Most Americans want to lose weight and keep it off while
eating any damn thing they please.
That’s crazy, you say? Funny, but this is almost exactly the
definition of crazy as famously stated by Albert Einstein: “Insanity: doing the
same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
Once I came to grips with this realization, however, a lot
of things suddenly started to make sense. For one, the unending quest for a magic
diet pill. The recent media hoopla over the approval by the FDA of Belviq and Qsymia
underscores how much we want all of this to be easy, as we implore the Cruel, Cruel
Gods of Fat to just make our hunger go away, pretty please! If you can’t get a
doctor to write you a prescription for these miracle drugs, fear not. There are
a plethora of herbal diet supplements to choose from, available over the
counter at any pharmacy in America. And they’re all safe, rest assured, because
they say they’re safe right on the label!
This also explains the relentless pursuit by the food industry
of newer and better Frankenfoods. Just this week, it was announced that a new healthier
chocolate has been invented, one that tastes as good as the real stuff but
contains 50% less fat. Now, wouldn’t that
be a perfect world, if you could gorge on double-fudge, deep-fried, Krispy
Kreme cheeseburgers all day long without ever gaining an ounce? All you need do
is trust in the wonders of modern science to make all of your food fantasies
come true. And the additives that make up these engineered edible marvels are
all safe, rest assured, because “they” wouldn’t let them be sold if they weren’t
safe, right?
I spent the first fifty years of my life looking for the secret
to weight only to finally learn that there is no secret, no magic pill, no
miracle food. I desperately wanted there to be an easy cure and in some ways I
still want that. Yet I haven’t found it and, at fifty-five, I don’t want to
waste any more time looking for it. Eat less, move more is all I’ve got these
days. It might sound boring, or hard, or crazy, but it works and that’s good enough
for me.
Drat. You just bursted my bubble. ;-)
ReplyDeleteI think you're spot on. I personally gained back all the weight I lost for this very reason. I thought I could go back to eating more like I used to and still maintain. Uh...negative. Next time I WILL be more prepared.
Never look back or beat yourself up. Just learn from it and move on!
DeleteYep, that is a problem in many areas of most Americans lives --we want what we want and we want it now, and the cheaper and easier, the better.
ReplyDeleteThat said, tell me more about that chocolate ....
I don't know much about the chocolate other than they used fruit juice droplets to replace half of the fat. I used to eat dark chocolate pretty regularly, but I found it hard to eat just a little, so I decided not to eat any for a while. Dang that portion control!
Delete