So after years of being corporate veal by day and cake eating wedding officiant by night, I'm larger than I should be for my height. If I were over six feet I'd be fine but as it stands in order to avoid the family flaws (heart disease, diabetes) it'll be best to cut back a bit. So I've been doing so, first by ditching the corporate veal job and then by stepping away from the cake table. It's a slow process, I always say Rome wasn't burned in a day and neither shall be my keester. Sometimes I get tempted by the siren call of dieting.
I've got a couple of friends who did very well on a famous/infamous medical weight lose strategy available in Toronto. And another who embraced a guided herbal supplement path and lost over three stone. (side note: over a certain weight range I like to count in stones, which is apparently 25lbs. Saying I only have to lose two stone sounds less daunting) And yet another friend who got royally screwed out of time and money to be led up the garden path to minimal weight loss. Every once in a while I get frustrated and take another look at the various paid systems out there or else the fasts and the cleanses and the over the counter wonder pills. But I know none of that is for me.
Primarily, it's not for me because I'm a cheap bastard who doesn't want to pay extra for drugs or what not. I also don't like taking drugs I don't medically need, and requirer fuller information than most proprietary plans can provide. I also don't like the idea of rapid weight loss unless a person is in a state of emergency and requires it. Your skin looks terrible and I'm kind of nervous about the information stored in fat cells being released all at once. So gradually I'll go. No dieting for me.
And yet, I know by some definitions I'm dieting a little bit. Certain things are restricted from my diet and it's sometimes difficult to explain to people why. It's just a question of treating food as fuel, rather than just tasty filling om noms. After reading "In Defense Of Food" and watching "Food INC." my understanding of what food is has changed. I TOTALLY recommend the terrifying duo of that book and film, fantastic stuff. Processed, pre-packaged and fast food? Is filler, not food. Bread, in all it's wondrous forms, is really cake and the processing of refining flour that came into vogue with the industrial revolution robes the substance of most of it's nutritional value. Basically if it's a whole food - totally recognizable in it's original form - it's food. If it comes from plants and was not made in a plant, it's food. If my grandmother recognized it as food, it's likely food. And if pests want it, it's food. I don't trust things marketed as food that bugs don't want. Bugs are not picky consumers, and if they don't want your margarine or flour or hamburger patty, chances are it's not fit for our consumption either. I'm working on restricting my diet to real food, and it's working so far.
