It stands to reason that if you want to lose weight one of the first things you need to know is how many kcal you should consume each day. What’s the max you can eat without putting on weight and how much less than that should you eat to start losing weight?
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Before the course started it said that you should read Study Periods 1-3 (there are 18 in total) to get a feel for how quickly you want to work through the course. Well I did that and decided it was so interesting that I’d read the whole thing quickly (to get a good overall picture) and then I’d work my way back through everything more slowly, to properly digest it (pardon the pun). This seems to be working.
I’ve now worked back through Study Period 1 again in more detail. I’ve retained a surprising amount of info from the first read through which is good as I’ve always struggled with book-learning. I learn much better from listening than reading. So far I’ve learned the real definition of nutrition - it’s more than just nutrients in the body - it’s about the whole relationship of people with their food. This doesn’t just include what you eat, but why you eat and how you choose your food according to your social, economic, psychological and cultural background. It’s a truly multi-disciplinary subject. Which is good - I wanted more than just the science of food.
There are multiple ways of tracking how much we eat and our general nutritional status, both at an individual level and as a nation. Regular national surveys help the Government assess whether the population’s nutritional needs are being met and how this affects our health - informing policy making for nutritional advice, food production, etc. This population information, along with scientific research into the effect of nutrients on the body, allows them to give clear advice on what makes a good diet. It’s obvious that in the UK many of us, myself included, are ignoring this advice, or have simply never heard it. We are strongly influenced by the media who give us conflicting, misleading or incomplete information about the components of a healthy diet.
I’ve discoverd that both my Body Mass Index (BMI) and Wast:Hip ratio are way too high and that I’m at risk from heart disease, diabetes and various forms of cancer. In fairness I knew that already - this is one of the reasons I wanted to take the course - to see if a better understanding of nutrition would help me make better food choices. I’ve kind of become numb to the ‘you’re obese and you’ll die young’ message though - I think I need to understand the obstacles to changing my diet before I can do anything about it.
Just got back from seeing Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix on IMAX. We’d already seen it on a tiny screen in Cornwall but it was advertised as 3D so we though we’d go and see it again. They kind of lied though - only the last 10 minutes or so of the film was 3D, the rest of it was in 2D so we felt a bit ripped off to be honest. It was still good though - and ginormous. Plus we saw a trailer for a 3D film about prehistoric sea monsters which they’ll be showing in October - we’re gonna have to see that!
We’ve had ntl/virgin media TV for over a year and it’s always been unreliable. When the guy first came and installed it he said that the box he’d given us was dodgy but it was the last one he had in the van so it was that or nothing. It was always slow, froze a lot, or it cut out every few seconds during a film or it crashed completely and you had to unplug it to reset it. Mark frequently threatened it with a long drop from an upstairs window!
It finally died completely last night!! In fairness to virgin we phoned up to complain late last night and they sent an engineering around today who turned up exactly when they said he would. We’ve now got a new and shiny box, and the engineer says we’ve been particularly lucky as the only box he had (which he had to nick of another engineer this morning because he didn’t have any spares) is the only decent type of basic box that virgin offer. Apparently they are rare these days - mostly you get one of the newer mini boxes which are just as bad as the old box we had.
The new box even matches our telly! And it loads faster, the picture quality seems to be better, and we’ve tried watching an on-demand show and it didn’t cut out once. If this continues we might even keep our virgin media subscription. I’ve been pushing to move to sky for months but have been waiting to find out if their broadband is any good. It all hangs on the new box - will it live up to its initial promise?
Because the OU doesn’t have a wishlist like amazon.com’s very handy little tool for reminding you of all the things you want to buy but can’t afford, I feel the need to make a list of the courses that I’m interested in as it’s a pain having to hunt through their course search every time.
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