Perhaps an odd choice to include in this series, -and zilch to do with New Years resolutions crap- though I ask you to take this entire presentation with a grain of salt and in the most non-linear fashion as can be, as may I remind you, it is a deconstruction of things.
I have vague memories of my old self, as a teenager that is, or in my early twenties, running on treadmills and reading the good old "Cosmopiltan," magazine.
The reason this topic came about was with the ridiculousness of "counting calories," and that it was ever done, (or still is?).
Have you ever read that, for example, when you eat 1111 calories of something- and let's say it's junk food- that you'd need to spend:
3hours walking fast,
4.5 hours at a strolling pace,
45mins jogging,
30mins spinning,
or 2mins of sprinting uphill, upside down
to burn off each and every single calorie?
NB- this is well before the days of interval, weight training and yoga, came into popularity
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BUT what happened if you stepped in dog pooh? How many calories would you burn just by cursing?
What if your mum called to tell you that she won the lottery and that she and dad were taking off for a year? How many calroies would you burn having recived that wondrous news?
OR, what if, to counter the cookie shame, you ate the healthiest, most fibrous, colourful, plant based salad, (sure, with a cut of your favorite meat, if you choose), whilst watching
Eddie Izzard- Death Star Canteen again and again, then spent an extra few minutes on the loo but released it all like a champion - how many calories was that then?
Just digesting food in and of itself requires energy so calories are used up. That's not commonly talked about though, is it? Unless of course it's that solitary celery, that's said to have negative calories.
Blah blah blah. You get what I mean, right?
Those numbers, those calculations, mean jack in the grand scheme of things. But so many of us downloaded that program, because we downloaded the "I've got to be lean, with a head's worth of space between the inner thighs, so they dare not touch each other...Gotta have a big massive chest, with washboard abs, that offset my skinny little legs etc..." programs, and we learned to become attached to them. We learned to depend on a bathroom scale. We learned that having a gym membership was important, or that the paleo way was good/bad, or the vegan way was good/bad, or intermittent fasting was good/bad, a hunter/gatherer approach was good/bad...what the heck...? A bombardment of information, that got you started, that got you excited, that you followed and followed and followed...until you didn't, ending up with your head in your hands, back to square one again, after falling off the wagon again..
Again and again and AGAIN.
Who said it...? " That infamously overused but so very true quote?:
The definition of insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results.
It's an absolute minfduck.
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See? Didn't I say that even I trigger myself in these writings of 'Deconstructing Things...? If though, it's really triggering a nerve, check out this post on anger, by my dear sister Nicky, and five ways to help release it.
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I sign off. that's me done for this one, and next we come to a subject which REALLY perks up the ears of our youngsters: DRUGS.
Thanks for tuning in, we're getting there, promise.
UPDATE: just having watched the video I made related to this blog post before publishing this, something came up- while I was eating my own fabulous cookie, (not to mention a new killer plantbased recipe).
So here's the after-ping~
For those wanting to lose weight, a "program," that would narrow our mind was developed.
"Teach them about calories. What we want to them to know, to regurgitate..."
And by golly, like good little students, we did just that. We taught others about what we learned about calories.....That if you eat 400 more calories than you're supposed to -according to your height and weight, and how many eye lashes you had on your left eye when you were born, of course dependant on what specific day of the week and whether or not the sun was shining- and don't work it off, you'll store it as fat. Yep, that's your problem, that's exactly why you can't lose weight. Just do it man, where's your will power?...
Final words for this subject. See you on the bridge when we connect the dots and reconstruct something new.
xxM