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Sunday 20 July 2003

Chewing the fat?


While I was walking around Ann Arbor, MI, I found a restaurant called "Dinersty". I guess they really meant "Dynasty". But the name kind of fits, judging by the size of some of the people I see walking the streets ...

That brings me to good advice to people who want to lose weight.

Look at what fat people do, and do the opposite.

For instance: stay off diet drinks. Look at the size of people who drink them.

I used to think this was a joke, but it's not. Someone told me recently that artificial sweeteners confuse your metabolism, because they are chemically similar to sugar, even if they don't digest the same way. A diabetic she knew had been using artificially sweetened drinks and was suffering all sorts of problems. As soon as the artificial sweetener was removed from the diet, the problems went away.

Another strange thing is the way some people appear to be able to eat anything without gaining weight, and the way some people appear to absorb calories through their eyeballs (they only need look at food to get fat). The truth is that the first bunch are social eaters: they forget food when others aren't watching. The other kind are self-conscious about their food problem around other people, but secretly nibble all the time when they aren't being watched.

Again: observe, and do what the trim people do. Only eat while other people are watching.

Life's mysteries go away if you just take the trouble to observe.

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