Beef or Turkey?

I have put on a few pounds recently....  With all the events, birthdays, and events going on, I have been a little too carefree on the booze and greasy food.  Since we finally booked our flight to Chicago and Milwaukee today for Mark's cousin's wedding, I now have a clear goal in mind: losing a few pounds before the wedding...especially since I am going to be meeting lots of Mark's family for the first time.  The wedding is the weekend of July 16 so I do not have much time.  Two weeks to be exact.  Yikes.

Today, our office is ordering lunch out in honor of Donna, a very special co-worker whose last day with our company is tomorrow.  I thought our office was going to order lunch from Jason's Deli.  I was very happy with that since there are many nutritional options (my plan was to order a garden salad with grilled chicken on top).  However, I was just informed that Donna decided on MOOYAH.  Great....  Burgers.  Fries.  Temptation.

Thankfully, most food establishments are now putting all of the nutritional information about their menu items online.  This is good for people like me so that I can put my favorite fattening foods into perspective and make better choices for myself.

I would normally order a regular burger on a whole wheat bun with American cheese.  Most of the time I also order a small or regular fries on the side.  At MOOYAH, the difference between a regular burger and a Jr burger are the patties (two patties on the regular and one patty on the Jr).  I started thinking I should probably do the Jr burger instead of the regular burger.  Here is the difference in nutritional values (with a whole wheat bun and American cheese on both):

	Calories	Fat	Carbs	Fiber	Protein	Sugars	Sodium
JR	441	25.5	26	1	25	2	971
Regular	672	43.5	26	1	41	2	1262

I started feeling more guilty about ordering a Jr burger with beef once I saw an option for turkey.  I know they turkey burgers don't taste as yummy, but with all the veggies, maybe I won't notice the difference?  Once I looked up the difference in nutrition, I knew I had to choose the turkey burger:

	Calories	Fat	Carbs	Fiber	Protein	Sugars	Sodium
JR	441	25.5	26	1	25	2	971
Turkey	380	15.5	26	1	32	2	760

Now for the fries.  My boss, Shelly, asked me if I wanted to split an order with her.  This is a much better option than ordering my own so I said, "sure."  We decided to split an order of regular fries.  Then I started thinking....  Maybe we should just split a small order?  Done.  I ordered a small for us.

I know this is pathetic, but for someone that loves food (especially fatty foods), this is my thought process.  I am patting myself on the back now.  Hopefully this is the start to a successful run on losing a few pounds in the next couple of weeks.  Wish me luck!

Donna McCright, our former benefits account manager