fat or fit

FAT OR FIT
Before we begin another glorious day of pondering the imponderable and trying to decipher the undecipherable ( not to mention mentioning the unmentionable ), I must announce another guest writer has foolishly contributed to my towering chest of gold by laboring without compensation except for my undying gratitude, which, along with about two bucks, will buy you a cup of coffee at Starbucks. Who I think gets a bit of a bum rap from "coffee snobs". Who are these people, anyway? Coffee is for keeping awake and keeping warm. Making a delicacy out of it means you got way too much money on your hands. If you are going to literally piss it away, just send it to me. Starbucks isn't great coffee, but it beats the watered down piss they used to serve. If you can't perk it at home, Starbucks is the next best thing to boiling hot with the spoon standing straight up kind of java. Plus, they pretty much got everybody else to emulate them and serve stronger Joe. I have spoken, and thus it shall be. Anyway, tune in tomorrow for the guest article.
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There is a generally agreed upon wisdom that one must be lean and fit and in good physical shape to survive the collapse. Now, to a degree this is true. If you are so fat you are gasping for breath five wallowing steps away from a vicious feral dog attack, you might as well topple over, crushing at least one of the dogs under your lard so you at least have that grim satisfaction before you die, and kiss your ass goodbye. Have you ever seen one of the Romero zombie films? He is extremely graphic in the "rending/tearing flesh away from the living victim" department. Watch a few scenes of that to get an idea of how it might feel to have a pack of dogs attack you. Which, if you are all lucky and I feel magnanimous, I might cover in a future article at the suggestion of a loyal minion ( how to survive the attack, not how it feels to be ripped apart while alive ). However, I maintain that it is far better to have a few pounds on your frame extra. Enough to prolong reasonable heath during a famine, not enough to endanger your health right now.
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Look, you know the kind of people we are talking about here. Type "A" personalities. Obsessive compulsives. In layman's terms, those people with a broomstick shoved so far up their butt they have to pick splinters out of their gums all day. Corporate management types personify this behavior. "Oh, golly gee, look at this slacker, taking bathroom breaks and wanting to eat more than once in 24 hours! You must work faster and harder and only think positive thoughts and worship the god that is our CEO who by his divine appointment deserves his $300 million a year in bonus and you should throw yourself on your sword when he needs to lay off another ten thousand works to increase that bonus and if by his grace you are allowed to stay here on hollowed ground you must work yet faster and harder to pick up the slack of those workers sacrificed to our god." They actually brainwash themselves into this corporate thought process in order to turn into a drone to serve their master more efficiently. One time at the airport I had the misfortune to listen to a gaggle of these suit types doing a group circle jerk to reinforce this behavior to each other. Thank god we weren't airborne yet or I might have thought about jettisoning without a chute.
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Another group that fits this description are military officers. They totally buy into this corporate type mindset ( although with the added bonus of being able to kill things ) and as a result are insufferable asshats because of it. Perhaps you can excuse the lower level officers, both because they haven't totally joined the hive mind and also because they might be close enough to the action to keep a grasp on reality ( and hopefully all remember Vietnam and fragging ), but the upper level officers are permanently in a happy place and don't have time to visit your planet. And in the military, they are a bit obsessive about body fat. To fit the stereotypically military profile you can't have too high of a body fat count. So not only do you have an official mindset that discourages thinking for yourself, you have a dogma on weight. Of course we all know how your average survivalist gets tingly nipples and a clenching sphincter at the mention of anything military. So along with the unquestioning allegiance to semi-automatic weapons, they buy into the low body fat obsession.
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You can't logistically support semi-automatic weapons after the collapse of the Oil Age and the industry it supports. And you can't think of fat as a bad thing after the surpluses of petroleum grown food are over and gone. Fat is a good thing when famine stalks the land. Fat allows you to live off your mobile food storage unit. Fat keeps you alive and healthy during a famine. Unless of course a group of cannibals see you and think they have won a combination of the state lottery and Publishers Clearinghouse. They will run you down and act just like a pack of dogs ( see discussion above for the disadvantages of this ). And you advertised dinner to them. But I think the famine survival scenario is much more likely. You are better off with that spare tire than without it. Hell, I think I'm too skinny. I certainly don't have enough spare body fat to survive very long. I might be marginally happy that I'm in better shape now at 44 than I was at thirty, but I also see the downside to it. Remember, enough fat to cushion against famine, but not enough to overload your heart now.
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Historically, the vast majority of farmers ( you know, that occupation you are all salivating to try out ) have had to be content with an almost exclusive vegetarian diet. The same diet that our glorious betters in charge are advocating right now. No meat except on feast days/celebrations and grains and beans the rest of the time. On a hard labor regimen. And as soon as food got scarce they got sick and died off. Fat is good, but as in all things must be in moderation.
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