1. Do you feel better?

It would seem that feeling better is the number one top priority of weight loss. Every conversation involving weight loss seems to conclude with someone saying confidently, "You'll feel better," or its variations, "I feel better," "You must feel better," and "She feels better now".
Yesterday I was talking to a friend who has lost 30 pounds doing Weight Watchers, and she said, "I feel better". I'm happy for her--she's committed and worked hard and appears very happy and proud. Her accomplishment is, pardon the word, huge.

But I confess that I am a little perplexed. If the goal of losing weight is to feel better, does that mean that overweight people are supposed to feel bad? Because I'm about 30 pounds overweight, but...I feel great. My energy is good; I sleep like a dream; my bp, cholesterol, glucose levels, and thyroid are humming along at healthy levels. I don't think I'm an unattractive slob, either, though maybe I'm supposed to. Maybe it's because I really do eat a healthy diet with too many cookies thrown in, or because I exercise a lot, but I can't imagine feeling much "better". Which leaves me with little-to-no motivation to deprive myself of said cookies.

When I do feel bad, it's because of eczema flare-ups on my right foot and my tendency to catch viruses too easily. I don't see this as having much to do with my BMI. But, to remedy my Virus Magnet-ness, I'm going to try the Body Ecology Diet*. The B.E.D. combines the best of several eating plans--drawing heavily upon Asian medicine, which I love--to make your guts a happy environment for good gut flora and a poor environment for invasive, mean germs. I'm certain that my virus last week was so awful because I'd taken antibiotics for a gum infection the week before. The antibiotics destroyed my beneficial bacteria, which left my system an abandoned hotel waiting for vagrants, whorish germs and their crack.

Although the B.E.D. draws upon a couple of ideas I consider quacky (namely, the idea of chronic candidiasis and the Eat Right 4 Your Type nonsense), I know enough to discard those theories and work with the rest of the theory--which is solid--and the actual eating plan itself. Soon my guts will be populated with happy germs who will not permit the nasty outsiders to sneak in. And I might lose weight in the process, as this is a cookie-free diet. I'll feel better, no doubt, but because of cultures, not loss of fat.

2. Speaking of cultures...

I've noticed something extra-special toxic in pop culture lately: Fat celebrity women "coming out" as fat women who are sufficiently ashamed of their wayward binging and ready to lose weight. The toxic icing on the cake, so to speak, is the lying, the abject lying that goes along with this trend. Most recently, I saw the adorable Valerie Bertinelli on the cover of People. Valerie is ready to lose weight! She ballooned to a Size 14! yelled the cover. But Ms Bertinelli's photo showed a woman who was about a size 20. This is a problem. This is a problem because, first of all, it indicates that a size 20 is completely unacceptable, even for the supposed Fattest Celebrity Woman Alive. And secondly, if you have an insecure woman who is a fit 14, who knows what she will think upon viewing this cover in the checkout line. I have a thin friend who is mortified that she recently reached a size 12, and she thinks she is the fattest woman alive. She clearly has no idea how she actually looks, or what the difference is between a 20 and a 14. And I fear her seeing this cover, because it's not what she--or anyone else--needs to be fed.

*the book is quite good and level-headed, even though the web site makes specious claims.