I have been fighting flab for forty years. This is not a world-historical struggle
against the concept of overweight, simply my own personal battle. At my tallest, I was 5’9” and with the
advance of age, I have shrunk [rather like the Wicked Witch of the West] so
that I am now a mere 5’6½. Periodically
I go on diets, drive my weight down to an acceptable level, and then watch it
slowly, inexorably rise. Since this
all gathers around my middle, it is happily not visible when I sit at a table
lecturing on Kant or Marx or Freud, but it is there, bulging in unsightly
fashion
When I returned from Paris a week and a half ago, I topped
out at an alarming 184, so I decided to devote the summer to slimming down in
preparation for my Columbia University gig in the Fall. I immediately stopped drinking red wine and
bought two batches of carrots to substitute for my usual snacks. [A pound of body fat equals 3500 calories,
and a bottle of red wine is 620 calories.
Since I drink a tad less than half a bottle a day, a week going without
wine, which is hell, only saves me 3/5 of a pound. It doesn’t seem fair, somehow.]
Well, after a bit more than one week of dieting, I am seven
pounds lighter. How is this
possible? One answer is that my scale is
wrong, but I only recently replaced the battery, so that’s not it. The second answer is that I have somehow
managed to eat, in eight days, 25,000 calories less than my body needs to
function properly, which is nonsense.
The third answer is the real one.
My body really hates it when I diet, so it does everything it can to
persuade me that it is not necessary. It
sheds water frantically, virtually crying out “See? See? No need!
No need!” I have been through
this before, so it does not fool me. In a
day or so it will give it up and behave normally. Long experience teaches me that over the
course of the summer, if I can last that long, I will lose one and a half to
two pounds of real weight a week. Since
this is probably the last diet I will ever go on [I mean, who tries to lose
weight at ninety?] I better make it a good one.
At an equally alarming 185 pounds [on a 5 ft 5 in frame], at age 76. I empathize with your plight, Sir..... But give up red wine....No.
ReplyDeleteBest wishes.
I agree with David. One of life's true pleasures is a great bottle of red wine, "corporso" as the Italians say. It must be 14% or use it for the salads.
ReplyDeleteInterestingly, I too got disgusted with my flab. I lost anywhere from 25 to 30 lbs. Now it has been 6 months and I fear the weight is creeping back.
Only solution: you've got to starve. And feeling light is wonderful, plus old pants actually fit again. But starve to the point where
you enjoy hunger pains. I tell ya, that's the solution!!
I have crohns disease. No booze--though this is a blessing in disguise because I have always had an aversion to alcohol. This was often interpreted as moral superiority. But I cannot muster the interest.
ReplyDeleteAs for food: haute cuisine is out. I can tolerate fruit and vegetables,
If you’ve just changed the battery on your scales, perhaps they were wrong before but right now?
ReplyDeleteI can see you have the right approach to reality.
ReplyDelete