Super Sizing

Hey guys,

Thanks for blogging so consistently. It's great to come over here and see how you all are doing, even when I'm not entirely plugged in right now. It's been a crazy couple of weeks and things in Tristiland haven't exactly been shrinking.

What I'd like to blog about tonight is a documentary I watched last week. I'm sure many of you have seen it too - it's called "Super Size Me." If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend watching it (it's on Netflix on demand right now, if you happen to have Netflix). It was a completely eye-opening experience for me.

The film was made right after that lawsuit against McDonald's where the claimants stated that McDonald's made them fat. Of course, the case was dismissed because no one made them eat at McDonald's, but the filmmaker, a man named Morgan Spurlock, became curious. What if he ate nothing but McDonald's food for a month? How would that change the condition of his body?

The documentary takes you through each step of his journey, and I won't get that detailed, but I'll give you the highlights - he started out perfectly healthy and at a good weight. He had a team of doctors monitoring him and they said he was in really good condition. After one solid month of eating nothing but McDonald's food, his liver had turned to fat and was starting to shut down, he had gained 25 pounds, and his doctors were begging him to give up the diet. In fact, they were begging him around the twenty-day mark.

Morgan says he knows his experiment was drastic. People don't, as a general rule, eat nothing but McDonald's. But he did talk to several people who were eating fast food six times a week, and to one man who ate 3 Big Macs every single day.

As I sat here watching that documentary, I must say, some wheels in my head started to turn. I really enjoy fast food. Not so much McDonald's, but I like Wendy's and Arby's quite a bit. If I gave in to my compulsions and ate out as much as I wanted, what condition would my liver be in? How much more would I weigh?

Morgan ended his McDonald's binge after a month and went back to healthy eating. His liver did heal and returned to normal function. But the 25 pounds he gained in only one month? It took him nine months to lose that weight. One month to gain it, and nine months to lose it. Wow.

So much of what we eat is done on a subconscious level. We're out running errands, we get hungry, we pull through a drive-through. But every little bit adds up.

I would like to say that I've sworn off fast food after watching that film. My life this week has been crazy enough that I've actually eaten out a few times, not just once. But I am going to be more mindful. I happen to need my liver ...