scales and other lies

Twisted Tongues: New Diet Tortures

the most painful way to lose weight

Would you pay a doctor to sew a patch onto your tongue to cause you hideous pain every time you ate solid food?  Apparently, people are willing to do that just to lose weight.

During a reversible procedure that takes less than an hour, you could be fitted with a custom patch for the tongue which makes chewing of solid foods very difficult and painful, limiting you to a liquid diet.

For $2000 (regularly priced $2800) Dr. Chugay can surgically implant a postage stamp piece of mesh on your tongue and guarantee you absolute pain.  Patients are forced to follow a liquid diet and can lose up to 20 pounds in the first month.

Is the tongue patch worth it?

I suppose, for people who have been willing to swallow tape worms, the tongue patch is benign.

Chugay’s technique does nothing to inspire long-term behavioral change nor it does it do much for self-esteem.

But then Dr. Chugay concentrates on making money from the self-esteem challenged. Pick a body part and Dr. Chugay can lift, augment and surgically enhance.

At his Beverly Hills clinic, Dr Nicholas Chugay specialises in people who are dissatisfied with the image in the mirror. If you do not want to look like yourself you can visit Dr. Chugay for a total transformation into a celebrity body double.

Or perhaps you can choose from other services at his one stop shop for body dissatisfaction. How about a new chest implant for the man in your life? Not enough? Dr. Chugay recommends penile augmentation.

Since Dr. Chugay trained in Rio de Janeiro, here is a theme song for him. (with apologies to the Album: Dante’s Inferno)

When my tongue

When my tongue pains me I go to Rio

De Janeiro

My-oh-me-oh

I go wild and then I have to do the Chugay

darn the solid

Now I’m person of superb pain.

Don’t Get Thin Thighs in Four Weeks

thin thighs aren’t so great.

I have spent years envying my cousin Cyndi’s thin thighs.

When we were kids, she’d poke me in my thigh and joke she’d lost her finger in the fat.

Well, it looks like the jokes on nasty Cyndi.

Turns out thin thighs aren’t so great.

The thinner your thighs, the greater your risk of heart disease.

A Danish study, published in the British Medical Journal, doubled the risk of heart disease for both men and women who had a thigh circumference of less than 55 centimetres (under 20 inches).

After years of people with large anything being criticized as unhealthy, isn’t it a novelty that too thin is a risk too?

Why are thin thighs dangerous?  One theory is that the large thigh muscle contains insulin receptors to remove glucose, or sugar, from the blood stream. Without enough insulin receptors there is a greater risk of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

Dr. Heitmann suggests that doctors may include thigh measurements as part of a physical and even suggest exercise to bulk up ultra-thin thighs.

I guess that Cyndi can no longer be proud of her toothpick thighs. And it’s about time!

Is Your Life on Hold until you Diet?

I lived with the doctrine of waiting for life until I was the right size. Every day I said to myself, when I lose weight I’m going to.   Here’s my list of 10 things I thought I couldn’t do until I lost the weight:

• Take Dancing classes
• Wear sexy clothes
• Stand up for myself
• Tell off my principal,  Ron Tuff
• Take time for me
• Stop being a doormat for everyone else
• Let Cyndi, my cousin, really have it
• Finally go on a honeymoon with Joe
• Wear make-up and look pretty
• Follow up my  life’s ambition and become a chef

Guess what?  I found the person I wanted before I hit the magical number on the scale. Watching the changes in my life was like seeing  dominoes fall on top of one another. One thing led to another. Dieting became part of the process of paying attention to my needs and making me a priority.

There’s a new book coming out this fall, called, 101 Things to Do Before You Diet: Because Looking Great Isn’t Only About the Weight. Mimi Spencer, fashion writer for the Daily Mail suggests we look our best right now and buy the dress we love instead of waiting.

She advises, “Stop measuring yourself against a warped societal norm, and start enjoying what you’ve got.”

I hope you enjoy the philosophy and the book. Check out her column for fashion suggestions too.

What is the Cost of Being Fat?

There are serious problems to being overweight.

• Obese get more serious diseases such as diabetes and heart disease.
• The stout get more diseases of all types.
• Overweight are paid less than similarly qualified (thinner) colleagues.
• Flabby equals big losses in the love game.
• The plump are dismissed as lazy and stupid.

With all the difficulties of being fat, it’s surprising that Dr. Delos M. Cosgrave is so unsympathetic to their problems of the obese. He would stop hiring them at the Cleveland Clinic if he wasn’t legally prevented.

Cleveland Clinic has been ranked as one of America’s top hospitals by 2009 U.S. News and World Report and does provide for its employees a variety of free programs for weight reduction.

Ironically, with the economic problems it is easier to be overweight because:

• Cheapest food is the unhealthiest.
• Less educated are more likely to be hit hardest by the recession.
• Health care is seen as a dispensable luxury when money is tight.
• Recreation and sports are dropped.
• The cheapest comfort is food.

The New York Times article, called “Fat Tax” ends with the premise that not even one of the nation’s most prestigious hospitals can reduce obesity.

Actually, there have been very successful weight reduction programs. In British Columbia, Dr Jay Wortman initiated a low carbohydrate diet for 60 members of the Aboriginal Community. They lost heavily and their struggles are documented in the film, “My Big Fat Diet.” At the end of the film, there is a graduation ceremony and each loser brings the equivalent of weight loss in bags of sugar.  Some participants pushed in two wheelbarrows for their weight loss.

I think Dr. Cosgrove is being short sighted. Marginalizing fat people (especially when they are fast becoming the population majority) is not good preventative medicine.  Surely, Dr. Cosgove, a respected heart surgeon and chief executive of Cleveland Clinic, could promote a more imaginative and less discriminatory approach to the problem of national obesity.

Cyndi, The Saboteur

Do you have a saboteur in your life?

Cyndi is my cousin and she sabotages everything I do.

By the way, did I mention that Cyndi is my cousin and my mother and younger daughter adore her?  Joe, my husband can’t stand her and thinks I am too nice to her.

Here is the list of her most notable sabotages:

• She is wasp-waisted and wasp-tongue.
• She insults me and everything I do.
• She loves to pretend that she is younger and prettier than me.  Maybe, she’s not.
• She told me I would never be successful when I dieted. (She was wrong).
• She suggested I have my fat liposuctioned for biodiesel fuel.
• She uses all her marketing savy to broadcast every fault of mine to my relatives, close and far.
• Her mom died because she refused to follow a diet for diabetes but Cyndi is full of criticism when I diet for my pre-diabetes.
• I think she’s after my husband, Joe.
• She cultivates sympathy for herself like a weed sprung loose in a flower pot. Most annoying, she uses her double-edge sword of insulting me and expecting me to attend and care for her self-esteem.

I have never understood Eleanor Roosevelt’s statement that no-one can make you feel inferior without your consent. Cyndi makes me feel inferior all the time, and I have never given her permission.

Do you have a Cyndi in your life?

Eating Out Low Carb

“A diet is when you watch what you eat and wish you could eat what you watch.”
— Hermione Gingold

Do you have to give up low carb when you leave the house?

Not necessarily.  Try these tricks for restaurants and eating at relatives and friends.

1) Ask for the simplest method of cooking. Tell everyone that plain grilled food is what the doctor ordered.  Fish is delicious simply grilled.  You may prefer your meats this way too. This eliminates the problems of sauces, coatings and marinades.

2) Plain steamed vegetables and salads with the dressings on the side work well.

3) You may have to ask the restaurant to prepare a special dinner for you. Phoning ahead eliminates any embarrassment.

4) Always check what the price will be when making a special order at a restaurant. Once, I ordered grilled fish and a salad and was overcharged for two full meals.

5) It becomes a little trickier for large catered events from work and life cycle parties from friends and relatives.  Here are some options:

• ask the organizer, or hostess to order food for you
• if this becomes an issue, offer to phone the caterer yourself

6) Follow the habit of Mike Huckabee, former Governor of Arkansas, who lost 110 pounds after he was diagnosed with Type II diabetes in 2003. Mr. Huckabee packed cooler with foods he could eat and carried it to the fancy luncheons.

7) I usually find that most places and people are co-operative. Sometimes, I meet a brick wall. If offering to bring my own food still does not work, I suggest I join everyone for coffee and eat at home.

Another option is to check the online for friendlier options.  A few years ago, a number of restaurants had special low carb options but the trend now is to emphasize price. If you like fast food, check out about low carb diets for specific information.

9) You may be lucky enough to find a restaurant that tweaks the menu.

• Ruby Tuesday offers a Smart Eating menu, included calories, fat, net carb, and fibre information.
• At Chilis.com you can download nutritional information but most of their foods were way too high in fat, calories and carbs for me.
• Denny’sdid provide a  Carb-Watch menu supplement but now there is only online nutritional information to download.

10) Finally there are internet guides for eating low carb. However, the economy has not been kind to restaurants and it is wise to check first if the descriptions online match what is being served.

Fat: Blame Officer Krupke!

Dieting – Let’s Play The Blame Game

Remember the great lyrics from West Side Story by Stephen Sondheim by the delinquents explaining their plight to Office Krupke?

Everyone wants to blame someone else for rising obesity rates. More than one-third of adults — 72 million people — and 16 percent of children in America are obese.

Here’s some choices.

Blame Big Government

• The nation’s farm subsidies farmers to overproduce corn, soybeans and other commodities leading to  in cheap, unhealthy foods using cheap processed food, oils and sweeteners that are calorie-rich and nutrition-poor.

Blame Big Food

• According to David Kessler, author of “The End of Overeating”, manufacturers deliberately load foods high in fat, salt and sugar to alter the brain’s chemistry and this compels people to overeat.

Blame Restaurants Big and Small

• The Centre for Science in the Public Interests condemns huge portion sizes that entice diners to pig out. Because of lawsuits pending against fast food restaurants because of these super size meals, the U.S. House of Representatives twice introduced bills to outlaw fast-food lawsuits. No legislation has yet passed both houses of Congress. Similar measures have been introduced in about 20 states.

Blame the Parents

• How easy to blame Mom and Dad. In England, Social workers are placing obese children on the Child Protection Register (previously, suspected neglect, or physical or sexual abuse). In extreme cases children have been placed in foster care.

Blame the TV

• Let’s face it. A lot more junk food is mass media marketed to us and our children than healthy alternatives. People buy the food that is highly advertised. Advertising works or they would not continue it.

Blame the Economy

• Cheap food is fattening. With the lousy economy, people can’t afford healthy food. It’s much cheaper to have sugar-packed, no-nutrient colas than milk.

Blame Aliens or the Fat Bug

• airborne “adenovirus” germ could be causing the fat plague
• inflammatory protein may be responsible for obesity-linked diseases
• female sex hormone might be the problem
• tributyltin present in some boat paints, and also used for preserving woods and textiles, and as a pesticide, might be responsible for obesity
• a molecule, called IKKß/NF-κB, in the brain pathway is responsible for obesity

Blame the Consumer

• The argument is that people have choices and that fat people have made poor choices. If they made better choices there would be no obesity.

Does blaming help?

What difference does it make whose fault it is?

Maybe the solution is to aware of the problems and take responsibility of our own eating.

Are You Game to Diet?

Why Should the Scale Have all the Fun?

There’s a new book out called, The Game On Diet, developed by Az Ferguson to help “Grey’s Anatomy” writer Krista Vernoff lose her post-baby weight.  The way the game is played is that points are earned for your team if you follow the behaviour for dieting (such as exercising) rather than for weight loss.

Points are earned for:

• eating five small meals a day
• drinking three liters of water a day
• sleeping for at least seven hours, exercising for twenty minutes
• changing one other, seemingly unrelated habit

People are much more motivated to make the changes to lose weight when their lives are not dominated by a scale.  The interesting part of this game is that everyone can play. Just as there are handicaps in golf, participants could have different point allocations for following a gluten free diet or just living a healthier lifestyle. Even children could play and learn to eat vegetables instead of candy.

The question is: Isn’t dieting already a game? Like all games, diets (even when they define themselves as NOT A DIET) have rules and sub-rules about what can be eaten, when it can be eaten and the value of the food (calories, points, Fat or Carb count) and following these rules define the winner.  Like any game, dieters:

• Follow rules
• Have a defined outcome (weight)
• Have extra value with that outcome (look sexy)
• Are involved in playing the game (even if they do not follow the rules)
• Have penalties for not following the rules

The greatest frustration for most dieters is that the scale seems to win all the time even if they do lose weight.

There are numerous serious video games using RPG (role player game) to encourage people to try on new behaviours as part of a game.  Clive Thompson sees dieters who win at the points games do so because they see it as game.  Just as in a RPG, players roll a virtual character managing inventory and resources to achieve a goal.  Great game players hack the eating system with plates of tasty red peppers and cherry tomatoes.

Some people use their cell phones to make dieting a game.

• Teen girls supported each other by texting helpful messages
• Some friends use their cell phone to take pictures of your food (or exercise) as picture journals
• Serious gamers text messaging DIET1 with the restaurant’s name and menu item to receive the calorie, fat, carb, and protein content
• Techies love the cell phone apps to keep their daily totals

Since dieting is already a game, wouldn’t it be a great idea to make it some fun. Why let the scale have all the pleasure?  The Game on Diet sounds like a fantastic plan.

10 Ways Families Can Sabotage Diets

1. Get upset that the dieter is no longer willing to go out for social eating.
2. Sends a mixed message to the dieter, telling the dieter to lose weight and demanding tastings and seconds of foods not on the diet.
3. Brings  in  the dieter’s favorite sweet treats and snack foods just “to make the dieter feel better ” when they are stressed or upset.
4. ‘Reward’ the dieter with trips to fancy restaurants and holidays with the only activity of eating in multi-starred restaurants.
5. Accidentally, bring home carrot cake instead of the carrots on the shopping list.
6. Gets upset with family member is spending time on dieting and then accuses the dieter of being grouchy when on a diet.
7. Sulk and make a large scene if the dieter does not eat your birthday cake or your homemade candies.
8. Tell the dieter that he or she will get sick if they lose any more weight.
9. Analyze, criticize and comment on the foods the dieter is eating.
10. Tell the dieter that losing weight is hopeless and it’s a waste of time.

Diets: Lots of Flavors=Same Taste

Have you noticed that most diets have a heavy emphasis on green vegetables and forbid the same things?

According to Wikipedia there are 97 different types of diets.  There are probably even more choices since similar diets can work differently if you counting calories, points, or fat grams.  Of course, with any of these diets you have sub options of following a set plan or choosing your own foods each day. In addition, you can buy their food in a host of flavors from pre-packaged meals to a cookie that is a meal. Of course with the fad diets of eating one food only you could have an infinite number of diet choices.

If you wanted to, you could have a new diet every few days. But I bet that you could find that most diets extol the virtues of calorie free vegetables. Water; liquid, frozen or steamed, is also a big option.

Except for one diet: Eat What you Want and the Fat Won’t Come. I followed the suggestions and stocked my house with all my favorite treats. The theory was that if they were in the house I would no longer crave them. Let me tell you, they were not in my house for long. Within two months, I gained 25 pounds

Much as I love my low carb because it stops my carbohydrate craving, I am ready for new options.

Lady Rose, founder of The Diet Pulpit, blogs with the motto; Blogging with Fattiude! Don’t be a fool, eat for fuel.  Here is a list of Diets I would love to see (with thanks to Lady Rose for the initial suggestion):

• The February 30 Diet
• I’m Dieting on Monday Weekend Binge Diet
• It’s the Holidays Diet
• I Blew It (so might as well eat anything I want) Diet
• I Give Up Diet
• Crumbs Don’t Count Diet or the Evening Off Diet
• I’m Eating Low Carb So I Can Have All the Fat and Calories I Want Diet
• The Fiction Diet: Potato Chips are a Veggie
• The Stand-Up Diet – Calories don’t Count if You Eat Standing Up.
• The Morning Weigh-In Day followed by the Weekly Pig-Out

But my favorite is the Chocolate Diet. We have all heard that chocolate is good for us because of the flavonoids which prevent damage to our cells. Actually, if I had my way, chocolate would be classified as a necessity of life.

Amazon lists two books based on a chocolate diet:

• The Chocolate Weight Loss Diet by David M. Masters
• The Chocolate Diet by Sally Ann Voak

I am afraid to try them. I wouldn’t  want to regain the lost weight and I don’t want to be  attacked by Sally Ann Voak who asks: Why do slimmers always get fat again? In a nasty piece of anti-fat propaganda, Voak is “stunned” that her former award-winners regained.

Which brings me back to my original premise: diets may have lots of flavors but they all taste the same.  Good luck with yours.