by Carol Dunn

Created on: January 29, 2009

If guilt from TV commercials has seized you, and you feel compelled to lose weight, consider this. Some people are just not meant to be thin. This is a proven fact, based upon the evidence that there are 12 trillion books on losing weight and, of the five billion overweight people using those books to lose weight, only five individuals actually keep that weight off. If you don't believe me, go to an all-you-can-eat buffet and observe. We, as a nation, need to redefine the term "overweight" and then put our pudgy arms around this new paradigm and embrace it.

Who is to say what overweight is anyway? My husband, Slim, who has 0.0000001 percent body fat, gets concerned when his jeans start to feel like they are not falling off. I look at him and think back to the time when I didn't have to inhale every molecule of air in the room to snap my jeans shut. Those were the days. I was ten. Slim can get up from a hearty meal and start to snack right away. He can eat all day long and will not gain weight he will forever be thin.

On the other hand, if I even look at a rice cake, I gain a pound. I was predestined to be not-thin. We just spent eighteen months building a house up and down ladders, carrying lumber, bending and tying rebar, insulating, nailing, stapling, painting, roofing, sweating and at the end of that time I fit into my clothes pretty well. That's it. No great weight loss, no Miss Olympia muscles, because it wasn't meant to be. I will forever be not-thin. Besides, when Slim and I are together, his streamlined look kind of balances me out.

Oh sure, over the years I've tried to lose weight. I lose it, and it always manages to find me. But I did discover how desperate I'm not when I looked into some fad diets, for instance: eating only brown rice; drinking vinegar; eating massive quantities of grapefruit; taking tapeworm-egg pills; eating more peanut butter; unlimited cabbage soup; smoking extra cigarettes when hungry; and taking laxatives. I wonder if some people needed to combine the laxative diet with the peanut butter diet? I actually knew someone on the grapefruit diet. He had a sour personality.

Recently, I read that weight loss goals should be based on cultural, personal and family weight history. Bingo! In our culture, most people are not thin. For most of my life, I have not been thin. Most of my family members have not been thin. I'd say I'm right on track.

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