HERE I GO AGAIN • INSPIRATION BY WHITESNAKE • 297.7 LBS TODAY

So today is Day 1 (again) I ate reponsibly • 945 calories Recently I have been gorging on 1000+ calorie breakfasts I am nearing 65 years old in November I will not get an unlimited number of opportunities to get healthy This year I want to be well on my way to health by my birthday mid November We'll see One day in a row is not particulary amazing.

CORONA BEER STOPS PRODUCTION - CNN BUSINESS

Corona beer stops production

By Jordan Valinsky, CNN Business

Updated 4:52 PM ET, Fri April 3, 2020

New York (CNN Business) — Production of Corona beer is being temporarily suspended in Mexico because of the coronavirus pandemic. 

Grupo Modelo, the company that makes the beer, posted the announcement on Twitter, stating that it's halting production and marketing of its beer because the Mexican government has shuttered non-essential businesses. The Anheuser-Busch Inbev-owned company also makes Modelo and Pacifico beers.

This week, the Mexican government announced the suspension of non-essential activities in the public and private sectors until April 30 in an effort to curb the spread of the virus. The country has more than 1,500 cases and 50 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins. 

Grupo Modelo is ready to enact a plan to "guarantee the supply of beer" if the Mexican government decides to include breweries as essential, according to a statement.

 Constellation Brands (STZ) handles the distribution and import of Grupo Modelo's beers in the United States. CEO Bill Newlands said in an earnings call the brand has "ample supply to meet consumer demand" and doesn't expect shortages in the near term. 

Corona's coincidental name with the virus hasn't dented sales. Constellation said sales of its beer brands grew 8.9% for the first three months of this year, with Modelo and Corona being its top sellers. Sales accelerated in the first three weeks of March, the company said, with its beers growing 24% compared to a year ago. 

Corona Hard Seltzer, which launched in early March, is also off to a "strong start," according to a company earnings release.

Beer and other alcohol are rising in sales this month as Americans are being forced to hunker down in light of the coronavirus. Sales numbers from Nielsen (NLSN) show beer sales rose 34% year-over-year for the week ending on March 21. 

--CNN's Max Ramsay and Sharif Paget contributed to this report.

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APRIL FOOLS DAY

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CURIOUSER AND CURIOUSER

Chicago public schools just announced shortly before 6PM on Thursday night that the original school shutdown which was 'only' for two weeks, will no be extended (at least) until a full FIVE WEEKS have elapsed.

Also late today the United States State Department warned all Americans not to travel abroad and if they were out of country to get back. It is not difficult to imagine that the entire airline industry will officially grind to a halt before too long... although it is hard to imagine what is happening with them right now.....

My 'last' night in the field I stayed at a Marriot hotel in Columbus, Ohio.
I was one of EIGHT guests in the hotel that had 254 rooms.
I was on the NINTH floor.  There were more 'floors' in the hotel than there were guests.
On the day that I checked out, I was told that there were no scheduled arrivals.
It is hard to imagine that that hotel will be open too much longer.
That hotels and thousands of others around the country and world.
Yep, things are getting curiouser and curiouser.

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Purchased GAS at the Costco in Merrillville, Indiana on Wednesday night.
$1.449/gallon
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I visited a Walmart in Northern Indiana on Wednesday... I went to purchase Keurig Coffee, Instant Oatmeal and some canned soup.  That part of my trip was successful.... Still I checked out some other sections of the store...

Need Cereal? Sorry, gone

Need Eggs? Sorry, gone

Need Bacon and/or Sausages? Sorry, gone

Need Bread? Sorry, gone

Need weapons for home defense? Yep, Walmart's got you covered!

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On Friday, with my new-found free-time, I did something that I have not done in ages... I took a walk... My daughter and I walked downtown Chicago (ghost town) and we accumulated some serious steps for the day.

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out and about during my 10+ mile walk with my daughter in Chicago

YIKES! STOCK MARKET DOWN 13% ON MONDAY

I took a screen shot on 'Gas Buddy' which showed gas at a local Costco at $1.64 @ 9:38AM
I took a look at 'Gas Buddy' again less than 3 hours later and the price dropped a dime.
I took a screen shot on 'Gas Buddy' which showed gas at same Costco at $1.54 @ 12:04PM

I remember inflation.
Is this deflation?

Inflation is not particularly good.
Deflation has another set of problems.

We are in a crazy time.

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MORE CORONAVIRUSMANIA

I am not a person fearful of Global Warming.
Do not insult me and call me a climate-denier.
(That makes you seem like a moron)
I may however think that the 'fix' for the incremental warming of the planet will be harmful to us.

I am not a person fearful of CORONAVIRUS.
Do not insult me and call me a virus or science denier.
(That makes you seem like a moron)
I may however think that the 'fixes' will bring great harm to civilization. This is already happening.

I just this very second heard some wisdom on the radio....
Why was this called CORONAVIRUS?
Had this been called the Wuhan Flu - Would all of this craziness still happened?
You know, I think not.

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In other developments:

Wall Street had its worst day since the Black Monday crash of 1987. Here’s the latest from global markets.

At least six states and several large school districts moved to close schools for at least two weeks, affecting millions.

A ban on travel from much of Europe to the U.S. is to begin today at 11:59 p.m. Eastern. The restrictions don’t apply to American citizens but nevertheless caused chaos on Thursday, as panicked passengers tried to leave Europe before they took effect. Here’s a guide to the restrictions.

Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, the wife of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada, has tested positive for the virus. Mr. Trudeau shows no symptoms and is not being tested, but will work from home for 14 days.

The White House press secretary said that neither President Trump nor Vice President Mike Pence would be tested after meeting with a Brazilian official who later tested positive. An Australian official who met last week with Attorney General William Barr and Ivanka Trump, Mr. Trump’s daughter and senior adviser, said today that he had the virus.

China reported its lowest tally from the virus since January, with eight new infections confirmed in the past 24 hours.

In sports, the N.C.A.A. canceled the men’s and women’s basketball tournaments, and several professional leagues suspended or postponed their seasons.

Every Disney theme park will be closed starting this weekend. The company’s cruise line is suspending departures.

In New York, Broadway theaters are going dark for a month, and cultural institutions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim will close temporarily

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weighed myself on Friday morning.... 266.2 lbs

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DOW DOWN

Yikes! Coronavirus fears are snowballing.
Dow down 2000 points on Monday.
How come I am not walking around in fear?
Is it because I am stupid?
or smart?

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MARCH GOES IN LIKE A LION AND OUT LIKE A LAMB

March,
In like a lion, out like a lamb?
I don't know if I am the lion.
And I am sure I won't be a cuddly little lamb in 31 days....
Nevertheless....

MARCH 1st greeted me with a weight of 265.5 lbs
Now, for most people this is not good news.
but for THIS PERSON who weighed 297 lbs on JANUARY 1, it is great news.
I wonder what I will weigh on APRIL 1st?
I will find out in one month.

LEAP DAY

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Leap Day does not come around too often.... in fact, it comes around once every four years... I was curious how much I weighed on the last leap day 2016.... I looked it up... Actually it was a bit depressing... on Leap Day 2016 - I was 228 lbs.  On this Leap Day morning 2020 I weighed myself and I was 265.8 lbs.  Better I should remind myself that I was 297 lbs on New Years Day 2020.... I should celebrate that I have successfully lost 31.2 lbs this year. It's going to be a great Leap Year this year. I am going to lose a lot of weight. And the year will be capped off by an epic election in November!  (Hint: I am not rooting for Bernie, Bloomberg, or Biden!)

WENT TO BED HUNGRY - BUT LET ME EXPLAIN

Typical conversation I have had all my life:
Question: Are you hungry?
Response: I could eat.

Yes, one can 'always' eat... I think the only times in my life I have felt that I could not eat were literally the few times in my life I have dined at a buffett brought myself  almost to the point of puking.  Other than that extreme situation - every other moment in my life - I have been 'hungry.'

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sidebar: true story    Once year not so long ago for my birthday went to all-you-can-eat sushi.  I always get my 'moneys worth' at places like this.  I ate a bit too much too fast and had to run to the bathroom with the desire to puke.  I didn't, but after a few minutes the sick feeling left me and I was able to continue eating.  Was I still hungry?  Uh...no.... But why should a lack of hunger stop a fat pig from eating?
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Of course, this is moronic.  I have never denied being a moron when it comes to food.
For example, last night, after a very slim dinner of a Reduced Fat Turkey Bacon sandwich at Starbucks eaten around 5:30PM, I found myself 'hungry' when I pulled into the town where my hotel was at 8PM.

I kinda asked myself: Am I hungry?
My inner response: Of course, I was.

But I chose to get past the feeling, I had a large glass of water in my hotel, and I focused on doing something else and not thinking about food.  When I woke up on Friday morning, did I rush down to breakfast to finally feed my 'starving self?'  Of course not.  I was not 'starving' the night before.  I did not wake up starving.  I feel a bit hungry.  But this hunger is likely real.  So enough typing... time to go downstairs from my hotel room and grab some breakfast. I'm hungry.

See you tomorrow!


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ADVERTISING WORKS

I have been to Applebee's many times over the past 7 weeks.
Each time I look at the same menu and every once in a while I select something new.
Last night I saw a commercial on TV for Applebee's touting their new Bowls.
I sought out the extra menu when I went to Applebee's for lunch today.
SOLD.
The bowl I had was delicious and suitably low in calories.
Advertising works!

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DINNER MARRIOTT COURTYARD - MARGHERITA FLATBREAD

Arrived kinda late at the Marriott Courtyard.
Dinner:

Margherita Flatbread 710 CAL
roasted tomatoes, basil + cheese

UPTOWN GRILL LASALLE, ILLINOIS

On Friday I was with a particularly good customer from 10AM until 9PM.
Afterwards we had a dinner at Uptown Grill in LaSalle, Illinois.
I am so used to eating virtually every meal at Red Lobster, Applebee's, Panera and Starbucks.
Now that I have trained myself to make (relatively) healthy choices - I selected menu items which although were not listed with calories - I was confident that I was making somewhat smart (and tasty) choices.


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Too many calories - I let my appetite take over yesterday...

I was not quite this glutinous, but I did eat too much yesterday

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LONG DAY BURNING THE CANDLE AT BOTH ENDS

On Thursday I was out and about from 7AM until nearly 2AM early Friday morning... I am going to forgive myself for eating just a bit more than normal... I was pretty happy to find an open Applebee's at 11PM in a small town, Terre Haute, Indiana

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NEW SCALE

I have had the same scale for about 5 years... It has been driving me nuts lately.... I can step on and off the scale 5 times in one minute and get five different results.

Sunday, I bought a new scale at Costco, so I hope that this particular aggravation will end... I weighed myself on my new scale on Monday morning and the new scale consistently showed that I weighed 275.2lbs.

Picked this up at Costco on Sunday... I had expected it to be $19.99 when I pulled it off the shelf. There was an automatic $5.00 rebate applied and I paid $16.53 which included tax.  Unbelievable inexpensive. Why did I wait so long to replace my scale which was driving me nuts?

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WEIGHT LOSS IS HARDER THAN ROCKET SCIENCE

reprinted from The Wall Street Journal

Weight Loss Is Harder Than Rocket Science

The equation behind body-mass index is simpler than the math used in space flight, but measuring human bodies is a tricky business

Credit: Tomasz Walenta

By Eugenia Cheng

January 30, 2020, 9:54 a.m. EST

We all have different ways to judge whether or not we need to lose weight. Some of us are always happy the way we are; some worry that our clothes are getting too tight or notice changes in the mirror; and others, especially doctors, pay attention to body-mass index or BMI.

BMI is given by a straightforward mathematical formula: weight (technically mass) divided by height squared, where weight is in kilograms and height in meters. The idea is that taller people should naturally weigh more, so we need some sort of ratio between weight and height. But why is height squared?

Mathematically, areas increase according to length squared, but volumes according to length cubed. A 12-inch pizza isn’t twice the size of a 6-inch pizza, but four times the size, whereas a 12-inch watermelon would be about eight times the volume of a 6-inch one.

Humans are three-dimensional, not flat like pizzas, but the formula for BMI seems to treat us as two-dimensional objects. One mathematical interpretation of the formula is that as humans get taller, their measurements should not scale up in all directions. Perhaps we expect tall people to be wider but not thicker from front to back.

The idea behind BMI was proposed in 1832 by the statistician Adolphe Quetelet, who wasn’t trying to define a healthy weight but to model a bell curve or normal distribution of human body sizes. He studied heights and weights and observed that weight tended to increase not according to the cube of height but with its square. The Quetelet index was renamed the body-mass index in 1972 by physiologist Ancel Keys, but it still wasn’t meant to measure the health of individuals, only to show trends among populations.

One reason the BMI model runs into problems when applied to individuals is because it doesn’t take body composition into account. It uses the crude measure of weight without distinguishing between muscle and fat, even though excess fat is much more likely to be detrimental to health than large amounts of muscle. Measuring fat composition directly comes with its own problems, however, so BMI is used as a simpler model.

The variations in our individual biology are always going to make it hard to model anything about humans precisely. It is sometimes said that “losing weight isn’t rocket science”—a field that is popularly invoked to indicate extreme difficulty. It’s true that rocket science involves much more complicated formulas than the one for BMI. But rocket science is arguably simpler than weight loss, in the sense that it involves less unpredictability and variation. We control how rockets are made, and they don’t change their material composition over time.

That is why the relationship between math and physics is generally much closer than the relationship between math and biology. But mathematical models are still helpful even when caveats and exceptions are needed. Just because an idea is expressed mathematically doesn’t mean it’s always right; but equally, just because a mathematical model isn’t always right doesn’t mean it’s completely wrong. The point of a mathematical model is to produce a theoretical version of a real-life situation, which sometimes involves trading precision for simplicity. It’s easy to dismiss BMI out of hand because of its flaws, but it’s more productive for us to use math appropriately, in full awareness of both its shortcomings and its many benefits.

Wednesday January 29

Wednesday January 29

29 days into the new year.
still no chocolate, no cake, no donuts, no ice-cream, etc
going strong

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Tuesday January 28

The month is coming to an end... and I keep rolling along...
Had a great meal today at Red Lobster.
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It turns out that it is far more rewarding to sit down, eat a decent meal than go through the drive-thru at Burger King, Chick Fil A, McDonalds, Culvers, White Castle.... Wow, when I slip, I really slip!

So far this DECADE, I have had no slips!

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Salmon New Orleans

This delicious New Orleans-style seafood recipe features pan-seared salmon topped with shrimp in a rich Cajun butter sauce. 

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MONDAY JANUARY 27