When I pulled into the Toyota dealership in Greensboro, N.C. this month, I thought it was just for an oil change, but I forgot. It’s January. I was actually there for a waistline change.
No respectable waiting room this month comes unequipped with self-help articles capable of eliminating 20 pounds or so from one’s post-holiday frame. The idea is not to shed them. It’s to shed them EASILY. Waiting at Toyota was no different.
Along with the free coffee and blaring TV was the largest assembly of fitness magazines that I have ever seen, even in the waiting rooms of cardiac units, where I have spent considerable time. Each promised not only weight loss but weight loss without pain. Sifting through the headlines was as mind-boggling as buying a car.
The most seductive suggested that most of dieting’s most unpopular rules were, in fact, simply myths. Red meat? Not bad. Drive-thrus? Absolutely allowed. Fatty foods? Hurray! And ditch the 100-Calorie Packs and light beer.
I am well aware that in dieting and the sale of securities “if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is,” but that didn’t stop me from flipping furiously in search of the ever-elusive article that actually went with the blaring headlines.
The article was -uh- technically correct. Red meat, it seems, is not so bad – as long as you you don’t eat a piece much bigger than a large red seedless grape – because the protein works to fill you up. Drive-thru’s, too, are fine – as long as you order grilled chicken with extra lettuce and tomato and no mayo. Fat is fine. But here, we’re talking about the fine-ness of nuts, seeds, fish and olive oil – not fries – to accompany the grilled chicken sandwich.
As for the 100-calorie packs, we’re ditching them in favor of some we’re packing ourselves to save money. And we’re losing the light beer because the small calorie savings inspires us to drink too many. Drink one regular beer, we’re told. Just one.
Somehow all this sugar coating is more confusing than sweet. But it is not only the magazines that do it. Even Weight Watchers, which urges followers to stay within certain “points” limits to lose weight, tries to make it seem easier than it is. As a Christmas gift, they launched a new “Points Plus” program that awards extra points every week AND lets some foods have no points at all. The only catch is that the free points only come with the fruits and veggies and not – not at all – with the creme brulee.
Even I, a “lifetime member” of Weight Watchers, have been known to make the program seem easier than it is by weighing in on Day One wearing a full-length wool coat and combat boots (in the summer) and running in for my weigh-in just last week – in 27 degree weather – wearing only gym shorts and a tank top.
I stepped as lightly as possible on the scales.
“Congratulations!” said the weight monitor. “You have lost two ounces.”
“I ate lots of apples and bananas,” I smiled. And sprinted toward the coffee (also free), to warm up.
Copyright 2011 Pat Snyder
