Body of Truth

I just finished reading a fascinating little book called Body of Truth: How Science, History, and Culture Drive our Obsession with Weight and What We can Do About It, by Harriet Brown.  I saw a reference to it on Facebook, downloaded it on my Kindle, and read it very quickly over just a few days.  It's not a very long book, and about 1/3 is acknowledgements, footnotes, and the index.  In fact, I just started it on Friday and finished it today.  I don't even think I read anything yesterday, so really it was just three days.  Boom.  Done.

All I can say is that it was eye-opening, and it felt like she was talking directly to me about me and my issues with weight my whole life.  I have never read anything like it.  One thing she said was what I just mentioned a few blogs ago.  Most people who lose weight, a lot of weight like I have several times, know how to lose weight.  They just don't know how to maintain a weight.  She also said only 5% of the population who loses a lot of weight is able to maintain that weight loss forever, forever being defined as five or more years.  She also said what I've intuitively believed, that losing and gaining weight is far less healthy than just staying heavy.  Every time you lose weight, your metabolism slows down just a little bit so that the next time you try to lose weight, it's much harder.  There is so much more to this book, but I can't even begin to tell all of it in the blog.  I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is worried about their weight, trying to lose weight, has already lost a lot of weight and/or gained it back, or knows someone in that position.  Hey, that about covers everybody!

Meanwhile, we went to the gym this morning and walked a mile in the track again. 

Yesterday we walked over 13,000 steps, a bit over five miles, at Sea World.  It wasn't hard.  We walked and then sat in a show and repeated that.  Still, it was very hot and I sweated a lot and drank three big bottles of water during the day.  I ate a lovely lunch at Panera after the movie and dinner at the park, but I did not gain any weight.  In fact, I went down a half pound from yesterday morning to this morning.  I still have a gain of half a pound to report for this week, up from 271.5 last Monday to 272 this morning.  I'm okay with that.

Eventually, I will put up pictures of Sea World.  They are still in the process of uploading to the web.