Okay.

Verdict’s in on “Which is worse for you: fat or sugar?”

And the English Winklevoss twin doctors are here to ‘xplain:

Ya know, at first, I hadn’t noticed this was a UK paper. So superficial me thought, “What hotties!” Then, crueler and ever worse superficial me (I’m beginning to think those two are the only sides I have) said “Oh, he said ‘stone’ instead of pounds; that means they’re Brits and they probably aren’t teeth smiling ‘cause they put actual shepherds in the pies over there. German shepherds, probably. And that’s why everyone’s got grills that look like they’ve had a head on collision.”

Terrible stereotype, yes? Not nearly as bad as ours though: Fat ‘n lazy.

Because before these two twins took on separate diets – respectively nixing either fat or sugar out of each for the purpose of comparing weight loss tales – they had to have a motivation to do that. And that motivation was that one twin came to America and – well… Let me put the direct quote from his Daily Mail tale. It’s so much better: “At my lightest, I was 9½ st – skinny for someone who’s 6ft. But then I moved to the U.S., my life became sedentary and in a few years I was 17½ st.”

I just love that.

That it’s not until after he moves to the U.S. that he adds almost another human onto his body – and how they (it’s a U.K. paper) don’t even bother qualifying that with any details. No reason why or anything. No details about how many hours he was doing SOAP notes or whatever. Just “Mmmhmm, yep, I stepped off the plane and the first thing they handed me was a happy meal, motorized scooter, and inpatient dressing gown for my inevitable gastric bypass. It was like being lei’d after deplaning in Hawaii. Except with a cardboard crown from Burger King.”

Like, I knew we were bad and everyone thought we were swine, but yeesh.

Maybe part of me thought it was just one of those funny stereotypes people don’t 100% think.

But they do – because the results don’t lie, do they?

Question is why? Is it really just calories in calories out?

Maybe these former hotties’ trials and tribulations diving into dietary hell can help us understand. So: one quits carbs and sugar, the other – fats. Both of them keep this up for a time, testing their powers of brain and body badassery against one another – everything from bike racing to playing the stock market. The article was long and drawn out, so I’ll try to narrow the results down to this: Both failed. Because – aside from the fact that, yes, weight was lost – it was at the expense of clear thinking and physical performance alike (like your muscle eating itself). Thus, it became not an issue of fat versus sugar but of fat and sugar. Fat and sugar versus us – versus U.S. Or, in simpler terms, the processed food industry versus you n’ me. I remember writing a thing on part of this once: the body converts sugar to fat because sugars make your body produce insulin and store fat. That sucks because you can’t use (or thus, lose) that fat easily.

You’d think that’d be bad enough, wouldn’t you? Eating something that makes fat hard to burn?

It gets worse.

(This meal monocle apparently measures how addictive fat and sugar are #foreshadowing)

With processed foods (which have both fat and sugar in them), the combined effect’s like railing lines with Miley in the can. Do it enough and Miley starts to seem like a pretty good pal. And you’re with her hitting the can every night. In this case the can is what you buy in a can. Or a cardboard T.V. dinner. Fat and sugar. Researchers indeed agree it’s got a dopamine releasing effect (they hooked the dudes up and measured their levels and everything.) And, as we all know from our D.A.R.E. program in 5th grade, drugs are addictive, aren’t they? So we mindlessly reach for more, not unlike a junkie watching his hopes and dreams flush down a needle poked skin abyss.

In sum:

Fat + sugar (combo found in processed foods – very popular here) make you fat because:

1. Fat makes you fat – obviously
2. Sugar makes you fat – because it raises insulin which makes you store fat
3. Neither of those things are bad alone because they’re easier to moderate.
4. When combined, though, fat and sugar are addictive.
5. You get double-fat double fast because you reach for more like the junkie you now are.
6. Welcome to diabeeeetus

(‘cause that’s how addiction works.)

You get the fat from fatty foods, fat stored from sugar, and double that double whammy… when you reach for a second, third, fourth helping. ‘cause that’s what addicts do. It’s just that here in ‘murica, we’ve been dietarily indoctrinated into this addiction from very early on with our birthday cakes, dessert rewards, and candy for S’ingTFU which translates later in adulthood to a “treat yo self” mentality. And “treat yo self” is fine, like all things, in moderation. A bit of lazy unnatural food isn’t so bad occasionally either if you’re well accustomed to it and aren’t ready to change cold-turkey, I guess. Just know it’s proven to be addictive. I suppose we could look at unnatural food the way someone who likes to drink but doesn’t wanna become a pickled drooling drunk does – “Just a glass in the evening; that’s all.” The analogy, if you’re fodder for Overeaters Anonymous and outta control? Just don’t do processed foods. Or, hell, you could ignore me and keep using your mouth as a food chute and complaining device alike. (Not much I can do to stop you from either, really.)

I’m just sayin’ what’s worked for me.

And every other person who likes food but not having to buy a second plane seat for their right cheek.

The doubleBrit twins and their probably gnarly teeth aren’t wrong.