Real Curves

I like the Dove campaign billboards, even though they are trying to sell cellulite creme in the guise of being empowering. But, as brought to my attention by Wendy's delightful post, there are some people who don't care for them. Not because of the whole hypocritical cellulite creme thing, but because "the only time I want to see a thigh that big is in a bucket with bread crumbs on it."

Oh, fuck off. Those girls are gorgeous.

Downsizing

Courtesy of Coryglen, I bring you the anti-Morgan Spurlock.

Morgan eats all 3 daily meals from McDonalds. She says, 'I just stay anywhere between 1,200 and 1,400 calories a day.' Merab who stands at 5 foot 9 inches tall currently weighs in at 195-lbs down from 228-lbs. two months ago...Her goal is to become the next Jared Fogel, the man who became the spokesman for the Subway diet.

He's Gotta Be A Republican

I don't think I want to buy this guy's book about overweight people and how they can "help" themselves. He says things like "thin workers subsidize heavy ones" and that the burden is falling on the taxpayers, and it all strikes me as a little too "point the finger at the fat people" for my taste. Or how about his family values moment, when he says that "fatness is a sociogenic illness in that, like unmarried mothers, the more you have the more you get." And then somehow he ties it into national security, because Americans are getting too fat to join the army and go to Iraq. I am betting this guy has a Bush bumper sticker on his car, what do you think?

It's Not Failure; It's Feedback

Dieters' self-image suffers as a result of dieting--at least according to this study.

"It has been well documented that dieting virtually always fails long-term -- about 90 to 95% of the time -- and that dieting drop-out rates are high. But this study also poignantly illustrated that...in the end dieting actually worsens women's health and quality of life...there was nearly 200% more bulimia and eating disorders among the dieters compared to the nondieters. The dieters' self esteem and depression had also significantly worsened, which isn't surprising given most dieters are left with an overwhelming sense of failure. And the psychological and physiological effects, as well as eating problems, resulting from calorie restriction itself have been clinically documented."

These statements seem a little suspect to me. First, I don't think it's true that diets have a 90-95% failure rate, unless you are very strict about defining "failure" as any weight gain whatsoever. Secondly, if you lose weight slowly and healthfully (i.e., don't starve yourself) you avoid a lot of the problem involved with calorie restriction, and reap all the benefits. And finally, at lest personally, I had physical and psychological problems before I ever started dieting, which is how I became overweight in the first place!

Depends On Your Definition Of "Insane"

I've gotten a few heads-up on this story of a guy trying to walk across the country to effect dramatic weight-loss. He's already lost fifty pounds, but hasn't gone as far as he thought he would in terms of daily mileage. I'm glad he's slowing down in norder to take care of himself physically, because this is sort of a risky idea.

But wow, it's really difficult not to be sucked in by his personal story.

"[H]e has a lot to think about as he walks. About the anger he carried around so long, and how pointless it seems now. About how accepting help from people doesn't shame him anymore, now that he sometimes has to ask strangers for water. And about the value of living in the moment, of just surviving that next stretch of road.

'It has nothing to do with weight anymore," he says. "It's about getting back to the person I was.'"

His website is here.

My Favorite Comments Post

I was reading the introductory post over at Plork, and I found this comment, which I loved for some reason.

"i hope you can [lose] if you want but if you do not then life will go on. if the people like or love you for you then they will look past the weight and see the real you. good luck to you and have a great day."

Sometimes I think I lose sight of that when I get too involved in the process of losing weight. If people love you, they will see the real you. And life will go on.

Technical Help: Fixed!

Thank you to Paul, Mary Ann, and Bill, who helped me fix this annoying bug in Blogger.

My other blog is all screwed up, and I'm not sure how to fix it.

The lovely PastaQueen writes, "You've got a < div style="clear:both;" >< /div > right before the body of your entry. Basically, this will force the entry to go below any other divs in your design, like you sidebar menu. You'll notice your entry starts right below the sidebar. Get rid of this tag and hopefully it should all align correctly."

Which makes sense, except that this particular HTML is generated by blogger and therefore isn't in my blog template, so I can't fix it. I have no idea what I did to the template. The only things I changed were my stats (which has never caused a problem before) and my blog description (I just took out the reference to the Core plan, since I am doing Flex).

Sorry to spam BFD, but I am really confused as to how to fix it!

Sorry, Diet Coke Zero

I am sure La Wade will have some insight into this study, but I hadn't heard about it before. It's a study showing a link between drinking diet soda and being overweight. Even more so than drinking regular soda!

"The group hypothesized that the body regulates its energy needs through appetite and that it learns to associate sweetness with a lot of calories. But when fed artificially sweetened foods and drinks on a regular basis, the body figures it can no longer use taste to estimate calorie consumption. It assumes that it can eat all the sweets it wants, without consequences."

I think that's fascinating, if true!

Dieting Makes You Rich!

Well, tell that to my wallet after dropping eleven bucks a week on Weight Watchers. Still, this interesting study shows a correlation between losing a significant amount of weight and increasing your wealth.

""If you really want to impact your wealth, you have to move from overweight or obese into the normal range," he said. "You can't just drop 5 or 10 pounds and change your wealth."

The theory in the last paragraph seems depressingly plausible. Overweight people are discriminated against in the workforce, especially white women who are "held to particularly high standards for beauty."

Repeat After Me: "I Love My Body"

It's not really clear who did this study, or how accurate the numbers are. But it has the depressing ring of truth.

There is no let up in the constant barrage of criticism and overweight women in particular say they suffer deep 'self-loathing' (83%), 'body hatred' (89%), 'depression' (91%) and 'utter despair' (79%). They feel 'angry with themselves' (97%), 'insecure' (87%), 'inadequate' (80%) and 'worthless' (61%). In fact, two thirds of overweight women say they have felt 'life's not worth living' (65%) and one in 10 'frequently feels this way.

At Least It's Not In Plumpville

I had just finished reading the comments about the names of plus-size stores (in the entry below) when I came across this link. The article itself is not really relevant, but it mentions a store called Ample Accents that is on Mauch Chunk road. It's no Dress Barn, but it's still kind of bad!