well, that’s unfortunate

I’m in the middle of what is probably going to be my busiest week of the semester, so I don’t have time to write much.

I did run across something mildly amusing in an article published by NPR on the difficulties of losing weight. The article is titled: “Losing Weight: A Battle Against Fat and Biology.” Being a woman in her, ahem, mid 40s, one who finds that she can keep eating less than she used to and still weigh the same or more, and who has given up the “ghost” sotospeak in terms of losing that 15 lbs because she’d rather have 2 glasses of wine with dinner and eat ice cream once a week, I clicked on the link.

It wasn’t really all that great of an article. It didn’t tell me anything I don’t already know — mainly that your body wants to weigh a particular weight (given balanced, healthful eating, of course), and if you try to weigh less through dieting your brain will just basically flip a switch that tells your body to consume fewer calories so as to keep weighing the same. As they put it, a person who weighs 230 lbs and diets to lose 30 lbs will be able to eat less to maintain that weight than a person who has always weighed 200 lbs. (BTW, I don’t weigh anywhere NEAR 230 lbs. Sheesh.)

😀

ANYWAY, the article included this paragraph:

“It’s a popular misconception, she says, that losing weight is “strictly a matter of willpower.” It’s a gigantic task, she says, because not only do we move through an incredible buffet of food spread before us every day, but we also face a battle with our own biological responses.”

The woman who was quoted is an obesity specialist. I can’t imagine she chose those words in order to try to be funny. (But, still, hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!)(Okay, I won’t do that again.)(Well, maybe not for a while.)

I wonder if the “advocacy group for (ugly and) fat women” has filed an official complaint.

 

Fat Pants

I give in on Saturday, and bought three (3) pairs of pants one (1) size bigger than I want to wear.  First of all, it’s important to differentiate that from buying 1 pair of pants 3 sizes bigger; and okay, they’re actually 2 sizes bigger than I want to wear, but there have been 3 times in my life that I’ve worn a size 8: for ~ 6 months following brain surgery; after 6 months of the South Beach diet when not a bite of white sugar, bread, pasta, potatoes or rice passed my lips; and when I was in the process of being divorced from my husband of 21 years.

Anyway, I’ve realized something very important. A person looks a lot less fat when their pants aren’t too small. I’m trying not to see this as an act of giving up, but as acceptance. I will eat healthfully, I will be more active, I will be able to sit without my waistband cutting off my circulation, I will not beat myself up for not looking like mass-media’s version of the ideal female form.

I will also try very hard not to hope that by adopting this healthier mindset I will miraculously lose, and be unable to find again, fifteen pounds.

p.s. One of the funniest New Yorker cartoons I’ve ever seen:  Some fat globules are standing around mid-mingle at a party (Labeled: Your Lost Weight). One of them looks at his watch and says “Guess we better head back.”