the fat blogging is back

[keryx]

I'm sure some of y'all have seen the "Real Age" website, right?

Well, I am a sucker for a good quiz when I'm trying to avoid something like... oh, I don't know, maybe reading an assload of corporate policies (which is in fact what I'm doing this afternoon). So, I take this quiz. It thinks I am 1.3 years older than I am. And that, my friends, is where the funny begins.

Here's what they have to say on the subject of my shocking 36.something BMI:

BEGIN A WEIGHT LOSS PROGRAM YOU CAN SUSTAIN. KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK IF YOU ARE ALREADY LOSING WEIGHT...
[snip] Select a diet plan that restricts your caloric intake. To lose weight effectively, you must reduce the number of calories you consume or increase the number of calories you expend through physical activity. Keep in mind that one pound of body fat equals 3,500 calories.
To lose weight appropriately, limit your caloric intake to 1,200 to 1,500 calories per day.
[snip] Increase your physical activity. [snip] Begin slowly and work up to 2,000 to 3,500 kilocalories per week.

But the results continued by saying...

DO MORE STRENGTH-BUILDING EXERCISES. BE SURE THE INTENSITY OF YOUR CARDIOVASCULAR WORKOUT IS AT A SAFE LEVEL.

[snip] Based on your answers, we estimate that you probably expend more calories per week than the baseline amount recommended for maximum Age Reduction benefits, which is 1,000 to 3,500 calories each week.

In other words, I am a dangerously fat fatty and need to restrict my calorie intake and exercise more AND I'm exercising enough that they think I might be burning too much.

I realize this is just the problem of an oversimplified web program here - obviously, it has boilerplate content A for fatties and boilerplate content B for cardio enthusiasts - but it also sounds amusingly and frustratingly like medical advice I've gotten (particularly about my foot complaints): lose weight (by eating less and exercising more) and exercise less. *grin*

Is it really any wonder so many basically healthy people utterly disregard the medical community's wisdom?

Comments

[steamedwords.livejournal.com]

They told me I was eight years older than I am.

[keryx.livejournal.com]

Oh noooooooes. How did they suggest you youngify? By eating more vitamin E?

[steamedwords.livejournal.com]

-Exercise (I agree with this one)

- Change my genes (I have very bad genes, according to these people). I suppose I could invent a time machine and blink my family's cancery epileptic diabetic awfullness out of existance somehow...

-Floss

-Get a dog (I shit you not)

-Eat breakfast

[attrice.livejournal.com]

I was 4.7 years younger.

But I exercise too much and am too fat and should think about starting an exercise regimen.

Also, I need to buy a bigger car. Cuz if I get in a wreck, I'm more likely to be injured in my civic than in a say..Hummer. So I'll need to get on that.

What a bunch of phooey.

[keryx.livejournal.com]

What about the stress of paying for more gas and the sheer embarassment of driving a Hummer? I bet that takes 5 years off your life every day.

[belladonnalin.livejournal.com]

I got both of those, too.

I also LOVE that they don't ask whether you have a history of disordered eating.

Stupid quiz. *kicks it*

[keryx.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah... nevermind how much a little time not eating utterly screws you up. Ffft.

[firecat]

I want to create a Real Age web site that decides how old you are based on the time-honored "wisdom gained from aging" - that is, whether you've learned how ignorant you are in comparison to how many possibilities are out there, and whether you've learned how to mind your own business and whether you've learned not to waste time and emotional energy on making foolish assumptions about other people based on your piteously limited personal experience.

I hope it's clear that's a generic "you"

[keryx.livejournal.com]

That would be *brilliant* - your real mental age and whether you've actually taken enough advantage of your years of being alive.

[queerbychoice.livejournal.com]

It thinks I'm 1.0 years older than I actually am, and this is what it told me to do:

- Eat more fish, nuts, vegetables, fruits, and foods containing potassium/omega-3 fatty acids/Vitamin E.
- Exercise, you ridiculous weakling, you!
- Do not move to a different apartment anymore.
- Get a dog. (This website is ridiculously biased against cat people.)

[gypsyriver.livejournal.com]

"YOUR HAPPY MARRIAGE HELPS YOUR REALAGE. A healthy marriage relationship can improve social interaction and lower stress. In general, married people have a younger RealAge."

HAHAHAHAHAHA.

'Cause most of my gray hair's not from my husband.

[keryx.livejournal.com]

Ha! I guess I should be happy that it didn't tell me to get married, then. Though the internets turning into someone's nagging grandmother would be pretty funny: "Why don't you settle down already? You know married people are .7 imaginary years younger!"

teeheeheeheeheee

[heavenlyginger.livejournal.com]

I am apparently five years younger than my real age, however, I am fat, not eating right and in need of vitamin e. Lovely.