Uncle Bob's Eating Words

Uncle Bob’s Eating Words!

The Shibbolist! The Catch Phrasium! The Kotowazabanzuke! You know, cool stuff!

Every training and weight loss guru has slogans to help you remember not to eat the donut. At best, those slogans can be pretty good teaching tools. At worst, they’ll tear through your mind like a virus, taking up valuable space you could be using to remember where your keys are, your own name, or how to feed yourself. Here’s hoping the Eating Words list will be more on the “Learning Moment” side and less on the “Irreversible descent into Madness” side. You just can’t tell with these things.

1) The Salesman is Lying to You. He can’t help it. It’s his job. He wants you to buy his pills, powders, potions, lotions, machines, stretchy things, and whatever else he’s selling. If you don’t, his family will starve. When looking for information, you need sources other than the salesman. You don’t have to curl into a ball, but try to exercise healthy skepticism as you evaluate sales claims. Don’t let the salesman be your only source of information or support.

2) You Can’t Outrun the Doughnut. There’s always a point where unhelpful food choices overcome any amount of exercise. Sure, an Olympic athlete in his or her teens or early twenties can look great on a diet that would kill the average employed adult. You need to ask yourself, “Am I an Olympic Athlete in my teens or early twenties?” If the answer is no, and if you want to get leaner or improve your health, you need to stop telling yourself that you can have the doughnut if you just work out an extra hour or two. Telling yourself you can outrun the doughnut is a sure way to become fat.

3) The Sweet Mystery of Life is not Cheesecake. We all take pleasure from food. Millions of years of evolution tell us that food is pleasure, and for much of human history Heaven was the place where you weren’t starving all the time. You can’t stop taking pleasure from food, and trying will just lead to a cycle of fasting and binging. It’s a short step from there to an eating disorder. What we can do is learn to take pleasure in healthful foods, and find sources of pleasure and interest away from the buffet table. No one in the world ever got fat from too many fresh fruits and vegetables. Time spent working, dancing, painting, playing a sport, exercising, or making love is generally not time spent eating (unless you’re really determined to multitask). Stop eroticizing food, let go of the fantasies, stop gushing about that fabulous indulgence. The people who want you to make food the center of your life are salespeople. Their job is to sell you food; they don’t care that it’s making you fat. There’s a world full of other ways to have fun. Pursue them.

4) The Best Program is the One You Will Follow. If you won’t stick to a diet or exercise program, it’s not going to do you any good. Sprinters will tell you to sprint, lifters to lift, joggers to jog. Everyone will tell you that his method is the best, and sales people will tell you that their methods are the One True Way (see #5). One diet or exercise program might be objectively better at something than another; so what? The perfect program is useless to you if you give up after a few weeks. Find a sane program you like, and stick to it. You’ll have quite a few false starts; don’t worry about it. That’s how learning works.

5) There are Many Paths to Smaller Pants. This goes with #4. There are people who’ve gotten incredibly fit and strong through all sorts of exercise programs. There are people who’ve gotten leaner through all sorts of diet programs. There are people who have failed, and they far outnumber all of the success stories. The salesman’s job is to convince you that his and only his program works. The fan of a particular program tries to do the same thing, getting paid in self image rather than cash. Don’t buy into the hype. So long as what you’re doing isn’t completely silly (and sometimes it will be), you can improve your health and fitness in all sorts of ways. Think, study, work, and learn; you’ll get where you want to go.

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