Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Panda Express

I've been super hungry for lunch this week.  Today I added 200 calories to my breakfast in an attempt to stave off hunger a little longer.  It helped, but not so much that I would do it again.  I think I'd rather have a 100 calorie snack at 10:30 or 11:00 and then lunch.  I save 100 calories that way and still calm my hunger

Today I wanted something different for lunch.  Something that was not in my fridge or kitchen.  I had to run a couple of errands, so while I was out, I went to Panda Express.  But for the record, I researched before I left the house.  I looked up nutrition information for Subway, Taco Bell, and Panda Express.  PE was the only low-carb, low-calorie option. 

At Panda Express, I ordered steam veggies as my side, green bean chicken, and kabori beef.  Total calories?  455.  That's right folks.  455 cals and roughly 45 grams of carbohydrates.  This included half of a fortune cookie.  It was a nice break from my usual fare.  I was satisfied.  Not full, not tired from carb overload.

Some diet and nutrition books recommend eating less than 50 net carbs per day for weight loss.  I find that number difficult to consistently acheive.  Other books recommend staying below 100 carbs for weight loss, a number that although still quite low, is easier to acheive if abstaining from sugar, bread, pasta, etc. 

I've been tracking my calories, loosely, for the past couple of weeks.  But I have decided, after reading The Amen Solution, to track my food for 10 weeks.  I've never tracked food for longer than 5 weeks.  Sheesh.  Ten weeks is a long time.  

Here's my food diary for today.  I haven't had dinner or my afternoon snack, but I have already planned out what I will eat.  I do this regularly and rarely veer off plan.  I burned about 600 calories today in over an hour of walking and swimming...not at the same time.  My aim is to stay under 1700 calories per day.  I went a little over today (88 cals), but I don't think it will make much of an impact.  Yesterday I was under 1500.  With my exercise level, 1600-1800 is about right. 

And for the record, my carb count today was less than calculated by fitnesspals.com, as indicated in the below diary.  My NET carb total was about 115.  A little high, but I did have that oatmeal at breakfast.  Also, I did not eat all the (sweet) sauce on my Panda Express entrees.
Food Diary
P.S.  My body did NOT like Panda Express.  Won't do that again.

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