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Dieting is a touchy subject. We all have our own ideas as to what is the “best” way to lose weight, and with very little research we can often find studies that back up our claim. What’s more, we’re all pretty defensive of our choices. Getting together in a room full of low-carb and low-fat dieters and asking them which is the better way to diet is as fraught with danger as standing in the middle of the lobby of the Marriott at Dragon*Con with a bullhorn and asking what the best Science Fiction series is.

In the spirit of full disclosure I have to admit that I am a low-fat, calorie counting dieter. That’s what Weight Watchers® really is, when you get right down to it. They just wrap it up in a convenient system and assign food point values. I’ve been on Weight Watchers for over 9 years now and while the amount of weight I have lost has varied consistently I have managed to maintain the large majority of my loss following that program. As a result, I am obviously biased toward low-fat diets and a big proponent of them. I truly believe that portion control, exercise, and healthy food choices are the key factors in losing weight and keeping it off.

A study released in the Annals of Internal Medicine seems to back me up on that.

via @thatkevinsmith on Twitpic

There’s been a bit of news floating around recently that I have, frankly, been hesitant to comment on here despite the fact that is probably one of the more relevant topics in recent events when it comes to our target demographic. For those of you who are unaware of what, exactly, I’m talking about (and bless you for having the ability to somehow avoid every major news outlet for the last week) – Kevin Smith (director of the highly acclaimed independent film Clerks) recently caused quite a stir on Twitter when he posted about being removed from a flight on Southwest Airlines because he was, well…Too fat.

The story is, honestly, considerably more detailed than that. If you’re interested in all the details you can hear them directly from Mr. Smith himself on his Smodcast web site. You can also see the two official responses from Southwest over on their Nuts About Southwest blog.

Image courtesy of kkimpel on Flickr

From time to time, you’ll see us do a review of a fitness product, exercise game, food or diet supplement, or whatever else around here. Most of the time, it’s because one of us owns it already; sometimes, we’ve gotten a trial sample of something, or are given the use of it for a while. A lot of the time, what you’ll read here originates from very close to home – Mike and Krystalle get a ton of use out of the exergaming titles they have for their Wii; both they and Scott and have made Weight Watchers a guiding principle in their eating habits; and my copy of Starting Strength sits right here on my desk, underneath the notebook where I log my daily workouts. It’s not just fiction authors who live by the dictum, “Write what you know.”

The companies that have been kind enough to send us review samples have done so knowing that we’re going to be giving you, our readers, our honest assessment of whatever they may be offering. Whether it’s effusive enthusiasm, a thumbs-up with a caveat, or some well-earned derision, we’re not going to sugar-coat what we say.

That’s not how we roll, whether it’s 1d4 or 8d12.

In what can only be seen as complete universal injustice, we here at ShrinkGeek have to hold down regular old nine-to-five jobs in order to put our healthy food on the table. Fortunately, the job that I’ve got is a pretty decent one – especially when you factor in the benefits. In particular, the employee gym we have in our corporate headquarters is pretty nice. I’m down there at least once a day, and it has helped me considerably in my efforts to refocus on my weight loss in the last year.

One thing we do not have, however, is a cafeteria. We’re a decent-sized company, but we don’t really have enough staff in our main location to justify that kind of expense. The only access we have to food comes in the form of vending machines, and as someone who traditionally doesn’t carry cash, that has never been a viable option for me… up until last week, anyway. We recently switched vendors, and now all of the food dispensary units in our break room take debit cards.

Unfortunately, many of the options in those machines can’t really be slotted into the “healthy choices” category. In fact, some of the ones that seem obvious choices in that arena are far from it.

Similar to, but not exactly, the Frozen Tundra of Lambeau Field (© Alasdair MacDonald)

It’s hardly uncommon to run into a point in the leveling process or particular fight that kicks your butt for weeks on end (your hosts here, during one memorable period during The Burning Crusade, beat our collective heads against The Curator for about six straight weeks). When it comes to fitness, these tend to be innocuously called “plateaus” rather than “OMG WHY DOESN’T ANYTHING CHANGE?” or, as Scott called them, “Hell Levels.”

That’s probably to save on typsetting costs, but still.

Being stuck can take on a bunch of different guises, but they’re all frustrating. Of course, the easiest to identify is the whole being stuck to the couch thing. Curiously, that study makes no mention of video games, though we’ve all seen a pile of research claiming various evils stemming from those.  Mike pointed out that simply engaging in marathon television viewing sessions is actively bad for you (not to mention shortening your life), so that’s one more reason not to veg out in front of the tube.

But when it comes to busting the plateaus that happen in our fitness lives, what can we do?