You Are What You Eat – Musings of A Dieter

• Calorie intake comparison between 1977 and 1994. I wonder when today's stats will be available. http://tinyurl.com/yhnsn8k #calories #

First Lady Michelle Obama yesterday gave out a few healthy food tips while speaking at the Department of Health and Human Services.

“Switching from soda to water,’’ said the first lady, who also suggested more exercise and walking instead of driving, whenever possible. “Adding a vegetable or fruit to a dinner plate.”

Via the New York Times

New York City recently instituted a program requiring restaurants to include calorie counts in food menus for all public restaurants. Now a study has been released apparently with some results to show for it. While I think it’s too early to announce a verdict on whether the program is a success or not based on the available data up to this point (the program started on July 19, 2008), McArdle takes a dive anyway.

But while a study like this certainly can’t disprove the effectiveness of calorie labeling, what remains is that we don’t have much evidence to indicate that it works. It’s not that it was a bad idea. But lots of good ideas don’t pan out in the real world.

I particularlly enjoyed this comment by McArdle:

People may have mentally credited themselves with a savings on one item, and allowed themselves an indulgence in another: “I orderd a single instead of a double or triple, so I get large fries and a frosty!” They might just be bad at math. Or they might have wanted to look good for the interviewer, which is always a risk in these sorts of surveys. But the receipts don’t lie.

Every dieter’s worst habit.

(Via The Atlantic Magazine)

Update:

Update:
Ezra Klein gives his two cents worth on the subject.

Ta-Nehisi Coates in his Atlantic Magazine blog quotes from Ezra Klein on obesity’s role in poverty and how they are intertwined and influence each other.

Klein says:

Obesity is bad, but it may be just one of many bad things. Overdue bills. A horrible part-time job. Endless commuting time on the bus. A mother with diabetes. A child running with the wrong crowd. A leaking roof. In that scenario, slowly reversing your weight gain might be a good idea, but it hardly makes a dent in the overall crumminess of the conditions. It won’t replace pain with pleasure. So you do things that are surer to replace pain with pleasure, like have a delicious, filling, satisfying, salty, fatty meal. That may make your overall situation more unpleasant, but then, making that situation pleasant didn’t seem like an option in the first place.”

And Coates comments:

It’s a lot easier to drop that 30 when everything else is going well, as opposed to when you’re worried about the kid’s school, your ability to make rent, and the fools on the corner.

Unfortunately, this is probably all true.

(Via The Atlantic Magazine.)

• Interesting food chart from 70 years ago on food and calories: http://tinyurl.com/lydg2a #calories #food #fat #

Does it take a world war to cure an economy in a depression and fix bad eating habits? World War II required the rationing of food and materials as well as creating millions of jobs in industrial labor to churn out the war machine. In other words, the war forced a controlled diet and physical exercise on a nation fighting a war in Europe and the Pacific. At the outbreak of our current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, we were asked to continue shopping. I’m thinking obesity wasn’t a problem during World War II.

“A teenage boy discovers how good nutrition (i.e. milk products) improves his habits, social life and bowling score.” And not eating apparently leads to loss of friends, girlfriends, family affection, rage, control of your brain and a starting spot on the football team.

By way of the Internet Archive.

Interesting post today from The Design Observer Group showing a nutritional chart from 70 years ago. While the tone of the post suggests that the chart is out-of-date and no longer mainstream dietary thinking, I think the chart is closer to today’s nutritional beliefs than it would appear. While the list of myths in the article are largely true, the chart itself is not that far off the mark:

By zooming into the image, one can glean the following text:

“The heat given off by food is used in maintaining the body temperature and supplying energy to the muscles. For this work the average daily requirement is around 3,000 Calories, and then since a pound of butter will produce 3,600 Calories, any one of the food quantities shown in this chart would more than supply all the daily heat and energy needs of most people. The quantities, however, are only approximate and will vary according to the weight and fat content of the particular …, chop, cantaloupe, or bunch of celery, etc, you may happy to buy. The amount of fat in food is what largely … in heating power, since, when burned in the body, one gram of fat will produce more than twice as much heat (3.3 Calories) as one gram of either protein or carbohydrate (??? Calories). Today Calories are considered a crude guide to diet simply because the heating power of food often has little to do with its nourishing power.”

Read The Design Observer Group post here.

The New York Times reports today that Mayor Michael Bloomberg, while instituting strict regulations on New York City for the use of trans fats, salt, restaurant displays of calorie amounts and more, isn’t always one to practice what he preaches.

“Friends of the mayor said that, like most New Yorkers overwhelmed with food choices, he swings between two dietary poles: indulgence and abstemiousness. After a dinner loaded with fat and salt, they said, he will consume a grapefruit for breakfast, then a bowl of soup for lunch. He keeps a running calorie count in his head, and rarely exceeds 2,000 a day, they said.”

Too many people after getting married or reaching beyond the age of 40 feel that there is no need to lose weight or maintain a smaller waistline. It’s quite refreshing to see someone as rich and powerful as Michael Bloomberg following some sort of regimen in losing weight, even if he too often splurges. But as I have described myself doing in previous posts, heavy duty meals are followed by lean and overly healthy meals the following day. As long as one falls under the weekly estimate of a 2,000 calorie per day meal, or in my case, 1,200 calories when aiming to lose more weight.

Unlike Mayor Bloomberg, I tend not to trust my head in tabulating calorie numbers for a day, because it’s all too easy to forget the small little nibbles that come up throughout the day. This adds up and might lead one to a false comfort in thinking that they ate under the calorie limit for the day. Software tends to be more efficient than my memory in this department when recording one’s daily intake.

Read the New York Times report.

• Welcome to the Calorie Nazi: http://www.calorienazi.com #calorie #diet #loseweight #
• Beware of the green check mark! Fruit Loops, Skippy, and mayonnaise are not healthy! http://tinyurl.com/mjos2s #foodlabel #smartchoices #
• Until corn subsidies end, cheap food will always mean more calories. http://tinyurl.com/nb7pgy #time #bryanwalsh #
• My Nike/Apple sensor finally works. Don't know why it took three times to get it to start recording data. Now to see how accurate it is. #
• Let's see what distance my Apple/Nike sensor tells me about the walk home from the office. I am guessing 3.7 miles. #
• My first blog post on CalorieNazi.com: "Why Calorie Nazi?" – http://tinyurl.com/o5hfoq #weightloss #calories #diet #nutrition #
• Apple/Nike sensor says walk home from office is 3.8 miles. My guess off by 1/10th of a mile. Did it in 1 hour and 15 minutes. #fitness #
• Calorie Nazi has been on Twitter for just one day and already I have a retweet. #
• Can aerobic exercise make us smarter or at least think faster? http://tinyurl.com/qsabr9 #rats #
• At at a Japanese cuisine restaurant. Claimed to be Japanese Tapas. Never heard that before… #