Your Next Meal at Chipotle could be Healthy!

So on my good friend Megan's suggestion, I ate out at Chipotle today--but ordered a salad instead of burrito or burrito bowl. The key is to feel like your splurging without adding all those calories, so I ordered a salad with black beans, pico de gallo, corn, and a heaping amount of guacamole. Then I went back to the office and figured how much my guacamole splurg would cost me.

Turns out--not that much. According to the nutritional information on Chipotle's website, my salad was only 380 calories. That's practically a Lean Cuisine! I've always been told a full burrito can be your entire day's calorie intake, so I feel a LOT less guilty about eating there so much now.

Take a look at the calories of each ingredient:

Right off the bat, I notice that Guacamole isn't so much a splurge if you balance it out by removing something else (I didn't get cheese). Plus the guacamole was very creamy and flavorful, so I didn't need to use the vinaigrette sauce, which turns out to have nearly as many calories as my salad! Another random calorie bump I was not expecting: corn salsa, up at 80 calories. I don't like corn that much, especially when the green salsa is only 20!

Some other random notes. Chips are the most caloric thing on the menu--as much as I like them, I'm going to say no from here on out. Another best practice is to be more selective with your ingredients. You know it's too much food--so instead of getting MEAT and BEANS and GUAC and SOUR CREAM....change it up. I stopped ordering beans on my meat burritos awhile ago, and it really makes the meat flavors stand out a lot more. Or when I want guacamole, don't get cheese and sour cream--swapping it out will help balance your scales a lot more.

A Vegetarian on a Road Trip

I went to a wedding on Saturday, which meant I had a three-hour drive down Saturday morning, and a five hour drive back on Sunday afternoon. Both times I experienced typical lunch-time hunger, and then realized with growing dread (and growing stomach growlings) that there was nothing on the side of the road for me to eat.

I was actually really sad about this because my coworker Cindy had told me about this great deli in Virginia Beach, The Jewish Mother, that I was planning to eat lunch at until I realized if I walked into a deli and ordered....bread? Potato salad? I thought I would be completely out of luck in a beach town as far as meatless meals goes, until I saw my hotel was located in the Chain Restaurant Captial. P.F. Changs, Cheesecake Factory, California Pizza Kitchen...tons of city-friendly chains with several vegetarian options. I ended up grabbing a Veggie Curry at P.F. Changs—tasty, and with tofu!

Coming home was a little harder. I left around 11, and had eaten a bagel before getting on the road, so I didn't want to grab anything immediately. Once on the highway, I realized the typical highway fast food places just wouldn't cut it. I kept driving past each exit, hoping for something that would have some proper vegetarian dishes, but without luck. Burgers. Burgers. Chicken. Burgers.

Nearly five hours later, I was home, and starving. Next time I'm bringing trail mix.

The Danger of "The Usual"

It's only day one, and I already had a near-fatal run in with my usual lunch at Chipotle. Without even thinking, I asked for steak on my burrito...then had to awkwardly ask the server to throw that one out and start again. I had paused, thinking 'there is a reason I can't eat meat...' but it hadn't registered yet why and I completely ignored my instincts. At least I was able to salvage the situation before I ruined this experiment on the first day!

Tonight's dinner is totally left over burrito, mostly so I have more time to look up how to prep tofu for delicious meals. Thanks David and Alicia for sending recipes my way!