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How "The Accidental Fat Chick" Hatched...

Welcome to The Accidental Fat Chick's new online home!

During the summer 0f 2008, I woke up one morning with a drive to live a healthy lifestyle. Since then, I've made many changes and lost nearly 50 pounds. Many of my friends and family members have come to me, asking about what I'm doing & how I'm doing it. While I certainly would never claim to be an expert, I'm happy to share what I've learned along the way.

So after careful thought... "The Accidental Fat Chick" has hatched... with the hope of helping at least one person and to be the accountability I need to finish what I started. :)

Thank you for visiting!!









Wednesday, June 9, 2010

IHOPpin' to Trader Joe's

Write.

Delete.

Write.

Delete.

That is what I've been doing for the last five minutes, trying to figure out how to start this post. All day I've been thinking about what I wanted to follow up my last post with... and now that I finally have time to sit down and write I am so tired I don't feel up to tackling that tonight... so you get this (and I apologize in advance for how boring it will be).

This was a LONG day... with lots miles on the road for me. My Mom had a legal appointment this afternoon, so I was out the door as soon as The Boy One was off to school. She wanted to go to IHOP before her appointment. Let me stop right here and say that this was her fourth trip there in less than a week. And the other three were with members of her TOPS group. WTH???

I looked over the menu & was pleased to see that the whole back was filled with reasonably low calorie restaurant options (under 600). I was quickly frustrated when I hopped on my phone and discovered that I couldn't find nutritional info for their other menu items. After coming home, I dug a little deeper and discovered that the rats apparently have an aversion to sharing their nutritional info. That's gotta say something about the damage eating there can do if you're not careful.

Despite the "healthful" menu options, I finally settled on something else. The Sirloin Tips & Eggs breakfast meal... except this is me who hates eggs... so they let me substitute a fruit cup for the eggs.


My best guess on this meal is that it was somewhere between 609-1000 calories. I was able to find individual calorie counts for the fruit, pancakes and whipped butter. Myplate says that the meal is 609 calories, but I'm wondering if that is strictly for the steak & egg part (not including the hash browns or pancakes). While I'm still a bit frustrated I can't pinpoint the exact calorie content for the meal, I have to say I'm glad I chose this meal. Everything tasted delicious. The steak was tender, the mushrooms and onions flavorful, the fruit juicy ripe and the pancakes to die for fluffy.

By the way, me taking this picture for you all to see my meal prompted another round of my Mom's bewilderment over my decision to blog and talk to "strangers on the Internet." I think she still didn't believe I was really blogging because she was like "are you REALLY doing that?" in that tone of total disbelief.

The legal appointment happened to be in a city where they have a Trader Joe's; yay for me! You people that have them in your backyards are sooooo lucky... this driving over an hour to get to one is crazy, lol.

I picked up all of these goodies...




plus a few other things. I'm particularly excited about the fresh blueberries (my FAVORITE fruit) and some white balsamic vinegar that someone in the store suggested trying.

My "treat" of the shopping trip were these chips...






Holy crap! These things are soooooo tasty. I opened the bag in the car on the way home because I was dying for a snack and figured they were a better option than a drive-thru. Driving home, in pounding rain, I counted each and every chip that I put in my mouth - the bag says 20 is approximately a 1 oz serving - and stopped at 20. The rest of the bag sat on the seat next to me for the rest of the hour long drive home and I didn't touch it again! Amazing because these are truly crazy good!

Because I'm curious - and because I bought a bunch of it - what's your favorite thing to stir into yogurt?

10 comments:

Girl Bandit said...

That meal looks huge....but yummy!!! I love stirring fruit (strawberries, blueberries or passionfruit) into my yogurt. Sometimes I put in raw nuts (still with the fruit) or some muesli (granola)....ok over and out from your stranger internet friend!!!! LOL

ASTRA REED said...

WOW!!!! It looks so yummy may i have it lol... so the article is really interesting.. you have done the great job after a great hasslle.. as you said first lol

ASTRA REED said...

WOW!!!! It looks so yummy may i have it lol... so the article is really interesting.. you have done the great job after a great hasslle.. as you said first lol

Amy said...

I explained blogging to my dad ten years ago and I still think he expects to find my body in a ditch strangled by an ethernet cord or something.

Steph said...

That IHOP looks great, but I know there is no way I could eat that amount anymore. No wonder America is so obese! They give us way too much. I'm sitting here having my breakfast of fresh bluberries and greek yogurt! Yum...

Scuttleboose said...

Good choice on the blueberries - they are the best food for your brain! :) Congrats on the chip control haha

Absolutely, Positively Josie said...

my favorite thing to stir into yogurt is probably honey, if it's plain yogurt. i love making a meal out of a smoothie, which is kinda like spinning yogurt, nut butter, fruit, and a little milk- with yogurt!

those chips look fantastic. there's no tj's in my backyard, but i've always wondered about those popchips. have you ever tried those?

KyokoCake said...

I love putting Cheerios in yogurt - so funny, I just wrote about it today. I like fresh fruit too but I want something with crunch in it and granola can be so high in calories!

@Josie I've had popchips and they're weird at first but the taste is really good!! You just have to get used to the texture which is a little bit different than most chips.

Christine said...

I loooove stirring peaches and honey into my fage greek yogurt.
too tasty.
and IHOP is satan, stay away...lol.
hope all is well in your world. I am in Ohio and doing good.

MaryFran said...

Alas, I have to also drive an hour to Trader Joes....boo hooo