David thinks I should look like this guy before I can blog about diet
It’s a new year and people are scouring the Internet looking for a way to make themselves skinny and healthy through that perfect nutrition and fitness plan for them. Some will fall for the first thing they find and think it’s the best plan for them while others will spend hours researching and Googling everything they can get their hands on about their chosen program. I think it’s great people get excited about losing weight and turning their health around this time of year. But I only wish they’d KEEP that excitement for more than a few days, weeks, or months down the road–they’d be MUCH better off if they did.
Now that I’ve been blogging for nearly four years about healthy low-carb living, new people are finding my columns all the time. I’ve written over 2600 posts so there’s a lot of information I’ve put out there on the Internet for people to find out more about livin’ la vida low-carb. I consider it a true privilege to have the opportunity to share my success story with others and encourage them as they take this journey to better health for themselves. When I blog about the new low-carb research, recipes, news items and more, I feel I am providing people a great service that they can apply to their own lives. And it’s FREE!
But not everyone thinks my writings are worth reading.
On Friday I received a comment under my Before & After Pics tab from a man named David Fournier who challenged my right to share about the low-carb lifestyle because of what I look like in this latest photo of me in early December 2008. According to David, I have a lot more work to do on my own obesity problem before I dare share anything about the low-carb life on my blog.
Here’s what he wrote in his comment:
Jimmy -
Sorry to disappoint you but I just looked at the most recent pictures of you (late 2008) and you are overweight, if not obese (medical definition here, not an opinion). Could you please tell us your current weight and height, so readers can put your nutritional advice in perspective? For the same reason that people should ignore financial advice from bankrupt individuals, people should ignore nutritional advice from overweight individuals – they have limited credibility. People should only take nutritional advice from very fit and lean individuals.
I suppose David meant for this to be constructive criticism and I can appreciate it from that perspective. Sure, it sounds mean, but I don’t think he intended for it to be that way. Nevertheless, I was happy to respond to David’s concerns and answer some of his questions about the work I’m doing helping others who struggle with their weight and health.
Here was my response:
THANKS for your concern, David. But I post all of my daily menus and current weight every single day for all the world to see at my menus blog. I have blogged quite openly and extensively about a 35-pound weight gain that happened in 2008 following my decision to start lifting weights in December 2007. The creatine I was taking along with several stressful situations in my life (a failed IVF cycle where my wife and I were trying to get pregnant, the death of my 41-year old brother, etc.) have also made it difficult to get the weight off.
In November 2008, I went on a “sweet”-free challenge and in just two months I’ve lost 25 pounds. As of today I weigh 239 pounds on my 6’3″ body frame–only 9 pounds higher than the weight I was at the end of my original weight loss in 2004. If someone chooses not to read my blog because they deem me too fat and irrelevant when it comes to health and weight loss, then that’s their prerogative. I’m not making anybody read what I write here and it’s a free country.
But as long as I have this platform, I’m gonna share the truth about livin’ la vida low-carb because that never changes regardless of who the messenger is. Am I a perfectly fit and trim individual? No. But I used to weigh 410 pounds five years ago and I’ve kept off 160+ pounds of that weight ever since. Do you know many people who lose significant triple-digit amounts of weight who are able to keep it off over the long-term? It’s very rare.
One final thought for you: what does my weight have to do with promoting the positive and healthy benefits of low-carb living so that others can benefit?
–Jimmy
The adage that you don’t have a right to share your thoughts on nutrition and health simply because you are overweight or obese is absurd. If I was giving people advice and telling them what to do and how to do it to become the next Arnold Schwarzenegger, then I could see David’s point. But that’s not what I do. I encourage people to find the plan that works for them, follow that plan exactly, and then keep doing it for the rest of their lives. That is the recipe for success I have seen over the past five years of living the low-carb life.
Blogging isn’t about perfection or nobody would be doing it. How many people do you know who have a blog about whatever subject they care about the most and consider them the perfect representation of that topic? Maybe one or two, but certainly not the overwhelming majority of them. And, again, I never pretend to be the perfect low-carb dieter. I’m simply one man who lost a boatload of weight in 2004 and kept it off for the most part ever since.
I have a message people need to hear and nothing will deter me from sharing that with as many people as I can possibly reach until the day I die. There will always be critics of what I do (from calling me a “dead man walking” to lamenting my “unhealthy fad diet” to questioning my erratic weight management), but I have better things to concern myself with than worrying about what people like this have to say about me personally.
People are dying needlessly because they haven’t heard the truth about how damaging carbohydrates are to their health. Even if I was a 750-pound invalid living in the middle of nowhere USA and I was sharing about how insulin drives fat storage and carbs drive insulin levels, that truth would not be any less relevant than if I had a 6% body fat, muscular 200-pound body. Truth is truth no matter who is saying it.
Would I like to be closer to that muscleman someday? Of course! But I’m just living my life one day at a time consuming my healthy low-carb lifestyle, working out at the gym, staying active, and living a healthier life than I ever thought would have been possible five years ago. That’s why I will continue to do what I do, writing about livin’ la vida low-carb, and not feeling one bit ashamed of doing so. This was what my life was meant to be and my mission is to never stop telling people about the life-changing impact of low-carb!
David, I’m sorry that a 6’3″ tall man weighing 239 pounds doesn’t meet your lofty standards for being able to write about diet, health, fitness, and nutrition. But I’ve been living this way long-term, interviewed the best and the brightest health experts on my podcast show, and committed myself daily to continue the learning process for myself and my readers that I am confident I have something here that is worth paying attention to. The thousands of readers who have come here each and every day for years are a testament to this fact. While I appreciate your comments, I think I’ll get back to work now doing what I always do–educating, encouraging, and inspiring others to make better choices for the sake of their own weight and health. That’s what makes what I do significant to my readers.
