Plan B - Day 4 - Robert Ford Fiction

Plan B Day 1 – Previous Post – Next Post

This is Zatanna. My son picked this comic. With Harley Quinn. Then he complains there’s too much partial nudity.

Today’s entry begins an important safety tip: yoga class is much harder with gout. You’d be amazed at how often one uses your big toe in yoga.

I’ve collected nuggets of advice that you hear related to dieting. And, perhaps to your dismay, I’m going to question them.

1. “You should drink 8 glasses of water per day.”
Where France does that come from? Is it bad if you drink more than that on hot days? Will your bladder disintegrate if you do?

2. “Weight loss is 80% diet and 20% exercise.”
Sometimes it’s 85/15. The math is weird here. 80% of what? For every pound lost, you can’t extract the diet part. Plus, where did this come from? If you eat very little and sit on the couch, the weight loss will be different than if you eat a bit more and exercise a little.

3. “Don’t eat after 8 PM.”
That leaves the French out. Plus what if you’re stuck in a commute and you don’t get home until 7:45? Obviously Häagen Dazs at 11 PM sure isn’t going to help.

4. “Don’t eat more than the size of your hand.”
This one is perplexing because how is that related to anything? Also, it depends how many pancakes you pile on your hand. I prefer Miss Piggy’s advice “Never eat more than you can lift.”

5. “Watch the calories.”
This is a) impossible and b) what is a calorie anyway? Not all calories are the same. 500 calories at McDonald’s is not the same as 500 calories at The Naam, a Vancouver vegetarian restaurant. Here’s the dictionary definition of calorie.

1 a : the amount of heat required at a pressure of one atmosphere to raise the temperature of one gram of water one degree Celsius that is equal to about 4.19 joules —abbreviation cal —called also gram calorie, small calorie b : the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of one kilogram of water one degree Celsius : 1000 gram calories or 3.968 Btu —abbreviation Cal —called also large calorie

2 a : a unit equivalent to the large calorie expressing heat-producing or energy-producing value in food when oxidized in the body b : an amount of food having an energy-producing value of one large calorie

So, what does this have to do with food? Well I looked that up and he’s what Scientific American had.

The original method used to determine the number of kcals in a given food directly measured the energy it produced. The food was placed in a sealed container surrounded by water–an apparatus known as a bomb calorimeter. The food was completely burned and the resulting rise in water temperature was measured.

OK. So I don’t think the process in my stomach is like that. Except maybe with spicy Indian food.

Any diet comments or advice you hate? Leave it in the comments section.