Can you get skinny by losing weight?

This is strange.  "Losing weight" is ubiquitously associated with a more attractive figure, skinny jeans, looking visibly trimmer.  And yet, "losing weight" refers to numbers on a scale! Stepping on a scale and seeing lower numbers does not relate linearly to a slimmer-looking body.  This is a strange phenomenon, when you think about it.  It is even stranger to associate what you are eating to the numbers on a scale to the way your body looks.  It is nonlinear, and I submit here is therefore the problem.

When you put your hand on a hot stove, the pain is immediate, and your reaction is immediate.  Linear response.  You are likely to remember it and associate it in your mind without difficulty.  But eating the next slice of pizza does not linearly translate into either the numbers on the scale the next morning, or the extra bulge on your hips somewhere down the line.  It is an intellectual knowledge of the sequence of events.  This lack of linear relationship is the bane of dieters, because when you feel hunger, you want to eat - it's biology.  Living in our current society, and being exposed to the ads on TV, the processed foods on the market, and your own emotions, when you eat to satisfy your hunger, you frequently eat more than you need, sometimes a lot more.  Much of our modern entertainment revolves around food.  You therefore find yourself celebrating, among friends, or watching a game on TV, all the while partaking of excess food, which eventually translates into higher numbers on the scale, and eventually becomes extra bulges on the hips.  It would be different if you went to a barbecue party, had an extra hamburger with all the trimmings, and immediately busted out of your pants.  Yes, that does sometimes happen, but I'm sure we have all attributed that to the discomfort of overeating - not to a permanent weight gain. 

Renewed and Energized

A colleague recently gave a speech called Diets Don't Work.  He spoke about his own struggle with food, eating junk foods indiscriminately while in college without regard to consequences, and later, as he realized that he had gained an inordinate amount of weight, endeavored to try whatever diet was popular or interesting to shed those excess pounds.  He related staying on the Atkins diet about a day and a half, and we all laughed knowingly.  He continued to tell us of his efforts, and his discovery not too much later that the secret, if there is one, is not to diet, but enjoy whatever foods you like, but in moderation.  He mentioned that he loves soda, and would drink three or four cans of it in one day, to the tune of about 800 empty calories.  He realized that such empty calories did nothing for his weight, not to mention his health, and so began a journey of acknowledgment and recognition.  With a bit of tweaking, he started diminishing his intake of sodas, or substituting water or tea.  He learned that eating whole fruit was much more satisfying than merely drinking the soda.  And thus began his journey of acquainting himself with favorite foods that he had eschewed and reintroducing sanity into his lifestyle. 

My colleague is a young man, trim and handsome.  It's hard to believe that he once carried 25 extra pounds.  But that's so easy to do in our society, with the huge portions of fried simple carbohydrates and our sedentary lifestyles.  And so, as I realized I had a like-minded friend in our midst, I introduced him to my writings on the subject.  Moreover, such affinity also reignited whatever cooling embers I may have had lately about my own diet.  Reenergized, renewed in my commitment, I have been busy chopping and cooking all kinds of salads, from a Moroccan carrot salad with raisins (one of my childhood favorites) to a simple salad of cherry tomatoes, radishes and olives.  Bliss!