The Dead Weight

It’s really hard to write a weight loss blog, especially if you plan on doing something unconventional and not have it come off as sounding like advice. I’ve been hesitant to say exactly what I’m doing because I don’t want it to seem like I’m coming off as an authority on anything, especially when I’ve just started. So I’m going to encourage you to ignore anything that may sound like advice over the course of this blog. It’s not for legal reasons — it’s not that what I’m going to recommend is dangerous. I just feel that there are certain things in life that are harder to do when we look for advice outside of ourselves, and I think we often devote so much time and energy to finding the “right” plan we end up not doing whatever we’ve set out to do

We all know that to lose weight you need to expend more energy (in the form of calories) than you take in. With that knowledge you’re all set to lose weight. Go sick. I know we enjoy the search for the perfect weight loss plan for each of us, but is it possible that the search for that plan ultimately sets us back in trying to reach that goal? I think the diet that will work for you is so peculiarly detailed that only you could write the diet book you need. So write it and ignore what I or anyone else has to say.

You see a lot of contradiction in diet books and on diet blogs and message boards. Some people will tell you to eat certain foods, others tell you to stay away from them, eat six meals, or maybe just three meals, do aerobics, avoid aerobics, take these pills, don’t take any pills. Nobody’s right. Everyone’s right. You have to think of a diet as a trip home for Thanksgiving — it’s a personal destination and you should know better than anybody how to get there. If you’re driving east on the highway heading home for Thanksgiving, you’ll see a lot of cars driving west. If the person in the passenger seat said, “There’s a lot of people heading home for the holiday,” you wouldn’t turn to that person and flip out and say, “What the hell! What a bunch of retards! Don’t they know home is this way?” But that is what diet writing often is — people arguing over how to get home.

So try and wean yourself off of diet books and blogs and messageboards as anything other than pop-entertainment. Trust your judgment and be honest with yourself. You don’t have to stop reading this blog, of course, because although I am offering advice you’re under strict orders to ignore it.