I decided that it was time to replace my daily chocolate with something a bit healthier. So I picked up some chocolate mini wheat cereal for my daily treat. Now as a cereal choice, I don't count chocolate cereal as healthy, but figured I'd get my chocolate need met along with some fiber and another serving of skim milk into my day (I really have to work to get in the 3 servings of lowfat dairy a woman my age is supposed to get).

Imagine my chagrin when I logged my snack and discovered I had replaced my 220 calorie chocolate with 360 calories of cereal and milk!

Any calorie suprises you've gotten that you want to report?

Yes. Those new "skinny" hamburger buns are higher calorie than the regular buns!

No, I've nothing to report. Calorie counting has made me super aware. Any errors I make these days are by eating things that I know perfectly well the calories in them and the damage that I'm doing .

I did want to mention though, that for my chocolate fix I drink a mug of Nestles Fat Free Hot Chocolate - 20 calories and I'm totally satisfied. Please give it a try.

Another thing, there is no way in H- E - double hockey sticks that I could ever, ever, ever keep chocolate cereal (or just about ANY cereal) to one serving.

I just found these 45 calorie low carbs wraps, that with a couple of slices of turkey breast, some onion, mustard, tomatoes and lettuce is a much safer 200 calorie snack (mini meal) for me.

Yeah...low fat peanut butter often has MORE calories than regular...PLUS more sugar. Low fat PB is a joke

When I crave chocolate, only the real thing will do.

Calorie surprises? Mine are usually centered around salads and nuts. There are way too many calories in some of those "healthy" foods. And they are healthy! Quinoa...almonds (all nuts)...WW bread...

I was eating these tamales that the company said were only 120 calories each. I used to eat two of them at a time for a meal because they are on the smaller side. I recently discovered that the company has changed the calorie count to 170 calories for each so that instead of eating 240 calories, I was actually eating 340 calories. It's not a huge difference, but still very annoying since I'm trying SO hard to lose this weight. This company does have a new version of these tamales that are only 80 calories and they do taste like 80 calories. Well, I've since switched to those but it hasn't made much of a difference in my loss. Sorry for the ramble!

Cookies! Now, cookies are obviously junk food, but they are SO caloric, even compared to other junk foods. I think it's because there is no water to add volume.

I mean, if I were to eat what I consider a "good sized" serving of ice cream (about 300 grams, or two good-sized scoops), that's 600 calories. That would be "as much as I wanted". For cookies, "as much as I wanted" is probably 4 bakery-sized cookies. That's 1200 calories. And where as the two big scoops of ice cream would leave me feeling like I'd over done it, if I nibbled down 4 big cookies over the course of a couple hours, I wouldn't even feel like I had a meal.

Cookies are just a shame.

One positive "surprise" I've found is how few calories a tablespoon of freshly grated parmesan cheese (grated from a block of real cheese, not shaken from the little green can) has in it: twenty calories. Twenty! Barring any major vegetable-slicing incidents, I can count that on fingers and toes!

Even a teaspoon is enough to wake up a salad or enliven roasted veggies. Like any cheese, it's got a lot of fat and sodium (also protein, but that's a good thing), but it's so flavor-dense that a single tablespoon will likely cover two meals' worth of food. I generally stay away from pre-packaged frozen meals, but I did have a WW lasagna a week or so ago and found that some fresh parm really enhanced an otherwise bland dish.

Don't I know it! I could live on cookies alone. But I'd only get a 1/2 dozen a day and I would be mean hungry alla time!

Barb

I can't remember the brand, but I recall picking up a bottle of sugar free, fat free chocolate syrup in the store and being flabbergasted that it was 100 calories for 2 tablespoons. It would have been so easy to buy it as a good choice because after all, it was SF and FF.

I still can't figure out what the heck was in it???

Restaurant counts throw me. A few times I felt I was making good choices, only to look them up later and find them shockingly high. Now if I take the foods I ate and enter them individually they are not as high as the restaurants nutritional count. Must be hidden ingredients. Like IHOP adding pancake batter to their omelets..which caused my blood sugar to skyrocket when I thought I was eating a low carb breakfast!

I find real chocolate works fine for me, and I would rather have a couple of squares of the real good kind than any substitute. I do stay away from foods that are harder to control on my own, like ice cream. I have a Hagendaz ceramic "bowl" and saucer, meant to serve their ice cream in, and let my just say it is tiny! Like a demitasse cup for coffee! I keep it as a reminder that THAT is a serving of ice cream, not my ramen bowl! lol

if I were capable of "eating better" I wouldn't be in this boat in the first place.