No wonder I'm not losing weight

Yesterday I read an article about how to drop two pounds in a week to shed weight. It started out all rah, rah, rah with this author telling me I wouldn't have to give up fun foods or calorie count or measure my portions or spend my life at the gym. The key, she said, was to get my heart pounding.

First I was to follow the free, easy eating plan, and this was in green so that I should know that clicking on it would take me immediately to the free, easy eating plan. I did so and it opened a new window that said, "Service Temporarily Unavailable". Interesting. Does this mean I'm not to eat until the service is available? Tricky way to lose weight.

Next, I was to burn 500 calories a day for a total of 3,500 a week. To do this I should:

1. Walk 40 minutes at a level 8 on a hilly course.


2. Jog for 1 minute at a level 5, sprint 1 minute at a level 9 for 18 times.


3. Dance to a good beat for 72 minutes at a level 7.


4. Swim freestyle for 50 minutes at a level 8.


5. Do 2 minutes at a level 8, then 1 minute at a level 5 on the elliptical machine. Repeat that 20 times.

My first thought was what the hell do those levels mean? Other than the elliptical, which I do at a level 7 by punching in that number on the machine, I didn't know what the levels meant.

That may because I did skip over some of the article. When I went back through it I discovered that level 1 is watching TV and level 10 is installing a 100-pound plasma TV on the wall. Oh, that clears everything up. So is level 2 watching the TV while folding laundry? And level 10? Is that like measuring, nailing, eyeballing, lifting the 100 pound plasma screen (on the wall, not just sitting on an entertainment center), hanging it and eyeballing it? Because other than lifting the screen for what, maybe 50 seconds, I don't see the exertion in that. But then again I've never installed a 100 pound plasma screen before because I CAN'T AFFORD IT.

The article also listed activities to burn 250 calories and 100 calories and not one of those activities was lower then a level 4. So since I couldn't really afford a plasma screen to install it to get the idea of a level 10 I sat down and watched TV for 5 hours; 60 minutes at level 1, 10 minutes folding laundry (level 2?), 60 minutes at level 1, 20 minutes dusting the room (level 3?), 60 minutes at level 1, 30 minutes sweeping and mopping the floor, then 120 minutes at level 1. I don't know how many calories I burned, but it was enough that it made me hungry, and I went to the kitchen to replenish a few of those calories.