Yesterday, the office-provided lunch was Panda Express.  I should have brought my own lunch.  I should have gone out for lunch. I should have done something.  But shoulda, coulda, didn’t.

I really like Panda Express. A lot. So I had a lot of the fried rice, a good helping of the orange chicken, some of the BBQ pork, and a little bit of the chow mein.

At the end of it all, my calorie intake for lunch was… drumroll please…

1,742!!

What was I thinking?!  Plus, I always snack in the afternoon and I hadn’t even had dinner yet, so was I insane in consuming nearly 1,750 calories ine ONE MEAL?! It was also loaded with sodium, and by the end of the day my sodium was 400% of the recommended value.  Egads.

I decided to do some cardio at the gym in addition to my weights and ran until the treadmill said I had burned 204 calories (I stopped at about 2.5 miles).  I then decided to walk home instead of taking the subway.  I knew I had to do more to help burn off lunch.

So I ended yesterday with a total calorie intake of 2,576 calories.  Yet, despite my extra efforts, I ended up burning about 2,527.  That means I had an excess of 49 calories.  I know it’s not much, and it’s not like I’m trying to lose weight (If I were, I’d be aiming for a deficit of about 500 calories a day).  But still, what happens to that extra 49?  Since I had a big deficit on previous days, does that mean it doesn’t matter?  Does it go to make a little bit less my earlier deficit, so technically I’m still in the red?  Or does it get converted and stored as fat?  See, this is why I was wondering about “roll over calories” and what exactly happens to excess calories on a daily basis.

I need to do more research.  I also need to stop eating Panda Express!