Kirstie Alley and the Big Life

I stumbled upon yet another reality show the other night. It was called, "Kirstie Alley's Big Life."

All I could say was, "Wow..."

I remember Kirstie Alley from Star Trek II and Cheers. Other than that...not much. I've seen her on the cover of the occasional tabloid with headlines discussing how she gained weight and lost weight and gained more, as well as a headline declaring that she had been dropped from Jenny Craig as a spokesperson (they wouldn't come out and say it's because she regained weight).

I remember hearing the news in passing and scanning headlines on tabloids, but I didn't pay attention to it. Most of that gossip just sort of floats around out there like turds on sewage wastewater, waiting to be processed by a bored public that tries to feel more connected to those they admire by reading about the flaws in those making a metric crap-ton more than we do. So I wasn't prepared to see just how Kirstie Alley has changed since her days on Cheers.

Just...wow.

And the series didn't leave a good impression.

I must have seen an early series episode; she decided to test her new weight-loss program on her "handyman" and enlisted him to work with her. It kind of reminded me of the handyman on "Murphy Brown." He always seemed to be paid to just hang around more than actually do anything, and I guess it's a double-paying job when you're hanging around in front of reality show cameras.

My first thought; how can you shill your own weight-loss program when you're really not looking like you could be a successful poster child for your program? She's overweight. She puts it out there (c'mon...it's called "Big Life," and I believe she had a show called "Fat Actress" before that).

Second, the show had her deciding to get more exercise. Exercise will help her lose weight. They had an entire episode dedicated to interviewing personal trainers to come in and help her and her handyman lose weight.

Ugh. I so hate that.

I've railed against it before. Exercise is good for you, but it will not be your magic key to losing weight. Yes, you may lose a few pounds. But I'm willing to bet that much of that is because exercise fills time you otherwise would use eating.

When I'm on the treadmill, it takes an hour to burn 500 calories at an easy pace. An hour. A plain cheeseburger from McDonald's takes five minutes to eat (or less) and is 300 calories. Yeah, five minutes to take in 300 calories takes at least half an hour to forty minutes to burn off.

So if your lifestyle has you eating two thousand calories a day more than your body needs, can you fill in four or five hours a day with exercise to get your caloric intake to a manageable level?

I'll say this again; exercise will let you eat what you want as an obese person to achieve a skinny body if you become a professional trainer. You'll spend eight hours a day sweating calories from your pores. You'll have a huge calorie deficit. Most of us have jobs that don't involve wearing sweats for the majority of the day, however.

Second thing I'll say again; the "easiest" way to lose weight is to change your food lifestyle. That cheeseburger from McDonald's isn't really all that bad compared to most fast food fare; the average McMeal of a Big Mac, large fries and large Coke comes to 1,350 calories. That's over half the calories the average person should be eating in the course of the entire day compressed into one meal. And I don't think it's all that unusual for someone to have a meal like this.

Exercise isn't bad and I'm not advocating not exercising. Exercise makes you stronger and healthier in a number of ways. I'm simply saying that exercise isn't a magic bullet for losing weight, and unless you do a LOT of it, it won't make a huge difference in your weight loss routine. Want a big difference? Don't eat so much. Not eating that 540 calorie Big Mac will save you over an hour on the treadmill.

Forget how this relates to Kirstie Alley? Her show, or the episode I watched, seemed entirely endorsing the idea that if you have a personal trainer (because every fat person can afford one of those, along with your own personal home gym) you would lose weight. She mentioned the idea that she needs to change her lifestyle, but in the same session of marathon Big Life episodes she called her handyman one night to ask if he'd like to come over to eat something.

Um...

Now she has released her Certified Organic Weight Loss Program  (no I don't care enough to put in the actual name because it's yet another program dedicated to miraculous weight loss if you follow the magic "system"). Does it work? I don't know, but it seems clear that her show is less about the life of an actress who is no longer in the headlines for her roles and instead is on the tabloids because of her size and is instead a show cashing in on the public's fascination with reality shows to help promote her program. Good marketing, I suppose. But I think it's bad that it's promoting yet another "system" to an American public that desperately wants to believe all ills have a simple, singular magic bullet cure.

It's reported that she's lost 20 pounds since January (and now it's March) on her own diet program. That's great for her. The key is finding out if her system continues to have positive effects after five and ten years...

Gabby Sidibe and Weight in Hollywood

I don't really have any desire to see the critically acclaimed movie "Precious." IMDB has a plot summary that reads, in part, "In 1987, obese, illiterate, black 16-year-old Claireece "Precious" Jones (Gabourey Sidibe) lives in the New York City neighborhood of Harlem with her dysfunctional family; she has been raped and impregnated twice by her father..."

Not really my idea of a movie that grips my attention, but that's okay.

In a move that isn't all that surprising, Howard Stern made the news (again) by criticising Sidibe's weight on his Sirius radio show. He said, in part, "There's the most enormous, fat black chick I've ever seen. She is enormous. Everyone's pretending she's a part of show business and she's never going to be in another movie," Stern ranted. "She should have gotten the Best Actress award because she's never going to have another shot. What movie is she gonna be in?"

Her weight is definitely on the high side. She claimed to Oprah that her first diet was at the age of six. She decided to love herself and her body, making her sound like one of the members of the fat acceptance movement.

But is Howard Stern wrong?

He refuses to apologize for the remarks. From an article posted at Contactmusic.com: "Stern's comments stirred up a swathe of controversy in the U.S., but he's standing by his opinion - insisting Sidibe should not be held up as a role model for overweight people, because obesity is a life-threatening condition."

He also apparently said that she will have trouble with landing roles in Hollywood due to her weight.

From the article: "I feel this girl is going to kill herself - you can't eat like this. I did enjoy her performance (in Precious) I have nothing against her, I'm just trying to say she's enormous...The girl has got tremendous problems and she needs help. And we got slammed (for saying it)."

I won't argue whether Stern is an opinionated ass or talking head like so many others who capitalize on their fame by stirring controversy. The question is, how right is he?

There are those who are saying he's full of it because Gabby is already wrapping a second movie and is starting in a TV pilot. She also has had support from some heavy hitters...no pun intended...in Hollywood such as Oprah Winfrey. Ha ha! Take that, Stern!

At the same time I'm wondering how many grossly obese actors and actresses (especially actresses) are in movies and television. I could probably count them on one hand, and these were very talented people who excelled in their craft...usually as comedians, or people who slid into acting from a comedy career. Even those that are famous and overweight are often not known for their acting career; Oprah, a one-woman business mogul, has a well known struggle with food. But she's not known for being an actress (nor is she truly grossly obese). She's a savvy businesswoman with her fingers in many media revenue streams. Sidibe is a newcomer in Hollywood with one hit movie on her resume.

And there is the fact that she is fat. She can pretend that it won't have an impact on her career, but observation tells us that it simply isn't true. Even little slips of the tongue tell us that it is something on the minds of people around her. The director of Precious apparently said on the carpet: "No one in Hollywood told me they wanted to see a movie about a 350 pound black girl who had HIV," Daniels said at the podium. Immediately realizing his gaffe, Daniels noted, "She's not 350 pounds, Gabby...but the book says...before you were hired."

The fact is that her weight right now is stirring controversy, increasing her publicity stops with more interviews in part because it's unusual to have a 350 pound actress that has managed to get nominated for so many awards.  The director was quoted that after seeing her audition tape that she seemed to be in a state of denial of her weight.

Another fact; the movie was about an overweight, sexually and physically abused poor black girl impregnated by her father. What big names in Hollywood would pull off this role without a fat suit? This girl had some acting skills and fit the physical specifications the role required. But that doesn't mean that she's going to have a career in Hollywood. And if you see the train wreck that has come from other flash-in-the-pans, chances are she'll enjoy a window of fame then slowly peter away into nothing.

This girl is having a lot of publicity specifically because she is in a unique position. A 350 pound actress made a name for herself in a movie that garnered a lot of awards. If this were commonplace we wouldn't be hearing about it, and soon it'll disappear as someone else takes over the public's short attention span, and that's when you find out how much staying power and talent the girl really has. The true talents are the ones that you see in movie after movie and you can't even recall when you last paid attention to her, yet you still find her name coming up for Hollywood roles.

I'm afraid that Howard Stern was being realistic here. Harsh, uncouth, but realistic. Hollywood is fascinated by freak breakouts and the media loves to swirl around fresh meat so long as the public buys the gossip rags. It doesn't take a genius to see that the women on the covers of magazines aren't 350 pounds; weight is usually a topic for deriding the Jessica Simpson's and Oprah Winfrey's to emphasize the latest "Oh My God She's Gaining Weight From Breakup/Illness/Stress/Bizarre Career Event" headline, or "See Who's Losing Weight And How They Did It" article.

The real story will come if Sidibe is on the covers of magazines in another year highlighting her latest movie or television project and not gossip on her personal life or yet another weight-acceptance article. Until then, I think Stern has a point. My inclination is to believe that Sidibe is a flash in the gossip pan that will disappear in a short amount of time, for better or worse.

Biggest Loser: Truth Edition

Does anyone really watch "reality shows" and expect them to be an honest depiction of what's going on?

The Living at 400 Lbs blog has an article regarding a New York Times piece on The Biggest Loser, the show about overweight people who compete to lose weight using restricted calorie diets and six hours of exercise a day. Quoted in the article is a bit saying that they can lose up to 15 pounds in one week.

Holy Schikes!

I'll admit I never watched the show. I do know that there are lots of books babbling on about how wonderful the Biggest Loser Diet is supposed to be.

But come on...

These people are overweight due to a lifestyle. Suddenly a month or two (however long they're taping the show) of severe calorie restriction and 6 hours a day of exercise is going to set them right? Who lives like this that isn't already madly in shape because they're some kind of fitness expert or trainer (or soldier, maybe...)

The piece also says that in the first episode of the current season two contestants were sent to the hospital when they collapsed from heatstroke on a one-mile race.

When I first had the surgery, I was barely able to walk a mile. How could a group of fat people just start off on a one mile race without any practice or training and expect not to have repercussions?

A quote from the article:
The Times also quotes the waiver contestants have to sign to be on the show, including that they believe themselves to be “in excellent physical, emotional, psychological and mental health.”


Okay, there are some overweight people that may not have mental health issues. Broadly speaking, though, I've found that most people are overweight due to other issues. Addictive personality. Depression. Self-defense mechanism. Something more usually underlies the need or desire (or habit) of overeating. Again, not in all cases, but it's there. That makes this waiver utterly ridiculous. Furthermore, these people are on a show for overweight people to lose large amounts of weight in a competition...and they're certifying that they're in excellent physical health?

Is there anyone that can plead a case that this isn't a joke? I don't see how this could be a binding agreement this side of the reality barrier.

You're Too Fat. No Diploma!

This was interesting. Apparently Lincoln University in Oxford, PA (USA) now requires students to have a BMI (body mass index) of 30 or less or they have to take a one-credit health course.

Apparently this is the first class for whom the requirement means if they haven't fulfilled the requirement from their freshman year, they won't graduate, and nearly two dozen seniors fit that requirement.

My personal feeling is that if you're going to college to specialize in a career, why do you need to have a requirement that has nothing to do with the career? Worse, why is it focusing on fat people to tell them that they're unhealthy? Are normals honestly so stupid that they think fat people don't know they're tired, short of breath, unable to walk well, or any of the other host of fat-related problems are because they're fat and unhealthy?

I find it to be stupid in that they don't encourage this policy of forced behavior through requirements on no smoking, or undereating (bulimia/anorexia), in addition to the you're-too-damn-fat requirement.

Maybe they should force a particular religion (or non-religion) onto the students as well. After all, studies have shown some evidence that spirituality improves the quality of life for students, and if you're going to preach the gospel of skinny to students why not also throw this in for good measure, since the justification for telling students that they're too fat is that it affects their quality of life?

Burger King Sued Over $1 Cheeseburgers?

I just saw this post at the Diet-Blog claiming that Burger King franchisees are suing the headquarters for forcing them to sell double cheeseburgers in a promotion that has them selling at a loss.

Apparently they will lose ten cents on each burger, while Burger King corporate believes that this will drive up patronage by %20, meaning more sales to cover the loss.

I'm torn here, perhaps because our local Burger King has rarely managed to even get our orders right to begin with. My family is still very big on fast food and we'd probably go there far more often if that place could actually get one @#% order correct. As it stands it's good exercise because we go to the drive through and end up having to walk in to get what was forgotten, missed, or given to us by mistake. To my recollection it's the only restaurant in the area we've ever actually called and complained about to headquarters...so part of me thinks that if the restaurant offered a better experience, they wouldn't need to rely on the give away the razor to sell the blades loss-leader sales gimmick. Oh, and there's the creepy King mascot, too. That can't help much for sales when kids have nightmares about the face of your product.

But that's my opinion.

I can see the corporate headquarter's gamble here. Lure customers in, hope they have a good experience and bring friends or come back more often. Kids can come hang out and keep buying stuff like soda and french fries which are crazy profit drivers.

Franchisees are probably scraping by in the tougher economy. They don't want to risk something that cuts into thin profit margins (I'm guessing, since I do know that the soda and I'm guessing fries are big profit, while other things aren't so much). If attendance is down then this is a risky gamble for them.

On the third hand I rarely see fast food as being good for you at all, and don't really weep when people can't get their grease and sodium fix. If people just aren't interested in your product and you fail to deliver a good experience, like our local BK consistently has done to us, then you quite frankly deserve to fail and drive what little loyal patrons you have to give their money to other, better businesses.

Burger King is still a large corporation that will no doubt find equilibrium before they sink. While the recent events with the economy have proven that no one is too big to fail, it also highlights that corporate scum will continue to make due, given the number of businesses that have laid off and fired workers or have been driven into near (or total) bankruptcy while at the same time giving their CEO's millions of dollars in bonuses. If the King goes bankrupt or closes some restaurants down, then the market has spoken and we'll have a small rise in the number of teens without slacker jobs for awhile, until someone else takes up the slack with a restaurant of their own (or a new franchise opens up). If not then this is just going to be another blip on the radar for people who care about this sort of thing.

Fattism in America?

I just ran across this UK article about abuse of fat people. The article makes it sound as if there's a rash of beatings for being overweight across the pond, but overall is focusing on the question of why society seems to pile so much hate on people who are overweight.

Personally I've not encountered more than just the looks and stares and the occasional comment here in the US for being fat. Strangely enough most of that I remember occurred as an adult rather than my teenage years (you'd think it would be the opposite, wouldn't you?)

There is definitely discrimination against fat people; we are, along with smokers, one of the last of the "socially acceptable to make fun of" classifications of people. But outright beatings?

That's a little scary. Maybe the story was just focusing on isolated events rather than a rash of hate crimes. I certainly hope so. Has any reader found there to be outright discrimination against fat people in the US?

TV Stars Dying On Camera

Wow. TV sure is changing.

I just found (although this is being posted several days later...) a news article about a TV show that is apparently in Australia about risky surgeries. It has already been confirmed that some of the patients die.

The article I was reading is found here.

It's called Last Chance Surgery. One of those surgeries involves a 17 year old hairdressing student with brain cancer. The doctor says that it's virtually guaranteed that in surgeries like that something will go wrong, and a significant chance that something debilitating will be a lasting effect. Because, c'mon, let's be real...you have people cutting into your freakin' brain.

Unlike all the shows we have on ER's and life in the ER and ER Traumas which highlight the morons that end up with sticks in their ears and motorcycle accidents of untold horror and the patients wheeling their way out in the end apparently this show is going to show people with one shot at survival...and you, the viewer, will get to wager on who will make it to the credits.

I personally prefer seeing shows that are more realistic. We can't even get news shows without a wonderful dose of bias thrown in for good measure. "If it bleeds, it leads." Every news station is accused of being either leaning so far to the left or right of politics that we have to turn to stations like the BBC to find out what is going on in our own country. Other shows simply portray life as being so Disneyfied that I want to expunge what is left in my stomach or so unrealistic that...well, I watch the fantasy shows.

What do you think? TV has definitely changed from the more "pure" and far less realistic worlds inhabited by June and Ward Cleaver or even the Seavers. Is a shift to a more realistic world better?

Or is TV simply becoming a cesspool of personal agendas operating under the guise of realism, where "reality TV" is in fact still nothing more than a wheelbarrow of fertilizer?

Quick Thoughts: "You're an Idiot!"

This is going to be a short entry because there is a thought that just won't stop racing through my head for the past few days. I'll share it here. Maybe someone else can comment or clarify. Consider this a fun day for the entries.

As an Aspergian, there are concepts that just don't make sense to me. Why is it a social faux pas to tell someone they're an idiot, but it's not a social faux pas to be an idiot? It seems Aspies get in trouble a lot when the idiot should be getting into trouble.

Maybe it's just a quirk with neurotypicals. Sometimes I wonder if Aspies are a window into reason, that maybe neurotypicals should stop and consider that if Aspies are driven by reason and less by emotion then they (the neurotypical) should ask themselves if an Aspie's opinion is something that they should more closely consider. It seems as if following emotional responses tends to lead to more drama and trouble in life and make things more complicated than is necessary and thus leads to more stress.

It could possibly be more reasonable if people made it a social grace to point out when someone is a dumbass instead of making the Aspie out to be the gorilla in the room for saying what others should have been thinking. Maybe you're providing a service. Some people are too dense or full of themselves to understand that they're an idiot. Aspies don't mind being told when they're missing something that neurotypicals find absurdly easy to catch in social situations. It seems reasonable that if an Aspie catches something in the social spectrum of behavior then it is so blatantly obvious that something must be wrong with the idiot to not see that they are an idiot.

What do you think?

You're Fat. Let's Cut Your Pay

Here's a real WTF. Apparently the Senate Finance Committee passed an amendment to the healthcare bill that will penalize workers not following a "healthy lifestyle". A blog post on the issue can be found here with links for more information.

Apparently it's unhealthy lifestyles that are entirely to blame for skyrocketing healthcare costs. At least, according to the idiots in government that is what is causing the problems. It's like the lack of standardized tests are the root of our education problems, not the fact that our culture denigrates intelligent people and glorifies people who are more into chugging beer and achieving touchdowns...our current President was actually losing some votes because he wasn't someone that voters would "want to have a beer with". That says something about our population.

I'll make it clear that I think our unhealthy lifestyle in this country is certainly not helping anything with the cost of healthcare. What I also see:

preventative care: poor people who wait until they are literally unable to function before being dragged to the ER are in a far worse spot than people who can go in to find out why that weird mole is changing shape on their chest or why the rash is getting painful.

Bureacracy eating time and resources. The bariatric office I have been working with has a person whose only job is to work with insurance companies. I've heard other doctors complain about having to fight with insurance companies, and read about doctors that have had to choose between diagnostics for people or letting them go without certain treatments because insurance companies say they wouldn't need it. Taiwan managed to increase health coverage to its citizens while having the lowest administrative overhead; they did it using smart cards that keep patient records and information, thus lowering insurance fraud, duplication of services and tests.

The cost of healthy living. These arseheads in government are the same monkeys that have a subsidy to corn farmers and tax sugar imports, meaning that the controversial additive High Fructose Corn Syrup...a possible contributor to weight gain...is very cheap and found in just about every @#% thing in the supermarket while sugar, natural sugar, is too expensive and thus harder to find. Gym memberships are out of the budget for many households, especially with today's economy. Eating fresh fruits and vegetables isn't very cheap either. There was just a study released showing how the healthy mediterranean style diet was more expensive than the more calories-for-your-buck Western diet.

Now these arsehats are saying that if you're overweight or smoking or anything else deemed "unhealthy" and not willing to follow some corporate shill's idea of a wellness program, you could get dinged with an increase in your premiums. In a time when people are struggling to keep a roof over their heads and are barely able to even get a job, somehow this is going to give incentive to become healthy. Here's a bit of news: making people miserable in the workplace isn't considered healthy living.

Do you think stress will help with health costs?

Do you think misery and stress don't contribute to being overweight? Or strokes? Heart attacks?

Don't you have a responsibility to be consistent in the first place...i.e., stop giving tobacco companies a free pass while at the same time penalizing the tobacco consumers?

What about lifting the taxes on natural food sources like sugar, and instead shifting some of that corn into alternative fuel uses instead of using them as a primary ingredient in McNuggets?

What about taking action to make it cheaper to eat fresh vegetables and fruits instead of salami and Twinkies? The government has no problem artificially manipulating the cost of things like milk and corn. Why not make it so I can buy fresh vegetables and lowfat ham and bread for my meals for less than the cost of a cheeseburger and McD's, all things considered?

No, no. These mustn't be considered. The real problem is that in a time when we're struggling to pay our bills, we need to add one more reason for employers to hate their employees and give another justification to cut costs by trimming headcount when employees, miserable and stressed by yet another pressure at work, aren't trimming their waistlines. All under the guise of "personal responsibility."

I didn't see it mentioned that people who are living a "healthy lifestyle", whatever definition they come up with for that will be, being rewarded. I only see punishment in the material mentioned at the original article. You're fat? Well...that goes into your record. Don't shape up and you might just happen to get let go at the next round of pink slips.

This sounds more like a federally legal way to discriminate. I really hope this gets slammed into the courts and the first person hit with this discrimination wins big. Maybe one day those arseheads on the hill in local, state, and federal governments will learn to get their heads out of their collective rectums and actually focus on something more important than whether or not Bob in accounting is twenty pounds overweight, or at least stop propagating the myth that there's one overarching cause to the healthcare costs.

Hmm...why is it that when discussing health costs, it's never at all the fault of the insurance companies that are making billions of dollars a year? It's never paperwork, it's never bureacracy, it's never making preventative care affordable, it's never our culture glorifying the lifePstyle of gluttany and excess, it's never linked to stresses and poverty? It always seems to be that it's because Bob is eating too many Twinkies. And it's conveniently Bob's fault. So now they're going to penalize Bob.

When I think of it like that I can't help but picture someone handing someone a chocolate bar then giving them an electric shock whenever they take a bite of it, or those oddball countries that managed to get laws that make selling sex legal but purchasing it illegal. Huh?

There are times I'm so fed up with dealing with the intricacies of human interactions that I want to just separate myself from everyone and live in an earth-bermed home in the woods all off the grid. I couldn't possibly be the only person that finds all of this to be ridiculous, am I?

Fast Food and Healthy Diet

Ironically I found a post from another blog that said that Denny's is being sued to disclose the salt content in their food. The Reuter's article can be found here. I don't know what the basis is for compelling a company to tell you what's in their food if it's not something that'll immediately kill someone, but hey, in America you're free to litigate against anything that annoys you if you have enough money. I guess we need to make sure our justice system has a lot of busywork to earn their pay.

The article says that the salt content in one of the Denny's meal is "dangerously high", and cites certain people that need to watch their intake of sodium that could have problems with the food. I guess this in my opinion is kind of a slippery slope; I feel that there is a point when reasonable people have to take reasonable control of their own lives and responsibility for their decisions; the meal cited in the article is the Meat Lover's Scramble.

Okay...chain restaurant, meal item called "Meat Lover's Scramble" that consists of "two eggs with chopped bacon, diced ham, crumbled sausage, cheese plus two bacon strips, two sausage links, hash browns, and two pancakes," and a person who is at-risk for salt intake is pondering this item on the menu...

I think there are couple red flags right off the bat that should tell you that you need to avoid that meal. Hell, people without salt issues should avoid it.

I do wish that nutrition information for chain restaurants (Applebee's, I'm pointing at you, you skunks...) were more readily available, even if it's just available online. But to sue over just disclosing salt content (Denny's already has their nutrition information on their website.)

Hmm...Okay. That's odd. The Meat Lover's Scramble IS on the online menu. And unlike the claim on the article, the sodium level is 3,180 mg, not 5,690 mg. Apparently the group is suing to have it put into the menu, because the company isn't hiding the information (unlike, say, Applebee's). The difference in numbers may be with side items that are separately ordered, I don't know.

So if you're in an at-risk category for certain foods, I think you should actually get off your arse and research it. Look up the menus at Red Lobster or Denny's. Look for the printed nutrition information at McD's. For most reasonable companies you can find it online, or at least exercise some common sense (I mean, c'mon, you read the description of that meal...does it sound like it would be low in sodium?)

The reason I said all of this was ironic was because as I was actually sitting down to do a blog post on whether it was possible to eat healthy meals at fast food chains. Most of the information that got me thinking about it is here at HowStuffWorks.com.

I'm sure you could find, or modify, fast food orders that are relatively healthy once in awhile. But not like what you could make at home (or in some small off-chain restaurants). Once people take an interest in educating themselves about this issue they quickly find that most fast foods are full of fats, sugars, and salt.

Why? Because it preserves foods and makes them taste a lot better. Customers like the foods with the bad stuff in them...and it helps keep the cost of those burgers and salads lower. I mean, if you reduce the flavor or shelf life of the food, how much will prices rise? That's part of the convenience that sells this stuff. Duh.

It's a shame that "common sense" doesn't work for most people when choosing menu items in restaurants. Most people who listen to the media blurbs and sound bites equate chicken with being healthy; often, it's not, and it's not obvious. Even the chicken you get in the supermarket may have undergone "plumping". That's a process where the chicken is injected with saltwater to increase shelf life, flavor, visual appeal...yummy! Too bad it also makes the sodium content skyrocket. Even McNuggets are mostly corn.

But this information isn't hidden, it's just not advertised. The big problem I see is that people in America are anti-intellectual; we do not have a code of ethics that embraces education and learning. We wait for it to be plonked in front of us, handed over so as to save us from having to do any critical thinking.

We resent the idea that we don't have freedoms and choices. At the same time the more I read and listen to people the more convinced I become that people want a world where everything is done for us. We just go along with the flow, do what we're told, except for the one or two things in our lives in which we take an interest.

This would mean that many of our issues...if not most...come from our society, not from other people and companies doing "bad things" to us. A lot of problems would be reduced if we invested more time and effort in becoming better skeptical and critical thinkers.

But that takes effort...and right now there's more TV to be watched.

Health Care Reform Proposal

The Junkfood Science blog has an entry regarding the Democrat's proposed healthcare plan, and if the 10,000 foot overview looks like spaghetti from this diagram then it's probably too complex to actually manage in any practical sense.

You might be able to find the blog article from either the link I embedded above or the blogroll on the right side of this page to find Junkfood Science and check it out.

It's so disheartening what a complex mess healthcare is. I enjoy the Junkfood Science blog; the posts are thought provoking and packed with good information. But I do think there's a bias towards strong opposition to the Obama health care proposal; which is fine. Everyone is entitled to an opinion on their own information site...you won't find much praise for Windows on this blog, for example (is there any? I don't think so...I know I have some good things for it though, just not good enough to have posted about it yet).

What I haven't really seen on the Junkfood Science site is a counterproposal or explanation as to why nothing proposed could work. Maybe she has posted the information and I've just missed it (like I said, I enjoy the site or I wouldn't waste my time there). There's something I learned relatively recently (meaning in the last couple years) and that is that if you have a complaint, fine, voice it. It's good in a team or group to have someone that can see the flaws in an idea and point them out. But try to have a counterproposal or solution as well. Just whining about the problems accomplishes nothing but makes you a poisonous element to any team or group.

Now that Obama is in the hot seat everyone is focusing on how we're hoping the healthcare reforms he'll start...and it's important to say it'll only start, not complete, since changes with government occur at a glacial pace...but that it'll probably fail. Every lobbyist and company with a stake in it is making sure they can yell, "I TOLD YOU SO!" when it doesn't work for everyone.

On the other hand, what is the alternative? I'm in my thirties and I don't recall any time aside from Hillary Clinton's efforts hearing about a concentrated effort to help American citizens get healthcare that didn't leave them thinking it would just be better to crawl into the corner and die rather than sort through the bureacracy to get better.

Republicans and insurance companies are saying that the government will stifle competition (yet I keep getting packages from UPS and FedEx...didn't we have a government-run group that delivered packages at one point? I think it was called the postal service...).

After three decades we're still in a mess and not the Democrats or the Republicans have done squat to help their constituents. The Democrats have been and are trying now to find a remedy. Politics as usual between our defacto two-party system is trying to hamper even that effort. Meanwhile we have 46 million Americans (as of 2007) without insurance and with the economy tanking the last couple years there's little doubt that number has risen significantly.

I'm begging. Stop bitching about the planned reform and find a solution. If you think you know better, then propose it. The last time the country actually set it's collective sight on a goal we managed to land an astronaut on the moon in surprisingly short time. Now why can't we get vaccines and medical care to our neighbors without putting them in debt for the rest of their lives?

Bueller?....Bueller?....

More Notes on the Fat Acceptance Movement

I've started kind of following along with The Fatshionista blog and Living At 400 lbs blog lately. I guess the Fat Acceptance movement kind of interests me since obviously I'm overweight.

I'll start off by saying that if you're happy with the way you are, more power to you. If you're 300+ pounds and say you're happy and fit and you feel good about yourself, then really it's not my business to argue with you. It's great that you feel good about yourself.

Nothing I'm saying here is to attack someone personally. My thoughts are focused on the group, the Movement, as a whole.

When I was overweight I accepted my obesity too. I accepted it because change is hard. I liked food. I liked not riding this @#$ bike ten miles a day. I liked not sweating on purpose (I sweat all the time in Summer...isn't breathing supposed to be an exercise?). I saw joggers running on the sidewalk and they never looked happy. They looked like someone was chasing them to give them a proctology exam. Why would I want to cut back on food (I'm hungry, @#$!!), waste my time doing something that normal people looked thoroughly unhappy doing, and ruin my already low supply of clothes with sweat and holes from having to exercise?

So I guess I was part of the fat acceptance movement. Accept me as I am or get out of my way. It helped that I was an introvert and didn't really like people or social situations too.

Gradually I gained high blood pressure. And high cholesterol. Then the diabetes...I was on Metformin and later coupled it with Byetta. I noticed myself hating having those usual fat-thoughts...you know, will this bench hold me? Will this seatbelt reach? On a plane flight I needed an extender for the belt. It sucked. But it was who I am. I just wrote it off as another reason to hate getting up in the morning.

My new doctor at the time...I'll call her Dr. K...seemed like she was ready to just give up on me. Another patient who doesn't give a damn about dying young, ignoring her medical advice...the usual. And she reminded me that I would most likely not live to see my young son graduate or get married or suffer the wonders of marriage and children himself.

*sigh*

She was right.

She referred me to a specialist who took a glance...literally...at my list of comorbids (blood pressure, apnea, etc.) and then tossed his notebook on the desk and said, "Weight loss surgery. You need it. Anything else?"

Dude. He sounded pretty sure.

He gave me the referral and out of his office I went. I'm pretty sure he was used to patients ignoring him...at least that's the feeling I got. Another idiot wasting his time; state (to him) the obvious and move on to the next in line.

I hate it when they do that. I'm not your average idiot and hate being lumped in with them. I'm my own special brand of idiot.

Anyway that's when I started in earnest trying to get the surgery and lose weight. That's also some background on my perspective on weight loss.

So when people in the Movement say they're healthy and all, it's kind of interesting to me.

I've read them saying that doctors are surprised they don't have the comorbidities that overweight people are supposed to have. "My cholesterol and blood pressure are normal!" I used to say that. Then I developed them.

I've read them saying that they eat salads and relatively healthy foods and they're still near whatever weight. I ate salads sometimes. Have you read the labels on dressing? Once you put a decent amount of dressing on a salad so you're not eating something that tastes like yard clippings you end up with a pretty high calorie count, one that easily rivals anything you get at the menu at Olive Garden or (I assume, since those jackholes won't publish calorie information) Applebees.

I'm very interested in whether people in the Movement have honestly done any tracking of calorie counts. It's not hard to do if you're somewhat organized. I was very anal retentive about it when I ended up having to track numbers but I'm even happy hearing ballpark figures. I was shocked to learn that I was probably in the neighborhood of three to four thousand calories a day...I was supposed to be, for a sedentary person, sixteen hundred to eighteen hundred, if I recall correctly.

And anyone in the Movement who claims to not overeat all that much and put in exercise by walking stairs, etc...I can't help but think they're full of it. Weight isn't magical. You put it on by taking in more calories than expending. It's not just a genetic thing that you're fat. You may be predisposed to it, but it still is getting the fuel somewhere to store it...any time I read these claims I wonder if they think they're getting fat from their feet drawing nutrients from the soil or air.

One thing has been consistent in my trials and tribulations. I eat less, I lost weight. I eat more, I gain. The surgery itself doesn't do much more than try forcing you, for a short time, to eat less and feel better with less food...eventually that effect wears off. Somewhat. From what I can find, if you don't stretch the pouch you should still feel satisfied with smaller meals. Can you short-circuit that? Yeah. You can sabotage it. But you'd be an idiot to try to do it.

In the end it's a tool for learning new habits. I could have tried eating this small amount of food without the surgery. I'd have been more miserable for it though, and my stretched stomach would constantly nag me for more until my intake kept creeping higher. I know it would have. Well, I'm pretty sure from past efforts that's what would happen.

So those are my curiosities for the Fat Acceptance Movement. I have been toying with the idea of trying to email the some of the "fat-o-sphere" bloggers and get their perspectives on my questions. I'd be really interested in the answers...any others ever read these blogs and consider themselves part of the Movement? Have you ever tracked calories for your intake before and if so what was it?

Overweight America Means Being Heavier Is Seen As Normal

I've always known that clothing sizes are largely arbitrary, at least for women's clothes. See, to make consumers feel better, manufacturers kind of "make up" numbers. Apparently women don't mind trading a standardized scale for something that just makes them feel better about themselves.

I don't know how they stand it. But that's the Asperger's in me.

At any rate, a new article found here discusses the new trend in weight in America: due to obesity being on the rise in the general populace, people who are on the heavier end of "normal" see themselves not as overweight but as normal weight.

In other words the old joke about feeling better about being overweight by hanging around with people more overweight is being proven as an actual effect.

Because more and more people are overweight and we are a communal species, a species that relies on our interactions with other people to judge, in part, ourselves, the label of "normal weight" is starting to slide higher as the average weight of our society slid higher.

What does this have to do with clothes? One of the points brought up in the article is that clothing for women has begun sliding again among certain clothing manufacturers. As the article points out, depending on the label, a woman could be a size 14 but the clothes at the Conglomomart that fit her are a size 10.

Despite all the noise being made about fitness and health it's good to know that old habits...namely making compromises to accommodate the delusions of an overindulgent society in the name of profit and "feeling good" about itself...are still a constant that can be relied upon.

How Dumb be Americans?

I picked up a book at a Barnes and Noble that is still sitting on my shelf (unfortunately) waiting to be read called The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future (Or, Don't Trust Anyone Under 30). It's another in a series of works coming out discussing how stupid today's population in America is.

I found another post dated for the Fourth of July at the Junkfood Science blog that highlights yet again just how dumb we are. It's very disheartening and highlights the lack of critical thinking skills in our student population.

Some points from reading the article:

I agree...an uneducated population is easier to control. We are a population that cares more about toys and ourselves than intellectual pursuits. It's a boon for groups with selfish interests, though, since stupid people are too dumb to understand they're being manipulated.

The article implies that immigrants are more intelligent than Americans since a huge percentage of them pass the test with all the answers correct. I think they study the topic ahead of time. I mean, I took the amateur radio test to get a technician license many many many years ago; I read the practice books so much that I literally memorized the the test. When the time came to take the test I knew what the answer was from the multiple choice exam by reading the first few words of the question, since the questions were taken from a pool of questions. It's not so hard when the immigrants had just studied to come here (although there may be some difficulty involved with the language barrier).

The article brings up a state exam where the majority of high schoolers couldn't pass (and thus not graduate). Since most of them weren't passing, the legislature simply got rid of the requirement. Not surprising. I've seen it happen in similar cases several times before; the Enrichment Program, when I was in school, was our school district's gifted program (for kids tested and found to have a higher than average IQ). Not enough kids were getting into the program for their spending so the requirement for the minimum IQ was lowered and thus created a full classroom; the program was dumbed down but it made the administrators happier. Eventually I think they eliminated the program because the smart kids (in the age of No Child Left Behind) is already "proficient" so they don't deserve additional attention. That's a different problem though.

The post also mentions that there's a problem with teachers in Massachusetts where new elementary level teachers couldn't pass the basic teacher's exam, so the state allowed a huge percentage of them to get certified anyway with the requirement that they pass the exam within 5 years. After having spoken and observed many teachers in my time I have come to the conclusion that teachers are not some different animal from the rest of the population; they aren't necessarily more intelligent or reasonable compared to anyone else. On average they're probably higher up than non-skilled workers, but I was shocked to find one teacher in a school district that believed the moon landing was a hoax. I was floored to discover that an educated person would actually believe this, but in retrospect I shouldn't be. Teachers are people that specialize in their sub-field and aren't necessarily Renaissance Men. I've met some very knowledgeable teachers and I've met some that I'm surprised manage to dress themselves. But there always seems to be one universal...bureacracy from higher ups always seem to be disconnected from their employees' needs and work. I guess politics will always be a detriment no matter the organization.

Overall the article probably is a bit of a simplification of what the founding fathers were really like, but still the post was worth checking out. It was some fascinating food for thought.

The Nation's Obesity Report Card is Out! We FAIL!

Let's take a poll. Should I feel sad or bemused at the results of the recently released results of the "Obesity Report Card"?

We have more attention than ever on obesity.

Schools are adopting these cranial-rectal inversion policies enforcing limited snacks and beverages that are not "healthy".

PE programs are getting more (but probably not enough) emphasis in school-age kids.

Diet books are a multi-billion dollar industry.

Almost every tabloid has at least one story poking at weight issues with celebrities.

Every year there's a new buffet of diet hoaxes, pills, herbs, quick fixes, and fads from which to choose.

New bariatric patients continue to surge into the ranks.

And yet the rates of obesity rose in 23 states.

Granted, this is based on a study following BMI, which may not be an accurate overall assessment of your actual health level. But still it's troubling that there are so many steps being taken to do what in my view amounts to legislating health (how cooperative are most people when they have to do something "just because"?) while apparently the effect isn't quite as successful as hoped. People won't want to be fit unless they come to decide they need to do it on their own, and quite frankly our society is one that values excess and indulgence.

On top of that there's stress from our economy. Uncertainty on whether you'll have a job or a home next week.

Foods that are healthy are expensive compared to the unhealthy stuff. Some people who dedicate a good bit of time to learning about healthy living and frugality can proclaim this to be false, that it is possible to eat well and in a healthy way without spending a huge amount of money. Unfortunately it still takes effort to reach that point, to learn the techniques, and quite frankly, there's an investment to be made in changing lifestyle.

It's not easy. Ergo, we reach for snacky foods and cheaper foods and fast foods instead of the vegetables and healthier choices.

One of my favorite lines from the article is "research suggests that overeating is a key reason kids are overweight." I love it when they find the obvious, as if people are actually overweight because of exposure to some kind of floor wax; were they actually expecting to find something to justify the idea that it's not our own fault we're overweight? Apparently there are still people holding out hope that fat actually is caught by inhaling bad air or some kind of angry sky wizard waves a wand and somehow makes that small three-slices-of-pizza lunch multiple in the gut; it's not because that tiny three slices of pizza should have been one slice, yeah? Something is causing me to simply make calories multiply after I swallow the food. That must be it.

Anyway, there's the link to the article. Take a gander. Let me know if the whole situation is amusing or sad.

Fat Acceptance Movement

Lorraine at The Renewal blog posted an article about finding another blog called The Rotund where the maintainer is an advocate in the Fat Acceptance Movement. She actually (Lorraine, that is) saw the owner of that blog on a segment of Good Morning America.

The Fat Acceptance Movement is all about...well, accepting fat people. I've heard it grumbled before that the obese and smokers are the last two groups in America that it's "okay" to make fun of socially and ostracise. Fat people who smoke can probably cut the tension with a steak knife when they walk into a room.

HA! Get it?

Anyway...yes, the movement. The movement itself is supposed to be about fighting stereotypes and myths and general prejudice against overweight people. Which I suppose is noble.

Part of me is torn on the topic though. While in theory advocating equality and lack of prejudice is a good thing, I think that what goes hand in hand with this is a tacit advocation of the cause and having experienced things from the fat side of the fence I'd have to say that I'm not sure it's a great thing to promote.

The health care industry is already a mess with vultures swooping in to take their share of the pie plus some extra whenever the opportunity arises. Obesity carries increased risk for heart attack, stroke, diabetic complications,...the list goes on and on. Each of these are used by the vultures to help justify their outrageous costs and fees; obese people contribute unevenly to the social system in comparison to the amount they take out for care.

The movement also is anti-diet, saying "dieting doesn't work". I really think that this is a mischaracterization...many diets work. The weight maintenance fails. That's not necessarily a problem with the diet though...it's the attitude that a diet is this temporary thing that once done is completely done, like painting a fence or cleaning the toilet. It's simply not true. You achieve a lower weight by modifying your lifestyle.

But I digress...

Where was I? Oh yes. It's hard to say that I'm against a group that proclaims to support you accepting yourself as you are. There's been a big movement for people doing just that, that body image is an issue for men and women because of unreal stereotypes perpetuated by images in media. But aren't they going to the opposite extreme?

I've been a big advocate for what I call "leaving me the hell alone". It's a system where if I don't unreasonably bother you, you don't have a right to unreasonably bother me. If someone wants to not wear a seatbelt, who are they going to hurt except themselves in an accident?

Unless they live, in which case they impose medical bills that are picked up by shared-risk organizations like the Medicare system or insurance companies.

So what about the super obese? Should we be just left alone without prejudice if we're footing our own medical bills, and then let our bodies fester in disrepair and slowly break down from the added stress our obesity places on the body as long as we're not bothering you?

Part of me says that if it's not bothering anyone else, why is it their business? Leave us alone. We all carry demons. The obese just happen to carry a demon that's visible, probably one among others. I doubt that the normals are without some private demons of their own, and it's simply fashionable to boost their egos at the expense of the overweight.

The other part says that if I have to foot a disproportionate amount of the bill for a guy that lays in a hospital because he ignored twenty years or more of warnings about taking care of himself then I'm a little peeved. It also is the part of me that twitches a little when they...the movement...distorts facts into propaganda by promoting ideas like "diets don't work." It's a half truth. You failed the diet so you instead redefine "fat" as "normal".

I also don't want to give the illusion that I support being overweight because I have been there and can say that there really are a lot of mechanisms in place to rationalize and justify the situation and quite frankly, while they can be a consolation but it only numbs a pain that you're constantly aware of. You're aware of it when you can't fit a seat belt. When that theater seat pinches your cheeks together more tightly than you can pinch them together. When you realize your plate at the buffet has two trips worth of food. When you find yourself second-guessing if the seats in the party hosts' home will buckle under the weight of your ass, or becoming self-conscious of how much you're taking from the dishes compared to other guests. When you're the one that gets volunteered to walk on the ice first to make sure it's safe for the kids or be the anchor for tug-of-war, but you're the last one picked for a game of ball. Unless it's football. When you're fat it's generally assumed by every redneck armchair coach that you "should go out for football because you'd be great at it!"

So you console yourself with things like, "I'm overweight, but my doctor has been surprised because I don't have the complications that people my weight are supposed to have!" I thought I was the only one to use that excuse (many years ago). I was wrong. Looking back I think it's a common delusional belief to make myself feel better for being so morbidly obese, and as with all good things the good health slips away, slowly, chipping away in bits small enough that you don't notice it at first...until you find yourself flipping through a Dummies book on Weight Loss Surgery and wondering how you allowed yourself to get to that point.

I don't know at this point. I haven't dedicated a lot of time to thinking about the topic. What do other people think? Rights of the individual before the rights of the public? Or is this just a splinter group of delusional overweight people trying to make themselves feel better by finding others who have given up trying to feel healthy and redefined themselves to embrace their "unhealthy" state? Or am I totally off base here?

Health-Related Debt and Bankruptcy

Here's a disturbing story. It states that medical bills contribute to 60% of declared bankruptcies in 2007. It's a scary trend.

Wanna know what's even scarier?

Of those bankruptcies, 75% had health insurance, but the bills still overwhelmed them.

This isn't saying that the medical bills alone were the cause of the bankruptcy but they significantly contributed to the problem.

There are other scary findings in the study; things like the number of insurance companies that drop clients right after one disabling health problem because they're too expensive (one quarter of insurers), and even more within a year (another quarter).

It's sad...I'll never be able to think of those $10 Tylenol pills I received during my stay in the hospital and not think about how overpriced medical care is. I always sit and wonder about what kind of braintrust came up with the game where hospitals charge three times more for various services knowing that your insurance company will only pay a fraction of the bill, giving hospitals more reason to exaggerate their bills even more in some kind of brainless monetary arms race. It's ridiculous and absurd and frankly I'd like to think if it weren't for the powerful lobbies people would be angry enough to have done something about such a situation.

Maybe we should contact our representatives who are supposedly in Washington working for us to let them know how absurd this is...

Economic Woes Make Us Fat?

I thought this article on Newsweek was interesting...according to the article there has been a jump in obesity statistics since the economy went into the toilet.

There's speculation that the economic problems in the US have contributed to a number of factors that are pushing borderline obese people into the danger zone; stress over possibly losing a job, stress from losing a job, prices rising out of the affordability range on healthier foods, people turning to comfort foods more often instead of healthier food choices among others.

The article briefly mentions some of the government attempts by government to encourage healthier alternatives. To be honest, I don't know how much of a help what they're offering would be. From what I can tell we are an obese society because, in large part, it's socially acceptable to overeat and indulge ourselves. We take cues from others around us and it is tacitly accepted that while being fat is bad and it's socially okay to ridicule fat people it's also not unusual to see people snarfing down two burgers at a fast food joint and restaurants are almost punished if they don't have huge portions for their patrons...diners feel cheated if they don't. So huge portions creep into private lives and become the new standard in our food intake.

So that would imply that becoming fat is one of the side effects of having a "free" economy. We want it, we pay for it, we think we're entitled to it, and in an insidious way this implies that we are somehow subconsciously wired to overindulge once we're given the opportunity and indulgence is given a social nod by those around us.

But maybe that's just my view. Feel free to comment on it...

Lose Weight, Keep It Off: A Diet that Works

I saw a quick blurb on a fitness site's forum where people were posting about a Canadian weight-loss company called Herbal Magic. Many of the posts were complaints that it didn't work and they were frauds; others defended it. Big surprise.

I was surprised at some of the information I saw there...they were paying a thousand dollars to join and hundreds of dollars a month for herbal pills, and you're supposed to take some combination of pills at a certain time before the meals while sticking to a strict meal plan.

"I lost XYZ pounds, but lost my friends because I couldn't go out to eat or socialize! It's too strict!"
"I had problems with my health because of the pills..."
"I lost XYZ pounds and gained it back just eating a little at a restaurant!"

Do people ever research things anymore? When will the public wise up about dieting? I'm no expert and I definitely don't have all the answers, but I think it's not hard to see a pattern if you look into the subject long enough...

Weight Watchers: you're put on a point system. You can have a certain number of points, after that you're done for the day. Seems successful for the majority of the people who stick to the plan.
Deal-a-Meal: remember this one? You have cards in a wallet that correspond to food group servings. You have a certain number of servings for the day, when the cards are used up, you're done.
Low-Carb Diets like Atkins and The Zone: you cut refined carbohydrates from your diets. Avoid breads, pastas, etc...
Subscription diets like Jenny Craig: a company ships you for a fee a box of little meals you're allowed to eat. You limit yourself to eating these controlled portions and you lose weight.
Cut It Out Diet like the No Flour No Sugar Diet: You don't eat a certain ingredient; cut out all refined flour and sugar, for example. Some of these are less "fad" than others...this particular one was Dr. Gott's invention and was on the bestseller's list for awhile. Other variations have you exclude just sugars or whatever's a popular fad at the time.
Eat These Pills To Solve Your Problem: You see these ALL THE TIME. Herbals that are magical. Pills that claim to be your Alli in fighting weight gain. Magic bullets that someone in their garage somehow discovered and bring to you via spam or low-cost TV ads while these mega corporations are (take your pick) hiding the secrets from you or unwilling to make billions off selling a magic pill to solve your issues. Some of these are little more than bunk, from what I can find...others are low-dose versions of prescriptions. Alli in particular is xenocal. It's a fat blocker. All of these just happen to come with a weight-loss plan that you're supposed to follow in order to be successful (you have to exercise and eat right AND take my magic problem solving pill? Oh, c'mon!!)
Weight Loss Surgery: this makes your stomach smaller so you feel full sooner, and you're required to change your eating habits so you have smaller portions or risk crapping yourself, excessive pain, or vomiting all over in front of guests. And you need to exercise.
Diet Journals: nutritionists are big fans of this one. It's documented that dieters that are successful in keeping weight off in the long run often are using food diaries to keep track of just how much they're eating...and they're often surprised just how much crap they're ingesting in the first place.

The list goes on, but let's look at the common denominators.

These all, in order to be successful (unless you're talking about a true ripoff diet plan) are requiring you to eat less...whether they put it in different terms (avoid carbs! Avoid breads! Avoid...) or come out and say it (your doctor never told you about portion control?). This is called portion control.

Second, diets are not diets. They're lifestyles. You can't just lose fifty pounds and go back to what you were doing before then get a free card to complain because...surprise!...you regained fifty pounds.

No matter how these diets are selling themselves you only lose weight if you take in fewer calories than the body uses. Some of these are tools to help people keep track of what they're doing (Weight Watchers)...others are tools that aid in repairing damage to your digestive system so you can try transitioning to a better lifestyle (weight loss surgery). They all fail if you fail to make the transition to a new lifestyle.

Stop looking for a magic bullet.

And definitely don't pay a thousand dollars for magic weeds or pills that make you stain your undershorts (did we not learn about orlistat/xenocal before? What about those WOW chips that gave you ZERO FAT calories and quick runs to the bathroom?).

If you want to lose weight, take stock of how many calories you're taking in, then how many you're expending, and start doing the math. That's really what it takes. Adjust your energy output and intake as necessary. Talk to a nutritionist if necessary.

The solution is simple.

The implementation...doing what we really don't want to do...that's hard.

Nutrition Controversy for Skeptics

The cover story of the May/June 2009 issue of Skeptical Inquirer, a magazine that I rarely pick up unless the cover has a particularly eye-catching lead, held the headline "Science & Pseudoscience in Nutrition."

With a title like that, I had to take a look.

The article was actually titled Science and Pseudoscience in Adult Nutrition Research and Practice by Reynold Spector and started on page 35 and postulated that "Human nutrition research and practice is plagued by pseudoscience and unsupported opions. A scientific analysis separates reliable nutrition facts from nutritional pseudoscience and false opinion."

The article wasn't so much a debunking of various myths and ideas in nutrition as much as it was an analysis of the fact that such myths exist and why; it made me sad to see how much crap is out there more than clearing up some of the myths that exist. I suppose if it was an article trying to spread the truth of various myths then it wouldn't be much different from the articles you can find in most supermarket checkouts, though (except that one of the exceptional features of Skeptical Inquirer is that it does actually have reference notes in articles that take up more than two lines at the end of the piece...I was about to shorten the title to SI, but I really don't think Sports Illustrated is noted for putting in such footnotes).

The article sets out to answer four questions, paraphrasing:

1. What do we know about adult nutrition?
2. Is there an optimum body weight?
3. Why are there so many confusing or contradictory data and opinions in literature, media, and books, regarding things like whether certain foods even in moderation are harmful and are food supplements like megavitamins helpful?
4. Why are there so many erroneous or uninterpretable nutritional experiments...pseudoscience...in the literature?

The article is surprisingly readable and at 7 pages in length doesn't take long to get through and the conclusions were unsurprising to a cynic like me but may be interesting to the average Joe spending his day being assaulted by various weight-loss and nutrition headlines by magazines and news media. The sad part is that the conclusions won't be anything we want to hear.

Even a healthy skeptic like myself still woke up finding that I wanted to have a weekly trip to Red Lobster for my once-a-week fish serving because...vaguely...it's supposed to be healthy.

I suppose old habits die hard. At least I added a little more to my knowledge store.