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What Can MSG Do for You?

 This was a response to the Food Judgment post at the Fat Heffalump site.

The one bone I have to pick (oops!) is with foods from places such as KFC and McDonald's and also with snack foods such as Doritos. It isn't because anyone's bad for eating it, but because it contains a substance that is extremely unhealthy for everybody and downright dangerous for some: Monosodium Glutamate or MSG. This is literally a neurotoxin. It has no flavor of its own. It affects the neurotransmitters in the brain so that the flavors of other foods are enhanced. In many people it causes gastric distress and in some it causes respiratory distress, including in the worst cases, anaphylaxis.
I was able to stop taking all asthma medications when I started looking for MSG in foods.
I don't mention this as an "ew, this makes people fat" remark (I'm fat myself) but rather as something that might help someone (like me) who has been struggling with gastric and respiratory problems and being put on one medication after another to no avail.

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http://ping.fm/qqIHn Concerned about my weight? This is for you!

Concerned About My Weight? Have A Big Fat Helping of STFU!

Here's the thing about pointing out to a fat person that they're fat. We fat people are fat, not stupid. We know we're fat. Now, how about treating us with common decency instead of trying to save us from ourselves, which will only make us want to sit on you and break all your bones?

The Fat Heffalump wrote all about it in this fine post.

Here is my response.

I work with the elderly. Diseases like hypertension, type II diabetes, and heart disease affect people of all sizes equally. I have seen something of a pattern with heavier people having more incidence of arthritis in the lower extremities while the more slender have higher incidence of osteoporosis. As far as I go, I'm 45 years old and currently weigh 275 pounds. I do not have any of the so-called "fat people" diseases. While carrying around extra weight may have contributed to my knees being shot, I attribute it more to having jobs where I worked on my feet for 8 plus hours a day for most of my working life. Interestingly, when I was working in a restaurant, I weighed 180 pounds. When I went back into health care working nights, my weight climbed.
My sciatica is not due to being fat--it is from carrying trays when I was a waitress. A full tray can weigh around 50 pounds.
The fact that I huff and puff when climbing stairs? That isn't from being fat either. I huffed and puffed when climbing stairs when I was a slim (although I thought I was fat) teenager who weighed 125 pounds. I have had mild asthma all my life.
Interestingly, I can easily accept other people of all sizes but have never been able to accept myself at any size.

You're Just Choosing To be Fat

Ah, that tired old song. Joannadeadwinter covered the topic very well in her post at the fabulous Fierce, Freethinking Fatties blog. She inspired the rant which follows below:

It's the same thing as those jerks who go on about how gays "choose to be gay" and they could just as well "choose to be heterosexual." Um...no. We are born with our sexual orientation hard-wired, and we are also born with certain metabolic tendencies programmed into our DNA. Some people are predispositioned to gain weight, while some could eat an entire cow slathered in cheese sauce and topped with bacon and won't gain an ounce. There isn't a right or wrong. It just is what is.
Now, people can make choices to eat healthy foods as opposed to dining at McDonald's for three meals a day, and many fat people DO make the choice to eat healthy foods. Fat people also (are you ready for it?) oftentimes exercise. There are unhealthy fat people who sit on the couch all day watching television, chowing down on a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken, and chasing it with a liter of Mountain Dew. News flash--they are probably depressed as hell. And it doesn't help to have a-holes saying vicious things to them. Hate never helped anyone get better.
There are also healthy hefty folk who are happy, eat a balanced diet, and work out.
I try to fall into the second category.
I was not heavy as a teenager, but I've always been big-boned. I literally cried when I could no longer fit into a size 9 boy's jeans. I thought of myself as "fat" at a size 6. I was actually glad when I had oral surgery and could only eat pureed food because I shrunk down to 108 pounds. I also felt like ten tons of crap in a five pound sack. And--get this--I was aiming to get down to 100 pounds.
These days I weigh 275 pounds. Would I like to lose weight? Yes. But why shouldn't I be able to accept myself as I am in the meantime? How dare anyone say hateful things about me for my size? These jerks don't even know me!
By the way, I'm pretty sure none of these heavy haters look like Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie their own damn selves.