Lunchtime Buffalo Wild Wing Adventure

Monday, November 26, 2012

Friday a coworker sent an email inviting a group out to lunch for Monday as it was his birthday. His suggested place was Buffalo Wild Wings. I'd never been before so I toddled off to the website to see what kind of food they had, and to see if they had anything that looked like it would fit into my targets. They actually don't have the information on the website but they'll email it to you if you ask.

(As it turns out a pound of deep fried, breaded chicken wings is a particularly poor choice, when one is attempting to create a caloric deficit. Well, I for one was shocked )

I did find a couple of menu items that looked promising, however. There is the Grilled Chicken Salad and the Grilled Blackened Chicken Salad (which is what I went for). With dressing on the side they work out well enough - under 500 calories, with ~20g of fat (not great) and ~40g of protein (decent). It's the best available anyway!

Some of the meals that look like they might not be too bad are actually really high in calories - so you really do have to check. Relying on key words is only a good idea in a pinch - "grilled" means nothing if there are a bunch of unmentioned dressings or cheeses involved as well.

So I'm glad I did that pre-planning because by the time lunch rolled around today I was hungry! Everyone else was getting wings or boneless wings... and since I had a really poor weekend, eating wise, it would have been kind of easy to say, "oh well, one more day and I'll start back tomorrow." Having a plan to stick to is much easier than trying to force yourself to pick something healthier when you get there - especially when you won't even know what actually is healthy.

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Hubby tried a new recipe tonight for my birthday

Thursday, November 22, 2012

Sweet & Sour Pineapple Chicken. Up until now he's only cooked things I've made before, this one was totally new to us. Although he followed the recipe exactly, it needs a bit of tweaking for flavour but health wise it was pretty good:

Including 3/4 cup brown rice, a nice generous portion clocked in at less than 500 calories: 73g carbs, 9g fat & 30g of protein. So the fat and protein are great and the carbs are a bit high but that's the rice. The fibre is a bit low, only 6g. I think adding some more vegetables would help with that.

Anyway, I haven't posted the recipe because it wasn't sour enough. It wasn't too sweet, it was just a bit bland. Could have used a bit more salt, too - I get that this is a healthy recipe and some people watch their sodium intake and I think that's a good idea for a lot of people, but since I have low blood pressure I don't really care about my sodium intake.. and I love savoury food! I'll make it again soon, tweak it to my liking and then post it.

It is nice, though, to make some healthier versions of takeout. I was never a "die without it" chinese takeout fan, but when I saw the pretty rosy sauce (it's not nuclear red like the takeout version) it really made me happy!

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Tomorrow I'll have been fat for 27 years

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

I mean, technically I suppose I was a normal toddler. But I think I qualified as at least somewhat overweight every year afterwards. So, that's a bit depressing.

I hope this is my year, though. I hope that by my 28th birthday I'm under 200 lbs. It'd be nice to be well under but I want to be somewhat realistic at the same time.

I went to the pool today. I only did 550m because of horrible toe cramps. They seem to be getting worse - even though I had a banana this afternoon. I suppose I could have had a bit more water.

I think I'll try going skating at lunch hour tomorrow - there is a Fun Skate near work every weekday from 12 to 1:30. I could definitely do a leisurely skate without breaking a sweat. So I'll try doing that when I can as well :)

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Mum's birthday cake - picture!

Saturday, November 17, 2012

So we had dinner at The Keg... it was DELICIOUS. aaaah! no regrets!

And then we had my cake, which was RIDICULOUSLY chocolatey - three layers of Martha Stewart's Ultimate Chocolate Cake (which was a teeny bit dry imo but that might be from baking it the night before?) filled with dark chocolate ganache and frosted with ombre peach roses in vanilla buttercream.

It was pretty awesome, if I do say so myself.

Taking the rest of the cake to work with me since my parents didn't think they could eat the rest of it between them (I think they're probably right) so we'll let the 50 people in the office take that bullet for us.

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spark tracking for cake batter licked off spoon?

Friday, November 16, 2012

No idea. Calories for the rest of the day were low so I'm not going to worry!

So far the cake looks good - Martha Stewart's Ultimate Chocolate cake. It has a 3/4 of a cup of strong coffee in there (and the batter was delicious!)

I made it in three layers instead of two. I'm going to make a chocolate ganache filling, and I'm going to decorate with buttercream. It's going to be EPIC.

Because birthday cakes should be amazing

(I'll post a picture tomorrow when I'm done... if it all works of course. If there's no picture we'll never speak of it again)

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