I took the kids to Dairy Queen yesterday to celebrate turning in their 4-H projects, and since I was all hot and sweaty from running intervals with my sister, decided what the heck: I’d order a small Oreo blizzard with my grilled chicken salad.
From now on, I’m always going to check the menu to see if there’s a smaller size than “small.”
When the guy brought our food, I was disappointed to see that Ben had ordered the same thing, only in a “mini” size that I didn’t even know existed. I could’ve saved 220 calories without even trying, since all I wanted was a few bites of ice cream. Or viewed another way, I could’ve had the smaller blizzard AND a Hershey’s bar with almonds and still wound up with 10 fewer calories*.
Ignorance sucks. I was thinking about this recently when I stopped in at a McDonald’s and was scanning the nutrition information now posted on their menu board. Armed with this knowledge, there’s no way I’d want to add 100 calories to a vanilla cone by getting it dipped in chocolate (270 calories vs. 170) or penalize myself an extra 70 calories by ordering a Reese’s mini McFlurry when I could just as easily order the Oreo version (410 calories vs. 340).
Dairy Queen doesn’t put calories on its menu, but having previously looked up some of its nutrition information, I now avoid ordering a plain vanilla cone there, knowing that would cost me 330 calories – almost as twice as much as a plain vanilla cone at McDonald’s (170 calories).
*Dairy Queen small Oreo blizzard is 570 calories, while a mini version is 350 calories — still more calories than I want to deal with in a small ice cream treat.
90in9 
That mini is a 5k at 7-1/2 minutes per mile. Like you, it’s a rare day I’ll partake.
An even better way of putting that in perspective. Thanks!
That’s how I look at all snacks unless I’m on a big week anyway. Last week was 225 grueling miles on the bike so I had some leeway to play with extra calories… I think I drank two mini-Cokes (the small bottles).