Have it your way

This is pretty much how I felt when I went to Burger King over the weekend. Ever since I started my “diet,” on which I’m trying to limit myself to 1740 calories, I’ve been looking carefully at what I eat. When I’m at home, it’s really not that hard to come in under 1700 without sacrificing much — I still put mayo on my sandwiches and have a Frappuccino bottle now and again for breakfast.

The same can not be said for dining out. When I went to Burger King, I thought I’d be safe ordering a Whopper. No cheese, no bacon, just a burger. Turns out that one burger, no pickles, comes in at a devastating 670 calories! That’s more than most Personal Pan Pizzas, which I would have assumed were on the upper echelon of terrible foods.

And that’s 670 without fries and a drink. The “small” value meal as a whole comes in at an unbelievable 1,200 calories.

Here’s the sad part — before I started counting calories, that meal would have seemed small. I might have been full after adding cheese and bacon and stealing a few fries from a friend. I would eat this or similar meals four days a week for lunch, then sit in my cubicle and wonder why I was getting fat.

I fully support restaurants posting calories on their menus, as I noticed Panera Breads has started doing. It helps us, and after a while it just might give these restaurants an incentive to get their meals under control.