Flush! Flush! Flush!
Talk about beating a theme into the ground. This has nothing to do with toilets and everything to do with the fact that I need to flush my entire bloodstream and all the cells in my salty body with as much water as possible in the next few hours. I just had Olive Garden for lunch (thanks Beth!!) and even though I tried to eat as “good” as possible, it’s not good enough. Or possible.
First off, I would just like to say: WTF?? Why is there a twenty minute wait on a Tuesday at lunchtime?? The food is not that great. Every time I have ever gone I have had to wait. Seriously people, there are better places to eat! It’s one of the reasons, actually the main reason, why I never go there anymore.
Second, the menu. Out of curiosity I checked their web site to look for nutrition info. Most places, no matter how bad, pretty much list it somewhere these days, even if you have to search 7 pages and 15 links to find it. And usually the word “nutrition” is in the smallest possible print, at the very bottom of the corporate mission statement page. But no, Olive Garden had it listed right across the top of their site. One click, pick your item and read the chart. I guess they figure you already know what you’re getting into so here’s the ugly truth without a lot of fanfare and hoop jumping. Anyway, I was fine on the calories. I figured it would be medium to large damage to the daily intake. And I am pretty good at guess-timating the calorie counts these days. However, I completely and totally, utterly underestimated the sodium content of every single thing. Now I don’t believe for even one minute that Olive Garden has a team of Tuscan chefs in the kitchen cooking us up authentic Italian cuisine from the old country. But I didn’t realize how much preservative must be in those bags of entree’s to keep them fresh and microwave ready. Here’s the break down:
Garden salad (one serving) with the dressing: 290 calories. Ok. Not the worst. Sodium: 1530 mg. What??? One thousand, five hundred, thirty mg’s!!?? Seriously?? For lettuce?? That dressing packs a hell of a punch.
One breadstick: 150 calories. Cool, I estimated 200, plus 200 for the sodiums. Ha. Try 400 mg’s. Thank goodness I only ate one. We had marinara dipping sauce too. That was 70 calories and another 400 sodiums. I literally touched the bread to the sauce without scooping so I think I am fairly safe there. I maybe only ate, like, 200 mg’s.
Chicken Scampi, lunch portion (luckily): 740 calories and another whopping 1350 on the sodiums. Must be those peppers bringing the totals down. Thankfully, again, I didn’t eat all of it, but Jimminy Cricket, that’s about enough for today and tomorrow.
I also ate the Andes Mint they give you at check time. Not counting it at all. And at this point today, it doesn’t really matter.I know the internet always talks about dining out and the hidden dangers to your nutritional sound diet, but I never thought it would be relevant to me. Poop. (Ha. Did NOT even plan that.)
Alright that’s enough about that. I bet you didn’t think you’d be reading 500 words of my daily food journal. If you are still reading that is. Again, thanks for sticking to the end. Maybe you learned something. Or maybe you are shaking your head, muttering, “Dumbass. No wonder you have high blood pressure idiot. Why do I waste my time with this site??” Well, shake it off. It’s over now. Lesson learned. The food was still good. The company was even better! Good friends ya know?? I can risk a sodium stroke for one afternoon to hang out with one of my peeps. Next time we’ll try something else. And I’ll be sure to write it all here for you.
I need to go and fill up my water bottle. Got a 600 ml container that I need to drink about 2 more of. Maybe even three. I’m taking my son for some knee pads. He made the volleyball team!! So proud. So happy. And they are working his butt off with the practices. He will be a string bean by summer! A long tall drink of water like he’s always wanted to be. I’ll post pics if he lets me. Then I’m heading to Jewel for that good bread. (Hope I can snag at least one little loaf) Then home. Now this is turning into a laundry list, also something I need to finish. I think my descriptive phrases have been aging me lately. The bee’s knees. The cat’s pajamas. OPP. Click the letters if you want to read that little gem. I sound like an old lady. That reality truck hits too hard. I may post again later, but I may not. Tomorrow is an actual leave-the-house-and-join-the-world day. More good news to come. It’s still 55 degrees but getting grey and ready to rain. Have a great evening! Later.
Well It Sure Feels Like A Brand New Start
I know it’s not February first yet, but according to the air temperature it’s like a whole new season. We need to come up with some kind of phrase to identify this trend in unusual, possibly alarming, weather system changes. I can do 50 degrees all “winter”. I’ll even take the occasional one day snow storm followed by three days of melt. However my little daffodil buds are getting confused. Here’s a picture of them looking sad and sort of green-yellow in the grey and dirty dirt. The ground is not ready for them to sprout yet, but the heat says, “Come on up! The air is fine!” But it’s not.
I shall monitor their early progress for you. Via words and more pictures. Although be prepared for this site to take another sucky turn. As you know, I pride myself on posting just about every day with brilliant and insightful, meaningful, inspiring words and positive vibes and energy to you and the world abroad. Uh. huh. Well, I post every few days. And it’s almost always positive. That won’t change. The new issue is that I may actually have something else that I will need to be doing, full time, and for a good amount of money. Hint hint. Cough cough. Ahem. If I ain’t being too subtle here. Something worthy enough to give up my day job as resident blobber, blogger, desperately searching for an outside gig. I will let you know by the end of the week if I can finally change my Facebook status to: Works. Period. Anyway, February is always my lucky month for work related stuff. That’s when I got my last job too. It’s weird when stuff happens like that isn’t it?
I’m about to go get some food with the family and have a margarita. Just one. And it will be small. Well, smaller. We have an awesome place very close by. And I checked my med info. Moderate alcohol is ok. One drink every week or two will probably be just fine. And FYI, in case you were wondering, I have my next doc appt. this week to check on those meds, and even though it seems unlikely, I really think I feel better. Like, not sick feeling. Clear headed and without any throbbing or eye and temple pain. Maybe that BP was killing me. Sometimes drinking the kool-aid isn’t always a death sentence. Hard lesson to learn. In just a few days, I have tried to overhaul my sodium intake and step up the exercise regimen. We, me, everything, that you eat for convenience or that comes in a processed package is LOADED with mg’s and mg’s of that sneaky sodium. I spent my last few days buying some snazzy new jeans and t-shirts to transition myself slim again. Thanks to the new spandex and technologically advanced textile manufacturing, my jean size didn’t change! And no one will ever see the tags that say “high stretch fabric” or “extreme tensile strength materials”. Those labels are on a big old garbage truck heading for the dump. And I purposely shopped for colorful fruits and vegetables today. I think I shall be more boring to hang out with, but, I shall be hanging out a lot longer. Alright, one more picture because I like to take pictures of the skeleton trees. Later.
just shy of pretty 