Eat at Home!!!

I was completely surprised yesterday while I was surfing the net collecting information for an article I wanted to write. I was looking up nutritional information on some restaurant and fast food items and was stunned, literally stunned, by what I found. I know that eating out is typically a very unhealthy choice both for the waistline and the wallet. However, I guess I never really took the time to quantify that knowledge before. But with our family’s new commitment to following a spending plan each month and our continued commitment to healthy eating, my eyes were suddenly opened. Everyone knows that eating at home is much less expensive than eating out. It takes a little bit of time to prepare and clean up and a little bit of water and energy to complete both, but it doesn’t cost that much. But cost is another story for another day. What really surprised me was the fat content of items most people don’t think twice about while consuming. It is so easy to prepare a meal for the whole family with less fat than one serving of food to go. When a frozen mocha latte has over 40 grams of fat and ONE donut has over 15 (and who eats just one donut anyway?) it is no wonder that we have an obesity problem in America. It doesn’t matter what type of diet you are on, the only thing that counts for weight control is the number of calories consumed versus the number of calories used. Since each fat gram contains over 9 calories and carbohydrates and protein grams contain only 4 calories, no matter how you slice it, fat grams count too. I can’t even imagine fixing a dinner with so much fat. It reaffirms my philosophy of eating at home. Unless the only thing you eat at home are prepackaged meals and convenience foods, whatever you cook is probably much healthier than almost anything you can eat outside of your home. Want to lose weight? EAT AT HOME! Try it for a week. Just a week. See if being hyper-vigilant for only 7 days makes a difference. I bet if you just REFUSED to eat ANYTHING you hadn’t prepared yourself for 7 days, you would lose weight – and feel better! TRY IT! Let me know what happens! And if you don’t need to lose weight, does someone in your family? Seven days can make all of the difference in the world!