Back to regular posting!

First, sorry to not have posted in so long. I've been on travel. I had my laptop with me, but ended up getting a virus - the XP Repair Virus, don't ask me how - and so I haven't been able to do anything with it since.

Now I'm back home and on my desktop, and all will be well with the world as soon as I shell out $60 to get my poor laptop fixed. If anyone knows how to track down folks who make computer viruses, let me know because I'd love to stomp them into pulps.

Anyway, I've been watching a British TV series called Pie in the Sky, starring the ginormous Richard Griffiths. (American fans may know him best as Harry Potter's mean uncle in the Harry Potter films). Excellent actor, but the guy is not just overweight, he is ginormous, and yes, I admit I wonder why. Actors have it so much easier than "real" people - they've got the money to pay for personal chefs, they've got the time to go to places and work out, and you'd think they wouldn't be able to get starring roles if they were extremely overweight.

And in America that would be true. The only overweight stars on American tv are those in sit coms. In England, it doesn't matter what an actor looks like - facially or figurally (that's probably not a word, but I'm using it anyway.) Anyone who watches British TV know this - the British women very rarely wear makeup - or at least, not pancaked on - indeed Helen Mirren in the tv series Prime Suspect was praised for looking like a "real woman" as opposed to those women in American cop shows who wear the plunging necklines and tight skirts even when on duty, and of course the hair is never out of place, etc.

But, that's not the point of this post. It was while watching this show that I saw ads for other BBC shows, including one called Two Fat Ladies, which was filmed from 1994 to 1997. They made only 24 episodes. But I actually saw a few episodes of these a few months ago, perhaps it was a New Years Day marathon or something, and I must say I enjoyed it very much, for all that you could not have paid me to eat anything they cooked. I'm a meat and potatoes girl myself, and they were cooking fish, and various weird things, etc.

Now, they weren't ginormous, but they could each have stood to lose at least 60 pounds. And they had enjoyed every dish it took to put on all that weight.

Now, I'm not encouraging people to overeat and gain weight because it shows that you enjoy life. I'm just saying that people should have a right to enjoy life, and if for them it consists of eating so much that they have bellies, etc....they shouldn't be condemned for it. (On the other hand, seriously, seriously overeating - in which one becomes not overweight but ginormous, like more than 200 pounds overweight, that's got to be psychologically motivated and steps need to be taken to help that individual.)

In any event, if your goal is to maintain a healthy weight, and you've got weight to lose, this blog will help.

The advice? Lose weight gradually. Losing 2 pounds a week is actually pretty easy, if you approach it the right way. First, of course, you've got to realize that it will take at least 3 weeks and maybe even 4, before youre in a position to start losing those 2 pounds a week.

When you first set out to lose weight, you've got to realize that your body is at a "stasis" point. It likes what it weighs. So you start cutting the size of the portions you eat by a fifth, or a fourth (but not by half, that's too much and unnecessary) and start exercising, and it will take a couple of weeks before your body decides that it's time to start using up the stored fat. At first, since you're exercising as well, you might even gain a couple of pounds, because muscle weighs more than fat , and you will be exchanging fat for muscle. (That's "exchanging" - not "changing" - muscle and fat are two different things, fat doesn't turn into muscle)

And adding muscle is a good thing, because once you have muscle, muscles burn calories faster than fat does.