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. 

Piggin' Out!

At a local cafe in Texas, the specialty is CFS, or Chicken Fried Steak.  And other Southern faves, such as gravy, mashed potatoes, green beans, french fries and home-made biscuits.  Interviewed customers rave about the food.  Some of those customers are larger than busses, and still grin and speak with a measure of pride at having eaten at that establishment all their lives.  These foods are your stereotypical "comfort foods": They remind you of childhood, and they are so lopsided to simple carbohydrates and fats, that they induce a soporific effect upon the diner, who thus emerges from the restaurant stuffed, groggy, in a stupor, with a stomach too full for comfort (there's irony for you!).  The owner being interviewed explains the difference between his gravy and the "traditional" gravy, emphasizing that his gravy begins with a roux and then has cream added to it.  Traditional gravy, as we all know, merely contains the pedestrian milk added to it.  Still, the basic recipe is the same: Fat from bacon or sausage, into which is mixed in some flour to make the roux, then add milk, or cream as in this case.  Do I hear heart attack, anyone?  And the customers of that establishment swear that the only way to eat that Chicken Fried Steak is "smothered in gravy."

What is chicken fried steak? It is a piece of steak pounded into a thin slice, then dredged in a flour mixture similar to the kind used for fried chicken.  The whole thing is then deep fried.  Hence the name.  Would you like that with a side of coronary?

I'm sure I'm stepping on some toes out there.  To be fair, I have eaten my share of, a'hem, "bad" food.  I've gorged on carbohydrates, and fallen asleep contentedly after a gluttonous meal.  I remember once when I was a teenager devouring five double-sliced sandwiches at one sitting!  I kid you not.  I've been caught with guilty crumbs on my shirt when I spent some time eating Twinkies and cupcakes while hiding under a tree.  And I still crave the creamy feel of ice cream on my tongue.  But for the life of me, the mere thought of gravy and how it's prepared turns my stomach.  Why would anyone douse his or her food with this greasy concoction?  In fact, how did gravy come about?  Why would anyone use fat from bacon to make a beige paste to slather all over one's food?

I'll take it a step further.  How did the "South" become so enamored of these so-called comfort foods?