many calories are in sawdust??

I'm convinced that anything that is now "fat-free", has "real oats", or "made with whole grains" is actually worse for you than the chocolate chip cookie. Still, I get zapped all the time. I think it may be time to get my cell phone some internet just so that I can look up calorie counts when I'm in a restaurant or on the road.

Jamba Juice is so clever - their nutritional information is Flash-based, so I can't read it on my iPhone

the jamba juice in boise has a book on a side counter with all the nutritional facts listed.

Yeah, I had a recent similar experience at Tim Horton's. The low-fat multi-grain muffin that I was eating to be "good" had nearly 1/3 again as many calories as the maple-dipped donut I really wanted!

remember that whole grain products are heavier..denser, and that could be the reason they have more calories than products made from white flour that is lighter and fluffier and totally a waste of effort to eat. Plus the whole grain will have more fiber, which means your body will process it differently and you may not absorb as many calories as from the sugar and white flour product that will jsut go right to your hips.

It's all very confusing, but I still think it's healthier to eat real food...and just adjust for the calorie count, as in eat a smaller portion.

But not if it tastes like sawdust!

I'm not a fan of oatmeal cookies, but adding blueberries to them sounds really good. I might have to try making some.

Right on, Recidivist! My own experimentation with way too many diets has led me to believe that the glycemic load is a major key. I played with a close-to-zero glycemic load diet that emphasized a lot of combining foods with high-fiber ... and although I was eating close to 3000 calories a day, I dropped almost 14 pounds in under 3 weeks. I failed at that one because it relies so heavily on the combining and ratios - had to just about take a scale with me wherever I went, and it was pretty restrictive. It's not a lifestyle diet FOR ME ... but I have no doubt that my pancreas totally appreciated the 3 weeks off. A calorie just isn't a calorie like we've always been led to believe ... but it's still a very good brake on going overboard.

It just goes to show that nutrition is an ongoing education....

OMG, until I joined this site and started doing research on things posted here, I had no idea how little I knew about nutrition. The internets is a wealth of info, if you have the time for the research.