Most of us are interested in losing weight. I am interested in losing fat. There is a diffence.
Most of the big athletes are overweight. But they are not overfat. They have developed their muscles, etc. to the point where the muscle, water, protien, venous supply, etc. indicates weight gain. BUT THEY ARE OVERWEIGHT. They just happen to be running as low as 2% body fat.
At the time of this writing I am 154 lbs. and 5'7.25" tall. My BMI is about 23-24. I am not overweight. I wear a dress size 8-10 and I look good. BUT I AM OVERFAT! A fat calibration test conducted by the University of Toronto in April of this year determined that I was 33% body fat. I AM TECHNICALLY OBESE.
I know how to cheat the scales. I can starve myself the day before; go to the bathroom in earnest, and you know the rest. I know that what the scale says talks in a general way about my progress. I know that if I have gained weight that I have to do something about it. But the measure I have to watch for is BODY FAT PERCENTAGE.
If you want to get healthy, you have to do the work around it. In my case, my cholesterol levels were, by my doctor's admission, "through the roof." I was only about 170 lbs: hardly Biggest Loser material. I did not drink or smoke. I exercised regularly. Now I was having visions of dropping dead on a treadmill.
Two things happened: menopause, and genetics. Menopause can jack your body fat and cholesterol levels catrastrophically, and genetics laugh at your half marathon. Drugs for cholesterol are expensive, and they in some cases can affect your ability to build muscle.
In a way, that nasty little test at the University did me a big favour. Now I know why my mother (65), father(61) and sister(45) died prematurely due to circulatory problems. Now I know why my cholesterol count is so high. And now I have the motivation to reduce fat.
Losing weight is noble. Losing fat is positively heroic.
Nothing in the world will guarantee losing fat quite like having a gun to your head. I lose weight for glamour; for brag points; to squeeze into Nicole Miller at 57.
I lose fat because I am fighting for my life.
I lose fat because I am fighting for my life.
I lose fat because I am fighting for my life.
Any questions?
Wednesday, 22 June 2011
Monday, 20 June 2011
On Anorexia, Bulemia, and Stupidity
My mother technically died of anorexia. She was 65. My ex uses laxative to flush out a big meal. He's a bulemic. And if you have ever been stuck in a gym beside one of these turkeys, you will know just how annoying it can be.
I am an alcoholic and a drug addict. Forget that I am more than 2 decades clean. It was just obvious to me that my lifestyle was creating problems for me. So I did something about it. There's more to it, but who cares? Percieve, acknowledge, take action, reinforce.
I don't know much about anorexia and bulemia, but I do know that they thrive on attention. I do know that they are as self-obsessed as a bodybuilder, and that the rest of the world is positively porcine. They are the glamour queens of mental illness, and they never seem to shy away from a camera or an interview.
"Poor Rachel/Lisa/Donna/Ashley/Bob." They are to be pitied and treated like babies that refuse to swallow in expensive clinics with names that sound like a Stevie Nicks song. I'd slap them if I thought it would do any good.
Anorexics and bulemics think of themselves. You will never see them actively volunteering to help stem a flood, raising a child, or donating blood. Never mind starting an email campaign for the victims of Darfur. Marilyn Monroe didn't, so why should they?
No, I don't have mother issues, at least around this. I just get tired of a 5 ft. nail screaming at herself in a gym while I try to repress the need to vomit.
And I am concerned that any female with a BMI of 18.5 or less sullies this blog with their own highly toxic and egocentric view of what we are trying to do here. We are healthy people who are losing excess fat for our health.
Please take your horrific distortions to a therapist. If that is not apparent, kindly FUCK OFF.
I trust I have made myself clear, and if you can't handle the heat, get out of the kitchen.
I am an alcoholic and a drug addict. Forget that I am more than 2 decades clean. It was just obvious to me that my lifestyle was creating problems for me. So I did something about it. There's more to it, but who cares? Percieve, acknowledge, take action, reinforce.
I don't know much about anorexia and bulemia, but I do know that they thrive on attention. I do know that they are as self-obsessed as a bodybuilder, and that the rest of the world is positively porcine. They are the glamour queens of mental illness, and they never seem to shy away from a camera or an interview.
"Poor Rachel/Lisa/Donna/Ashley/Bob." They are to be pitied and treated like babies that refuse to swallow in expensive clinics with names that sound like a Stevie Nicks song. I'd slap them if I thought it would do any good.
Anorexics and bulemics think of themselves. You will never see them actively volunteering to help stem a flood, raising a child, or donating blood. Never mind starting an email campaign for the victims of Darfur. Marilyn Monroe didn't, so why should they?
No, I don't have mother issues, at least around this. I just get tired of a 5 ft. nail screaming at herself in a gym while I try to repress the need to vomit.
And I am concerned that any female with a BMI of 18.5 or less sullies this blog with their own highly toxic and egocentric view of what we are trying to do here. We are healthy people who are losing excess fat for our health.
Please take your horrific distortions to a therapist. If that is not apparent, kindly FUCK OFF.
I trust I have made myself clear, and if you can't handle the heat, get out of the kitchen.
Fasting for fun and benefits, sort of
Back to the caveman. He and his family fasted through the winter and subsided on things that they could store. When that ran out, they foraged, and when that diminished, they fasted. And some of them starved.
Fasting has always conveyed a message of aesthetic purity and a feeling of being closer to God almighty. Riteeous people fast; bad people eat devil's food cake (of course). And there are times when many of us would prefer to be bad.
Fasting makes sense in a religious, spiritual, political, or health context (i.e. for medical procedures). Some health food proponents advocate fasting at various times of the year, but they always seem to be so expensive - and why is that?
The one common denominator in each of these is that they start and end at a specific time. Usually a domestic fast will not last more than 3 days. A medically supervised partial fast, also known as a doctor driven crash diet, is obviously longer. In both cases, lasting weight loss results are highly improbable without bringing about significant change in personal habits; that is to say, a lifestyle change. And three days of grapefruit juice will not do this.
I have never been able to stick to a fast for long. Hunger sets in within 3-5 hours and you want to steal the food of co-workers. But I can scale back, and I can also live without certain things: alcohol, simple carbs, cigarettes, pop, baklava, and lima beans. Anyone can live without lima beans. It's just a matter of what you are prepared to give up from there.
Most of the time fasts don't work over an extended period because they are not practical. No sooner have you abstained from lima beans, then they are all you ever think about. Aunt Bettie serves her famous lima bean stew for your birthday. Lima beans are the side dish on your first date. The world is full of lima beans, and all those other nasty things you were supposed to give up as part of your fast. And the world won't change, so you do. Fasts at our level were never meant to be taken this seriously. And they are very impractical weight loss methods. And long term maintenance of weight loss.
Still, many people find short fasts beneficial, particularly if they have digestive illnesses (i.e. food poisoning, constipation) depression, bereavement, flu, or if they are in childbirth. Some people intent on weight loss will run partial fasts - say, raw foods - for several days to adjust the system to less food, and being without meat. But it isn't meant to last.
Fasts, in effect, don't really have much practical application in long term weight loss, but the concept of "doing without", and adapting your situation to the real world, is an excellent lesson. Maybe that's why fasts have been around for thousands of years.
Fasting has always conveyed a message of aesthetic purity and a feeling of being closer to God almighty. Riteeous people fast; bad people eat devil's food cake (of course). And there are times when many of us would prefer to be bad.
Fasting makes sense in a religious, spiritual, political, or health context (i.e. for medical procedures). Some health food proponents advocate fasting at various times of the year, but they always seem to be so expensive - and why is that?
The one common denominator in each of these is that they start and end at a specific time. Usually a domestic fast will not last more than 3 days. A medically supervised partial fast, also known as a doctor driven crash diet, is obviously longer. In both cases, lasting weight loss results are highly improbable without bringing about significant change in personal habits; that is to say, a lifestyle change. And three days of grapefruit juice will not do this.
I have never been able to stick to a fast for long. Hunger sets in within 3-5 hours and you want to steal the food of co-workers. But I can scale back, and I can also live without certain things: alcohol, simple carbs, cigarettes, pop, baklava, and lima beans. Anyone can live without lima beans. It's just a matter of what you are prepared to give up from there.
Most of the time fasts don't work over an extended period because they are not practical. No sooner have you abstained from lima beans, then they are all you ever think about. Aunt Bettie serves her famous lima bean stew for your birthday. Lima beans are the side dish on your first date. The world is full of lima beans, and all those other nasty things you were supposed to give up as part of your fast. And the world won't change, so you do. Fasts at our level were never meant to be taken this seriously. And they are very impractical weight loss methods. And long term maintenance of weight loss.
Still, many people find short fasts beneficial, particularly if they have digestive illnesses (i.e. food poisoning, constipation) depression, bereavement, flu, or if they are in childbirth. Some people intent on weight loss will run partial fasts - say, raw foods - for several days to adjust the system to less food, and being without meat. But it isn't meant to last.
Fasts, in effect, don't really have much practical application in long term weight loss, but the concept of "doing without", and adapting your situation to the real world, is an excellent lesson. Maybe that's why fasts have been around for thousands of years.
Sunday, 19 June 2011
Chances are, you'll give up anything - except this
I knew a woman in school who ate nothing all day, and then drank 8 shots of vodka. She got pretty drunk. And very sick.
But somehow to her the calories from vodka "did'nt count". After all, she hadn't "eaten" all day.
Actually, the calories from any form of booze are pure carb, and they very much count. A bottle of wine will jam you by 600 calories or more. You don't want to know whats in a mojito or a rum punch. And they never quite make it onto our food diary; after all, it's just a drink, no?
And everyone says that a bit of booze is good for you. I would question that on several levels, not the least of which is assuming that you can consume a bit of booze. Wine bottles are 7 servings, and 40-pounders are, well, you know. A bottle of wine should last the week and then some. A forty oz bottle of spirits should last 6 weeks. But it never seems to work out that way.
It's a little frightening how much we defend our quaffing. And with it goes the snacks and tapas and happy hour nummies. It is our "escape", our privilege, our earned right. But its not the same as a mighty meal! Oh no. Goldfish and pretzels awash in hard lemonade is not what your stomach had in mind.
For many of us, drinking inevitably includes smoking. Smoking has a proven weight loss factor included in each and every butt. Simply stated, you will not gain weight because you are full of poison. This tends to kill your appetite. So you see, many of us are not that much different from my friend in school - drink, eat peanuts, and kill the desire to eat sensibly with inhaled fumes.
But that depends on what you are smoking. A glass of wine and a joint got many of us through the seventies. This is where we learned to eat an entire ice cream container and call it dinner. We were models back then. We aren't anymore. And we don't do that anymore.
Why write this stupid blog, anyway? Simply to say that Weight Loss Involves Sacrifice. The only question that remains is how much you are willing to give up in order to get what you want. And if you are like most people, chances are, you won't.
But somehow to her the calories from vodka "did'nt count". After all, she hadn't "eaten" all day.
Actually, the calories from any form of booze are pure carb, and they very much count. A bottle of wine will jam you by 600 calories or more. You don't want to know whats in a mojito or a rum punch. And they never quite make it onto our food diary; after all, it's just a drink, no?
And everyone says that a bit of booze is good for you. I would question that on several levels, not the least of which is assuming that you can consume a bit of booze. Wine bottles are 7 servings, and 40-pounders are, well, you know. A bottle of wine should last the week and then some. A forty oz bottle of spirits should last 6 weeks. But it never seems to work out that way.
It's a little frightening how much we defend our quaffing. And with it goes the snacks and tapas and happy hour nummies. It is our "escape", our privilege, our earned right. But its not the same as a mighty meal! Oh no. Goldfish and pretzels awash in hard lemonade is not what your stomach had in mind.
For many of us, drinking inevitably includes smoking. Smoking has a proven weight loss factor included in each and every butt. Simply stated, you will not gain weight because you are full of poison. This tends to kill your appetite. So you see, many of us are not that much different from my friend in school - drink, eat peanuts, and kill the desire to eat sensibly with inhaled fumes.
But that depends on what you are smoking. A glass of wine and a joint got many of us through the seventies. This is where we learned to eat an entire ice cream container and call it dinner. We were models back then. We aren't anymore. And we don't do that anymore.
Why write this stupid blog, anyway? Simply to say that Weight Loss Involves Sacrifice. The only question that remains is how much you are willing to give up in order to get what you want. And if you are like most people, chances are, you won't.
Monday, 13 June 2011
Lessons learned: the mighty meal
- take your basal metabolic rate (BMR) and add any exercise you did that day. Subtract the calories consumed. You should be showing a minus.
- After a week or so, you should have "earned' enough calories to have a mighty meal - or a mighty day - of 1-2,000 calories.
- Your mighty meal can be cake or ice cream or a pizza. Or it can be generous servings of salad, seafood, and water-based soup, a little meat, and small portions of a dessert. Now, which do you think is going to keep your energy up?
- You can plan your mighty meal for a special event, like a wedding, or your ex-husband's funeral.
- If you miss your mighty meal, no worries. But remember that you need it, and it needs you. Find a reason to eat well.
- Don't rob yourself of a mighty meal with self sabotage. Pizza, meatballs, alcohol, cappucino, steak (face it, nobody eats a 3-oz steak) pretzels and chocolate cake are very expensive caloriewise. These are major danger foods because they are very high calorie on their own, and because one tends to consume a lot of them at a sitting. Wouldn't you rather have lobster? Coffee with a spoonful of cocoa? Frozen yogourt? Strawberries dipped in chocolate? Think about it.
- If your mighty meal is at a pot luck, many dangers lurk ahead, starting with that hollowed out pumpernickel thing filled with spinach and water chestnuts. You can't eat just one bite. So bring a favorite recipe that you can glom onto as a fallback. Chances are there's someone else who will appreciate it.
Sunday, 12 June 2011
Feeling good about binging.
The only way to lose weight is to eat less and exercise more. It's that simple. If you want to lose weight, you must create a deficit.
It wasn't long ago that food was not consistently plentiful. Like the animals, our systems learned to adapt to feast or famine conditions. Famine conditions caused us to function like a clock in slo-mo. We used less calories, and our systems slowed down, almost like hibernation. In other words, our bodies compensated for the deficit by slowing down and using less energy.
The challenge is to prevent our systems - our basal metabolic rates - from going too slow. This means doing some rather strange things.
Your basal metabolic rate is how many calories your body will use in a 24-hour period, assuming you watched TV all day long. If you add a walk, or clean the house, this will affect your BMR. If you gain weight, your BMR will increase, because it takes energy to support the extra fat, blood vessels, muscle, etc. Sadly, as we lose weight, our BMR decreases (but you probably won't mind.)
Every time you move, you add to your BMR calories. Mow the lawn, have sex, run the New York marathon; they are all added as calorie consumption to your BMR.
Every time you eat something, you add to your caloric intake. You need a minimum number of calories to sustain you, and its usually 4 digits (check with your doctor).
If you train and diet too intensely, your BMR will acually decrease. (This is also true of thyroid disorders, and people who are fasting.)
So what's the answer? A very strange conclusion indeed - every so often, you've got to get out there and seriously eat.
Most weight loss programs keep you on the same number of calories every day. Firstly, this is impossible to achieve. What if you are up for 18 hours? Do you really think Aunt Esther will let you have half a cookie? And what about those days where you forget to eat, or are ill, or just managed things so you ate somewhat less? These things happen every day. This is why you need a FOOD DIARY that tracks what you are eating and the calories consumed. Write it, and check the calories on the net. You can get very good at it, even when there's a 30% possibility that you forgot a few things.
Generally, my equation is as follows
My BMR + my calories expended - less food consumed should equal minus numbers. I am a good girl, and I am on track.
However every so often you have to be bad. This jolts the system with a surprise influx of calories. One day a week or so, I feel like being naughty; sometimes jjust a little, and sometimes the neighbours are having a BBQ. It's a calculated risk. Literally.
If after 6 days I am showing total minuses of 3500-7000 calories, or 1-2 pounds - I might indulge in a mighty meal. I give up, say, half a pound. However the next day I eat less (helping me get back on track) and I have nore energy.
"Honey, I think your diet is shot."
I am on my 4th plateful. I am going to hell. Or am I? Watch how this sneaky bitch did it.
The plates are 7" (always take the little plates). The meal is calculated, too. I drink only water, and a lot of it. I load up on soup and salads to fill me up, along with seafood. Meats I only pick at. So by the time the high calories - meats and fried things - hit my stomach, I am already 3/4 full on high volume, high protien goodies.
The chocolate fountain at Wasabe is my downfall. I take a few spoonfuls of that sumptuous chocolate sauce, along with a strand or two of blueberry and strawberry sauce, and a couple of small scoops (the size of a ping pong ball) of ice cream. A badgirl dessert for less than two hundred calories. So I do it again!
We do not live in a weight loss program textbook. Every day we live in a real world that is not interested in our progress. Every day we know people who eat 18 peanut butter cups or a tub of ice cream and call it a meal. We know people who turn town social events and then eat a large bag of buttered popcorn.
The real world eats, and the real world eats more every so often. If you plan around it, your probability of success in maintaining weight loss is much higher.
It wasn't long ago that food was not consistently plentiful. Like the animals, our systems learned to adapt to feast or famine conditions. Famine conditions caused us to function like a clock in slo-mo. We used less calories, and our systems slowed down, almost like hibernation. In other words, our bodies compensated for the deficit by slowing down and using less energy.
The challenge is to prevent our systems - our basal metabolic rates - from going too slow. This means doing some rather strange things.
Your basal metabolic rate is how many calories your body will use in a 24-hour period, assuming you watched TV all day long. If you add a walk, or clean the house, this will affect your BMR. If you gain weight, your BMR will increase, because it takes energy to support the extra fat, blood vessels, muscle, etc. Sadly, as we lose weight, our BMR decreases (but you probably won't mind.)
Every time you move, you add to your BMR calories. Mow the lawn, have sex, run the New York marathon; they are all added as calorie consumption to your BMR.
Every time you eat something, you add to your caloric intake. You need a minimum number of calories to sustain you, and its usually 4 digits (check with your doctor).
If you train and diet too intensely, your BMR will acually decrease. (This is also true of thyroid disorders, and people who are fasting.)
So what's the answer? A very strange conclusion indeed - every so often, you've got to get out there and seriously eat.
Most weight loss programs keep you on the same number of calories every day. Firstly, this is impossible to achieve. What if you are up for 18 hours? Do you really think Aunt Esther will let you have half a cookie? And what about those days where you forget to eat, or are ill, or just managed things so you ate somewhat less? These things happen every day. This is why you need a FOOD DIARY that tracks what you are eating and the calories consumed. Write it, and check the calories on the net. You can get very good at it, even when there's a 30% possibility that you forgot a few things.
Generally, my equation is as follows
My BMR + my calories expended - less food consumed should equal minus numbers. I am a good girl, and I am on track.
However every so often you have to be bad. This jolts the system with a surprise influx of calories. One day a week or so, I feel like being naughty; sometimes jjust a little, and sometimes the neighbours are having a BBQ. It's a calculated risk. Literally.
If after 6 days I am showing total minuses of 3500-7000 calories, or 1-2 pounds - I might indulge in a mighty meal. I give up, say, half a pound. However the next day I eat less (helping me get back on track) and I have nore energy.
"Honey, I think your diet is shot."
I am on my 4th plateful. I am going to hell. Or am I? Watch how this sneaky bitch did it.
The plates are 7" (always take the little plates). The meal is calculated, too. I drink only water, and a lot of it. I load up on soup and salads to fill me up, along with seafood. Meats I only pick at. So by the time the high calories - meats and fried things - hit my stomach, I am already 3/4 full on high volume, high protien goodies.
The chocolate fountain at Wasabe is my downfall. I take a few spoonfuls of that sumptuous chocolate sauce, along with a strand or two of blueberry and strawberry sauce, and a couple of small scoops (the size of a ping pong ball) of ice cream. A badgirl dessert for less than two hundred calories. So I do it again!
We do not live in a weight loss program textbook. Every day we live in a real world that is not interested in our progress. Every day we know people who eat 18 peanut butter cups or a tub of ice cream and call it a meal. We know people who turn town social events and then eat a large bag of buttered popcorn.
The real world eats, and the real world eats more every so often. If you plan around it, your probability of success in maintaining weight loss is much higher.
Thursday, 9 June 2011
Dieting: What's not to love?
I love lifestyle ads. I love the ads for real estate that show a hand in hand couple grinning at a creek they call "waterfront". We have condo complexes in Toronto called "South Beach" and "The Tides", even though we are located on the Great Lakes. Ads for restaurants full of grinning waiters, hot food and well behaved children. And those diet books, with handsome capped-tooth husbands in white shirts snogging with their wives over a chopped pepper.
I love an optimist, but I also like some degree of grounding in reality. I am a fat woman. I didn't get that way because I wanted to. I got there because I was upset, or bored, or because every moment of my day was accounted for, or because my husband was fooling around, or because nobody gave a damn. Least of all me.
And so I went on a diet. Grapefruit, Poon, South Beach, flavour of the moment. And I lost weight! And everyone said it was wonderful. And it was! But it doesn't last.
You cannot go around eating no carbs, or just grapefruit, or soup, for any length of time. It's not just impractical, it's antisocial. Would you like to show up to a luncheon with tub a home made salad?
And it's expensive. On a weight loss program, you can figure on paying up to $100 a month or more for quality food. That is because flour (breads, pastries, pastas, etc) and sugar (you know this one) are subsidized, and as a result, cheaper. Nobody wants to subsidize tomatoes, salad greens, or a big fat apple. As a result, you pay more. And that can hurt.
Ever notice how, for all the good these programs are supposed to do, they are always expensive? Thousands of dollars a year, in sonme cases. Somebody's got to pay Valerie Bertinelli, and it may as well be you.
My biggest steam (are you listening, Feds?) is the cost of gym attendance. Here in Canada we can be indoors 9 months out of the year. Yet there are no subsidies or tax breaks for staying fit. In fact, it can cost upwards of $1,000 per year.
This is why you are fucking up:
IMPRACTICALITY + EXPENSE = LACK OF COMPLIANCE
This is how you solve the problem:
ADAPT IT TO YOU
ADAPT IT TO YOU
ADAPT IT TO YOU
God made me smart. I don't care about Jenny Craig or any of the others; I care about what works for me. I take what I need and add what I have invented to make it work. And as of this writing, I have lost 22 lbs since December.
I love an optimist, but I also like some degree of grounding in reality. I am a fat woman. I didn't get that way because I wanted to. I got there because I was upset, or bored, or because every moment of my day was accounted for, or because my husband was fooling around, or because nobody gave a damn. Least of all me.
And so I went on a diet. Grapefruit, Poon, South Beach, flavour of the moment. And I lost weight! And everyone said it was wonderful. And it was! But it doesn't last.
You cannot go around eating no carbs, or just grapefruit, or soup, for any length of time. It's not just impractical, it's antisocial. Would you like to show up to a luncheon with tub a home made salad?
And it's expensive. On a weight loss program, you can figure on paying up to $100 a month or more for quality food. That is because flour (breads, pastries, pastas, etc) and sugar (you know this one) are subsidized, and as a result, cheaper. Nobody wants to subsidize tomatoes, salad greens, or a big fat apple. As a result, you pay more. And that can hurt.
Ever notice how, for all the good these programs are supposed to do, they are always expensive? Thousands of dollars a year, in sonme cases. Somebody's got to pay Valerie Bertinelli, and it may as well be you.
My biggest steam (are you listening, Feds?) is the cost of gym attendance. Here in Canada we can be indoors 9 months out of the year. Yet there are no subsidies or tax breaks for staying fit. In fact, it can cost upwards of $1,000 per year.
This is why you are fucking up:
IMPRACTICALITY + EXPENSE = LACK OF COMPLIANCE
This is how you solve the problem:
ADAPT IT TO YOU
ADAPT IT TO YOU
ADAPT IT TO YOU
God made me smart. I don't care about Jenny Craig or any of the others; I care about what works for me. I take what I need and add what I have invented to make it work. And as of this writing, I have lost 22 lbs since December.
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