Wednesday, March 24, 2010

David Letterman says you can't loose weight, don't bother trying.

I'll get to my workouts from yesterday in a bit, but first, last night something happened for the first time ever. Something on TV made me mad enough to not just change the channel but to turn the TV off entirely.

Last night I was happily zoning out watching David Letterman. He had Jamie Oliver on, who I used to enjoy watching on his Food TV show, The Naked Chef. Jamie has apparently been on a mission to help revamp diets in some of the unhealthiest places in America on his new show Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution.

Immediately, David Letterman started talking over Jamie Oliver, saying it was impossible to loose weight in this country because of the food culture. He started out with a good point about the culture in this country surrounding obesity and foods that are bad for you. It quickly went downhill however, as Jamie continued to try to talk about the mission of his show and how people can make good choices, to which Letterman exclaimed that people don't make a choice to eat. That they have to eat, and it's impossible to loose weight because there are a million types of cookies. The next few minutes continued with Jamie attempting to interject about making healthy choices, and Letterman talking over him saying it was impossible because of all the bad food out there.

So I turned the TV off. I don't know how the segment ended, and I'll note that CBS doesn't have that segment up as separate video on it's website. For all I know Jamie was successful in convincing David Letterman that eating healthy could work, but I was so disgusted, disheartened and angry about the overbearing "It's impossible, you can't do it, don't even try" attitude that David Letterman took that I couldn't watch anymore. The attitude that it's out of your control and there's nothing you can do about it but complain that someone else isn't making the good choices for you.

Yes, I agree that the culture in this country surrounding food and obesity and health in general needs to change. Yes, I agree that the fact that you have to pay more for healthy food than for an artery clogging burger and fries needs to change. Yes, I agree that it's hard to walk past all the sugar laden cereals and easy to make boxed foods with ingredients I can't even pronounce. But the key word in all that is hard. It's not impossible and yes, David Letterman, it is a choice. And it's one I can make.

Ok Rant over. Now onto the nitty gritty. Yesterday I pumped up my speed on my run, starting out at 5.1 instead of 5.0. It was humid in the gym, which always causes me problems. Again, I had trouble hitting that rhythm, and had to take a 30 second walk break towards the end of the run, but I still did my 3 miles in 35 minutes.

The gym was also packed again, and all of the hand weights were mysteriously absent (my guess is they were being used for the body pump class going on right then) so I had to make do with 10 lb weights. I compensated for the light weight by lifting super slow. I also hopped on a few machines, doing the chest press and lat pull down machines. I was waiting to do the captains chair, but the line of four or five people ahead of me waiting put me off.

Today is an off day, Yoga for the AM and a workout video later. Also contemplating a nice hot bath (after I scrub the tub.)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The "Food Culture" isn't representative of valuable behaviors in the country. The idea that you can't or shouldn't change a "culture" is bizarre. People try to change "culture" through religion, normative behaviors, and through fashion. Why not change "culture" in a healthy way?

Sure, we got here... we can get someplace else... someplace healthier.

Annie said...

It is not easy to wake up one morning and decide to eat no junk food from this day forward, but certainly not impossible. It is irresponsible to say that it is impossible to change the food culture. Basically you are giving yourself an excuse to eat whatever and blaming it on someone else. It is unbelieveable how there is no such as personal responsibility anymore.

Tracking Transformation: Where I stand now