I burned more than a few calories during a spirited discussion on The Morning Show on Monday. At issue was Toronto Mayor Rob Ford’s decision to bail out on his commitment to “Cut the Waist”. He made the announcement on his weekly Sunday radio show on Newstalk1010.
It’s my view that the Mayor was on track to fail from day one and the media has managed to spin it into a politically charged debate suggesting his inability to lose weight somehow reflects on his abilities to run the city.
It makes for good copy but REALLY?
Ford’s “Cut the Waist” initiative was launched in January of this year. He and his councillor brother Doug made a very public commitment to each lose 50 pounds within 6 months citing the need to get healthy. The Ford brothers presented it as a fundraising opportunity and called on all Torontonians to get on their Cut the Waist train, (now that they’d stopped “the Gravy Train”.)
Fast forward four months and the train’s off the rails. The Mayor is nowhere near losing fifty pounds, he says he’s not dieting anymore and he’s finished with the weigh-ins. He tells his co-host brother, “It’s time to focus on other stuff.”
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Predictably, the media has jumped all over the Mayor’s “failure”. There are more than a few paid observers who criticize Ford’s unwillingness to embrace the matter head on.
“He put himself in that position.”
“It was his choice to make his weight an issue.”
“He made the commitment to hold weekly weigh-ins” and on and on.
There is an assumption that this campaign was a planned, considered, thoughtful political strategy; that Ford would be seen to be identifying with the average grunt who struggles with weight issues. There was even spin suggesting failure would be a success because he’d be a sympathetic character. Who among us hasn’t set a weight loss or a fitness goal only to have it fizzle?
Let’s be clear.
This “great idea” was anything but well planned or considered. We knew during week one that the Mayor wasn’t really committed to the initiative. If he were we would have been privy to his new regime; there would have been photo ops focused on his exercise routine; we would have heard all about his balanced diet.
There was none of that.
For the sake of perspective – fifty pounds of fat contains 175,000 calories. On average, you burn 300-400 calories on your 30 minute run. That’s about 18 months worth of daily runs! Cutting 300-400 calories out of your daily diet means you’re still looking at nine months.
All of that assumes a daily commitment – the likes of which the Mayor never made.
We gain weight slowly. It’s wrong and unhealthy to think we can lose it overnight.
The only thing we can really conclude from this experiment is that most of us have little or no idea of what it really takes to lose fifty pounds – never mind losing fifty pounds in 6 months.
Rob Ford struggles with weight loss. We know that. He’s said so. It is self evident. His struggle was only heightened when, for better or worse, he took his brother’s advice and joined his Cut the Waist campaign in the glare of a distracted media.
Now, four months later, rather than focusing on the health issue, there are media commentators who are offended by the Mayor’s “attitude” and turn this into a story about Ford’s political failings.
I ask again – REALLY?
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