OCTOBER 16 ― With a little effort, we can help fat people help themselves. But first we have to make sure that “fat acceptance” is given the heart attack it deserves. ― Milos Yiannopoulos.

The other day I made a comment about Korean pop star Psy and how amazing it was that the world was (once) hooked to a YouTube video featuring a fat dude doing weird horse-dance movements.

Immediately one of my colleagues stood up and chided me. He said I shouldn’t use the word “fat” to describe people, that I was engaging in “body-shaming”, that I should be more sensitive to how people feel and ― I switched off.

Fat is fat is fat.

Let’s be clear, whether someone’s fat or not should make absolutely no difference how much people care about the person but for that VERY reason, the word should not be censored: If you’re fat, you’re fat.

Lose your weight, not your mind

IMO, the biggest culprit as to why flab is the new black: The political correctness mindset.

We gotta face-slap anyone who uses “plus-sized” or “weight-challenged” or even say “over-weight” when they really mean fat. Quit hiding behind sugar-coated politically correct phrases which (politely) discourage you from improving your body weight and lengthening your life.

Imagine if folks were PC when they talked about smoking: Oh, he’s not smoking, he’s “engaging in personal nicotine-therapy.” Oh, smoking isn’t cancerous, it simply “promotes irregular development of body cells.” Oh, that’s not second-hand smoke, it’s just that cigarettes emit a “socio-environmentally ambiguous consequences.”

Once we drop the façade of, as per Milo Yannipoulous’ phrase, “fat acceptance”, we can go full frontal with the fact that whilst obesity isn’t the biggest problem in society, it’s clearly a problem.

Worse for us, Malaysia is ranked #1 in the region on the fat scale, an issue which costs us more than RM4 billion in healthcare costs (and some reports put the figure at double that).

Maybe it’s our kuih-muih-ing sugar-loving rice-gorging culture or whatever, but with almost half our population either overweight or obese, we’re producing happy-go-lucky “at-risk” communities who won’t survive two flights of stairs down, let alone up.

I have this friend, very nice guy, very helpful. The number of MCs he takes per month rivals the number of goals Barcelona would score if they played against Batang Berjuntai.

And even he tells me he hates his (very) frequent hospital visits. He’s been reprimanded a few times, but nothing changes and nothing will change unless he makes a choice between Exercise and Non-Existence.

I love that guy and I absolutely feel for him. Which is why I believe that for folks like him, there must come a time when his feelings should matter less than his health.

This explains why, about a year ago, I told him to his face he needs to do something ― anything! ― to reverse the fact that he’s a mega-fatty who’s about three more doughnuts to a heart-attack.

So all you folks who have friends or family who have seriously fat asses, please tell them to wake the hell up. Take the stairs, not the extra popiah.

Skip a meal or two and buy a skipping rope. Puasa month? Go for a puasa quarter. Next birthday present? Get him/her a gym membership.

It’s about carbs, not just calories

Better yet, introduce your friend to the low-carb diet. If anything can stimulate motivation for weight loss, this is it. It’s been around a while and many Malaysians are aware of this but, alas, most are still glib. Majority of folks still believe that eating meat will cause them to gain weight.

Long and short, this diet isn’t about cutting DOWN your carbs, it’s about cutting OUT your carbs.

Zip. Nada. Don’t take “only” half a bowl of rice, skip rice entirely. Tell the Mixed Rice uncle to give you an empty plate. Avoid pastry shops.

Watch Blade Runner 2049 minus the popcorn. Tell the KFC fella to hold off the bun and mashed potatoes. Avoid McDonald’s (unless all you want is chicken which, to me, tastes like cement).

But what about calories? Right. This is the “Energy In / Energy Out” principle, but only applicable if you eat carbs. Why? Because “energy in” is only relevant if energy is stored as fat. If, however, fat is (somehow) not created, then all this don’t matter (see [1]).

(This is why it’s funny to see pictures of slim people snacking on corn flakes or enjoying bread slices. Cereal and bread are low in calories but high in carbs i.e. they make sure each time you go shopping for clothes, the only size that matters is going to be XXXXXL.)

[1]: Do some googling. The logic goes something like this:

Carbohydrate digestion involves insulin.

Insulin is about the ONLY thing which stores or “creates” fat cells (sorry, my SPM Bio only A2); ergo, no insulin = no fat.

Stop eating carbs (which includes sugar, because sugar is always turned to carbs) and you remove the insulin, thus removing the fat ― voilà!

Also, it seems insulin has the power to make you hungry for more carbs, which makes you fatter and hungrier ad infinitum.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.