It’s ALL about love
Weight loss
that is. Some years ago I wrote Metta Tantra and explored the interaction
between Metta (Loving-kindness) and living a healthy life. As 2016 comes to an
end the chapter on nutrition is still relevant and the information on the role
of sugar in obesity has become positively topical.
Still, I
diverge. Sugar is becoming known as being a poison. At the moment I’m reading
Yudkin’s “Pure, White and Deadly” which in the early 1970’s detailed sugar as
nutritional poison. On youtube I’m watching Robert Lustig’s “Sugar: The Bitter
Truth”, which goes into great depth the role of sugar and obesity, Lustig also
explores how we are being screwed over by Big Sugar. Yep, you know about Big
Tobacco, well there is a business that is killing, maiming and reducing the
health and life expectancy of just as many, if not more people than tobacco
ever did…and it is the sugar industry.
Both Yudkin
and Lustig give solid evidence that in the time since fat has been demonised
and largely removed from our diets, in other words since the advent of “Lite”
products, our health has gone to the collective shitter. Food manufacturers know
exactly what mechanisms motivate food consumption and what regulate appetite. They also know what would completely screw up
these mechanisms, and they also know that it is dirt cheap and addictive. So
they put it into EVERYTHING. Wait, I’ll get to the title subject. Go to your
supermarket and read ingredient lists. You will see that there is sugar in
literally everything.
Now I will
get to the title of this essay. I realised yesterday in one of those “Oh
God!!!!” moments, that every single time I have wanted to lose weight, I’ve cut
my sugar consumption.
I will let
that stand by itself. Every single time I have wanted
to lose weight, I have reduced my consumption of sugar.
When I was
at my heaviest in 2005, I was drinking four mugs a coffee a day with two
tablespoons of sugar in each of them. I drank a six pack of beer regularly. I
also drank Coke on a regular basis. So when I was at my heaviest and engaging
in the least amount of Metta towards myself, I was consuming the greatest
amount of sugar.
Many of you
will know that I had a much loved brother drop dead of a heart attack just over
two years ago. Mark had a diet that was suicidal. He drank 2 litres of Coke a
day (189.4 grams of sugar), and ate at least two packets of Scotch Finger
biscuits (92.4 grams of sugar) and liked his coffee sweet, two tablespoons per
mug and I will assume he drank only three mugs a day (75 grams of sugar). Mark,
who weighed in at 92 kg was consuming 130.232 kg of sugar a year. In the year he died my brother was
consuming 141% of his body weight in sugar. He also didn’t touch fresh fruit or vegetables
and smoked a pack of cigarettes a day. By now you are either appalled and or
feeling somewhat nauseous. You can also agree with: My brother didn’t love
himself. He had also been single for 20 years and wasn’t a fan of either of his
kids. Whilst Mark and I were close, I was the only one of his immediate family
that Mark loved let alone spoke to. Mark as you can see by his diet didn’t love
himself, he also didn’t love too many other people either.
I adore my
wife and kids. I find at the age of 51 years, 7 months and 10 days, that I am
content with the person I am. I view myself as being positive, decisive, goal
orientated and kind. Physically I’m still in a place where I would say that I’m
not completely happy. Mind you, I do indoor climbing, I use a rowing machine, and
I lift weights, do Yoga & Pilates and walk as much as I can. I’ve engaged
in removing as much sugar as is possible from my diet. I am actively trying to
lose weight.
In effect what
I’m trying to do is not die any younger than I absolutely have to. It is well
known that it is the fat around a man’s waist that kills him. The logic is
simple: Lose the fat, and reduce your chances of dying of a heart attack. I am
losing the weight and the waist line because I love my family. I also happen to
love myself. I am encouraging a vanity. If in being seriously vain I lose all
the physical factors that will kill me, then I will pursue a deep vanity. I
want to look absolutely fabulous. I want to be able to walk into a room and do
two things. I want to be able to stop the room and to make everyone doubt my
age.
To
illustrate my point, there is the joke about four Catholic mothers bragging
about their sons. Forgive me if I get the terminology wrong. The first mother
says: My son is a priest. Every time he enters a room people stand and say
“Father”. The second mother smiles and says” My son is a Bishop. Every time he
enters a room people stand and say “Your Grace”. The third mother says: My son
is a Cardinal. Every time he enters a room people stand and say “Your
Eminence”. The fourth mother is silent for a while. The other mothers
sneeringly ask about her son. She smiles broadly and says: My son is a
completely gorgeous and toned dancer. Every time he enters a room every woman
stands up and says “Jesus Christ!!!!”
I want to be
THAT son.
Whilst I’m
not about to be a dancer, what I am well on my way to, is being a room stopper.
I love myself and my family and friends enough to do this. I’ll be honest. I
hurt. After spending 45 minutes to an hour on my rowing machine, I hurt. After
5 hours of indoor climbing, I hurt. Give me 15 minutes of Yoga….I hurt. I also
crave sugar. There are times when all I want to do is eating everything in my
house. I have days where everything works and I exercise great self-control,
then there are the days when I swear my bathroom scales are lying to me. Yet
all this is worth it. For me the soreness, the cravings and the challenge of
losing weight and changing my life are expressions of just how much I love
myself and my family. They and I are worth the investment of time and effort
needed to take myself to a weight that is not only healthy, it is the lightest
I have been in 20 years.
A friend
remarked recently that she found it tough to give up sugar. I answered with: “Not
as tough as recovering from a heart attack”. And this is something we must
remember. No matter what price we pay for our fitness and health now, that
price will be dwarfed by the price we will pay if we don’t lose our weight. The
simple price we will pay is death and no amount of soreness, inconvenience and
cravings are going to eclipse death as a nett cost of a behaviour.
Think about
this. Yes, it is inconvenient to go to the gym. Yes it takes a high degree of
self-motivation and self-discipline to lose the kg’s that we need to lose. Yes
changing our lives is tough. Yet ask yourself: Is this preferable to dying
younger than you have to? Can you live with the amputation of limbs that
accompanies Type 2 diabetes? Are you content with the fact that unless you lose
weight your life in terms of quality and potential experiences will be defined
and limited by your obesity? Do you love yourself and those you say you love
enough to put in the effort to gain years, if not decades of high quality
life? No rational person is going to
prefer an early death after years of feeling like shit to a long healthy and
active life.
So my
question to you is: Do you love yourself enough to change?
