Cracked.com will surprise you. Sure it alternates between hilarious and fascinating with articles like “Five Famous People You Won’t Believe Didn’t Really Exist.” But sometimes Cracked.com posts some really interesting stuff, like today’s article inspired by the recent Chris Christie news “According to Science, Fat is Officially Incurable.” The whole point is summed up in this paragraph which just happened to reference my former stable weight:
The person who is at 175 pounds after a huge weight loss now has a completely different physical makeup from the person who is naturally 175 — exercise benefits them less, calories are more readily stored as fat, the impulse to eat occurs far, far more often. The formerly fat person can exercise ten times the willpower of the never-fat guy, and still wind up fat again. The impulses are simply more frequent, and stronger, and the physical consequences of giving in are more severe. The people who successfully do it are the ones who become psychologically obsessive about it, like that weird guy who built an Eiffel Tower out of toothpicks.
Yeah, don’t I know this all too well. It’s exactly what I’ve based my entire perspective on. Some of us are different and we stay different because we’re made that way. But of course, few people understand this. Like the many fine folks who commented to the Cracked.com article about how it was obviously written by some “bitter fat guy” and how eating less and moving more is “so simple” but fat people just refuse to stop being gluttons.
We have to accept biological reality! There are people who are naturally thin and people for whom thoughts of food take up very little space in their brains. And then there are the folks at the other end of that Bell curve—those of us who are naturally larger and thoughts of food fill our minds all too frequently. Losing weight is not impossible for us but it’s a damn tough fight, so tough that it can feel impossible at times!
It’s shocking to me that news stories of Chris Christie are attracting plenty of the “easy way out” comments. Really? This accomplished and intelligent man is just some lazy failure who wants to indulge himself and let a surgical procedure take care of his weight with no effort? Absolutely, that’s what some people think.
We live in an era overwhelmed by contradictions. We glorify food but condemn the results of eating it. We belittle and demean fat people but pass judgment at how they attempt to deal with their weight. We think we are “enlightened” against many forms of bias but we still assume fat people are lazy, weak-willed, irresponsible, or emotionally broken. We have more scientific evidence available than ever before but we insist on believing managing the body is a simple matter of “will.”
I won’t stop speaking the truth.
2 comments
There are those of us who hear the pie on the counter calling our names and there are those who never do. We can’t convince them that it is a real experience. In fact, that was one of the most interesting conversations I ever had with my husband. He was truly shocked that I was serious about the pie filling my thoughts. It did not fill his (he actually forgot about it) even though it is his favorite dessert.
We will always struggle with this (even at 108 lbs down for me and plenty more for you) and at some point we have to accept that reality. I hope it will get somewhat easier with time and the voice will be more of a whisper than a yell. In the meantime, there are apples on the counter not apple pie.
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I’m in the South where lots of old favorite foods are calling to me….
If someone does not live this they cannot understand it and they assume everyone’s experiences are the same! THE SINGLE BIGGEST FLAW IN ANY DIET!!! Just follow that diet! Just eat this, don’t eat that! Yeah, easy for somebody else.