Sunday, February 7, 2010

This eating out lark is bad news

The problem with having no kitchen is that you eat out all the time. The problem with eating out is that the portions are too big. Plus the food is generally pretty calorific. Plus there is too much temptation all round. I shall be astonished if I am not fatter at the end of our four weeks sans kitchen than I was at the start.

Saturday began with Weetabix. At lunch we ate at Fresh Choice in Mountain View. Fresh Choice is a great place to take kids as there is, as the name suggests, a lot of choice. You pay one price ($4.99 for the kids) and help yourself to the salad bar, the hot food, and the dessert. The hot food includes baked potatoes, pasta, pizza, soup and other random things as the restaurant deems fit. The challenge is not to eat too much. Finding things that are healthy choices is not difficult as the calorie details are given on each item, and things which are low salt, low fat, etc are pointed out with handy little signs. I had various salads, avoided the blue cheese dressing (which is frankly the only thing that makes salad tolerable), and had a bowl of carrot soup with a piece of bread. For dessert I selected a cube of sugar free Jello, a spoonful of chocolate pudding, and a spoonful of low fat "whip". I'd have rather had one of their "decadent brownies" but I was being good.

In the afternoon I succumbed to a coffee and biscuit.

Then later in the afternoon it was Little Starlet's birthday party at a local kids' cooking center. I'd rather do parties at home, but no kitchen makes that a tough prospect. Needless to say I had to eat a scone at the end of the party as my daughter had made them. Dinner was bread and more soup with some double creme soft cheese (not the light option, but very yummy). And then, oh woe is me, crisps in the evening.

Today we ate lunch at The Fish Market on the border of Palo Alto and Mountain View. The food wasn't bad, but the service was awful. I had cajun blackened catfish with potato au gratin (instead of fries, a toss up calorie-wise, I think) and coleslaw (that's grated cabbage in mayonnaise to you). This evening we had dinner at a friends' house: chicken and rice with salad and bread...and more scones made by their children. Maybe I'd better do another walk tomorrow.

2 comments:

  1. I'm very impressed by your ability to eat leaves and soup when out. I fear I always think that if a) I'm paying for it and b) someone else is making it then I'm jolly well going to have something that I wouldn't/couldn't make myself for half the price. Just as well we still have a kitchen, I guess!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I read a convincing article on the internet a few days ago - I think it might even have been in the magazine Men's Health (!!) - which said if you eat out more than once a week, you should stop splurging each time. Don't think of it as eating out, think of it simply as eating. So that's what I'm trying to do. We've also banned dessert at every restaurant meal, as the kids have a bit of a tendency to expect that.

    ReplyDelete