Salutations, traveler of The Internets! Welcome to William's Bloody Hell, so named after our founder, Sir Bloody William.
He is seen in the likeness above in a rare, 19th century woodcut. This
image was rumoured to have been
commissioned after a bout of unpleasantness
in the White Chapel district of London. Do enjoy your stay and peruse our many, varied offerings, much of which cannot be found elsewhere!
::Today's soundtrack: Laura Branigan "Self Control" ::
"How many carbs are in that?" This is what a coworker of mine always asks whenever anyone is eating or drinking anything in front of him. See, he is on that famous Atkins Diet dealie, so his life currently revolves around counting carbs. His reply is almost always the same too, no matter what the actual number of carbs turns out to be: "Wow, that'd be my carb allotment for the entire day/week/month!"
Yeah, I don't get these sorts of diets. For one thing, when it comes to Atkins, most of my favourite foods are carb-based. Pizza, burgers, sandwiches, breakfast cereals, pastas. Losing weight, while I could definitely stand to do so, is not so important to me right now that I'd cut out entire food groups in order to achieve it. There are also so many different diets which focus on certain things and completely conflict with what other ones tell you. Low calorie! No, high calorie! Low fat or high fat? Sugar free? Sodium free? No meat? Only meat? Bell peppers? What's the best, healthiest thing to do? Clearly they can't all be right. Which is why fad diets are, let's face it, a load of crock, or if you prefer, rich creamery butter. Yes, the only real way to lose the extra weight is to consume the proper nutrients in moderate quantities (a Subway sandwich may be good for you, but six of them in one sitting probably not so much), and get your fat butt up every once in a while for some exercise. It doesn't even have to be hardcore exercise. Well, if you want the body of an Olympian, yes it will be, but if you want to simply be "not fat" then no not really.
And yet, to many people these simple principles are elusive. Some folks can't seem to do the math that if they eat cheese covered meatball subs and pizza with beer every single day and do nothing but play World of Warcraft, that they will get fat. What's that? You eat only McDonald's for breakfast lunch and dinner every day and now you want to sue them because you're fat?? I'm sorry, but it isn't the food's fault that you are an irresponsible idiot. How could you have possibly thought that foods cooked in a deep fat fryer would have done anything else? And sadly because it seems the majority of United States citizens are obese stupid heads, trans fats are outlawed in certain major cities. The whole concept of making trans fats illegal because they are unhealthy and people are too dumb to decide for themselves not to eat them is completely insane when things like tobacco cigarettes are perfectly acceptable. You are too dumb to know not to stop eating these harmful trans fats but you can go right ahead and smoke all you want because you are definitely smart enough to know to stop doing that before it kills you even though cancer is less obvious and more deadly than obesity. Whatever. Sigh.
Obesity is at an all time high in the United States, and part of me wonders how that can happen. There are certain health issues which are completely outside of a person's hands. Things like arthritis, osteoporosis, and diabetes are all diseases which no matter how hard you can try to prevent them, or how unlikely is is that you could even develop it, can still get you, seriously affect the rest of your life or maybe even kill you. Obesity on the other hand, is pretty much treatable for the most part and it doesn't exactly happen over night now does it? I can't be the only one who has wondered how someone who is morbidly obese allowed themselves to get that far gone. Seriously, I met a person who weighed over ONE THOUSAND POUNDS. I know my ideal weight is different than your ideal weight, but I think we can all agree that no one's perfect weight is half a ton. How can someone not notice this happening to them? You'd think alarm bells would have gone off before reaching the five hundred pound mark. And yet, he did nothing if not to reverse what had happened, then at least to stop it from getting worse. No, he went on and kept gaining weight, putting his overall health at risk. Is the government right and are we too dumb not to eat delicious trans fats even though it could eventually kill us??
Do I have a point with all of this? Um, I guess if it's anything it's that if you really do want to be in better shape it's that you have to be ready to accept some level of personal responsibility. You can't expect to go on one of those all liquid diets and be skinny in seven days. It doesn't work like that. And yes, you may have a friend of a friend who actually lost twenty pounds on the South Beach Diet. Diets do work for some people because all they really needed was a structured set of rules that they are ready and willing to abide by for their whole lives because they couldn't make simple eating decisions on their own. Most people however are incapable of following diet rules for lengthy periods and give in to temptation. But if you can make simple decisions like instead of eating six Oreos for dessert you have three, and not going back for a third helping of spaghetti no matter how delicious and oregano-y it was than you're already on the right track. And yeah, I know I'm no cut and hunky Calvin Klein model myself what with this spare tire I carry around, but hey, I'm making a conscious choice to not be the next nine hundred pound man you hear about on the news who had to be removed from his home by a hole in the wall and a forklift. So at least that's a start.
William the Bloody (trimming the fat)
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