We are a generation of over-fed gluttons, gorging on our abundance like never before. Or that, at least, is what the experts will have us believe.

It is easy for us to forget King Edward VII ruled over a nation of 'gluttons' and some of the the food fads of our middle-class ancestors 100 years ago made modern indulgence seem like a detox regime. A typical breakfast would feature kedgeree, kippers, sausage, poached egg, devilled kidneys, fruit and endless rounds of buttered toast.
Lunch, meanwhile, would be a three-course affair, followed by a tea of cakes, buttered bread and scones.But dinner was always the piece de resistance - with as many as eight courses.


I guess it's not surprising that those times produced perhaps the most revolting diet in history. A fashionable regime from Edwardian times required participants to chew everything precisely 32 times, before tilting the head backwards to allow the masticated food to slide down.

This idea was first put forward by an American, Horace Fletcher - a marksman, athlete and painter, who had become so fat he was refused life insurance in 1895.

By then he weighed more than 141/2st, but after just four months of using the chewchew method, he had shed more than 40lb.

Fletcher believed food must be chewed to be absorbed into the body's system healthily.

Hasty eating, he believed, resulted in undigested food clogging up the system, which led to constipation and the colon becoming a dangerous cesspool of bacteria.

This was an era obsessed by the evils of constipation.

Fletcher's great friend was John Harvey Kellogg, who in 1906 launched the staple of most people's breakfasts even today - cornflakes.

This daily intake of roughage was intended to oil the system and Kellogg's bran was designed to scour the intestines.

Kellogg also ran a sanatorium where people went to lose weight, through cold rain douches, sweating packs and plunge baths, along with rigorous exercise.

Interestingly, on Fletcher's diet you can eat anything - and as much of it as you like - but chewing takes so long, the desire to eat diminishes and you eat less.

Revolting, it may be. But it's certainly effective.

Epiphany

I have been struggling with my wife's obesity and gluttony for so long that I often find myself resorting to wishful thinking to cope.   Sometimes, though, I am filled with despair and, though I am loath to admit it, disgust, to see her letting herself go with no regard for either my feelings or even her own health and appearance.  She was such a pretty woman at one time!  Now there are days she doesn't leave her room except to go into the kitchen and she weighs well over 400 lbs.  Not to make excuses, but I sometimes think that my daily exposure to her wantonness has coarsened me as well.  Out of respect for her privacy, though, I avoided telling anyone.  But now I must come clean, albeit with strangers.  Perhaps that is a step in the right direction?  It has taken me years to find the courage to face up to this extremely unpleasant truth.  I would always deceive myself with the latest clinical euphemism: 'emotional eater', 'obsessive compulsive disorder', 'food addiction', etc..  It never occurred to me that my wife was simply a glutton, no more, no less.  (Her mother recently revealed that she used to sneak food into her bedroom as a teenager.)  Such biblical language seemed too harsh and judgmental and; after all, she was my wife and it was inconsistent with my notion of femininity.  But it worked for people for centuries and now I am forced to acknowledge that their view fits the reality of my situation.  Taking a good long look at her binging late one night recently, brought me to my epiphany, though it sickened me as well.  It seems that I myself had to be viscerally effected before I could see that side of her that she had so long hidden from me.   I am not the kind of man who buries his head in the sand when problems occur.  Obviously I have been aware of her overeating for a long time.  I watched the scale numbers climb and was often pained to see how much she was spending on food and clothing.  And, yes, there have been arguments over it.  But I have been for the most part the most sympathetic of spouses, bottling up my own feelings and fears.  For some reason, though, until I saw her sitting there, so obviously out of control, I didn't realize the depths of her depravity.  What finally got to me, I think, was the fact she was in such a hurry to begin feasting that she didn't even  think to put her bathrobe on after getting out of bed.  And when I offered to get it she said 'No, just go back to sleep'.  Well I'm not going back to sleep.  Now that I know what she really is, I intend to present her with an ultimatum: lose the weight or lose me.   

Posted by "Roy" on the My Fat Spouse Forum

Why is it that many people treat marriage like an insurance policy?

 Why is it that many people treat marriage like an insurance policy?  Once the ring is slipped on their fingers, some assume they are then free to relax the high standards formerly held which definitely helped to attract and win their new mate-else why would anyone ever bother with the effort to begin with if physical appearance, fitness, and health were not supposed to be important things inside the marriage?
   I have noticed many formerly healthy and attractive spouses, who almost before all the "I Do’s" are said, start pigging out regularly with seemingly reckless abandon, and as a result gain enormous amounts of excess weight with little or no concern for the feelings of the other.  Sometimes a gluttonous spouse will even go so far as to try and sabotage their fit spouse's dieting and health efforts in an apparent attempt to make their fit spouse fat as well, most likely so that their healthy other-half won't be able to take the higher moral ground if they should try voicing any legitimate complaint about their weight gain-I guess misery loves company.  I think it is deplorable the way many will project an image of being health conscious, physically active, exercising, and generally keeping themselves attractive and so forth during the courtship phase, but then, once the marriage is sealed, almost before the ink is even dry, they begin to "let go" and pig out.  Then, when any concern is expressed by their partner who they have sworn an oath to “to love and honor...”, it is met with nothing short of total contempt or accusation, overused lines of total BS like "But you're supposed to love me unconditionally, you a**hole!"  What a crock.
   Where in any legitimate marriage agreement or contract, traditional or contemporary, is it stated that a spouse expected to give “Unconditional Love” irrespective of abuse, neglect, abandonment, or adultery, which all are inclusive to gluttony? If such an illogical concept as “unconditional love” actually exists, then where is their’s?  Will someone please explain how such logic as expecting someone else to love you “unconditionally”, could be anything but irrational?  By demanding “unconditional love”, these selfish hypocrites are themselves affecting a condition by demanding a condition: Unconditional Love!    
   Why is it that popular culture considers a gluttonous self-abasing spouse who becomes a pig after marriage to be a victim or the only victim? Why is free license given for one spouse to become obese at the expense the other’s happiness? Yet, consequently when the healthy spouse naturally looses attraction felt for their formerly fit spouse, the fit spouse is considered to be shallow and selfish.  
   Anything you might read about the evils of domestic violence, alcoholism, addiction, abuse and so forth within marriage is NO DIFFERENT from gluttony.  In fact, gluttony is worse than those evils because it destroys the natural basis that is the catalyst to nearly every romantic relationship which eventually results in marriage, Natural Attraction. Surely, there is a Higher Love than this, but the honest in heart will acknowledge that most all relations, at least those between and man and woman, begin with natural attraction.  Unfortunately, many relationships never advance to this state of Higher Love that transcends advancing age and the normal loss of attraction because the natural process which would normally lead there is stunted, and eventually killed by selfish, greedy, unabashed gluttony! How sad.

Μολὼν λάβε!

 

Posted by Mojo on the My Fat Spouse Forum