Posts by sanguinepenguin

Hi! What a great topic to pick for a paper. As a reference, I'm reading a book Called "Food Matters" by Mark Bittman. He covers some of those topics and it might be useful to you. One thing about our world today is that for most of us, we have more food than we could possibly ever eat, which has led to a culture of over-consumption. And because we rely on the media to tell us what we need to be doing, how we need to act, and what our priorities should be, we are extremely vulnerable to advertising. A fave of mine are the pork commercials, that claim that pork is the "other white meat". Because we were told that poultry and fish are "white meats" and that they are "healthy", then when someone tells us that pork is a white meat (which it isn't, just when it's cooked it turns white, but it's red to start with, duh) all of a sudden pork sales go through the roof and we begin to think that pork is just another form of poultry or fish. Sorry, I just went off on a tangent. For me, or in my opinion, it all comes down to education, or the lack thereof. Sure, people are stressed out and time is money, right? But there are people out there (read: big industry) that are smarter than us and lot more savvy. They can spend billion of dollars just to get the average person to up their average beef consumption by even .5oz. That .5oz per person translates into even more billions of dollars in revenue for them.

So, I guess I sound like I'm a conspiracy theorist, which I suppose I could be. But all the pieces start coming together when you take a closer look at advertising and when you consider how much time the average american spends in front of a computer or TV. I live in Germany (I'm a soldier) and Germans are always out eating and they have some incredibly fatty foods and plenty of it, but they are really a pretty slim bunch. I don't know if that's because they tax you for owning a TV or if it's because they're good at moderation or if it's because they have 5 weeks of vacation every year, but you sure don't see fat people like we have in the States. Go into a French supermarket (like I did this last weekend) and everything is fresh, made with real butter, real milk, real sugar, no hydrogenated oils or high fructose corn syrup, and very little is available already prepared. But Germans and French have kids, and jobs, and stress. They manage somehow. Now, that's not to say that I'm losing weight like I want to. There are plenty of ways to pack it on here and the beer is just the beginning. But I blame it on the way Americans eat. We don't take enough time to enjoy our food because it's really not very good, and we always have someplace we HAVE to be. I can scarf down a pizza in, like, 4 minutes. OK, almost. But seriously... Europeans take FOREVER to eat, it seems, and I find myself becoming irritated when the waitress doesn't being my check soon enough. I'm trying to correct that, but it's tough overcoming a cultural norm.

For those of you who read this, please don't think that I'm anti-American.  I love my country and all the opportunities it gives. But for all our greatness, we have a tremendous amount of greed and the idea that "more is better" is firmly ingrained in our psyche. Next time you go to a grocery store, briefly imagine what would happen if you stayed out of the isles, and just stuck to the fringe of the market. What's on the outside? Produce, raw meat, cheese, milk, booze :-) Take a briefy foray into the isles to get some spices or indulge your baking wants and needs (like I do) and then hit the checkout. Is it impossible to imagine?

So I wandered off again, but I hope this gives you at least a spark of an idea for your paper. Good luck!

Just reading these makes me forget about the delicious granola bars in my car. Damn, I just remembered.

OK, here's what I found. On the Brayden website, for 3 hours and 14 minutes of running with an average HR of 155, it tells me I burned 1860 calories. I am 28 years old, I weigh 189 lbs, I'm female, and I don't know my VO2Max so entered zero in that field. On the triathlon website mentioned above, with the same stats, it tells me I burned 2866 calories. While I wish that were correct, but I think the Brayden one is closer to the truth.

I've struggled with the same problem as a long distance runner. Most people and sources say that (while running or walking) you burn about 100 calories per mile. But sometimes I run very slow (if doing over 10 miles) and sometimes I try to run pretty fast, so needed to have something that was a little more accurate. My HR monitor doesn't have a calorie function, but it does give me my average HR over the duration of a workout, if I use the stopwatch function. I've recently started entering this information into a formula that just uses the average HR, total time, my age, weight, and sex, and then gives me calories burned. I've been losing weight as I have adjusted my caloric intake to match this, so I assume that it is reasonably accurate. For example, after running for 1:55 hours, with an average HR of about 156, I burned 1113 calories. This seems far more likely than the 2500 or so calories that I would "burn" on the treadmill. Just my take on it...

Biggest problem... all of them! I love carbs and justify (wrongly) eating them because I'm training for a marathon. Just FYI, running or training for a marathon will not make you skinny! I know! I also sit in front of a computer for 8-9 hours a day, which pretty much un-does all the exercise in the morning. And... I'm such a foodie that I have a hard time saying no to new and interesting foods and wines.

Just a note... if you're drinking caffeine free and sugar free  tea, then that could count towards your daily water intake. However, soda, juice, and milk, should not count, as they have far too much sugar. Water is meant to flush your body of toxins, and to replenish what we lose during the day. Juice and soda will not do this. Research is showing that while we don't need to drink the formerly recommended 8 glasses a day because food holds water, you should base your hydration level off of your urine color. Anything darker than pale yellow and you are dehydrated even if you don't feel like you are. Juice and milk are fine a few times a day because they have calcium and carbohydrates and plenty of needed vitamins, but make sure that you are taking in water, too.

Hey Audrey - looks like we're the only ones on here for a while... let's get the party started again! I'm almost 6'1 and weight about 193. CC says I should weight 164.9 and I have to agree. I'm pretty athletic, I'm training for my first marathon and I've done some triathlons, but at 165 lbs I think I will be nice and lean and still strong. I def. don't want to be a stick figure, but it'd be nice to not be at the end of my size range... I'd love to fit into a size 8, or even a 10. I just started CC yesterday, so if you have any words of wisdom or motivation, feel free to share them! I'll do the same :-)