But the times they are a changin'.
As a society, at least in North America, I see a shift from people being physically fit to people becoming obese. Quite honestly, if it's not an epidemic today, it might be by tomorrow...we're that close to the tipping point.
I'm somewhat obsessed with obesity on two levels. I want to know how some of us got there, and I want to know why we allow ourselves to stay there (on a personal level and as a society)?
How did we get there? Good question. I think life has become too easy. There's no need to walk anymore. We have cars and escalators to take us along and up. That's got to be a contributing factor...lack of exercise. We no longer have to forage for food, we simply hop in the car and go to the nearest grocery store. We don't spend our spare time walking, or building, or being sporting....we sit. We sit in front of the television, computer, tablet or newspaper. We sit, sit, sit, sit, sit. And we eat, eat, eat, eat, eat.
Sometimes I wonder if we're genetically hard-wired to eat when the eating is good (plentiful) because, historically, lean times are inevitably ahead. The difference between historical eating and modern day eating is that the lean times never arrive, so we pack on pounds but never lose them. I'm not saying this is true, but I do wonder. What's far more significant is what we eat. Have you read the ingredient labels on the food you're eating lately?
I eat Raisin Bran most mornings. It's fast and full of fibre, so I think I'm doing myself a favour. It's also full of sugar, not to mention some chemicals I can't pronounce. Apart from bran, raisins and sugar, Raisin Bran's ingredient list reads like a recipe for fracking chemicals. I'd love to know what all those big words do for my flakes and/or body, but that's another blog for another day. Sugar....there is sugar on the raisins and sugar in the cereal too. Why? Why do 'the bastards' put sugar in our cereal. I tried to find a healthy Rasin Bran alternative, i.e. a raisin bran combo without all the sugar, and I couldn't. The only cereal I could find without added sugar was oatmeal. I didn't check the label on Cream Of Wheat because I'd rather eat dust-bane than C.O.W.
Sugar is everywhere. I was eating some mixed nuts at my dad's place yesterday. It was a mixture of candied pecans, dried cranberries, almonds, and cashews. The ingredient list stated the following contents (in order of significance by weight): pecans, dried cranberries, sugar, almonds, cashews.
How the f___ can sugar be the third ingredient in a container of mixed nuts?!?!??!???
Candied pecans....that's the answer. Imagine every time you pop a cashew or an almond in your mouth that you're also eating a chunk of refined sugar that's bigger than the cashew or almond! I could scream. Yeee-ikes! I could scream at myself. At the manufacturer. At the health food industry. At us. All of us.
Speaking personally, when I get a taste of sugar on my tongue, I want more. When I want more, I eat more. Eventually I become saturated so I stop, but I stop long after I've taken in more calories than I need. If I was to sit in front of a television instead of walking or gardening, then I'd become overweight or obese, I think. It's only an active lifestyle that keeps me from getting huge.
This leads me to my second point....once we're obese, why do we stay there? There's no question that it's easier to gain weight than lose weight. Gaining weight can be quite pleasant. You eat what you want, when you want, in quantities that are satisfying. Then you lounge around in one manner or another. At some point, however, your legs start to chafe when you walk. You get winded going up stairs. You have trouble getting in and out of chairs. Sitting in an airplane seat becomes tortuously restricting. Even the person in the seat next to you shares your discomfort because your 'side wings' are creeping over into his space.
Being obese is a nightmare, so why are so many people becoming obese and staying there?
Is it sugar? Is it fat? Is it lack of exercise? No doubt it's all three but I'm starting to think that sugar may be the biggest culprit. Wendy bought some nachos yesterday. I asked Wendy and Julian if they thought that nachos contained sugar? They both said 'yes' without hesitation. I even sensed a bit of 'why would you ask such a stupid question, of course there's sugar in nachos'. There is sugar in nachos. Sigh. My question (as always)...WHY?
Sugar appears just about everywhere. It's appalling. It's unnatural. It's unhealthy. Even when you read the labels on products sold in the 'health food' section of the grocery stores, there's still sugar in almost everything. It's just happens to be organic cane sugar. Thanks for nothing. Nothing but unnecessary calories.
So what are you going to do about it, Ian?
I'm going to devote the month of June to living sugar free. I hereby proclaim that I will eat nothing with refined sugar for the month of June 2014. I will live, act and behave like a sugar-free religious zealot (without the religion, of course). My family and friends will hate me for this, but a man has got to do what a man has got to do (even if, mentally, I'm still just a boy). Besides, they're acclimatized to my fatwas and black-and-white zealot-like proclamations, so it's no biggy to them. Between you and me, I think they're greatly amused when I go on the rants and off the rails. Chew chew.
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