Scary Stats!

In honour of Hallowe'en, I have a few things that might be a little scarier to see than ghosts and witches on your doorstep!

Even when you're doing your best to stay on plan when you eat out, you might think that a food you are choosing is a good choice, without realizing how bad it really is for you. This is why I highly recommend researching restaurant menus and nutritional information before you go out, so you can find out what the truth really is. We've all ordered salads before only to find that they somehow managed to pack 1000+ calories in it!

I remember when I was trying to lose weight a few years ago, I went to the movies with my mom. We both wanted a treat and we were trying to decide between ordering a frozen yogurt or sharing a small bag of popcorn. We decided the popcorn would be more satisfying since it would take longer to eat, and since we'd skip the butter, it couldn't be that bad, right? Microwave popcorn is about 260 calories for 14 cups and that's a LOT of popcorn, so we thought this would be OK.

Imagine my surprise when I found myself up half a pound on my weigh in day that week. I was hoping it was just sodium retention, but it wasn't. Then I found this Nutrition Action article about movie snacks recently, and I wanted to share this information with you in case you make the same mistake.

It was really scary to read that depending on how they prepare their popcorn, even a small could have as much as 34g of saturated fat! Not total fat- just the bad kind! And the study found that movie theatres habitually serve a larger portion than they claim to, so who knows how many calories and fat grams you are actually ingesting?

My suggestion if you're going to a movie? Make your own yummy snack and bring it with you! If you have a carb serving, you can start with 3 cups of air popped popcorn (if not, you can still have 1 cup as a free food), then add Chocolate Rainbow Delights, your favourite dried fruit serving (I like blueberries), and your favourite nuts for a fat serving. If you want to bulk it up even more, add some soy nuts for a dairy/protein serving and make trail mix!

But the bottom line is, be educated about your decision. Sometimes you'll be happily surprised, like when that salmon salad has more calories than a personal vegetarian pizza!