December 2012 archive

End of the Year: Fads, Crash Diets & Gimmicks

A year-end talk on fads, crash diets, and exercise gimmicks. Spoiler alert: None of it works.

Dealing with Cravings: Video

In this video, I discuss how thoughts of food cravings can take over our minds. Is willpower the answer? NO WAY!! Post Script: A news story caught my eye with the headline “How to Stop Overeating.” It was a video by a woman who introduced herself as a nutritionist. She was one of those women …

Continue reading

Ruby Gettinger: Incredible Inspiration or Interminable Spiral?

Ruby Gettinger, Style Network’s one-time ratings star, has been out of a job since her reality show ended in 2011. With her book selling for a few dollars on Amazon and her blog just a handful of odd, rambling posts, partly in all caps and riddled with jarring but seemingly deliberate misspellings, the one-time recipient …

Continue reading

After Forgiveness Must Come the Truth of Weight Management

In my last post I discussed why you can let go of shame and blame and forgive yourself for being fat, for ever having been fat, for hating being fat, for remaining fat, for struggling not to be fat. It is your BodyTruth. For some of us, food will wrap itself around everything that ever …

Continue reading

The First Step: Forgive Yourself for Being Fat

What’s the first step to start taking control of a serious weight problem? Figure out what you’re going to eat? Make an exercise plan? That’s the simple answer. There’s something else you need to do and I think it’s the key. Forgive yourself for being fat. Last week I wrote about how often I find …

Continue reading

In the Grip of Obesity Fear

Many believe the answer to the obesity pandemic is education—Educate people about nutrition, physical activity, and health matters. But many of the messages being broadcast the most loudly are not just distorted and misleading, for some of us, they add to our increasing stress and worry. I believe that profit-driven changes in food processing and …

Continue reading

Is Walmart’s “Great For You” Product Line About Health or Profit?

When his son questions why the overweight cop in the conspicuously tight uniform is eating a certain “healthy” breakfast cereal, Dad replies in a weary, hopelessly resigned voice, “Gotta do something.” I don’t remember the cereal this commercial was advertising. It ran so long ago, it pre-dated the deluge of “healthy food” products and marketing …

Continue reading

The Toll the Weight Loss Struggle Can Take on Your Life

Can you put a price on your life? Yes. Everything you want in life has a price. Resources, effort, time, money, sacrifice. We pay in many ways. We don’t always want to see the price. In all things, we want a bargain. Even if we don’t acknowledge or recognize the full price of something, we …

Continue reading

Obesogenicity & Broken Things: Why America Won’t Solve the Obesity Problem

I learned new words yesterday. Obesogenicity An “obesogenic environment” supports gaining weight by promoting indulgent overeating. It’s the opposite of a “leptogenic” environment which would promote leanness or weight loss. An environment’s obesogencity can be measured by the use of ANGELO, the ANalysis Grid for Environments Linked to Obesity. Whatever ANGELO’s rating system is, I think the entire United …

Continue reading

Reaching the Point of Change: Working Toward Fitness & Weight Loss

I watched a webinar featuring a trainer who has an association with a supplements company that specializes in products for people who’ve had weight loss surgery. The trainer is young, handsome, and totally RIPPED. His website includes such workout “tips” as investing in gymnastic rings for “easy and inexpensive exercise” and doing decline push ups. …

Continue reading