random chance

Nope I don't blame her at all in any way whatsoever. People couldn't be persuaded to choose her over a sociopath; that's on them not her. She doesn't owe anyone anything. It's someone else's fight now.

There was fat-shaming on GG, it just wasn't directed at Sookie.

I'm thinking that from all the talk about how dangerous it is, the character is going to end up not getting the surgery.

That was my impression too, I can't imagine her hanging out with them.

Ahahaha great point! Even the weekend guests at the Inn probably know every last detail of her personal life! I didn't know until I started reading the threads that she was ignoring S7, so I was in the same boat there. I've thought that for a long time now too. There are plenty of scenes in the original GG that would be pretty sneery and vicious if it weren't for Lauren Graham's delivery, like almost every line in Lorelai's First Cotillion where she insults little girls right to their face. And the real life example that ASP is petty and selfish - she will always choose herself over her fans. I had the same thought, because I could not imagine that she'd want to end the show on the note of Rory graduating from college and getting pregnant. Also there was that Hazy Days of Summer dream with the twins which I assumed was her actual endgame for Luke and Lorelai. During Bunheads I read a lot of her interviews online and she contradicted herself pretty often, so I have no problem believing she lied about who would be saying the last four words. (Which, like the ending of Lost, turned out to be nowhere near as fascinating as their PR.)

Since I've been nitpicking and otherwise bitching about the show (because it's just so much damn fun) I guess I should say - in spite of everything, I was so incredibly happy to see it. It was like an early Christmas present to be sitting waiting for a new GG episode to begin, and I mean the good kind of Christmas present - the Easy Bake Oven when you were a kid, not the hat and scarf set from the family Secret Santa. It was so good to see all their faces and find out how they're doing, and it was even good to get some closure regarding Richard, some actual closure not just "RIP Richard" on Twitter. So if you see me picking at the threads of Rory's hobo life or bitching about Lorelai making everything about her, don't take me too seriously - I cried as the screen credits rolled after the first episode, out of sheer gratitude for the miracle of seeing a new GG episode and having three more to go.

Interesting! . Oh now that would make sense. Yes, and it can be a lot of aggravating trial and error. Maintenance is a tricky bastard too, especially over the holidays. Here are a few things that helped me a lot in case anyone wants to give them a shot: weigh your food (this was quite the shock for me, and it also explained the slow weight loss), fill up on sugar free jello before eating out, and always look up restaurant menu calories online and decide what you'll order beforehand - don't wait until you're in the restaurant surrounded by people ordering a triple bacon butter burger.

It was the same with Bunheads. ASP needs an editor, or someone who lets her know when she's veering too far into whimsyland or trashing a character for no good reason. (You can write someone out of a show without ruining them! I've seen it done elsewhere!)

Come to think of it, Lorelai is the one who would have made a good journalist. She scored the cronut-like thing and then scored shoes from having scored the cronut and given it to that girl - an interesting story right there, and that was just five minutes in line. Lorelai is the fearless one who will barge up to strangers and make demands, she's the one who always finds an angle ("I Lorelai'd the coffee!"), she's good at effective, unpretentious writing (she got Luke his custody) and she's relentless. That's who shoulda been a contender.

I bet you're right because to me it's way more work to walk outdoors than to do it on a treadmill. There's uphill downhill aspects, uneven surfaces that take more work, whole-body looking around/gauging safety of crossings and so on. And probably other things I can't think of right now but, I can just feel the difference. (We need a thread for these things! Anybody interested?)

I do it anyway because I like the feeling of having exercized, but it's a pisser isn't it? :) I never did find a follow up study if they did one.

I remember this from a morning news show last year - they did a study where women walked on a treadmill for an hour a day but changed nothing else, and they all gained weight. And it wasn't muscle weight. The people who ran the study were completely baffled as to why. They theorized that maybe women subconsciously ate more due to the workout, but they couldn't verify this. I thought that was one of the odder studies ever to happen. The kind of study that makes you wonder, "what's the frakking use?" It would be a real public service if Kate had to deal with some of this kind of conflicting advice.

I have always wondered if ASP meant for us to draw that conclusion too or if she really intended for Huntzberger to be written a bastard. Because I agree completely, he was absolutely right, Rory didn't have it. But she would have/would still make a first-class assistant and/or event organizer, something like that - she was fantastic at those things; I could totally picture her in a Chief of Staff type job or as a campaign organizer or running a company. I think she would have been happier doing that, too, because it would have come naturally - she wouldn't always be fighting to become something she isn't. (And at this point as much as I always bitch about ASP I have got to say, I always end up forgetting her characters are fictional people and I don't really need to waste my time trying to fix their lives. Heh.)

I read it a long time ago and didn't think to bookmark it, so I tried googling for it today and I brought up several sites that mention it but none of them link to the original research. I'll keep looking (although, not right now), and meanwhile they all say basically the same thing - in this case, from the Washington Post: I think that's absolutely true. And I think that's why food is sold to us as entertainment and comfort, not something we need because we're hungry.

Ahaha it does seem like that's exactly what she was doing! That or trying to sell Netflix on the idea of picking it up.

She was still drinking when she ran into Jess at the newspaper, right? So she must not have known then? Unless she was planning to have an abortion, but I can't imagine that's how ASP will write it.

They did debunk this though. Granted they could change their minds again but, the last word on it was that it was in fact not true.

That's a great analogy. In many ways ASP is her own worst enemy. Kind of like a lot of her characters. Hey come one, she can still be bright and brave and energetic even though she's not doing amazing things like sitting in a hotel bar taking notes for a book about crazed, drunk Mrs. Doctor Who!

That's why it never made any sense to me - I have seen someone stop eating and shrink away to nothing. So I wasn't surprised to see this one debunked this year - although given how often the scientific community changes its mind, I won't be surprised to see it rebunked either. Me too - and I know full well that what works for one person might not for another, but the flip side of that is - what works for one person might also work for another.

[...] I wouldn't call 32 "early."

AH okay well that makes sense then. I can't fault them if they have options and it's not just all donuts and pies.

I don't understand why these shows/Craft services (?) are providing tables full of high density calories in the first place. It just seems so counterproductive. Even if the actors aren't on a diet, don't they have to maintain their weight, since a weight gain messes up costuming and storylines and so on? Why aren't they all demanding fruit and vegetables and lean protein? It's just weird to me.

I have to say, even though it's a trope by now, the big decision following scary turbulence scenario is entirely realistic to me. And it will also be realistic if she changes her mind once she stops being freaked out. Thanks for that explanation @Taragel!

Maybe it's like smoking in the sense that even after you've gotten past nicotine withdrawal, you're still changing a slew of habits all at the same time and your usual response to that kind of stress is, well, smoking. (And by "you" I mean, "me.") That's exactly what I meant by, change your mindset rather than having people remove temptation from you. Whenever you can depend on yourself rather than other people, that is a good thing.

Oh dear God that's horrible, well now I get the controversy. Glad you're ok! That would be enough to put me off the idea right there. Yeah to me the bad thing about the "medicating my pain" is that I don't think you have to be psychologically damaged to enjoy frosting and grilled cheese and so on, and there is kind of a false premise built into it that when you're "mentally healthy" you won't want these things anymore. Which to me is false hope and false advertising. To me though it all comes down to hunger. If the whole point of the surgery was that you'd feel less hungry I can imagine why it would work. If you were still hungry but could just eat less without getting sick ... ugh, that's a terrible solution. That just sounds like surgical punishment.