A near miss...

I had a near miss today.  I had a really rough day at work..very stressful, was barely at my desk, I didn't have a minute to even eat my apple and orange I brought for my mid morning and mid afternoon snacks.  I ended up leaving work about 7pm after putting in 12 hours.  I was exhausted.
So what did I do... my thoughts immediately turned to my good friend Ronald McDonald.  I made every justification possible to get myself there... it was late, I was tired and didn't want to  worry about what I had to eat when I got home, I worked out yesterday, it was just one trip to McD, it wasn't the end of the world.
On my drive home my thoughts turned from trying to justify going to asking myself why the heck would I let that happen?  I was clearly turning to emotional comfort eating when I knew deep down I shouldn't do it, and didn't want to do it.  
My thoughts turned from justification to repulsion.  I thought about how groggy I would feel after I ate it (let's be honest, 1 cheeseburger just doesn't cut it for me), I thought about how that one meal would undo all of the good eating and working out I did over the past week.  
I had a breakthrough!  I decided not to eat it!  I mean, I've had these cravings and blogged about it once before, but this one was different.  I clearly realized I was turning to emotional eating.  Would I feel any better about my bad day after I had this meal?  NO.  In fact, I would feel much worse. What a good feeling to realize this and overcome it!


I just reinforced my decision.  McDonald's has a "bag a meal" feature on their website - click here  My typical meal in this situation would have consisted of the following:
2,040 calories (950 from fat)
106 grams fat (36 grams saturated, 4.5 grams trans fat)
270 mg cholesterol
3,750 mg sodium


Wow... those are crazy amounts!  No wonder America is so unhealthy!  Thank you McDonald's for offering this valuable tool to the public (probably from a government mandate, not by volunteering).  Maybe more people can start using it!


What gets me again is that McDonald's says they offer only the best ingredients.  If you've seen Food, Inc. you may think differently (I highly recommend you watch this)  Thanks Heidi for recommending this to me!


Ok, I've rambled on enough already...it was only one small decision I made.  Best wishes on the choices you make every day, I know it's not easy!  (And as much as I've ranted about McDonald's on this blog I'll probably have it again at some point.)