@Lookout Seems to me the problem is sedentary lifestyles, and DNA. I come from "big boned" people, and could easily join the masses. I love bread, have a dozen beers per week, indulge in breakfast pastries regularly and eat my fair share of meat. I have made a point of eating very limited quantities of deep fried food, processed snack foods and no empty content sugary drinks. However, easily the number one reason I have avoided obesity is exercise and activity. The exercise burns calories, as does maintenance of the muscle mass. Quite simply, it takes more energy, calories, to maintain muscle than fat. That being said, I am solidly in the "overweight" range of the BMI chart. The charts and conventions do not take fitness into account. They are targeted at the television watchers, chair sitters and sedentary. Moral of the story:

OPOL has an anti-obesity essay up about keto diet and intermittent fasting.
https://caucus99percent.com/content/food-medicine
Most of my life the push was for a lo-fat high grain diet. Little did I know the culprits are carbs. Many think wheat should be avoided entirely...
https://io9.gizmodo.com/5968164/why-you-should-probably-stop-eating-wheat
https://www.naturalnews.com/036845_wheat_belly_weight_gain_gluten.html
...or at least minimize the consumption.
https://www.healwithfood.org/articles/benefits-not-eating-wheat-gluten.php

I learned to make coconut and almond flour bread as a substitute....even cauliflower crust pizza.

In less than a year of Fung's diet approach I lost 50 pounds, down to my college weight. Now it is easy to maintain by fasting a few days if I feel over-fed. The reason this approach isn't being promoted is that it is free - no drugs, Dr visits, etc. There are all sorts of additional health benefits as well.

As to Aqueduct day - I've seen a few, but never a navigable one...mostly water supply. Interesting how once the trains came in, canals and water shipment largely fall by the wayside.
https://www.thoughtco.com/history-of-steamboats-4057901

So thanks for the OT and music el, and have a good one everybody. It's a windy chilly morning here, but we're having a pleasant break from the rain for a few days.

@enhydra lutris While Sue was sick, I went from 205# to 165#. A year and three quarters later I am hovering around 180#. Stabilized, not climbing.

The immune system is marginally understood, and suppression has its own pitfalls. I can tell when my immune system flares because I have psoriasis and my skin will revolt. Also, joint pain and rheumatism symptoms. I got the over 60 flu shot, this year, and my left shoulder complained for about three weeks. Still not normal, but better.

I do not think smoking cessation would be good for me, or the people around me. I only smoke hand rolled and no chemical additive vegetation.

thing and all of the putative magic bullets.

I did not headline anti-obesity day because of many things, one is body shaming, which segments of the US populace love to indulge in and which is seriously hurtful to other segments of that populace. The other is the myriads of theories about causes and cures that are floating out there, just waiting to hypnotize any and all of us. The funny thing is that I have a very good handle on it and on on one remedy but am aware that we are biological systems, not mechanical ones and that what works for Sam or Sue might not work at all for Mary or Pete. So I have the perfect diet for me, but very likely not for thee, or Mary or Sam.

I took a strange journey into the whole arena, going from fit to not so fit in stages. Struggling financially and physically active lean and mean became a bit less so with steady work and a better income and less so as the effects of a desk job progressed year after year and an old back injury, long quasi-dormant became chronic due to the lifestyle change. I began to slowly and inexorably gain weight though I did engage in "spare time" exercise like hiking and biking. Quitting smoking then immediately added serious poundage. I once had to do an extended course of prednisone (a couple of years or so) which also didn't help. I got complacent about it and slowly drifted into obesity.

About the steroids - I have an auto-immune disease, currently non-curable that began presenting more and more frequently and severely as I aged. Once after the prednisone episode I had a flare-up where I simply could not keep food in my system and didn't like or want mos foods and dropped 40 pounds, but I got over it and put the weight back on. During that flare I used a fitness program, "my fitness pal" to help me make sure that I was getting enough nutrients. which I then dropped when I got seriously into recovery.

So come May, I am somewhat active, but obese with marginal to high blood pressure, marginal to high cholesterol, a funky heart rhythm, an enlarged aorta and a very cranky doctor issuing all kinds of ultimatums or else statins and who knows what other meds. So I went back to "my fitness pal" to monitor all the stuff I needed to balance, fats, cholesterol, sodium, potassium, protein and fiber (note: carbs and sugars aren't on the list, and I've always done plenty of the former and little of the latter). I told the software that I was totally sedentary (a lie) and that I wanted to be down to 200# by xmas (I am a big enough dude that at that weight at not even overweight, let alone obese) and to lose about 2# per week. It then presented some targets for daily intake of calories and the nutrients I was tracking. I shot for those targets, cutting out no food groups, but reducing fatty foods and frying, cutting out adding salt to everything, cutting out late night snacking and limiting food intake to a roughly 10 hour window (shooting for 8), and reducing portion sizes as need be to hit those goals. A bit more fish, chicken, shrooms and veggies, but still plenty of spuds. I then began my "exercise program" and dropped 53 pounds by the day before Thanksgiving. I gained a couple back, but I've still dropped a bit over fifty and oout of the obese range into merely overweight. The key has been burning far more calories than I eat while consuming a generally well rounded healthy diet, it is that simple.

The software set intake goals to essentially maintain the calories consumed by my base metabolic processes, shaving a few so that I lose a few pounds, because it computes for a completely sedentary person. I got a fitbit and see to it that I walk at least 5 miles per day, that I also get up and walk at least 250 steps per hour during a 9 hour core time. I actually shoot to get up and be active for a chunk out of every hour that I am awake and never simply sit too long. I try to engage in activity that elevates my blood pressure at least a little, in increments of at least 10 or minutes per burst or session for a total of 240 minutes per day. That routine has me burning between 1,000 and 2,500 more calories than my baseline per day, and those calories aren't being replenished by the diet. No fasting, no keto, no eliminating carbs, red meat, flour, etc. etc.

Oh yes, the biggest trick - we almost never eat out and we use almost no "prepared foods".

So, will that work for others? Dunno. I'm certainly not going to write a book on it and try to sell it to the entire populace.

Time to get up and move

Have a great one.