Fatlogic is all-pervading One of the things hanging out here has put me in tune with is the pervasiveness of fatlogic in our culture. Of course we all see the 'Woman's World' taglines for 10-lbs-per-week weight loss, the ree-reeing about nutritional science in publications, and so forth, but you even see it (when you're paying attention like we do) coming from otherwise sensible and generally fit people (this part doesn't come in until my third anecdote). Case in point: I had a second date with someone about a week ago and the girl's roommate was a planet. We were talking a little bit about what I'm up to these days, and proper nutrition came up. Like it was preordained, the planet piped up about how she has a thyroid problem but she's 'working on her weight'. I just smiled and nodded. Then, a couple days later I overheard a fat coworker in the break room talking about his thyroid condishun... I know for a fact that he's relatively active because he's on a couple of extracurricular sports teams with a fit friend of mine. He's obviously just failing to outrun the fork. The final insult was last night, when I was in the sauna at my fitness club before a class. There was a big fat guy and a stocky but not-overweight Asian dude sitting in there before I hopped in, talking fairly loudly (kind of a faux pas in my mind, but whatever) about weight loss. The fatso was one of those sad-sack middle aged 'I've tried everything' types, from the sound of it, and the Asian began the conversation talking about why some people will drink water in advance of meals to occupy volume in the stomach. As I was sitting in the corner with my eyes closed I was actually pleased to hear this small scrap of sound advice - when I was cutting I used to manage hunger sensations exactly that way. Then Asian went on to talk about drinking tea and hot water in the morning to 'flush out toxins' and the klaxon began to wail in my head. Suddenly the conversation was all about toxins, chemicals, holding on to weight, etc... ugh. Then fat dude started asking if sauna visits were an effective means of weight loss, which his companion affirmed they were. I didn't physically shift my face into my hands, but I might have done if I were behind them. Truthfully I was kind of hoping tubbs would start asking me what my secret is. I would have been frank, and said 'I cycled 20 kilometers and ran 5 before dawn, came back for a different class tonight, and manage my calories within a double-digit margin daily'. If I'd really wanted it to count I'd have emphasized that the frigging food matters more than anything else by far. Unfortunately for my Internet Tough Guy cred, I think I'm too thin to attract much interest from chunks - figure most of them picture their 'beach bod' endpoint as Chris Hemsworth rather than the 'Fight Club Brad Pitt stretched on Willy Wonka's taffy machine' I aspire to. Still, it would have been fun. My point is, within the span of about a week I heard three separate and completely wrong instances of fatlogic, from three people in entirely different walks of life. I feel like I need to get rich and set up an endowment for the sports medicine / nutritional faculty at the local university, because things are going off the rails and it boggles my mind.