Healthcare Matters

With so much talk about our nation’s obesity crisis, fat taxes and how people who eat organic foods quickly morph to become jerks, Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps offers all of us a solution. Just add 5 hours of rigorous exercise to the following daily regimen (Mike likes to swim) and you can say goodbye to all of those fat-fold-infirmities that keep so many of us off the beach.

(Drum roll is appropriate) The Michael Phelps 12K calorie beach diet:

Breakfast: On his way to the breakfast table, Michael throws down three to four fried-egg sandwiches loaded with cheese and non-organic fried vegetables coated with mayonnaise. Once seated, a five egg omelet accompanied by three pieces of French toast and three pancakes topped, naturally, with powdered sugar, butter and syrup. For his digestif (non alcoholic), Michael dumps the excess butter and syrup into a bowl of grits that he washes down with a few cups of coffee.

Lunch: Pasta is good for you. So eating a lot of it is even better. Michael eats an even pound of enriched pasta each day for lunch. He saves the box tops for valuable prizes. Mike prefers a lighter vodka sauce because Alfredo sauces have been known to gum up the works. The fact that Michael complements his pasta with two large ham and cheese sandwiches makes perfect sense to me, but on white bread with mayo Michael? Slap a tomato on that sandwich and everyone will know you’re from Baltimore. Energy drinks packing 1,000 extra calories replace unhealthy soft drinks. Besides, soft drinks may soon be taxable, so there’s no point in developing an expensive habit.

Dinner: Michael enjoys an entire pizza that he washes down with more energy drinks. Clearly, he needs the energy drinks so that he doesn’t get tired of eating. To help manage his acid reflux problem, Michael eats yet another pound of pasta. You see, despite being an Olympic athlete, Michael suffers from pedestrian digestion problems just like the rest of us –and while he may not actually want to eat the second pound, his discipline provides that selfless example that benefits us all.  Mike’s not much of a desert eater. He prefers just one “wafer thin” mint.

Have a great weekend,

—Tom Finn