Since my last post raised a hubbub and, of course, prompted more online temper-tantrums from the half-baked brains at Julian Bakery, I’m going to share a few more observations about Mr. Collins and Mr. Squealer, then get back to more important stuff.
I’m not going to link to their videos or posts, by the way. Some of you have already found them and left your own comments – at least until the open and honest Collins and Squealer stopped allowing those comments. If you want to find their garbage online, I’m sure you can. I’ll just recount some of their predictable excuses, counter-attacks, whatever you want to call them, and respond.
Here’s my favorite: Why would anyone take weight-loss advice from a comedian?
Har-dee-har-har! Comic genius. That line just never gets old. I’m sure it will be every bit as funny the next thousand times as it was the first thousand.
(Oh, and the barely-literate Mr. Collins — who “rights” his own books and who called me a coward for attacking him from behind a computer after he attacked Jimmy Moore and Diane Sanfilippo from behind a computer — also called me an idiot. Now that is comic genius. I’m still laughing.)
In the past few years, I’ve posted plenty of letters (many including dramatic before-and-after photos) from viewers expressing their eternal gratitude to the comedian. I’ve received way more of those letters than I’ve posted. Some of the letters were so sincere and expressed such heartfelt emotions, I was choked up after reading them. Those are the people who matter to me. One of those letters outweighs a thousand snarky comments from internet cowboys who think they’re either being funny or are going to wound my ego with comments like “Oh, yeah, a comedian. Some expert, huh?”
But what the heck, I’ll deal with the issue at hand, since Mr. Collins and Mr. Squealer raised it again.
Okay, boys, you got me: I don’t have a university degree in health science, or nutrition science, or whatever degree would be considered an official qualification. But that is a strange criticism indeed coming from the two of you, since you don’t either.
Mr. Collins earned degrees in criminal justice and forensic science, according to his bio. So he’s a trained cop. That’s every bit as relevant to health and nutrition as my degree in journalism.
Oh yeah, great idea, get your diet advice from a cop. Don’t they all eat donuts? Har-dee-har-har!
Now of course, Mr. Collins may know a ton about health and nutrition. But if he does, he learned it outside the university environment – just like I did, and just like a lot of other bloggers and authors did. Even the doctors who know what the hell they’re talking about when it comes to nutrition will happily tell you they didn’t learn what they know in med school.
But the real impressive credentials here belong to Mr. Squealer. Because, ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Squealer achieved his lofty position in life by having the good fortune to be born to a mommy who started Julian Bakery many years ago and then made her son the CEO.
Oh yeah, great idea — get your diet advice from a member of the lucky-sperm club whose mommy started a bread business and then turned it over to her precious little boy! Great qualifications, there, Dude! Har-dee-har-har!
Once again, Mr. Squealer may actually know a lot about nutrition. But if so, he has no official qualifications, and having your mommy make you the CEO of her company is no more relevant of a background than traveling around the country doing shows in comedy clubs.
Oh, but wait … Collins and Squealer already explained in Mr. Collins’ barely-literate post why people should listen to them and ignore people like Jimmy Moore and Diane Sanfilippo. Here’s the reason:
Just look at us. Look at our pictures! It’s obvious we know what we’re talking about, because we have abs!
Uh-huh. So does this guy:
That’s my son Zack, and he’s always had those abs. He had those abs when he was living on pizza, potato chips and Coca-Cola. (He’s since cleaned up his diet.) He had those abs when he tried and failed to gain weight by massively overeating. (He was trying to get heavier while playing power forward on his high-school basketball team.) His mother (not Chareva) had that same ridiculously-low level of body fat even when she developed the very bad habit of drinking a helluva lot of beer every day.
Some people are lucky like that. They were born to be lean. The difference is that Zack has the intelligence to realize that just because he’s cut, that doesn’t make him an expert on how to lose weight. His advice (since he has a nice, self-effacing sense of humor) would probably be something like, “It’s easy. Go out and inherit my mother’s genes.”
Oh, but wait … in Mr. Collins’ barely-literate post, Mr. Squealer assures us he found the answer to his own (ahem) weight problems, lost the weight, and has kept it off for three years. And by gosh, he’s willing to post pictures to prove it.
I included two of those pictures in my previous post:
Like I said in that post, that sure doesn’t look anything like a 33-pound weight loss to me. That looks like the difference between sucking some air into the belly in one shot, then tensing the abs and employing better lighting in the second shot.
But perhaps I was unfair. Mr. Squealer actually included three pictures. Here they are:
His body isn’t at the same angle in the middle shot, but the other two are pretty much straight-on. Since Collins and Squealer like to have fun with photos, I had some fun myself — the difference being I’m not going to tell any lies while having fun.
I took those two pictures, put them in Photoshop, and resized them until Mr. Squealer was the same size in both shots. (I matched top of the head to belly button, and also made sure his nipples were the same distance apart in both shots.) On the “fat” Mr. Squealer shot, I drew a red line just below the belly button and just touching the edges of his waist. Then I copied the red line to the “lean” shot. These lines are exactly the same width. You can download the picture and measure yourself. Here’s what we’ve got:
My, my, my, isn’t that strange? Mr. Squealer claims he was 220 pounds in the “fat” shot and 185 pounds in the “lean” shot. The guy lost 35 pounds – nearly one-sixth of his entire body mass, you understand – yet his waist doesn’t appear to have gotten any narrower as a result. Oh, but he knows all about weight loss, because he used to be fat and had to lose 35 pounds. Just ask him. Honest guy like that would never lie.
If those are before-and-after shots of a man who lost 35 pounds, then I’m the King of England. So I’ll just come out and say it this time: Heath Squier is lying about his weight loss. He’s probably just sticking out his belly a bit in the “before” shot. I’d bet you dollars to donuts (and you can keep the donuts), he’s never been fat a day in his life. If he has been fat – really and truly fat — he can post pictures to prove it.
So Mr. Squealer’s qualifications come down to being born 1) naturally lean, and 2) to a mommy who started a bakery and was willing to make him the CEO. (Given his recent behavior, that might prove to be a bad decision.)
But you wouldn’t want to take advice from a comedian … har-dee-har-har!
Oh, I’m sorry … an overweight comedian! That’s the latest topper on the hilarious joke.
You see, in addition to showing up in comments and threatening to find me at a conference someday and commit some kind of physical violence for calling him an a-hole (proving that he’s very gosh-darned proud of how he put his life on line to protect my freedom of speech while in the military – just ask him), Mr. Collins added a comment on one of his videos describing me as another low carb failure who can’t even stay below 200 pounds.
Fascinating. In a reply to one of his barely-literate comments on my previous post, I suggested to Mr. Collins that if someone calls you an adolescent, an asshole, a fraud, or whatever, it’s not a good idea to prove him right with your next response. I guess he didn’t get the concept. Because I basically called these guys liars in my previous post, and he responded by telling a lie in public.
Where on earth did he come up with the (ahem) fact that I can’t stay below 200 pounds? I’ve never said that. No one else has said that. The scale doesn’t say that. I was just at the gym today. That’s the only place I weigh myself, because we don’t have a scale at home. I was at 196. I’m pretty much always within a pound or two of that number, sometimes a little above, sometimes a little below. And I wouldn’t panic if I did weigh 200 pounds. In fact, I posted a picture of myself awhile back and noted that it was me at exactly 200 pounds. Here it is:
Good grief, what a fat comedian! Is he taking over for Louie Anderson? Har-dee-har-har!
I’m 55 years old and spent most of my life as a fat guy. Now I’m not a fat guy. I’ve gone from this …
… to this.
The towel shot, you may recall, was taken on the morning of my 55th birthday.
In other words, unlike Mr. Squealer, I actually was fat and then got considerably leaner. I didn’t have to stand in front of a mirror and suck in air and puff out my belly to produce a “before” shot where I look sort of, maybe, kind of, a little bit fat – and then lie about my weight loss. I was the real deal.
So if I’m a low-carb failure because you can’t see all my ab muscles (which weren’t visible even when I was a rail-thin 10-year-old), I’m fine with that. I’m not really concerned about the opinions of a couple of dumb-jock types who have no flippin’ idea what it’s like to actually be a fat guy struggling to lose weight.
And speaking of the dumb jocks … their explanation of the “2009” Jimmy Moore picture that was actually taken in 2013 is that it’s no big deal and was probably an honest mistake. And then, to prove once again that he’s barely literate, Mr. Collins claimed that in my post, I said the picture maybe was from 2011, or maybe from 2012, then decided it was 2013. Must’ve been tough getting through cop school without being able to comprehend plain English. I explained, in clear and unambiguous language, why the picture couldn’t possibly be from 2011 or 2012, which means it was from 2013.
But let’s analyze that “honest mistake” excuse, shall we? How was this honest mistake made, exactly? What series of errors caused Collins and Squealer to believe that picture was taken in 2009? The only place I can find that picture online is on Jimmy’s site, where it’s clearly identified as being from 2013. If you don’t actually know when a picture was taken (and you’re not a dumbass), you find a way to verify the date. When I found the picture of Diane Sanfilippo I posted, I not only made sure it appeared in a collection of pictures taken at Paleo FX 2014, I blew it up in Photoshop and checked the date on the badge.
And like I said in the post, that picture took only seconds to find. But Collins and Squealer claim it was really, really difficult to find recent pictures of Diane, ya see. Uh-huh. That explains why so many people responded by quickly finding recent pictures of her and posting them on Facebook.
So that claim was clearly a lie. Mr. Squealer’s claim that he was 35 pounds heavier in his “before” picture is clearly a lie. Mr. Collins’ recent claim that I can’t keep my weight below 200 pounds is clearly a lie. So since lying is what habitual liars do, I’m going to step out on a limb and declare that the “honest mistake” about the date on Jimmy’s picture is a lie. The dumb jocks just didn’t think anyone would bust them on it.
And speaking of Jimmy … yes, he looks heavier in his AHS 2014 picture. He’s probably gained back some weight since losing the 80 pounds. According to the dumb jocks, this means nobody should listen to him about how to lose weight.
But since the dumb jocks claim to know everything there is to know about nutrition and health and weight loss (they have abs, after all!), they should know damned good and well that if you spend decades being obese and then lose a massive amount of weight, your body will always fight to regain the weight. A person who loses 100 pounds to end up at 240 has a totally different metabolism and set-point than someone who peaked at 240. That’s why nearly everyone who loses weight on The Biggest Loser gains most of it back. That’s why in diet studies, losing just 10% of your body weight and keeping it off is labeled as “success” — and most people in diet studies fail to achieve that success.
The tendency to become obese is largely genetic. So is the tendency to be lean and cut. That’s why twins who are separated at birth and raised in different families still end up having remarkably similar physiques. That’s why my son Zack was lean and cut on a totally lousy diet and is still lean and cut on a much better diet.
Unlike Collins and Squealer, Jimmy was born into a family of very fat people. (And I’m pretty sure his mommy didn’t start a bakery she could have him run later so he could think of himself as a successful businessman and expert on nutrition, but I’ll confirm with Jimmy.) Jimmy’s mother had bariatric surgery, for pete’s sake, and still managed to become obese again after initially losing 100 pounds. That’s his genetic background.
Yes, Jimmy’s weight has gone up and down. He will be battling that genetic burden (not to mention the damage he caused himself when he was drinking 12 Cokes per day in his thirties) for the rest of his life. But battle he does. For years, he weighed more than 400 pounds. If he’d just gotten down to 360 and stayed there, he would have been a “success” by diet-study standards. But he got down to 220. Then he slowly drifted back up to over 300. Then he shifted his diet again and lost 80 pounds. Now he’s gained some of that back. I suspect he’ll lose it, but let’s suppose he doesn’t. Let’s suppose he ends up at 250 and stays there.
That would still mean he’s more than 150 pounds down from his peak weight. It would still mean he’s shed nearly 40% of his peak weight – in a world where most obese people can’t lose 10% of their peak weight and keep it off. Ask any obesity researcher how he or she would feel about a protocol that allowed people to lose 40% of their initial weight.
So if the two dumb jocks/adolescent bullies who think they know everything there is to know about weight loss (because they have abs!) are so cock-sure about their expertise, here’s how they can prove it: stop making idiotic videos that attempt to fat-shame people who dare to report that Julian Bakery bread spikes their glucose just like any other bread or is the target of an FDA action. Stop making more videos and posting more barely-literate comments to justify your adolescent-bully behavior.
Instead, take that awesome expertise of yours, go find some seriously obese people who weigh 350 pounds or more, and coach them into losing so much weight, they look like you — with abs! Show us what real expertise can accomplish. Or hell, just coach them into losing 100 pounds and keeping it off. Show us how you – not some fat comedian and certainly not Jimmy Moore – have the answer these people need.
Because based on what I’ve seen so far, if I were 100 pounds overweight and my choice of a weight-loss coach was either an empathetic, kind-hearted guy who’s actually lost more than 150 pounds and understands the struggle … or a dumb jock who engages in internet fat-shaming and has to puff out his belly to make his naturally-lean body almost look a teensy bit fat, I’m going with the nice guy who’s been where I am – even if he still weighs 250 pounds and I can’t see his abs.