The Herald Bulletin, Anderson, Indiana

January 5th and the DIET begins. I have pledged 20 pounds to the Pound for Pound Challenge at www.pfpchallenge.com . I will begin by using the Food Pyramid website – or attempting to. I logged on to www.mypyramid.gov and clicked on the Tracker option. I had to log in with a user name and password. That allows me to list all the foods I have eaten in a day’s time, the amount of exercise and calculate a bunch of stuff.

It is pretty interesting. You type in a word, like cheese, and choices come up that you can click on to add to your favorite food list. There are nearly a half million food items and serving sizes in the data bank and its kind of fun to see what comes up!

I gave this a try on Sunday just after a late breakfast and snack. I wanted a peak at how this thing would work. Once I entered everything I had eaten and calculated how I did, a slew of frowny faces came up! The only yellow smiley face I had was for sodium intake – I had reached the limit without lunch or dinner! Too much cholesterol, too much total fat! Looks like I needed 2 more cups of milk, 2.5 cups of veggies, a cup of fruit and 3 ounces of grain to finish off the recommended daily requirements. Bad news is that I had a dinner to go to in Indy.

This web site is demanding. I went to the next step and entered in my activities for the past 24 hours. A half hour on the stationary bike and 2 hours doing laundry (we had a loads from the holidays so I worked about 8 hours but only credited 15 minutes per hour) gave me a ’needs improvement’ score! Looks like it’s going to be harder than I thought!

Please remember to join us January 15 at our place in Delaware County. Feeding America's CEO, Vicki Escarra, will be here to share her observations and reports on the growing demands of food banks in the nation. Phone Tiffany Jones at 765-287-8698 ext. 100 to register. Children and students may come at no cost, other adults at $15 per person. 6 PM - see you there, for low-fat chili, I hope!