schweblog

After reading Kate’s post on getting fat, I remembered my deep passion for bread. Seriously–it is truly manna from heaven. I think I might be a disciple of Jesus reincarnated (if that’s possible) because I can eat bread all day without really complaining. I can imagine the bread that Jesus broke tasted really good. Did they have sourdough back then? I don’t know. Anyway…

I think my real love for bread stems from some strange psychological trigger that was set off by an event–or series of events–about nine years ago. I was called out of my 6th grade class early one cold, September day and met by my mother in the hall. She had news: my father had been in a farming accident and was airlifted to the hospital. A piece of machinery had severed his leg right below the knee from the back, effectively severing the muscle, bone, and nerve tissue. His leg was hanging on by the skin that comprises the shin. It was uncertain whether or not he’d live…it was pretty certain, however, that he would definitely lose his leg.

I stayed with my grandparents for several days and finally got to come home after visiting my dad for the first time. My dad’s close friend of several years brought my brother and I home and stayed with us. We needed a few things from the grocery store–namely, a loaf of bread. For the first time in almost a week, I slept in my bed. The next morning, I woke up and ate some toast. I could taste it. I realized then that I hadn’t been able to taste my food for the past few days, but I could taste this. And it was good. I had more toast that morning than I ever had before and have continued to eat more bread than anyone I know ever since then.

I’ve been enamored with bread of all types since that morning, but especially sourdough. It’s interesting how that single event seemingly defined my passion for the bread. My dad eventually had his leg reattached and can now walk, run, hike, backpack, and kick my ass at basketball. We’re all very fortunate.

In addition to my love of bread, I also find myself frequently consuming ice cream and a myriad of other carb-packed food. And yet I manage to maintain a relatively fit figure. I’m not the most built guy in the world and I have to work a little harder than the average Joe to build muscle mass, what with the vegetarianism and all. However, I really pack away the carbalicious food and still manage to have a build that the girlfriend and most other females find attractive.

Why the hell can’t some 50-odd percent of my fellow Americans manage to do the same thing? I’m certainly no exercise fiend–I spend maybe an hour exercising each week, on top of the short distances I walk in between classes. In the meantime, I’m sitting at a desk for 20 or so hours a week, 12 hours in class. I’m thoroughly convinced that my lack of obesity can be attributed to my (fairly modest) exercise regimen.

Now, I realize that a good percentage of people have a hard time keeping weight off and that as I get older, I’ll have a harder time staying slim. However, I’d venture a bet that if most Americans spent 2 hours a week (that’s 1/84 of a week) exercising, obesity would drop dramatically. Stress, blah blah, jobs, kids, etc. aren’t really an excuse–in spite of my taking 12 credit hours, working 20 hours a week, and maintaining a decent GPA and social life, I still manage to work out a fair amount.

We’re lazy. Americans are lazy. We want the world fed to us on a silver spoon and have no desire to take care of–much less improve–ourselves. We also have a myriad of fast food available to us that we simply can’t seem to control our addiction to. I’ve started counting the number of obese people I see in public. I’ll sit down in a cafe or the commons in the Student Union Building or anywhere else and just count the number of people that are probably overweight. Sure enough, the statistics seem to be pretty reflective of this region.

But back to the point of this rant–people can generally eat what they want, when they want, if they take a few hours each week to just exercise. Diets are vain attempts to find an easy solution without the sweat. Ditto with diet pills. Do you think you’re fat? Don’t like it? Go take a fucking walk and stop polishing Dr. Atkins’ financial knob.

And this isn’t intended as some attack on fat people. I feel the same way about most Americans with regard to their lack of political motivation (reflected by poor voting rates), the lack of anything resembling academic aptitude (reflected by the god-awful literacy rates), and the ridiculous amount of depression occurring in the richest nation in the world. Stop lamenting about your place in society, your physical state, your mental state, etc. and take the initiative to improve yourself. Stop expecting the government to do it for you.

And stop acting like you deserve it. You don’t deserve a fucking thing unless you work for it.