is this a diet blog?

I had a gent leave a comment here, saying he just loved the content of this blog. And then, in the next sentence, he advertised his favorite -diet- site.

And I am wondering about this. I'd love to believe his first sentence but I have to say that if he's read my blog at all, how could he ever think I would be amenable to advertising a diet blog?

To paraphrase one of my favorite movie characters (the bad cricket in one of the ant movies) "Do -I- -Look- like a person who is into diets?"

I am actually a fat gurl (well, not such a girl maybe) who is 120 lbs overweight, lives a healthy lifestyle without the worry of pleasing the scale OR medical providers with fat-a-phobia, who seems to be outliving many of my slimmer friends.

And I must say that in my long life of 63 years, I have -never- seen a good result of any kind of dieting.

Maybe that's kind of a no brainer because when you diet, you deny your body nutrients and put your body into starvation mode - how ever can this be healthy?

I've known people who lost 70-100 lbs .... and then came down with cancer (and died). And I've known people who lost 30 lbs only to regain 70 lbs. In fact most people I've known who have lost weight, are lucky if they -only- regain what they lost. I've known people who restrict calories to low amounts, run marathons, have low risk numbers, are congratulated by every doctor they see and then, come down with their last illness in their 40's and 50's and die a couple of years later.

My so called risk numbers are not low. They are not extremely high but according to the fat-a-phobics, way to high for me to be so doggoned healthy. My cholesterol's about 250 (of course my HDLs are 56 and the ratio is "correct"), my LDLs are 139, my blood pressure is 140/90 on a good day (without medications).

Frankly I'm not sure this is anything to worry about (and worrying about it may be much more dangerous to my health than my numbers not fitting in to the ever decreasing "perfect numbers") Because the risk numbers are also very low in anorexics, and terminal AIDS and cancer patients yet can we really say they are "at less risk"?

Oh and my waist measurement is um.... generous. Not the equator but way into the area which Dr Oz says is highly risky.

I find some things in life rather interesting such as:

1. a dear friend of mine who describes herself as "super sized" has outlived 48 of her large friends who had weight loss surgery

2. my slim father was always given a good bill of health by the medical community while my BBW mother was told she was on the brink of death because of her weight and yet, my slim Dad (also a lifelong smoker) died suddenly of a heart attack when he was 63 and my high BMI Mom was still going strong at the age of 68 when she decided they had lied to her and obesity was -not- going to kill her so she used a more traditional method to hasten her demise - a gun.

3. a relative who is in her 70's is super sized and diabetic and very healthy - travels all over the world, takes cruises and only quit working last year.

According to the diet industry-driven media, all this is not supposed to be.

Meanwhile, society keeps buying this message that we -must- starve ourselves to a certain weight despite increasing evidence that not only does dieting -not- work but several studies suggest it is a risk practice to diet. But then, why would starvation, practiced or environmental be healthy?

Lately evidence keeps pouring in that our 65 percent fat society is actually living -longer- than society did in days of yore before the deadly obesity hit us.

For example, yesterday a news item told us that we just are -not- seeing the deaths from heart disease we expected. In fact, heart disease deaths have "plummeted" the article says, continuing to warn us that due to the obesity they are going to get worse. But wait, the obesity is already here and they are plummeting? Is this like the killer bees which never arrived or the Y2K which was supposed to shut the the world which -never- happened or the bird flu pandemic which we have been waiting for, for 4 years now? Media spin to get our attention so we buy diet products?

In the last couple of years, the average lifespan, in case you didn't notice, has been creeping ... down? Nope, in fact it's been creeping upwards. Last year we were told that women could be expected to live until 80 now.

Has anyone noticed that before the days of obesity, like at the turn of the 20th century, the average lifespan was 45? Back then, people got lots of exercise, they did not have any transfat or fast food and obesity was just about unheard of. Yet the average lifespan was so low.

Maybe just maybe (heresy alert) we are -designed- to be chubby animals in an environment where food is abundant?

Do I -look- like I support diets? Perish the thought. My philosophy is more like "eat dessert first because life is too short"!