The Three Rs: Review, Revise, Resubmit

Well, after just over a month, I've heard back from the editor of the professional journal that I submitted an article to. Your executive summary of the reviewers' feedback:

1. The research is useful and has publishable merit.
2. The paper is confusing and boring.
3. We should ditch many of the statistics, in favour of focussing on the clinical "take home" story.

I have to agree with all the feedback, truth be told, and am in fact encouraged because ultimately it would appear they are going to publish this article, albeit after significant tuning up work by myself and my co-authors. It will be great to finally have this published.

In other news, our dietician at work gave a 10 minute in-service training talk today on “Energy Balance”. This fairly self-evident (and yet elusive) concept is that change in your body weight (or really more important, percentage of body fat) is based simply and solely on the amount of energy you put in minus the amount of energy you expend. A kilo of body fat, like a kilo of any fat (saturated or unsaturated, butter or that “healthy” olive oil) contains 7,000 (k)calories. Alter your energy balance equation by 500 calories a day, and you'll loose a kilo every two weeks, the recommended way to loose weight. He tells us walking briskly for 20 minutes burns 200 calories... many days I walk 20 minutes to work, and 20 minutes home. Remove about a third of a chocolate bar from my diet and I've just reduced my energy equation to the point I should loose a kilo every two weeks. Uh-huh...

Lent has just started. Perhaps I should give up 500kcal a day for Lent?