‘Pill beats middle-aged spread’ is a story in the headlines today. I just took mine out for a five-mile run instead.
A man from the National Obesity Forum tells the Times that a drug that will safely suppress appetite will be “the holy grail in obesity medication”.
According to the Telegraph, four out of ten of those who take lorcaserin “lost a significant amount of weight over the course of a year”. Now I’m no mathematician, but that implies that the other six didn’t lose a significant amount of weight.
I don’t like taking pills but might stretch a point for one that would reduce the stomach. My middle-aged spread hasn’t spread as far as some but it’s there for sure.
At a family party a few months back, my wife told me that I was now as fat as my brothers. To be fair, that’s a mischievous mishearing. What she said was that I could no longer claim to be the slimmest brother, or something.
Meeting brothers as you age is like looking into a real-life mirror. Their changing shape, their lines, their receding hairlines – they’re all yours, too. It’s a comfort in a sense, and yes, I am leading the way for disappearing hair.
At that party I overheard one brother say to the other: “Oh, I’m alright but could do with losing a stone.”
Ah, yes, brother where art thou on the scales? About the same as me and him.
Last week I weighed myself and got a shock. I won’t be doing that again in a hurry, as shocks at this age aren’t said to be good for you.
“Slim arms, slim legs and something going awry in the middle” sums up the problem. Perhaps there is a pill that stops you spreading butter on that left-over slice of bread. Or pinching muesli from the big glass jar. Or liking to drink beer. Or having a fancy for cheese on toast. Or a pill to make wine taste awful. Or a pill that stops apple crumble being the food of the gods. And so on.
I am a little dismayed by my stomach, even if it isn’t as large as some. Two games of squash, a game of badminton, a bit of cycling and a run every week used to suppress that stomach. But not so much now.
The runs aren’t as swift as they used to be, and anyway they were never that swift. If I keep this up, the incremental decline will see me going out for a shuffle in a few years.
But back to that pill. According to the Guardian, a US study saw 12,000 people who were either obese or overweight shedding an average of 9lbs in 40 months.
Next to that story is a link to another. This has the headline: “Poor sleep makes people pile on the pounds, study finds.”
Oh, great. Dare I click on that or not?
Yawns instead…