Archive for January, 2008

that’s MS mc flurry to you!

Posted January 15, 2008 * Comments(6)

Check out my new toy:

 

This, my friends, is The Omron HBF-500 Body Composition Monitor With Scale.  According to the clever clever folks at Omron’s website, it “features highly accurate, full body sensing technology that measures body weight, body fat, visceral fat, BMI, resting metabolism, and skeletal fat - a complete body composition monitor to see the real shape you’re in. ”

Yup.

For those of you here who, like me, see enough of “the real shape you’re in” just standing in front of a full length mirror (and hey, does anyone else seem to look thinner when the tears blur your vision a little?  No?…  Just me?… ), the idea of a scale that not only announces your weight but also your BMI and skeletal and visceral fat probably sounds like the single most depressing appliance ever invented since the alarm clock.

Well, take it from me… 

No really - please. PLEASE take it from me. Before I throw it out a 6th storey window and fling myself after it.

OK, ok, in all seriousness, I got the damned thing because I thought seeing ANY result from my efforts, however small, might help motivate me.  I know from experience with this slothlike metabolism of mine that it takes awhile for visible changes to appear, and I easily get frustrated and depressed and tell myself ludicrous things like “Oh, it just isn’t working!” as if I and I alone was immune to the positive effects of habitual excercise and sensible eating…

But I think we’ve all been there - that Rotten Moment when you calculate the long hours at the gym, the many cupcakes not indulged in, and quietly say to yourself “I wonder …”    And you go to the closet, get out Those Jeans, carefully slide them over your ankles - heart pounding, lips toying with the idea of a well-earned smile - and then suddenly and rudely come up short as you realize you can either continue to hold onto the jeans now wedged immovable and skintight bunched around your knees, or stand up.  But not both.

That, ladies, is a Rotten Moment.  It can unnerve the most positive booster-note-sender, derail the most rigid points-counter, and send even the hardest core excercise-logger straight into the La-Z-Boy with heart in gutter, and potato chips in hand.

Clever that I am, I thought “Well, between my BMI, resting metabolism, body fat percentage, visceral fat percentage, skeletal muscle, AND weight to choose from, surely SOMEthing SOMEwhere on that scale will always be inching towards the better as long as I keep up my end of the deal.  Surely SOMEthing SOMEwhere will always be there to encourage me and reassure me that All Is Not In Vain, no matter what those overpaid jerks at Seven For All Mankind are telling me.”

Plus, it was on sale.  (Amazon.com, if you’re asking.)

So, I get the thing, I type in my gender, height, and age, and I climb aboard. 

The last time I saw numbers that depressing, demoralizing, and bewildering was shortly after I took my SAT’s and shortly before I went to Art School where they’re just happy if you can find your classroom and don’t show up naked.

Ready?  Drum roll, please….

Weight: 156.2 lb
Fat %: 46.6 % (++ Very High)
Visceral Fat: 8 (+ High)
Skeletal Muscle: 22.9 %
BMI: 30.7  (++ Obese)
Resting Metabolism: 1350 kcal

Oh - just in case anyone didn’t know, 46.6% fat is only SLIGHTLY LOWER THAN THE FAT PERCENTAGE OF A MCDONALD’S FRAKKING ‘OREO MCFLURRY.’

THAT’S RIGHT. 

I AM THE METABOLIC EQUIVALENT OF A DISGUSTING CHAIN FOOD FROZEN MONSTROSITY. 

The McFlurry part I had to research on my own.  The double-plus ( ++ ) designations and accompanying OH so flattering “High/Obese” labels are courtesy of the handy little user’s manual Omron sent along, in case there was any threat of my getting on the damn thing and NOT immediately considering suicide.  

I am 5 feet tall, 156 lbs, and wear a size 10. 

 10 isn’t a size I generally associate with obesity — and maybe that’s been part of my problem.   Maybe the fact that I am relatively compact, the fact that I ”carry my weight well,”  (whatever that means) has allowed me to ignore, or overlook, or not even investigate how truly overburdened my body really is.  How poor my health really is.  How high my risks really may be.

I had also thought that at limiting myself to 1,200 calories a day on my new meal plan, I would lose weight.   But to lose one pound, a person has to burn approximately 3500 calories over and above what is already burned doing daily activities.  So, to lose just ONE pound in SEVEN days, I have to burn a total of 500 calories ABOVE my current level each day. 

If my diet is between 1,200-1,300, and my resting metabolism is 1,350 (that’s how many calories I burn in a day just BEING, and not doing any real excercise - which I’d say is any day I spend at my computer working 10 hours solid and not doing much else, which is how I spent MOST of last week) then all I am really doing at the moment with all my “hard work” is BREAKING EVEN.  

What I have considered to be VERY healthy, conscious, and praiseworthy behaviour is merely BREAKING EVEN.

So, clearly, to make a real difference, I am going to have to really… well… make a difference.   

Most of all, I am going to have to accept that what I had heretofore defined as “really working at it” was NOT really working at it at all, and that I am going to have to ask much much more of myself than I ever have in the past  - and what’s more, I am going to have to deliver.

I have done a little more research just now, and apparently, jumping out of a window only burns 15 calories. 

To lose only one pound I’d have to jump out a window more than 233 times.  Hardly seems worth it. 

Besides if I kill myself, I’ll miss ballet class tomorrow…

temptation aisle land

Posted January 9, 2008 * Comments(4)

For reasons I can only attribute to God’s having a sense of humor, ever since I decided to sort my body and eating and health out once and for all I have been put in situation after situation involving easy access to gobs of fattening eats. I was thinking about why there is such an internal struggle in me NOT to each such things, and of course the word “temptation” kept coming into it.

Since I have decided that one of the keys to my potential success is careful examination of my thinking and how I define all aspects of what it means and what it is to behave and eat in a healthy way, I decided to do a little research…

Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary defines “temptation” as: the act of tempting or the state of being tempted especially to evil : enticement. Something tempting : a cause or occasion of enticement

Since “enticement” made two appearances in defining this one word, I figured it needed a good looking at as well.

Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary defines “enticement” as: to attract artfully or adroitly or by arousing hope or desire.

Arousing hope or desire.

Hmmmmmm.

So, when I eat, say, a Krispy Kreme, what hope or desire could I possibly be fulfilling?… Not the hopes and desires I profess to have; A lean, fit, healthy and attractive body, long life, etc…

Technically, then - by definition - the only thing that SHOULD actually “tempt” me is the sight of a big bowl of salad. Served on a treadmill, preferably.

So, I got to thinking about foods – ones that actually are tempting (despite what Messrs. Merriam and Webster have to say on the subject) and ones that are not.

Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary defines “food” as: material consisting essentially of protein, carbohydrate, and fat used in the body of an organism to sustain growth, repair, and vital processes and to furnish energy.

Hmmmmmmmm.

So, here’s what I think.

I think there is “food,” and there are also Things Which Are Merely Edible.

If the primary purpose of “food” is to sustain growth, repair, and vital processes and to furnish energy, then a Krispy Kreme is merely something edible. It ain’t food.

In the past, I often justified poor eating by saying “But I HAVE to EAT!!! It’s not like smoking or alcohol, that you can just STOP doing! I NEED food!”

And so I do.

And if I just stuck to food, I’d be in better shape. Literally.
But I have had an issue of confusing food with Things That Are Merely Edible. Crayons are edible. Mealworms are edible. According to an episode of “Globe Trekker” that I saw, seal feces is EDIBLE.

Just because you CAN eat something doesn’t mean you should.

Just because you CAN eat something doesn’t mean it is FOOD.

And isn’t it funny - to get us to eat things which are not food but Merely Things Which Are Edible, the purveyors have to go to really REALLY great lengths to make the options attractive.  They have to slather things in cheese, sugar, frosting, butter, sauces, sprinkles — whatever they can think of to do to make otherwise intelligent adults ingest things which not only do NOT SUSTAIN growth, repair, and vital processes, but in fact HINDER growth, repair, and vital processes.

 I’m through being a sucker. 

From now on, if it ain’t food by definition, then I

Ain’t

Eating

It.

in the gardenburger of good and evil

Posted January 4, 2008 * Comments(7)

Ok.  So, anyone else notice the tendency to define our MORALITY in terms of the food we have eaten today?

“I was so good today - only XXXX calories!” 

 or -

“I was so bad today - I went to McDonalds!”

By this logic, we could broccolli ourselves to Dalai Lama-hood, and I can only assume Hitler must have subsisted on a diet comprised entirely of Original-Recipe-breaded-and-deep-fried Twinkies covered in cheese sauce with bacon sprinkles.

I have been pondering this, and have come to the conclusion that to say/think/teach myself to think of, and express my eating in terms of its MORALITY is a quietly destructive crutch. 

“I was bad..” subtly leads to the mindset “I AM bad.”  And as we all “know,” a bad person does not deserve to succeed, does not deserve happiness.   Not to mention that a person who defines themselves as “good” on Monday and then as “bad” on Tuesday is going to have certain difficulties establishing a strong, enduring, and accurate sense of the wealth of their true human value - and in reflecting that value in the way they support and nurture their physical, mental, and emotional self.

Furthermore, to self-define as “I am being good” or “I am being bad” is the province of children.

Children are incapable of understanding that something they do may have negative ramifications for THEM, so adults protect them by instilling the idea that doing things they have been taught are “bad will displease The Grownups, and result in (seemingly arbirtrary - to the child in question) punishment.   Jr. doesn’t really understand that blindly stepping into the road is forbidden because it may result in his DEATH - but he does understand, very clearly, that it IS somehow “bad” and that if he does run into the street Mommy or Daddy or Teacher  is likely to punish him. 

So when we smilingly announce “Oh, I am being so BAD today!” as we shovel in the hot wings or ice cream, or go out for drinks instead of going out for a walk or a run - what punishment, exactly, is it that we are hoping to AVOID?  In what way, exactly, do we think this behaviour will escape detection? What powerful authority figure is it that we are sneaking around behind?…

None, of course.

Because we are adults.  We know exactly what the real-life consequences of our choices are.

We are adults.  At the end of the day, we have to answer to ourselves for our behaviour.

We know if we step blindly into the street, we can get hit by a car.  We know if we make ridiculous eating and activity choices, we undermine the health, strength, beauty, and efficacy of our precious bodies.

I don’t know of anyone who has shown up at the office at 10:20 am in their pajamas, thrown their files on the floor, and laid down under their desk smilingly announcing “Oh, I am being so BAD today!” (…later explaining that they’ll “make it up tomorrow” by being extra professional…)

So it’s a question of whether or not we decide to bring the same level of daily purpose, direction, maturity, and accountability to our lifelong bodies that we bring to something as potentially transient as a JOB.

Eating intelligently and providing our bodies with the requisite amount of physical activity to keep them fine-tuned is NOT a question of being “good” or “bad”- it’s a question of behaving with reason.  Like the adults we are. 

I suppose we can choose to behave blindly, like a child, and conduct ourselves like unsupervised children - keeping ourselves in a rut of compulsion and regret and the mind-set that in some circumstances we are just prone to behaving “badly” and “can’t control” ourselves.

But we’re lying to ourselves (…not actually possible - only a recipe for even MORE regret and self loathing, by the way…) if we do.

Each and every day we make a million choices that value and safeguard our futures.  We behave like adults, and we ”control ourselves” in all kinds of environments. We choose NOT to do a million reckless and self-destructive things each and every day, and we don’t think a thing about it.  We certainly don’t crow about it.

I have never heard anyone say,  ”I was so GOOD today! I didn’t suddenly leap up on the pew and sing ‘Baby Got Back’ in church!”  “I was so GOOD today! I didn’t grab the cute UPS guy’s butt!”  “I was so GOOD today! I didn’t stuff an entire pot roast up my jacket and sneak out of the Hy-Vee!”  

So, why do we bother to pretend things are any different when it comes to making intelligent and reasonable eating and excercise choices?  What on EARTH does THAT pretension gain us? 

I’m sure I don’t know.

However, all of the above said, I do have it on very good authority that the Dalai Lama eats a CRAPLOAD of broccolli.

the Dalai Lama eats CRAPLOADS of broccolli

hippo new year

Posted January 1, 2008 * Comments(6)

Quite frankly, I’m super annoyed that I’m starting this weight loss commitment on day one of the new year.  It smacks of being a “New Year’s Resolution,” which - as we all know - is about the flimsiest contract since Britney and K-Fed’s prenup. 

And considering I’m not merely starting, but starting OVER, gives it that extra whiff of sad-sack “here we go again” pathos.

On the other hand, there is something satisfying about the idea of having the 01/01 ”fresh start.”  If you ignore the fact that calendars are almost completely arbitrary, and Jan 1st is only the “new year” to non-Chinese, Assyrian, Muslim, and Jewish people - and even THAT’s only been true for less than 260 years.  In 153 B.C. The Romans moved the new year from March (Spring Solstice) to Jan. 1,  but it wasn’t officially set there by the Julian calendar until 46 B.C..  Then it was eradicated in the Middle Ages because of its ties to paganism, and only re-established (by Pope Gregory XIII - to coincide with Christmas) in 1582. But the Jan. 1 date still wasn’t adopted in some places, including the United States, until 1752.  256 years ago.

Now, wasn’t that educational? And you thought we were just going to talk about my fat ass. 

But, about my fat ass…   MAN, is it fat. SOOOoooooooooooo fat.   And all because I neglected and ignored it.  I didn’t have to neglect and ignore it.  I could have taken it to the gym regularly, given it interesting excercises to do, fed it things that didn’t spatter it with those ever-so-attractive cellulite bumps, and generally treated it with the love and respect that my one-and-only, always-there-for-me, together-for-life ass deserves.  But I didn’t.

Well, I did for awhile.  Starting about this time in 2006, I went to the gym and watched my portions and avoided junky candy and chips and booze and such, and by summer I had taken it from a 155 lb ass all the way down to a 130 lb ass.  And I must say, it was looking pretty ok at that point.  It wasn’t anything you’d wanna show the kids, but it wasn’t anything to be ashamed of, either.  It did all sorts of marvellous things like go to ballet class, run a 12-minute mile, fit into my favorite jeans… fit into my favorite chairs… things were going great.

And then I made the BIG mistake.  The same mistake I made in 1988 when I worked my ass from 130 down to 110.  The same mistake I made in 1998 when I worked my ass from 139 down to 112.  And the same mistake I made in 2000 when I worked my ass from 140 down to 125. 

I thought to myself, “Whew! Well, you’ve done it! You lost the weight! You’re ‘that girl’ now! You’re fit and healthy! Congratulations - you’re finished!”

And I slacked off going to the gym, I slacked off watching what I ate, I slacked off making intelligent choices, I slacked off staying conscious of what I was doing to my body and what my body was doing because of it.  I just ignored the facts - rather, the FACT - that I can make changes my body will adjust to, but I can’t change my body.

 In other words, my body will always be what it is - shorter, stockier, slower metabolism, prone to weight gain and fat retention, with a family history of diabetes and heart attack.  I can make choices that result in it being slimmer, stronger, and healthier, but I can’t suddenly become one of those people who can eat whatever they want, not excercise, and stay small and healthy (if such people really exist outside of the lies in fashion magazines) forever.

So, the lesson I have finally had to accept - I had LEARNED it already, as evidenced by the ups and downs of the scale throughout my life, I just refused to accept the FACTS of that lesson - is  that I WILL NEVER BE ‘FINISHED.’  I WILL NEVER BE ‘DONE.’  I can never say “Whew!”  I can only say ”Next challenge!”

I am now accepting and appreciating that there is no magic weight or end date when I stop working out, or stop being mindful of portions and nutrition, or abandon reason and consciousness and stuff my face (not to mention my ass) with useless crap, or do any of the 1,0001 myriad things I have done in the past that resulted in having to start over at starting over.

Maybe the idea of never being done sounds depressing to you - but I look at it this way - if I’m never done, then - thank GOD - I will never, never, NEVER have to “start over” again.  And really, is there ANYthing more depressing than our habit of ”starting over” AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN and…

So, although I have more finite goals - like shedding about 30 useless pounds, and getting back to the activities I love - my overall “resolution” (I suppose we MUST use that word, mustn’t we?) is to make this the last “start” of my life.  To TRULY accept that to really succeed at this requires that there be no end to the process - and so I have to come to appreciate and love the process even more than the results.   

So, what better way to stay with the process than to log off, and head directly over to the gym?… None, you say?

How right you are.

Food Log

Exercise Log