Food, Sex, and Self Control

In a survey I asked a bunch of former drug addicts which they believe more difficult to give up; drugs or sex. Female respondents largely said drugs. Male respondents overwhelmingly said sex.

I wish I’d asked the same question about giving up drugs vs giving up high calorie diets.

Obesity is a major problem in our society and is only getting worse. It is one of the key factors in increased healthcare costs. It is becoming a significant issue for airline flyers who find the rolls of fat of the person next to them flowing over in to their already tight space. The Army recently noted that recruitment efforts are becoming more difficult because many who want to join are too obese to even start training and the numbers who begin training and then are kicked out because they can’t attain a minimum level of fitness is increasing.

A doctor I heard speak once said something to the effect of this: It used to be that we couldn’t avoid physical labor and that calories were difficult to come by. Today we can’t avoid calories but physical labor is difficult to come by.

I understand where he’s coming from, and agree that things have changed, but not to the extent that he espouses. Stop by any major construction site and you’ll see a number of obese people doing physical labor. It’s not just a lack of labor among the general population. Exercise is critical to good health, but almost no amount of exercise can overcome a high calorie diet. A 490 calorie scone from Panera Bread will require about 3 hours of brisk walking (8 miles in 2 hours, 35 minutes) to work off.

Calories are certainly more prevalent today than in the past, but just because they’re available doesn’t mean we have to partake. We can choose to eat healthier. We don’t have to eat Big Mac’s or Alice Springs Chicken (a menu item at Outback Steakhouse that alone has as many calories as many people need in an entire day.)

I’ve done it so I know how difficult it is. Over about a 10 or 15 year period I’d very slowly put on 3 or 4 extra pounds a year until I was noticeably pudgy. I reduced my calorie intake to about 1,800/day to lose the extra 35 lbs and now generally stick to about 2,100 to maintain it. I eat out over 90% of my meals, travel a good bit, and eat at formal dinners and other events. It’s not even remotely impossible to choose to do it and then do so.

This does pose a question. Is every person capable of the self-control and self-discipline necessary to limit their diet to something appropriate like 1,600 – 2,200 calories per day?
How many of the obese people around us are or are not capable of controlling what they eat. Is it different for men and women?

How would you rank sex, drugs, and high calorie food on the self-discipline scale?

Will posting calories help control obesity?

The one thing in Obama’s healthcare bill that I have been supportive of is the requirement that restaurants post calorie information on menu’s. Panera Bread cafés began doing this recently of their own initiative. Does it work?

My wife and I ate in Panera for dinner last night. Based on the calories posted I chose a half Cuban chicken sandwich and half cobb salad. 680 calories was within my 900 calorie dinner allowance. So far so good. They also have a promotion for a bakery item for 99 cents. That 490 calorie orange scone (my future daughter-in-law makes real (and very good) scones, Panera’s are not real but more like scone shaped muffins) sure was good.

Based on this study, posting calories is of little benefit 

FitBit

While we’re talking about calories… I read an article recently about a device called a fitbit. It measures your activity throughout the day and tells you how many calories you’ve burned. Sounds like a good thing.

This morning I heard a group of POS (persons of size) talking about something similar that they all have. They were all excited because their devices showed that they burned 250 calories going on a 40 minute walk. “I can eat a candybar.” one said.

There’s a danger in this. Thanks to our metabolism we naturally burn a bunch of calories throughout the day, usually between about 1500 and 2500. I burn about 60 calories per hour when I’m sleeping, about 80/hr for the approximately 12 hours I’m fairly sedentary sitting at my desk, and about 190/hr for the 4 hours I’m somewhat active which includes things like taking a shower, grocery shopping, or cutting the grass. For all of this I can eat about 2200 calories a day and not gain weight. Eating anything more than my base metabolic rate will destroy my svelte figure.

If, for one of my ‘active’ hours, I go for a long walk that burns 250 calories, I haven’t burned an extra 250, but only an extra 60 or so. I’d actually have to walk a 250 calorie per hour pace for a bit over 4 hours to burn off that candybar. I do a lot of bike riding and burn about 1000 calories per hour (approx 20mph pace). That doesn’t mean that I can eat an extra 1000 calories though. Realistically I’ve only burned about an extra 800 calories. In reality though I find that for that 1000 calorie ride I can only eat about 600 calories over my 2200 calorie metabolic rate or similarly 1200 calories on a day I’ve supposedly burned 2000 calories on my bike. I’m not sure if my computer and various charts give high calorie burn information or if it just takes more than a calorie to burn a calorie.

Moral of the story – be careful how many calories you think you’ve burned.

Obesity, drugs, and self-control

Companies such as Entero-Medics and Leptos Biomedical are striving to develop devices that will curb people's appetites so they'll eat less. Eat less, fewer calories, and your weight goes down. It's really rather simple. What ever happened to basic self-control? With products like these all we're doing is reinforcing a belief that we don't need self-control. This is a dangerous thing to teach. We do need self-control and controlling our gastronomical system is a great way to develop self-control that will then benefit us in other areas. And we wonder why we're so quickly falling behind other countries.

Next question: How long will it be before, thanks to a government program, we're paying for these devices for those poor obese souls who lack the self control to eat normally?

Why Drilling Might Not Be Such A Good Idea.

There are a lot of good options on both sides of this one. I’m a bit of an environmentalist, but I’m also a pragmatist. If it makes sense to drill on-shore or off I don’t think it’s that huge of an issue as long as proper precautions are taken. There is though one very good reason I might recommend not drilling – Security.

We only have about 3% of global oil reserves. That’s not very much. What would happen if we used up ours and the folks controlling the bulk of the rest decided to wage war against us and started by cutting off our oil supplies? We’d be crippled.

The increase in gas prices is inconvenient. But that’s all it is. We might drive a bit less. We’ll plan errand runs better instead of multiple trips. We might choose a more fuel-efficient car or maybe even invest in a scooter. Maybe we won’t fly to Disneyworld for vacation. People did without gas fueled conveniences for many many hundreds of years.

There may even be some advantages. We’ve become a nation of ugly obese slobs. Maybe we’ll rent fewer movies and walk or bike more.

Airlines: We're all treated fairly?

Recently I’ve been doing a good amount of flying, much of it back and forth across the Atlantic. As I checked in for a flight yesterday I was charged for excess baggage weight. I knew that I would be and for the most part I’m fine with it. It’s a reasonable charge. Extra weight causes a plane to burn extra fuel and reduces the amount of revenue they can earn carrying other packages. This is simply the cost for me of some of the extra stuff I’ve had to carry.

Checking in ahead of me was a woman who weighed at least 250 lbs and likely over 300. From the looks of it her luggage was right at the 50 lb max as well. She was not charged for any extra weight. I weigh 160 lbs and had a 62 lb bag. Even without her luggage she weighed considerably more than me and my luggage. While this has never seemed fair, I’ve had more pressing issues than to worry about it too much.

Guess who was sitting in the seat next to me on the flight? Guess who couldn’t fit in just her own seat but flowed over in to my space? This wasn’t the first time I’ve had someone flow over in to my seat and on most airlines the flight attendants are sympathetic and try to make arrangements that will be more comfortable for both. Unfortunately this was a completely full flight so there was nothing they could do though one did apologize to me. The good news was that it was only a 1 hour flight and not 9 hours.

I paid more to fly less weight than she did to fly more weight and I got considerably less seat room than she did as well.