It's Weight Loss Season!

We all got a little to ripe over the holidays, didn't we? A little too plump; it's time for pickin'.

Hey, I'm on that bandwagon too. Nothin' wrong with it. I did pretty well over the holidays, I suppose, but I'm still not getting on that scale. Nope. Not till two weeks. The Friday of the two weeks ending, because I always do the scale on Fridays.

Though I've been rethinking that. I always thought it was too obsessive to get on the scale every day, but maybe, to get that final 20 or so gone, I need to obsess a little more. I might have to work my way up to that. Start with two days a week and go from there. Because that scale certainly makes us more accountable, and that's part of what it takes.

Over the holidays I was watching some shows on The Learning Channel that were called things like "Big Medicine." Indeed. First, I love the irony of running those programs during the Season of Gluttony. If that's not a message not to reach for the cookies, I don't know what is.

These are the people at the max level of obesity. Piles of pale, rippling fat. Bodies that are bed-ridden, nearly unable to move. If these folks lie on their chests, the pressure on their lungs is too much to bear; the lungs might collapse, or they might have a heart attack.

They cannot bathe themselves. They cannot get out of bed to walk to the bathroom, and if they could, they would not fit through the door. The commode would not be big enough.

Man, you think when you're watching; there but for the grace of Goddess...

Television shows are created for one reason, and one reason only: to make money. No matter what lofty ideals might go into the creator's vision, it's a business in the end. Does that mean that all programming is created equally? Oh, yeah, sure, absolutely. A television show does not exist, if there isn't potential for it to make a profit.

Who profits from shows about fat people? There sure were lots of diet foods commercials during those shows. Diet foods that aren't good for us, don't nourish our bodies, and that are designed to keep us hungry and unsatisfied.

The lofty ideal is probably rooted in compassion. That we need to understand, accept, help, etc.

Uh huh.

You know, one of the men featured, who weighed in excess of 700 pounds, was filmed in his home with his wife. She was asked what her husband ate during a normal day. She seemed about to answer, when happy hubby interrupted and said "Now, you know I eat normally. It's not always about what you eat, it's your metabolism. It's wired into your DNA." That sort of happy crappy.

The camera panned through their kitchen, which was quite the mess, littered with pizza boxes, monster sized jars of Skippy, meal remnants, etc.

And I simply do not believe the guy. I can believe lots of impossible things before breakfast, but my faith falls short of eating less, exercising not, and weighing 700+ pounds. You'd have to prove it to me. I'd need a camera on that guy 24/7.

How do you get to that point? It's like there's a threshold, from being "morbidly obese," to "max obese." How do you cross that line? How do you crawl in bed one day, knowing it's forever, because your body has grown too big to move it? What kind of karma is it that you're living through?

My own body had started to have problems. I was more tired. If I stood for too long, the muscles in my outer thighs started to tingle, in a pejorative sense. Walking through the Metropolitan Museum of Art with my niece, my knee hurt so muc that I had to stop now and then to rest.

I thought my body was betraying me, because I'd always been so robust and healthy, despite the extra pounds. But it was me. I was betraying my body. I wasn't treating it well. Anthony Bourdain says the body is not a temple, but what the heck does he know? Treat your body well, maintain it, and it will do the same for you.

But I digress. Most folks at that weight never return. It's too hard. What's ten pounds gone when you have 400 to go? It's hard to measure success.

How does one get to the point of no return? I plan to never know.

Ahhhh....neglect of the blog has led to idle rambling on a Wednesday evening...
So, more of said idle rambling soon!