Encore post: Going bananas

I never should've looked.

As you may know, I often use Starbucks as my branch office when I'm working on an assignment. And, being a creature of habit, I always have a grande decaf and a slice of Banana Walnut Bread while I'm working.

Now, I've never been under the impression that it's a diet snack. But I always thought, you know - bananas? walnuts? - how bad can it be.

Well, today I found out.

A law went into effect the first of the year saying restaurants/coffee shops now have to post the calorie content of their food where the customer can see it before ordering. Which, as you can see, Starbucks has done.

Not that I ever gave any thought to it at all, but if I had I would've figured maybe 200, 250 calories. Come to find out I would've been off. By half.

It's just not fair. Where I once was just wistful and carefree ordering my faux healthy banana bread, I now find myself sweating like Mel Gibson at Passover dinner deciding whether I can justify that many calories for a snack.

Being beautiful isn't easy. I don't have to tell you.

Maybe next time I'll try to find someone else at the "office" who wants to split a slice with me. Maybe I'll just do without.

I did notice that my Starbucks sells real bananas at the register. I don't see a lot of fat chimps running around. Wonder how many calories in those?

My track record

I think after the last couple years we’ve had it's about time we all had some good news for a change. AmIrite? So here it is: I’ve lost around 15 lbs. in the last few weeks.

Now I know what you’re thinking: “But Jeff, you looked so fabulous to start with - a perfect physical specimen really - you didn’t need to lose any weight.” First of all, thank you for noticing.

Second, let’s remember I wear a lot of black and black is your friend.

And finally, despite how right I’d like to think you are, it’s a numbers game and I know the numbers.

What's the secret to my success? How have I done it? Well, besides cutting down on the food I jam in my piehole at all hours of the day and night, it hasn’t been too difficult. I’ve been using an app called My Fitness Pal to track everything I eat.

Doctors, the people who play them on television and the ones in real life, keep saying 2000 calories is the average for a grown man. So I've arbitrarily set the calories I can take in at 1920 a day. It was a fine year, and it's an even number. Next, I track what I eat religiously. I’m now on the 75th day of my tracking streak. Some days I go over the calorie limit, but it’s just one of the limits I go over on a regular basis.

”No officer, I didn’t see the sign.”

As far as those calories I get to have, I try to make them healthy ones, even if in the loosest sense of the word. Although it’s fine if they’re not entirely healthy as long as they fall in the count.

At least that's what I tell myself. And if we can't fool ourselves...

My Fitness Pal is owned by Under Armor, and has its own online community. Which means my weight fluxuations are probably all over the internet, in the cloud, available to Ukrainian hackers, coding classes and, as I like to think of myself, real athletes.

Anyway, wish me luck and continued success. If it all goes well, you’ll be seeing a lot less of me soon.

And while I'm not able to tell you exactly how many calories are in a black and white cookie from the deli, yet, I can tell you an In-N-Out Double Double protein-style is 520 calories.

Don’t ask how I know.

Going bananas

I broke a girl's heart today. Actually, more like shattered her world. I didn't take any pride in it. But it's not the first time it's happened and it probably won't be the last.

The why isn't the important part. It's the how. I told her how many calories are in a banana.

It's not something I planned, but somehow the truth always comes out. Especially when you're having casual office talk—as one does—about edible fruit that grows in bunches produced by several kinds of large herbaceous flowering plants in the genus Musa.

Did you know the banana is actually botanically a berry? You're welcome.

Anyway here's the thing: I've started logging all the food I shove into my piehole on an app called My Fitness Pal. The reasons are varied, everything from being tired of my doctors telling me to lose some weight (I get that a lot) to the three pairs of pants I can barely squeeze into looking at me, smiling, and saying, "Tight enough for you fat boy?"

One of the things this app does is break down the nutritional make up of the items on my daily menu. And because I happen to like a little Potassium In My Diet—capped because it was also the title of my first album—bananas are a morning staple.

When I entered it in the app, come to find out a medium sized banana is a 110 calories. I told this to my friend Nicole. Apparently, I've altered her world forever. And not in a good way.

Her thinking, and I have to say I agree, is that if there were any justice in the world bananas would only be around 60 or 70 calories. It's unimaginable they can cross over the century calorie mark. Yet the facts are what they are.

And if we start denying facts, it's a slippery slope (see what I did there?).

Anyway, on the bright side, there are many other ways to consume bananas that are a lot worse for you, calorically speaking. While you're looking at pictures of the high-calorie banana items below, I'll be in the kitchen drinking my eighth glass of water and choking down my third and last Ak Mak cracker for the day.

And swearing like a drunk longshoreman.

Going bananas

I never should've looked.

As you may know, I often use Starbucks as my branch office when I'm working on an assignment. And, being a creature of habit, I always have a grande decaf and a slice of Banana Walnut Bread while I'm working.

Now, I've never been under the impression that it's a diet snack. But I always thought, you know - bananas? walnuts? - how bad can it be.

Well, today I found out.

A law went into effect the first of the year saying restaurants/coffee shops now have to post the calorie content of their food where the customer can see it before ordering. Which, as you can see, Starbucks has done.

Not that I ever gave any thought to it at all, but if I had I would've figured maybe 200, 250 calories. Come to find out I would've been off. By half.

It's just not fair. Where I once was just wistful and carefree ordering my faux healthy banana bread, I now find myself sweating like Mel Gibson at Passover dinner deciding whether I can justify that many calories for a snack.

Being beautiful isn't easy. I don't have to tell you.

Maybe next time I'll try to find someone else at the "office" who wants to split a slice with me. Maybe I'll just do without.

I did notice that my Starbucks sells real bananas at the register. I don't see a lot of fat chimps running around. Wonder how many calories in those?