Archive for the 'Uncategorized' Category

Obesity in the past

dauchau-tourist.jpg

American tourist at Dauchau

A type of activism called fat acceptance activism – or in the words of all the isms we’re now afflicted with: Sizeism – is currently on the move. Overweight people who are the movers and shakers of the various fat acceptance groups are trying to make the point that it’s okay to be overweight and that one should revel in one’s fatness and not try to deal with it. I don’t really have a problem with this way of thinking as long as people are willing to accept the risks that ride along on obesity’s coattails.

I think it’s fine that overweight people are trying to gain acceptance. I don’t believe that they should be discriminated against anymore than I believe people with leukemia or high blood pressure should be discriminated against. But, obese people need to realize that in the vast majority of cases their obesity is self inflicted.

I can’t tell you how many patients I’ve seen in practice who say these very words: Doctor, I just can’t understand it. I almost don’t eat anything at all and I can’t lose weight. My husband (it’s usually a female patient that says this) eats everything and he never gains weight. As we’ve seen self deception is an easy task.
I’ve made it a hobby to watch people at all-you-can-eat buffets, and what I see is obese people piling the food on their plates- mainly high-carb food – and going back for more. Thin people go back to their tables with small plates of food. I often wonder how many of these people with the huge plates of food are telling their doctors that they don’t eat much of anything at all yet still can’t lose.

Read more »

A poorly placed pair of ads

poorly-placed-ads.jpg

Nice juxtaposition of ads, eh?

To see some more less than optimally placed ads, click here.

Words we can all live by

Said heiress Paris Hilton as she was led off to jail:

In the future, I plan on taking more of an active role in the decisions I make.

paris_hilton_booking_photo1.jpgWhat’s even more pathetic than this actual sentence is the fact that it was in a statement released by her lawyer to the press. One would think that the Hilton’s could afford a legal team that wouldn’t let this kind of idiocy slip through. Perhaps celebrity lawyers are as feebleminded as the celebrities they represent.

Minds set in concrete

In reading through Gary Taubes’ book Good Calories, Bad Calories I came upon the following dialog that I found all too familiar. It took place in 1973 during the first hearing of George McGovern’s Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs. A number of speakers made presentations on the adverse effects of carbohydrates on human health. British nutritional researcher John Yudkin was one of the presenters.

Yudkin blamed heart disease exclusively on sugar, and he was equally adamant that neither saturated fat nor cholesterol played a role. He explained how carbohydrates and specifically sugar in the diet could induce both diabetes and heart disease, through their effect on insulin secretion and the blood fats known as triglycerides. McGovern now struggled with the difficulty of getting some consensus on these matters.

“Are you saying that you don’t think a high fat intake produces the high cholesterol count?” McGovern asked Yudkin. “Or are you even saying that a person with a high cholesterol count is not in danger?”

Read more »

Fiesta interruption

Fiesta – a long time Santa Barbara tradition – starts tonight, and lasts through Sunday. My bride long ago signed us up to provide a charity event for the Choral Society tonight at our house. I’ve been dragooned into helping get everything together for this Fiesta feast, which is NOT low-carb. One can follow a low-carb diet and still partake of much of the food, but not all. And certainly not the dessert: capirotada, a northern New Mexican bread pudding, which is the best bread pudding I’ve ever put in my mouth. One of my jobs today was to caramelize the sugar for this treat, which I will definitely eat a little of. I’ll take some pictures and share.

In order to help my beloved wife I’ve had to pretty much abandon my blogging duties today. I’m in the middle of a long post that I think everyone will find interesting. I’ll be back at it tomorrow.

One of the great things about coming home from Europe is that I get to chow down on MD’s home cooking once again. One of her specialties is Frenched rack of lamb. Here is a photo of my dinner plate night before last.

Read more »

« Previous PageNext Page »