Rant about calorie counts
 

I wasn't really sure where to put this.

So for at least 10 years I have picked up muffins from my local store. To be conservative.. I always only ate 1/2. They were not "massive muffins" but reasonably sized though larger than say Hostess. I counted them as 500 calories for a whole I presumed they could be no more.

I have eaten them on and off for years... for years... when I was on a diet.

Recently I hit a stall.. around the time I had these in my house. I also would use them for a snack. If I didn't have a snack handy I would take a bite of the muffin.

Today I went to get one and they had a sign listing the calorie count... wait for it... wait for it... 890 calories per muffin.

OMG. Furious. What do they just cook a bag of sugar with muffin around it? I suppose I should be glad as this has probably been a problem for years. But frustrated. No muffin should have 890 calories in it.. period.

890? That is alot!! I am amazed that there can be 890 in one muffin. Wow!
Sometimes i just get surprised by this. My husbond and i went out for ICE cream a while ago. 3 scoops and a wafle cone. 768 calories. Like your muffin. That is lunch and breakfast.

Pretty much true of anything you eat out unless is is targeted low calorie. When a kids fast food meal is around 1,000 calories you wonder why we have an obesity problem.

I'm not much of a calorie counter myself, but wow. 890 calories is huge! Well, think of it this way. At least, you now know. It could've gone on for years, and you'd have been savoring half of the 890-calorie muffin without knowing it. You'll need to find an alternative muffin then - one that's not 890 calories. Have fun!

I know, right?! I'm totally afraid of those Costco muffins, which are really smaller, unfrosted cakes. Once hubs and I went to IHOP for breakfast and I got something like bacon eggs and toast, it turned out to be 900 calories, ridiculous. I'm so grateful for menus that list calories these days, plus the added assistance of these calorie counting apps. I finally feel like I have some control over my eating. Sometimes, I'll go to a fast food restaurant because I know the calories will be listed. My new favorite is half of a Wendy's Power Mediterranean Chicken Salad, only 250 calories and no need for dressing!

AnnRue It's probably not just the sugar that is making the muffin so high in calories. It's the fat. It would probably be best to make your own muffins and freeze them. That way you know what's going into them. I just saw a recipe on Allrecipes for 100 Calorie Blueberry Muffins. It didn't say, but I think these would have to be mini muffins. It said to fill 18 muffin cups. That a lot of muffin cups for full size muffins. Anyway, it used applesauce instead of oil or shortening, and skim milk. If you used egg beaters instead of whole eggs, that would bring the fat and calories down also, as they are just egg whites. No yolk. You could enter the ingredients in Fitday and get to see the calorie count for the whole recipe. It's great that the government is requiring more nutrition info on retail products. Most people have no clue as to how much they are actually eating.

MeIWantToBe, the eggs you had were probably cooked in butter which would really raise the calorie count, and so would the bacon.

Corn. That was my eye-opener when I started logging calories. I had no idea that the corn I had chosen as a "healthy alternative" was so high in calories. I hate logging my food, but there was nothing like it to teach me what foods I should eat and which I should avoid.

I do log but the point being is that no reasonable app would count a regular muffin as 890 calories. Today I noticed the chocolate chip muffin was 990. So you are taking a leap of faith. I just cut them completely out of my diet. I found "blueberry" loaf. Which is 210 per slice and that seems more reasonable while giving the same sort of taste.

The "healthy" alternatives you choose at restaurants are probably not as healthy as you think since they're cooked with soooooo much fat and salt. People wonder why they can't make it taste the same at home...it's because they're not cooking with all that fat!

Let us know if you start losing weight now that you've found a lower calorie alternative!!

Wendi
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https://www.findingthecalminchaos.wordpress.com

I did. Actually but I suspect it was due to hormones. I had a BIG woosh this week and dropped 2.4 lbs.