Time machine

Sometimes I really wish that I had a time machine so that I could go back in time and do things differently. But I suppose that would introduce that whole sunshine-of-the-spotless-mind thing where you wouldn't reap the benefits of what you learn along the way. Also, in related news, I wish that the economy would improve and that the real estate market would recover a bit.

That's it for the fantasy portion of today's entry. In other news, I'm down 7 pounds over the last couple of weeks. That's with doing South Beach diet (sort of) and taking the dog on a few extra walks. We haven't really started Phase 1 of South Beach, since we had some good carb foods around that I didn't have the heart to throw out. So, we've been working on eating better overall and not surprisingly, it's working. I cooked a couple of things last night and put everything in the fridge so that it's easy to grab something healthy instead of going through the drive through on the way home. And I've been much better about drawing the line between work and home life recently. It's still hard for me to not check my email a lot in the evenings, but I'm getting better. And I only had one late night last week. So, it's a start. Progress, not perfection.

I also watched the Biggest Loser tonight to see what it's all about. It was interesting when they had a segment where the female trainer had to eat food (read: junk) that one team was eating before starting the show. She gagged and spit it out, then talked about how awful it was and berated them for eating it in the first place, asking them how they could ever eat such stuff. I get her position, but it seemed to be more of the shaming behavior rather than an actual discussion about why they began to eat that way and why it continued. Truth is, there are probably many reasons they ended up eating that kind of "food" and shaming them about it isn't going to help. Addressing why they started eating that way, and why their bodies alter to crave and tolerate such foods would be a better tactic. Education, not shame. There's already enough shame with being overweight as it is.

From one episode, I can't really say whether their approach is that good or not. Surely it has helped many people, but I'm not sure how realistic it is. I could feel the pain of one contestant who weighed in tonight and had lost a few pounds this week, after having lost 17 pounds last week. She was so disappointed, and she looked so defeated as her trainer explained that her body would have to adjust. Someone should explain that losing 17 pounds in one week (or rather a significant amount of weight depending on someone's total weight to lose) is more common in the first week due to water loss and that it starts to balance out as you continue to move and eat better. That's why it's so easy to fall off the wagon when things start getting tough. You have big losses at first and then it starts to even out and become less and less. That happens even more frequently when you have less to lose. So some of the contestants will continue to lose huge amounts of weight because they have a much larger percentage of weight to lose and it will be easier until the difference between their ideal weight and current weight dwindles. I dunno. I'm not sure I'll continue to watch it, but I thought it might have some good information and be inspirational. We'll see...