my typical meal at denny's added up to a total of 1900+ calories.

smothered cheese fries - split with hubby
club sandwich + onion rings
caramel apple crisp - split with hubby

yeesh.

I used to love going out to eat. Now I would rather eat at home because I can have something tastier than a plain house salad with a plain chicken breast without worrying about the nutrition info. It is so weird to me now, after 4 mos of diligent calorie counting, that I used to ignore it altogether.

I just read that Famous Dave's has a new 600 calorie and under menu - I looked and here is the link...http://www.famousdaves.com/menuCategories/citrus-grill/
I know it's not exactly the same, but it sounds pretty good. I find that minor changes in my ordering are making a big calorie difference - I order sushi rolls without rice, salads without dressing, eat fajitas without the tortilla, eat the insides of sandwiches, order shellfish whenever I can, and drink a glass of wine or flavored vodka instead of more caloric drinks. I try to forego the things I don't care about, while making sure the things I love and can't do without so easily remain in my plan (dark chocolate, light potato chips instead of regular, sauces on things so that they are not dry broiled, etc...)

I've only started paying attention to calories since May, and I'm finding that pretty much everything I used to each in restaurants is waaaaay too many calories. Like, a horrifying amount of calories. It's been a real eye-opener to start paying more attention to this sort of thing, and now I'm like, "Ah, so THAT'S how I got fat in the first place!" lol Ah well, I'm glad I know these things now...better late than never!

It's quite an eye opening thing isn't it?

Almost every morning I would stop and get two hashbrowns from McD's, I mean after all they were 2 for a $1 and about 50% of the time I would order a sausage and egg McMuffin with it, 300 cal in hashbrowns alone and 410 in the mcmuffin. WOW - almost every day!

nomadiclee: and that's how I got fat! lol esp. when followed by burger and fries for lunch.

Even things I used to eat at restaurants that I thought were healthy are bad!

Every Monday, my bf and I go to Moe's because you can get a Joey with chips and a drink for $5.55 (used to be $5...hello economy!). Well that meal comes out to 1139 calories, 38g of fat, etc. That's grilled chicken, black beans, rice, and cheese on a whole grain tortilla plus the chips (no queso or anything). Sounds healthy on paper but not at all!!!

So now I get a Joey, Jr. and only eat about 10 of the chips - 440 calories and 14g of fat. What a difference! I think that is the biggest problem with restaurant food - the portion.

My mom had gastric bypass, so she couldn't possibly eat even a "normal" portion, much less a restaurant size portion, so she would either order an appetizer or a lunch size portion. If she had to order a restaurant portion, she would just order a take out box along with it. I think that's what I might start doing - order the healthy sounding food and order a to-go box too, so when my food comes, I can just go ahead and put half of it in the box because that would probably take a restaurant portion down to a normal portion.

OMG I know! My saturday & sunday lunches practically every single week for years was a double-cheeseburger & fries off the value menu at McDonalds, followed by a large Peanut Butter Cup Blizzard at Dairy Queen -- pretty much 1600 calories for LUNCH. Then afternoon snacks, giant dinner, snacks all night.

But I'm still mystified about how I got fat

One of my favorite things was a breakfast bagel at a local convenience store. A full sized bagel, sausage patty, a scrambled egg with spicy peppers, and a slice of cheese. I put it at about 1200 calories. I used to get one at least once a week on the way to work. Many times twice a week. Nothing like blowing 90% of the day's calories before 8:00! Not to mention the fact that if I stopped at the convenience store, I almost always got a candy bar or bag of chips, too - "for later." Sheesh!

Lin

Since they started posting this info in all CA restaurants I have been horrified. Some of the "healthy" salads I always felt so good about eating turned out to have around 1,200 or more calories!

Dont even look at Cheesecake Factory's nutrional info!! They have it on their menu now and there is barely anything under 1000 calories!!

I used to get a Hardee's chicken biscuit and hash browns most mornings for breakfast. When I first started calorie counting, I looked them up. I start my day with 1800 calories, more than a day's worth of calories. I eat 1200 - 1300 calories a day now!

Double cheeseburger at Burger King on the way home from work (and the first thing I would eat in the day):
450 calories 12g sat. fat 95mg cholesterol 6g sugar 29g carbs
26g fat 1g trans fat 27g protein 960mg sodium

Umm... Yuck?