Thursday, April 19, 2012

Looking Like Hell to Look Healthy

Hey! Now available for achieving your weight loss dreams!  A proven system that says, "People think I'm sick, I'm dying."  It's so easy, you won't even have to change your lifestyle, except picking up your kids from school because, "the children, they would be scared."  Yes, for the totally reasonable cost of $1500 for 10 days you can experience the feeling that others fear you have been stricken with cancer and will frighten small children.

The above quotes come from a recent NYT piece on what apparently is a new fad diet amongst brides-to-be.  It involves intubation through the nose with a bag of nutrient liquid that you carry around.  It delivers about 800 calories and promises between 15 and 20 lbs of weight lost over the 10 day period.  The selling point is, of course, that you will fit into your wedding gown and look great for your pictures.

Look, I enjoyed my wedding, I participated in some of it's planning and in a general sense cared that it went off well.  I wanted the photos to look nice but most of that centered around the fact that I am relatively incapable of manufacturing a photogenic smile.  It's pretty horrendous in fact.  However, even though I helped plan our wedding, it's safe to say that I, like most men, was not as consumed by it as most women seem to be.

I liked our wedding photos a lot, my lovely wife looks amazing (and still does btw), and I look like f-ing James Bond.  Ok, maybe if James Bond had a youthful side kick intended to make him look cooler I'd look like that guy.  Anyways, my point is that I fail to see the benefit of shoving a tube up your nose in order to lose weight so you look skinny for 6 hours.  I mean, I've looked at lots of people's wedding photos and everybody looks great!  I can't remember looking at a wedding photo and saying, "Yikes! that's no muffin top, it's a whole cake." There have been some dresses that I thought were....interesting, but the bride looked fine.   Big smiles, teary eyes, proud parents and friends.  Great photos all.

So, I guess I just don't get it.  The tube diet thing just seems extreme to me.  It's fraught with risks according to the piece and requires that a person be 'confident enough to wear the tube in public', just not around small children apparently.  The woman featured in the piece has young daughters, what message is she sending to them about next year's picture day?

I understand that people want to look nice for their wedding photos, to have someone open your album and say, "Oh! you look gorgeous!"  On the other hand, do you want them thinking to themselves at the same time, "Wow! she looked so great at the wedding.  What happened?"

Ridiculously Fit Person of the Day - Sue Fleming

Sue is also mentioned in the NYT piece as writer of "Buff Brides".  She works in New York as a personal trainer and has carved out a nice gig on TV and in print as an exercise and lifestyle coach for potential newlyweds.

At approximately 1% the cost you can buy her book and achieve the results you want lasting far beyond the honeymoon.

Me and My iPod - 
In training mode for Bloomsday.  I'm behind on my schedule but I'll get there.  Only got in 5 miles total last week.  Have done two 3 milers this week and I'm leaving after I finish this post for another one.  Next week I'll bump up to 4's and 5's.  Have to work on my pacing a little bit.  The problem with getting behind on my schedule isn't that I won't make it,  just that I'll be slower than I want to.

On the iPod this week - This American Life and WTF - Fred Willard was great, full of funny stories.

OK GO is good, Classic metal seems to be my thing lately.  If you want to talk pacing, try running on beat to, "Rock and Roll" by Led Zepplin.  You'll need a towel.

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