The Odor of Mendacity

"Hide all ads from Noom." "Done." YES! What a relief! 

I am not against attempts to lose weight. I have spent a considerable portion of my life trying to lose weight. And yet (and therefore?), I have never seen an ad for a weight-loss program which I didn't find deeply annoying. 

I've also never seen an ad for a language-aquisition program (other than for the traditional kind: schools and universities) which I didn't find deeply annoying.

Perhaps for the same reason in each case: because I don't think there are any easy ways to lose weight or acquire new languages. Both require lots and lots of hard work and self-discipline for almost everyone.

In other words: I believe that those ads heralding great breakthroughs in weight loss and language acquisition (and there are many similar ads claiming easy breakthroughs in other areas of life. Wealth acquisition comes immediately to mind), breakthroughs which make it easy and fun, are LYING to you. 

And they're also lying to you if they've got you convinced that there's something seriously wrong with you if weight loss or language acquisition doesn't come easily to you, what with this miracle breakthrough at hand which is transforming our...

MENDACITY! THIEVES AND FRAUDS! Don't let them get you down or talk you into despising yourself. There are a few cases where someone has lost considerable weight or acquired fluency in a new language while full-grown. A very few cases. Mozarts of weight loss or language acquisition, or wealth acquisition, or musical virtuosity. For every single one of those geniuses, there are a great number of heartless grifters trying to convince you that you can do it easily, and that all that's been stopping you up until now is that you hadn't yet come across this miracle breakthrough program now advertised in this advertisement before your eyes, available now for three easy payments...

 It'd be nice to see some sort of miracle breakthrough in stopping these low-down heartless grifters. First things first: we've got to get that grifter out of the Oval Office.. 

Great Big Fat Guy, Day 846

Left home at 11:52:30 AM.

Walked directly 2.7 miles to a hospital scale, arrived at 12:43 (3.2 MPH).

Weight: 298.1 lbs. But wait! That was after I removed my glasses, wristwatch, wallet, coin purse, notebook, pen, smart phone, keys, shoes and T-shirt. Then I put all that stuff back on again, so that I was wearing everything I'd been wearing in the middle of an approximately 5-mile walk 5 days ago, when I weighed 300.5 pounds, and again 3 days ago, in the middle of a 5.4 mile walk, when I weighed 300.5 pounds again. Today, wearing all that stuff, I weighed 301.9 lbs in the middle of a 5.4 mile walk.

I've been taking a 5-mile walk every other day, and gaining weight.

Arrived home at 1:55, walking very slowly.

When I got home, I googled can an obese person lose weight by walking. The results were encouraging.

In the past 12 days, I've walked 1.6 miles 4 times, approximately 5 miles once and 5.4 miles twice. That all adds up to 22.2 miles, 4 miles short of 1 marathon.

Today is exactly 6 weeks after my operation, which means that I can (officially) lift more than 10 lbs, which means that I have no more honest excuse to make my brother come over to my house and do my laundry. I can also (officially) do all sorts of exercises now. (Unofficially, I didn't wait the entire 6 weeks. Don't tell anyone.)

I want to continue to increase the distance I walk. Over 30 miles a week would be good. At some point, I may add running to the walking. And I will be doing other exercises. Excuse me for just a moment.

I'm back. I just did my first 30 crunches in 6 weeks. As I expected, it felt like I hadn't done crunches in a while. But I didn't expect to be able to do 30.

And now I'm going to eat something. I know, I know, the reason I'm gaining weight is because I'm taking in more calories than I'm burning off. I know. I'll try to control myself.