A Matter of Perspective

“Lose 30 pounds overnight!”

The advertisement looked too good to be true. Still, a small part of my brain—the part that believes in miraculous things happening—wondered if it was possible.

Losing 30 pounds overnight would be like a dream come true. Or so it would seem at first glance.

However, losing 30 pounds overnight would do more harm than good in many scenarios.

For example, let’s say they had to amputate your limbs. You would lose weight, but certainly not in the way you want to!

If for some reason, there was this incredible diet pill you could take that would magically remove 30 pounds overnight, two things would probably happen:

1. You would in all likelihood die. Most of that 30 pounds would likely be fluids and without your fluids, you die. I did a little calculating and for a person my size, age and sex I likely have around 99 pounds of fluids. This includes blood and other vital fluids necessary for surviving.

2. If you somehow managed to survive the loss of 30 pounds, you would have a lot (or a lot more) of loose skin. Not that loose skin is a life-threatening condition, it certainly is not a comfortable or overly healthy condition.

These are just two things that came to my mind immediately. I am sure many more serious conditions would occur due to the drastic change in body weight. But my first thought, that of dying, that is a fairly compelling reason not to lose that much weight overnight!

Still, I wouldn’t mind losing 30 pounds over a month. I don’t know how healthy that would be, but I am certain it would be more healthy than losing it overnight.

This Monday, I am joining a diabetes group over Zoom. The group runs for a couple of months and I am kind of excited about it. I am still struggling with diabetes numbers that are out of control, although they have been better when I eat properly.

Speaking of eating properly, it is really hard to do when there are so many temptations around. Everywhere you look there are temptations. But I guess we just need to try to avoid them.

As Oscar Wilde once put it, “I can resist everything except temptation.”

That statement is true with me and probably a lot of us since the quote is still stated to this day. It was first quoted in the book by Wilde Lady Windermere’s Fan published in 1892.

Losing weight for many of us is a good thing to do. It is all in how we do it that can determine if we will have long-term success while maintaining our health.