Saturday, July 7, 2007

The truth hurts

In the low-carb forum I post on, someone linked this most kick-ass op-ed piece in which the writer is brutally honest about the physical and mental obesity in America. Any article entitled "Fat Bastards" will automatically get the LRA Seal of Approval anyway. He even touches on one of my pet peeves, the fat fuckers on Rascals who almost run me over in Costco because they're too busy cramming themselves with pizza and Pepsi to watch where they're going:

Lots of those obese people deal with it by purchasing electric carts to haul themselves around in. You’d think when you’d gotten too damn fat to walk, that fact might be a wake-up call, a message from God or just an indication that something is a little out of whack in the old lifestyle department, but the message lots of Americans take from the confabulation of flab is that it’s time to motorize the motion.

While most respondents commented favorably, there were these responses too, both copy/pasted from the post:

This article makes me sick. I suppose this idoit thinks this type of article is going to shape up America. Makes me wanna go out and run laps, lemme tell you.....

Swine, huh?? Totally unnecessary.


In fact, these were the only two negatives. Unsurprisingly--at least to me--both posters feature the Evil Sparkly Signature (whoever invented the technology for this abomination should be taken out and shot for crimes against humanity). If you look in their journals it's fucking social hour, full of smiley emoticons and endless talk about kids--oh, and once in a while they'll talk about low-carb. Hello, middle America, welcome to Completely Missing The Point.

Listen, I'm all for optimism and encouragement, and fortunately there's a few people I've met on the forum who are serious about this and are intelligent and funny to boot. When I go wandering, however, all I see are the sparkling signatures and those fucking Ticker Factory things--another inventor who needs to go up against the wall--and bad spelling and the emoticons. Okay, the one that waves is kind of cute, but I digress. I didn't join the forum to make friends--I joined to have a way of tracking my progress. The people that I've met there are just bonuses.

/rant, kthx

I need to start challenging myself more with workouts, so I'm upping the weights and lowering the reps on Monday. I got to the gym five days this week but have to stick around today to await a repairman. Depending on the weather I may do another three-miler tomorrow. I'm also surfing the red wave, which explains why I would have sold body parts for pizza and ice cream yesterday (ate neither, thank you very much). Stupid girl hormones.

2 comments:

Christine said...

I'm not a fan of Aunt Flo myself. She always seems to get in the way of my heavy day. Bitch.

MMA= Mixed Martial Arts... grappling and punching and kicking and stuff. Yeah, I'm bruised, and I can't cross my legs- but it was hella fun!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the comment on my blog and advice on scales. I think I'm going to hold off on getting one for now, maybe I can just use the package scale in the mailroom once a month LOL.

I hear ya on the PMS. I'm still a week out from mine and last night would have committed murder for potato chips, seriously it sucks, because it alway seems to crop up when I'm starting to get control.

Interesting article. I've always wondered why we give smokers the heavy hand of the law and junk food eaters shouldn't. From what I understand Twinkies are just as deadly as a pack of Marlboroughs if they lead to a life of obesity and disease complexes that come with it.

The most twisted part is that only the very thin and very fat get leeway here. When I was healthy but still a little rounder than a supermodel it was okay for the public to send a message that I needed a slimfast. Now that I'm really overweight, no one makes eye contact when the conversation turns to "diets". Legitimizing the whole thing while shunning and shaming under the table is not a helpful way to deal with this problem IMHO.