Pretty much every day I'm home, I make my Super Giant Salad for lunch. It generally weighs in at about two pounds. The picture doesn't show its unsuspected depth. Rest assured: it's big.
Looks delicious, right? And it is, which is why I have it most every day. (On the road, I buy one, lately from Cafe Basil.)
Recently, I was giving myfitnesspal.com a spin to check it out. (It's not bad.) And the numbers on my salad were interesting, so thought I'd share:
The summary numbers, from left to right, are calories, carbs, fat, protein, sodium, and sugar. The circled number is calories. Yes, 700+ calories from a salad. And the biggest contributor is the EVOO (Extra Virgin Olive Oil). I don't normally measure it, but did just to be sure I had a good estimate. Sometimes, I'm sure I put on even more.
This illustrates an important point. While EVOO is a "healthy fat" it's easy to overdo it, especially if you're trying to cut calories to shed some pounds. Same for the nuts. They're good, but easy to go a little nuts on. (Get it?)
(One quick note: I entered two of the Cajun Style chicken sausages but really only use one with the other being an Apple Chardonnay, which has far less sodium and a few more calories and grams of sugar. But it wasn't in the database, and I was too lazy to add it.)
The point, and I'm pretty sure there is one, is that healthy fat foods--like EVOO, coconut oil, nuts, butter, bacon--are going to add a bunch of calories. So if you're trying to drop pounds, beware. It's useful to do an occasional (or more) strict logging day to see how much you're really eating. Generally, people suck at estimating these things.
So keep eating your salads, even if they're not Super Giant, but keep an eye on fat content especially if you want a calorie deficit (as most people do).
Be seeing you.
-gary