Saturday, May 3, 2008

Yay, I'm still Overweight!

This week, I went to the doctor and was officially weighed for the first time since I began "watching my weight" (figuratively of course). I have officially lost about 10 pounds. I find this a little disappointing and it reaffirms my decision not to use the scale as the primary gauge for success. Based on this number, I have been losing 0.55555 pounds a week, or almost 9 ounces. I guarantee that I would have quit after the first week if I had seen such pitiful progress. But, at this rate, I should lose about 29 pounds total by the end of the year, and that's not too shabby. Also, the doctor said that I should "keep doing what I'm doing". This she told me after I informed her that the body mass index chart posted in the room claimed that I am obese. This chart evilly separates the population into two categories: "normal" and "obese". However, the doctor helpfully referred me to a second chart with a gray area in the center. "You're not obese," she said, "You're overweight." Well that's just great.
It reminded me of the similarly evil message I received after typing my height and weight on the "My Pyramid" site. Against my better judgement, I decided to try this again with my new weight. Alas, the message remains the same: I am still overweight.
The fact remains that my plan is a sensible one for long term health: most of the time, I do not feel as though I am "on a diet" because I have resigned to the fact that I love food - especially the delicious kind. There are many ways I could lose weight faster. My plan was to research "fad diets" and list them, but it turns out a fellow blogger has devoted her entire blog to this: http://crazydiets.blogspot.com/ Here, you can learn about "the hot dog diet", the "sex diet", the "sardine diet" and even the "eggplant extract diet". I also found several diets claiming that you will lose 18 lbs in 2 weeks, 9 lbs in 11 days, and 30 lbs in 4 weeks, but in general, they require some sort of personal information before they will actually tell you what the diet entails. There are also the ever-popular diet pills, which never seem to have conclusive evidence of effectiveness, and which make some amazing leaps in logic. Like they observe that 100% of test subjects were not attacked by a rabid iguana while taking the pill, and so in addition to a "possible link" to weight loss, the pill has the added benefit of iguana prevention. So, unless I want to get my stomach surgically reduced to the size of a pea, I suppose I will continue with my current plan...though I could use an iguana repellent...

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