More on America's Obesity Problem

[Eurytus]

Which artificial sweetners? I am very interested in Stevia and am even frowing my own.

I give up Coke, but drink a ton of tea sweetened with Splenda. This can not be nearly as bad. I mean every one says calories in v. calories out, and using artificial sweetners is zero calories in, so how can they possibly make you fat?

Latest research appears to indicate that they fool your body into thinking its about to get nutritional intake that it doesn't actually get. Which then sparks your hunger and makes it much harder to forego eating. As someone mentioned, they may almost act as an appetitie initiator.

[BigFatCoward]

Depending on the beer that could be 4 times the weekly recommended limit. Why would I want to subject myself to becoming an alcoholic?

we all take our pleasures where we can get them, i personally like a drink. same as some people like to eat waaay too much. personally i get much more fun from a few pints a day than i would from getting a season ticket to crispy creme.

i have a stressful job so i have a drink, sue me. but don't call me a liar when you have never met me.

i'll leave it at that cos i normally really like your style and posts.

[kungtotte]

300 Watt for 10 minutes equals 180 kilojoule.

As a frame of reference, one Big Mac contains 2,300 kilojoule.

[Eurytus]

we all take our pleasures where we can get them, i personally like a drink. same as some people like to eat waaay too much. personally i get much more fun from a few pints a day than i would from getting a season ticket to crispy creme.

i have a stressful job so i have a drink, sue me. but don't call me a liar when you have never met me.

i'll leave it at that cos i normally really like your style and posts.

Ok, we'll leave it there but just to clarify, I don't think you're a liar. I just think you may be overestimating your calories burned. Which is, as I said previously, pretty common and given the equipment we use, very easily done.

But perhaps you're the exception there. I dunno.

[Guest Raidne]

My Dad is a runner. He ran about 3-4 miles a day, every day, at about 8 minutes miles. That is 28 miles, tops. That I can believe. Cross country teams get pretty close to that, but they usually don't keep that clip every day.

I could believe that Tormund did 44 miles a week a 8 minutes/mile once in awhile, but I'd have a hard time believing he did it regularly.

[Nichole]

By the way, did nobody click on the link of the year-old McDonald's burger in the OP? And if you did, how can you not remark on identical it looks to any burger they're dishing out right now? Not to mention the fries.

I saw your link. I wasn't grossed out as much as impressed that the technology to preserve food so well is out there.

[Jaime L]

See, this is where education fails us. How many people have said how many times it is all about calories in and calories out. Obviously, the quality of the calories has to matter as well. This brings us back to the previous thread, but it is something that is important for people to think about and realize.

There is a lot more involved than just counting the calories eaten and expended.

Yep, exactly.

I know it comes up a lot in these threads but to me it's still always worth repeating. Not all calories are created equally.

The other reason I don't like to reduce things down to calories in/calories out is it doesn't take into account how full a given meal makes you. A couple threads back I saw someone recommending just sticking to a salad at lunch as a means to lose weight which I agree with but only if satiates you. If you're still hungry, you'll undo the benefit of the low calorie lunch later, sure as shootin'.

[Tormund Ukrainesbane]

I could believe that Tormund did 44 miles a week a 8 minutes/mile once in awhile, but I'd have a hard time believing he did it regularly.

Believe it or not. I wasn't a bad cross country runner. Joined the running club in college (not good enough to qualify for the track team) We were doing 5-10 miles per day mon-sat. Also did Judo for about 1 hour per day at that time. You could see my abs from space. I've been trying to get back to that kind of shape. It's slow going.

[Nichole]

Jaime, that reminds me of a commercial I saw for canned soup. Not only is that stuff horrible for you, but they were bragging about how their soup was only 80 calories per can. I cannot imagine how anyone could be full after eating only 80 calories for lunch. I can imagine someone would eat the can of soup, still be hungry, say fuck it and head to the vending machine for a candy bar.

Or that is what I would do....

[Eponine]

My Dad is a runner. He ran about 3-4 miles a day, every day, at about 8 minutes miles. That is 28 miles, tops. That I can believe. Cross country teams get pretty close to that, but they usually don't keep that clip every day.

Huh? I'd expect a decent high school boys team to run 44+ mpw averaging faster than 8 min pace. It's certainly a good hard output of exercise that anyone can be pleased with, but not the amazing feat of fitness that BFC is making out his exercise routine to be.

I'm trying to decide if I'm being mocked here.

I was not trying to mock you! I thought Raidne was mocking BFC. I've no doubt that you did that much every week of cross-country.

*****

A big problem with "if you exercise a lot, you can eat whatever you want" is that "whatever you want" means drastically different things to different people.

If what you want is to eat bigger portions of your normal healthy meals and have dessert, then yeah, you can probably do that if you're exercising more. If what you want is 10 ice cream sandwiches, not so much.

[Swordfish]

When the amount burned off doesn't even add up to a 3rd of the increased number of calories being consumed in a single meal then yeah, its pretty minor.

I don't think it does any good to make people believe that walking a few miles is going to lose them weight whilst they continue to eat unhealthily.

Who is suggesting that?

But your shrugging off of the notion of burning off the caloric equivalent of about 30 pounds of fat per year is utterly ridiculous.

You've taken a valid point (lack of exercise is not the primary source of obesity) and taken it to an extreme, nonsensical place.

I have no idea why.

[Jaime L]

Jaime, that reminds me of a commercial I saw for canned soup. Not only is that stuff horrible for you, but they were bragging about how their soup was only 80 calories per can. I cannot imagine how anyone could be full after eating only 80 calories for lunch. I can imagine someone would eat the can of soup, still be hungry, say fuck it and head to the vending machine for a candy bar.

Or that is what I would do....

Me too.

Have definitely used "healthy" meals as an excuse to splurge later on.

Here's the article. This gives the entire breakdown. Chipotle is markedly worse when it comes to sodium. But it's better in other ways too.

Gotta say, I'm very much turned off by the preachy tone of that article. Also Chipotle's "Food with Integrity" campaign is entirely based on where the food comes from not that they're promoting something healthy. Can only scoff at the article chiding Chipotle for its "Food with Intergrity" campaign because they don't extend it to making all their offerings low calorie. It's like: "Really, Atlantic? That's who you're targeting? The one true mass buyer of sustainably raised pork and chicken products."

Also disagree with the methodology. How many people eat just a Big Mac for dinner? How full are you after a Big Mac versus how full are you after a Chipotle Burrito? Not to mention people get a Big Mac and Fries 99 times out of 100. Let's compare that to a Burrito and see how the two stack up.

That said, the saturated fat amount is unexpected and eye opening.

[Guest Raidne]

I don't know anything about it beyond my husband and sister's experience with high school cross country.

[alguien]

Believe it or not. I wasn't a bad cross country runner. Joined the running club in college (not good enough to qualify for the track team) We were doing 5-10 miles per day mon-sat. Also did Judo for about 1 hour per day at that time. You could see my abs from space. I've been trying to get back to that kind of shape. It's slow going.

Yeah, I was about to add that 30 miles per week was common in high school, when I ran, during regular season. Summer mileage was definitely higher.

But college took it to the next level, because they ran 10k races instead of 5k. Some of my best friends ran in college and their mileage was more around 45-50. Much, much higher during the summer off season, by the way.

But still, running anywhere over 20-25 miles per week, especially averaging 8 minutes per mile, is impressive.

I think my mile average now is 9 minutes, but I'm sort of a has-been. ;)

[Guest Raidne]

What's up with the 5% of Americans who are not eating and drinking?

[fitheach]

You probably discussed this in the other thread, so I apologize if I'm bringing up an old argument, but I'm not even talking about exercising, per se. I'm talking about simple things like whether one walks to and from work, increased/increasing TV viewing (probably the most injurious sedentary activity of all), sitting computer use, desk and "service" jobs as opposed to blue collar jobs, the amount of driving one does, and the like. That's not less activity. It's a complete lack of activity. For instance...

I know people that get up, walk to their driveway, go to work in their car, walk into the office, sit at the desk all day, walk to their car, go home, walk in their door, cook dinner, watch TV, and go to bed. Every single day. That's a relatively new phenomenon.

Look at the change in a child's life at this point: how many of these kids actually walk to school? 1% maybe? Nobody lives close enough these days. How many kids take public transportation to school (which requires walking)? How many are driven by their parents right to the door?

I walk a few miles a day (1 to work, 1 at lunchtime, and sometimes .5 or more at night with my wife), but I know I'm in the minority.

This is pretty much what I was saying in the previous thread about obesity. It's the little exercising that has changed. The daily walks to and from school, getting up to change the channel, etc. Also, there was a lot less fast food options in the 60's, 70's, even the 80's, and people didn't eat fast food as regularly as we to today... On top of that the potions have increased ridiculously, and high fructose corn syrup is in everything!

This is why we are fat. We need to cut down on portions, stop eating junk food and fast food regularly, and move more. People will be a little hungry when they change the portion to a smaller amount, but your body quickly adjusts...

I get really annoyed when people whine about being hungry when they cut portions, suck it up and give your body time to get used to it! Unless a person is a part of the (very) small percent in the world who have a disconnect between the stomach and the brain that tells you your full (this can be helped with medication), then they just eat too much.

[Swordfish]

I used to run about that, maybe even a little faster. It's not out of range for a person who regularly exercises.

Me too.

And I'm still in the 30 miles a week range.

45 miles a week is a lot, but it's certainly not ridiculous.

[Eurytus]

Who is suggesting that?

But your shrugging off of the notion of burning off the caloric equivalent of about 30 pounds of fat per year is utterly ridiculous.

You've taken a valid point (lack of exercise is not the primary source of obesity) and taken it to an extreme, nonsensical place.

I have no idea why.

Actually I'd say that you thinking that its "extreme" of me to suggest that 200 calories of exercise is a bare minimum says a fair bit about why we now have an obesity epidemic.

[Swordfish]

Actually I'd say that you thinking that its "extreme" of me to suggest that 200 calories of exercise is a bare minimum says a fair bit about why we now have an obesity epidemic.

No idea what this even means.

I've pretty much shown you the math on why you're wrong.

Not much else to say about it unless you are going to bring something new to the discussion.

[Eurytus]

It also found a strong correlation between modifiable lifestyle choices, such as a lack of physical activity, and the rising burden of obesity.

In the previous thread I got lambasted for suggesting that people should prepare their own food. People don't have time I was told. We all work longer hours now and only have time to commute to work, work, commute back, eat a ready meal and then go to bed.

How this squares with the 4 hours of TV a day that the average American watches is not clear.