For the Record, Scale Check

A new low milestone has been achieved, but it's a total cheat.

Why? Because I weighed myself in the aftermath of getting roaringly sick last Friday night.

How sick? I threw up. That's a headline, because I never throw up. Hadn't done so in quite literally decades. And this was no mere spitting up thing; it was total projectile vomiting, Exorcist-style, so violent that my sides ached for days thereafter. I ate nothing the following day, then only ate a little bit in the ensuing couple of days before I weighed myself Tuesday morning, when I recorded the figures shown above.

Plus I wound up suffering some pretty severe diarrhea--some of it at the same time as the vomiting (!)--that only went away (I think) within the last 24 hours (it's Friday evening next as I type this).

So it makes sense that I was quite literally empty of stomach and probably pretty dehydrated, too, when I stepped on the scale.

Bottom line: the weight loss exhibited above is not likely to last, and probably doesn't represent a real push below 250 such as I had hoped to achieve before the end of the year. My weight may have already bounced back up (especially as I haven't exercised in a week, for obvious reasons). But I like seeing a sub-250 number on the scale so much--first time I've seen anything like 245 in at least 15 years--that I just had to post the pic. (I did see a sub-250 reading in late August, but that too was a cheat, as I stepped on the scale after I showed post-exercise, so it was all water-weight loss).

Hopefully, there will be real progress again sometime in the near future.

For The Record, Scale Check

This marks the barest minimum of progress, but nevertheless it is progress. I shaved another half pound off the weight, as of this past Tuesday, and got things down to 251.0 lbs. This is good, exciting, and impressive, though I fear it also sets me up for some failure in the near future. I know that, since this morning weigh-in on Tuesday, I've probably packed a few pounds back on, thanks to a couple of crises that played hell with my psyche, as well as my daily eating and exercise regimen. Plus it's dangerously hot outside right now, so not much I can do for exercise at the moment.

This might very well be the last of these posts for the remainder of the year, given the season that is approaching...but I've been surprised before. Hopefully, I have more of that in store in the not too distant; otherwise, I'll just have to be satisfied with achieving another low weight milestone for this year, and there is positive promise for the coming times.

For the Record, Scale Check

It's a new low weight. A full pound lower than the last achievement, 251.5 vs. 252.5.

An astute observer will notice that this photo was taken in a location that's different from the place where I usually do my weigh-ins. Indeed, I'm housecatsitting at the moment, and that's actually the floor of the main bathroom in my hosts' house. Being in a different living arrangement--which will continue for another month or so--has been helpful, to say the least. Easier to stay away from bad influences here.

What's also significant here is not simply the number, but when the number showed up. Here in late August is normally when I would have, in previous times, figured that the losing season was just about up, and that there was not likely to be much progress from here on out. But last year, I acheived a new low reading late in the year, sometime in November if I remember right. And I have other motivations pushing me at the moment (mysterious, I know; maybe I'll tell you all about it sometime), so I'm anticipating getting my weight down even lower before the holiday calorie-packing season really gets under way in earnest.

So good news, and there's still promises of better news on the horizon. Cool.

(By the way, I actually got a 249.5 reading a few days prior to this, but that was a cheat; I weighed myself after exercising and on a cavernously empty stomach, not the official "first thing in the morning" weigh-in, so that one doesn't count. But it was the first sub-250 reading I've seen since...frankly, I really don't know since when. Early in 2001? Probably. I can't wait to get the chance to post an official sub-250 pic on a future scale check; hopefully before the end of the year.)

For The Record, Scale Check

And here we are, back from the lengthy vacation, and 5.5 pounds have dropped away in 26 days. This was almost an anticipated result, something I daresay I expected, based upon previous results and the expected duration of the trip. (I actually cut it short by a couple of days, but for the most part it went exactly as I expected.) 

The good side of this lies in the plain fact that this certainly represents a new low mark achieved in the now almost 10 year project to get myself back to relative healthiness and humanity. And it's a clear new low mark, not just a "barely counts" move where I just barely beat the old mark by a half a pound or so; this is a real, substantial move down the scale.

The down side comes from the fact that, now that I'm back in the cesspool of my everyday existence, I've probably already gained back much of the lost weight. That can be depressing, if I let it be; but for now I'm focusing on the fact that this experience serves as another proof of concept, that if I get myself out and living on my own terms, I can expect to see positive developments in my life, and certainly in terms of my health.

For The Record, Scale Check

This is barely a new low weight, but technically, it fits the description. The really encouraging thing about this weigh-in is that it came before I left for a month-long vacation. Since I tend to lose weight on vacations, I have high hopes that my next weigh-in, after returning to the home base, will mark a new low weight. All in all, things are very encouraging on the weight front.

For The Record, Scale Check

As indicated in this space not so long ago, the chances of further progress being made on pushing the weight down were pretty good going into this new year, given the success I saw last fall--and here's the proof. This marks the first time my weight has been below 260 since the year 2001; that's why I like to call the above "the space odyssey." Ha.

All in all, this was a very satisfying new low weight to achieve, given its milestone nature. Besides, a number below 260 has a certain ring to it. Yes, you're still wildly overweight if you weigh 258.5 pounds at 5' 10", but it's not as outrageous as, say 295. Or 340, for that matter. Two fifty-eight and a half is the weight of an NFL linebacker, not a morbidly obese loser. Of course, the linebacker is six-three and completely ripped, which I am not (nor ever will be). But I'm feeling better about myself, and--more importantly--I believe I've found a formula that can sustain this sort of weight loss going forward, so long as nothing truly untoward happens.

And in case anyone is looking at this picture and wondering, "What the hell is going on with his leg? And his feet?" The answers: yes, my feet look weird and ugly. Partially it's just that's how they are; partially, it springs from the fact that I get a lot of dead skin on my feet. I don't have a solution for this problem; I soak my feet and rub them down when I can, but that just doesn't happen often enough. I've tried using a foot scrub, but the results weren't so great. Not sure what to do to make the feet (especially the toes) look better. It's just something to deal with.

The damage on my right shin, on the other hand, is less problematic--in fact, it's part of what's helping me lose weight. I get almost all of my exercise from bike riding (looking into changing that, but for now it's the bike or nothing). A typical thing that happens is, when I get on the bike--you mount a bike from the left, like the way you mount a horse--I have to kick the right pedal around to position it to get into starting position for my right foot. And that often means I wind up stopping the spinning pedal with my right shin. My pedals happen to be large, heavy duty metal plates--I've snapped pedals before--so my shin, as a consequence, frequently takes quite a whack, often strong enough to break the skin. That's why I often have broken skin on my right shin. My left shin, in contrast, doesn't take the same abuse, and thus looks normal. Bottom line: the broken skin on my right leg means I've been exercising, enough to reach this new low weight of which I'm mighty proud. Thanks for asking.

For The Record, Scale Check

Interesting. Almost exactly a month after the last low-point reading, I've reached a new low. Just by a pound, but it's movement in the right direction--and that's fascinating, because I can't remember the last time I reached a new low weight in December. This is not the time of year when this kind of progress gets made.

So what's going on here? Well, I can say this: back in October I got very worried about my blood sugar (I'm diabetic; no surprise there), and I instituted some new eating policies which, so far, have held fairly well these last eight-to-nine weeks. Specifically: avoiding sugary drinks, particularly regular soda, except for an every-other-week "soda day"; and avoiding sweets, meaning any foods that are particularly sugary, including (but not necessarily limited to) candy, pastries, ice cream, etc. (again, with an every-other-week exception for a "sugar day"). And that really seems to be working; the blood sugar has been better, and--most obviously here--the weight is slowly, steadily coming down. And note, it's been coming down even as I have not been getting as much exercise as usual (late November and December are what passes for the dead of winter in the Bay Area).

So this is quite exciting. The results demonstrate that with a couple of very simple steps--which are not huge sacrifices and (as of now) look to be sustainable--it's possible to maintain steady weight loss even under less-than-ideal circumstances. These results also promise that I will be set up nicely going into next year to make a fairly decent push in the downward direction going into and through the spring and summer.

Not bad at all.

For the Record, Scale Check

This reading is highly unsual, in that it comes in November, a time of year when the "weight losing season" is usually long since over. But there have been a collection of circumstances that have led to this new low weight reading. The pic above comes from November 9th, and comes roughly at the end of a long period where I was living outside the usual location; thus, I had a different living environment for almost a month and a half, with only brief interruptions. This gave me a real opportunity to seize better control of my eating habits, as well as exercise habits, all to positive effect.

At least, the positive effect came eventually. In the beginning of that period, I found myself having a bit of a blood sugar crisis--it was up, and I couldn't get it down. There was, in truth, a little too much freedom in my living arrangements during that period, and my glucose level suffered because of it. To correct that, I've taken the step of radically cutting back on my consumption of sugary stuff, specifically sugary drinks and candy. I now schedule myself for a "soda day" and a "candy day" at (currently) two week intervals; the rest of the time, I force myself to avoid the stuff. And that, in combination with a relatiely rigorous exercise schedule these past several weeks, has pushed my weight down to a new low.

The interesting part about this is: if I had had the sense to make that adjustment a while ago, I would almost certainly be further along in the project by now.

But that's looking back. Looking forward, I'm planning a "food holiday" around the upcoming Christmas season, basically the last fortnight of the year, and I don't expect to post another new goal achieved message for the rest of this year. But, moving forward, I think I have a path that will carry me through to a better series of results in the upcoming winter, which just might set up some real progress next year when the spring and summer come. It could get interesting and exciting. We'll see how it goes.

For The Record, Scale Check

This is something of a "false positive" here. This is from July 4, taken the morning after I came back from a camping trip. Normally, I lose weight when I'm on vacation, so there's no real surprise that I would hit a new low mark in the immediate aftermath of that. However, on this occasion I was driving home from a camping vacation in Nevada, on what was generally a hot day, with the sun beating through the windshield most of the time (traveling almost directly west). Hence, my car was a sauna most of the trip, and I sweated out a lot of moisture.

So most likely, this number is the result of a lot of lost water weight--not necessarily actual body mass sent away. I've since rebounded a bit (weighed 267 on a different scale yesterday), but not a tremendous amount, so that's good.

I'm off to Disneyland on Tuesday, and should spend five whole days walking miles around those two parks, which may hold the promise of more weight lost. The questions then will be: Can I hit a new low mark when I get home? Can I keep any lost weight off thereafter? We shall see.

For The Record, Scale Check

This picture is from last Tuesday morning, July 21st, so it's already out of date, and I probably have already gained back a few of these pounds. The big leap forward (or downward) resulted from a long weekend at Disneyland, which meant a LOT of walking around; hence the big four pound drop from the last low point. Interestingly, this experience reinforces my theory of the "vacation paradox"; while most folks gain weight when on vacation (assuming they do, or maybe they simply assume they do), I tend to lose weight when I'm away--probably because my vacations take me out of my all too familiar environment (including the bad habits of my normal space) and put me in a situation where I suddenly get a lot more exercise (be it hiking in the mountains, or footing it around the Disney parks for three days). So even with 5 days of eating little more than junk food, I still lost weight, and achieved my lowest reading yet. Fascinating stuff; let's see if I can make more of it happen down the road here, before summer is up and the fall weight gain commences.

For The Record, Scale Check

You'd think that such a gigantic milestone would merit an immediate post to this site, but no, this picture is from three days ago, Monday June 1. But all distraction and lateness aside, this is very big news--the first time I've stepped on the scale and seen a number below 270 in at least 13 years (2002), and probably more like since 2001 (as my records for my weight back then are somewhat spotty).

Keen eyes will note that this photo was taken in different location from where I usually set up the scale for these weigh-ins, and that perhaps makes this number questionable, if not completely invalid. Maybe. For the moment, I will let this stand as an official entry; presumably, future weigh-ins will confirm the reality of this reading.

And I do expect future--near future--weigh-ins to do just that, since I have hardly been working at all lately, and the upshot of that has been me getting a great deal more exercise than had been usual. So I won't be surprised if I get to see some even smaller numbers soon.

For the Record, Scale Check

This is encouraging, as it represents another milestone "lowest weight" in this long journey from almost eight years ago; then again, it's also frustrating, in that I still haven't seen a number below 270 in at least thirteen years, even though I'm so tantalizingly close. (The numbers get fuzzy when I compare weights back to 2002 and such; I didn't keep especially good records back then, just general "beginning of the year" weights, along with selected other milestones.) But I'm not going to complain--things are still moving in the right direction, and that's important for the big picture and the long term goals I'd like to achieve. Hopefully we'll see even more appealing numerals very soon.

Recently Read

THINspired
by Mara Schaiavocampo

For some time now, I've had aspirations of writing a book about weight loss, using my own experiences going from weighing 340 pounds to today's 275 as grist for that mill. In particular, my ideas about weight loss--admittedly a straightforward process, when it's boiled down--took their form in an equation--The Equation, as it were--that helps distill my wisdom into a useful thought model that, I believe, can help those like me lose weight and live healthier (if not fully healthy) lives.

Of course, since weight loss is such a well-trodden path when it comes to publishing, I have not just compiled notes for my prospective work, but surveyed the field of weight loss books, to see if any other interested parties had the same thoughts I did.

In scanning the shelves, I came across only one book that seemed to display inspiration similar to my own. THINspired by Mara Schiavocampo is another individual's self-discovered program for losing weight. It even features an equation--or, as Ms. Schiavocampo puts it, her "Magic Formula"--as a framework for the author's weight loss program. Given these facts, I decided to read THINspired and see if all my plans and notes were for naught. Had I been beaten to the punch? Had I been scooped on the concept of an equation (by that or any other name), which would render my own plans to reveal a new weight loss thought model redundant and pointless?

Alas, though Schiavocampo contributes a few worthy ideas to the endeavor, she gets a lot of her equation--in my own humble but experienced opinion--wrong.

On the plus side, Schiavocampo is to be credited for devoting a large portion of her text to one of the under-recognized aspects of weight loss: the need for adequate sleep. Indeed, I place so much emphasis on sleep that I make it the first part of my own Equation. Unfortunately, while Schiavocampo had the sense to recognize sleep for the crucial element that it is, she still only deems sleep to be 10% of the program. Hardly any books on weight loss mention sleep; to identify so important a cog in the weight loss machine, and then to undersell it by deeming sleep to be only one tenth of the issue, undermines the force of her argument.

A lot of the rest of Schiavocampo's presentation consists of what one might call boilerplate weight loss advice. There's nothing particularly wrong with that; any book about weight loss must cover the fundamentals of "eat less, exercise more," since those basics are necessary to any successful weight loss effort. But some of her advice is problematic. She encourages readers to exercise by the mantra "train hard or go home"--advice that will rarely work for truly overweight individuals, who are often prone to injury by way of overexercising. Worse still, in lecturing her readers about the fundamentals, Schiavocampo reveals an outlook that, far from being encompassing and general, actually comes across as particular, idiosyncratic, and individual. In other words, one doubts that few overweight people could actually be successful following the author's lead.

Why? Because a great deal of what Schiavocampo preaches as the proper lifestyle for successful weight loss follows from her position as a person of means and opportunity. For instance, despite protestations about being on a budget and not being overly wealthy, Schiavocampo gushes about her exercise routine, including workouts and classes at what are apparently very trendy (and undoubtedly expensive) New York City fitness clubs. That feeling is reinforced by her name-checking her trainer friends, as if the average reader is supposed to know of these people already. (Namedropping is a relentless feature of THINspired; even those Schiavocampo identifies in the narrative as her personal friends get the first and last name treatment, so you know that she is hobnobbing with people who are Important.) This may be the norm when you are a television personality (Schiavocampo has worked as a reporter for ABC News, specifically Good Morning America, according to her jacket bio), but it doesn't reinforce her credibility with readers who wish to find legitimate advice on losing weight.

And, unfortunately, Schiavocampo's credibility is all too easy to question. As noted, she has a career in TV, and worked that job before she stumbled upon her "Magic Formula" for weight loss. How much weight did she need to lose? It is impossible from the text to accurately judge that. Fatties, as we know, rarely get hired to be television personalities. Schiavocampo puts her total weight loss at 90 pounds, which is an impressive figure without a doubt, and she relates stories from childhood where being overweight played a big role in her development. Yet, all we ever get from the author, in terms of hard numbers, is that figure of 90 pounds. At no point in the text does Schiavocampo give an actual scale reading for herself; the reader never knows just how much this woman actually ever weighed. (A quick web search reveals early, pre-weight loss pictures of the author, showing a woman who was indeed overweight, though not to this viewers eyes truly obese.)

Schiavocampo does, at one point, relate that she gained 40 pounds during pregnancy; so then the ninety pound total is boosted by the extra forty lumped on by having a baby? Was her real weight loss 90 pounds, or 50 pounds if you count from her pre-pregnancy, "normal" weight? In another passage Schiavocampo labels herself as having been a "size 14"; given the madness that is women's clothing sizes, readers could be forgiven for having no idea what that actually means in terms of shape and health. (Per Schiavocampo, size 14 is "the size of the average woman today.") The average woman may find something meaningful in those terms, but whether this discourse will actually be useful for those who need to drop the pounds is another matter.

So it goes for what the average woman might get out of THINspired; others, particularly men, would read this book and find a lecture that says little to them, or even speaks in a language that they can understand. Clearly, Schiavocampo wrote her book for a niche market of women like herself. Unfortunately, the reason we have such a wide open market for books on weight loss is specifically because the problem of overweight is so widespread and general; the niche approach, as represented by THINspired, paints the problem in terms too specific to ever be useful to more than a few individuals.

Schiavocampo should be commended for making the effort of trying to cast the basics of weight loss in a form that some (or even a few) will understand better than what they've heard before. If you are of a certain type, the ideas in THINspired just might click with you and help you get down the road towards a healthier you. But as likely as not, this one of Ms. Schiavocampo's reports may simply come across to you as dead air.

For The Record, Scale Check

It's been a chunk of time since we last looked in on this situation, but there's finally progress to report, so take a look. This again marks a low point in the now seven+ year project of me trying to become a normal person. I really want to get past 270, because that will mark 70 pounds total lost since the whole thing begun. As I saw last year, if I remember right, this is an important notch on the belt, because it's a low point that comes before the summer, when losing weight tends to be substantially easier than at other times. (Note: this picture dates from Tuesday March 24, so it's going up a few days late.) If things go swimmingly, I'll see the sunny side of the milestone before the opening kickoff in the fall.

In fact, having just reviewed last year's entries, I see that in May of '14 I was clocking in at 281.0, so this represents real progress in less than a year, and given the full purview of all the entries, the rate may be picking up a bit. That's good news. There may be hope yet.

For The Record, Scale Check

This photo is already a week old. This new low was achieved in the aftermath of my camping trip to Juniper Lake up at Lassen Volcanic National Park. I didn't get a lot of exercise those five days, but apparently I got enough to drop down to a new low mark on the scale. My weight as of this picture was as low as it has been since at least 2003, and almost certainly since 2002. I'm anticipating a bounce back the next time I get a chance to step on the scale, but with a whole month of housecatsitting (2 concurrent gigs) coming up in September, I think I have a chance to power through and really push down to another new low before the fall and winter and the inevitable slippage at the end of the year shows up. Maybe I'll even get down past 270, start seeing some two sixty something numbers at last. We'll see.

For the Record, Scale Check

So the progress continues, at a very mild pace I must say, but still it remains a downward trend. This was actually a shot from this past Tuesday, the 29th, so a couple of days out of date here. The significance of this very minor movement--just one pound below the last "official" low mark (I hit 276.5 back on the 14th, in an "unofficial" measurement)--is that this reading shows progress even after my Disneyland trip of the 17th thur the 21st. It's nice when you can go on a vacation and NOT gain a bunch of weight either then or thereafter. This bodes well for my upcoming trip to Lassen Volcano NP, which starts this Sunday and runs through Thursday, at least (still a little undecided about when I'll get back). I expect more movement downward in the next month or so, then interesting times while I'm housecatsitting in two separate places for the whole month of September. Things might get very interesting.

And it should go without saying at this point, but this does represent my lowest weight...well, probably since I've owned this scale. It's at least the lowest my weight has been since sometime in 2003, maybe even 2002. The only data point I have from that time is a 260 reading the beginning of 2002, and of course I'm still a long way away from that. But it's getting closer.

For the Record, Scale Check

I'm on a roll.

Once again, I've achieved a new low weight. This time it's a relatively large jump, dropping 2 pounds in about a week. This is especially encouraging, since my bike has been in the shop all week, and I won't get it back till Monday--which means I've lost more weight even though I haven't actually exercised since last Saturday. I take this to mean that my steadiness at maintaining the exercise regimen lately has paid off; that is, that my body has gotten used to being in "metabolize mode" and remains there, for the present at least, even without the bolstering benefit of my regular exercise. I'm eager to get the bike back, and get back in the swing of things, to see how far this thing can go before I plateau again.

If I can drop even three more pounds before the end of the month, I'll be deliriously happy with these results.

For the Record, Scale Check

More progress. Incremental progress, to be sure; this is a bare 1.5 pounds below my last lowest weigh in a couple of weeks ago, but this one shows enough movement down to count as a real move for the better.

My resolve to improve upon this number will be tested in the upcoming week; I will not have my bike for a whole week while it's in the shop getting some repairs/upgrades, and I have a giant blister on the bottom of each of my feet (related to the bike thing in a way, but a long story), so it's unlikely I'll be getting much exercise until next week. Of course, next week will see me embark upon a two week housecatsitting gig, at a place with a) a good location with abundant biking trail access and b) a backyard pool for getting some laps in after a ride and/or work. So plenty of exercise on the horizon. Check this space again for further progress before the month is over.

For The Record, Scale Check

This probably barely qualifies as an update, but technically I did weigh in at less than my previous low weight, so there it is, in all it's glory. Actually, when I first stepped on the scale, the meter read 280.5, so half a pound less than the above (and 1.5 pounds less than the previous low). Then I stepped back on the scale with my iPhone and snapped the picture...but it was too blurry to use, so I had to try again. And on the third time I stepped up, I got the 281.0 reading. So apparently, while I was trying to take the above picture, I gained half a pound. Hmmm. Not sure how that works, but the point is, this new low register is actually a little more legit than it may seem in direct comparison with the last.

(This is also the second time in recent weeks I've seen a reading below the previous low of 282.0; I didn't count the last low reading because it was only 281.5--too close to the previous low to be outside the margin of error. But given the second reading below the previous mark, this becomes worth posting.)

What's notable here is that this low reading is coming in very early May. That's substantially earlier in the calendar year than I've seen previous low readings come up. The significance of that is, I've still got all of the Summer ahead to winnow that reading down even further. In previous years, I've seen my low point arrive in the middle or at the end of Summer, when there isn't as much time before the cold weather hits to keep the downward trend sustained. Thus, I am quite hopeful that the next few months will see even greater progress ahead.

Recently Read

Fat Chance
by Robert H. Lustig, M.D.

Fat Chance
by Robert Lustig, M.D.

I'm not qualified to judge the science presented in this book. I am, much to my chagrin, overly qualified to judge the judgments that Dr. Lustig makes about being obese--and that is why I highly recommend this book.

There are two sides to the issue presented in Fat Chance: Beating the Odds Against Sugar, Processed Food, Obesity, and Disease. On the one hand, you have the science mentioned above. Lustig delivers a strong case--as strong a case as you can make in layman's terms for a very technical argument--that the obesity pandemic that is now ravaging the world is largely the product of the over consumption of sugar, specifically fructose in processed foods. Making heads or tails of the effects of leptin, insulin resistance, ghrelin, and other hormones on the hypothalamus, and how all that translates into weight gain and "metabolic syndrome," can be a bit of a slog, especially if you're not technically minded. Suffice it to say, Lustig explains these medical matters with enough simplicity and clarity that a reasonably well-informed reader will likely judge his thesis to be sound and consistent.

On the other hand, there is the matter of the experience of obesity, both from Lustig's patients (related as illustrative anecdotes throughout the book's chapters), and the reader's own understanding of that experience. This is where the rubber meets the road--or, to be more apt, where the sugar hits the liver--for making the case that Fat Chance represents an honest, accurate reflection of what has happened to people all over the world, what is happening to more people as time goes by, and what the legacy of that crisis will be for our world if nothing is done to change society's course.

If you read this book as someone who has suffered through a lifetime of weight problems, you can't help but recognize in this text descriptions of the mechanics of obesity that dovetail perfectly with your own life story. Who hasn't grown up fat and wondered why you were made that way? What fat person hasn't felt the frustration of failure to control his or her behavior--supposedly the key aspect of how people get to be obese? Lustig has answers for these and other questions that contradict the received wisdom about obesity: the long-standing philosophical position that if you're fat, it's because you make bad choices.

Not so, according to the author; Lustig presents ideas that explain why so many of the treatments for obesity that have been preferred up till now--by the medical community, by government, by fat people themselves--simply haven't worked. He argues that behavior follows biology, not the other way around; that a calorie is not a calorie (meaning, different types of calories affect the body differently); that changing environment is more effective than changing diet; that our modern food industry has a stake in making us sick, despite the costs to the rest of society. All of this rings all too true, both to someone who has been trapped in an overweight life, and to anyone who has been paying attention to the overarching trends in our world, especially societal and political trends regarding the production of our food supply. In that ring of veracity the reader finds a forceful argument in favor of Lustig's view of the problem, and thus the utility of this book.

While Lustig makes it clear that the odds are indeed stacked against us, he does offer a blueprint for fixing the problem, for both the individual and society. The doctor's advice on how to overcome your personal obesity challenge--raised awareness about sugar in the foods you eat, getting more fiber in your diet, exercising as much as you can, and having manageable expectations about your health--may not seem revolutionary, but it strikes this reader as the best possible message on the subject. Lustig's prescriptions for societal cures--higher taxes on sugar, changes to subsidies and tariffs on various foodstuffs (discouraging sugar, encouraging fresh foods, etc.), using the fight against tobacco as a model for fighting the food industry--seem more far-fetched, if reasonable given the scope of the problem, simply due to the corruption and intransigence of governmental agencies. But at least the ideas are there, and given the seemingly insurmountable odds against putting any of those top down reforms in place, perhaps that hopelessness itself can spur the individual to take the necessary steps himself. After all, can you really expect help to come from Congress, or McDonald's? Fat chance, as the doctor might say.

I can't recommend this book highly enough, especially to anyone who is obese and wants to understand what has happened to him or her. Knowing about science and politics is all well and good, but knowing about yourself is always the key to any number of mysteries. In Fat Chance, anyone who cares about the obesity pandemic may indeed find that crucial key.