Kalmia wrote:
> On Monday, December 15, 2014 10:19:40 AM UTC-5, Steve Freides wrote:
>
>>
>> The night before, we went to Cheesecake Factory in the Menlo Park
>> Mall (5 or 10 minutes by car from Harold's). I have to say that I
>> don't think I've ever had a bad meal at a Cheesecake Factory
>> restaurant, and most of what we had we more than just satisfactory,
>> it was really good.
>>
>
> Their fare IS quite good, but oh my - the portion sizes are
> frightening. I bet their average meal and dessert prob. approaches
> 1500 calories.

My solution to that problem is that I eat only very little during the
day and have a big meal at dinner. Typical for me is nothing or a
couple of spoonfuls of my homemade nut butter in the AM, a 250-calorie
Dale's Raw Food bar as "lunch", and then I can eat a bigger dinner than
I'd otherwise be able to eat. I've been doing this for a long time and
it agrees with me.

However, I must say that the dessert is the big calorie and health
issue, not the meal. The other thing I do with my eating is have more
on the weekends and less during the week, so while I had a slice of the
restaurant's cheesecake on Saturday night, last night my dessert was a
few round chocolates from IKEA - package says 11 pieces add up to 210
calories and I had 4, which equals 76 calories if I did the math right.
If one has a sweet tooth, cutting out, or cutting way back on dessert is
the single easiest way to maintain or lose weight.

I'd bet their average meal + dessert is well above 1500 calories. OK,
just found this - see for yourself:

http://www.cheesecakefactorynutritio...ion-chart.php?

I'd say an average slice of cheesecake, if you leave out the obviously
diet ones, is about 1000 calories - I had Banana Cream, and it says
that's 930 calories. If you look under Specialties, several are over
2000 calories, e.g, the Fish and Chips. The Pulled Pork sandwich is
1440 calories. Bistro Shrimp Pasta is 2290 calories.

I'd say that 2500 calories would be a lot more typical entree + dessert
than 1500 would be. That's not to say there aren't more
calorie-conscious choices on the menu, of course. For me, I'd rather
just have what I want in a restaurant when I'm there and eat moderately
at home - kind of goes with the idea that eating out is special in both
good and bad ways and that I want to keep eating well, and moderately at
home.

-S-