Thought for today:
"There is an old saying that goes: 'Eat like a pig if you want to feel and look like a pig.' There is also a saying that espouses the belief that careful calorie intake count and good wholesome food plus ample exercise will ensure slimness of body.
While there may be some truth in both these sayings for the majority of people, unfortunately, it doesn't apply to every overweight person.
While I believe that there are so many people who overindulge in their calorie intake daily and find it virtually impossible not to eat that second pork pie or finish off that opened box of chocolates, my heart goes out to those unfortunates whom despite eating well and not overindulging, continually find themselves on the wrong side of the scales.
I have never been able to fathom out this Body Mass Index scoring chart which according to my weight I should be seven foot six inches tall! I know so many athletes and rugby players who would fail the BMI test. Whenever it is used on me I smile wryly.
When I was 11 years old, my height was 5 feet and five inches and like my brother Peter, I was on target for becoming a six-footer in adult life. Indeed, the part of my body above my waist line did, but unfortunately, the legs beneath the waist didn't!
I incurred a traffic accident which stopped me walking for three years, during which I had over fifty leg operations which stunted my growth below my waist. By the age of 14 years, I stood on my left leg 5 feet and 5 inches in height; the same as I had at the age of 11 years. My left leg had stopped growing from my waist downwards whereas my right leg had been temporarily stunted and grew three inches more. This left me with the stalled upper body half of a six-footer and the lower bottom half of a small man who had once stood tall. Put another way, had I done a 'Douglas Bader' and finished up with both my legs amputated, my natural height would then be over six feet tall once I'd been fitted with new legs to my choosing that matched my body proportions.
I am also aware of the various differences in hormones and fat cells between one person and another along with the different chemical imbalances that may exist. I know only too well how some folk can eat like a pig while continuing to look like a lettuce leaf, while others, however modestly they eat, they will always look overweight.
I am the eldest of seven children and all four brothers are following the precise body shape and weight path that my father took throughout his life while each of us has eaten and exercised markedly differently over the years. Whereas one brother became a sports teacher and used to race his teenage nephews around the track and beat them in their teens when he was in his fifties, another became an armchair potato couch energiser whose daily lifts involved getting a can of beer out of the fridge to drink while watching television. And yet by the stage that both of these brothers had reached sixty, there was little difference to speak of in body mass and middle age spread between them. By sixty, the sports teacher brother had become an educational psychologist who'd had one hip operation, was awaiting another if it arrived before a heart attack, and who looked like a sack of spuds ready to collapse at the first poke of his stomach, while the couch-potato brother still looked very much the can-carrying couch-potato.
I also know that most dieters who lose large amounts of weight invariably finish up putting it all back on, plus a few extra pounds as a 'weight watcher's punishment.' So the next time you are sunbathing and happen to find yourself in a position of favourable comparison with those sunbathers alongside you, it might be kinder to hold back that crude comment or scathing glance before throwing the first stone and thank God that genetics and not sheer willpower was the ultimate arbiter of your size. "William Forde: May 7th, 2017
"There is an old saying that goes: 'Eat like a pig if you want to feel and look like a pig.' There is also a saying that espouses the belief that careful calorie intake count and good wholesome food plus ample exercise will ensure slimness of body.
While there may be some truth in both these sayings for the majority of people, unfortunately, it doesn't apply to every overweight person.
While I believe that there are so many people who overindulge in their calorie intake daily and find it virtually impossible not to eat that second pork pie or finish off that opened box of chocolates, my heart goes out to those unfortunates whom despite eating well and not overindulging, continually find themselves on the wrong side of the scales.
I have never been able to fathom out this Body Mass Index scoring chart which according to my weight I should be seven foot six inches tall! I know so many athletes and rugby players who would fail the BMI test. Whenever it is used on me I smile wryly.
When I was 11 years old, my height was 5 feet and five inches and like my brother Peter, I was on target for becoming a six-footer in adult life. Indeed, the part of my body above my waist line did, but unfortunately, the legs beneath the waist didn't!
I incurred a traffic accident which stopped me walking for three years, during which I had over fifty leg operations which stunted my growth below my waist. By the age of 14 years, I stood on my left leg 5 feet and 5 inches in height; the same as I had at the age of 11 years. My left leg had stopped growing from my waist downwards whereas my right leg had been temporarily stunted and grew three inches more. This left me with the stalled upper body half of a six-footer and the lower bottom half of a small man who had once stood tall. Put another way, had I done a 'Douglas Bader' and finished up with both my legs amputated, my natural height would then be over six feet tall once I'd been fitted with new legs to my choosing that matched my body proportions.
I am also aware of the various differences in hormones and fat cells between one person and another along with the different chemical imbalances that may exist. I know only too well how some folk can eat like a pig while continuing to look like a lettuce leaf, while others, however modestly they eat, they will always look overweight.
I am the eldest of seven children and all four brothers are following the precise body shape and weight path that my father took throughout his life while each of us has eaten and exercised markedly differently over the years. Whereas one brother became a sports teacher and used to race his teenage nephews around the track and beat them in their teens when he was in his fifties, another became an armchair potato couch energiser whose daily lifts involved getting a can of beer out of the fridge to drink while watching television. And yet by the stage that both of these brothers had reached sixty, there was little difference to speak of in body mass and middle age spread between them. By sixty, the sports teacher brother had become an educational psychologist who'd had one hip operation, was awaiting another if it arrived before a heart attack, and who looked like a sack of spuds ready to collapse at the first poke of his stomach, while the couch-potato brother still looked very much the can-carrying couch-potato.
I also know that most dieters who lose large amounts of weight invariably finish up putting it all back on, plus a few extra pounds as a 'weight watcher's punishment.' So the next time you are sunbathing and happen to find yourself in a position of favourable comparison with those sunbathers alongside you, it might be kinder to hold back that crude comment or scathing glance before throwing the first stone and thank God that genetics and not sheer willpower was the ultimate arbiter of your size. "William Forde: May 7th, 2017
