Tight Jeans and Tipping Points

Roz Savage — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 20:01:00 +0000

Yesterday I hit a personal “tipping point” that may sounds trivial in the overall scheme of things, but it gave me some useful insights into human psychology. Ever since I arrived in Hawaii on Sept 1, my weight has been creeping up, little by little, pound by pound. Jeans got a bit tighter, my face got a bit rounder – but the change was never dramatic enough from one weigh-in to the next to give me cause for alarm.

Until yesterday.

I stood on the scales in the morning to find that my weight had leaped 4 pounds in 2 days, taking me over 130lb (plenty enough for a narrow-framed 5ft 3in) and bringing my total gain to 23lb in 4 months.

I had hit my tipping point. It was time to get this back under control.

This is not a plea for flattering reassurances that I look fine anyway, or suggestions that I am trying to force my body to be lighter than it wants to be, or recommendations that I stop worrying about such trivial matters and concern myself with the state of the planet instead.

No – this is my own little personal parable, about the part of human psychology that allows us to turn a blind eye to gradual changes – especially if they are unwelcome changes. We don’t see what is happening because we don’t want to see it. We tend to ignore the problem until it has grown into a crisis.

“A stitch in time saves nine”, as my mother used to say. In my trivial example, I now have undeniable evidence of my weight gain, and it will be some time before my jeans and I are seen together in public again. And of course I am wishing I had taken action when I had a 5lb weight issue rather than a 15lb weight issue.

In planetary terms, what has to happen before we take decisive action to reduce our environmental impact? How much evidence is “enough” evidence for us to reach our collective tipping point?

I am optimistic. My perception is that the scales are tipping (forget the bathroom scales now – picture Libra-type scales). The will for change is growing, and the defence of the old status quo is eroding. The question is becoming not so much “if and when”, but “how much and how soon”. And I believe that we, as a species, do have the ability to rise to this challenge, if we can only put aside our illusions of separateness and tackle this global problem together.

Back in the The Big Apple

Roz Savage — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 11:52:56 +0000

New York, New York

Yesterday I flew from London to New York. Does the Big Apple count as one of my daily 5 portions of fruit and veg?

As I was driving my rental car back to the airport, I heard a radio item about a study that suggests that individuals are not to blame for their obesity (estimated to afflict 50% of the UK population by 2050). Instead, the scientists concluded we have an ‘obesogenic’ society, where high-calorie food is cheap and readily available, and labour-saving devices, motorized transport and sedentary jobs reduce our ability to burn off those excess calories.

I was staggered. I imagined countless fatties breathing a sigh of relief and thinking to themselves, “Thank heavens, it’s not my fault. Society is to blame, so I can stop feeling guilty about it and give up trying to lose weight.”

We seem to increasingly live in a world that allows the individual to abdicate responsibility for their lives. If a person spills hot coffee in their lap, it is not because they were clumsy – it is the fault of the company that supplied the coffee. Smokers sue the tobacco companies. Children sue their parents.

While accountability to the public can be a good thing, there is a point beyond which the individual has to accept responsibility for their own choices. This may (gasp) involve some willpower or self-discipline. There is nobody forcing that cream cake or pint of beer or burger down our throats. Yes, they may be available, cheap, enjoyable and even addictive, but we still have FREE CHOICE.

It is easy to externalize blame for our failings – I should know, I’ve blamed my weight gain on everything from sugar addiction to ‘special circumstances’ – but ultimately I had to realize that the only person I was harming, and the only person who could make the change, was myself.

Training update: This morning I was out running around the reservoir in Central Park. My schedule dictated 20 minutes hard run, which with warmup, stretch and cooldown made for a workout of over an hour.

10 minutes into the 20, I was wondering how on earth I would get to the end. I was knackered.

But it helps that Jason asks me to rate my ‘Level of Perceived Exertion’ as a mark out of 10. Although I thought I was struggling, when I assessed my actual LPE it was still only 9. Not even a 9+. I clearly wasn’t going to die in the attempt, and no other excuse would be acceptable… so I made it to the end, beetroot-faced and sweating, but proud of myself.

Roz Savage, Ocean Rower » Weight loss

Tight Jeans and Tipping Points

Back in the The Big Apple