The No. 1 resolution people make? Lose weight. (This is America, after all, where 69% of us are overweight and 35% are clinically obese, making us the second-fattest country in the world after our next door neighbor, Mexico.) And while most people know that the best way to lose weight is to eat less and exercise more, most people are also lazy as hell, which is why some of us are fat to begin with. That’s why sales of diet books soar in January, and why Weight Watchers has its biggest sales in Q1 of each year: We want an easy way to reach goals that we don’t have the willpower to attain on our own.
Case in point? Me. When I entered college, I was 120 pounds soaking wet. By the time I graduated, I’d added another 25 pounds, mostly muscle. But in the years since then, I’ve added another 25 — mostly fat. And no fad diet or desultory attempts at exercise have helped me to cut that gut.
My problem hasn’t been overeating; it’s not the quantity so much as the quality of what I consume that’s the problem. A life full of weird hours and frequent travel, with skipped meals replaced by fast snacks, is a recipe for lateral expansion, whether or not you’re all about that bass.
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