Tuesday, January 12, 2010

The Brown Rice Brouhaha/ Tender Mercies, Brown Rice Edition



I've been changing my eating habits these last few weeks... Yes, New Years Resolutions had to be made, and "losing weight/eating healthier/exercising" seems to always be at the top of everyone's list. While I was blessed for most of my life with a stick-thin frame that required little to no maintenance, the times, they are a-changin.

In addition to wanting to feel better about myself (and hell, just FEEL BETTER in general), I am going to marry the greatest fella in the world in September and dammit, I wanna look good (especially frolicking in a bikini on my honeymoon)!

Needless to say, there has been a lot of chicken, fish, rice & veggies in my world lately. I was VERY excited to find brown minute rice that can be microwaved in no time at all... great as a side for dinner, and so fast. I love brown rice! And they are individually packaged. Perfect, right?
I made some fish and broccoli as well, topped the rice with a little chili garlic sauce and we dug in. Wonderful dinner.
Later on, I was trying to add up the amount of calories I have been eating in a day. Bip was saying he thought dinner had been 500-600 calories, I insisted it was more in the 300-400 range, so I started going through the garbage and reading labels to do the adding. The fish had been 100 calories per fillet, the broccoli was next to nothing, and the rice was 230 calories... but wait, each of those little cups contain two servings? I ate two servings worth? Nearly 500 calories of BROWN RICE?
I started to panic. I've been trying SO HARD. I've been exercising, pushing fruit and veggies, and damn,I had really ENJOYED that dang brown rice. I was looking forward to making it a regular on my dinner plate. But being satisfied with HALF of the portion I had enjoyed? Yeah, right. I may be a woman, but I enjoy eating man-size portions of certain things, by God!
My Bip, always the voice of reason, encouraged me to chalk it up as a lesson learned and not panic. Even if I had eaten 500 calories of brown rice, I was still close to my target calorie intake. All was not lost, tomorrow was another day, etc. Heart heavy with my rice disgrace, I went to bed. Tried to forget. But it ate at me... just didn't seem RIGHT that such a moderate amount of rice should have so many calories.
So, this morning I woke up and looked at it again. And I rejoiced in my wrongness. There are two servings per CARTON (meaning two cups per package), but one CUP is indeed 230 calories. I had not had an un-ladylike grain binge after all. I was doing a body good.
Brown rice, I look forward to seeing you again tomorrow.

No comments:

Post a Comment