Quit Yer Whinning and Move Around Some

. . . after all, you are what you eat. Any theories that our problem began in the Paleolithic era I dismiss as being absurd. As this blogger put it,

It’s crazy. If you aren’t responsible for what you put into your mouth, chew and swallow, what’s left that you are you responsible for?

But that would cut down on all the Oprah/Dr Phil weepy confessionals. And would also put a crimp on the weight loss fanatics who are getting paid to say things. For instance, last year I changed my membership from one gym to another, fancier gym. The new gym gave you an evaluation upon enrollment: they took your blood pressure, pulse, had you complete a questionnaire, and calculated your BMI. My BMI is 20.3, well within the normal range. However, the nurse (who was overweight and — I kid you not — snacking on pepperoni pizza when I arrived) didn’t know how to do a “pinch test”. A “pinch test” (I don’t know the official name for it) is where they pinch flab off your arm, torso and thigh with a pair of calipers so they can see if there’s any fat. Personally, I can see fat without the benefit of calipers, but hey. The nurse’s calipers didn’t get much from the arm, got nearly nothing from the appropriate torso area just below the ribcage so she grabbed from the lower torso and got some fat (ouch), and couldn’t pinch anything from the thigh when I was standing on both legs so she insisted that I place my right leg on a chair so she could pinch something. That she did, which caused some slight bruising — she was pinching muscle (double ouch). The conversation went like this,

Nurse: “You need to lose twenty five pounds”

Me: “Twenty five pounds!”

Nurse: “Yes”

Me: “If I lost 25 lbs I’d disappear”

So I took my own advice and disappeared from that gym. I went back to my old gym, where I work out regularly and no one’s telling me I need to lose anything.

Eat lots of vegetables, cut down on starches, exercise, and be happy. Works for me.

Update Contrary to what José Bové would like you to believe, McDonald’s does good deeds, and a treat helps healing. I can not improve on what Andrew Stuttaford said,

The sad thing about this was that it was some parents and one obnoxious-sounding grandmother who complained, smug, self-righteous zealots so wrapped up in their puritan indignation and scientific illiteracy that they would deny a sick child a small treat. They are the sort of ghastly, crabbed individuals who would have told the repentant Scrooge to send the Cratchits broccoli for that famous Christmas meal. It would have been so much better for them, you see, than turkey.

Pathetic.

Across the Atlantic, some believe “It is inequality and disrespect that makes people fat”. Scott looks at the empty calories.