With a Little Walk around the Block

Marquel, TPVs NYTimes I Don’t Want Her You Can Have Her She’s Too Fat For Me Section correspondent, was eating fried butter, when he read Coca-Cola Funds Scientists Who Shift Blame for Obesity Away From Bad Diets.

The company supports a new nonprofit, the Global Energy Balance Network, that promotes a “science-based” approach to weight control: Get more exercise and worry less about cutting calories.

Marquel knows calories and calories know Marquel. And yet they’re not really friends. The average person, every day, needs 2,000 calories to maintain his or her weight. If you consume 500 calories over that, you will gain one pound every week of your life until something changes. Like you die of a heart attack or perhaps spontaneous combustion. 3500 calories equals one pound. There’s no way around it. It’s simple physics.

Coca cola doesn’t like simple physics because it’s not good for the bottom line. A typical coke is 180 calories. Three cokes a day and you’re well over the 500 extra calories posited above. A pound a week and more.

What coke wants is that we forget about the calories we consume and instead think of the exercise we might do. Let’s do the math, Marquel thought. How can you burn an extra 500 calories a day. Remember, this is on top of the exercise you do normally which allows you to stay constant at 2,000 calories daily.

1. Well, 90 minutes every single day of low impact water aerobics will burn 500 calories.
2. That’s every day. Miss one day, you have to do three fucking hours of aerobics!
3. Or you can bowl two hours every day of your life to burn up those three cokes.
4. Or, an hour every day of your life of breath gasping intense aerobics will do it.
5. You could also do 55 minutes of heavy duty kayaking. Yeah, like you’ll do that every day, spring, summer, fall, and winter.
6. Finally, if you think you can run or jog off that weight, you’ll have to do a half an hour of sprints, the kind that sends your heart shuddering, the sweat pouring, and your muscles aching, every single day of your life as long as you’re consuming 500 calories too many.

So coke says, do it! Drink all the coke and eat all the pizza you want (that combination is probably well over 1,000 calories past your maintenance level), and unless you spend literally most of your spare time in truly serious sweat drenching disciplined exercise, welcome to Tele tubbies!

Marquel visited coke to talk about the Global Energy Balance Network. They suggest a “science based” approach to eating as much as you want, including coke of course.

“Through balance. You do a little exercise. It balances out.” He said.

“A little extra walking.” He suggested.

“Around the block.” He said.

“Yes. A short stroll. We’re science based.” He said.

“Only in part. McDonald’s supports us, and Denny’s, and taco bell, and…”

“You’re too skeptical. You probably support Bernie. But I’m for Hillary. Her science isn’t as rigid as yours.” He said.

“No but energy balance makes a lot more sense than long distance running. And it’s more comfortable.” He said.

“Well, you jog ten miles, and I’ll walk around the block. Who will be happier?” He asked.