Here I was, blissfully inhaling breakfast burritos, coffee break doughnuts and lunchtimes Big Macs, secure in the knowledge that it wasn’t my fault, my overweight problem (I’m not obese yet, but well on the road) is a communicable disease that I caught from my fat friends and relatives, and until a cure is found, well, I’ll just have to suffer in weighty silence, please pass the pasta bowl.
Now here comes William Saleton with an article in Slate.com that says it’s really my own fault, the mainstream media screwed up a concept when they said it’s an obesity virus (damn them, damn them to Hell, being flawlessly accurate until this one story comes along!)
Well, crap! Yeah, pass me the freakin’ sugarless Jell-O. Stupid media!
The other night, the lead story on the evening news was that there has been a study that shows if you have fat friends, you’re more likely to be fat. I let out a big, “DUH!” as they explained that if you have fat friends, you guys are probably more likely to do things like go out and eat together more often, encourage each other to make unhealthy decisions, and less likely to do things like go running together.
Frankly, I’m impressed that it took a scientist to put that one together.
I’ve always liked the explanation that thin people breathe out their fat while they sleep, and fat people are fat because they breathe in the fat. I believe that’s from Garfield.
I know my weight problem is my fault. 25 years of scarfing down bricks of pure lard and bags of refined sugar without any ill effects quickly gave way to a metabolism that more or less said “screw you, I’m done.” 10 years later and I’ve gained about 40+ pounds that I don’t want.
Now I’m eating cottage cheese and actually reading nutrition labels for calorie and fat content.
No, it can’t possibly be your fault. Society is at fault. Yes, society…and corn farmers. High fructose corn syrup is in everything, that’s why you’re fat. I blame corn farmers and PepsiCo which owns Frito Lay who makes Cheetos. Cheetos are to blame for this country’s obesity epidemic. Cheetos, and corn syrup and immigrants who bring all of their yummy foreign food like tacos and egg rolls. I blame cheetos and corn syrup and immigrants and the government for allowing all of those evil things to exist. Yes, that’s it, it’s the government’s fault.
It can’t possibly be your fault. Nope, I just really don’t see how. You poor dear, here, have a cookie, that’ll make you feel better.
Well yes, I obviously understand why it is necessary in that sense. I suppose more so what I meant is that it is an incredibly silly thing to make big news of, since it ought to be common sense.
Thank you, you are now my new best friend. We can sit on my patio (the deck caved in under my weight ages ago) and feed each other Dips and talk about how malnourished **Mindfield ** is going to look in a few months.
Y’know, I know you’re being sarcastic here, but this actually *was *a revelation to me recently. I’ve always eaten “well”. Not much in the way of processed foods (far less than average), didn’t eat out more than once or twice a week, lots of fresh and frozen veggies, fruit instead of sugary snacks. Sure, I had that ice cream compulsion, but 90% of my diet was in the happy end of the Food Pyramid. I took nutrition and diet courses in college, and was a good student. I knew how to eat, and I was pretty much doing it. I was certainly never a glutton or poor-food-choice-maker like you mention in the OP or **velvetjones **mentions in her post.
But I’m still fat. What the heck, man? Only carefully tracking everything I eat (thank you, Weight Watchers) revealed to me that, as much better than average my diet was, it was still not good enough. Yes, my food choices were still making me fat, even though I was eating salads instead of Big Macs. I’ve actually changed very little in my diet - I’ve substituted skim milk for 1%, and 2% cheese for regular. Fat-free sour cream for regular sour cream, and fat-free yogurt for lowfat yogurt. An extra vegetable at dinner and a half-sized serving of starch and brown rice and whole grain pasta instead of white. And these tiny changes have really, truly helped.
And here I thought for years that because I wasn’t eating Big Macs and donuts I was eating well. Because I was eating better than most of my peers, I was eating well. Turns out not so much. I vastly underestimated what “healthy food choices” really means on a consistent basis.
But yeah, big ol’ DUH to the Scientific Institute for Research Into Things I Could Have Told You For Nothing. Fat people encourage their friends to do things that they enjoy, like eating out and not exercising? Fascinating, Captain. :dubious:
**WhyNot, ** you do Weight Watchers? Cool! What I learned about WW (and Razorette and I have vowed to begin monitoring each other again) was that there are two crucial things you have to do. (1) You absolutely must “journal” – that is, write down all of your points every single day, track the “flex points” and NEVER go above your point allocation. It’s a pain in the ass for the first few weeks, but you get used to it. (2) you absolutely must mind the scale. We weigh every Sunday morning (nekkid is more fun, but you don’t have to) and chart your weight fluctuation. When you start ignoring the scale, you start creeping back up. Some people have to monitor their blood sugar constantly, some their blood pressure. I have to monitor my weight. Constantly.
Those two elements seem to be the key. Because I’m consciously monitoring everything I eat, I actually eat less. There are times, like summer, when I’m working out in the yard a lot (I’m talking wheelbarrows, big landscaping blocks, building decks and pouring patios) that I can ignore the journaling and the scale-watching, and maintain (only maintain) my weight. The problem is, I “maintained” last summer and never went back to monitoring like I’m supposed to; I gained back all of the weight I’d lost.
Here’s another key that a lot of people have said: It’s a change in the way you live. If you decide that Weight Watchers is for you, you have to live the rest of your life that way. In a way, that’s a weakness of the program, but some see it as a strength – it’s not a quick loss thing. If you choose it as your way of life, it keeps you slim and healthier, but you have to use it forever.
For people who are more enlightened about food and exercise, they don’t need the formal programming that Weight Watchers offers. I’m not that enlightened. I need the “adult supervision” it offers.
I do NOT accept that I’m a fat person. I’m an overweight person who needs to lose weight. And that Slate.com article I linked to in the OP? It hurt my feelings, it sure did. And maybe that’s not a bad thing right now. My weight and body shape are my responsibility, and I choose to not continue to weigh this much and look like this. My choice. On the other hand, I have no judgement whatsoever regarding people who make a different choice. Kicking cigarettes was easier than losing weight, and that was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.
Yep, I do now! 5 weeks, 14 pounds lost! And I agree with absolutely everything in your post, including that this is a lifelong change, not a “diet”.
The thing is, and not to try and dodge responsibility again, but here it is: our society sucks at teaching people how to eat well. Outrageous serving sizes that are sold as a meal (or even worse, a “small” portion size) but are a day’s worth of calories and fat, prepared and restaurant food as the norm (not just actually going out, but have you noticed we now have restaurant chefs teach us to prepare restaurant recipes on cooking shows, as if that’s how one should be preparing daily meals at home?!), taking all the flavor and fiber out of food and replacing that natural flavor with salt and fat for satiety, teaching that vegetables are a “side dish”, not the main focus of any meal - I could go on, but I know you know what I’m talking about.
That doesn’t mean, though, that I’m not responsible for my own fat. It means I just have more work to do to unlearn all I’ve been taught and take that responsibility in the direction I want.
Good for you. I’m glad you mentioned restaurant chefs. My son is a personal chef in Raliegh, NC. He’s taught us a lot about eating healthy and being able to have enough without going away hungry, and still losing weight and maintaining it. It’s amazing how technique and seasoning (not a lot of seasoning, just a little of the right kinds) can make otherwise boring food very appetizing. It involves aroma, appearance and flavor. Once you learn a few fundamentals, it’s as easy to cook naturally and healthily (if that’s a word) as it is to fix stuff that’s bad for you.
Some people object that healthy eating is too expensive for people with low incomes. Not true. Poverty causes bad eating habits because it causes (among other things) poor self esteem, and the easiest placebo for poor self esteem is tasty (salty + fatty) food. Ice cream, a therapist once told me, is the “mother’s milk of those with poor self esteem.” (I thought the guy had supernatural powers – turns out he, too, fights obesity daily. You wouldn’t know it to look at him.)
I lost my weight on WW. 50 pounds lost - just passed 5 years at goal. I lost on Winning Points/Flex; switched to Core about 3 months ago. I’ve built great habits. But a large part for me is that I enjoy cooking. I’ve found the flavor in food! I take my time eating, and can taste everything.
They say that the only things you really taste are the first bite of food, and the last bite. The trick is to not eat too much in between.
I allot myself enough points for 1 cup of ice cream every night. I probably eat it about 4 out of 7 nights each week - other times I decide to have an extra helping of dinner and fat free/sugar free chocolate pudding instead.
I have, however, chosen to get the Slow Churned from Edy’s (which is another brand elsewhere in the US, but I forget what) - it’s 1/2 fat and 1/3 the calories (or was that 1/3 the fat and 1/2 the calories?) of regular, but damned if I can tell. But it lets me eat twice the amount for the same points! I prefer volume to quality, I guess.
**GingerOfTheNorth **is right. The only reason WW works for me is there’s absolutely nothing off limits. If there was, that would be the only thing I’d crave!
