Don't get "supersized"

Sure, it feels like you’re getting a bargain because you’re getting proportionately more food for proportionately less money. But a “value meal” is only a value for two sets of people: the corporations that make the food and the corporations that make liposuction machines and heart stents.

Because food is so inexpensive for manufacturers to produce on a large scale, your average fast-food emporium makes a hefty profit whenever you supersize your meal—even though you’re getting an average of 73 percent more calories for only 17 percent more money. But you’re not actually buying more food. You’re buying more calories. And that’s not something you want more of.

Here’s the good news: No one is going to stop you from ordering seconds. So be like any good businessperson, and start small.

Here’s exactly how expensive it really is whenever you go for the “bargain”:

McDonald’s: Quarter Pounder with Cheese to Medium Quarter Pounder with Cheese Extra Value Meal: An additional $1.41 gets you 660 more calories.

Subway: 6-inch to 12-inch Tuna Sub: $1.53 more buys 420 more calories.

Wendy’s: Classic Double with Cheese to Classic Double with Cheese Old Fashioned Combo Meal: $1.57 extra buys you 600 more calories.

Baskin Robbins: Chocolate Chip Ice Cream, Kids’ Scoop, to Double Scoop: For another $1.62, you’ve added 390 calories.

7-Eleven: Gulp to Double Gulp Coca-Cola Classic: 37 cents extra buys 450 more calories.

Cinnabon: Minibon to Classic Cinnabon: 48 more cents buys 370 more calories.

Movie theater: Small to medium unbuttered popcorn: 71 additional cents buys you 500 more calories.

Convenience store: Regular to “The Big One” Snickers: 33 more cents packs on 230 more calories.

The bottom line on all this? For just a hair more than 8 bucks, you’ve bought yourself an additional 3,620 calories. If you ate each of these once a week, and you were to switch to the smaller size each time—again, still all your favorite foods, just in a more reasonable size—you’d save about $417 a year. It’s not going to buy you a new car, but it could put you on a plane to the Bahamas.

Far more important than that is what it will mean to your waistline, because in saving that $417, you’ll also save 188,240 calories in a year—enough to shave a whopping 54 pounds of flab off your body!

(Hey, take the 400 bucks and buy some new pants!)

Where does MY job rank?

Teaching is my fourth career ... or life ... as I tell the kids. There was radio guy, PR & advertising, and business owner before this one. All have been great and I wouldn't trade them for anything.

Today, I get to work with (teach) some of the most creative people (students) I have ever met. They constantly amaze me with their

knowledge, creativity, and questions. Their though process is off the charts. Their ability to adapt to new technology is incredible.

Where do teachers rank on CareerCast.com?

OMG ... I just looked (after reading Ken Hoffman's column ... which follows)!!!!

I started at the top and was working my way through. I've found economist (really - in this economy you like that job?) Prison Guard (well, I feel like I do that at times, but those workers deal with REAL felons), School Principals (I am NOT doing that job for ANY amount of money), and Teacher's Aide (okay, I can see that ... but there is a lesser educational requirement and resulting salary). And STRESS and INCOME were two factors.

I'm still looking.

Janitor is #82, followed by a Photo Process Worker. It says they work with photographic film. Does any remember film? I took MY last film pictures on July 18, 2003. Is this a job with a future? Or are the few people working there just really, really happy????

After I reached number 100 (Registered Nurse), I thought I'd missed "Teacher" and so I went back over the top 100. Nope, no "Teacher."

The next page showed "Guard" ... as in watching things. Hey, I did that when I worked for Titan Security back in 1974-76. Paid $2/hour. Wonder where TSA Agent is (which is what I also did - went through women's purses and men's suitcases filled with dirty underwear!)?

Finally, at job #116 is "Teacher." It's just behind Office Machine Repair (what, you repair them? Most we just toss and buy new these days) and ahead of ... by only ONE PLACE ... Sewage Plant Operator! Now, I treasure the local SPO, but how is his job just one place lower than mine??? That he doesn't have to deal with hormonal teenagers, just an occasional fecal malfunction?

Are you kidding me??? Job #116. I'm pretty sure that if I leave teaching in the next 12 years (my current plan is to teach until I'm 65, which will give me 20 years in this profession), I'm not aspiring to be one of these mentioned.

I'll join Ken Hoffman with a stout NO WAY!!! I've done a lot of things in my life and being a teacher continues to provide some great experiences. Former students in BCS games. Former students who open a special checkout line for you at the grocery students. Former students giving you the leftovers of all the Starbucks drinks they mix!

Not to mention great Benefits! Summers and weekends off. Paid Holidays. Climate controlled work environment. Safety. Job Security.

Nope, my job is #2 (behind Ken Hoffman's and Leon Hale's and Ronnie Crocker's) ... and I'm glad to have it there!!!!

This job is No. 186? No way

By KEN HOFFMAN COPYRIGHT 2010 HOUSTON CHRONICLE

According to CareerCast.com, an online Help Wanted section, the Top 10 Best Jobs in America are: actuary, software engineer, computer systems analyst, biologist, historian, mathematician, paralegal assistant, statistician, accountant, dental hygienist.

Just FYI, No. 11 is “philosopher.”

The Top 10 Worst Jobs are: oil-rig worker, lumberjack, ironworker, dairy farmer, welder, garbage collector, taxi driver, construction worker, meter reader and mail carrier.

CareerCast.com rated 200 jobs based on physical demands, work environment, income, stress and hiring outlook.

I think both lists, top and bottom, are screwy. Lumberjack is a pretty cool job for strong, physical people who like maple syrup and working outdoors. Construction workers get whistled at. Do women ever whistle at computer systems analysts on the job? The best jobs … they're kidding, right? Try going to P.F. Chang's on singles night (Thursday) and telling a hot guy or woman that you're an actuary, and see where it gets you. You won't get past explaining what an actuary does. With all respect to mathematicians, biologists and statisticians … your work sounds kind of dull. And “philosopher” is the No. 11 best job in America?

Philosophy isn't a job. It's an easy B in your freshman year of college.

But here's the part of CareerCast.com's list that flabbergasted me. My job, newspaper reporter, came in 186th — near the bottom, between sailor and stevedore.

That's just stupid.

From the time I was a little boy, I wanted to write for a newspaper. Now I do, and it's still one of the best decisions I ever made.

My job is fun. It scores high on most of CareerCast.com's criteria. The physical demands are easy stuff. Mostly it's just showing up, taking notes and typing. OK, maybe work in an adverb here and there.

The work environment and stress are acceptable, unless you're embedded with a military unit in a war zone, and that accounts for .000001 percent of newspaper reporters. I review cheeseburgers, rock concerts and TV shows. That's not stress. That's getting paid for doing something I'd pay to do.

As for income, nobody makes enough — why is Bill Cosby still doing Pudding Pop commercials? Why is Donald Trump still firing apprentices? Why is Tiger Woods still traveling to Las Vegas to play a golf tournament? Bad example.

As for hiring outlook? Admittedly, there's slim pickings in the job market for newspaper reporters.

I know people in the newspaper business who have been offered higher-paying jobs in other fields. They rarely take them. Why? Because newspaper people love newspapers. That's why I have trouble believing that any kind of legitimate poll about careers puts newspaper reporter at No. 186.

Almost every cool thing I've ever done was possible because I have a press pass in my wallet. I've shaken hands with three presidents (Reagan, Bush 41 and Clinton). I played basketball with the Harlem Globetrotters and tennis with John McEnroe. I've walked around Ayers Rock, kissed the Blarney Stone and climbed the Great Wall of China. I was there the day the Berlin Wall came down.

I get a Christmas card each year from Dominique Sachse.

I've traveled places and met people that philosophers can only think and ponder about.

I like knowing things before other people do. That's what a newspaper reporter does.

My father was a long-haul, 18-wheel truck driver. When he got home from work, he'd yell at us, take off his gray work pants, pick up a newspaper and collapse on the couch.

That's often where I found him the next morning, with the newspaper as his blanket.

I looked at him and thought, “That doesn't look like fun.”

But that newspaper he was reading — that is fun — and sure not the No. 186 job in America