Tamara, Author at The Workout Mama

What’s Really In Chick-fil-A’s Peppermint Chocolate Chip Milkshake?

November 18, 2013 by Tamara 9 Comments

I hope you all had a fantastic weekend! I know we did in the Buschel family! Caden had his first sleepover with Grandma and Grandpa and Josh and I got to have a weekend staycation to celebrate our anniversary. We both ate lots of yummy food and Caden had a successful sleepover with my parents. I call that a win-win.

Is anyone else getting excited for Christmas? There are decorations going up everywhere and many restaurants around town are spicing up their menu’s with holiday options. Drive by any fast food joint with a drive thru, McDonald’s, Chick-fil-A, Wendy’s, or Burger King, and you will see or will be seeing soon holiday cheer spread on the windows.

Let me just clarify that I am not directly picking on Chick-fil-A, this just happened to be the shake that sparked the topic of this post. Chicken sandwiches aren’t really my thing. Plus if I am going to eat one I would prefer to make it at home. Anyway…I recently saw that their Peppermint Chocolate Chip Shake is now available for the holiday season. To be completely honest I have never had one. So I can’t comment on the taste.

We can all agree that nobody gets a dessert at a fast food restaurant in order to improve their health, but before you indulge in this drink I think it is important to know exactly what you are getting.

What's Really In Chick-fil-A's Peppermint Chocolate Chip Shake

Yes you did read that correctly. 70 ingredients!

INGREDIENTS: Icedream (whole milk, sugar, nonfat dry milk, cream, corn syrup, natural and artificial flavors, dried whole eggs, cornstarch, mono and diglycerides, disodium phosphate, cellulose gum, carrageenan, sodium phosphate, guar gum, sodium citrate, annatto and caramel colors, artificial color [Yellow 5 & 6]), milkshake base (whole milk, sugar, cream, whey powder (milk), nonfat dry milk, artificial flavor, disodium phosphate, mono and diglycerides, tetrasodium pyrophosphate, guar gum, cellulose gum, carrageenan), peppermint syrup (water, high fructose corn syrup, natural flavors, citric acid, sodium benzoate [to protect taste], pectin, cellulose gum, guar gum, red # 40), red & white dark chocolate peppermint pieces (peppermint twist [sugar, corn syrup, natural peppermint oil, artificial color {red #3, Red #40, Blue #1}], confectionery coating [sugar, partially hydrogenated vegetable oil {palm kernel, coconut, palm}, cocoa {may be processed with alkali}, whey {milk}, soy lecithin as an emulsifier, vanilla], powdered sugar [sugar, corn starch], corn starch, silicon dioxide), whipped cream (cream, milk, sugar, sorbitol, nonfat milk solids, artificial flavor, mono and diglycerides, carrageenan, polysorbate 80, mixed tocopherols (vitamin E) to protect flavor, propellant: nitrous oxide), cherry.

I lost count so it is probably more but there are at least 70. Does anyone else feel that is extremely high for a dessert?

If you noticed several of the words in the ingredients list are bolded. These are ingredients I like to avoid when purchasing foods for my family and I will tell you why.

Carrageenan is a seaweed derivative used to thicken, stabilize, and make foods or products gelatinous. It has zero nutritional value and is purely used to hold things together. Research funded by the National Institutes of Health raises serious concerns about harmful effects of carrageenan as an inflammatory agent on the human gastrointestinal tract. According to Dr. Joanne Tobacman of University of Illinois School of Medicine, ”Carrageenan predictably causes inflammation, which can lead to ulcerations and bleeding.” Dr. Tobacman even found in her research with lab animals that carrageenan can be linked to gastrointestinal cancer. Individuals suffering from chronic gastrointestinal symptoms have reported that their symptoms disappeared when they cut carrageenan out of their diets.

Red #40 and Sodium Benzoate have together been linked to hyperactive in children. While adults have also noted symptoms from these ingredients as well children are more likely to be effected. According to a study by England’s Food Standards Agency some reactions that were demonstrated included temper tantrums, hyperactivity, aggressive behavior, uncontrollable crying and screaming, kicking, nervousness, dizziness, inability to concentrate and sit still. Additionally you may get frequent headaches or an upset stomach . Often when Red 40 is eliminated from the child’s diet a remarkable change is noticed immediately.

Now the nutrition information listed is for a large shake, but the small isn’t any better. You are still looking at 660 calories and 89 grams of sugar. Yikes!

Let’s compare several food items from the Chick-fil-A menu with the large shake.

930 Calories: 2 Chicken Sandwiches with BBQ Sauce
31 g Fat: 2 Small Waffle Fries
149 g Carbs: 3 Sausage, Egg, and Cheese Biscuits
16 g Protein: 8 Multigrain Oatmeals with Toppings
127 g Sugar: 3.5 Small Coca-Colas

How crazy is that?

As a consumer and if you are a parent it is important to know exactly what you are feeding yourself and your family. I encourage you to check out the sources that I referenced in this post.

It is up to us to be our own health advocates. Fast food chains for the most part, no matter how loved they are or what values they were built on are still businesses, and at the end of day they are going to look for the fastest and cheapest ways to make a great tasting product.

Additional Sources: Chick-fil-A, BBC

Filed Under: Nutrition Tagged With: Carrageenan, Chick-fil-A, Fast Food, Red #40, Shake, Sodium Benzoate

Post Pregnancy Must Haves For Moms

October 18, 2013 by Tamara 4 Comments

For any of you mama’s getting ready to have a baby soon here is my list for post pregnancy must haves! These are all products/items I used to aid in my recovery.

I wore a Belly Bandit and it 100% made a difference in how I looked in my clothes after Caden was born. I felt really supported and wore it all the time except for showering until I was 4 weeks postpartum and for the next 2 weeks only wore it at night. I purchased the small and extra small sized bands. For the first week I wore the small the sized band and the remaining weeks wore the extra small.

This won’t be the case for all new moms but I had the worst, and I mean worst, body odor ever after delivery. It lasted for weeks. Make sure you pack deodorant with you to bring to the hospital. I like the Tom’s brand because they contain no harsh chemicals and it smells fresh.

I used several witch hazel pads topped with medicated foam and ointment to soothe my stitched skin and hemorrhoids. All of this and more will be provided to you by the hospital. Resist the urge to look down there. It is not pretty. I was beyond traumatized after I did and feared I would remain in the gauze panties the hospital had put me in for the remainder of my life. The witch hazel pads were cooling and soothing to my irritated skin.

A sitz bath may be created simply by filling a bathtub with some water and sitting in it for a few minutes. There are also special devices that fit into toilet bowls. It is used to relieve discomfort and pain in the lower part of the body. These are awesome to do! I also used a small amount of epsom salt when I did mine.

The hospital will send you home with a decent supply of pads but make sure you have some at home as well. I felt like the bleeding was never going to stop. Of course it did but the amount of blood that was being released from my body at first was quite impressive. Each day the amount of bleeding decreased. At 4 weeks postpartum I was only slightly spotting.

Prunes! Natures laxatives! Trying to poop and pee after delivery is a nightmare. Seriously, a nightmare. I can not even begin to explain the anxiety I had when trying to have a bowel movement. I felt like any kind of pushing directed in that region of my body would split my stitches open. Peeing was no walk in the park either. My skin was already irritated and raw leaving me wincing each time I needed to go to the bathroom. Take prunes with each meal and drink plenty of water to dilute your urine to make sitting on the toilet less painful.

Speaking of going to the bathroom, do not wipe yourself with toilet paper. There will be a perineal wash bottle in the hospital bathroom that you can fill with warm water to rinse yourself. The wash bottle is amazing! Take it home with you, it will be your bff for the next serval weeks.

Did I leave anything out? What were some of your must haves for after delivery?

Be sure to check out my Losing The Baby Weight Series for more tips post baby:

Have a great weekend!

Filed Under: Postpartum, Pregnancy, Products Tagged With: Belly Bandit, Epsom Salt, Labor & Delivery, Prunes, Witch Hazel Pads

The Mama Confessionals: Oops…I Peed My Pants!

October 14, 2013 by Tamara 19 Comments

For the past 7 days I have been sick. Stuffy nose, oh so very tired, and on Friday I developed a horrible cough. I am finally starting to feel better, but being pregnant and having to pee all the time, on top of drinking glasses upon glasses of water to flush out whatever was making me sick caused an interesting weekend.

Now for all you mama’s out there you know where this is going and if you read the title of this post you know where this is headed. When I was pregnant with Caden I did everything I could to maintain a healthy body post baby, including kegal exercises. There are even several breathing techniques in yoga that work those of so special muscles down below. I thought I was going to be covered in the leaky bladder department.

Post baby when I resumed teaching my group fitness classes I realized that no matter how great your efforts are things just aren’t quite the same after a baby has come out of your body. My first indication that my body had changed was during a cardio class I was teaching. I had the brilliant idea to surprise everyone and pull out the jump ropes and incorporate them into the hour class. Oh boy, was I the one in for the surprise.

We started the warm-up and began to jump. I hadn’t jumped rope in awhile and was feeling really great about how good I was doing. About a minute into the hour class I realized two things.

I was glad I had worn dark pants.
I shouldn’t have had so much water before teaching.

Little squirts of pee were exiting my body. I was mortified. So what does any good group fitness instructor continue to do? Keep jumping, of course. No matter how much I tried to control my bladder there was nothing I could do. It had a mind of its own.

This experience taught me to always go pee before I teach. Always. Even if nothing comes out, it is better to be safe. After the jump rope incident I hadn’t had anymore oops..I peed my pants moment until this weekend. My lucky husband, he never knew a Friday night would consist of me sprawled out on the couch, surrounded by dirty Kleenexes, coughing so hard it would cause the pee drain out of my body.

But that is what happened. Mama’s you know what I am talking about right? Maybe it was laughing, sneezing, or coughing and jumping that caused you to wet your pants. I know this doesn’t happen to everyone but if it has happened to you know you are not alone.

I want to hear your confessionals! Has this happened to you? Leave your comments below.

xoxo, Tamara

Filed Under: After Baby, Fitness, Personal, Postpartum, Pregnancy Tagged With: Leaky Bladder, Pee, The Mama Confessionals