Cutting the fat..

I finally got on the scale the other day, and I’d say my eyes more than widened at the result. As I mentioned before I am now weighing in at a super-sized 250. Wow, I figured I had gained 5, 10 pounds. If I were more realistic probably 15, but 25-30, damn. Even at 220 or so I wasn’t the skinniest of guys, but I was a fair weight and looked, well, I suppose I could turn a head or two. Now, I’m not sure heads would have to turn, as much of the screen as I take up. Well, it isn’t all that bad, I am six foot four. Nonetheless, damn, have I already said that? My wife has gained weight as well, though her excuse is far greater than mine, her just giving birth and all. And while I cannot say I look great at the moment, having lost some of that debonair luster. My wife looks amazing. She doesn’t believe me of course, I take that back, she believes I believe it, but thinks I’m deluded. How deluded she is about my delusions.

Now we’re both back in the mindset of healthy living, having had our last hoorahs, maybe one or two more, since this Thursday we’re heading off to Vegas and then Idaho. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas right? If only that was true of the weight gain as well, I know it’s true of the contents of my wallet. Seriously, the exploit of paramount importance to me in our upcoming adventure is Bear World. Oh Bear World, here I come (no, no hunting bears and making bear jerky, but I will get to feed one. One step closer to the dream). At any rate, Aly’s been contemplating going back to Weight Watchers, a program that was at one time very successful for my wife, granted at the same time made her miserable.

Weight watchers is based on an allotment of points per day (several sites disagree with the low allotment WW gives). You can eat whatever you want as long as you stay within your allotment. Their point calculation can be found in this patented formula:

meaning one Weight Watcher’s point is equal to the number of calories divided by 50. The value increases by approximately one point for every 12 grams of fat in each food serving and drops by one point with the first four grams of fiber. Now albeit, that sounds lovely in essence and there are variances in the formula, although undeterred by however you tabulate the weight watchers points, in my view, there are three major flaws in their philosophy.

First and foremost, it makes people obsess over food. You can never stop thinking about food nor calculating everything as you go throughout your day. Everything is about the cookery delights. It makes cuisine a priority and thus, often their dieter craves more because they are forced to overly-think about that very thing. However, quite a few people have the will power and self control, if only for a time, to resist the temptation they so often put themselves in front of, so this is not its greatest flaw.

The greatest of these came to me as I watched my wife on Weight Watchers and observed her not wanting to eat a chicken breast because it was too many points. And therein lies what I consider to be the second biggest flaw with the program and the most heinous flaw concerning their formula: it doesn’t take protein into consideration. Too many points!?! it’s practically pure protein, you can’t get fat on essentially what is unadulterated protein. Although you can lose muscle mass if you are not eating protein. And loss of muscle mass equals weight gain. Which brings us to the last and yet certainly not least of the flaws I see in the Weight Watcher’s diet. It isn’t balanced. You can eat whatever you want as long as you portion control. In the long run, I believe many people end up starving themselves as WW sets users up for failure, especially if they ever leave the program. From what I’ve seen (and from the amount of research I’ve found online), a fair percentage of people on weight watchers do not lose their goal weight, and if they do, rarely keep it off. A great payoff for WW, as they charge 40 bucks a month to do nothing more than facilitate meetings and weekly weigh-ins.

The Biggest Loser advises that you keep it simple. Their program: ‘The 4-3-2-1 Biggest Loser Pyramid sets the stage for number of servings from each of the food groups:

• 4 servings of fruits and vegetables
• 3 servings of protein — lean [meat], vegetarian, or low-fat dairy
• 2 servings of whole grains
• 1 extra of fats, oils, sweets, alcohol, or your choice, equivalent to 200 calories’

Eating healthy and good old-fashion exercise will cause you to lose weight, decrease blood pressure, lower cholesterol, (for me) help control diabetes, and become stronger and indubitably more energized. They also advise that however many servings of fruit you eat that you eat twice the servings of vegetables. Now that’s something that makes sense to me. Their dietitian and chef Cheryl Forberg, RD adds elsewhere, ‘We emphasize the quality of the calories so you can meet your nutritional needs [and] enjoy more natural, healthy whole foods and lean proteins that will help you deal with hunger before it happens.’ I think my wife is much happier when she’s just eating healthy and not obsessing over food, which definitely makes me happy to see her happy.

I’m not saying don’t count calories at all, I’m saying if you aren’t trying to portion control a plethora of naughty foods and merely eat healthier you won’t have to worry as much about going over your points. The Biggest Loser tells us that your starting calorie level should be determined by multiplying your current weight by 7 and once you reach your goal weight, they recommend 10-12 calories per pound plus exercise.

They also supply five nuggets of wisdom from contestants who have lost the weight and have also kept it off:

• Eat a healthy breakfast every day
• Enjoy fruit and/or vegetables with every meal
• Have protein with all meals and snacks
• Plan your meals, snacks, and exercise
• Stay active

People also get in this mind-set that if I eat less, I’ll lose more. This is a very common misconception, staving yourself, eating less than 1200 calories a day causes the body to go into starvation mode: slowing your metabolic rate. You need to actually eat to lose weight. Your body is a machine, and it can not run properly without food. And the better grade of gasoline you put in, the better it’ll run (although this may not be true anymore with actual gasoline in today’s automobile (check your owner’s manual (a parenthesis within a parenthesis within a parenthesis, I am that awesome)), but you get the point). Thinking of this and our busy schedule, I’m not sure if I suggested it or if she did, but we equally decided to go on the Nutrisystem food plan. We may have decided simultaneously, my wife and I our often on the same wavelength and can seemingly read each other’s thoughts. Strange but true.

Now it may seem lazy to give over control of our diet to a Corporation, and sure it is, but I just want to focus on eating healthy right now, and preplanned meals seem like a great way to do that. And well, I am a lazy man. My wife on the other hand, can juggle as many things as I can think of at any given time. Nevertheless, to save her the stress and take the chainsaw out of her juggling act, I figured we’d go for it, convincing her with the time and money we’d save in food preparation time and by not always going out to eat when the day got away from us and preparing a meal seemed less then appealing. I know, getting in shape also means working out, at least going for strenuous walks at night, another plan being put into motion. Although, my wife loves the gym, so she’ll be doing that as well as hopping on the Wii-fit (Mmm, how I love watching her do the Hula-hoop). We’ll see how this preplanned meal-plan goes. I remember when I met my wife, with all her healthy cooking I dropped down to an amazingly low weight, by eating healthy with her, and I did eat, she’s a wonderful cook. Now, we’ll being doing the same and saving some time we can to spend together. Yes, all you girls can ‘ahhh’ now, I think I lost most the guys when I started talking WW.

‘No diet will remove all the fat from your body because the brain is entirely fat. Without a brain, you might look good, but all you could do is run for public office.’ -George Bernad Shaw

Digg it.

If you only knew..

Everyone has this story running around their head, the way they see things. It’s their own Truman Show playing in the foreground, a world in which they are the central player. Life as they know it fades to black when they leave the room and every other player ceases to exist when they are not a part of their scene. I truly believe this is the way most people see life, I know Shakespeare did, All the world’s a stage and all.

And thus it is easy to get caught up in your own story and not see the pain around you. Not see someone else’s story or again consider someone else and what caused their actions. I was watching the first half of The Biggest Loser tonight (I am becoming an old man entering my fifth age, I had to DVR the rest) and I am seriously getting tired of the whining that goes along with that show. Oh, I get it, the things, the torture they do on that show is mind blowing. All for the good, but at the same time beyond me. And then as I was griping to my wife about all the bellyaching, a lady starts to talk about why she was there. About how her family: her husband, her toddler and her baby all died in a car accident. *jaw drops, tears well up in the eyes* Later it is causally mentioned that she’s a teacher. Wow, this blows my mind right out of the water, I cannot even begin to imagine nor would I ever want to: how do you go back to work after that? How do you even function?

Stop and mull it over, ideate about the first few months, years after that accident and then have in mind some frustrating event she went through with someone else just going about their day stuck in their own play. If they knew a bit more of the Character history on this extra in their movie would they have been more understanding, more compassionate. You all are in your own movies, and far be it from this little extra, co-star, gofer that will soon disappear as you go to Act Two of your umteenthed sequel to tell you how your character should play out. However, I was simply ruminating over this woman’s plight and the people we interact with. If we treated more people with the approximation that they may be dealing with their own issues and not like someone that no more than evaporates, life would passably improve, at least we’d feel a bit better about it.

As things go, you don’t know why the people around you are acting the way they do. Especially when they lose it at something seemingly insignificant to you howbeit the camel backbreaking straw to them. The cause could be anything from a failing relationship to a failing mortgage to the death of a loved one. I surmise I’d rather go through any trial, any amount of physical pain then be in the latter situation. I doubt I could ever withstand such a blow to my existence as to lose my life in losing my family. There are people in this world with a measure of faith and strength of character to which I will probably never attain and honestly I pray I never do. Like my sister who lost her baby at nine months old due to a complicated, congenital condition. ‘Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal.’ Moreover, to those of you who have lost loved ones, I feel for you because even the idea breaks my heart.

And while some of you might say I sound a little preachy and others might say I’m preaching to the choir, in reality I am merely talking to myself, since this is my play and once you finish reading this blog and exit stage left, you’ll..

*fade to black*