Body Mass Index and rubbish weight loss programmes
As I write this column, I am wrestling with a bout of flu or COVID-19. One health expert has told me that COVID-19 is not completely gone and it rolls in on the wheels of flu. So, sometimes when you think it is flu, it could well be COVID-19. So, if I stop mid-column, just know that COVID-19 has got me or I have got COVID-19. I am currently dealing with issues more serious than distinguishing between flu and COVID-19.
The most significant thing that happened to me was to attend a wellness event last Saturday. Usually men, including yours truly, avoid such events because at these events, they will tell you things like:
You are dangerously close to being diabetic If you don’t quit smoking very soon, you will start coughing large amounts of trachea.
You must quit taking alcohol
Many men don’t want to hear this, so many avoid such events and later on become diabetic, cough out large amounts of trachea and die for a long time. Weaker sex? No, I don’t want to say that, but you get the point right?
At this event there was a stall where they measured your weight and height and calculated what is called the Body Mass Index (BMI). BMI was solely created by the health movement to get a chance to tell people they were fat, overweight, obese or morbidly obese.
BMI is the only metric where one is allowed to tell a lady they are overweight – which is a cardinal sin in most instances - without coming to too much harm. On the BMI scale they were using, there were five categories – underweight, normal, overweight, obese and morbidly obese. My prognosis didn’t come out very good. I was either too short for my weight or too heavy for my height. In short, in layman parlance, I was obese. Read that again. Obese! How can I be obese? Obesity is an American problem where fast food is a staple diet and I am not even American. I wasn’t even overweight. I was past that. The trauma of all that was too much to stomach.
I have been trying to lose weight for quite a while now. For most people, losing weight is a long and arduous journey that seemingly has no destination. The clever goons on the internet are always coming up with weight loss programmes. I bought one a few years ago. By then my weight was hovering around the 100kg range and this weight loss programme was guaranteeing losing 3kg every month. So counting chickens in 20 months my weight would be at 40kg. I went in with the vigour of an attack dog being led out of an SUV. This was an exciting part of my life. This was going to be a very interesting programme. This was rubbish. After about three months, the only significant thing I had lost was the P800 to buy the programme and a measly 0.4kg. But I had hope. I kept telling those who cared to listen that I felt lighter. It’s mighty difficult to admit you have been conned even when the evidence is staring you in the face. So I trudged along riding on hope that was on steroids. The penny dropped with a thud after five months. I was not losing weight; I was not going to lose weight. But I was losing friends who questioned me about the efficacy of my weight loss programme and got a nasty pushback. I tried to google the site again to throw some nasty stuff their way and they were nowhere to be found. The page had miraculously disappeared from the internet. Poof! just like a pay cheque in tax season.
One day a friend came to my house and showed me a diet plan with a few weight loss guarantees. I took out my Taser and cleaned it slowly and methodically. He got the message. He left. He never came back. Since I have failed on the weight loss side, I am trawling the internet to see how one can increase their height to push back that obese tag to normal. I am not too hopeful but there’s no harm in trying.
(For comments, feedback and insults email inkspills1969@ gmail.com)
Thulaganyo Jankey is a training consultant who runs his own training consultancy that provides training in BQAaccredited courses. His other services include registering consultancies with BQA and developing training courses. Contact him on 74447920 or email ultimaxtraining@ gmail.com.
Obesity is an American problem where fast food is a staple diet and I am not even American