calories in = calories out = unnecessary torture

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/magazine/tara-parker-pope-fat-trap.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

i stumbled upon this article today, again, its been all over facebook. but now it was quoted on a blog i like and respect and i read it. it was monstrous (both literally and figuratively speaking). it left a very miserable and anxiety inducing impression.

some months ago i wrote how i feel about the calorie is a calorie theory (i feel its nonsense of a highest grade). and this article shows how true that is. the story of a woman, Janice Bridge, in this article is such a horror story. I mean a woman maintains her 135 lbs weightloss (her current weight is still 195lbs) by measuring every gram she eats, counting every minute of exercise she does. a quote from the article:

She has decided to try to maintain this higher weight of 195, which is still 135 pounds fewer than her heaviest weight.
“It doesn’t take a lot of variance from my current maintenance for me to pop on another two or three pounds,” she says. “It’s been a real struggle to stay at this weight, but it’s worth it, it’s good for me, it makes me feel better. But my body would put on weight almost instantaneously if I ever let up.”
So she never lets up. Since October 2006 she has weighed herself every morning and recorded the result in a weight diary. She even carries a scale with her when she travels. In the past six years, she made only one exception to this routine: a two-week, no-weigh vacation in Hawaii.
She also weighs everything in the kitchen. She knows that lettuce is about 5 calories a cup, while flour is about 400. If she goes out to dinner, she conducts a Web search first to look at the menu and calculate calories to help her decide what to order. She avoids anything with sugar or white flour, which she calls her “gateway drugs” for cravings and overeating. She has also found that drinking copious amounts of water seems to help; she carries a 20-ounce water bottle and fills it five times a day. She writes down everything she eats. At night, she transfers all the information to an electronic record.

the woman is 66, she has had a lifetime full of dieting since she was 14. and when she adheres to the lowfat diet she was put on but didnt lose weight she was accused of cheating:

“No one would believe me that I was doing everything I was told,” she says. “You can imagine how tremendously depressing it was and what a feeling of rebellion and anger was building up.”

sounds familiar much??

i cant even begin to explain how bad i feel for this lady. she has endured this shit all her life. what for???

my feelings are so conflicting. a part of me sees my own mum in her (even though she has no weight issues - not really maybe a 10 lbs extra), im just a softy when it comes to older ladies. a part of me wants me to give her a swift kick in the arse and yell at her something along the lines of :" so calorie counting and lofat hasnt worked since you were 14... but you keep at it religiously??? what does that make you??? maybe you deserve the hell of caloriecounting you call life."

headbangfacepalm