A report about soaring protein prices in the United States made me think about weight loss, metabolism, and the strange ways we humans often work against our own intentions.
Protein supplements are reportedly becoming much more expensive in the United States.
One reason, apparently, is that more people are taking protein to compensate for the loss of muscle mass that can accompany weight loss from obesity medications. It is one of those strange chains of cause and effect in which one thing leads unexpectedly to another.
A very human story, somehow.
Ideally, of course, we would simply live in a way that keeps us from becoming obese in the first place. But that is easier said than done. We gain weight, take medication to lose it, and then start drinking protein shakes so that we do not lose too much muscle along the way.
I myself have recently watched my weight begin climbing again, and I had started thinking that perhaps I wanted one of those weight-loss drugs. But if losing weight also means losing muscle, then I have to think twice.
Muscle mass is going to decline with age anyway. Surely deliberately accelerating that process would not be a good idea.
The foolish part of being human is that we often fail to notice how absurd some of our own thinking can be.
I have certainly had my share of foolish ideas.
For a long time, for example, I did not really understand why eating fatty foods made me gain weight.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I seem to have thought that even if I absorbed a few grams of sugar or fat, I could simply excrete the same amount later.
The whole concept of metabolism was missing from that picture.
I somehow forgot that excess energy is stored in the body as fat. Meanwhile, I continued eating as I pleased and was not exercising enough either.
Only recently, after realizing that my weight does not come down easily no matter how much I try to improve my diet, did something embarrassingly obvious finally occur to me.
The problem of “IN and OUT” is not really about the physical weight of what goes into and comes out of the body.
It is about energy.
I regret having thought about it so superficially, although by now I sometimes feel that I realized it rather late.
Still, better late than never.
Just when I had decided to become more active and take Anne for longer walks, I injured my ankle.
Then came a medical conference, where I spent almost the entire day sitting, followed by dinner gatherings in the evening.
Bad luck, perhaps.
Or perhaps the world simply has a remarkable talent for discouraging us whenever we finally decide to do something sensible.
But maybe this is what human beings are like most of the time.
Foolish, perhaps. Ridiculous, perhaps.
We ourselves are completely serious about what we are doing, while somehow continuing to do things that work against what we actually want.
We take ourselves seriously, even while behaving in ways that make us look wonderfully, hopelessly human.
・・・
Vocabulary for Learners
compensate for
To make up for something that has been lost or reduced.
「補う」「埋め合わせる」
cause and effect
The relationship in which one event produces another event.
「因果関係」
easier said than done
Something that sounds simple but is actually difficult to do.
「言うは易く行うは難し」
think twice
To reconsider something carefully before doing it.
「よく考え直す」
accelerate
To make something happen faster.
「加速させる」
metabolism
The chemical processes in the body that use and store energy.
「代謝」
excess energy
Energy taken into the body beyond what it immediately needs.
「余剰エネルギー」
better late than never
It is better to do something late than not to do it at all.
「遅くても、しないよりはまし」
work against
To act in a way that makes a goal harder to achieve.
「〜に逆らって働く」「〜の妨げになる」
hopelessly human
A slightly humorous expression meaning imperfect in a very recognizably human way.
「どうしようもなく人間らしい」
#WeightLoss #Protein #Metabolism #HealthyAging #MuscleMass #Obesity #JapanesePathologist #HumanNature #Kamakura
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