Today I am going to discuss a great unsolved mystery of the universe. I’m not going to solve it, mind you, but I am going to elaborate on the mysteriousness of this particular mystery.
Is it just me or is anyone else out there completely flabbergasted by flab? Losing weight is an American pastime. We’re collectively obsessed with it. There are gazillions of theories, studies, plans and quick fixes, yet the mystery remains unsolved. The great questions of diet, exercise and weight loss-- I’m not sure there is an answer. Nothing makes sense and definitely nothing works in your favor. It happily works against you, though.
Skeptics will say, “Duh! Eat less calories than you burn.” But I believe the secret is a much more complicated algebraic formula than I can comprehend. Either that or there are evil supernatural powers at work. So I won’t solve it , but here are some dilemmas to ponder.
Consider these mathematical inconsistencies: I gave birth to 12 lbs of baby , hopped off the delivery table and dashed to the nearest scale, hoping for some good news. I lost 10 lbs. My two (very cute, by the way) six pound babies were laying in their bassinets and my body only registered a 10 pound loss.
Another common situation: A woman and her husband go on the same diet. He loses 30 lbs in a month, she loses two. It happens all the time. You see an overweight person nibbling on a salad while their super skinny dining companion scarfs down a cheeseburger, fries and a shake.
Or try to figure out the math on this one. A 250 calorie candy bar causes a 5 lb weight gain overnight. But to lose those 5 lbs-- you are sentenced to at least a month of near starvation. Easy to get on, grueling to get off. Math was never my strong subject, but something here doesn’t add up.
My favorite unsolvable equation is another personal experience. I once spent months diligently entering every thing I ate and every minute of exercise I did into a computer program. It calculated calories burned vs. calories eaten, and displayed a lovely graph with a sloping line showing the weight I should be losing, IN THEORY. However, the REAL weight on the scale did not even budge a pound, even though the computer’s numbers proved that I should have lost 12 lbs. I cannot figure out that one. Maybe wicked gremlins are sneaking into my room at night and stuffing me full of hot fudge sundaes while I’m sleeping.
I am sure I am not the only one with this kind of unexplained phenomenon in my life.
Here’s another mathematical enigma. Fitness magazine math. The promises…do these 10 quick and easy steps and lose pound after pound. Just quit buttering your toast and that will amount to losing 10 lbs a year! Switch to skim milk, another 7 lbs over the course of a year. Dressing on the side, 11 lbs. Hold the soda, another 12.5 lbs. If I follow all their promises, my weight should easily be into negative numbers by the end of the year! Is that theoretically possible?
Exercise is no better. They preach that if you reach a weight loss plateau, you have to blast through it. Your body adapts so change it up, trick your body by doing something different. Your body is used to running 2 miles a day. So run 3 and cut back 100 calories. New plateau. OK, Eat less, work out more. According to this line of math, by the end of our lives, our very adaptable bodies will be eating one leaf of lettuce and running a marathon daily just to maintain our current weight.
Those weight loss success stories you read about mystify me too. I study the before and after pictures in all the weight loss ads because I want to know how they compare, what they are doing differently from me. Well, the first thing they tell is the story of how one day they saw a picture of themselves at their old weight, and they were so DISGUSTED. They couldn’t believe how grossly horribly repulsive they were. And I’m thinking, oh thanks a lot, from all of us who currently weigh your old disgusting weight.
Then, in the after picture, they weigh less than a third grader and now they are all smiles. So what was the magic cure? They all pretty much say the same thing. “Oh, I eat grilled fish and vegetables for dinner, a salad for lunch, and oatmeal with fruit and skim milk for breakfast. I go to the gym 3 times a week and drink lots of water.” Then I just want to scream, oh yeah, well I do all that too, buddy! (except the fish part-tofu for me, I’m a vegetarian) So I already live their newfound healthy lifestyle and yet and the pounds melt off of them, not me. It’s a paranormal experience.
Maybe it’s a food conspiracy theory. Some one’s trying to get everyone fat so the health industry gets rich taking care of our overweight bodies. And make us addicted to food so we’ll keep buying more and make the food industry rich. And we certainly shouldn’t all lose the weight and keep it off cause then what would all the diet authors and weight loss companies do?
Perhaps, more likely, our bodies have a wacky sense of humor. They are determined to stubbornly hang on to every pound just to irritate us. For years, I went to the same step aerobics class at the same gym with the same women. You’d think with all this exhilarating exercise, some of us would start looking all toned and buff. Nope, year after year we all looked pretty much the same. Our bodies said, “Hee hee! Don’t think you can win here--I’m the boss and I say the cellulite stays! “ So I got a personal trainer who kicked my butt and my body just said, “ Whatever. Nice try. Not budging. Jeans still tight.”
I gave up soda, white everything, and fried everything, and my body said, “You may feel healthier but I will never let you become Nicole Richie’s size.” So I tried a juice fast and I could almost hear my body laughing, “Ha! You think that little trick is going to make me let some of this fat go? Think again, sister, it’s gonna take more than a little fasting for me to let you burn any extra padding.” The current score is: My fat, a lot. Me, zero. The pounds are winning.
So where does this leave me? Certainly not in a size 2. I’m just here to ask the big question, how in the heck do you explain all this? Forget Bigfoot and UFOs, we have a much bigger mystery on our hands, one that won’t be solved when Fred and Shaggy unmask the bandit. I’m pretty sure I didn’t progress towards solving anything in the universe today. Wish I could have wrapped the answer up all nicely with a big bow on top and given it to you. If you solve it, please let me know. I’ll be on the treadmill nibbling my carrot sticks.
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