The Anti-Diet....
Some of my co-workers have started a group called "The Biggest Loser Club" to lose weight. The person who loses the most body fat gets a cash reward -- and they are making me ABSOLUTELY MENTAL in the process. I admit, I'm 118 pounds with little body fat and I eat pretty much what I want. That, however, has not always been the case -- in college, I was pushing 180 for a while...Today, we had cake to celebrate the recent birthdays of some staff members. All morning, BLC members could be heard talking to eat other about to eat the cake or not to eat the cake. I heard more than one say, if I eat cake it means that I should skip lunch because I don't need the calories. Another, accused one staff member of falling off the wagon...
I've tried to talk to BLC members about other ways to reduce body fat without getting into the food as punishment cycle but have been stopped at each attempt. I have offered to help people get running (just a little running, jogging, any cardio ...even) but was told that exercise is just too much work. Others go for walks during lunch but don't move fast enough to break a sweat or get their heart rates up...in most cases, the message they are communicating to each other is, we need to lose weight by any means necessary...which for me signals less about wanting to have a healthy body that has less body fat and is a message that screams potential eating disorder in huge red flashing lights. Certainly this isn't true for all of the members but I worry about some and their relationship to food and their bodies.
There are a couple of people in my office (I'm not sure if they are in BLC or not) that have recently started to ask about running and working up to a 5k -- this is exciting. More people to talk running, nutrition, exercise with in ways that are sustainable and healthy! Yay potential runners..
As for falling off the wagon...if you are having such a miserable relationship with food and your body, shouldn't you consider trying a different wagon? There are plenty of ways to have a healthier body without starving yourself or beginning to hate to eat. Yes, I run -- which allows me to worry less about that 100 calorie snack that one woman complained about this morning (there are men in on this group too...) but, the key is eating in moderation and adjusting my body to be more active so that I burn the calories.
It makes me sad to hear my collegues talking about everything they can't eat and at the same time talking about how they go home and do nothing but watch Lost or American Idol before bed. I have nothing against T.V. but if you want a healthy body, how about finding a wagon that combines good food, exercise, a little T.V and a great image of yourself/your health too?
Which wagon are you on?
posted by Jesse @ 7:34 PM
1 Comments:
Whenever I think about people who want to reduce what they are eating in some ridiculous fashion (fad dieting, starvation techniques and whatnot), I am always reminded of this psychology prof I had during a summer at UNCC. She was extremely obese to the point that she would always stand out for it. One day, in our lecture, she began telling us this story about how she'd entered this eating clinic a number of years back and there was this program and they were monitored by doctors and her progress had been fantastic and then suddenly, her progress just stopped and even began to reverse rather rapidly although she was still doing all that they told her to do (if I remember correctly, a large portion of this program was built around a liquid diet). They eventually determined that what had happened is that her metabolism had literally shut down all together. Just stopped. They got it going again eventually, but told her she was very lucky they had been able to and even still, there was no way it would ever be back to normal levels again, no matter what she did.
For whatever reasons, this left absolutely terrifying impressions on me. At the time, I had become physically active for purposes of weight loss and physical aesthetic and nothing more. And I had greatly reduced my eating. Weighed less than I ever had since about 5th grade. And after hearing what she had to say, I guess that was enough to scare me straight and realize the real health impacts any type of extreme dieting will have on the long-term. She was supervised by well-respected doctors in a residential setting. So consider what kind of risk the rest of us are taking when we decide we are going to alter our bodies in a much more uninformed manner (you being a certain exception). Scary.
Way to go for taking the high road (in more ways than one),
Blair ;)
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