Fat Like Me

During their three-day, $50,000 diagnostic frenzy, nobody checked my weight.

by Bruce Schimmel

My friend reached into his knapsack and pulled out an apple, a peach and a banana.

Longtime friends are wonderful. They say so much without uttering a word.

When I got home from the hospital after my mini-stroke last June, my good friend Paul — wise man that he is — came bearing gifts more valuable than gold, frankincense and myrrh.

Paul silently placed the fruit on my dining table, and I knew just what he meant: Start eating right. Now.

This is no mean feat in this culture. So, let me pay forward Paul's advice. Because it's working for me, and it could help you.

In some ways, my friend's silent offerings produced better results than three days at Jefferson. And cost less, too.

After $50,000 for hospitalization and a battery of tests, the doctors couldn't say why the main artery in my left eye got blocked. Only that my left retina had been starved of blood; and lacking oxygen, part of my eye died, leaving me with limited vision.

They searched with ultrasound and magnetic imaging, with blood tests for diabetes, cholesterol and even for arcane genetic irregularities. No clear culprit.

The docs used everything, except for the most basic of tools: a scale. Really. During their three-day diagnostic frenzy, nobody checked my weight.

Which is nuts. Because being fat is the mother of so many ills, including stroke. But American medicine is practiced defensively and expensively — offering fancy cures instead of dealing with obvious causes.

And it was obvious, because I was more than just fat. Tipping the scales at 190 pounds, at 5 feet, 7 inches, I was almost 20 percent over a healthy weight. I had one chubby foot firmly planted in the camp of the obese, where a lot of Americans live and die.

Obesity is epidemic. Some two-thirds of American adults are either fat or obese. More than 20 percent of Pennsylvanians are obese. Obesity accounts for some $100 billion of the cost of health care. And those are just the direct costs of obesity, which also aggravates diabetes, heart disease, joint disease and, of course, stroke.

It doesn't have to be that way. Now, some 15 weeks later, I'm 15 pounds lighter. At 175, I'm still dropping pounds. My blood pressure has also declined, from 133/75 to 121/67.

My friend's simple advice will work for you, too. Think apples, peaches and bananas. These and other whole foods have eliminated my nightly midnight cravings.

Whole foods are foods that are raw or cooked lightly. Salads, dressed with vinegar, substituting white miso for part of the oil. Fresh vegetables, steamed or lightly sautéed in garlic. I eat my fill of these.

As for meat, poultry and fish, I do eat less than before: a smaller, European-size portion.

Sounds good so far? Now, here's the tough part: the stay-away-froms.

Bread. Cake. Cookies. Candy, including Snickers of blessed memory. Breaded, fried foods, including the holy of holies, Church's Fried Chicken. Most things that come in boxes, and a lot of fine fare in fancy restaurants.

To me, these processed foods are like crack, and will land me in front of an open fridge, jonesing for a grilled cheese.

Being fat is, of course, influenced by biology. That said, food addiction is real. Its dealers are corporations that push fat- and corn syrup-laden food, part of a strategy that leaves you wanting more.

As Marion Nestle documents in her 2003 James Beard Foundation award-winning book,Food Politics, the food industry lobbied FDA standards into its current mockery.

We all know that ketchup is not a vegetable. It is processed tomatoes that are weaponized with starch and corn syrup, and which will leave you hungrier than ever.

Despite Congress' attempts to shield food producers and fast-food restaurants from litigation, let's hope that this industry will be reined in like the tobacco industry. No industry should be allowed to benefit from knowingly making people sick.

But until the American food industry evolves and our health care gets healthier, please consider my friend's simple advice. An apple, a peach and a banana. Eat whole foods. And you, too, can beat the heavy scourge that's burying us.

(bruce@schimmel.com)