Pregnant? Then stick with more gentle forms of exercise like swimming. A Danish study shows that women who jog or play racquet sports have an increased risk of miscarriage. Exercise in later stages does not carry increased risks.
“I did not have a big bowl of chips with that woman.”
Those of us struggling to stick with a diet know that a spouse can be our best or worst enemy when it comes to weight loss. That massive bowl of hot fudge-topped ice cream my husband eats every night before bed has led me to stray more than once from my generally anti-carb stance. It’s just too tempting to rummage around in search of chips while listening to him purr with delight at the other end of the sofa.
I suppose matters could be worse, though. I could be dealing with an entire nation trying to stand between me and a big bowl of chips, just like Bill Clinton.
It seems that in an effort to pull in donations for his wife’s campaign, Bill sent out a fundraising email this weekend with the subject line “You, me, a TV and a bowl of chips”. The idea is for Hillary’s campaign to pick three people to join Bill — and a big bowl of chips — to watch the upcoming Presidential debate and discuss the candidates’ positions.
Apparently, he failed to clear the idea with Hillary beforehand… or at least that’s what her follow-up email would indicate.
“I hear you might be watching a debate with Bill — can I ask you a favor?” Clinton (D-N.Y.) writes in the note. “Bill mentioned ‘a big bowl of chips’ in the email he sent you Tuesday. If you are one of the three people who get the chance to join him, can you make sure he eats carrots, not chips?”
Ah, yes. The ol’ “It takes a political party to keep Bill on his diet” approach. That’s sure to go over well.
That someone is CardioGirl, who has launched her own domain and is now busily blogging away. Be sure to visit, and while you’re there find out what’s with the low tops.
Sometimes fat has more to do with what’s going on inside a person’s head than what’s actually going into their mouth. After all, it’s not without reason that creamy, cheesy, calorie-dense fare is known as “comfort food”. For some adults — and some children, too, I suspect — eating is a way of appeasing a different kind of hunger, an emotional need more than a physical one.
Granted, not everyone turns to food to make themselves happy. Some turn to gambling or sex, others to drugs and alcohol. There are even some people (much as I do envy them) who turn to exercise as a way to make themselves feel better. Fat people merely show the effects of their own self-comforting techniques, whereas the effects of the other ways are so much more easily disguised.
Sometimes, though, it all starts coming together: a person who’s been struggling with their weight suddenly has an AHA! moment in which they realize that what’s triggering their eating isn’t a desire for food, but some other less obvious desire.
It’s not always about comfort. Sometimes it’s about insulation — from our own inner turmoil, from the stress of daily life, and sometimes even from those around us.
One woman spoke of being plagued by obesity. She described how she worked hard at returning herself to a healthy weight.
She succeeded but now feels much more vulnerable, as if the layers of fat were a suit of armour worn to protect her from the intrusions of the outside world. When she was fat, people gave her a wide berth at the shopping centre; now they brush past her, invading her space and making her feel exposed.
Losing her armour was a double blow, for previously, she could overeat in response to her distress; now she has lost both her protection along with her means of dealing with anxieties that get through her weakened defences.
A number of you have sent emails asking for a layout easier on the eyes. Some didn’t like the lack of color contrast, while others just couldn’t stand the pink. I hear ya.
I was rather fond of it myself, but I did want something that felt a bit more roomy.
After a long morning of tinkering with the new layout, I think I’ve managed to address all of the various requests. Although I’ve tried poking around to find all of the problems, I’d appreciate a note if you happen to discover one that I overlooked.
Ah, the hourglass figure. Romanticized in poetry, praised in myth and about to disappear altogether?
That’s what experts are saying, at any rate, and they’re blaming the “obesity epidemic” for its loss. Roughly 60% of the American population is overweight due, in part, to our culture’s fast food diet and lack of regular exercise.
But we’re not the only ones growing bigger. Autralian women’s waistlines have increased from an average of 29.5 inches to 32 inches in the past decade.
Even in Japan, a country known for its healthy diet and slim population, there’s been a 5% increase in obese males over the past five years alone.
All three countries have seen a surge in the demand for liposuction and gastric bypass (or lapband) surgeries.
I can’t help wondering, though, just what’s to blame for this “epidemic”?
It can’t be simply a matter of fast- or convenience foods, and yet efforts to find an answer run into an “Alice in Wonderland” type of logic.
For instance, the World Organization for Health (WHO) blames obesity on economic growth and urbanization, then notes that obesity coexists with under-nutrition in developing countries.
In other words, WHO thinks obesity occurs due to economic grown when a country makes more money, except where it exists in countries that aren’t making more money, in which case it simply exists.
I rather like the virus theory explanation which says that if you’re fat, chances are you caught adenovirus-36.
Tests on more than 500 Americans found about 30 per cent of obese people had been exposed to the virus, compared with 11 per cent of non-obese people. They identified 26 pairs of twins where only one had been infected with Ad-36.
“And just as we predicted, the infected twins were heavier and fatter,” said Dr (Richard) Atkinson (Emeritus Professor of Medicine at the University of Wisconsin in Madison), who has established a company that tests for the virus.
This happens to be the same virus that, when injected into stem cells, turned them into fat cells. Scientists are already busily working on a vaccine for the virus.
Promising news, eh?
But there’s always a “but”, isn’t there? (In my case it’s an increasingly large butt.) There’s one in this case, too: the vaccine won’t be ready for testing for roughly 5 to 10 more years, and by that point I’d be old enough to look ridiculous in hip-hugger jeans.
Damn the luck.
My husband has a serious ice cream addiction. Every week he buys a fresh container of Chocolate Ripple, one in the ginormous “family size” that requires its own reinforced handle. Thing is, he can polish off that entire container by himself — with chocolate fudge sauce on top, mind you — and yet does not gain one single pound.
My daughter is a candy addict. Now that she’s out of braces, she’s a chewy candy addict, with sour Gummi Bears and Laffy-Taffy being two of her favorites. She almost always has a 2-pound bag of one or the other somewhere in her room, and judging by the empty wrappers I see in the trash she goes through at least one bag each week. She, too, indulges her habit without gaining one single pound.
My little boy loves bread above anything else. Bagels, rolls, buns, sliced bread: it doesn’t matter to him. If I didn’t insist on him eating protein, fruits and vegetables occasionally, he’d be a snap to feed: hand him a slice of bread and let him have at it. Then Hoover up the crumbs when he’s done. One thing I’m certain of: this child would never survive if I were to put us all on a low-carb diet. Not that he’ll ever need one — he shares his father’s metabolism.
Me? Give me salty snacks with a crunch or give me death. I’d be perfectly content living on chips, crackers or popcorn. Were it not for the need to feed the other members of my family, I’d gladly trade in all of my kitchen appliances for one of those home theater popcorn machines. But unlike my family, I pack on the pounds when I excessively indulge my cravings.
Which is why I have had to learn to buy rice cakes for my munchies, then close my eyes while eating and pretending they’re chips instead. But somehow, even that manages to pack on the pounds. It’s not fair, I tell ya.
Sure, I could wean myself of my addiction to all things that go “crunch,” but what’s the point of living after that? Didn’t someone famous once say “Give me chips or give me death?” No? Hmm…. well someone should have.
How about you? What’s your big weakness?
My little boy has had a cold all week and now I’m battling it myself.
This unfortunately comes right after Janet sent me her Alli starter pack, having decided she’s not going to use it herself. I’d just run out of my own supply, but didn’t want to completely derail my diet, so I’m really grateful for her generosity!
Only problem: my two favorite “home remedies” for nasty colds — chicken soup with matzo balls and strawberry ice cream — both involve a bit more fat than Alli allows. (And I know better than to tempt that limit again. *shudder*)
Meanwhile, I can’t remember if I’m supposed to “feed a cold” or “starve a cold”.
Not that it matters, thanks to all of the TheraFlu I’ve been swilling. I’m too groggy to know if I’m hungry and too tired to do anything about it if I am.
Sure, exercise is good for you. Wouldn’t it be great it if was good for the environment and your wallet, too?
Apparently, that’s not such a far-fetched notion. Inventors are working on ways to use exercise machines to power lighting and fixtures, with the excess stored in batteries for later use.
Whittling your waist and your bills at the same time? Now that’s a great incentive to exercise!
See those? They’re evil.
Oh, sure, they look innocent enough. Their makers would have you believe they’re downright good for you, too. They tout the fact that Sunchips are baked, not fried, so they contain less fat. And there, at the top of the bag is a bright red label promising 18 times more fiber than potato chips. Which is to say they contain all of 2 grams.
But that’s not the part that irritates me most of all.
I’m mad because, once someone opens a bag of Sunchips in my house, I can’t stop eating them. I try. I really do. I put the bag away in a hard-to-reach cupboard and tell myself to forget all about them. But they call to me in wavy golden voices. “Eat me!” they beg. So I do. And once I start, I just can’t stop.
They’re addictive, I swear it. I wouldn’t be in the least bit surprised to find there’s some kind of “secret ingredient” in Sunchips that will send my body into all sorts of withdrawal convulsions just as soon as I go a full week without polishing off a bag all by myself. Not that I’ve made it that long yet. For some reason my husband insists on buying them every time he goes to the store.
“But you LIKE them!” he’ll exclaim when I grumble about how he brought these rectangular harbingers of dietary temptation back into our house.
“Yes, I do,” I tell him. “Too much. That’s the problem.”
Being an effortlessly thin man despite his half-gallon a day ice cream habit, he just doesn’t get it. Not in the least bit. And so he continues bringing home Sunchips as a sign of affection. And, even though I know they’re bad for me, I keep eating them because, well, they’re there and I just can’t say ‘no’ as far as they’re concerned.
Someday, I may be the world’s only woman to check herself into drug rehab to recover from her Sunchip addiction.
“Hello, I’m Chubby Mommy and I’m addicted to Sunchips,” I’ll say. And all of the hard-core drug and booze addicts around me will pause, take a deep breath and nod before welcoming me into the fold.
