On the Social Iconoclasm of Skinniness

Above is a chart of my daily weight measurements going back to late last year. As this chart shows, my normal weight (indicated by the white trend line) hovers around the upper 170s.

But notice the two dips in the chart — the first shortly before “Mar 12” and the second shortly before “Oct 12”.

These sharp dips, that drop my weight into the lower 170s, correspond to the detox programs I undergo every year in March and September.

These dips in weight also correspond to a drop in my waist circumference from 32 inches to 31.5 inches. Using the navy method of calculating body fat percentage, this half-inch drop corresponds to a 1.1% decline in body fat (from 13.3% to 12.2%).

What is the reason for this decline in body fat during the detoxes? Well, the detox programs require a strict diet devoid of wheat, sugar, and dairy, as well as eliminating a number of other foods that are potential allergens. In addition, the programs (particularly the liver detox) include taking one to three supplement-laden smoothies per day. These smoothies tend to decrease my appetite for other food.

If that’s why my body fat/weight drops during the detoxes, then why do those numbers climb back up afterward? Notice in the chart above the period from March to August of this year. You can see a quick climb of my weight back up to the upper 170s, with some peaks above 180.

The reason why I fatten up between the detoxes is that I cheat from time to time on avoiding wheat, sugar, and dairy. If you think about it, almost all human “comfort food” comprises one or more of those three ingredients.

This food isn’t just comforting for individuals, it serves as social glue. Offering and sharing this “poisonous” food is a core way of offering friendship and love in our culture.

So the act of declining this offer of poisonous food can be misconstrued as a rejection of friendship and love.

Since I know this, I explain this to people. This explanation certainly seems to ameliorate the sharpness of my rejection of this offered food and drink.

But over time, these continual rejections of mine mark me as a social outsider.

So there’s the choice: be a social outsider, or be skinny (and super-healthy).

Given I probably have a touch of autism, this choice is an easy one for me. Heck I sometimes wonder if my skinniness motivation goes beyond mere health and into a desire to set myself apart from the masses. I mean, I’m curious to see what my choices would be if I lived, not in our current culture of fat, sick people, but amongst skinny, healthy ones like me. Would I get fat?

This is a hypothetical question I don’t think I’ll ever have a chance to test in my lifetime. In other words, I hold out no hope for the fat, sick American people.

I was walking with a friend the other day who is about 20 pounds overweight, but who had recently dropped 10-15 pounds. He said he thought he didn’t want to lose any more weight else become “too skinny”.

I’m almost 50. In my earlier days I might have responded: “What?! You’re still a fat bastard. You got a long way to go, and, hate to tell you, but it gets harder from here.”

Decades of learning the hard way has taught me to swallow thoughts like that. In the silence of swallowing that reaction in that particular exchange, I realized that it’s hopeless for Americans. That is, this obesity epidemic that began in the early 1970s ain’t never ending.

Or at least never ending until some calamity reaches our shores, putting food stores in peril, and driving people back to war-time kitchen gardens for their sustenance.

Until then, fat people will think they’re skinny enough, and ain’t nobody but weirdos like me getting off the fat-inducing wheat, sugar and dairy.

Years ago when I started on this path of getting skinny and healthy, I always thought that my example would influence others to do the same.

Today, I’ve given up on that thought. Instead, the only people with whom I discuss my health practices are other skinny people (over 40). My thought is that if you are over 40 and live in America and are skinny (and are not a cancer patient), then you are doing something to be that way.

So I ask such people: “What are you doing to be skinny?” The answers are always interesting.

There’s not many of us skinny people over 40 left in America. We’re a shrinking minority. But damn, our stories are interesting.

Finally: why post this? Two things are going on my life on this topic of skinniness. First, I’ve decided “screw it, I’m just going to stay off wheat, sugar, and dairy, no matter the social cost.”

Second, as I’ve blogged about, I’m learning how to run without messing up my knees.

I mean think about it: Over the past 10 years, through dietary choices alone, with very mild levels of exercise, I dropped my body fat from above 18% to 12%. Now that I’m running again for the first time in over a decade, I expect that, with my diet, my body fat will dip below 10%, and my weight will go below 170.

Today I look skinnier than almost everybody else. A year from now, assuming my legs don’t give out, I’m probably going to look cadaverous to Fat America. My status as a social outcast will only increase.

It’s good to be clear on where I’m headed with my choices so as not to be surprised with the coming reactions. Ergo this blog post.