Aging Capriciously

I wrote this blog five years ago.  It seems a good one to help you start the New Year off right.  I know lots of us will want to shed those pounds that we put on during the holiday season.  This NEED and DESIRE makes us easy pickings for all of the “diet programs” that promise us how little effort it will be too lose weight if we only buy their book and follow their rules.  I start off this blog with two rules of my own.  I have updated most of the health data in this blog for 2023 but I have no doubt that the data would be the same or even more depressing if you looked it up today and compared it to ten years ago.  So lets get to it so you can find out how to “How to  Lose Weight Without Even Trying!”

There are two rules of wisdom that I think most of us believe in.  They are:

1. If it is too good to be true, it probably isn’t
2. There are no free lunches

I have found the above precepts to be good guideposts for my life.  They are so often noted that we begin to take them for granted.  It could be argued that perhaps they are not true in every situation, but I believe that they are more often true than not true.  This brings us to the issue of diet programs.  Consider the following statistics:

• An estimated 45 million Americans go on a diet each year. (BMC)
• Americans spend $33 billion each year on weight-loss products. (BMC)
• A higher percentage of women (56.4%) than men (41.7%) have tried to lose weight. (CDC, 2018)
• Nearly half of adults (49.1%) attempted to lose weight within the last year. (CDC, 2018)
• Obesity is more common among lower-income individuals, those with less education, and some ethnic/racial minorities. (Wiley, 2009)
• 82% of respondents considered that weight loss was completely their own responsibility, while only 5% did not agree. (Wiley, 2017( Fitness for Weight Loss)

(Statistics are from Weight Loss Statistics and Health Benefits for 2023)

If I go to Amazon.com and type in “diet books”, I find that there are 184,291 books available to sell me on a strategy for losing weight.  There were 424 “Diet Best Sellers” in 2016 and 209 “Best Sellers” published already in 2017.  These are only the “Best Sellers.”  There were a total of 39,673 diet books listed as published in 2016.  Many if not most diet books do not make the “Best Seller” lists.  In terms of magazines dealing with diets and weight loss, there are over a dozen magazines that you can buy each week at your local grocery store (that you will find stocked right next to the chocolates) that will tell you how to lose weight “without even trying.”

However, the above statistics are only the tip of the proverbial iceberg.  If I go to Google and type in the words “diet strategies”, I find that there are over 75,000 listings concerning various diets, stratagems, plans, tips, secrets, etc., that will show you how to lose weight “without even trying.”

Here are some typical headlines that you will find as you peruse any of the above information that is offered for those of us that need to lose weight “without even trying”:

• The Harcombe Diet 3-Step Plan: Lose 7 lbs. in 5 days and end food cravings forever
• 1200 Calorie Diet Menu – 7 Day Lose 20 Pounds Weight Loss Meal Plan
• Win at Slim: New Secrets to Lasting Weight Loss
• Outsmart Your Cravings: Sweet, Salty, Crunchy
• How I Lost 42 lbs.
• Eat, Drink, Shrink: No Diet Ways to Fight Holiday Gain
• No More Guilt: Stop Dwelling, Start Enjoying

The beauty of all these weight loss schemes is that you can lose weight “without (you guessed it) even trying.”  Any half-way intelligent person would regard these titles and by applying either of the two rules noted earlier decide that they were pure bunko.  Lose weight without trying!  End food cravings forever!  Lose 7 lbs. in 5 days!  No sane person would believe any of this BS.  Nevertheless, the diet magazines, diet plans and diet books sell like crazy.  Every year a plethora of new diet strategies replace last year’s models.  Why do people continue taking the bait when they know that it is a sucker’s game?  The simple answer is that when it comes to looking like Margot Robbie, Jessica Alba, Dwayne Johnson or any of the Kardashians, all brain power and rational thinking goes down the drains.  Everyone in America wants to be thin and beautiful or have six pack abs “without even trying.”

Every new diet strategy renews hope for the downtrodden and overweight oppressed masses.  Every new diet plan offers the possibility that beauty and slimness might be had before Christmas or at least before our next birthday.  Every new weight loss scheme provides the potential to become the person that we dream of being.  Hope springs not just eternal in the human breast, but perpetually, irrationally and beyond all measures of logic or intellect:  To hell with “no free lunches!”  To hell with “it probably is not true!”

If even the remotest opportunity exists that I can lose weight “without even trying”, I will take the bait like a mouse eats peanut butter or a cat eats catnip or a bear eats donuts.  “Dam the torpedoes, full speed ahead.”  Who cares about logic?  Who cares that no evidence exists to back many of these claims up?

So now we come to the real issue.  You wanted to know if there actually might be a method for losing weight “without even trying.”  My answer is YES!  But there is even better news.  I will send you the secret strategy for my quick weight loss “Without Even Trying” plan that I have developed for only $9.95 plus postage and handling.  I will give you a money back guarantee that in six weeks or less, you will lose twenty pounds “without even trying” or I will send you a full refund.  This offer is good for only thirty days after you read this blog and it will then expire.  The following stipulations also apply:

• You must reside on a lake
• You must be over 99 years of age
• You must have been born in Last Chance, New Mexico
• You must be at least 100 lbs. overweight at the start of this offer
• You must believe everything you read or hear

Time for Questions:

Do you need to lose weight?  Have you been trying to lose weight?  How successful have your efforts been?  What has worked for you?  What did not work for you?  What would you like to change in your diet?

Life is just beginning.

“I believe that parents need to make nutrition education a priority in their home environment. It’s crucial for good health and longevity to instill in your children sound eating habits from an early age.” — Cat Cora