Obesity isn't a health problem.

I hate it when people think obesity causes health problems.  That is an absolute lie and it doesn't make any sense.

When I was born I was a small baby.  I was also extremely sick.  My parents were told I would die.  I didn't obviously.

My illness had nothing to do with my own weight.  I was just an infant, and I was small for an infant. My illness had nothing to do with my mother's weight.  She was 5 feet exactly and 99 lbs before she got pregnant with me.

I remained skinny throughout my live.  I was active in sports such as swimming, skiing, cycling, horse back riding, and walking.  I also remained sick.  After my surgery as a toddler, I didn't get as sick as that again, but I had frequent infections, and health problems related to the problems I was born with.

In my early 30's I got much sicker, and needed more surgeries.  It was after one of these surgeries, that I was no longer able to take the stairs two at a time (I had to use the elevator) or park a 20 minute walk away from my destination (I had to park closer).  I stopped all forms of exercise, except for walking, because I was too sick to do so.

I also started taking medication that causes weight gain.

I became too sick to cook, nutritious foods made from scratch.  My mother was progressively loosing energy due to her own health problems, and couldn't do that either.  Cooking from scratch takes a lot of time and energy, and Mom and I just didn't have it.  Some days we didn't eat supper, because we didn't have the energy to make it.  We grabbed potato chips instead.  To solve that problem we bought boxed foods, and made them regularly.

Sticking a couple of chicken fingers in the oven is easier than cooking from scratch, and better than eating nothing but potato chips.

And we started gaining weight.

But....

I am not unhealthy because I gained weight.  I was sick for decades before gaining weight.  I am overweight because I am sick.  I don't have the energy to exercise like I once did nor do I have the energy to spend and hour making each meal as I once did.

Obesity is not a health problem.  Health problems can cause obesity, but obesity in itself is not a health problem.

Happy New Years

It's that time of year again, when we change our calendars not just from one month to the next, but from one year to the next.

I will start writing the date as 2015, then cross it out and write 2016 beside or over top of the original year.  This will continue for about a week, until I'm totally used to writing 2016.

It's the time that people naturally think of change. The year is changing, the calendar is changing, other people are writing resolutions, so why shouldn't I change.

This year I'm not going to write or even think about a single resolution.  Resolutions are a set up for failure.  If I write a resolution it's usually very complicated.  One year I wrote how much weight I wanted to lose, followed by a month by month progress of how much weight I would lose by the beginning of each month, and what I would do that month to lose that weight.  By the time Feb 1 came around, I had already failed.

I don't want to fail this year, and I don't even want to try.

I know that sounds defeatists, because even as I wrote it I second guessed myself, but I have a reason.

Right now, in my life, I'm already feeling inadequate.  I am having a very hard time dealing with live, and I just can't set myself up for failure this year.  Before Mom was sick, we had a house fire, then when Mom got sick, were still unpacking all of the stuff after moving back into our house.  As Mom got worse and worse, I quit unpacking altogether.  Now our house looks horrible.  I don't think it will ever get clean.  And I've given up.

Sometimes brushing my teeth, washing my face and getting dressed in the morning is too much work and I simply don't do it.  In the last 4 years we've had several tragedies that in and of themselves are unusual and horrible to live through, but we've just had horrific luck, and have had them pile on us.  Through them all I've been coping, but I've reached a point where I can't be strong for anybody else, and I can't try to change anything either.  I'm not going to try.

This year, there won't be any resolutions from me.  This year, I'm going to not try to change a thing.

Dieting hardly ever works

A neuroscientist explains why dieting hardly ever works.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jn0Ygp7pMbA

Till Weight Do Us Part - a Referral to another blog, because I'm too sick to think coherently enough to write my own post.

As I said before I'm sick.  Despite that, I had a very busy day today, and now as the day is winding down, I'm not awake enough or healthy enough to write any sort of coherent blog post.

That being said - I still have something for you to read.

The Militant Baker, is a very good blog, that I check out about once a month.  I suggest that you put it on your list of blogs to check out too.  You can even subscribe if you want to.

Last week I wrote a blog post about a boy I knew in college who wanted to only date beautiful people.  It was called A relationship can't be based on beauty because beauty doesn't last.  Today the Militant Baker posted an article that's related to that.  Her post is: Till Weight Do Us Part, and if you liked my post last week, you'll like her's this week.



P.S.

It's Friday evening, the day I usually write the political posts for Saturday and Sunday.  Tomorrow I'll hopefully feel more rested, because I have an entire day off.  If I'm feeling better I'll valiantly try to write the political posts for the weekend.  If I'm not, this post I'm referring you to now, will be ready for your to read on Saturday Morning.  Each morning you will get to read a new post, even if I'm only referring you to somebody else's blog.

When I'm better, I will resume to my regular posting, that I write myself.

Until then....  Please wish me well.

A relationship can not be based on looks, because looks don't last.

Several years ago, when I was in college, and thought I had "grown up", and new as much as every other adult (boy was I wrong), a platonic male friend of mine empathetically stated, that he was talking to some of the other boys in his dorm, and they had decided that they could never marry (or even date) anybody who was unattractive.

He used what he thought was evidence that sexual attraction was a big part of marriage and without it a marriage couldn't exist.

I disagreed.  Being empathetic, and a fighter for the underdog, I argued "what about the ugly people?", imaging those with burn scars, and horrific injuries.

He said "no, no, it can't be done."

It didn't make sense to me.  Why base a relationship on looks.  He argued that he wasn't.  Of course he'd want other good qualities in a mate, but she would have to be attractive.

Evidently, he thought I was attractive, because less than a year later, I sat on the floor in office of my home, with the light off, and listened to him cry on the other end of the phone.  He loved me.  He was afraid to tell me.  He couldn't take rejection.  What if it ended our friendship?

He was right to wonder about such things, because I did say no, and it did end our friendship.  At first I thought we could just be friends, but things changed, he became very nasty, and I told him I never wanted to see him again.

I've wondered about him over the years, and even felt guilty for ending it the way I did, but I just couldn't go out with him.  He was ironically, unattractive, actually he didn't know it but he bordered on ugly.  That wasn't the reason I didn't go out with him.  I won't go into tearing him apart in this blog post, but just trust me, there were other reasons.

Ironically, I am no longer attractive.  I've gotten older, gained weight, and quit wearing make-up.  I am not small thin adolescent beauty I used to be.  I was only 19, when he was so attracted to me.

What if I had said "yes"?  What if we had gotten married, had kids, and lived the cosy nuclear family life that he wanted so much?  Would divorce have followed?  Would our children be left without a Dad, as he and his siblings were?

It's impossible to stay beautiful until your 90's.  (No I'm not 90 - not even close).  Eventually age makes that teen / 20 something body disappear.  I'm sure he doesn't look like he did when he was 19 either.  I'm sure he's even uglier than he used to be.

Why does the society we live in, place so much value in something that's useless, without substance, and shallow?

If he found a beautiful girl, she's not 19 anymore.  Maybe she's skinny.  Maybe she wears make up.  But I can guarantee she doesn't look like she did when they first met.  And does that make her any less worthy?  Does it make her any less loved?  For his sake I hope not.  Otherwise his marriage will end the same way his parents did.

A marriage can not be based on looks, because looks don't last.

And me.  I'm very happy that I said no, and I'm very glad that I told him never to contact me again.  I deserve to be judged by my quality of character and not my quality of looks.

I want to live in a world where empathy and love are more important than weight and beauty.

I'm looking forward to a time, when people aren't judged by things that don't matter.

If everybody in the world was skinny, would the world improve?  Imagine.  The so-called obesity epidemic is over.  Everybody magically lost weight.  Would the world improve?  Would all the wars end?  Would refugees be able to go home?  Would illness, homelessness, and domestic abuse end?

No.  Yet somehow we think our lives will improve.  Why?

If everybody turned beautiful, would the world improve?  Would you're live improve if you never had to look at an ugly person again?  Every woman had her cinderella storey, in which some fairy godmother came around, and gave her beauty, would child abuse end?  What about the school drop out rates?  Childhood poverty?  Would any of it change?

No.  Yet somehow people spend an inordinate amount of time and money,  changing our looks.  But why?  Does it help anybody?  Does an ugly person make the world even worse by being ugly?

Why do we judge each other on superficial things?

I once listened to a radio interview, in which they were discussing "that over-weight singer Adele."  They didn't discuss her singing, her accomplishments or anything.  They just talked about her weight.  As if that made any difference.

We judge each other on weight, beauty, race, gender, sexual-orientation, health, wealth, and a whole bunch of other things we can't change about ourselves.

Why?  If we were all the same would we quit fighting?

Why don't we judge each other on love, kindness, gentleness, empathy, understanding, and how we treat each other?

I want to live in that world.  The one where empathy and kindness are valued more than beauty and weight.  The one where love for others comes with privilege, not being white and male.

I want to live in a world, where domestic abuse is more of a crime than being black.  Where those who have power are the ones that earned it by their kindness, instead of bought it by their money.  Where somebody like Donald Trump isn't even considered good enough for leadership, because he's racist and sexist.  Where the term "but she has a good personality" doesn't exist.

Because what's wrong with having a good personality?