June 2004 Archives

On Sunday, I biked a metric century... 100 kilometers... 63 miles at the Windy 60 Bicycle Tour starting at the Northern Illinois University campus in DeKalb. That is by far the longest I've ever biked at one time. It took us 4 hours and 50 minutes, and we averaged 13.3 mph. And surprisingly, I'm not that sore. Just a little stiff. The worst pain is the sunburn! I checked the calorie calculator, and I burned about 3,000 calories. Just for a comparison, running a marathon at a 12 minute pace (5 hours, 15 minutes) would burn about 3,000 calories. No wonder I ate like a madman at dinner!

Last night, I did my second 5k of the year, the Jim Gibbons 5k sponsored by the Leukemia Research Foundation. I shaved about minute and fifteen seconds off my last time at 26:55, or an 8:40 pace. I couldn't be happier with a sub-twenty seven minute time, and a sub-nine minute mile!

The American Cancer Society, American Diabetes Association, and the American Heart Association have joined forces to help prevent diseases such as cancer, diabetes, heart disease and stroke by raising awareness and empowering individuals. They've launched a new campaign, called Everyday Choices For A Healthier Life with the message of "Protect Yourself From Yourself" by doing the following:

• Eat Right.
• Get Active.
• Don't Smoke.
• See Your Doctor.
• And Live.

This stuff is getting a lot of attention recently!

I found a transcript of Morgan Spurlock on the O'Reilly factor. One of his choice quotes:

This film isn't about McDonald's, the film is not about McDonald's, the film is about the lifestyles we lead as Americans. We overeat and under-exercise in America. This film is about the bad choices we make every day, of which fast food is a huge part of it. The film isn't just about McDonald's. But see, you, like everyone else, are making the film just about McDonald's, and that's not what it is.

And on why he choose McDonald's:

I picked McDonald's for a specific purpose because they are the leader. They influence every other business in this industry. And by picking McDonald's I picked the one company that I believe can most easily institute change, which they are moving towards.

An article describes two people who eat McDonald's for 30 days and do not have their health fall apart. The first person supposedly lost 8 pounds, and improved his triglycerides by 42% by eating between 3,000 and 5,000 calories per day. Granted he, worked out every day and he was in awesome physical shape to start with, but this still sounds a little fishy. I mean to have your triglycerides drop 42% doesn't make a lot of sense. It's almost like he did not fast correctly for his original blood tests (triglycerides can be thrown way off, if you do not fast). Also, his blood pressure went from 111/71 to 121/81. He claims this was originally low, and now it's normal, which is incorrect. 120-130 is pre-hypertension. You really want to be below 120. And having your blood pressure raise 10 points in thirty days is really nothing to brag about... that's scary! The second person stayed below 2,000 calories per day, and also did exercise.

I think both these people missed the point of Super Size Me a bit. The first guy shows that being physically fit is really important. That is something that Morgan Spurlock brings up in the movie. In fact, he purposefully takes cabs to reduce his fitness to be as physically active as the "average" American. The first guy is not your average American. He's totally ripped and probably in the extreme upper percentile of Americans. You're average American does not work out for an hour and a half per day. That guy probably needs 4,000+ calories per day to fuel his body. And the second person who kept her daily calories below 2,000 missed the point that it's damn hard to do that. You're average combo consists of at least 1,000 calories! Get three of those, and you're easily over 3,000 calories.

Super Size Me really points the blame at America's overeating and laziness for the obesity issue. I think he did pick on McDonald's and fast food for the shock value. But it's hard to eat well at most every restaurant out there, fast food or not. In fact many times other restaurants are worse, much worse. He probably could have done the movie eating out at a different restaurant for all 900 meals, but that doesn't have the same marketing hype. His point was to raise awareness on the obesity issue. He was able to grab a lot of attention by picking on fast food. I think many people will now see the movie and hopefully learn to change their lifestyles that otherwise would not have. If this happens at McDonald's expense, then so be it. It's not like they're a saint of a company or anything.

I was playing broomball with some friends over the weekend, and I took a hard fall on the ice. It was pretty much a direct hit on my left shoulder. The result: a separated shoulder, aka AC separation. A couple nice descriptions, with pictures: here, and here. I'm currently in a sling, and will be until at least Saturday. After that, I get back to normal slowly. I see another doctor next Thursday, and I'll find out how quick the recovery will be. I'll probably need physical therapy, too. Unfortunately, there's no running, biking, or weight lifting for me in the immediate future. I never thought I'd say this, but I miss them already, and it's only been less than a week! Thankfully I have Netflix.

As if it's not hard enough to watch what you eat these days. It turns out that the healthy salmon filet, rich in omega-3 fatty acids, has a downside, too. Ok, the salmon itself does not have a downside, but how it's raised does. Most farm-raised salmon is not safe to eat more than once a month. It turns out farm-raised salmon are containimnated with many industrial chemicals, including PCBs, dioxins, and mercury. All are so contaminated that if you eat them once a month or more, your chance of cancer increases 1 in 100,000. So what to do? Eating wild salmon is one option. Unfortunately, it's a lot more expensive: $15/pound vs. $6/pound for farm raised. You also have to watch the source of the wild salmon. Chinook from Alaska is just as contaminated as some farmed species. Of course, the increase in cancer is small enough you may not care. In fact, if you drink diet soda, I'd be more worried about that. And salmon is probably still better for you than processed foods, and even red meat (since red meat may increase the risk of colon cancer). I don't eat salmon that often, so I'll just buy the good stuff. It's not gonna bankrupt me. But for someone who has decided to eat salmon multiple times per week, you may want to think about adding a little fish variety to your menu.