6 Weeks Challenge Complete, 7.7 Pounds Down

I completed The Athlete District‘s 6 Week Challenge, ending up 7.7 pounds down, and in better shape. These before and after pictures don’t do justice to what their challenge accomplished (especially since the side shot wasn’t at the same angle):

Front before and after

Side before and after

It may not be obvious, but the belly is smaller. 🙂

(And, my muscles are more defined.)

However, probably the biggest things it did were:

  1. Made me a lot more cognizant of what I am eating (I tracked carbohydrates, protein, and fat macros to meet the daily goals they set)
  2. Cemented my commitment to regular, vigorous exercise

Although I wish I lost more weight (at 243.3 pounds, I need to still lose about 40), I can tell it was far from “all for naught.” I feel better, I can put shirts on I wouldn’t wear 6 weeks ago, and I stand up almost like normal (which says a lot given my two bad knees).

Am I going to pretend it was easy? No. However, the dieting part, especially, wasn’t horrible.

If you are overweight and/or out-of-shape, don’t believe the “noble lies” people tell you so you don’t feel so bad about it. Don’t believe your own rationalizations either (they are just lies we tell ourselves).

Don’t beat yourself up about where you are, but start on your path to a healthier life. You can do it!

(Cross-posted on my 30 Day Quest blog.)

This Is Concerning

“COVID and Race”

But these large racial gaps in vaccination have not continued — and as a result, neither have the gaps in COVID death rates.

Instead, COVID’s racial gaps have narrowed and, more recently, even flipped. Over the past year, the COVID death rate for white Americans has been 14% higher than the rate for Black Americans and 72% higher than the Latino rate, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

It is a remarkable turnabout, a story of both public health success and failure.

“Why is Canada euthanising the poor?”

When folks tell you that the slippery slope argument is bogus, examples like this show that if far from always true:

What the article shares is shocking…

“Study: Medical Marijuana Leads to Addiction, Not Shown to Be Effective”

Much of the legalization of marijuana, including for recreational use, was justified with the argument that people were being deprived of the medical benefits of marijuana. This study creates additional questions as to whether that is really the case and continues a trend of an absence of evidence on the alleged benefits of marijuana. Additionally, many pushing for legalizing medical marijuana have argued that those using it for medical purposes would be much less likely to develop an addiction — a perception undermined by this study.

“Don’t buy the fearmongering: The COVID-19 threat is waning”

Marty Makary M.D., M.P.H. is a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Bloomberg School of Public Health, chief medical adviser to Sesame Care and author of the upcoming book “The Price We Pay.”

“Younger age at first drug use tied to faster transition to substance use disorder”

This seems an intuitive result:

And, although I am generally a “live and let live” kind ‘a guy, the more we decriminalize or legalize drugs, the more “younger age” first use you’ll have (even if it remains illegal for them).

You Don’t Say?

Is Obesity a Disease or a Lack of Willpower?

”TheAs someone who has fought to keep weight off since his early thirties, I know the battle, and what it does to the mental well-being of those of us involved.

Many of the most influential of those prewar European authorities had become convinced that obesity must be the result of a hormonal or metabolic dysfunction, not caused by overeating, a concept that they recognized as circular logic. (“To attribute obesity to ‘overeating,’ ” the Harvard nutritionist Jean Mayer had aptly commented eight years before Astwood’s presentation, “is as meaningful as to account for alcoholism by ascribing it to ‘overdrinking.’ ” It’s saying the same thing in two different ways, at best describing the process, not explaining why it’s happening.) Rather, it’s somehow programmed into the very biology of the fat person, a disorder of fat accumulation and fat metabolism, these German and Austrian clinical researchers concluded. They believed, as Astwood came to believe, that obesity is neither a behavioral issue nor an eating disorder, not the result of how much we choose to eat consciously or unconsciously.

And…

If the proposed treatment for a fat accumulation problem that itself caused internal starvation—that is, hunger—was to starve even more, we can imagine all too easily why it would fail, if not in the short run, certainly eventually.

And…

Even those suffering from obesity came to see their condition as their own fault.

— The Case for Keto: Rethinking Weight Control and the Science and Practice of Low-Carb/High-Fat Eating by Gary Taubes