If you ever get a history book, browse and take special note of the body sizes that seemed to be the norm in each time period. Body weight and ideal have changed over the years, just as they continue to do now. What’s in style can be dictated by the type of clothing that is in style – some styles just require a thinner frame to look good. Some cultures will worship the larger members because it is a sign of prosperity; after all, only the rich can be fat. Americans have it backwards: here only the rich are the super skinny.
Why is that? Is it because the rich are being fed some “magic” food that allows them to stay ultra-slim? In reality, the rich stay that way because they are being fed small designer meals made by personal chefs and have trainers, nutritionists, and others working 24 hours a day to keep them that way. There is no magic involved.
Slim and fat have been pulling each other off the top of the popularity charts for hundreds of years. Watch the creation of some of the world’s most recognized artists; look at the models they chose to work with. Ruben would laugh at the art community if he were alive today and kept choosing the same models. His plump, juicy chicks definitely weren’t the skinny and undernourished ones who pose as models these days, right?
Now take a look at another era. Look at the Flappers, for example. On her knees, flat chested and very slim, the Flappers were ideal for that era. Of course, there were probably also Rubenesque women who longed to wear a sheath dress, but history certainly doesn’t show them. Even then, it was the body type that typifies the standard of the day that gets the notice, while others are ignored, or worse, ridiculed.
When thinness was all the rage, diet became the norm. The most extreme diet then is the most extreme diet now: fasting. The religious leaders and their devoted followers would fast for days and experience weight loss (of course), as well as the possibility of having visions. If the fast lasted too long, weight loss was followed by death, so the fasters began to add two and two. Not eating equates to losing weight, but it could also equate to death. The aha moment is quickly followed by the adaptation of the fast: a modified fast.
At some point during fasting and modified fasting and starvation and death, science discovered calories and the diet industry was born. Now both snake oil doctors and sellers had a word to yell at him, as well as a number to recommend. No one fully understood the diet or the daily requirements had been discovered, so no one knew how many calories a person needed or what foods those calories should come from.
Early dieters realized that starving didn’t work because it led to death. Eating less worked to keep them at an extremely low calorie count; about 1000 calories. The problem with staying that low is that it is impossible to keep the body healthy, whole and well. What they found then is the same thing a dieter trying to subsist on that calorie count would find now: You can’t survive on that.
As more studies were conducted and science began to reveal the concept of metabolism and the body’s own processes, the smart dieter put a twist on the 1000 calorie diet to prevent the body’s own destruction. They would stay at the magic number, but all those calories would come from protein and the first craze for extreme protein dieting began. The problem here was the same as the following protein diet, and the next, as well as the problem with all other extreme diets in general: any diet that allows, forces or encourages you to eat only one food group or Type and prohibiting, limiting, or ignoring all the others is unhealthy and doomed to eventual failure.
Remember a few years ago when the protein diet made a comeback? Suddenly everyone is eating hamburgers, but not buns. You could have a skillet full of bacon, but you couldn’t have toast to soak up the fat. Eat a pound of beef at every meal, but don’t you dare let a potato touch your lips. The list of veggies that were on the no-no list for this diet was unreal and worse, the fruit was as off-limits as a piece of Death by Chocolate cake. Fruit was forbidden from the protein diet and was as vilified as any dessert. All the fruits. All the time.
But extreme protein diets, modified fasts, and other weight loss efforts are not easy, and even back then, humans were looking for the easiest way to lose weight. Before anyone thinks that modern man has the corner in the market for weight loss gadgets and tricks, then know this: in the 1900s one of the first weight loss pills was developed, along with tonics, elixirs and other toning and trimming products. without the tedium of having to watch what you eat or exercise. Among those early pills was one that contained benzocaine, which would not only dim the taste buds, but would produce a strange tingling sensation in the mouth that would make it difficult to enjoy food and hopefully lead the user to eat less. Well yeah that would work as most people don’t eat if they can’t feel their mouth, but the side effect would be biting their tongue on a daily basis. Of course, there are still people who make a modified version of this concept to this day. They brush their teeth after every meal or when they are hungry. The concept is that no one wants to ruin that squeaky clean-in-the-mouth feeling, and besides, who wants fresh mint fries?
Each person wants us to create something different about weight loss. The doctor wants us to believe that we have a great need for metabolic help in order to be able to prescribe the newest prescription drugs. Gym gurus and device gods want us to exercise, but only using their equipment. Infomercials want us to use their pill, powder, potion, cream, or whatever. Authors who become experts or vice versa want us to buy their books from them. Watch my video, listen to my inspiration tapes; buy, buy, buy. In the end, the only thing that gets thinner is your wallet and all the equipment and goods in the world won’t help you if you don’t learn the basics of weight loss. You have to exercise. You need the correct amount of calories, and you need to understand what a calorie is, where it comes from, and how it works in your body. The next chapter will help you get started with that knowledge.