Day 3 – The Distorted Lens of Hollywood

“Dammi del cioccolato, se no non riesco a pensare.”

233.8 lbs

Yup, a bit of rebound. When one loses a lot of water weight in a short amount of time that’s bound to happen.

The other night I was watching The Biggest Loser, and some contestant was upset because she’d only lost 2 lbs in the past week. A few things about that bothered me . First, you can’t expect your body to slowly and steadily drop weight when your activities, moods, hormones, salt intake, etc. all play a role. Notice I said ‘drop weight’ not ‘burn fat’, which brings me to my second point: the people on that show aren’t just dieting, they’re working out. Working out builds muscle. Muscle has weight. The show acts like it’s your weight in pounds that determines your health, not composition. Some people (especially the males) may hit a point where they’re building muscle weight at near or the sane rate as they’re losing fat, resulting in a small ‘weight loss’. It’s when shows like TBL overlook something that basic that I want to yell at my TV. And shake my cane. And say things like “When I was your age…”

Christian Bale in The Machinist

So here I am in Day 3. Far from the blissful feeling Christian Bale lead me to believe I could expect as my body adapts to its starvation, I’m feeling antsy. Last night I had trouble getting to sleep, as I was laying there tempted to have a chunk of cheese or a bowl of yogurt. I lay there trying to pat myself on the back for not giving in to the cravings, but the cravings grabbed my wrist and forced me to arm wrestle them instead. I should have known; it’s hard enough to pat yourself on the back when lying down.

When Christian Bale lost his weight for The Machinist people reacted in horror. I mean, here’s a chap who just 6 months later was 200 lbs or so of muscle for Batman Begins. And yet when female starlets starve themselves down to count-the-segments-of-her-spine thin we usually act like that’s normal. Am I alone in thinking Renée Zellweger, rather than looking corpulent, filled out her bunny costume nicely in Bridget Jones’ Diary?

When a female actor packs on weight for a role it makes the news – or even leads to an oscar (I’m looking at you, Charlize Theron) but when a guy like Jared Leto packs on 87 lbs, going from pretty boy to pretty fat, it barely gets a mention. Did Matt Damon get a nomination after puffing up for The Informant? Or John Travolta for Pulp Fiction? Or Robert DeNiro in… well, what movie hasn’t he physically transformed himself for?

If female actors were judged the way their male counterparts were,  most of them would be under fire for being underfed. And if male actors were judged as their female counterparts were, William Shatner would have some kind of Lifetime Achievement Award for expanding and contracting more often than a sprinter’s lungs.

Essentially what Hollywood tells us is that men are to be muscular or chubby, and women are to be thin, and never the other way around. How many sitcoms star a fat oaf of a husband and a small, attractive wife? Gaah. I’m going to go yell at my TV some more.

Ugh. My cat just ate her food so fast she threw up. No, she’s not bulimic. She’s just an idiot.