I am on the road on business this week and went out to dinner with some friends/colleagues as a treat. They choose Olive Garden and I said I could make it work. I got my favorite dish, the Chicken Alfredo. According to the Olive Garden web site the typical portion has 1440 calories. Holy cow! Well, I did eat a hearty portion, but mostly the chicken and just a few bites of pasta. I left at least 2/3rds of the pasta. I also skipped the bread sticks and had a very small portion of salad. But then the three of us shared a piece of white chocolate raspberry cheese cake (yum!!). That was just a mere 890 calories--divided by three, I suppose my share was just shy of 300 calories. My goodness! So while it was hard to count my calories in my head, I would suppose I had at least 750 calories for that meal. (I still did OK for the day, lunch was pretty light, turkey sandwich and a handful of chips and breakfast was normal, cereal and milk.) So not my healthiest day, but at least calories weren't a total blow out.
So all in all, in a social situation I did so-so. But what gets me is that in the past I would have easily eaten the entire pasta dish and a healthy helping of salad and at least 2-3 bread sticks. It makes my arteries clog just thinking about it. Thank goodness I avoid restaurant eating most of the time lately, because I think that it would be a disaster. I think the restaurant industry in America is trying to kill us...and up until a few months ago I was a willing participant far too often.
You did really well, I think that you're right about the restaurant industry, its going the same way in the UK too. The difference is that its not really acceptable here to ask to take food home so rather than waste it i'd eat it all.
ReplyDeleteI like to get a bowl of alfredo to dip my breadsticks in. You did very well!
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