Obesity Series #2

I was at McDonald's recently and saw the latest packaging they use for their Chocolate Chip Cookies:

McDonald's calls it the "Cookie Tote", a rather cool and cute name in my humble opinion. There's a small window at the front of the box to show those cookies that almost every child finds so mouth-watering. The following photo shows the back of the same box.

The box had six chocolate chip cookies in it but definitely had room for three more.

How does it relate to obesity then? Well, aside from the high sugar and fat content in chocolate chip cookies, you have to hand it to the folks over at McDonald's for they sure know how to package their products in a very attractive and appealing way. I found the box very attractive and thus, I'm sorry to say, I was "forced" to buy more cookies than I really needed just to get my hands on their nice, little "Chocolate Tote" box. I'm sure that I'm not the only one who was "victimized" by that marketing ploy.

The cookies sold for 3 for $1.00 and thus cost me a total of $2.00. The immense joy I felt from having one of those "Chocolate Tote" boxes: Priceless. (Naks!)

Original Photos by: Panaderos

Obesity Series #1

Obesity and diabetes are big problems in the United States. In fact, some doctors have said that these problems are reaching epidemic proportions. Whenever the opportunity arises, I will start sharing with you pictures that will give you an idea of how big the serving sizes are at various American fastfood and restaurant chains.

Let me start today with Carl's Jr., a popular burger chain. Earlier today, I had lunch with my co-workers at its branch in Santa Rosa, California. The following photo shows one of its soda cups next to a 12 ounce soda can:

The soda cup shown above is classified as a "Medium" serving. However, it is more than enough to satisfy the thirst of two normal or average size persons. Letting it stand next to a 12 ounce can would you give a clear idea of how big this serving is. It could qualify as either a Large or a Mega in fastfood chains in Asia and in Europe.

Next, of course, is McDonald's.

Recently, McDonald's launched a new line of burgers called "Angus Third Pounders", a supposedly more "gourmet" burger serving when compared to the average McDonald's burger. Given the product line's name and given that there are 16 ounces per pound, one would assume then that each burger pattie would weigh roughly around 5.33 ounces, bigger than the 4 ounces offered via the Quarter Pounder. The Angus Third Pounder product line offers three variants, namely: Angus Deluxe, Angus Mushroom and Swiss, and Angus Bacon and Cheese.

Unfortunately, such sizes are now the norm in fastfood restaurants across the US. The blame falls on both the fastfood chains and on the customers who patronize servings of such size. One can just imagine the amount of sugar and caffeine that's present in huge servings of soda/soft drinks and the amount of calories and fat present in huge servings of burgers. Any wonder then that a growing number of Americans are obese and/or diabetic? Not good.

Original photo by: Panaderos (Soda)
Photo credit: Slashfood (Angus Third Pounders)

Continuously Out of Sync

I travel quite a bit in my current job. In fact, that so-called "quite a bit" requires that I be away from home 50% of the time. Though I get to see different places, meet different people, accumulate frequent flyer miles, and get complimentary hotel room upgrades every once in a while, the downside to this whole travel thing is that I find myself in a constant state of jet lag.

The longest that I do get to stay home continuously is three weeks. More often though, it's just around two weeks. A good number of my trips are to the West Coast of the US, three time zones away. After that are trips to the Midwest, one time zone away.

Trips back from the West Coast are often on those "red eye" flights. These flights normally leave the West Coast around 10 or 11 in the evening (local time) and arrive in the East Coast at five or six in the morning the following day. Given the cutbacks in the US airline industry (such as no meal service and less legroom), these flights are often so uncomfortable that getting a decent amount of sleep is next to impossible.

Prior to my current job, I used to average about seven hours of sleep each night. Now, that average is down to a mere five hours. It's been close to a year now since I've had a decent good night's sleep. I used to take decent afternoon naps (average of two to three hours) on weekends too. However, because of my jet lag, I haven't had a leisurely afternoon nap for more than a year now.

The fact that I have to drag myself out of bed at five every morning to make the two-hour commute to work also doesn't help alleviate my jet lag. An option is to either get another job with a different company or request the boss for lesser out-of-town trips. Careerwise, I'm not ready to make either move yet.

Thus for now, I try to make up for the serious lack of sleep by eating fruits, exercise (whenever the outdoor temperatures would allow), and drinking fruit juices. However, I can't help but feel that those measures can only help me up to a point. So far, I'm still able to function at work. I take naps whenever and wherever I can. But their duration of 10 to 15 minutes are a far cry from the two to three-hour naps I used to take. I really need my Zs for the sake of my long term health and well-being.