Project LGN: Best choice

I've slacked....a lot.  I only worked out one time last week and my eating habits.....let's just say I've done better.  So I opted not to step on the scale this week.  Seeing a gain would un-motivate me so I am just categorizing this as a minor setback and trudging on.  I'll weigh next week and hopefully be back to where I was.  It's all about choices.  Something is better than nothing.  Exchanging one Mountain Dew (my vice, my addiction, my calorie demon) for water a day.  Anything and everything inches us towards a more healthy lifestyle.  But we've got to be smart in our choices.  Just the other day at Wal-Mart I wanted to buy some graham crackers to use as one of my snacks each day.  I had a choice: Honey, Cinnamon, Sticks, and Reduced Fat.  Well I'm trying to lose weight right?  So of course I picked up the Reduced Fat.  Yay me.....til I read the label.  The reduced fat graham crackers have more calories than the regular graham crackers.  You heard me right....MORE calories.  I promptly put them back on the shelf and grabbed the regular fat ones.  (It's not imperative to watch fat grams if you are watching calories and eating healthy.  The fat grams will stay in a healthy range because of the types of food you are eating.)  We can be fooled by the food industry.  We've got to be smart.  I got the following fast food surprises from the April 2011 edition of Good Housekeeping (with my thoughts included).  I was pretty stunned by the facts:

Which has fewer calories?
1. Quiznos Small Veggie Sub of Quiznos Small Traditional Sub?  I so would have picked veggie.  I mean the other one has 3 different kinds of meat.  And it says "Veggie" so it has to be healthier right??  Wrong!  The meats on the Traditional Sub happen to be lean meats and the calorie count is 430.  The Veggie Sub has two kinds of cheeses and guacamole making it weigh in at 520 calories.
2. McDonald's Premium Grilled Chicken Classic Sandwich or the McDouble:  Easy one...has to be the grilled chicken.  Grilled chicken will always have less calories than a greasy 2-patty concoction on the dollar menu.  Wrong again.  The McDouble only has 390 calories.  What?  The Grilled Chicken is nestled in between a huge 240-calorie honey wheat roll bumping it's total caloric value to 420.  To be honest, it's still probably healthier than a McDouble, I'd just need to throw away the top part of the bun.

The third one is a restaurant called Au Bon Pain which we don't have round these here parts so it didn't really make an impression.  So I'll leave you with the most eye-popping comparison I've come across:  The US Pizza Salad Supreme.  Even if you choose to put Turkey on it instead of ham it weighs in at a whopping 1564 calories.  Let me repeat that number 1564 calories.  You'd do better eating 2 slices of supreme pizza at 580 calories.  Heck, have 3 slices at 870, you're still 700 less than the salad! Incredible right?  Our salads can be the downfall of our attempts at weight loss.  My advice, get the salad.  But order it without the cheese and the house dressing.  Try a vinaigrette.  Then maybe just eat half of it :)
But my point is made.  Just because something is advertised as better for us or healthier, we still need to be careful.  The food industry is, after all, trying to sell more food.  And we are striving to eat less of it.  Good luck!!