Sunday – Back to Veggie Status

I’m taking a food and culture class and one of the books we are assigned is Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma.  While the purpose of the book is not to scare/guilt anyone into being a vegetarian, that’s the effect it had on me.  Pollan examines the way feed-lots and corn-fed livestock are produced and well, I can never eat another standard cut of beef, pork, or chicken EVER AGAIN.  I never really ate rabbit because seriously, who can eat a bunny, and lamb always freaked me out (they’re just too damn cute), so those two descriptions didn’t bug me so much.  However, his two chapters on beef production had me practically gagging on myself, and the description of chicken slaughter wasn’t much better.  I may be persuaded that grass-fed, free-range, antibiotic-free meat may be acceptable, but for now, I’m sticking to things that were not living, breathing creatures.

Pollan also ruined the McDonald’s chicken nugget – I had NO idea there was butane (yes, lighter fluid) and this other really long-ass named carcinogen in the nugget.  Even the new “all-white meat” nugget has this crap in it!  the USDA has said it’s ok so long as the amounts don’t exceed 0.02 percent of the nugget.  I do not care.  I am never eating a butane carcinogen again.  Ever.  That completely freaked me out.

And holy crap.  They manufacture corn syrup with HYDROCHLORIC ACID and flesh-eating protein enzymes.  I’ve started watching everything I put in my body very closely.  No wonder so many Americans are diagnosed with cancer – we’re eating lighter fluid, cow poop, sawdust, acid…  I just can’t believe I didn’t know any of this until I read this book.  I mean, yes, I knew that meat comes from cute little animals that we cut up into tiny pieces and cook, but I had no idea that the production of this meat was so environmentally and ethically heinous.  I used to make fun of the tree-huggers but I’m going to be bear-hugging every damn deciduous on this block!!!!

As for calories, I’m too lazy to add them up, but I know I’m way under again.  Stir-fry, brown rice, Smacks (which are not good for me but I refuse to throw them out because I am poor), pineapple juice, and 2 cups of coffee with skim milk are definitely adding up to the 1,400 I’m supposed to be eating.  I suck.

My suggestion for your eating out problems are to set a calorie limit (say 450-500) and aim not to go over.  Look up a few basic things (pasta, rice, etc.) and know the standard numbers for things.  You can choose carefully from there.  It doesn’t have to be exact, but at least you’ll feel like you’re not going too far off track.  When I went out last night for Chinese, I set myself a 500 calorie limit knowing that the rice would fall roughly in the 150 calorie range.  My entrée couldn’t be more than 350, so I ordered sautéed string beans and I think I did pretty well.  I ate about 1/3 of the serving (the BF ate the rest despite the fact I had planned to make it lunch for the next day…).  Don’t sweat the small stuff or you’ll go nutty!

Weekend

Saturday was a total waste, as was today.  Yipes. 

I’m finding going out to eat kind of hard.  When I go to Jimmy John’s or something like that, it’s fine, since they have calorie counts on their website.  But when I go somewhere local, calorie estimations are pretty much worthless.  Today may not have been all that bad, since I had an Amy’s frozen burrito, which was 270 calories, and then I had chicken pad thai from a little Thai place near here, so overall, I was probably ok calorie-wise, actually.  

I should probably go off of how I feel, and I feel kind of gross, so hopefully I did kind of ok?  haha.  I’ll be better, I swear!

Saturday

I’m still below and I actually tried today!  WTF?

Wednesday and Thursday

Hola!  I too have failed at the Belly Blog.  I will start again today.

Wednesday I completely forgot about.  I don’t know what I ate but I know it wasn’t enough, AGAIN.  I walked about 3 miles that day too.  I remember having a Naked juice but that’s it.  I was in such a rush, it was all a blur.

Thursday, I was good until dinner.  Thank you, mall food court, for f-ing everything up!  It wasn’t even good Chinese – I wasted 23094825 calories and lord knows how much MSG and sodium on some icky orange and sweet and sour chicken.  The fried rice had that nasty red pork crap in it and tasted like motor oil.  Bah.

Alright, I’m back on-board…

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday

Whoops.  Sorry about being MIA, there isn’t really a good excuse.  Let me just update you real quick.

Monday:  1463 calories/67.3 g fat/158.4 g carbs/53.8 g protein

Tuesday:  1550 calories/35.5 g fat/239 g carbs/69 g protein

Wednesday:  997 calories/15.4 g fat/187.4 g carbs/9.3 g protein BEFORE a dinner of Boston Market (chicken, meatloaf, corn, bread, mashed potatoes, oy vey), my guess is that the calorie count would be around 1800 calories.  I’m too lazy to figure out the exact calories, but I know it was way too high.  

I will be better from here on out.  It has been easy to be lazy lately due to work being crazy, but I feel gross and bloated right now, and totally aside from weight, it is not a good feeling at all.

Tuesday

A little better, but not by much…

Monday

First of all, oh my good freakin’ lord.  I’m very glad you’re not dead.  That was a lot of alcohol for one night, especially when you tack on the 2 pints at lunch!  I just can’t believe you didn’t puke at all!  Your body must hate the shit out of you after a night like that.  How can one person consume that much and not die?

Second, I suppose I don’t have a lot of room to talk.  I didn’t consume enough alcohol to tranquilize a horse, but my body probably isn’t my biggest fan right now either since I only gave it 607 calories yesterday…  I know that’s not enough but 1) I was running around campus all day and didn’t stop to eat and 2) I wasn’t really hungry!  When I’m “the school zone” I just forget to eat.  I may be hungry, but I don’t stop to feed myself.  It doesn’t help that my bank account is running on E right now (I don’t get paid until the 15th and have been living on fumes!).  But that’s no excuse.  I must do better today because I’m going to get run-down or sick if I don’t take better care of myself and that’s no way to start the semester.  When you add on the 2 miles I walked, I’m surprised I didn’t pass out or something.

I’m in the library right now and the guy next to me just let out the most noxious fart that I must leave or vomit

Weekend Update

Saturday & Sunday , I’m not even going to attempt to recount in terms of nutrition facts, b/c it would make me throw up.  But, I’ll let you know what I had!

Breakfast @ Angelo’s = Hash browns, 3 eggs over easy, 4 slices of bacon, 1 sausage patty

Lunch @ Grizzly Peak Brewery = Smoked chicken club sandwich, 1 pint of beer, 1 pint of Bloody Mary, Hearts of Romaine salad with blue cheese and dried cranberries

Dinner = didn’t have one

Getting wasted = Half a bottle of Captain Morgan’s (~ 8 shots), 2 shots of vodka, 2 Miller Lites, 3 Southern Comforts w/ Lime, 1 fruity girl drink, and a totally worthless Sunday

Late night slice of pizza & breadstick

I’m not going to lie, looking back on it now, I probably had a scary amount of alcohol.  And by probably, I mean definitely.  I had double vision, could barely walk, and ended up with bloody feet b/c I couldn’t feel that my feet were blistering.  On the plus side, I “danced” for about 3 hours straight and hopefully sweat out most of the calories and alcohol.  Maybe?  haha

Sunday, after waking up on my friend’s couch, after being pushed out of her bed by the other person who was sharing it with us (?!?!) at 10 am, I went to Big Boy, where I had basically the same breakfast as the day before.  Apparently, 6 hours of sleep was not sufficient, so after Big Boy, I fell asleep at noon, and woke up at 7 pm!  I am a waste of a human being.  I then ate a pretty decent dinner, though I can’t remember right now what I ate. 

I am much too old to have nights like Saturday’s.  I did have a ton of fun, and hopefully did not embarass myself too much.  But shockingly, I didn’t really get sick or anything like that.  I don’t really plan on doing that again, I really only did that b/c I knew we were headed to this seedy undergrad club, and I knew the only way I could enjoy myself is if my cognitive perception and social skills were greatly impaired.  Overall, even though the weekend was total crap, I’ve lost 4 pounds since we started all this, so I think in general, I’ve been heading in the right direction!

Sunday – Goodbye, Fitday! Hello, Livestrong!

I was getting really sick of FitDay not knowing the foods that I was eating (i.e. take-out) and the CalorieWiki I was using had portions in grams which was confusing as hell to me, so I did some googling and found LiveStrong.com.  I LOVE it.  It recognizes more foods, and it basically does the same things as FitDay.  There are a few less bells and whistles, but I don’t use everything anyways.  The one great addition is that you can note when you ate something on your food list so you can see your calorie distribution over the day.  Very cool.  You can check it out here if you’re interested.

Sunday I did well but could have eaten more.  I had 1,018 calories, 29 grams of fat, 157 carbs, and 27 grams of protein.  Overall, I was running at about 60% on everything.  I was actually surprised because I had IHOP for dinner!  I didn’t overdo it, so I stayed within my limits.  That was a great feeling!

Alright, time to get ready for class.  This Monday/Wednesday 8:30AM dealio is going to kill me!

Saturday

Saturday was my day off and I didn’t really take full advantage!  I slept until 1:30pm (awesomeness) and then ate some leftover veggie chili that honestly, just keeps getting tastier with age…  Then I read for a bit and then fell asleep (again!) watching a movie.  The BF and I had BK for dinner (chicken sandwich with WAY too much mayo, half of my fries, and half of an Oreo shake).  That be it minus some water!  It was a pretty decent day because 1) I was sleeping for most of it and 2) I didn’t go crazy at BK.

Hope you’re feeling better, Belly #1.  Drink lots of water and go for a walk.  I found that helped me out last week.