Zimbabwe? Really?

With a combination of colds, travel, coughs, and a soupcon of laziness, I've sort of fallen off the exercise bandwagon. I'm running after it - went for a lovely long walk yesterday and didn't cough once! In fact, I only coughed three times yesterday, and that's awesome news. I've got my workout gear with me, and have scheduled a visit to the gym after work.

Something else I'm doing is tracking my daily consumption on DailyPlate.com. I've learned a few things.

I eat more carby stuff than I should, but still way less than the average American.

According to DailyPlate, I'm allowed about 1800 calories per day for my weight and activity level, if I want to lose 2 lbs a week.

According to them I generally do eat 1800 calories per day naturally. Awesome! I'm not losing weight much, but we all know that there are various other things at play here including basal metabolic rate. Actually, I often eat quite a bit less.

When I have a bad day, my calories can go as high as 2400. That's really really high for me, and happens every couple of weeks or so.

So, it was no small measure of amusement that I came across this today: http://www.diet-blog.com/archives/2006/12/27/do_americans_eat_3790_calories_per_day.php

So it seems that the average American from 2000 to 2002 ate 3790 calories per day. WOW.

I'd love to eat that much. Mmm.

Apparently in 1979-1981 the average American ate 3180 calories - a difference from today of 610 calories. Approximately the calories in a McDonald's Super Sized French Fries.

A sobering note. Zimbabwe (according to the link above) in 2000-2002 showed a daily consumption of 2,020 calories. That's still more than I eat.

Finally, check this out : http://www.calorierestriction.org/

There is research showing that restricting calorie consumption can lengthen lifespan. I can't really comment since I haven't read the research yet. They steer clear of making daily caloric intake recommendations (very smart, imho) on that site. More information here, including a pretty compelling discussion of the risks: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calorie_restriction

Why do I bring this up? Well, the New York Times has an interesting article here: http://nymag.com/news/features/23169/

Dude tried the calorie restriction diet. He ate 1800 calories per day. Granted, he's 5'11" and I'm barely 5'9", but still... that's interesting.