Day 25 Do Chefs Have Our Backs

Not in the least, according to Marilyn Marchione (The Cincinnati Enquirer/Oct '06). She writes, "if you don't pay attention to calories when deciding how much of something to eat, you might want to know that the chefs serving it to you don't either." I'm not surprised. Half of the chefs surveyed reported that calorie content didn't mater at all. Why should it? Those toqued culinarians have bigger tilipia to fry than fretting over the calorie content in the salmon. In fact, calories aren't even on their radar range. Between checking the late produce delivery and firing the drunk dishwasher, to adhering to strict P&L financials, increasing sales and controlling waste, chefs have little time left to worry about calories. That's our job. Most chefs acknowledge "that it is up to the diner to decide how much to consume and how much to take home in a doggie bag."
That's why it's so important to be as accurate as you can when counting restaurant calories. I'll be the first tiramisu lover to admit it's a challenge to calculate the calories in restaurant dishes. I'm bound to miss an 1/8 cup grated chocolate here or a tablespoon of mascarpone there. A chef's "dusting" of Pecorino Romano may be equivalent to 4 tablespoons in your portioning. A chef's one cup of alfredo sauce could mean ONE cup poured into the large bowl the pasta will be strained into, another one cup on the platter the pasta will dumped on and another one cup on top of the platter. Culinese is a very different portioning language from the one you and I are speaking. Generally terms such as one cup, one teaspoon, one pint really mean "as much liquid as the polenta will absorb" or "enough sugar to give it sweetness without being grainy" or "drink enough Vin Santo until you can't remember the year you were born." Be very careful when counting out. Missing the mark a half dozen times a week could be the reason why the needle on the scale hasn't moved north.
If your Health0Meter hasn't been kind to you these last few weeks and you frequently order off menus, maybe you should rethink the whole restaurant thing. If you really want to lose 80 sticks of butter in 90 days, having better control on how your food is prepared and how much is served will help you meet your goal. It's your goal. You own it. You have responsibility for it.
I am not about to bore with what you already know about dining out; have bread basket removed, request lemon slices in your spritzer, order beef bouillon, ask for dressing on the side, blah, blah, blah. How asinine are those?
I'm not suggesting you can't dine out. What I am suggesting is maybe you better curtail it if you haven't seen the 1.6# drop a week since you started The Plan.
Do you desire to be twenty pounds lighter more than you desire to eat Chef Uber's beef bourguigon washed down with his fine Merlot? If you'd rather opt for a night out, you may as well throw in the towel now. Quit counting. Why bother with the whole process? How do you count zabaglione? Who knows. It's not a packaged and portioned-"Counting for Dummies"- food like a Hostess Zinger, however, I could probably break it down, pad it a bit and come up with a reasonable count. But to do that laborious math five or six times a week is insane when one is striving to lose weight. If you weren't a 20PO on the The Plan, I'd say Bon Appetit, bring it all on but you are on The Plan, so get tough.
Day 25 Calorie Count: 1500
Breakfast: Coffee (80)
Lunch: PB&J (230), and later, 1/4 cup Haagen Dazs Dulce De Leche Light Ice Cream (220), 1 Tollhouse Chocolate Chip Cookie, unbaked (100), about 7-8 Planter's Mixed Nuts (70)
Dinner: Burger King Cheeseburger (337), half order of small fries (100), one 2X2 inch square yellow birthday cake w/
whipped icing (I Googled Sara Lee.com, and www.foodaddict.com to compare a similar serving of cake) (363).