On Dieting, Moving My Body, and Clearing the Clutter

Part the First: On Dieting.

I've always liked Chinese food.  As a child in University City Missouri, I used to revel in the times we would get to go to the Magic Lantern Restaurant (which we always called Wong's, because we knew the owners (who were named Wong)).  Their WonTon soup is still the bench mark by which I measure all WonTon soup.  Few come close.

I loved their Beef with Broccoli and Snow Peas.  Now everyone makes either Beef with Snow Peas OR Beef with Broccoli.  Can't get both veggies together any more.  That's so unfair.  Someday, I'll learn how to make that incredible brown sauce, and then I can make my own.

I also loved their Chicken Almond Ding.  I've never seen it anywhere since.

And I loved, as an adult diving into a plate of Chinese food, that Chinese Food is supposedly healthy.  For years now I've been hearing how HEALTHY Chinese food is.  Folks go on and on.  And they say things like "NO one gets fat eating Chinese food."

HAH!

Have you taken a look at the calorie and fat count in that plate of delectible food? Likely not.  How do I know? Because it's almost impossible to FIND.  Last night, at my daughter's finally polite urging we yielded to the temptation and ordered Chinese take out.  Since I'm on this food watching kick, I investigated to learn just what I was eating. I googled, I searched, I searched SparkPeople, I searched all sorts of sites... nowhere could I find a hint about the nutritional values of the "four seasons" meal we had (beef, pork, chicken & shrimp with chinese vegetables (including broccoli, green beans, baby corn, and snow peas) in a brown sauce.) No hints at all. And though I could likely calculate that I ate about 0.3 oz each of beef, pork & chicken, I can't get that close on the veggies and have NO CLUE about that brown sauce. Grumble

I ate sparingly, and focused more on the veggies than the meat, but still... I finally gave up and just pretended that I'd eaten the closest "fake it" food choice I could find in spark's list (Beef & Broccoli) Have you ever checked out the nutritional values for beef & broccoli?  Have you?  I did.  I'm appalled!  Admittedly, I can't tell if the Chinese food I ate last night was made the same way as the calorie counter stuff was, but here's what Spark People's Nutrition listing tells me:

Chinese Beef with Broccoli, with 4.4 oz flank steak has 1061.8 calories per "serving!"  and 91.2 g of fat, 1704.4 mg of sodium, 27.7 g of carbs....  Now, we all know that no one eats enough beef & broccoli to consume a full 4.4 oz of flank steak at one sitting, (right?)  But still, you probably eat 2 ounces worth of meat before you're done, right? So that's about 1/2 a serving. I can almost live with the calorie hit of 530 calories (over 1/3 of my daily calorie intake, but whatever) -- but there are still 45.6 g of fat in that one serving!  That's easily an entire day's worth of fat right there .. more than a day's allocation if you're watching your fat intake.  OUCH

And that didn't let you have any pot stickers, or crab rangoon or...

Sigh.

Worst of all, even after you've savored the delicious allegedly healthy fat filled plate... you'll be hungry in an hour!  What is WITH that??  There are those who say that MSG, which appears in SOME restaurant's food, is, in addition to an alleged flavor enchancer, an appetite stimulant.  But I don't think our folks use it....

I hate Chinese food! 

Part the Second:On Exercise.

I've been doing fairly well, despite a rash of missed days last week.  I usually get a work out in during my lunch hour.  Last week, however, I had networking lunches -- good for my career, bad for my waist line.  And the trend looks to continue (I have one booked for next week already).

Even so, I did managed to put in 6.14 miles walking and 7.6 elliptical miles.  I WILL make it to 100 miles by April 1.  I will, I will.  I've even started logging in on Run-A-Go-Go.  I posted my progress to date, and logged my mileage.  I've begun to wonder just how to track my elliptical miles -- some folks' elliptical machines seem to track running miles.  The one I use claims to track "bike miles".  What's the difference?  When I've time, I'll try to learn.

Part the Third: On Resolution Progress

Among my new years resolutions was the decision to clear up my desk and its surrounding area.  I'm feeling more than a little discouraged on this front.  Today, I spent most of the day fighting through the pile of paper that had grown on my desk.  I tried.  I really tried....  I dealt with EVERY single piece of paper as I came to it in the pile.  The only things I put off to other piles are a) things that I dealt with but now need to move to the tax folder (which DH has taken downstairs); b) things that need to be filed (only a few, cause I did do filing) and c) things that belong elsewhere, which I'll take there when I get up. 

I wrote the emails, I paid the bills, I balanced the accounts in Money,  I filed, I tossed...

and still...

It looks like this!

Sigh.

At least the teetering pile that was threatening to bury the computer has been significantly reduced:

See, you can even see a touch of wood grain if you look closely....

Tomorrow, the Divine though Blogless Elizabeth and I will take steps towards flashing and selling our stashes.  Me... I'll be photographing so I can flash.... and sorting through to try to sell some of it off.  I really must force myself to admit that yarn I've harbored for ten years is unlikely to be knit by me...  Perhaps it will be knit by YOU!

Perhaps I'll flash my UFO's too... (scary boo)

Comments

[Lady Wyvern]

Back in the 80s, Stephen Yan put out two videos, Wok on the Wild Side and Wok before you Run. Both had the awesome brown sauce. Corn starch, water, oyster sauce, sesame oil, soy sauce ( which is where all the sodium comes from ) however, none of his dishes on either video were over 300 calories per serving and the Gold Coin Beef is to die for.

[Cathy]

I eat Chinese weekly - and since I am diabetic, you know I have to watch what I eat. I don't have any trouble with high blood sugar or weight gain at the Loveland place. The Ft C place was quite the opposite. So come out here. :-)

I decluttered but along with the clutter went my incentive to work on anything. I am still skeining sock yarn.

Exercise? Reduced to mall walking and exercise biking. Good thing I didn't join the runagogo - I'd make everyone look athletic.

[Carrie K]

I had forced decluttering this weekend, but it's all so nice and clean right now (if not exactly decluttered.).

Chinese food has calories? Noooo.

[jessie]

I so wish you hadn't shared the calorie count on the Chinese food. I KNOW it's not good, but I prefer ignorance.

I'm with you on the Run a Go Go thing and I have started counting the elliptical as regular miles, but not the bike. I am guessing that the one I use is running miles, because I went 1.5 miles in 20 minutes, which is about the rate I run, especially if I were going uphill!

And I've been working on my office, too. We're about in the same place!

[D]

PF Chang's is pretty good about having nutritional information available on their website, but for the most part, it is really hard to count calories eating Chinese. It can be an extremely healthy food, but you do have to cook it yourself. And I think the problem with the lovely brown sauce is oil, lots. I'll see if I can dig up a healthier version and email it to you.

[Lady Wyvern]

He did a cookbook also. I have it ( my daughter had to remind me I had it). I had to go look and see what the name and info was on the cover I have .
Chinese Recipes, Stephan Yan, originally published in 1978, with reprint in 1980 and a spiral bound copy in 1981.
There are 3 copies available on biblio.com here - http://www.biblio.com/search.php?stage=1&dbrowse_author=11109-Y