The Diet Shock

Quote of the day:
"Every so often, we pass laws repealing human nature."
--Howard Lindsay

Quote of the day no. 2:
“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free...it expects what never was and never will be.”
--Thomas Jefferson

Expression of the day:
“Finger-spazzing.” As in “finger-spazzing” a Blackberry.

Maybe it’s just the programs I watch, but it seems that there are quite a few commercials around that feature extreme close-ups of things like bacon cheeseburgers, fried chicken and juicy ribs. I used to indulge the Pavlovian response--I’d salivate and get hungry. Now I find myself thinking how much fat, salt and refined carbohydrates are in everything.

For many years, we have heard warnings about eating foods high in fat and refined carbohydrates. Because of what Merrie has been through, heeding these warnings is no longer optional for us.

It shouldn’t be news to any mildly tuned-in person that we need to keep our consumption of these things as low as possible. Yet, inevitably when restaurants or ready-to-eat food are advertised, what we see is the juicy, high-fat bacon cheeseburger, french fries and dripping sundae.

This is not the fault of the restaurants. They are providing what people want. Several years ago, there were actually more healthy choices on restaurant menus. But they didn’t sell. It didn’t make business sense to keep healthful items on their menus, so they were dropped.

Due to our increasing weight, there will need to be more pallbearers at our funerals, which will occur much sooner than we expect. At the rate we’re going.