Crappy weather/food

Since my non-Montanan friends probably don’t know, we are being POUNDED with snow right now. It is absolutely insane—the roads were worse coming to work this morning than they have, literally, been all year. Roads are being closed all around us to the point that Helena is about secluded. So, silly me, I looked out the window this morning and thought “it doesn’t look too bad”. I didn’t pack a lunch thinking I would come home. I get all the way up the frontage road with no problems. I make it all the way past Custer and Costco with no problems (I realize this means nothing to the non-Helenans, but bear with me). I get up to make my right turn onto Cedar to go to the freeway and…disaster. It is completely backed up and SLICK. I get on the freeway, top out at 30mph, go to exit…only to find two trucks involved in an accident on the left shoulder, a car stalled out in the middle of the street, another car stuck and trying to get hooked up to a pickup to tow it out. It was a HUGE ugly mess, needless to say. Since our Accord is a stick (and as an aside and a brag, it got 36.5mpg last weekend on our Yellowstone trip—woo-hoo!), I was able to alternate pressure between the clutch and gas so I wouldn’t have to actually come to a complete stop. I knew if I did, I would end up like the stalled out/stuck vehicles. That really wouldn’t have been a good start to my day. I was 25 minutes late this morning since my normal 15-20 minute drive took 45.

So, the point of this ramble is I didn’t have lunch and there was NO WAY I was driving back home. We ate a lot of junk last weekend due to being out of town, and I really didn’t want fast food. I did some looking online at nutritional facts, and decided on McDonalds. Yes, I realize that’s fast food. I went with a Classic Grilled Chicken Sandwich with no mayo and a fruit and walnut salad. Total: 580 calories. Not bad for a fast food meal, and low enough that as long as I watch my snacking for the day, I should do fine with sticking to my 1800 total for the day. What pisses me off is that everything has to be made unhealthy. The walnuts in the salad are sugar coated. The yogurt is REALLY sweetened. I despise plain yogurt and was glad to see that it was vanilla, but it was seriously sweet. The sandwich was on a honey wheat bun. Wheat: good. Honey: good. Honey wheat bun + sweetened walnuts + naturally sweet fruit (apples and grapes) + REALLY sweet yogurt = A LOT of sugar in my lunch.

I guess it’s to be expected. It’s fast food, it’s not meant to be good for you. I know most people don’t scour the menu the way I do trying to find something to eat that isn’t going to clog my heart, but it’s frustrating to find something just to discover it’s been needlessly junked up. Plain walnuts are GOOD. Plain yogurt not-so-much, but lightly flavored vanilla yogurt is good. Doesn’t need to taste like ice-cream. Maybe I’m just irritable today…that’s always a possibility. ;)