July 21, 2003

As a Person of Rotundity, I am alternately amused and dismayed by the various theories, methods, fads and metabolically Machiavellian weight loss methods purveyed by our dysmorphic popular culture. A couple of recent articles over at TCS made me shake my head once more.

The formula is simple, people:

Decreasing caloric intake without increasing physical activity will result in temporary weight loss and a subsequently increased tendency towards weight gain. Increasing physical activity while maintaining current caloric intake or decreasing that intake will result in metabolic increase and weight reduction.

It's a cultural pathology, I think: we want results without actually having to do anything. In the early 80s my father lost quite a lot of weight because his physician put him on thyroid medication, artifically revving up his metabolism. Short version: medication stopped, waistline expanded. Our pill-philic society loves the idea of a "skinny pill" the same way it loves the idea of a "happy pill." It suits our technological bent, in that a pill is a small, compact device that can be used to Improve Our Quality Of Life, like a microwave or an iPod or a kitchen sink margarita dispenser.

Often, the Skinny Pill proves to be Bad. Fen-Phen--a combination of fenfluramine and dexfenfluramine--worked wonders, but tended to gunk up heart valves with thick, waxy crap, requiring cardiac valve-replacement in about one-quarter of those affected.

The other technologically shiny methods are so-called "meal replacements" like Ensure, Slim-fast, and so forth. These are much better than Astronaut Ice Cream for sheer sci-fi cachet. Why eat a meal when you can have a "nutritionally complete" meal-in-a-can/bar/pouch? Mmm, satisfyin'!

But they're not. Millions of years of human evolution were geared towards walking from place to place, running down our meals, and generally moving about much more than we do now. We have machines that move us thousands of miles without any physical effort on our part beyond the exertion of ripping open a package of peanuts and unscrewing the cap of a miniature wine bottle. We're supposed to be loping about on the plains or dragging sharp sticks through the dirt and poking at it with seed drills.

The length of my belt, of course, is a testament to the notion that knowing and doing are not the same thing. But there was a time, before the city beat me into the asphalt, that I used the noblest of moving machines to haul my carcass from place to place. And now I'm on the verge of making regular two-wheeled forays into the countryside...soon as I get new cleats for my new bike shoes...provided that I'm sufficiently motivated... and the weather's nice... and... ooo... cheeseburger...