The E Word

Bear with me a moment. This is a post about losing weight, not politics.

Since joining Facebook at the end of last year, I've made contact with a lot of old college friends. It's been an interesting experience to see that many of them are liberals and that's fine. I may not agree with their politics but then we don't spend a lot of time talking politics. However, it rapidly turned out that one woman, we'll call her J, wasn't just a liberal but a barking moonbat. As in when she found out that one of her "friends" was a fan of Ann Coulter she couldn't wait to trash the woman behind her back on Facebook and in very short order all of J's moonbat friends were chiming in with all sorts of vile things including one man who expressed the desire to whack this woman, that he didn't know, in the kneecaps with a baseball bat. All this J took in stride as if it was the most natural and reasonable thing in the world. When I, however, posted in her thread that Ann Coulter was just the conservative version of Bill Maher she had a meltdown. I mean you would have thought I'd literally walked up and pissed in her Wheaties while she was eating them from the way she reacted. It was then I realized that whatever our history was, were I to meet J today for the first time, we could never be friends and so I removed her from my friends list.

So what does this have to do with losing weight? Well, J's moonbattery wasn't limited to just politics. Even back in college she was struggling with her weight. During the week we were talking to each other on Facebook she posted a link to an article she'd found on the web claiming that exercise had nothing to do with weight loss. The article claimed that it was all about what you ate and that exercise had no effect at all on weight loss. To give you an idea of just how thoroughly the author had researched his/her claim, he hadn't done any actual research but instead settled for hypothesizing that anyone who has ever experienced weight loss while exercising was also probably watching what they ate and thus it was what they were eating that caused them to lose weight instead of the exercise.

Based on my own experience I can tell you that hypothesis is worth the paper it's written on. What's that you say? It's not written on paper? It's just words on a screen that will vanish as soon as you click on the next link? Well, there you go.

Even as a child I lived a relatively sedentary lifestyle. I was never really into sports. While I might occasionally go out and hit a ball around or go swimming or play with friends, I also spent a lot of time sitting in front of the television or reading or working puzzles or building models or some other activity that didn't exactly burn a lot of calories. Except in the summer when my parents would send me off to camp where I would be fairly active with a variety of scheduled activities like boating, nature walks, trampoline, and swimming. Of course what I ate at camp was different from what I had at home. At home Mom tried to make us balanced meals. At camp they, generally, tried to make meals that kids would eat with minimal fuss. At home Mom would never have given my brother and me donuts for breakfast but at camp they did. At home I never got a soft drink and candy every afternoon for a snack but at camp I did. And yet every summer I would lose weight and then put it back on during the rest of the year.

Then came college. I attended Georgia Tech where the PE requirements included a course on either aerobic conditioning or weight training, a swimming class called Drownproofing (You, too, can get college credit for letting someone tie your hands and feet together, hang a brick around your neck, and throw you in the pool. Seriously.), and a lifetime sport. First quarter I took aerobic conditioning. Every class we would engage in some aerobic activity. At the end of the quarter our final grade was determined by how fast we could run 1 ¾ mile. I did it in just under 12 minutes, earning an A for the course. Outside of class we were expected to earn 30 "aerobic points" a week by engaging in various activities. We had to keep an activity diary and that also played a part in our final grade.

Winter quarter I took Drownproofing and I wasn't kidding about having someone tie your hands and feet together, hang a brick around your neck, and throw you in the pool. The course was a holdover from WWII when apparently the Marine Commandant toured the school, which had a large ROTC contingent, and decided the cadets needed a class that would teach them what to do if their transport was torpedoed on the way to Europe. The tying of hands and feet was used to simulate the loss of an arm or a leg. A rubber brick simulated carrying the weight of an assault rifle. Personally I think if I've just had an arm and a leg blown off and have been dropped into the water of the North Atlantic I've got bigger problems than holding on to my rifle but that's just me. Dubious usefulness of the course aside, swimming is one of the best aerobic exercises you can do.

Spring quarter brought Bowling. A fun course but not real high on the list of good workouts.

What was I eating while I was getting all this exercise? Let me put it this way. It was the first time in my life that I had complete control over everything I ate and I wasn't the least bit worried about my weight. So I ate a lot of burgers, fries, pizza, soft drinks, whole milk, cookies, cake, candy, etc. As an example, a favorite breakfast was scrambled eggs with cheese, grits, breakfast sausage, and a biscuit or two smothered in sausage gravy. Definitely not the diet of someone trying to lose weight and yet lose weight I did. Despite my horrible diet, my freshman year of college was the leanest year of my life.

If I wasn't eating right, why did I lose weight? Because I was getting a lot of exercise. Remember the golden rule of weight loss. You will lose weight if the number of calories you burn in a day is greater than the number of calories you consume. Dieting restricts the number of calories you take in but its exercise that burns the calories. Both diet and exercise are important parts of any weight loss plan and anyone who tells you differently is probably trying to sell you something.

I've heard a lot of people say they can't help gaining weight because they have slow metabolisms. Did you know there's a way to speed your metabolism up? It's called exercise. Aerobic exercise will burn calories while you're working out. Weight lifting will help burn calories 24 hours a day. A 6 pack seems to be the Holy Grail of weight loss for a lot of people. Guess what. If you want a 6 pack you've got to get some exercise. Want to get rid of that "chicken wing" that hangs down whenever you lift your arm? Exercise is the key. Ever see a flabby thin person? I have. You want a firm body, you've got to exercise to get rid of the flab.

Here's a fun little test. See if you can think of anyone, outside of sumo wrestlers and the like who deliberate work at maintaining bulk, who leads a physically active lifestyle and yet is fat. To give you an idea of the sort of person I'm talking about, I used to work with a guy who played basketball every morning with a friend before work and the first thing he did after work was go to the gym, when he wasn't organizing a softball league or the like. The guy was constantly in motion and there wasn't an ounce of excess fat on him. He didn't do all this stuff because he was worried about his weight. He did it because it was fun to him.

We, as a society, have become more sedentary. With 100s of cable and satellite channels to choose from there's always something to watch on the television. If there isn't we can always put on a DVD. Or maybe browse the Internet and read some guy's random ramblings. Or we can play video games. I mean who wants to take the trouble of rounding up enough friends for a game of football when you can play from the comfort of your couch with a soft drink and potato chips at hand?

Exercise is good. Go out and get some.

Being Ethical Isn’t Cheap

God gave the Devil a choice, or so the story goes, between Hell or Texas. The Devil chose Hell because he found the climate to be more moderate.

It's 8:00 AM and the temperature is pushing 80 and they're predicting a high for the day in the mid-90s. If you're going to be out in this kind of heat, particularly if you're going to be engaging in physical activity, you should make sure you have water so you don't become dehydrated. There's a local park that has a 2.25 mile exercise trail that's marked off in quarter mile segments. I'm partial to taking walks there but there are only a couple of spots with water fountains so it's a good idea to carry some bottled water. Based on taste, I'm partial to Aquafina which I buy in both 500 mL and 1 liter bottles. I mostly drink the smaller bottles but if I think I'm going to be out in the heat for an extended period of time I'll take one of the larger instead.

This week I needed to pick up more of the liter bottles so I headed to the store only to find that they needed to restock their Aquafina. Now I prefer Aquafina but I'm not a stickler for it so I surveyed my choices, Dasani or Ozarka. This was when I noticed a new brand on the shelves, Ethos Water. In case the name doesn't make it clear that this is an "ethical" choice, the label proudly declares, "Helping children get clean water." On the back of the bottle is a mission statement that says Ethos Water will donate 5 cents for every bottle sold to humanitarian water programs that help children around the globe gain access to clean water.

Here's the thing. Ethos Water, at least at the store I go to, is the most expensive bottled water on the shelf. It's 40 cents more than the next most expensive bottled water and 69 cents more than my usual choice of Aquafina. For that kind of money I'd better be getting the bottled tears of a virgin or some such but Ethos is just regular water.

Reason dictates that if I really want to help children and others get clean drinking water, it would be better to buy another brand and then donate the money I save directly to a humanitarian program of my choice rather than letting Ethos do the donating for me. After all, $6.90, the money I would save buying 10 bottles of Aquafina instead of Ethos, is a lot better than 50 cents, the money Ethos would donate if I bought 10 bottles of their product.

So I did a little research and it turns out that Ethos Water is owned by Starbucks and produced by PepsiCo (who also produce Aquafina). I also found out, and this is really interesting, that Ethos Water doesn't use recycled plastic in their bottles even though PepsiCo does use recycled plastic in its own bottles. So not only is Ethos Water expensive but it's also one of the more environmentally unfriendly bottled waters. Seems to me that Ethos Water isn't a very "ethical" choice no matter what they claim.

Get Off the Yo-Yo-Go-Round

Those of us who have been fighting the Battle of the Bulge for a long time are familiar with the yo-yo effect. That’s where you lose some weight, then gain it back and probably a little more as well, lose some weight, regain it, and so on.

My own ride on the yo-yo-go-round began in college. Truly free to make my own food choices for the first time in my life, I chose poorly. I ate lots of fat, starch and sugar and my weight went up accordingly. I used diet pills for a couple of months and lost some of that weight. During a spring cleaning, my roommates found the diet pills and I was so embarrassed that I stopped taking them which was probably just as well since the FDA eventually banned them as unsafe. My weight continued to climb until I graduated and returned home. While I searched for my first professional job I got on the SlimFast diet and lost a lot of weight. I found a job and stopped using SlimFast because I’d reached my target weight. Unfortunately I didn’t stay there long as my weight began climbing once again. A coworker talked me into joining a gym with him and being workout partners and I began eating a low fat diet. I lost a lot of weight and was feeling pretty good about myself. Then I changed jobs and started eating lunch with coworkers who liked a lot of the fattening foods I like and weren’t that concerned about their weight. Up my weight went again. A friend introduced me to the Body For Life (BfL) program and my weight headed down again. Another job change was accompanied by another change in eating habits and up my weight went again. This brings us to the present.

As you might expect, repeatedly gaining and losing significant amounts of weight isn’t the healthiest thing to do. So how do you get off the yo-yo-go-round? I found the answer to that question in the Body for Life program. Now it is important to note that the primary goal of BfL is to sell EAS weight-loss and body-building supplements. That doesn’t change the fact that beneath all the marketing for diet shakes and creatine supplements and fitness magazines, there lies a solid core around which a good fitness plan can be built.

As BfL pointed out, I’m fat because I don’t have healthy habits. I’ve been on the yo-yo-go-round because I lose weight via methods that I can’t or won’t do for the rest of my life. I’m sorry but I don’t want to spend the next 50 years drinking a SlimFast shake for breakfast and lunch. When I reach my target weight or something happens to disrupt what I’ve been doing, I revert to my old unhealthy habits and the weight comes back. This even happened when I did the BfL program because I wasn’t really practicing the “for Life” part of the program.

If you want to lose weight and keep it off permanently, you don’t need diet pills. You don’t need fad diets. What you need is to break yourself of your unhealthy habits and replace them with healthy habits that you can maintain for the rest of your life. To this end I have three goals.

• Eat a healthier and more nutritious diet. (Note: I’m using the word “diet” in the sense of what I eat on a regular basis, not in the sense of restricting the amount of food that I eat.)


• Engage in aerobic exercise at least 3 times a week and preferably more often.


• Engage in weight-lifting exercise at least 3 times a week.

If I can establish new habits based around these three goals and maintain them even when something happens to disrupt my established patterns then I will lose the weight I need to lose and keep it off for the rest of my life. That is the only way to get off of the yo-yo-go-round.

Results Not Typical: 21st Century Snake Oil

Last night I saw a weight-loss commercial that left me speechless. It was for the latest and greatest diet pill and its big selling point was that it would not only make you lose belly-fat but it would also make you lose fat from the rest of your body as well. I was flabbergasted by this because it was rather like advertising that water is wet or that ice is cold. Anything that makes you lose weight is pretty much going to cause you to lose fat from all over your body and not just one specific area, the sole exception being liposuction.

This is a perfect example of how the weight loss industry has become the snake oil salesman of the 21^st century. We want to lose weight. We want to lose weight right now. We don’t want to have to work at losing weight. The weight loss industry is well aware of this and is only too happy to take advantage of these desires.

Back in the 1800s, snake oil salesmen would travel the countryside selling patent medicines that they claimed could cure any ailment, real or imagined. Today, the weight-loss industry bombards us with pills, shakes, diet plans and exercise equipment that they claim will cause us to lose all the weight we want to lose in virtually no time and with no inconvenience at all.

The commercials all start the same. A spokesperson, either a celebrity or some modern Adonis with a perfect body, tells about how their product transformed their life while pictures flash on the screen showing normal people who lost 60 bajillion pounds in only 3 weeks on the product. We then segue to how easy the product is to use and how minimal its impact will be on your life as you continue to eat burgers and pizza and pasta and even chocolate! Finally we hear about how cheap it is, especially if you call RIGHT NOW!!! Sadly these commercials aren’t that different from a 19^th century medicine show. I guess what worked then still works today.

One thing that has changed is that today there are truth in advertising laws. You can make misleading claims but you can’t make false claims. This is why all of these weight loss commercials have disclaimers written in fine print that you couldn’t possibly read before the commercial is over. These typically start with the phrase, “Results not typical.” Sometimes, for variety, they say, "Results may vary." That’s because the average person doesn’t experience anything like the results they claim in the ads and the odds are good that you won’t either.

Forget the pills. Diet pills have been around for quite some time. Remember Cal-Ban 3000? That was the miracle weight loss pill when I was in college. You can’t get it anymore. It was banned after a number of users had to be hospitalized and one even died from it. Then there was Fen-phen which was popular up until it was banned for having such side effects as damaging users' heart valves. Ephedra was great stuff until it turned out that it could cause heart attacks and strokes among other side effects. Now there’s a pill on the market that makes you lose weight by keeping your body from digesting fat. Of course your digestive track isn’t really designed to handle undigested fat so if you’re taking it I hope you’re also wearing Depends. The Mayo Clinic has an excellent page on the effectiveness and potential side effects of over-the-counter weight-loss pills that I highly recommend reading before taking one. Dying isn't much of a weight-loss plan after all.

Forget the gimmicky exercise gadgets too. Like the belt you wear around your waist that shocks your ab muscles while you watch television. It's not going to give you a six pack. Remember, if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. There are a few gimmicky exercise gadgets that might be worthwhile, and I'll talk about them in later posts, but by and large they're just a waste of money.

You can also forget the fad diets. Look, losing weight isn’t rocket science. It’s actually very simple. If you consume more calories in a day than you burn, you gain weight. If you burn more calories in a day than you consume, you lose weight. If you're overweight its probably because you don't eat in a healthy manner and you probably don't get enough exercise. If you're overweight for some other reason then you should probably be talking to a doctor, not getting weight loss advice from some random schmuck on the Internet.

I'm overweight. I need to lose at least 100 pounds. I started this blog for the express purpose of helping me achieve this goal. In the future I'll be talking about how I'm going about losing weight, what works and what doesn't.