I was reading a article on another horrible Fat-o-Sphere Blog. The Author claimed that Weight Watchers was co opting Fat Acceptance rhetoric. The reason this article annoys me isn’t because its bad mouthing weight watchers. I’ve never been on anything like that, but its lines like this:
"Ugh. I’m gonna go bake some Christmas Eve morning sticky buns and get my non-mathematically-eating baker on. Here’s hoping that all of you can celebrate the holidays/have celebrated the holidays without taking the time to calculate what you’re putting in your mouth."
This is one of the massive contradictions in the fat movement. One minute its 'I DO eat healthy, f-you your ignorant, i watch what i eat too'.....then its 'ha! only obsessive people watch what they eat'.
Why is watching what you eat 'obsessive'? It’s completely misinterpreting the phrase.
It doesn't mean weighing out and calculating every morsel because eating 1 extra calorie will make you fat. Its about learning portion control, what foods are good for you, and what should be had in moderation. If you have this knowledge you have nothing to worry about.
Those who 'obsess' obviously aren't researching for themselves what to do, just always worrying that what they are doing 'maybe wrong'.
And what is the difference between this statement:"Here’s hoping that all of you can celebrate the holidays/have celebrated the holidays without taking the time to calculate what you’re putting in your mouth."
and this one
"Here’s hoping that all of you can celebrate the holidays/have celebrated the holidays without taking the time to calculate how much alcohol you’re putting in your mouth".
What’s the difference? If watching food = worrying non stop, then that would also mean that watching how much you drink means you constantly worry, and you can never enjoy yourself and relax.
Therefore just shove all you want down your throat, its not like you can make yourself unhealthy or sick THAT way is it..........!
They want to call others (often including professionals) ignorant and delusional, whilst at the same time believing the most illogical nonsense, tales of magically appearing bodyfat and making contradicting statements*, topped off with guilting and bullying those who are overweight if they don't agree.
* I can see an argument coming from the fat movement saying 'but the diet industry makes contradicting statements, therefore nothing can work!'.
So does that therefore mean that no education systems can work because people try and jump on the education bandwagon by telling you that all you need to do is pop a cd into your cd player and you can learn top level algebra whilst you sleep? Does that make all genuine child and adult education a 'trick' because of people capitalising on something?
You always get people capitalising on something, just like for example, you get people who capitalise on pets being ill by saying 'Don't take them to the vet, call a 'pet psychic' and they will talk to the pet, and it will tell them what’s wrong', then 10 minutes later you have an idiot in your house shaking bells to conjure up the 'dog spirit' to communicate with it.Or witch doctors who say 'don't visit the doctor, I’ll cure you....with my DANCE OF WELLNESS!!!'. Does that make all doctors untrustworthy?
Are there no good mechanics because some will try to tell you that your car is unsafe, even if its 5 minutes out of the showroom and you only came in to use the phone?
Are no builders trustworthy because there are those who raid the jewelry box, try on your wife's underwear whilst you are out, swear infront of your kids, then mess up the job they are doing and leave paint all over the carpet even though their advert said 'You can't beat us, we are the best in the business'?
The point is that with any industry, you need to use commonsense as there is always someone trying to jump on the bandwagon. But that doesn't make others less genuine.
Almost everyone would know that putting on 20lbs in 5 days would be unhealthy. That weight gain would take at the minimum in most cases a couple of years (not including medical problems).
So is it really illogical to come to the conclusion that taking OFF 20lbs of weight gain, that took years to accumulate, in 5 days would also be unhealthy?
Its just that saying 'you need to build muscle and incorporate resistance training with this and this', isn't eye catching enough or like a magic pill.
That’s why there’s always the new fad diet every two weeks, because this one DEFINATLY 'will' work, or new exercises are always being invented that will magically make everything perfect by 'standing on a wobble board whilst doing a painting of your gran with your shopping balanced on your head' or 'pedal as fast as you can on an exercise bike whilst juggling and saying the alphabet backwards'.
There’s even things that are made up to make people feel like they are doing 'exercise' but really doing nothing. Like ‘workouts’ that say 'stretch your legs out in front of you and tense for 10 seconds then release. Do 3 times for a *ahem* 'killer' leg workout'.
Many also don't get to hear about it, or believe the right way to do it, because they believe something has to be so complicated to work, but its really quite simple.
The things you really need to do, just aren't eye catching enough or extravagant sounding enough to get put in the mainstream magazines where a lot of people get their 'information'.
A sensible program of resistance training, cardiovascular work, portion control, nutritious food and rest doesn't sound flashy enough and doesn’t promise god like miracles in even more miraculously quick times. And that doesn't make headlines.
But anyway back to the piece at the top, its an unfair statement that you can only 'not care what you eat, or obsess over it', just like other arguments that convey that you can only 'be overweight or anorexic'.
You could also say:
: Its either not revise/care about your exams or stay up all night for a week revising
: You can either not get a job....or become a workaholic
: If you watch how much money you spend, you become 'obsessive', so just blow the lot etc
They (the fat movement) show all the signs of being an extreme, and they only seem to listen to the extremes, both the extreme ideas from people they hold up as saviours (even those who have no credentials), and the extreme fad diets they put down as they believe they are the only option besides staying overweight.
In my opinion it's a waste of time listening to either.
A101 is a regular contributer to the My Fat Spouse forum.
"Ugh. I’m gonna go bake some Christmas Eve morning sticky buns and get my non-mathematically-eating baker on. Here’s hoping that all of you can celebrate the holidays/have celebrated the holidays without taking the time to calculate what you’re putting in your mouth."
This is one of the massive contradictions in the fat movement. One minute its 'I DO eat healthy, f-you your ignorant, i watch what i eat too'.....then its 'ha! only obsessive people watch what they eat'.
Why is watching what you eat 'obsessive'? It’s completely misinterpreting the phrase.
Those who 'obsess' obviously aren't researching for themselves what to do, just always worrying that what they are doing 'maybe wrong'.
And what is the difference between this statement:"Here’s hoping that all of you can celebrate the holidays/have celebrated the holidays without taking the time to calculate what you’re putting in your mouth."
and this one
"Here’s hoping that all of you can celebrate the holidays/have celebrated the holidays without taking the time to calculate how much alcohol you’re putting in your mouth".
What’s the difference? If watching food = worrying non stop, then that would also mean that watching how much you drink means you constantly worry, and you can never enjoy yourself and relax.
Therefore just shove all you want down your throat, its not like you can make yourself unhealthy or sick THAT way is it..........!
They want to call others (often including professionals) ignorant and delusional, whilst at the same time believing the most illogical nonsense, tales of magically appearing bodyfat and making contradicting statements*, topped off with guilting and bullying those who are overweight if they don't agree.
* I can see an argument coming from the fat movement saying 'but the diet industry makes contradicting statements, therefore nothing can work!'.
So does that therefore mean that no education systems can work because people try and jump on the education bandwagon by telling you that all you need to do is pop a cd into your cd player and you can learn top level algebra whilst you sleep? Does that make all genuine child and adult education a 'trick' because of people capitalising on something?
You always get people capitalising on something, just like for example, you get people who capitalise on pets being ill by saying 'Don't take them to the vet, call a 'pet psychic' and they will talk to the pet, and it will tell them what’s wrong', then 10 minutes later you have an idiot in your house shaking bells to conjure up the 'dog spirit' to communicate with it.Or witch doctors who say 'don't visit the doctor, I’ll cure you....with my DANCE OF WELLNESS!!!'. Does that make all doctors untrustworthy?
Are there no good mechanics because some will try to tell you that your car is unsafe, even if its 5 minutes out of the showroom and you only came in to use the phone?
Are no builders trustworthy because there are those who raid the jewelry box, try on your wife's underwear whilst you are out, swear infront of your kids, then mess up the job they are doing and leave paint all over the carpet even though their advert said 'You can't beat us, we are the best in the business'?
The point is that with any industry, you need to use commonsense as there is always someone trying to jump on the bandwagon. But that doesn't make others less genuine.
Almost everyone would know that putting on 20lbs in 5 days would be unhealthy. That weight gain would take at the minimum in most cases a couple of years (not including medical problems).
So is it really illogical to come to the conclusion that taking OFF 20lbs of weight gain, that took years to accumulate, in 5 days would also be unhealthy?
Its just that saying 'you need to build muscle and incorporate resistance training with this and this', isn't eye catching enough or like a magic pill.
That’s why there’s always the new fad diet every two weeks, because this one DEFINATLY 'will' work, or new exercises are always being invented that will magically make everything perfect by 'standing on a wobble board whilst doing a painting of your gran with your shopping balanced on your head' or 'pedal as fast as you can on an exercise bike whilst juggling and saying the alphabet backwards'.
There’s even things that are made up to make people feel like they are doing 'exercise' but really doing nothing. Like ‘workouts’ that say 'stretch your legs out in front of you and tense for 10 seconds then release. Do 3 times for a *ahem* 'killer' leg workout'.
Many also don't get to hear about it, or believe the right way to do it, because they believe something has to be so complicated to work, but its really quite simple.
The things you really need to do, just aren't eye catching enough or extravagant sounding enough to get put in the mainstream magazines where a lot of people get their 'information'.
A sensible program of resistance training, cardiovascular work, portion control, nutritious food and rest doesn't sound flashy enough and doesn’t promise god like miracles in even more miraculously quick times. And that doesn't make headlines.
But anyway back to the piece at the top, its an unfair statement that you can only 'not care what you eat, or obsess over it', just like other arguments that convey that you can only 'be overweight or anorexic'.
You could also say:
: Its either not revise/care about your exams or stay up all night for a week revising
: You can either not get a job....or become a workaholic
: If you watch how much money you spend, you become 'obsessive', so just blow the lot etc
They (the fat movement) show all the signs of being an extreme, and they only seem to listen to the extremes, both the extreme ideas from people they hold up as saviours (even those who have no credentials), and the extreme fad diets they put down as they believe they are the only option besides staying overweight.
In my opinion it's a waste of time listening to either.
A101 is a regular contributer to the My Fat Spouse forum.
