I just can't with the article.
I predicted most of the twists and turns in the author's thinking, and just because it is incredibly common doesn't make it right:
Quote:
Fifteen years ago, just before I turned 30, I was 100 pounds overweight. I committed to a rigorous diet and exercise program and lost it all in one year
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Now and again, I would try to lay off sugar or carbs, or count calories, or try any number of new ideas to change my relationship with food, but in the end all had failed—or, I thought, my will had failed; I had failed. When I would fall short of my target weight year after year despite hours of weekly exercise
...
Sometimes, I would lie awake at night and wish that I could find a genie who would make me thin. I knew it was absurd, but such was my state of mind.
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This is exasperating when the answer is:
give up the foods that make you fat and sick. It is that simple, but what can we do with someone who refuses? Who decides to solve their problem by "wishing" at night. I understand desperation, but when I was faced with almost the same dilemma, when something that only kind of worked stopped working, I kept at it. What I didn't do was keep up with his "hours of weekly exercise" when
that wasn't working.
Atkins was the first thing that
did work. And I never let go! But I have let go of junk food. It means treats take on a whole new meaning, like Rib Eye or my homemade sugar-none cheescake.
Having been there, I certainly understand the man's account of his struggles. But it was fear of taking a diabetes drug that motivated me. As an example of the struggle, perfectly good. Defensive about the drug? Yes, but I can't help thinking that a guy who eats junk food and pushes himself to exercise might be setting up a whole new set of problems. I'm sure he was "training" with inadequate protein before, and now he's eating less.
Also, there's a misplaced confidence in "tech." Once it was "if we can put a man on the moon, why can't we lose weight?" Now, while we should be impressed with the computer power in our pockets compared to the computers that calculated the moon landing, it's still Garbage In, Garbage Out.
Ironically, the excess weight we're seeing now
IS a manmade tech problem. People will tell me how "good" something tastes, and pout if I say, "Yes, they spent lots of money hacking your brain." It's their brain that is the problem they are listening to "artificial feelings" triggered by lab work, instead of how they actually
feel, all day, every day. (What a tasty way to eat one's feelings, however.)
When, for the price of a Big Mac Meal -- not even delivery! -- I can get a chuck roast and feed both of us for a whole weekend.
Quote:
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The recent uproar over a McDonald's location in Darien, Connecticut, charging $18 for a Big Mac combo meal has sparked a nationwide debate on the escalating prices in the fast-food industry. Average price of Big Mac is $5.58 -- Jan 4, 2024
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About the same price at my local Aldi was enough grassfed stew meat to feed DH and I a whole meal. With much more satiety and nutrition than splitting a Big Mac. It can't remotely be justified financially.
Fat apologists talk about the size of the diet industry, but the companies in the report who make "food" dwarf that impact considerably. They have mainstreamed the whole Nutrisystem plan into the general population, have they not? Now, it's the "restaurant" who makes and serves your "meal." (Sorry, can't help all the air quotes. I expected better from the
Star Trek food machine of the future that I was promised.)
We are ALL dieters now. Perpetually in thrall to these industries. A wonderful science fiction novel was about just this: how the companies would set up their sodas to create cravings for their cookies, and the cookies created cravings for the candy, which made people thirsty for the soda... a perpetual cravings chain.
Written in 1953 and even such visionary writers placed their nightmare in the 22nd century. And here we are!
The Space Merchants, by Frederik Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth