Three Things You Have to Give Up...

Now here's a post on Oprah's website which you can actually read and which actually makes sense:

"3 Things You Have to Give Up to Lose Weight Forever."

The three things are obvious but not easy, which of course is why we have to be reminded of them:

1. The Cheat Day (and also what "The Shift" author Tory Johnson calls "the moderation trap." Hah! I totally get it. She writes, "For me, rewarding healthy eating with unhealthy foods was akin to an alcoholic celebrating a month of sobriety with a beer. It didn't work. When it comes to eating, I was not blessed with the moderation gene. Once I stopped struggling with moderation, my life got a whole lot easier." Amen, Sister. 

2. The 7-Day Fix. As Johnson writes, "I realized that I could no longer try to lose 10 lbs. in time for that wedding, which, oh-by-the-way is this Saturday. By giving myself the luxury of time—and not putting an end date on my efforts—I was able to make big progress." Amen, again.


3. The Blame Game. Again, quoting Johnson, "The idea that someone (not me) was to blame for my mess was front and center in my mind. But I came to understand that assigning blame serves no purpose. No one decides what I eat except me. I now own my choices." And a great big Hallelujah moment of recognition.

Anyway, the reason I'm writing about all these things is not just because I'm obsessing over my weight and body shape (hello, I'm a typical American woman), but also because I'm thinking of how science (i.e., actual well-designed scientific and medical studies) can help and how, in contrast, the way science is politicized and monetized and marketized (new word, Hello, OED, when ya gonna add this one?) ... often to our detriment and not so often to our benefit.