Like any good fat person, I’ve gotta start out slow so the first Fad of the Month, which actually did start on March fir-second, is just simple ole salads. Everyday for the month of March I’m having Salads for lunch. This may not sound like much, but with the choices I have available to me around my office this is an undertaking. My office building is on the outskirts of “Downtown Oakland” and there isn’t much going on in the way of food around me.
Directly across the street is Golden State Pizza. Naturally, I order Chicken Nachos from Golden State Pizza, because what else would you order from a pizza place?
Up the street is Burger Gourmet. Great burgers! Good management. But from a nutritional perspective, what can you expect.
Up he street even farther, and around the corner is a deli which makes good sandwiches. Offers some decent fare nutritionally speaking but quickly tiresome if it’s the only option available to you.
Around the corner is Axtlan Tacqueria. The food is awesome, but if you’re looking for any kind of weight management, forget about it!
On the next block over you can find a number of restaurants whose cuisine style ends in “ese”. This is almost always a problem for me. My experience has taught me that I do not care for most Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Taiwanese, Koreanese, Indianese, Greekese, Meditarraneanese types of food. There are a few things in each of those categories I might be able to get by on but not many and most of them are not nutritionally beneficial.
The point is that I have a limited supply of viable restaurants at my disposal if I plan to eat out for lunch and partake of the Fad of the Month, so there will be a lot of packed lunches this month. I don’t know, realistically, what kind of results to expect from this month’s fad. I would like to think that Salads for lunch will take the place of higher calorie less nutritionally valuable fare and make a difference in my weight but I might find that I’m not saving that many calories and if I’m making up the lost calories somewhere else, well, I may well not see any results at all.
Here’s what I do know. On Monday, I weighed in at 303.2 pounds… I want to shoot myself in the head just seeing that number, let alone telling my readers about it. This is the most I’ve ever weighed in my life and 3.2 pounds above my “If I reach XXX pounds I’m going to kill myself” threshold. On Monday, my friend from work, who had requested to remain anonymous and will therefore be referred to as, “Anonymous”, and I went to Quizno’s for lunch. We went there because I already know there is at least one salad there that I can enjoy and feel fulfilled. I ordered the Black and Blue Salad which has 670 calories including the flat bread and the dressing. This struck me as a lot of calories, and it may be a lot for one meal, but upon further investigation I realized that I would have otherwise ordered the “Little Sammies Meal”. Two Bistro Steak Little Sammies (560 Calories), a bag of Sun Chips (280 Calories, or more) and a Chocolate Chunk Cookie (380 Calories). I always drink diet soda so that’s free as far as calories are concerned though not free as far as negative impact is concerned – according to some “experts”, but nonetheless, I would otherwise have consumed 1220 Calories on that meal and not thought twice of it.
On Tuesday and Wednesday I brought my salad lunches with me. Tuesday was lettuce, Julienne of a quarter of a Granny Smith Apple, a handful of chopped walnuts, a handful of Crazens, a tablespoon or so of Shredded Parmesan Cheese, and 3 oz of chopped chicken. Topped with about four tablespoons of dressing made with 6 Tablespoons of Olive Oil, 2 Tablespoons of Orange Juice, and one Tablespoon each of Lemon Juice, Lime Juice and White Balsamic Vinegar. I don’t know the actual caloric value of that salad but if I had to guess, I’d say there were more calories in the dressing than in the food.
Wednesday was more lettuce, 3 ozs of Chopped Chicken, one green onion chopped, a Tablespoon or so of sliced Almonds, A handful of Crazens and the rest of the dressing from Tuesday. On Wednesday, I weighed in at 302 pounds. I’d like to take that weight difference and accredit it to my Fad of the Month, but I’m nothing if not honest, and the honest truth is, it’s too soon to tell. The weight difference might just be because I had more calories than usual on Monday.
This is why we take the month to test the Fad. One day, or one week isn’t long enough to evaluate the product. We will see where I stand on March 31st and then we’ll know how this first Fad, which, admittedly, I sort of made up, has measured up to our expectations.
Riggledo 