Healthy Chubdogs. Yay!

I just read an Associated Press story telling me that 51 percent of overweight people are basically healthy. “Healthy,” in this case, means that half of us fat people have “normal” levels of cholesterol, blood pressure, and blood-fat content (triglycerides). I fall into this category. My last round of blood work was textbook normal and my resting blood pressure is 118/74. My resting heart rate is 62. Does this mean that I won’t fall over this afternoon writhing in agony with crushing chest pain? No, not really. But it isn’t necessarily indicated by my “numbers.” To obfuscate things, I can say it’s contra-indicated. Boy, I do enjoy sounding smart.

Okay. I’m tired of using quote marks. I am curious as to why this fat-can-be-healthy is such a surprise. Of course chubby humans can be healthy. Duh. But we’re bombarded every hour of every day with images of what we’re supposed to look like. We’re inundated with the general pity and/or distain of the less-than-25-percent-body-fat population because we are proportionally-challenged. Like, wow, we’re gross or something.

Some of that is understandable and I suffer from it myself. Last Sunday in the San Diego airport I saw a woman about my age dressed in a short nightgown bend over to attend her luggage. She was wearing a thong, I think. I couldn’t really tell because there were wrinkly rolls of stuff obscuring most of it. It was a remarkable display. So yes, I understand why a large part of our culture considers us ugly and that they equate an overabundance of subcutaneous non-muscle with health problems and a selfish inability to control destructive behavior. We are branded as lazy and undisciplined.

This is probably tied into our unconscious recognition of proportional patterns. There have been studies in every generation attempting to understand what humans find attractive and why we respond the way we do to the visual cues we receive. It’s all knotted up in the Gordian Wad of The Urge to Merge. We have standards. Our bodies want to procreate with other bodies that offer images of strength, swiftness, and beauty. Hello Mr. Darwin. Natural Selection is a powerful force.

Personally, I am embarking (again) on a quest to reduce my shadow. My motivation is almost purely superficial because I really am healthy. I am going to change my lifestyle some for reasons that include (of course) ego and pride, but I’m also trying to pay attention to reducing my carbon footprint, and have a strong desire to follow some of the advice offered in Michael Pollan’s books, most notably: “Eat Food. Not a lot. Mostly Plants.” I just think that make a whole ton of sense. Oh, and did I mention that I'm tired of being lazy and undisciplined?

Because I am compulsively expressive, I will let you know how it’s going. I am hopeful that a chuckle or two will ensue.

Not Food? Not Good

I read through a recipe book last night and put on about four pounds. Maybe I should start reading “Cooking Light,” or something like that.

I think Michael Pollan is right: “Eat food. Not a lot. Mostly plants.” His book, “In Defense of Food,” is an entertaining and quick read. I think he’s hit the nail right square on the head as he hammers the notions of how what we eat went from food and, through some corporate, government-sanctioned slight-of-hand, became what we have come to call nutrients. It really does need to come full-circle back to food. What is food? If a grandmother wouldn’t recognize it, it’s probably not actual food, but is probably a food-like substance that has been refined by some multi-national conglomerate and marketed as something that your body absolutely cannot do without. “And, boy does it taste swell!”

Mr. Pollan wonders if this slow insidious shift from food to nutrients is one of the fundamental causes of America’s obesity epidemic. Hey. I’m not an expert or a particularly learned food maven, but I don’t have to be quite so cautious. In my opinion I don’t think there’s any question about it. When we got away from real food is when we started to get fat. That’s when we started to see an incredible increase in heart-disease, diabetes, and people wearing Levis. Of those three things, only one is positive. If more people wore Levis, I think, the world would be a more relaxed place.

But I digress. Happily. Let’s leave at this: go read Michael Pollan’s book, “In Defense of Food.” It’s worth every minute you spend. And while you’re at it go find his other work and read that too. We owe it to ourselves and to each other to become educated in the realm of where our food comes from, what it takes to sustain its growth and delivery, and how it should be looked at in the whole of human society.

Here’s a link to discover more about Michael Pollan’s work:

http://books.google.com/books?as_auth=Michael+Pollan