Doctor's visit

I had my annual checkup on Friday and that went well. The doctor was particularly pleased that I have kept my weight steady. I lost 30 pounds between my checkups in 2010 and 2011, and I have maintained that. He had put both of us on a low glycemic eating plan, and since Tom does almost all the cooking (except for my breakfast and lunch -- lunch normally being leftovers from dinner the night before), his wonderful and carefully balanced meals have made it much easier for me to be good.

The better news for me was that this led the doctor to take me off a blood pressure pill AND to take me off another pill that I was taking to counteract a side effect of the blood pressure pill. He took me off a third as well, which made me very happy. I had been intending to ask him what I could do to reduce my reliance on meds, but he did it before I had a chance to ask.

I also got some shot they give people my age to prevent shingles. This is a one-time deal, I think.

I will get a report next week on my lab work. If the numbers there are good, I will see if I can get off the cholesterol med next go-round. The thyroid (my thryoid gland is practically dead in the water) and gout meds I will be stuck with forever, I guess.

Hunger Games movie

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The feast is on: "The Hunger Games" has taken in $68.25 million domestically in its first day, a record for a non-sequel.

The Friday total for Lionsgate's "The Hunger Games" was the fifth-best opening day ever and puts the movie on track for the best debut weekend ever in March. That record is held by "Alice in Wonderland" with $116.1 million.

The big start should translate into an opening weekend of as much as $140 million domestically, according to Paul Dergarabedian, analyst for box-office tracker Hollywood.com.

"The Hunger Games" stars Jennifer Lawrence as a teen forced to compete in a televised death match against other youths in a future North American society where a privileged capital city oppresses the people of 12 outlying worker districts. The film is based on the first book in a best-selling trilogy by author Suzanne Collins.

These books are ginormously popular. The holds list at the library (people who are waiting to get a copy) is over 850 names. You don't have to read the books or see the movie, though, to realize that hunger even in America is not a problem for a post-apocalyptic future.

According to Feeding America,

Hunger Study 2010

Hunger in America 2010 is the largest study of domestic hunger, providing comprehensive and statistically-valid data on our emergency food distribution system and the people Feeding America serves. Hunger in America 2010 is extremely detailed, drawing on data from more than 61,000 interviews with clients and surveys of 37,000 feeding agencies.
The report shows that hunger is increasing at an alarming rate in the United States, and our network is expanding its reach in response:

Feeding America is annually providing food to 37 million Americans, including 14 million children. This is an increase of 46 percent over 2006, when we were feeding 25 million Americans, including 9 million children, each year.
That means one in eight Americans now rely on Feeding America for food and groceries.
Feeding America's nationwide network of food banks is feeding 1 million more Americans each week than we did in 2006.
Thirty-six percent of the households we serve have at least one person working.
More than one-third of client households report having to choose between food and other basic necessities, such as rent, utilities and medical care.
The number of children the Feeding America network serves has increased by 50 percent since 2006. [Emphasis added: Michael]

I know we sometimes wonder about financial appeals from large groups. So I am not suggesting you send money to Feeding America, unless that appeals to you after you look at their website. I do suggest, however, that we all take the opportunity to donate something to our local food pantry or other local organization that reaches out to the hungry in our area.

SomeOne once said something along the lines of "I was hungry and you gave me something to eat."

The night before I see the doctor for my annual checkup ...

So I ran across this article online, misleading as most such reports are. Read it carefully:

Seaweed toast can help you eat less: Study
By Mike Krumboltz | The Upshot – 2 hrs 52 mins ago

Enjoy a nice piece of seaweed toast in the morning? Today is your lucky day, weirdo! A new study has found that eating a slice of toast enriched with seaweed could help burn more calories than 30 minutes spent on the treadmill.

During tests conducted at Sheffield Hallam University near South Yorkshire, England, nearly 80% of overweight men who ate a scrambled egg on seaweed toast said they felt so full that they consumed, on average, 179 calories less each day than men who ate regular toast.

According to an article from The Telegraph, none of the men tested could tell the difference between the toasts. The men who ate the seaweed kind reported they felt more full due to a particular agent in the seaweed that acts as a "bulking agent." It gives the stomach a feeling of fullness.

I suppose you noticed that the author says, "A new study has found that eating a slice of toast enriched with seaweed could help burn more calories than 30 minutes spent on the treadmill." Now the study may indeed have found this, but that is not what the information cited says. All it says is that they consumed, on average, 179 calories less each day than men who ate regular toast. This is not at all the same as saying they ate the toast and then burned 179 calories, It just means they did not EAT 179 calories. The article implies the seaweed had an impact on the metabolic rate, whereas the citation only says that the seaweed had an indirect impact on the number of calories consumed, an impact caused by the feeling of fullness.

At any rate, I have eaten seaweed before -- having friends who follow a macrobiotic diet or an Asian one -- and I have to admit it probably made me consume fewer calories. I would not attribute that to the feeling of fullness, though. I think it just ruined my appetite.

Hating Monday so far

Don't even ask!