"The Power of 10"

It was health fair day for the "$10,000 Treasure Valley Weight Loss Challenge" in Boise, Idaho. The pharmacy where I am doing my final rotation, www.laddfamilyrx.com, had a display/table. It was my privilege to spend the day just talking to people, empowering people with knowledge about the incredible "power of just 10 little calories." That's the number of calories in a Lifesaver (some vary, but stay with me:).

Just 10 calories (on a nutrition label) above the number you burn in a day will be stored as more than 1 pound of fat after a year. (A pound of body fat represents 3500 nutritional calories.) We called it "The Lifesaver Rule," and I made a mini spreadsheet ruler to demonstrate the numbers. The really powerful thing is that you can turn that around toward weight loss by consuming 10 calories less than you burn every day for a year, which will result in a pound of weight loss in a year. Isn't math fun! I'll spare you more discussion of the way this really works out, but it's a powerful bit of information. Over 200 people signed up for the event today, and I can't tell you how extremely satisfying it was to take 30 seconds to demonstrate the concept on a ruler and see "the dawn of realization" cross people's faces.

I wish I were going to be there during the first "monthly mandatory weigh in" June 1-13 to talk about our next helpful tip for people. I'm hoping Dr. Ladd will get the opportunity to calculate personal basal metabolic rates (search BMR on google) and help people find the number of calories needed to maintain their current weight and provide measurable results by working the numbers toward weight loss. It's just another tiny bit of incredibly empowering information.

Yes, it was a good day.