| + | Monday, January 31, 2011 |
Day One, 1/2
Day 1, 1st February.Thoughts and Analysis
This breakfast of a granola bar and milk is my typical, everyday breakfast. I don't really eat three full meals because I find that smaller meals fill me up better. This entire table is pretty much normally what I eat, except sometimes lunch changes according to my mood.
Granola bar, according to the Healthy Pyramid, belongs to the bottom-most and most important part: whole grains, for energy. I couldn't find any information on the HPB website but I managed to find some nutritional information on the box itself: 283 calories per bar with 3.6g of fat and 1.3g of saturated fat. There's also about 220mg of sodium, which is quite reasonable, I think (9% of daily value). There's a surprising amount of carbohydrates - but then again, it is whole grain - of 56.9g and A LOT of dietary fiber: 22.5g, which is 90% of the daily value! As for skim milk, there's 80 calories per cup, with no fat and 120mg of sodium (15%) 8g of protein (16%), so I think it's quite healthy. And according to the HPB website, I'm supposed to drink 2 glasses of milk for the day, so that's one half already.
Almonds have 5g of fat, but it's monounsaturated fat, which is healthy for us, so that's okay. There's a surprising amount of calories per slice of wholemeal bread: 93kcal, which I didn't really expect. There's 16.9g of carbohydrates and very little fat - only 1.5g. For the Quaker bar, there's 110kcal and 22g of carbohydrates (7%) along with only 2.0g of fat - but it's all saturated fat, the bad unhealthy fats.
Shrimp rolls have 46kcal each, and 273mg of sodium just for ONE roll. That is a LOT of sodium - so I have to cut down on shrimp rolls. Never did like them much, anyway. The delectable pineapple tart already has 82kcal (per tart!) and 58mg of sodium. A lot less than the shrimp paste roll. But there's also 2.3g of unhealthy, saturated fat. The soy milk has 128kcal, with 19g of carbohydrates.
As for my mushroom and cheese sandwich: the bread used was wholemeal bread, which is good, and it was toasted, which aids in digestion. The cheese has 60kcal and 4.5g total fat, but also 2.5g of saturated fat. There's 250mg of sodium in that one slice of cheese. It was melted cheese, which helps digestion. I assume that it was shitake mushrooms, with a standard serving size of 100g - 222kcal, and 54g of carbohydrates (18%), which is a lot. I didn't really expect fungi to have a lot of carbohydrates. There's also no fat in them, which is good. The apple, a healthy snack, has 130kcal and 34.0g of carbohydrates - I always thought carbs only came from grains and wheat and oat. There's also 5g of dietary fibre (20%) and 25g of sugar - a lot, but that should be expected, as Fuji Apples are sweet. The red bean paste bun has 102kcal, and 54mg of sodium. There's also 16g of carbohydrates.
My post-run nightly meal! :) The milk is low-fat milk (so there goes my limit of 2 glasses/day) and the muesli is actually a brand called Carman's. The blueberry yoghurt has 141kcal, and 22.5g of carbohydrates (8%) as well as 1.5g of fat. The muesli has lots of nuts and dates inside it along with grain and oats and presumably, I take one serving, so there's 414kcal, 9.9g of fat and 2.3g of saturated fat (11%) which is quite a lot. There's 78.4g of carbohydrates and 13.6g of dietary fibre.
I think once I see the amount of sodium in shrimp paste, I won't be a fan of them much longer and I've got to control my intake of shrimp paste rolls during CNY. CNY goodies like the pineapple tart and shrimp roll have a lot of unhealthy stuff waiting to unleash themselves on our immune systems: saturated fats, excess sodium, trans fats... So I've got to learn how to decline food when offered. I think my lunch of toasted bread with mushroom and cheese is healthy, but it was bought from a vending machine, so it's a bit of a 'preservative'. If I can make my own version at home, it would be a lot healthier!
I should also cut down on the amount of food I eat after runs - especially since it's in the evening, I don't really need those extra carbohydrates and proteins and fats, because I'm going to sleep in a few hours anyway. I'll take smaller servings during the evening and maybe replace the blueberry yoghurt with natural, low-fat yoghurt instead, and maybe cut down on the muesli altogether and save it for mornings, since it's so rich in carbohydrates and fibre.
I think I fulfilled my quota for the base of the pyramid, especially for whole grain products, but I can add more vegetables to my diet - sometimes I 'dabao' food from my grandma's for dinner, and I add lots of kangkong/caixin/spinach, so that's alright. I got enough calcium and proteins and 'meats & alternatives' from milk and other stuf, but maybe I should eat more meat; however, I don't eat pork/mutton/beef/etc. and I don't like meat in general and only eat chicken and fish, so that limits my choices a lot. I'll have to have more dairy products so I'll get enough protein. As for the fats/oils/sugar/salt, I think I did alright, except I can try to monitor my intake of sodium (since all my food choices appear to have really high sodium content) and I'll try using olive oil when cooking.
I consumed APPROXIMATELY 2121kcal for the day, which is acceptable. Except I think it's not a very accurate judge of the amount of calories I ACTUALLY consumed, because there's always variation, and I don't weigh every single little thing I put into my mouth! And besides, if I physical activities like running/tennis/badminton/PE/etc. that day then I'd have to consume more calories or I'd die of exhaustion. I'm a bit afraid to see the nutritional information of whatever's in store for CNY now.