> Right now I have a cold. But for the last few days, I've been running 1
> mile every night. That's 10 minutes of running at 6 MPH. Sounds easy,
> right? Well let me tell you, by the end of those 10 minutes - no, wait,
> *before* the end of those 10 minutes, I am absurdly exhausted.

Go slower and further - once you have built up to 3 or 4 miles at a 
slower pace you'll find if you go back to 1 mile you can do it a lot 
faster without much effort. Get a heart rate monitor watch that beeps 
above a certain limit, it helps to control your speed and stop you 
getting worn out too quickly.

> According to this machine, my flabby 180 lbs pounding the treadmill at 6
> MPH burns about 15 kcal per minute. So a 1 mile run burns off a 150 kcal.

But when compared to what your body burns off anyway during the day 
without any exercise (around 2500 kcal) running 1 mile doesn't really 
allow you to eat significantly more than if you didn't run.

> Now look at that bottle of coke in my hand. "47 kcal", it says. So just
> by having a drink when I'm done, I've completely negated 30% of that
> mile. No, wait a sec - that's 47 kcal per 100 ml! But this isn't a 100
> ml bottle - it's 550 ml. So that's... uh... 258 kcal!

That's why there's a million diet options available - the 600 ml bottle 
of pepsi max here on my desk has 100x less calories :-)

> It seems crystal clear to be that the /only/ reason the manufacturers
> would possibly do this is so that they can print smaller, less
> frightening numbers on the packet.

That reasoning doesn't explain then why they put the values per 250 ml 
serving on the front of drinks, when they could put the values per 100 
ml instead. I wonder if there is a set of "standard" serving sizes?

Post a reply to this message