Writing this early - it's late Tuesday night. Weird enervating day but time with Martin tonight was just what the doctor ordered....peace with him. He asked me, "Are you happy?" Thought for a good long time, then answered, "It depends on how close I am to the canvas." What I meant was, if I'm right up close and looking at each day and relationship (or lack thereof) with a magnifying glass I would have to say I'm often dissatisfied - unhappy. If, though, I take a bunch of steps back and re-look at the picture with perspective, what I see is lovely. Moral of that story? Myopic=missing the big picture=misery.
With Mark's death, I just got a whole lot busier - client meeting tomorrow morning at ten which is why I'm writing this early. Looks like that monster list just grew teeth!!
Given that it's January and fitness and weight loss is on everyone's mind, let's continue that discussion. Predictably, the room was packed at my WW meeting on Saturday - standing room only. By next month, the room will have thinned to half that number of folks - those New Year's resolutions having fallen by the wayside and people falling back into their old habits. I was down 3.8 pounds which was a mini miracle. What's more the knees are feeling almost great these days - the inflammation gone - could it be from giving up the wheat? At WW I'm a poster child despite the weight I still have to lose. My before and after pictures and story are featured on their bulletin board as an inspiration to other members. The attention is nice especially for an attention hog like myself, but the downside is, I feel such a responsibility to lead by example and my progress (or lack of) is watched closely by everyone in attendance. Each week the leader singles me out. "And everyone, this is Sarah. Sarah how much weight have you lost and how did you do this week?" Some weeks - ugh to have to admit to a number that's going the wrong way!
Worried though. There's a storm a-brewing in this country - a witch-hunt assembling. Think of the war waged on smokers and how they've been relegated to little huddled groups that gather 51' feet from a building's entrance. And don't get me wrong - I hate smoking and second-hand smoke - so nice to eat in a restaurant without someone lighting up next to you or singing in a bar without being choked out by cigarette haze. So, do I feel sad for smokers who now have to partake of their habit in the elements, far away from their healthier brethren? Not really. The reason for the analogy is to illustrate how we as a society can turn on each other with righteousness and callous disdain. Smokers have been relegated to aberrant second class citizens in modern society. Pariahs.
The storm that's brewing is a similar approach to obesity. Look to other countries to see what trends are incubating. I remember reading, well before the credit crunch hit the U.S., that in the years to come, there would be a credit clamp-down in our country. This was at a time when credit was flowing like water. It worried me but I put it out of my mind - figured it was a scare tactic. It wasn't. So now, when I hear what other countries are doing and considering about obesity, I take it very seriously - you should too. Just Google "What other countries are doing about obesity" and you'll read stuff like this.
Obesity has become a worldwide epidemic. In Japan, they are measuring the waistlines of people 40 and older. Those considered too fat are ordered to undergo diet counseling. Failure to slim down results in fines. New Zealand has rules barring people who are too fat from immigrating to their country. In Great Britain, where 50% of the population is overweight, residents in some cities are being recruited to wear an electronic tracking device to calculate how much they move each day and how many calories they burn. Those that exercise daily are rewarded with store coupons and days off from work.
What do you think? Is the U.S. doing enough to fight obesity?
And remember Eugene, the fellow of Chinese descent I had dinner with who is obsessed with weight and is trying to crack the nut on why people get fat and what they can and should do to shed the pounds? He is, as you remember, not large on tact. At first our correspondence was academic and properly polite but soon passions were aroused (see blog entitled "Fat Obese Monster/Enlarge Your Aesthetic" to read his diatribe on obese people). After that, the correspondence escalated further with me deciding subtlety is totally lost on Eugene. Gloves off. Here is an excerpt from something I wrote to him:
- · I deliberately chose not to focus on the health detriments of obesity because there is no disagreement between us. It’s clear that humans are on a bad track healthwise. Of course I agree with everything you’re concerned about and I do think it’s an issue that needs our best thinkers figuring out what is causing this decline in our civilization. I suspect that the answers are complex, interwoven and the solutions might not be obvious or easy.
- · The difference between how we think is that you seem to be only about individual responsibility – the whole pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Makes sense because that’s your go to” place – it’s your personality to just take the bull by the horns and wrestle a problem to the ground. I suspect that, when faced with adversity, you instantly move to action. Not everyone is like you. It’s just as common for people to become confused and enervated and flounder.
- · I like your initial “everyone’s problems are my problems” statement. Take that further. There is something very wrong with modern civilization that is having a horribly detrimental effect on human’s health. I think there are lots of factors at play – you and I have discussed a bunch of them. There are sinister companies whose primary objective are pumping more calories into people (picture people sitting around a boardroom table and trying to figure out how to get people to ingest more corn) Our government is complicit because they’re the ones who have created the huge biomass of huge corn through subsidies (this is taken from Michael Pollen’s book) The work that we do – hours spent at the computer. The way we live that requires vehicular travel. The way we entertain ourselves. Technology means we spend more time glued to screens. We don’t even have to go to the bank anymore! Lately I date on line – half the time I don’t even meet the interesting people I meet – we just connect virtually. Point is – it’s all adding up to an environment and culture that is toxic to humans.
- · You and I are people of unusual will. Rather than expect everyone else to be like us, we should be aware that we’re different and rare. We are the absolute wrong people to trying to forge any kind of public policy because it’s too tempting to just tell people to do what we did. Let me tell you how difficult it’s been to lose this weight. Each and every day I feel like a salmon swimming upstream. Another analogy would be walking through a minefield. I am constantly bucking current culture. It’s not a friendly world out there to people who are trying to live differently. People think I’m odd not to have a television. My friends cringe when I ask them to eat with me at Blind Faith restaurant – they press me for the burger joint where there is nothing I can eat. When I sing weekly at Petterino’s I have to endure my friends ordering pastas, big cuts of meat with mounds of potatoes, an overflowing bread basket, goblets of wine, and the desserts, oh my……the desserts. And now that I’ve given up wheat and dairy it’s like I’m a Martian. It’s so damn hard and it’s not just one meal or day I have to manage but I have to live in this uncomfortable world that puts daily obstacles in my way each and every day, many times a day. Maybe I’m the super hero to hold fast in the face of the onslaught of unhealthy choices!!! I get why most people buckle over time.
- · Why should it be this hard to make healthy choices? Why should we live in a culture where the deck is stacked against us? That’s the question we need to answer. Why does our environment not support healthy habits? Animals in the wild live in a healthy way because their environment leads them to it, not because they have to have an iron will. It’s not a choice to be healthy or unhealthy. My guess is that it’s a natural thing to choose pleasure over health. Do you think a bear would brave the rapids to snag fish if there were an easy, lazy supply of berries and honey right outside their den?
- · For you weight is a hot topic and it’s not just because it’s a public health crisis. More is going on there. You are repulsed and disgusted by fat people. That is different than being concerned about their health. Own that . The science is on your side – the arguments you make for action are valid but your motivation is tainted by your prejudice and aesthetic. Your observations are harsh and unloving and you lack empathy for what is, for many, a very difficult struggle. I suspect empathy is something of which you are in very short supply.
- · There are brilliant and amazing people in the world for whom weight is an Achilles heel, just like alcohol is for others. Does Eugene have an Achilles heel? An area of your life where your cylinders aren’t firing? Don’t know you well but perhaps you are a ninny when it comes to financial planning and money management. Or maybe you have a porn addiction. I’m being funny but even Superman had a weakness (Kryptonite). Doesn’t mean he wasn’t awesome – it was just his blind spot. So unless you are perfect, don’t you dare pick on fat people as being somehow less valuable members of society than thin people. Yes there are social costs to obesity but there are also social costs to many other diseases that are found in the population at large and that are also lifestyle based (smoking, alcohol and drug addiction, eating disorders, poor eating in general, etc).
- · Eugene that is why I say you are the wrong man for the job. You hate fat people…..to you they are an eyesore. You think they lack character. Societal parasites. There is another solution. It worked during WWII. You could help to enact an emergency measure where all fat people are rounded up and put in internment camps. Richard Simmons could be the camp director and the twofold benefit is that they would no longer be an unsightly blight in the world AND they could thin down in the internment camps, only allowed to leave once their waists were smaller than 34”. I think wrist tattoos with the original waistline size would be a good idea – why not throw a little shame in there????
Hugs,
Sarah
(if you can get your arms around me!)
All for today. We'll talk more about this. Your challenge today could be crystallizing your own thoughts on this issue. I believe that, in the not too distant future, we will witness public policy aimed at the overweight among us. We, as a nation, are capable of tremendous stupidity when it comes to personal issues like this (think of the most recent campaign and some of the statements and ideas that were floated by some misogynistic Republican men who wanted government in women's panties!) Let's decide now what our bottom line is.
Peace,
Sarah
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