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Where’s the logic gone?

Mar 20, 2017

I never cease to be amazed at the way so many people are prepared to follow all the silly fads that are thrust at us every day, by the television, the internet and the press. We all seem to be much too eager to believe whatever the so-called experts tell us, about eating this, drinking that or using the latest new-fangled piece of equipment. Unfortunately, logical thinking gets lost, somewhere along the way!

Just think for a moment about all the new ‘slimming’ machines we see on television, a new one practically every week. Before you get carried away and rush off to the telephone to order one, just take a careful look at what all those people with fixed smiles on their faces, are doing. They are, without fail using pieces of equipment that are supposedly guaranteed to help you lose weight, while at the same time reducing the amount of effort involved in trying to do so. As far as I’m concerned there are only two ways you can lose weight, one is to increase, not reduce, the amount of work you ask your body to do, and the other is to eat less food of the fattening variety, such as bread, potato and rice. Yet, as I have already said, without fail these ‘wonder machines’ take part of the labour away from you, making the work easier – the very opposite of what is required! There’s even one you stand on, which vibrates at high speed, supposedly working all those muscles and extracting weight from you; but for this, to work, YOU have to vibrate your muscles, not some external source. And all these machines, in one way or another do exactly the same thing – do the work you are supposed to be doing yourself – seems illogical to me, letting a machine do virtually all the work and expect it to slim you down.

Then we have the so-called ‘gurus’, who discover new wonder diets, which either make you lose weight or cure pretty well any disease. The most extreme examples I can think of are the ‘Paleo’ diet, supposedly based on what the cavemen of prehistory ate, though how anyone could have a clear and accurate idea of what primitive man lived on, I have no idea. The other extreme diet is the famous one produced by Belle Gibson, who even went so far as to claim a cure for cancer by eating what she proposed. Both of these diets has been judged, by people a lot more clever than me, to be lacking in some of the basic necessities for the successful operation of your body!

One of the greatest proofs that these dietary and exercise fads are useless is the fact that they change so quickly from one method to another. If any one of them actually worked, I’m sure everyone would stick to it and live successful lives. And that, without exotic diets and machines, is exactly what most of us do; we eat almost anything, as our bodies are designed to do, due to the requirements of early history, when we had to eat whatever we could get hold of in order to survive. But importantly, we eat it all in moderation! Eat two eggs for breakfast- a good start to your day, eat six eggs for breakfast, and your cholesterol and body fats will skyrocket. Drink a glass of Coke about once a week – no harm done, drink a bottle a day, and you could end up diabetic! The same with most fast foods, like McDonald’s, KFC, etc. Fancy one, a couple of times a year, makes a pleasant addition to your diet, eat the stuff at least once a day, as some do and you’re in real trouble!

I could go on like this for another hour or so, but publishing restraints force me to stop here. To summarize though, I firmly believe the old adage, ‘moderation in all things’ works well; and don’t forget, our ancestors didn’t produce us by avoiding certain foods or using daft exercise machines, they did it by eating what was available, which wasn’t much and by working hard – it really is the only way!