Weekly Fitness Blog Item
Weekly Fitness Blog Item - 161 pounds, 32.5″ waist. Strangely for a holiday week, that’s three pounds below last Sunday, but like I said, the actual number has been bouncing around within a four-pound range. There was a typo in last week’s waist figure too - it should have read “32.75,” not 34.75.
Goal for the holidays: Stay under 165 pounds through New Year’s. I’ll need a goal for next year after that. I’m toying with the idea of - gulp - a marathon in the fall.
In the news - Progress on the “Americans Can’t Multiply Act of 2004″:
The food label on grocery store products needs an overhaul so it will be more useful to consumers struggling to control their weight, several nutrition experts say.
For instance, a 20-ounce bottle of Mountain Dew might have a line on the nutrition facts panel that tells dieters it contains 275 calories. Currently it says 110 calories for an 8-ounce serving.
Because no American should have to multiply by 2.5. (Insert libertarian rant about public schools here.)
More:
‘’For instance, it works for a 3-ounce or a 5-ounce bag of chips where somebody might eat the whole thing,'’ says Michael Jacobson of the Center for ‘Science’ in the ‘Public’ ‘Interest’, a Washington, D.C., consumer group. ‘’For a jar of peanut butter, it doesn’t make sense. There will have to be some judgments on when it will be appropriate.'’
And we will make those judgments! We! Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!
Ahem. Scare quotes in the quoted text were mine.
I should state right out that I read the food labels on practically everything - it is a “massive government program” of which I make shameless use. But given that food label regulations have coincided pretty closely with the much-discussed rise in American obesity, the program is a little short of beneficial outcomes.
More:
But not everyone is sure this change would prompt people to eat less. Some research shows that once people choose what food they are going to eat, they pay very little attention to how much they are consuming, says Brian Wansink, a professor of nutritional science and marketing at University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign.
In one study, Wansink found total calories listed on labels did not reduce how much people ate. But people did reduce their intake if the label said they’d have to walk two miles to burn off calories contained in the package or that they’d gain one-sixteenth of a pound if they ate it all.
Interesting. An otherwise quiet fitness week. See you in seven.
