Since I am by habit a pathetic junkfood junky, and I'm trying to lower my body fat percentage, I've got to actually wake up now and then and ask the question: what am I eating? As I think I've mentioned, I topped out at around 230 pounds. That's what I weighed about six months ago, but I hadn't weighed myself recently because the only scale I had was at the gym at work, and since we got the Bikler, I've been doing most of my workouts at home.
Then the Bikler broke (newsflash: we're supposed to get our replacement today!) and I started hitting the gym at work again. The good news was that I was down about fifteen pounds, to 215. The lesser news was that I had no idea if this had been a steady decline over the six months, or happened in one fell swoop anytime in that interval. In other words, I had no idea if anything I was doing now was contributing. Hence the desire for a scale at home.
Then there's the issue of body fat percentage. I can actually slow down on weight loss as my body adds muscle mass, but given that I'm not an ascetic in my diet, I may slide and add fat again. Hence the addition of a body fat monitor scale to my repetoire. And while it's only been what, twelve days, since I got the scale, the body fat percentage seems distressingly stable.
So I've reached a 'setpoint' in my exercise and eating habits, and need to look over the 'budget' to see where some more fat can be 'trimmed'. And I know the most obvious place. Two evenings a week I stay at work late studying for my betterment as a programmer. I usually run down to Burger King and grab a medium shake and onion rings, which I eat with a veggie burger I pack in from home. I've already decided to drop the onion rings, but I'm weaning myself here, okay? So the medium shake stays for a few more weeks.
But just so I'm not fooling myself, here are the fat percentages for the BK medium shake and it's comparable competitors:
- Burger King Chocolate Shake, 425 grams serving size (~15 ounces): 8 grams fat, or 42 grams fat*
- McDonald's Chocolate Shake, 16 ounce serving size: 17 grams fat
- Wendy's medium Frosty, 16 ounce serving size: 11 grams fat
Can that be right? A Burker King shake has less than half the grams of fat that a McDonald's shake has? If so, I chose the right horse. That's the quantity listed on their website. If instead you take the trouble to download their PDF of nutritional info, then the number is the heftier 42 grams. What the? It's hard enough getting reliable nutritional data for fast food online. But when the corp contradicts itself, I don't know what to do. I guess I'll just have to keep digging, and in the meantime assume the worst.
Interestingly, the McDonald's PDF agrees with their online info. Woe is me... The local BK is twice as far from work as the local McD's, but I always found their shakes tasted better. Now I suspect I know why.
I should probably keep the onion rings (16 grams fat) and ditch the shake. Still, that Frosty looks mighty tempting, and checking listings, there's one even closer than BK...
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