I discovered this
ice cream diet in our local paper this afternoon
Weighing In On A New Diet Idea
After complaining to my wife about the difficulty I've had shedding a single pound, she responded with her tired suggestion about the treadmill.
"We've had that contraption for over two months now," I groaned, "and I haven't lost a single ounce."
"Why don't you try taking it out of the box?" she asked.
I explained that I don't need a treadmill to take a walk, which she knows I do like clockwork each morning.
"Retrieving the newspaper from the driveway does not qualify as a walk," she gripes.
OK, she might have had a point. So I decided to give the treadmill a try. I set the speed to 3 miles per hour, which is the equivalent of a brisk stroll.
I walked for 30 minutes but found that I was exceedingly bored.
I knew I would have to provide some sort of an incentive if I was going to survive the workout. So the next day, I hauled over the portable TV and set it up in front of the treadmill. That provided some improvement, but I still found the exercise to be both tedious and monotonous. I knew I would have to find additional motivation if I were to stay with the regimen.
That's when I came up with the answer. TV was OK, but it wasn't my favorite pastime. That happens to be eating.
"You want to eat while you walk on the treadmill?" my wife questioned.
"Exactly," I answered.
"But that would defeat the whole purpose," she said.
"Not necessarily," I replied.
I sat down in front of my computer and did some research on the Internet. With calculator in hand, I looked up the calorie count of my favorite foods, retrieved some stats form the treadmill, and started crunching numbers.
According to the gauge on my treadmill, I burn 9 calories per minute walking at a speed of three miles per hour. And I was able to learn, on more than one Web site, that a cup of chocolate ice cream has 350 calories. Further research yielded that there are 48 teaspoons in a cup. That translates to 7.3 calories per teaspoon.
The bottom line is that if I treat myself to a teaspoon of that delicious chocolate ice cream each minute that I walk on the treadmill, I am actually burning 1.7 calories every 60 seconds. And if I continue until I finished that entire scrumptious, chocolaty treat, I will have burned a total of 81.6 calories.
I call it the ice cream diet.
"It's all about providing incentives," I proudly said to my wife as I stepped off the treadmill licking the last bit of the ice cream from my spoon.
"It reminds me of the time we took the dog to obedience school," she replied. "Only instead of ice cream we gave her liver treats."
My wife fails to accept the obvious logic of my diet, but the numbers don't lie: The more ice cream I eat, the more weight I lose.
Furthermore, I have discovered that if I stay on the treadmill until I also finish a cheeseburger, I burn an additional 74 calories. I would add French fries, but they say you shouldn't lose too much weight at once.
Irv Erdos of Escondido is a freelance columnist. Visit his Web site at:
www.IrvErdos.com. �
Finally An Ice Cream Diet That Works!
Thanks for posting Gary.
