Fat

Happy Labor Day!
Seeing as I have the day off, I've been wasting my time sitting on my bum reading dumb articles on MSN. Here's what I've discovered: Brad and Angelina want to adopt another child; Puff Daddy is known as Diddy these days and held some sort of enormous party where the guests had to wear white or they weren't allowed in; the high today is 97 with a chance of thunderstorms; hurricane Felix is getting stronger; Obesity is rising in America.
Americans are fat. It's really gross. People whine about being fat but they don't do anything about it. I believe a lot of this has to do with how society is run here in the good ol' US of A.
Americans are stressed. This leads to weight gain. I feel a lot of this stress has to do with technology. Anybody can get a hold of anyone anywhere at anytime. For example, my home teacher sent me a text at 8:30 this morning. I'm sure he meant well, but I wasn't especially pleased about that. It's a holiday. I wanted to sleep in til 9 or 9:30! It seems like because you can get a hold of anyone at anytime people feel obligated that they should. You can watch tv on your cell phone, on your computer, on your ipod, and even on your television. You can record shows to your television while you're at work giving people several more shows to watch than they normally would. There are so many different kinds of video game systems, I can't even keep track of them anymore! When people finally do make it home at the end of the day after being bombarded with cell phone calls and emails all day, it is so easy to sit down in front of the television and not move until it's time to go to bed.
Gross processed foods full of saturated fat, partially hydrogenated oils, high fructose corn syrup, and MSG are cheaper and more accessible than whole, natural foods. It's so much easier to dump a packet of chicken flavored noodles into a pan with some water, than actually cook a meal.
It wouldn't be america unless we weren't exploiting this serious problem. Magical weight loss pills. a hundred new fail-proof diets a week, the ultimate exercise machine that will make you lose weight guaranteed. I think people feel overwhelmed and then discouraged when they realize it's not that simple. Most of the solutions people seek are not healthy or permanent.
I'm not claiming to be an expert on obesity or health and nutrition or weight loss, but most of the solutions are pretty obvious.
Take time to make healthy meals. It might take up an extra hour of your day, but that's probably the hour you were going to use to watch tv anyway. Healthy doesn't have to taste bad. People think healthy means gross low fat, low carb food. Fat, carbs, and protein are all good for you. It's eating those foods in processed for that's so bad.
Exercise! Half an hour a day. Even if you have to get up half an hour earlier. You'll sleep better by exercising so chances are you won't really be needing that extra half hour anyway.
It's ok to indulge in sweet treats every now and then, just don't make it part of your diet.
I'm not saying I'm perfect at this, and honestly, in the past 8 months, I've been pretty bad. The result is that I've gained weight. I'm not fat, but if I continue in this trend I will be. Once you're out of the habit of doing these things it is sooo hard to get back. I'm struggling myself. But anything you do to make a difference is an improvement. And the more you do it, the more you'll want to do it, and the more you'll want to be healthy.
So let's prove those scientists wrong and not be fat!