Weight a minute...

Date:22nd May, 2004

Lose 5 kilos in 10 days! 10 easy ways to fight fat! Lose weight without dieting! Excess weight rid off in a jiffy-buy this pill.
Don’t these words seem all too familiar? Don’t you feel you have heard them somewhere? Don’t you worry; you have read them in every other magazine that’s available. A major part of the advertisements on television are related to weight loss. Is the whole thing really worth bothering so much?
Here are some of the methods which are commonly mentioned and here is how I look at it.

*Watch your weight and monitor your diet accordingly!

The person steps on to a scale. Groan, moan. (Don’t worry; it’s the weighing machine that’s doing the groaning) The arrow showing the weight whizzes away like a mad thing. The size of his eyeballs and his breathing speed increases in direct proportion to the length traveled by the whizzing arrow. The person slowly shifts and repositions himself on the machine hoping that his weight will miraculously drop.

One of the greatest services done by weighing machines is in the field of religion. Let me be more explicit.
A person gets onto a weighing scale, looks down at it and says, ‘Oh, my God!’ Imagine! One machine (a tiny one at that) is able to achieve what religious books, people and sermons cannot…

*If you feel you’ve got excess weight, start dieting.

Irrespective of what the books say, people do not diet. They start fasting. Here’s a typical example.

MORNING

It’s time for breakfast. But no, they start the fast. (A poor joke, but I couldn’t resist it)A glass of juice (obviously sugarless) is guzzled down and the person looks at the mirror and thinks he is looking thinner today.
He opens the newspaper-‘40% discount on pizza.’ He suddenly goes blind and turns the page. He stares at photos describing people as ‘slim and trim’. He decides that the paper is not worth reading and switches on his television.
“Why excess weight is unhealthy and how such people live less long”, says a scrawny girl. He decides it’s not his day and goes to work.

LUNCH TIME.SCENE: OFFICE

Colleague: hey, a new restaurant has opened just by our office. All our office staff is heading towards it, coming?
Our guy: Sorry, I brought my lunch (balefully, showing a box of salad).
His colleague makes the appropriate sympathetic noises and turns away with a knowing smile. He tries to guess how long this will last.

EVENING

‘Hey, it’s my anniversary today and I’m giving a party. Want to come?’
‘Well, actually, you know, it’s like…’
‘Good, it’s at 8:30 in my house, see ya!’
Our guy pigs out on rich food at night due to lack of proper food throughout the day. He promises himself, ‘From tomorrow…’ You can guess the rest…

*Comfort yourself, have a strong will power.

A person looks at a mirror and says, “Every day, in every way, I’m losing weight”. Look, I don’t know about you guys. But, if I saw someone talking to the mirror, I’d think he was off his rocker…

* Exercise, that’s the key to it.

Our guy gets home a pair of dumbbells (as dumb as him) and starts exercising. One (huff), two (puff)…Oh, great, I’ve finished five, you know, FIVE. I’ll increase it as the days go by. I suppose you can all guess what happened to the dumbbells. They went mute…

*Eating certain foods (say spinach-it’s just an example) will lower the amount of calories you consume.

So, our guy merrily starts on an all spinach diet-spinach for breakfast, lunch and dinner. If I ever ate the same thing over and over like that, a time would come when I would hate the sight of it. And that is what happens with everybody.

I suppose all of you have realized by now how foolish the whole thing is. An extra kilo here and there will not matter if you feel completely fit and can do all your work by yourself. Face it; you cannot lose weight like that. If you do have a few extra kilos, that is how you are and that is what everyone will have to accept.

Weight loss is hyped up a lot and is not as great as it seems to be.