[thanks to Ian.]
Fits for me. I'm not exactly obese now, but twenty years ago I was thin as a rail. Then I got jobs sitting down and had more time for snacking, and then I started working from home...
Difference is I didn't have a TV then. Later I had one for some years, but it is just a Black Hole for time. Technically I have a TV, but I only use it for disk'ed material, which is ad-free, and which you have to choose deliberately instead of just plunking down and zapping the remote.
I used to eat pizza and fried chicken quite often. But recently both just feel too greasy for me suddenly. I don't know what caused this change, but I welcome it. I'd look so great if I was fit.
Haha - exactly me too! But I've been working outside in this wonderful 105ºF Texas heat, and have lost 20 pounds fairly easily.
ReplyDeleteNot exactly obese? Better look again! Last year I checked my BMI (body mass index based on height to weight ratio) and found I was overweight but not obese. Given that I don't look at all fat, it follows that you must be obese if you're saying you're 'not exactly'.
ReplyDeleteSorry, Eo! Funny thing is, I also stopped eating takeaway fried chicken, burgers, etc, last year, as well as snack foods (crisps, etc), cakes, sweets (but not biscuits) and also beer, and I've lost 20 lbs so far. It's really easy despite what people say. These are all things that we eat but don't need. You have to exercise too; it's critical for good health, but it won't shift the pounds; only the dieting will.
Hate to argue, but the dictionary says obese means "Extremely fat; grossly overweight". And I'm definitely not that, though I have an obvious belly when sitting down.
ReplyDeleteHate to argue back - but if you see a USA physician and he sees that your weight is higher than when you got out of high school - he'll tag you with an 'obese' label in your files. That opens up his gate to have expensive labwork done, sell you anti colesterol drugs, introduce the need for a stent in an artery or two, and further his kick-back with the USA great Pharma business so he can go golfing in South Africa while you have your $50K procedure done.
ReplyDelete"Technically I have a TV, but I only use it for disk'ed material, which is ad-free, and which you have to choose deliberately instead of just plunking down and zapping the remote."
ReplyDeleteSome people would say that's hardly much of a difference. Most people will not flip around and watch just anything, that's what TV Guide is for. In the end I always feel like I've just wasted that time, even if it's watching something generally considered quality.
Not exactly obese? Better look again! Last year I checked my BMI (body mass index based on height to weight ratio) and found I was overweight but not obese.
The BMI is not of much value. It can't account for muscle weight. There are a lot of uber-fit professional athletes would be considered overweight or obese according to the BMI.
Hate to argue back - but if you see a USA physician and he sees that your weight is higher than when you got out of high school - he'll tag you with an 'obese' label in your files. That opens up his gate to have expensive labwork done, sell you anti colesterol drugs, introduce the need for a stent in an artery or two, and further his kick-back with the USA great Pharma business so he can go golfing in South Africa while you have your $50K procedure done.
Which is the reason so many is the good ol' U.S. of A fear socialized medicine. Say goodbye to so many unnecessary procedures and kickbacks from drug companies.
Excellent advice. But just to make sure I got this right: if I trade in my flat screen TV for a bulgy vintage CRT box, I get my fitness back? Right?
ReplyDeleteI think so. And if your flat TV is a wide screen, you'll get taller too.
ReplyDelete"I don't know what caused this change, but I welcome it."
ReplyDeleteYes, quite odd to witness, but not unheard of. I think it's an automatic safeguard found in sufficiently evolved minds.
Not everybody is capable of such self-neglect, after becoming undisputably obese, to keep eating themselves to 300 or 500 Kg. Some people actually have enough maturity to feel a reflex of disgust towards pigging out, before they move from excess to plain monstrous behavior.
I did say behavior. To me, the only true monsters are in the mind.
Some monsters torment whole continents, others are their own victims.
The grocer in my former village (we moved a few years ago) has grown an impressive pot belly since we left. Most Lebanese with a sedentary profession, like bus/cab drivers, turn fat in the span of a few short years (especially if they get married).
That man's late father looked like the villain at the end of that Bond movie, To Live And Let Die. You know, the voodoo guy who swallowed a compressed air canister. I'm amazed at how long it took him to die (the grocer, I mean, not Baron Saturday). Not that his last years could still be called living. He would just sit on his chair all day long, a sagging mass of lard all bloated and purple, doing nothing, saying nothing, probably incapable of taking more than a few daily steps, a textbook example of Pickwick Syndrome too busy breathing to bother with anything else. When you looked at him you'd give him a wide berth for fear that he might *literally* explode right there, that's how bad he looked.
Ponder that I'm not the least bit exagerating, and you'll get the horrific picture. Ya wayleh. (Lebanese for "Oy, vey!")
I think the decadence of nations becomes clear by observing the average citizen. When the widespread norm starts frightening you, the message is clear.
"It's really easy despite what people say."
Well, I myself find it incredibly easy to not down liquor all day long or gamble the night away, but for some people it's mission impossible. Hic est quaestio. That's the whole problem.
Addiction-like behaviors that, when the pleasure mechanisms of the mind get perverted, soon threaten the well-being and the very survival of individuals. Of some individuals.
When you haven't experienced it yourself, it's very hard to picture how one can literally become a slave to their vice. Like eating. A very common vice, pathological eating. :-(
"Some people would say that's hardly much of a difference."
I beg to differ, Sir Jass. Some people are "just" inactive, but others turn it into yet another vice, with no extreme too taboo. "Hey, you're yawning? While your mouth is open, how about you call Junior for dinner?"
"that's what TV Guide is for."
Ah, bah, it's too much hassle to go to the store and buy the damn guide, and then to turn them paper pages. My poor ickle fingers get tired so easily!
"The BMI is not of much value."
Again, in the majority of contemporary Western citizens, it actually is. It requires a minimum of common sense, you can't just use it as a Most Holy Rule, but then it works pretty well in fulfilling its function: to indicate whether the average joe IS too fat, or still within reasonable. And indicating the degrees in what is unreasonable.
Not many WWE wrestlers worry about their BMI. Well, okay, Rikishi or Yokozuna probably should. Probably. ;-)
"And if your flat TV is a wide screen, you'll get taller too."
It's considered poor form to make beeping sounds when a ponderally challenged person walks backwards to yield passage.
Hey! Did Blogger actually fix that annoying limitation on the size of comments? :-)))
ReplyDeleteYup, a lot of things are getting bigger. For some it's their belly. For me it's my mou... my allowed comments!