Keep the Change: A Special Brand of Crazy

Last night, I went out to eat at Burdick's with my good friends Laura and Courtney, fellow KPS teachers. I had over 800 calories left for the day, but I knew I needed to keep track of calories so I didn't go over my limit just by not paying attention. It's difficult to keep track at restaurants, as I'm sure you are aware...especially when you're so hungry that the napkin under your water glass starts to look appetizing.
We (well, it was my idea) ordered chips and salsa to start. It was a dangerous choice, I know, but I made sure to keep track of every chip I ate (the total was twenty, which, according to calorie information for most commercial brands of restaurant-style tortilla chips, is three servings and a total of 450 calories). For my main meal, I ordered grilled Jamaican jerk chicken with a pineapple salsa.

Jamaican jerk chicken - YUM!

Here's where I let my freak flag fly. If my children had been with me (and if they were older - they still have the misconception that mom is cool), they would have died of embarrassment, like I used to in restaurants when my grandma would ask for extra dinner rolls then produce a plastic baggie from her purse and pack up all those rolls to take home. I wanted to be completely informed about how much I was eating. The suggested serving size for grilled chicken is 3-4 ounces, but this looked like more than that. So, in homage to Grandma Irene, I pulled my food scale out of my purse and proceeded to weigh the chicken.

Fortunately, Courtney and Laura are also health-conscious and slightly peculiar. They fully understood and supported their eccentric friend's use of the food scale in public. I did ask to sit on the inside of the booth to shield my neurosis from the other restaurant patrons as much as possible, to which Laura responded, "So, your brand of crazy needs a little privacy?" Yup. But just a bit.

The grand total of the chicken was 6.88 ounces, which is two servings and around 320-350 calories. This still fit into my alloted calories for the day, which is lucky, because I had planned to eat the entire meal anyway (don't judge me - I worked my butt off in RPM just before dinner!).