Nutrition - More Than I Wanted to Know

Like so many other people these days, I'm trying to drop a few pounds. It's way easier today to track calories than it was back in the dark ages. I remember little pocket-sized calorie counters and trying in vain to figure out nutritional information on fast food and even most packaged food. Keeping a food diary was impossible -- they were always incomplete and I usually lost them. (No surprise there.)

But this is the Internet age. I have an account at WebMd where pretty much all I have to do is type in some info every day, and it does the calculations for me. When we want to go out to eat, I Google the restaurant. (Sorry, McAllister's, 990 calories for a fourth of a muffaletta and all that sodium . . . I might see you once a year in the future.) (On the other hand, I felt 900 calories was a fair trade for a Five Guys burger and a quarter cup of fries.)

One of the things I'm trying to watch is sodium intake. Holy cow, it's in everything. According to Olive Garden's website, one of their dishes has 6000 milligrams per serving. That's four times my recommended amount for the entire day in one meal. Even the unsalted butter I use has a little sodium in it. What's up with that?

Nutrition -- like investing -- is one subject I never wanted to know much about. I just want success at both. Now I'm actually learning what's in the food I eat and how much is too much . . . or not enough. I commented to my husband that I'd fallen short of the recommended range of carbs every one of the first four days. Ha. One little hamburger bun at McDonald's took care of that.

It's a challenge, eating well and being satisfied. So far so good . . . I hope I last in the long run.