Gym?

I'm not particularly fond of working out at a gym. There's a lot of reasons for this. I have to physically go there, and that's just more time given to a workout that I don't want to do. I have to wear "safe in public" clothes (working out at home allows me to stuff myself into old ratty holey workout clothes). There's a whole workout etiquette you have to deal with when you work out at a gym.

So we went and joined the YMCA today. Mostly for Matt. He can't ride his bike right now due to an over use injury in his calf. He also can't run (which he hates doing anyway) so it's off to swim. We bought him some trunks (um, just as an FYI: the long biker short style swim trunks are not made for bikers, btw. He has "thigh" issues... when the guy that owns the store says, "you have really large thighs" and pulled out larger shorts to fit him, I'm guessing Matt has really large thighs... heehee).

I'm not sure why, but joining the gym and looking around depressed me. I mean it's the Y, so it's not like a meat market style gym. There was a wide variety of people using the gym (tho' traffic was light.. mid morning on a Friday seems to be a good time to workout). I'm not sure why it put me in a bad mood. Am I intimidated? Am I self conscious? Do I recognize how much work losing the next batch of weight is going to be?

When Matt first starting biking, he rode by himself. He lost weight and got strong. He thought he was fast. Then he started doing a training ride run by some local racers and got his ass spanked! He worked harder, trained harder and got stronger and now he's a racer, too.

I think that's part of my fear. I know I've been working hard, but I also know that I'm not working hard enough. Going to a gym around other people would force me to be honest with myself on how hard I'm actually working. Not a fun prospect.

Flipping Off Uno's

Matt and I don't eat out much anymore. For several reasons. Since I don't work, it's really my only "job" as a "housewife" (but I spend most of my time knitting or playing video games. Vacuuming? ya, whatever). The least I can do is cook once a day.

The main reason we stopped eating out (apart from the obvious cost thing) is the control thing. It's soooo much easier to prepare our meals and control what we're eating. I've learned over the years how to make some of our favorites in a healthier way. When we eat out, we have no control on how it's prepared and I really struggle making "healthy" choices when I'm handed a menu.

So when we eat out now, I don't worry too much about what I'm choosing since it's not a common accurance. One of the places that we'll go occassionally is Uno's. We split a salad, a pizza and dessert. The main reason we like Uno's is the Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup dessert. It's soooo yummy. We split it, so figure that cuts the calorie content in half and not too bad a treat.

Well while discussing it with a friend, I decided to look at the Nutritional Information (the best weapon in weight control). Ya, we won't be eating it again. Ever.

So the dessert serves 2, so we weren't cutting the calories in half afteral... it was already proportioned for two people. Then look at the calories and fat PER SERVING!!!

Calories: 920 calories
Fat: 66 g (26 saturated)
Calories from fat: 590

For half of what's on the plate. So if you ate the whole thing? 1840 calories. 132 grams of fat.

Now I really respect Uno's for putting that information out there. Unlike some resturants, who refuse to give you the nutritional information (hmmmm, what are they hiding?). EDIT NOTE: Huh, I just went to Houlihan's website. They've changed it. They used to have a disclaimer that said that since their food was "handmade" they couldn't give nutritional information on it. Now they don't even have any reference to it at all (with a very very annoying website).

So I thank Uno for letting me look at the nutritional information. I'll chose the apple dessert, which isn't nearly that bad knowing what I know. As much as I enjoyed the chocolate peanut butter cup dessert, I know that there's no way I can justify my entired day's calories into one food.

And yes, I did flip the resturant off when I drove by the other day. How dare they make something so yummy, yet so not worth eating?