Don't Let Restaurants Derail Your Progress!

A few weeks ago our six-year-old daughter requested to go to IHOP for her birthday breakfast. She's super cute, so we were powerless to tell her no...especially on her birthday!

We all know that IHOP has some unhealthy choices (cream cheese stuffed French toast, anyone?), but surely there are some healthy items to choose from too, right? Like an omelette?

As is our custom whenever we go out to eat, our first stop was IHOP's website to choose what we would order. Does that sound weird? Most people sit down at the table, see what looks good, and order it. Not us! A trip to a restaurant requires research.

If we hadn't done our research, we probably would have made some poor assumptions about the calorie levels of what seem to be "healthy" options. An omelette seems like a good choice, right? Some eggs, some sauteed veggies, maybe a bit of cheese.

- Country Omelette: eggs, ham, cheese, onions. 1,220 calories, 2200 mg of sodium
- Spinach and Mushroom Omelette: 1,000 calories, 82 g of fat

WHAT? How did something as simple as eggs, some meat, and some veggies get to be way more than half my day's worth of calories?

If we had not checked the nutrition information before we walked into IHOP, we would have made BAD choices.

Instead, during our research we saw that IHOP's "Simple and Fit" menu items were much more sensible.

- Simple and Fit Vegetable Omelette: 330 calories, 14 grams of fat

It was tasty, filling, and did not blow my entire day's worth of eating.

TIP OF THE DAY:
Before you eat at a restaurant (particularly a chain restaurant), visit the website and see if they post the nutritional information. Sometimes it's hiding (IHOP's is WAY down at the bottom of the web page), but it will open your eyes to the completely ridiculous calorie levels of most restaurant food.

Hopefully this knowledge will turn you so completely OFF that you will not be tempted by the fatty, salty food that wrecks your diet.

Curious about the rest of IHOP's food? Here's a link to their 25-page nutritional document. Check it out and be amazed:

http://www.ihop.com/menus/-/media/ihop/PDFs/nutritionalinformation.ashx

QUESTION OF THE DAY:

If you were to peruse a restaurant's nutritional information, do you have an idea of what might be a proper amount of calories for a meal? When you see 1,000 calories, does that seem like a lot to you, or does it not really ring any bells? 

I'm not going to throw out a hard and fast rule about how many calories per meal you should be eating, because everyone is different. But personally, I eat three meals and two snacks a day. My calorie target for the whole day is around 1400, give or take a few hundred based on my activity level for the day. Therefore I shoot for 300-400 calories per meal, and 100-200 calories for my snacks. 

I will go out on a limb and tell you that I don't know ANYONE who ought to be eating 1,220 calories for their breakfast. If you're not sure how many calories you should be eating, send me a message. I have a formula to help you figure that out. I also have a whole bunch of resources to help you with healthy eating and exercise!

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Workout of the Day

P90X3 The Challenge