Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Today's fortune: March 15, 2011

Today's fortune: You will soon receive an usual gift of food for your health.

This is the first major grammatical error I've seen during this project, and having been at it for over seventy days now, that's pretty remarkable. Most people (myself included) struggle to write a single sentence without a grammar error, much less seventy sentences.

But what we have here would be an example of Engrish. I'm sorry if you're offended by the term. It's the best word I can find to describe this. "Engrish" refers to the phenomenon of foreign-born speakers mis-translating the English language, often to hilarious results.


There's an entire website devoted to Engrish here. But be careful before clicking on the link: block off a couple hours before you go to the site, because you won't want to leave once you get there.

Unfortunately, whether this fortune refers to "an unusual" or "a usual" gift of food for my health, today I didn't receive either.

But I've been giving myself healthy food gifts for the past few months. I've mentioned my diet on this blog, but I haven't gone into too many details.

So here it is, the Fortune Cookie Diet (which is a none-too-subtle knockoff of an actual diet):

First thing in the morning, I eat one fortune cookie (sometimes only half, sometimes none of it if I'm feeling particularly sick of fortune cookies that day), and I'm estimating they have about 30 calories each. At my office, I eat a 200-calorie breakfast, usually a granola bar (Nature Valley or a store brand). At around 10 a.m., I have a 100-calorie snack pack. There are several varieties but, being a cheapskate, I buy the cheapest I can find. Lunch is another granola bar, and around 3 p.m. it's one more 100-calorie snack. When I get home, dinner is 500 to 600 calories or so. Tonight it was a lovely salad. Sometimes it's a frozen meal. I eat dessert around 8 or 9 p.m., and it's - again - 100 calories.

I eat six times a day (seven if you count the fortune cookie), and although the meals aren't very large, the "experts" say it's good to eat throughout the day to keep your metabolism up (although I'm beginning to think the whole concept of "metabolism" is largely bullshit).

Although my intake is only about 1,200 to 1,300 calories per day, I'm not usually hungry.

I cheat occasionally. On weekends I'm sometimes guilty of eating lunch and dinner. But I can't remember the last time I had three actual meals in a day.

The best part is, I've lost a little weight.

If you want to get on the Fortune Cookie Diet, just send me a check for $400 each month. Stick to this plan and you'll lose weight, too!

5 comments:

  1. I comend you for attempting to get healthy, and eating 5 to 6 times a day is good. However, granola bars are not as healthy as you think. Check out the sugar grams. One might be ok , but you could help balance your blood sugar levels better by eating a hard boiled egg and oatmeal . Try fruit like a banana for snack. Keep trying! Your lovely family needs you health.

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