Why We Are Overweight

Today I went out to lunch for a co-worker’s birthday. Restaurants are hazardous – and here is why…

I ordered the tuna melt, thus avoiding the hazard of meat in a restaurant setting (when I eat meat I prefer to cook it at home these days).

The tuna melt consists of the following:

Two large slices of beefsteak rye bread
A cup of tuna salad
Two slices of tomato
Two slices of provolone cheese
Butter (on the toasted bread)

Usually this meal comes with a heaping pile of French fries. I asked the restaurant to substitute this with a side portion of sautéed spinach and mushrooms (which they sautéed in butter).

My friend Teddi asked the waitress for a ‘to go’ box for me, and thankfully had me put away half of this sandwich when it arrived; which I was thinking was probably unnecessary. I mean – how bad could a tuna melt with no fries be?

I got back to the office and did the math; that lunch was 592 calories.

Stay with me here… had I eaten the whole sandwich (just two slices of bread – a normal sandwich) and gotten the French fries that normally come with it, this would have been a 1,408 calorie meal! With over 90 grams of fat!

And we are not talking extravagant here… Americans eat this sort of thing for lunch on a regular basis, and think nothing of it. They then go home, and eat a hearty dinner afterward not even realizing that they have consumed in one meal, all of the calories and more of the fat then they should have consumed for the entire day.

Thank God Teddi was there to keep me from falling face first into this food grenade. Two days before Thanksgiving, to boot…

In other news; it finally happened – the unsolicited “hey… did you loose weight?” It came this past Sunday, from Pastor Jim (also known as Dad 2.0) at church – I think the way he put it was “you’re looking healthy” but I knew what he meant. I gave him a huge hug and thankfully managed not to weep for joy… but boy howdy – I was happy.

Lastly – I did not give a weight report last Friday and here is why. The night before (Thursday) I ate a garden sandwich from a local take out place near my house. Crusty roll, sautéed spinach, portabella mushroom, garlic, mozzarella… it’s a very tasty thing. It also packs in over 1,000 calories. Ouch. I had no business eating the entire thing; half is more than sufficient.

When I weighed in on Friday, less than 12 hours after eating it – the news was not good. Teddi and Liz; who were with me and witnessed my disappointment, absolutely insisted I give myself a ‘do over’.

Basically that huge sandwich was still with me when I weighed in, so Friday’s weight was thrown out for being an unfair barometer of my week. I will re-weigh this Wednesday evening, and then wait until the following Friday to weigh again once Thanksgiving has safely passed.