Hello friends of this blog on how I lost 100 pounds without gastric bypass or weight loss drugs. Each month in 2023, I've been issuing weight loss challenges and November is Thanksgiving Attitude of Gratitude Diet or how to lose weight with a "Fattitude" adjustment.
I think it's fair to say that at least in the US, many of us could use an attitude adjustment toward more positivity and less entitled negativity. The Covid 19 pandemic and the 2020 election were real eye-openers to our out of control entitlement, reactional and manufactured anger and hypocritical selfishness. Where those of us with differing ideologies got along fairly well before, now the masks are off, pun intended. The ridiculous (and illegal, I might add) "Let's Go Brandon" flags, anti-President Biden bumper stickers and T-shirts show the viral hate that's infected our nation.
A deadly virus, Covid 19, has been weaponized and polarized by the far right deniers. Instead of social distancing and mask-wearing to prevent people dying (my husband and I almost did, and still have long Covid symptoms), they twisted it into a debate over "constitutional rights." Which, you'll pardon the former Civics teacher lecture, include first and foremost, the right to LIFE.
So what does all this have to do with this blog? Everything. An attitude of negativity and ungratefulness leads to what I call an obesity mindset. An overweight, plus-sized narcissistic, gluttonous, "me first, last and always" self-absorption. And that, to the Culture of Death. In that obesity mindset, we will do anything to get what we want. We rewrite the narrative to tell ourselves we need and deserve it. It's our RIGHT to have it. And we stomp on anyone we deem to be in our way.
We see examples of this on the gastric bypass reality show "My 600-lb Life." People with crippling obesity getting more and more overweight and dragging caregivers and family down with them. The entire world revolves around the "My 600-lb Life" patient with everyone dancing attendance, serving, waiting on, humoring, cleaning up after and enabling.
So yes, "My 600-lb Life" is extreme. But that's just the point. It's the logical conclusion of selfishness and entitlement gone wild. This is not a hormone problem and a little overweight anymore. What may have started that way, has reached science fiction proportions. And why? Refusal to accept boundaries, self-discipline. A skewed sense of being above and beyond it all. If it feels good, do it. Which brings me full circle back to the Covid 19 pandemic. It stripped away illusion and revealed the level to which our self-centeredness has plunged us. We cared more about our RIGHT not to wear a mask than we did about protecting others.
My challenge this November is less about weight loss and more a return (or beginning) to humility. I challenge us all to work at an attitude of gratitude. To really celebrate Life and Thanksgiving and each other. Vocation comes from the Latin "voco", to call. And we are all called, as Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikh, Buddhist, pagan, by our deities or higher power, to love one another, as our higher power loves us.
I think this month's weight loss challenge will be the most challenging because it goes to the inner core of why our lives and health get so out of control. Stay tuned for more on how I lost 100 pounds with "fattitude adjustments" like this. Thanks for joining.
