July 22, 2005
Fat Man Frying
Is leaving one’s family and job to walk through America’s heat-scorched deserts the best way for a 400 pound, 39 year old man to lose weight?
Fat Man Walking Steve Vaught has gotten a lot of publicity for that strategy this month, including stories in the Washington Post and on MSNBC, an interview with Katie Couric and a feature on AOL. But asthe Post article points out,
Doctors, certainly, would call it inadvisable. A seriously overweight person who embarks on any kind of strenuous physical activity could place dangerous stresses on his joints and heart, said Samuel Klein, director of the Center for Human Nutrition at Washington University in St. Louis.And such activity is especially worrisome in an area of environmental extremes, without someone to support him, Klein said. Even if he weighed 100 pounds, "walking across a desert without someone standing next to him with an umbrella and a fan and Gatorade might really be a problem."
Vaught’s justification for the long walk is that it is the “hard way,” as opposed to “high dollar fast fixes” like “miracle weight loss drugs or fad diets that never seem to have lasting results or dangerous surgeries that cost about the same as a luxury car.” The problem with this reasoning (as the doctors said), is that his alternative is too hard, and lot riskier than the surgery. There may be health benefits for the first few vultures who spot this walking feast coming their way, but it seems that “worrisome” is an understatement for the fate likely awaiting Mr. Vaught. What point he’s trying to make about the costs I don’t know, since he admits that the walk will bankrupt him: “I am not in the best condition financially to go six months without income and have resigned myself to the fact that I will lose my car and property.”
Wouldn’t an hour or two a day in gym at 5 a.m. be a relatively inexpensive option, and just hard enough to satisfy Mr. Vaught’s taste for suffering?
Vaught also says that he hopes the walk will motivate him to change his behaviors and inspire others. It’s true that setting a concrete goal, even if unrealistic, can encourage a person make genuine progress. Mr. Vaught may be especially motivated now that his goal has been so widely publicized and the eyes of the world are upon him. But if he does succeed, it will probably be because his task will made easier, not harder, by concerned volunteers intervening along the way to motivate him to slow down. But future Fat Men Walking won’t likely get the same level of media and public support, so they’re best off not being inspired to follow in his footsteps. And gyms shouldn’t let themselves be too inspired either -- blasting the heat to 110, setting the treadmill to 3,000 miles and abandoning clients on it for six months won’t do very much for the membership.
Posted by Kristen at 12:06 PM | Comments (2)
June 25, 2005
Got Lean?
Having gotten lean, GetnLean says she loves running into old friends who do doubletakes when they see her in her new body. One of my clients who achieved a dramatic weigh loss this year lists, in order of enjoyability, his favorite experiences as an “invisible man”:
(1) Not being recognized by relatives
(2) Not being recognized by co-workers
(3) Not being recognized by the guy at the coffee truck who used to call out “large grits, extra butter” to the cook as soon as he saw you coming
(4) Not being quite sure you recognize a relative because she got fatter – and realizing that walking in front of her a few times to see if she’ll recognize wouldn’t work because you’re unrecognizable thin
(5) Feeling insulted at being instantly recognized by an old acquaintance makes no comment about your weight loss – and then realizing that it’s because you look exactly like you did twelve years ago when you last saw him.
Posted by Kristen at 10:36 AM | Comments (0)