Scientists have done another study on BMI and have found, once again, that it doesn't have much to do with how healthy you are. As most data from previous studies have shown, BMI is just a silly set of numbers that don't affect much in the real world, and shouldn't be used to gauge a person's health and certainly not how much a person should be paying for insurance.
I don't understand why people are so ready to use BMI to attack people who are big. In the book Body of Truth, the author talks about how people have started using health as a reason to attack and shame fat folks because it's no longer politically correct to make fun of fat people outright. Instead of saying we're fat and ugly, they tell us that we're ruining our health, that we're going to die young, that we're wasting billions of American dollars on medical costs, all because we're fat and lazy and we won't lose weight. None of which is true.
I'm tired of the fat shaming. Yes, I'm fat, and I'm pretty sure I'm always going to be fat. But that doesn't mean I'm unhealthy or that I'll live a short life. It also doesn't mean I spend tons of money on medical stuff, either. I bet I go to the doctor less than most people do, actually. I'm hardly ever sick, and when I am, it generally goes away quickly. And as far as fatness shortening my lifespan, scientists have been coming to the conclusion lately that the number one determining factor in your lifespan is your genetics, and environmental things only play a small part in that. My grandma lived to 102, and I have aunts in their 90s. I'm pretty sure I'm going to live a long life.
So what if I'm obese? It's just a silly term the government scientists made up so they can categorize us and tell us what we should do. It didn't even have an official meaning until the 90s, seriously. Well, I'm tired of it. I'm not a number, whether it be weight or BMI. I'm a human being.
Showing posts with label weight. Show all posts
Showing posts with label weight. Show all posts
Friday, February 5, 2016
Wednesday, January 13, 2016
Downer
I want to stay focused on my health as I get going into this new year. For me, that means eating well, getting enough sleep, doing the things I love, and getting some exercise. I'm purposely leaving out any thoughts on losing weight. Why? Because it's a death trap for my self esteem. If my goal is to lose 20 pounds, then I start thinking about how fat and blobby I am, start doing some not so smart things to help me lose those pounds, and can become pretty obsessive in a bad way. It's a bad place to be, and I don't even want to try going down that road.
Which is why I'm really mad at myself for stepping on the scale the other morning. I wasn't really thinking about it. I was feeling good about myself because I've been eating well and feeling better. Until I saw how much I weighed. I hadn't weighed myself since before Christmas, so I'd gained a good 5 or 6 pounds, and it was a bit of a shock. And it made me feel really bad about myself.
I haven't weighted this much since before I was married.
Then I start arguing with myself in my head. I've been through a lot this fall; I was pregnant, I had major stress and hormones, I ate emotionally, I was deeply depressed, I got the depo shot (progesterone birth control, which they tell you will make you gain weight), it was Christmas, I've been sick.
The other side of my head is saying things like, yeah, but you didn't have to eat all that at Christmas and New Year's, you should be exercising more, you're so fat and ugly, it's no wonder you can't fit into your clothes, you have no self control, and even if you did, no diet even works for you so why try, you're going to be fat and blobby forever.
But I'm gonna do good and cut out all food that tastes good and exercise until I collapse and maybe I'll start calorie counting again and tracking every food I put in my mouth and running even though it's winter and I have cold weather exercise-induced asthma.
You'll never do any of that. You're too fat and lazy.
..............................
All that from weighing myself absentmindedly. It's a bad thing for me. It brings out the worst parts of me; I get obsessed, beat myself up, believe in miracle cures, and forget that what's important is my health and not how I look.
So maybe I'll move my scale out of my room for now. Now that I know how much I weight, I have strong desires to continue to weigh myself to make sure it's going down. It's a sickness. The funny thing is, no one really sees it as such. If it was gambling or drinking, people would say I fell off the wagon. But it's about weight loss, so of course it's good that I weighed myself. I certainly used to think so.
Now I just think it's a waste of my precious time and energy.
Which is why I'm really mad at myself for stepping on the scale the other morning. I wasn't really thinking about it. I was feeling good about myself because I've been eating well and feeling better. Until I saw how much I weighed. I hadn't weighed myself since before Christmas, so I'd gained a good 5 or 6 pounds, and it was a bit of a shock. And it made me feel really bad about myself.
I haven't weighted this much since before I was married.
Then I start arguing with myself in my head. I've been through a lot this fall; I was pregnant, I had major stress and hormones, I ate emotionally, I was deeply depressed, I got the depo shot (progesterone birth control, which they tell you will make you gain weight), it was Christmas, I've been sick.
The other side of my head is saying things like, yeah, but you didn't have to eat all that at Christmas and New Year's, you should be exercising more, you're so fat and ugly, it's no wonder you can't fit into your clothes, you have no self control, and even if you did, no diet even works for you so why try, you're going to be fat and blobby forever.
But I'm gonna do good and cut out all food that tastes good and exercise until I collapse and maybe I'll start calorie counting again and tracking every food I put in my mouth and running even though it's winter and I have cold weather exercise-induced asthma.
You'll never do any of that. You're too fat and lazy.
..............................
All that from weighing myself absentmindedly. It's a bad thing for me. It brings out the worst parts of me; I get obsessed, beat myself up, believe in miracle cures, and forget that what's important is my health and not how I look.
So maybe I'll move my scale out of my room for now. Now that I know how much I weight, I have strong desires to continue to weigh myself to make sure it's going down. It's a sickness. The funny thing is, no one really sees it as such. If it was gambling or drinking, people would say I fell off the wagon. But it's about weight loss, so of course it's good that I weighed myself. I certainly used to think so.
Now I just think it's a waste of my precious time and energy.
Friday, May 8, 2015
The Lure of Skinny: Part 2
Skinny is such a powerful thing in our society. If you're skinny, you have power, social power; the power to attract the opposite sex, the power to get many more jobs and have more opportunities, the power to make friends and to be seen as trustworthy, the power to tell (fat) people what they need to do to become skinny as well. For reasons that are very hard to understand, our society today puts skinny on a pedestal and makes it the highest level of moral rightness you can ever achieve. You're seen as trustworthy, well disciplined, highly motivated, energetic, and healthy, just by the way you look.
On the flip side, fat people are seen as lazy, lairs, gluttonous, self-centered, having no self control, and on the verge of death every time they put anything in their mouths that isn't a leaf of lettuce. We're told that we should be ashamed for the way we look, because obviously we just need to eat less and exercise more and we can be just like the skinny people. And the sad thing about it is, fat people absolutely believe that 100%.
Is it any wonder, then, that so many overweight and obese people are desperate to lose weight? The message to lose weight has become so frantic, so terrifying, it's as if it's a highly contagious disease, and if we don't take action right now, all will be lost! Many fat people are lead to believe that they're just months away from diabetes and heart disease, even if they're physically very healthy. And so they take on the task of losing the weight, for themselves, for their families, for society as a whole (because everyone knows that obesity is a drain on the medical system).
This desperation is what feeds the $60 billion dollar diet industry. If being skinny is so good morally, socially, and physically, it's worth spending money on, right? Well, according to recent studies, no, not really. Only 5% of dieters keep the weight off for 5 years, and the ones that do keep it off make it their life's mission. Several of the people who told their diet stories in the book Body of Truth said that maintaining the weight loss was a full time job, and they had to stay at it constantly. But that's the great thing about the diet industry; they know that their business model works really well. The dieters lose weight initially, they keep it off for 6 months to a year, then start gaining it back. They can then say, "Hey, the diet isn't at fault; you just didn't stick to it!". And because people are so desperate to lose weight, they believe it and come back for more punishment.
I don't know how well the low carb and paleo diets work long term. I do know of several people who have kept the weight off with low carb for many years, but I know of even more people who have gone up and down with it. As for the paleo diet, I don't know if what we call "paleo" today (as opposed to Lorren Cordain's paleo, which I understand is low fat and anti-saturated fat) has been around long enough to see if many people can keep the weight off long term. As I said last time, this doesn't mean I don't think these diets are great; I think they're wonderful ways to get back to health, for sure. What I really don't know is if they're any better at keeping the weight off compared to any other diet out there. If anyone has any info on this, I'd love to see it.
The most damaging aspect of this whole get-skinny-to-be-healthy mindset is that it skews a person's idea of what healthy really is. You begin to think that anything that makes you skinny is healthy, even if those methods are clearly dangerous. Or at the very least, you use that as justification. Truth be told, I'm fairly certain that health is only an added bonus to weight loss for most people. Even if they don't say it out loud, I'm pretty sure that the number one reason people attempt weight loss is to look good, and to be socially acceptable. It's so easy, when you're thinking about or doing something dangerous to lose weight, to give yourself and others the justification that, hey, you were unhealthy as a fat person, so this can't be bad for me!
A case in point of this disturbing mental gymnastics is the Kimkins disaster. I know I've talked about it briefly before in my blog, but I never went into much detail about it. Back then, I was fascinated by the drama of what happened, and how Heidi (Kimmer) could put herself into a situation like that. I found myself reading the whole drama again recently, though this time, I see something a lot more disturbing. I paid special attention to the blogs of people who went on the diet and were deep into it, but because of the fraud, they left the site and started talking about their experiences. I see people who were so desperate to lose weight and be beautiful, that they rationalized a 300-600 calorie low carb/low fat diet as a way to get healthy. They believed, despite being intelligent well educated people, that this was enough food to fuel them for the whole day:
And if that wasn't doing it for them and they found themselves in a weight stall, they could try this for their daily intake instead:
(Both pictures are from Mariasol's anti-Kimkins blog. I highly suggest reading through their blog and those they link to if you're interested in this fascinating side of low carb history.)
The most disturbing part about this epic tale of self-deception and desperation is the long term effects. Many people (mostly women) who stayed on this diet for months started to have side effects; losing hair, brittle nails, feeling nauseated, dizziness, blacking out, heart flutters, and in some cases, serious heart problems. And yet, despite all of these issues, they were brushed aside as if they weren't a problem, not just by the owner of the site and her admins, but also by the members. They were told, and believed, that there was no such thing as starvation mode, that the side effects were normal, and that whatever they were experiencing was temporary and worth it to be skinny and healthy.
But there is such a thing as starvation mode. It's called YOU'RE STARVING! Anyone with a functioning brain should know that eating very tiny amounts of food is what starvation is. By definition, it's to "die or suffer from lack of food." SNATT is a term that was used frequently on the Kimkins website; it stood for Semi-Nauceous-All-The-Time, and it was a state you wanted to be in. If that's not suffering from lack of food, I don't know what is.
The other side effects aren't normal, by the way; they're signs that your body is suffering. You lose hair because your body is in shock. Your nails become brittle because you're not providing your body with the proper amount of nutrients and good fats and protein. You get dizzy and black out for several reasons, including low electrolytes, hypoglycemia, and low blood pressure, all of these things linked to the starvation diet. As for heart problems, well... when you're on a very low calorie diet, your body starts to eat away at your muscle tissue just to keep you alive, and of course your heart is a muscle. It's not a secret that many anorectics die from heart problems.
That's the lure of skinny. Intelligent, healthy people, who perhaps have more padding than society deems proper, put their lives at stake just to fit into the crowd. The really sad part is that it's usually all for naught. Scientists have not only shown that 95% of dieters regain the weight, but that yo-yo dieting is very bad for your health and leads most people to an even higher weight than when they started. I don't exactly trust scientists, not after reading many of the scathing reviews of studies done by the low carb/paleo community, but there's a cultural component to this idea of yo-yo dieting. The fact that so many people have lived through the up and downs of weight cycling and ended up heavier than before should tell us that there's at least some truth to it.
So why do we, as a society, continue to promote dieting to people who are otherwise healthy? I think the idea of weight=health is so deeply ingrained in our culture that it's impossible to believe a fat person is perfectly fine. It doesn't help that "health experts" are out there vehemently rejecting the idea of healthy obesity, screaming that this plainly wrong idea is costing us all money and making people sick and dead, despite the mounting science that shows that obesity isn't really that big of a health risk (or one at all, in the case of overweight).
I wonder sometimes if this will ever change. Will doctors ever promote a good diet and exercise as ways to get healthy rather than skinny (and then be satisfied if the patient gets healthy but doesn't lose weight)? Will women's magazines have cover stories about how to get healthy in 30 days with a beautiful round woman showing off her incredible biceps (as opposed to a tiny skeletal woman standing in one leg of her former pants)? Will we ever be told by our government the truth that dieting is actually very bad for us, and encouraged to eat wholesome, natural, real food for whole body health?
I suppose only time will tell.
On the flip side, fat people are seen as lazy, lairs, gluttonous, self-centered, having no self control, and on the verge of death every time they put anything in their mouths that isn't a leaf of lettuce. We're told that we should be ashamed for the way we look, because obviously we just need to eat less and exercise more and we can be just like the skinny people. And the sad thing about it is, fat people absolutely believe that 100%.
Is it any wonder, then, that so many overweight and obese people are desperate to lose weight? The message to lose weight has become so frantic, so terrifying, it's as if it's a highly contagious disease, and if we don't take action right now, all will be lost! Many fat people are lead to believe that they're just months away from diabetes and heart disease, even if they're physically very healthy. And so they take on the task of losing the weight, for themselves, for their families, for society as a whole (because everyone knows that obesity is a drain on the medical system).
This desperation is what feeds the $60 billion dollar diet industry. If being skinny is so good morally, socially, and physically, it's worth spending money on, right? Well, according to recent studies, no, not really. Only 5% of dieters keep the weight off for 5 years, and the ones that do keep it off make it their life's mission. Several of the people who told their diet stories in the book Body of Truth said that maintaining the weight loss was a full time job, and they had to stay at it constantly. But that's the great thing about the diet industry; they know that their business model works really well. The dieters lose weight initially, they keep it off for 6 months to a year, then start gaining it back. They can then say, "Hey, the diet isn't at fault; you just didn't stick to it!". And because people are so desperate to lose weight, they believe it and come back for more punishment.
I don't know how well the low carb and paleo diets work long term. I do know of several people who have kept the weight off with low carb for many years, but I know of even more people who have gone up and down with it. As for the paleo diet, I don't know if what we call "paleo" today (as opposed to Lorren Cordain's paleo, which I understand is low fat and anti-saturated fat) has been around long enough to see if many people can keep the weight off long term. As I said last time, this doesn't mean I don't think these diets are great; I think they're wonderful ways to get back to health, for sure. What I really don't know is if they're any better at keeping the weight off compared to any other diet out there. If anyone has any info on this, I'd love to see it.
The most damaging aspect of this whole get-skinny-to-be-healthy mindset is that it skews a person's idea of what healthy really is. You begin to think that anything that makes you skinny is healthy, even if those methods are clearly dangerous. Or at the very least, you use that as justification. Truth be told, I'm fairly certain that health is only an added bonus to weight loss for most people. Even if they don't say it out loud, I'm pretty sure that the number one reason people attempt weight loss is to look good, and to be socially acceptable. It's so easy, when you're thinking about or doing something dangerous to lose weight, to give yourself and others the justification that, hey, you were unhealthy as a fat person, so this can't be bad for me!
A case in point of this disturbing mental gymnastics is the Kimkins disaster. I know I've talked about it briefly before in my blog, but I never went into much detail about it. Back then, I was fascinated by the drama of what happened, and how Heidi (Kimmer) could put herself into a situation like that. I found myself reading the whole drama again recently, though this time, I see something a lot more disturbing. I paid special attention to the blogs of people who went on the diet and were deep into it, but because of the fraud, they left the site and started talking about their experiences. I see people who were so desperate to lose weight and be beautiful, that they rationalized a 300-600 calorie low carb/low fat diet as a way to get healthy. They believed, despite being intelligent well educated people, that this was enough food to fuel them for the whole day:
 |
| 594 calories |
And if that wasn't doing it for them and they found themselves in a weight stall, they could try this for their daily intake instead:
 |
| 376 calories |
The most disturbing part about this epic tale of self-deception and desperation is the long term effects. Many people (mostly women) who stayed on this diet for months started to have side effects; losing hair, brittle nails, feeling nauseated, dizziness, blacking out, heart flutters, and in some cases, serious heart problems. And yet, despite all of these issues, they were brushed aside as if they weren't a problem, not just by the owner of the site and her admins, but also by the members. They were told, and believed, that there was no such thing as starvation mode, that the side effects were normal, and that whatever they were experiencing was temporary and worth it to be skinny and healthy.
But there is such a thing as starvation mode. It's called YOU'RE STARVING! Anyone with a functioning brain should know that eating very tiny amounts of food is what starvation is. By definition, it's to "die or suffer from lack of food." SNATT is a term that was used frequently on the Kimkins website; it stood for Semi-Nauceous-All-The-Time, and it was a state you wanted to be in. If that's not suffering from lack of food, I don't know what is.
The other side effects aren't normal, by the way; they're signs that your body is suffering. You lose hair because your body is in shock. Your nails become brittle because you're not providing your body with the proper amount of nutrients and good fats and protein. You get dizzy and black out for several reasons, including low electrolytes, hypoglycemia, and low blood pressure, all of these things linked to the starvation diet. As for heart problems, well... when you're on a very low calorie diet, your body starts to eat away at your muscle tissue just to keep you alive, and of course your heart is a muscle. It's not a secret that many anorectics die from heart problems.
That's the lure of skinny. Intelligent, healthy people, who perhaps have more padding than society deems proper, put their lives at stake just to fit into the crowd. The really sad part is that it's usually all for naught. Scientists have not only shown that 95% of dieters regain the weight, but that yo-yo dieting is very bad for your health and leads most people to an even higher weight than when they started. I don't exactly trust scientists, not after reading many of the scathing reviews of studies done by the low carb/paleo community, but there's a cultural component to this idea of yo-yo dieting. The fact that so many people have lived through the up and downs of weight cycling and ended up heavier than before should tell us that there's at least some truth to it.
So why do we, as a society, continue to promote dieting to people who are otherwise healthy? I think the idea of weight=health is so deeply ingrained in our culture that it's impossible to believe a fat person is perfectly fine. It doesn't help that "health experts" are out there vehemently rejecting the idea of healthy obesity, screaming that this plainly wrong idea is costing us all money and making people sick and dead, despite the mounting science that shows that obesity isn't really that big of a health risk (or one at all, in the case of overweight).
I wonder sometimes if this will ever change. Will doctors ever promote a good diet and exercise as ways to get healthy rather than skinny (and then be satisfied if the patient gets healthy but doesn't lose weight)? Will women's magazines have cover stories about how to get healthy in 30 days with a beautiful round woman showing off her incredible biceps (as opposed to a tiny skeletal woman standing in one leg of her former pants)? Will we ever be told by our government the truth that dieting is actually very bad for us, and encouraged to eat wholesome, natural, real food for whole body health?
I suppose only time will tell.
Thursday, April 23, 2015
Single Focus
As I said recently, I've been reading an interesting book called Women Afraid to Eat. I don't agree with it 100%; it was written in the late 90s, so there are suggestions to go low fat and low sodium sprinkled throughout, but the rest of the book is fascinating. It's a shocking exposure of what our society's focus on weight really does to women. It's definitely opened my eyes.
The author, Frances Berg, talks about a lot of things; the shocking long term results of dieting both physically and mentally, the fact that 70% of women don't get enough of the nutrients they need to be healthy, how people unfairly judge women based on their appearances, and the surprising fact that the health benefits that you get from dieting and losing weight are very tiny compared to the health risks. I haven't quite gotten through the whole book yet, but I'm finding it to be pretty inspiring and I plan on looking into these subjects more soon.
The last point there is the most annoying to me. People that are obese or overweight are, yes, statistically at more risk for many health problems, such as hearth disease and diabetes. The risk, according to Frances, isn't as high as you might think, considering how loudly health experts are yelling about it. In some ways, it's actually healthier to be overweight or even obese; some recent studies have shown that overweight people actually live longer than normal weight people, and are less likely to get dementia. And race plays a big role in it, too. Apparently, black people can be healthy at slightly higher BMIs than white people, and Native American people can have much higher BMIs than white people and still be healthy.
So what's the deal? Why is skinny "ideal", anyway? I just don't get it. And I certainly don't understand those people who are in favor of public fat shaming to get people to lose weight. As a person who has never been a normal weight, I can tell you for sure that fat shaming doesn't work. It rips a deep scar into your heart that never goes away. I'll never forget being called hippo hips, or thunder thighs, or being barked at and called a dog. I think the one that hurt the most when two boys came up to me, and one said, "I think you're pretty, but my friend thinks you're ugly. That must mean you're pretty ugly." It's hard to look in the mirror and see a beautiful woman; all I see is an ugly fat person. And there are health experts out there that want to promote this kind of treatment!
A recent study really got me riled up. It was a cohort study that tried to see if there were different kinds of obese people. And, apparently they found six types, though because this was focused on a group of people in England, they suspect there are even more groups globally than they found. I think this kind of study is awesome; they're actually looking at obesity as a set of different types of people instead of fat vs. skinny. I went into the article with high hopes, thinking yes, now they'll see there are some healthy obese people. And they did find healthy obese people! Obese young women, and obese older affluent adults. Great, wonderful, glad to hear them say they're healthy.
But then they go on to say that these two groups, the healthy obese women and healthy obese affluent older adults still need to lose weight.
Why?! Why do they need to lose weight if they're healthy?! That makes no sense! If they're healthy, and living a health promoting lifestyle, why does it matter if they lose weight or not? Shouldn't health be the first priority? RRR!
We're all individuals. I can never be skinny; my genes won't allow it, and I'm not just blowing smoke here. My mom was a beautiful woman when she was younger; she lived on a farm, in the days when everyone walked everywhere (she walked to town most days, a five mile hike up and down a huge hill), and she ate real whole food her parents grew and that grandma cooked with love. But she was still a size 18 at her smallest. All of my maternal female relatives (seven aunts and many cousins) were like that; we're a family of strong, tall, big boned, robust, and voluptuous women. Grandma was never skinny (though never fat, either), and she was vibrant and healthy until her death at 102.
I tried to find the data behind the news article for that study about types of obesity, but apparently you have to email the lead scientist for it. Although I'm interested to see what it says, I'm not really that good at sorting through the data. Besides, I doubt they'd send it to me for a blog post a few people are going to read.
I came across an article on the New York Post's website, with an excerpt from a book called Body of Truth. After reading the article and the reviews of the book, I had to order it. It's a serious look at the science of obesity and what it honestly says about the health risks of being fat and also of dieting. I feel like I need to get to the bottom of this. I want to read about the real science behind obesity, rather than just what the health experts are screaming.
So that's my rant for the day. Hopefully, when I read more into the book, I'll have something more interesting to say than RRRRR!
The author, Frances Berg, talks about a lot of things; the shocking long term results of dieting both physically and mentally, the fact that 70% of women don't get enough of the nutrients they need to be healthy, how people unfairly judge women based on their appearances, and the surprising fact that the health benefits that you get from dieting and losing weight are very tiny compared to the health risks. I haven't quite gotten through the whole book yet, but I'm finding it to be pretty inspiring and I plan on looking into these subjects more soon.
The last point there is the most annoying to me. People that are obese or overweight are, yes, statistically at more risk for many health problems, such as hearth disease and diabetes. The risk, according to Frances, isn't as high as you might think, considering how loudly health experts are yelling about it. In some ways, it's actually healthier to be overweight or even obese; some recent studies have shown that overweight people actually live longer than normal weight people, and are less likely to get dementia. And race plays a big role in it, too. Apparently, black people can be healthy at slightly higher BMIs than white people, and Native American people can have much higher BMIs than white people and still be healthy.
So what's the deal? Why is skinny "ideal", anyway? I just don't get it. And I certainly don't understand those people who are in favor of public fat shaming to get people to lose weight. As a person who has never been a normal weight, I can tell you for sure that fat shaming doesn't work. It rips a deep scar into your heart that never goes away. I'll never forget being called hippo hips, or thunder thighs, or being barked at and called a dog. I think the one that hurt the most when two boys came up to me, and one said, "I think you're pretty, but my friend thinks you're ugly. That must mean you're pretty ugly." It's hard to look in the mirror and see a beautiful woman; all I see is an ugly fat person. And there are health experts out there that want to promote this kind of treatment!
A recent study really got me riled up. It was a cohort study that tried to see if there were different kinds of obese people. And, apparently they found six types, though because this was focused on a group of people in England, they suspect there are even more groups globally than they found. I think this kind of study is awesome; they're actually looking at obesity as a set of different types of people instead of fat vs. skinny. I went into the article with high hopes, thinking yes, now they'll see there are some healthy obese people. And they did find healthy obese people! Obese young women, and obese older affluent adults. Great, wonderful, glad to hear them say they're healthy.
But then they go on to say that these two groups, the healthy obese women and healthy obese affluent older adults still need to lose weight.
Why?! Why do they need to lose weight if they're healthy?! That makes no sense! If they're healthy, and living a health promoting lifestyle, why does it matter if they lose weight or not? Shouldn't health be the first priority? RRR!
We're all individuals. I can never be skinny; my genes won't allow it, and I'm not just blowing smoke here. My mom was a beautiful woman when she was younger; she lived on a farm, in the days when everyone walked everywhere (she walked to town most days, a five mile hike up and down a huge hill), and she ate real whole food her parents grew and that grandma cooked with love. But she was still a size 18 at her smallest. All of my maternal female relatives (seven aunts and many cousins) were like that; we're a family of strong, tall, big boned, robust, and voluptuous women. Grandma was never skinny (though never fat, either), and she was vibrant and healthy until her death at 102.
I tried to find the data behind the news article for that study about types of obesity, but apparently you have to email the lead scientist for it. Although I'm interested to see what it says, I'm not really that good at sorting through the data. Besides, I doubt they'd send it to me for a blog post a few people are going to read.
I came across an article on the New York Post's website, with an excerpt from a book called Body of Truth. After reading the article and the reviews of the book, I had to order it. It's a serious look at the science of obesity and what it honestly says about the health risks of being fat and also of dieting. I feel like I need to get to the bottom of this. I want to read about the real science behind obesity, rather than just what the health experts are screaming.
So that's my rant for the day. Hopefully, when I read more into the book, I'll have something more interesting to say than RRRRR!
Thursday, July 18, 2013
More Weighty Update
I posted an update on my current decision to try to lose weight, and how I've been tired and more recently really hungry. Lynda from Living the Life asked me what I've been eating, so I decided it would be interesting to write it out.
Food varies from day to day, but it's pretty similar generally. So as an example, here's what I ate a couple days ago.
Breakfast:
2 eggs fried in butter
2 slices bacon
Coffee with heavy cream
Lunch:
Generous slice of cheese (1.5 oz)
Left over beef loin cubes (4 to 5 oz)
Small handful pecans
Handful baby carrots with sour cream dip
1/3 cup blueberries
Dinner:
1 can (6 oz) can light tuna in water.... mixed with
About 2 tbsp homemade olive oil mayo.... plus
About 2 tbsp sour cream
Three or four romaine lettuce leaves
3 cherry tomatoes
Slice sage derby cheese (1 oz)
Slice watermelon
(I usually have more veggies than this for dinner)
I plugged those foods into my SparkPeople food tracker just to see what it all came to.
Calories: 1711
Fat: 132g
Protein: 98g
Carbs: 36g
Fiber: 8g
I can't really figure out why I'm tired and hungry eating this way. It's not like I'm starving myself.... well, I guess I AM eating about 400 fewer calories than I'm used to, and fewer carbs. When I'm eating to my fill, I would eat about 2000-2200 calories and about 50-60 net carbs a day. I don't think you can get keto-flu when you go from low carb to lower carb... can you?
Chad said something to me today. He said, "I know it means a lot to you, but don't get all OCD about the number on the scale". He's right of course. It's not about the number on the scale. Find health first, and then your body will find the weight it's supposed to be at. Tom Naughton said the same thing to me when I sent him a thank you email, and he's a pretty smart guy.
I think I'll continue eating only at meals, but I'm going to let up a little on portion size so I can stay full and fueled and maybe kick this tiredness. 1700 calories may seem like a lot to some of you, but I'm a big, active girl (I worked for two hours in my garden every day this week). When I went low calorie a few years back, I actually lost 30 pounds eating about 1700 calories a day.
I'll keep you posted on how it's going!
Food varies from day to day, but it's pretty similar generally. So as an example, here's what I ate a couple days ago.
Breakfast:
2 eggs fried in butter
2 slices bacon
Coffee with heavy cream
Lunch:
Generous slice of cheese (1.5 oz)
Left over beef loin cubes (4 to 5 oz)
Small handful pecans
Handful baby carrots with sour cream dip
1/3 cup blueberries
Dinner:
1 can (6 oz) can light tuna in water.... mixed with
About 2 tbsp homemade olive oil mayo.... plus
About 2 tbsp sour cream
Three or four romaine lettuce leaves
3 cherry tomatoes
Slice sage derby cheese (1 oz)
Slice watermelon
(I usually have more veggies than this for dinner)
I plugged those foods into my SparkPeople food tracker just to see what it all came to.
Calories: 1711
Fat: 132g
Protein: 98g
Carbs: 36g
Fiber: 8g
I can't really figure out why I'm tired and hungry eating this way. It's not like I'm starving myself.... well, I guess I AM eating about 400 fewer calories than I'm used to, and fewer carbs. When I'm eating to my fill, I would eat about 2000-2200 calories and about 50-60 net carbs a day. I don't think you can get keto-flu when you go from low carb to lower carb... can you?
Chad said something to me today. He said, "I know it means a lot to you, but don't get all OCD about the number on the scale". He's right of course. It's not about the number on the scale. Find health first, and then your body will find the weight it's supposed to be at. Tom Naughton said the same thing to me when I sent him a thank you email, and he's a pretty smart guy.
I think I'll continue eating only at meals, but I'm going to let up a little on portion size so I can stay full and fueled and maybe kick this tiredness. 1700 calories may seem like a lot to some of you, but I'm a big, active girl (I worked for two hours in my garden every day this week). When I went low calorie a few years back, I actually lost 30 pounds eating about 1700 calories a day.
I'll keep you posted on how it's going!
Weighty Update
Just in case you've been wondering how my weight loss efforts have been going, I thought I'd post and update on it. I decided about the middle of last week to try cutting out all carbs for breakfast to extend natural morning ketosis, and eating only at meal times (three times a day) in the hopes that cutting out mindless/emotional/boredom eating would help me lose some of the extra 20 pounds I'm carrying around.
Sticking to the eating plan has been very easy most of the time. I don't feel hungry between meals much, and when I do, I drink water or flavored seltzer. And of course I'm still eating the low carb whole foods I've been eating for almost a year. I haven't even been eating low carb treats much. Just meat, eggs, dairy, veggies, and fruit.
I thought I was actually losing weight at first. I started at about 183.6 and quickly went down to 182.2. But it started creeping back up, and I'm back to 183.6 today, so I guess that's a bust.
Worse, I've found myself really tired this week. Kind of devoid of pep. Now, this could be because it's in the 90s with like 300% humidity, and since we live in western NY, AC is a luxury not a necessity. But something tells me that it's more than just the heat and humidity. I've been waking up groggy and tired and with the distinct desire to go right back to bed. And this morning, I was so hungry that I ended up eating a big cup of yogurt with breakfast with some fruit in it. I had a really big lunch, too. It's like I can't get full today.
I'm feeling a little discouraged. I want to be slimmer of course, but I don't think it's worth it if I have to feel tired and ravenous all the time. This is how I used to feel on a low calorie vegetarian diet, and that was a horrible way to live.
Maybe I should give it a few more days and see how it goes. Maybe I should try eating more at meals to keep from getting hungry. I dunno, honestly. I just keep hearing a voice in my head that says that 20 pounds overweight isn't that much, considering I've already lost 90 pounds, and I shouldn't be worrying about it. Yes, I'd like to hit that magical 100 pound mark. I'd also like to be in the "normal" BMI range. But those are just numbers, afterall. The body doesn't know what those numbers are. All it knows is if it's sick or healthy, and my body is definitely healthy.
Sticking to the eating plan has been very easy most of the time. I don't feel hungry between meals much, and when I do, I drink water or flavored seltzer. And of course I'm still eating the low carb whole foods I've been eating for almost a year. I haven't even been eating low carb treats much. Just meat, eggs, dairy, veggies, and fruit.
I thought I was actually losing weight at first. I started at about 183.6 and quickly went down to 182.2. But it started creeping back up, and I'm back to 183.6 today, so I guess that's a bust.
Worse, I've found myself really tired this week. Kind of devoid of pep. Now, this could be because it's in the 90s with like 300% humidity, and since we live in western NY, AC is a luxury not a necessity. But something tells me that it's more than just the heat and humidity. I've been waking up groggy and tired and with the distinct desire to go right back to bed. And this morning, I was so hungry that I ended up eating a big cup of yogurt with breakfast with some fruit in it. I had a really big lunch, too. It's like I can't get full today.
I'm feeling a little discouraged. I want to be slimmer of course, but I don't think it's worth it if I have to feel tired and ravenous all the time. This is how I used to feel on a low calorie vegetarian diet, and that was a horrible way to live.
Maybe I should give it a few more days and see how it goes. Maybe I should try eating more at meals to keep from getting hungry. I dunno, honestly. I just keep hearing a voice in my head that says that 20 pounds overweight isn't that much, considering I've already lost 90 pounds, and I shouldn't be worrying about it. Yes, I'd like to hit that magical 100 pound mark. I'd also like to be in the "normal" BMI range. But those are just numbers, afterall. The body doesn't know what those numbers are. All it knows is if it's sick or healthy, and my body is definitely healthy.
Friday, July 12, 2013
Some Thoughts
I ranted a little bit the other day about how I really wanted to be skinny sometimes, but that I'm afraid to try anything extreme to actually get there for fear it would hurt my body or, should I get pregnant, my baby's body. I got a lot of advice and some well wishing from folks, and I thank you all for your concern. That was really touching.
I've been thinking about it a little bit, and I decided that even though I don't want to do anything extreme, such as cutting calories or trying to get into nutritional ketosis, I think I will make some changes. I'll admit that I've gotten a little lax in my eating habits. I don't mean to say that I've started eating bad foods regularly; I'm still grain, soy, gluten, seed oil, and sugar free most of the time. But there are times where I find myself emotional eating, or worse, boredom eating. Yes, I'm eating good foods, but the fact that I'm eating when I'm not actually hungry? That's probably not good, right?
My thinking is that I'm going to try doing the No S Diet again, which basically means no snacks between meals, no seconds, and no sweets; of course, I'll still be eating the healthy low carb, whole foods that I already eat, only less often. I tried this method before, and it does seem to help. I only stopped doing it because I had a lot of emotional stress at one point that sent me right to munching between meals.
What I like about this plan is that if I get hungry between meals, I drink a glass of water or seltzer, which is very good. I oftentimes get so full at mealtimes that I don't have room left for water, and I don't always remember to drink it between meals. And drinking lots of water, aside from aiding digestion and being cleansing, also helps with a woman's fertility by increasing fertile cervical fluids. There's your fertility lesson for the day.
I also am going to try having a 0 carb breakfast to keep the natural morning ketosis going until lunchtime. I told a commenter that I already eat 0 carbs for breakfast, but I remembered later that this isn't actually true. I usually have 1/2 a cup of plain full fat yogurt, or 1/3 a cup of cottage cheese with my eggs and bacon. So I'm going to cut the dairy out in the morning and see if that makes a difference.
I do want to lose more weight. At 185 pounds, I'm not skinny; I'm not exactly fat (I wear size 14 pants and large shirts), but I have rolls and flab I would love to get rid of. But at the same time, I don't want food to become an obsession. I actually enjoy the carefree relationship I have with food right now. I know what I can and can't eat, and I eat what I want. I don't lose any weight, but I'm certainly not gaining back any of the 90 pounds I lost. So that's why I don't want to go into full diet mode.
When I look back at the time I was on a low calorie diet, it's worrying. I was so obsessed with food at that point that it was all I did all day long. Reading articles, tracking food, counting calories, denying my deep gnawing hunger. When I think about it now, it almost seems like an eating disorder, or at least the beginnings of one. The last thing I ever want to do is become so obsessed with food that I start hurting myself or my family.
That's why I'm only taking small steps. I'm healthy right now; I'm fit, active, happy, and strong. I don't want to do anything that might jeopardize that.
I've been thinking about it a little bit, and I decided that even though I don't want to do anything extreme, such as cutting calories or trying to get into nutritional ketosis, I think I will make some changes. I'll admit that I've gotten a little lax in my eating habits. I don't mean to say that I've started eating bad foods regularly; I'm still grain, soy, gluten, seed oil, and sugar free most of the time. But there are times where I find myself emotional eating, or worse, boredom eating. Yes, I'm eating good foods, but the fact that I'm eating when I'm not actually hungry? That's probably not good, right?
My thinking is that I'm going to try doing the No S Diet again, which basically means no snacks between meals, no seconds, and no sweets; of course, I'll still be eating the healthy low carb, whole foods that I already eat, only less often. I tried this method before, and it does seem to help. I only stopped doing it because I had a lot of emotional stress at one point that sent me right to munching between meals.
What I like about this plan is that if I get hungry between meals, I drink a glass of water or seltzer, which is very good. I oftentimes get so full at mealtimes that I don't have room left for water, and I don't always remember to drink it between meals. And drinking lots of water, aside from aiding digestion and being cleansing, also helps with a woman's fertility by increasing fertile cervical fluids. There's your fertility lesson for the day.
I also am going to try having a 0 carb breakfast to keep the natural morning ketosis going until lunchtime. I told a commenter that I already eat 0 carbs for breakfast, but I remembered later that this isn't actually true. I usually have 1/2 a cup of plain full fat yogurt, or 1/3 a cup of cottage cheese with my eggs and bacon. So I'm going to cut the dairy out in the morning and see if that makes a difference.
I do want to lose more weight. At 185 pounds, I'm not skinny; I'm not exactly fat (I wear size 14 pants and large shirts), but I have rolls and flab I would love to get rid of. But at the same time, I don't want food to become an obsession. I actually enjoy the carefree relationship I have with food right now. I know what I can and can't eat, and I eat what I want. I don't lose any weight, but I'm certainly not gaining back any of the 90 pounds I lost. So that's why I don't want to go into full diet mode.
When I look back at the time I was on a low calorie diet, it's worrying. I was so obsessed with food at that point that it was all I did all day long. Reading articles, tracking food, counting calories, denying my deep gnawing hunger. When I think about it now, it almost seems like an eating disorder, or at least the beginnings of one. The last thing I ever want to do is become so obsessed with food that I start hurting myself or my family.
That's why I'm only taking small steps. I'm healthy right now; I'm fit, active, happy, and strong. I don't want to do anything that might jeopardize that.
Tuesday, July 9, 2013
The Weight Thing
In case you didn't already know, I used to be fat. Like, really fat. Like, I was literally morbidly obese. At 5'7, 275 pounds, my BMI was 43, which classed me as morbidly obese. The worst part was that I was a sweet and naive 17 year old and I didn't understand how sick I was.
I did managed to lose weight, though. Slowly, in steps, it came off. Some came off when I fell in love with Chad and started treating myself better. Then we started going out and being active together, and more came off. I moved in with him and took over cooking almost all the meals, and more came off.
In 2010, I went on a low calorie diet, started running three days a week and lifting weights once or twice, and within five months, I had lost another 30-35 pounds. By then, I was down to 185. I wanted so badly to lose another 10 pounds so I could shout from the roof tops that, HEY WORLD, I'VE LOST 100 POUNDS!
But low calorie dieting is terrible. I'm sure anyone who has tried it can understand what I'm talking about. I was eating about 1500-1700 calories a day, and later once I'd lost 30 pounds, I shifted to 1300-1400 calories a day to try to lose more weight. My goal was 160 pounds, which would just get me into the "normal" BMI range.
I was hungry all the time. Like, hungry to my core. I couldn't eat enough to satisfy the hunger I was feeling unless I ate over my calorie range. I didn't shun fat, but I also knew that fat was 9 calories whereas carbs and protein were 4, so I tried to avoid it so I would be able to eat more food, because I was so hungry. And being a vegetarian, it was remarkably hard to get enough protein. On days where I was trying really hard, I'd eat about 60g of protein, but it was mostly from soy, low fat dairy, and wheat gluten.
The worst part was the food obsession. I would think about food every moment of the day. I would carefully weigh each and every item. I had to specially formulate recipes and carefully divide the results to make sure I was getting the right amount of calories. I spent hours a day typing in the foods I'd eaten in Sparkpeople.com's food diary. And at the end of the day, I would go and check how many calories I had left and try to get as much extra food as I could. Food was my life. I dreamed about it. Meals were the centers of my day.
That's why I loved the idea of low carb dieting so much, when I finally opened myself up to the science behind it. I wanted to just eat what I wanted of low carb food, stay away from the higher carb items, and watch myself effortlessly get skinny. I did lose some weight. I was 195 pounds when I started, and managed to lose 10 pounds in a month, bringing me back to 185. But I haven't really lost anything since then.
I know this system works, because I've seen what it's doing for Chad. He was lean before we started, but he managed to lose about 20 pounds while also putting on muscle. So I know it's not that this low carb idea is wrong.
Some days I struggle mentally with this. Sometimes all I want to do is lose 20 more pounds and I think I'm willing to do anything I can to get there. But then I remember actually being 175 at one point while low calorie dieting. I had to starve myself to an incredibly uncomfortable level to get there, and then my will power just broke and I couldn't stop myself from putting those 10 pounds back on. Maybe my body is trying to tell me that this is the weight I'm supposed to be at. Losing 90 pounds in very respectable. And I can't expect my body to work the same after being at 275, either. I don't think it's actually capable of being very lean after that.
But that doesn't stop me from wanting to be skinny. I know I've written in the past about how sick it is for us to want to be skinny, that we should be striving for health instead, but I can't help it. I still want it. I want to be one of those beautiful models who looks great in a bikini.
To what lengths am I willing to go to lose weight? I've thought about trying nutritional ketosis, like Jimmy Moore. I've thought about a low calorie low carb diet. I've thought about cutting out dairy and eggs to see if that helps.
But I worry. This doesn't seem safe. Pushing my body to extreme lengths to lose weight that probably isn't causing me any problems. I worry about nutritional ketosis. There are people in the paleo crowd that claim that women need more natural carbs (from fruit and veggies) for their fertility. I worry about low calorie low carb diets, because Chad and I are trying to conceive. What if I got pregnant and I didn't know it? A low calorie diet doesn't just starve me; it starves the baby, too, and the first couple of weeks are when the nervous system are developing. As for cutting out dairy and eggs? What the heck would I eat if I couldn't eat dairy and cheese?
Some days I want so badly to be skinny. So, so badly. But most days I long for something simpler. To be healthy. That's the real goal here. To feed my body. To build up muscle I lost as a vegetarian. To correct the harm I did on a low calorie diet. To be whole. To never be hungry to my core.
I wonder if there's some in between road, where I can respect my body and feed it what it needs, but at the same time start shedding the leftover bulge. I just don't know. I really don't know if it's a fight worth fighting.
I did managed to lose weight, though. Slowly, in steps, it came off. Some came off when I fell in love with Chad and started treating myself better. Then we started going out and being active together, and more came off. I moved in with him and took over cooking almost all the meals, and more came off.
In 2010, I went on a low calorie diet, started running three days a week and lifting weights once or twice, and within five months, I had lost another 30-35 pounds. By then, I was down to 185. I wanted so badly to lose another 10 pounds so I could shout from the roof tops that, HEY WORLD, I'VE LOST 100 POUNDS!
But low calorie dieting is terrible. I'm sure anyone who has tried it can understand what I'm talking about. I was eating about 1500-1700 calories a day, and later once I'd lost 30 pounds, I shifted to 1300-1400 calories a day to try to lose more weight. My goal was 160 pounds, which would just get me into the "normal" BMI range.
I was hungry all the time. Like, hungry to my core. I couldn't eat enough to satisfy the hunger I was feeling unless I ate over my calorie range. I didn't shun fat, but I also knew that fat was 9 calories whereas carbs and protein were 4, so I tried to avoid it so I would be able to eat more food, because I was so hungry. And being a vegetarian, it was remarkably hard to get enough protein. On days where I was trying really hard, I'd eat about 60g of protein, but it was mostly from soy, low fat dairy, and wheat gluten.
The worst part was the food obsession. I would think about food every moment of the day. I would carefully weigh each and every item. I had to specially formulate recipes and carefully divide the results to make sure I was getting the right amount of calories. I spent hours a day typing in the foods I'd eaten in Sparkpeople.com's food diary. And at the end of the day, I would go and check how many calories I had left and try to get as much extra food as I could. Food was my life. I dreamed about it. Meals were the centers of my day.
That's why I loved the idea of low carb dieting so much, when I finally opened myself up to the science behind it. I wanted to just eat what I wanted of low carb food, stay away from the higher carb items, and watch myself effortlessly get skinny. I did lose some weight. I was 195 pounds when I started, and managed to lose 10 pounds in a month, bringing me back to 185. But I haven't really lost anything since then.
I know this system works, because I've seen what it's doing for Chad. He was lean before we started, but he managed to lose about 20 pounds while also putting on muscle. So I know it's not that this low carb idea is wrong.
Some days I struggle mentally with this. Sometimes all I want to do is lose 20 more pounds and I think I'm willing to do anything I can to get there. But then I remember actually being 175 at one point while low calorie dieting. I had to starve myself to an incredibly uncomfortable level to get there, and then my will power just broke and I couldn't stop myself from putting those 10 pounds back on. Maybe my body is trying to tell me that this is the weight I'm supposed to be at. Losing 90 pounds in very respectable. And I can't expect my body to work the same after being at 275, either. I don't think it's actually capable of being very lean after that.
But that doesn't stop me from wanting to be skinny. I know I've written in the past about how sick it is for us to want to be skinny, that we should be striving for health instead, but I can't help it. I still want it. I want to be one of those beautiful models who looks great in a bikini.
To what lengths am I willing to go to lose weight? I've thought about trying nutritional ketosis, like Jimmy Moore. I've thought about a low calorie low carb diet. I've thought about cutting out dairy and eggs to see if that helps.
But I worry. This doesn't seem safe. Pushing my body to extreme lengths to lose weight that probably isn't causing me any problems. I worry about nutritional ketosis. There are people in the paleo crowd that claim that women need more natural carbs (from fruit and veggies) for their fertility. I worry about low calorie low carb diets, because Chad and I are trying to conceive. What if I got pregnant and I didn't know it? A low calorie diet doesn't just starve me; it starves the baby, too, and the first couple of weeks are when the nervous system are developing. As for cutting out dairy and eggs? What the heck would I eat if I couldn't eat dairy and cheese?
Some days I want so badly to be skinny. So, so badly. But most days I long for something simpler. To be healthy. That's the real goal here. To feed my body. To build up muscle I lost as a vegetarian. To correct the harm I did on a low calorie diet. To be whole. To never be hungry to my core.
I wonder if there's some in between road, where I can respect my body and feed it what it needs, but at the same time start shedding the leftover bulge. I just don't know. I really don't know if it's a fight worth fighting.
Sunday, June 30, 2013
Calorie Restriction
I have thoughts about calorie restriction. I have no scientific basis for this. I could probably scour the internet and find studies that back up my ideas, of course, but I'm not really interested in that. I also don't believe this is true for everyone, but I'm certain it's true for me.
I don't think calorie restriction is safe or healthy, for me at the very least. Maybe I'm wrong, I don't know. It's mostly an intuitive thing. I mean, I know I could probably drop some weight by restricting calories again. I bet it would be really easy to stick to 1300 calories on a low carb diet. But I fear what that would do to my health.
I'm 28 years old, 5'7, and 185 pounds. I don't track my calories every day, but once in a while I do, and on those days, they're about 2000 calories. If I was older, maybe post menopausal, I probably would have to be lower calorie simply because my hormones and metabolism wouldn't be the same as they are now.
I have a long history of malnutrition (eating a high carb, vegetarian diet, and making myself really sick with it). I know my body is still recovering from that, and I feel like calorie restriction would only hold my body back from healing itself. A healing body needs more nutrients and calories. Mine needs more protein. You wouldn't believe the muscle I've put on without lifting weights.
I'm also trying to conceive a baby right now. A woman's reproductive system needs to know that her body is well fed, that the baby will be well fed, or it's not going to cooperate. Chad and I have been trying for 13 months, with the only glimmer of hope being a possible early miscarriage (a chemical pregnancy) six months ago. I don't think we're going to conceive until my body has finished healing itself, and it's not going to get any better if I restrict calories. I also think Chad's body needs to continue to heal, too. He was pretty unhealthy before we started, and his body has changed dramatically since going low carb. He's leaner, more muscular, happier, and more energetic than he used to be, but I'm sure he still has a ways to go.
And besides, what do calories have to do with it? I think if you have a very deranged metabolism, yes, calories matter. But I lost weight as soon as I switched from a high-carb, 1600 calorie, vegetarian diet to a low-carb, 2000 calorie, meaty diet. And so did Chad.
So for now, I'm going to continue eating a lot of calories. I'm not concerned about losing more weight. Yes, at 185 pounds, that makes me overweight. As a matter of fact, my BMI is 29 or so, which makes me almost obese. But you know what? I managed to lose 90 pounds (I used to be 275). I have so much loose skin that I wouldn't be surprised that about 15-20 of those "overweight" pounds are actually extra skin. Not to mention the fact that I come from a family of big-boned women, with big feet, wide hips, broad shoulders, and large hands. Of course I'm going to weigh more than someone with naturally petite bones (such as my husband). And despite the fact I've been gaining lots of muscle (I can actually see the difference), I haven't gained any weight. So that tells me I'm trading in fat for muscle.
And I'm healthy, much healthier than I was as a low-calorie, high-carb vegetarian. Isn't that more important than weight?
I don't think calorie restriction is safe or healthy, for me at the very least. Maybe I'm wrong, I don't know. It's mostly an intuitive thing. I mean, I know I could probably drop some weight by restricting calories again. I bet it would be really easy to stick to 1300 calories on a low carb diet. But I fear what that would do to my health.
I'm 28 years old, 5'7, and 185 pounds. I don't track my calories every day, but once in a while I do, and on those days, they're about 2000 calories. If I was older, maybe post menopausal, I probably would have to be lower calorie simply because my hormones and metabolism wouldn't be the same as they are now.
I have a long history of malnutrition (eating a high carb, vegetarian diet, and making myself really sick with it). I know my body is still recovering from that, and I feel like calorie restriction would only hold my body back from healing itself. A healing body needs more nutrients and calories. Mine needs more protein. You wouldn't believe the muscle I've put on without lifting weights.
I'm also trying to conceive a baby right now. A woman's reproductive system needs to know that her body is well fed, that the baby will be well fed, or it's not going to cooperate. Chad and I have been trying for 13 months, with the only glimmer of hope being a possible early miscarriage (a chemical pregnancy) six months ago. I don't think we're going to conceive until my body has finished healing itself, and it's not going to get any better if I restrict calories. I also think Chad's body needs to continue to heal, too. He was pretty unhealthy before we started, and his body has changed dramatically since going low carb. He's leaner, more muscular, happier, and more energetic than he used to be, but I'm sure he still has a ways to go.
And besides, what do calories have to do with it? I think if you have a very deranged metabolism, yes, calories matter. But I lost weight as soon as I switched from a high-carb, 1600 calorie, vegetarian diet to a low-carb, 2000 calorie, meaty diet. And so did Chad.
So for now, I'm going to continue eating a lot of calories. I'm not concerned about losing more weight. Yes, at 185 pounds, that makes me overweight. As a matter of fact, my BMI is 29 or so, which makes me almost obese. But you know what? I managed to lose 90 pounds (I used to be 275). I have so much loose skin that I wouldn't be surprised that about 15-20 of those "overweight" pounds are actually extra skin. Not to mention the fact that I come from a family of big-boned women, with big feet, wide hips, broad shoulders, and large hands. Of course I'm going to weigh more than someone with naturally petite bones (such as my husband). And despite the fact I've been gaining lots of muscle (I can actually see the difference), I haven't gained any weight. So that tells me I'm trading in fat for muscle.
And I'm healthy, much healthier than I was as a low-calorie, high-carb vegetarian. Isn't that more important than weight?
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Love Goggles
The other day, on a whim, I asked Chad if he ever looked at girls to see if they were pretty. I'm sure at this point he panicked, as any sensible man would if their wife asked them that question. After a few seconds hesitation, I told him that I wanted to know because it had to do with another question I had, and that it wasn't a trap question.
When he answered that he does sometimes look at other girls to see if they're pretty, I asked him what shape he preferred on a girl. If he liked rounder, curvier girls, or skinny flat-tummied girls. To my surprise, he said he liked the rounder girls better. That the longer he's with me, the more he likes round, curvy girls, because that's what I am.
I'm pretty sure that's what they call love goggles. I'm sure there might be a girl somewhere that would have been offended by what he said, but I found it to be incredibly sweet. And it got me to thinking about society and our standards of beauty.
The media, with a few exceptions, glorifies women who are thin, tall, and very beautiful. If they don't have a lot of natural beauty, they get heavy doses of makeup and professionally created hair-dos to make up for their plainness. Women everywhere have to see beautiful, perfect celebrities staring back at them from the cover of magazines, on tv, in the movies, in ads. Their perfect beauty is almost inescapable.
I began to wonder if having those women as standards of beauty has changed what we as a society think of as beautiful. Like Chad's love goggles, perhaps we've developed love goggles for thin, tall, perfect women.
Then this weekend, I clicked on a link over at Weighty Matters. It was a page full of Photoshopped celebrities, and it made me realize that, not only are we basing our ideas of beauty on perfect people loaded down with makeup and hair extensions, but then the photos of them are completely overhauled. Check it out. And if that's not enough, this page has some extras.
There's one that made me really stop and think.
If that's too fast for you, here's a side-by-side:
What were the folks photoshopping this picture of Jennifer Lawrence thinking? The before shot is beautiful. She's well toned, curvy, smooth, and genuinely lovely. But they didn't want curvy and well toned; no, what they want us to see, what they want us to see as beauty, is a woman that looks emaciated. They want us to see her ribs sticking out, and her hips poking through her skin. They want her face to look gaunt. They want her arms to look skinny and weak.
You know what the phohoshopped version reminds me of? A picture I saw recently of Portia de Rossi, an actress who has written a book about the struggles she's had with anorexia.
At her lowest, she said she was 82 pounds. For a woman that's 5'7, that made her BMI 12.8. Here's another terrifying picture of Portia at her worst:
So here we are, in the middle of an obesity epidemic (or so the authorities tell us), and the media is showing us almost nothing but tall, beautiful, perfect, nearly anorexic women. It's all we see, on tv, movies, magazines, ads. And then real women look in the mirror and see non-perfection, wrinkles, a little arm jiggle, maybe cellulite or stretch marks, and they begin to hate themselves.
Our ideas of beauty are skewed. And I believe our ideas of "ideal weight" are also skewed. Who decided what ideal weight is? BMI has serious flaws, including the fact that it doesn't distinguish between fat and muscle, and it doesn't care if you have petite or thick bones. It also doesn't care if your genes tells your body to store extra fat in certain parts of your body, like your butt or your breasts. Does a woman with large breasts have a higher BMI than a woman with small breasts? Of course she does, because she weighs more. And that's ridiculous.
Last August, Discover magazine had an article about BMI in it, and how researchers have decided that BMI is a bad way to measure obesity. So you know what they suggested? They suggest lowering the BMI obesity threshold from 30 to 24 for women and 28 for men. Great. Now almost everyone will be obese.
I think over the years, ideal weight has gotten lower and lower. And our love goggles has made it so we as a society only see tall, rail thin women as beautiful. I don't think most people can even recognize normal, healthy weight anymore. Look at this before-and-after picture of actress Mischa Barton and tell me which one you think is normal and healthy.
Now check out these actresses from the early part of the 20th century.
They're beautiful. They're curvy. Some of them are well toned (look at Lucy's arms). But they're not exactly skinny by today's standards, are they? They're almost... normal. The kind of beauty that doesn't threaten average women. Yes, they're beautiful, but it's a more natural kind of beauty, where there are flaws and imperfections, but those only add character.
I think we've been lead astray by the media into believing that skinny equals beauty, and that you have to have perfectly smooth skin and a flawless face. But it's all an illusion. Celebrities are real people, under the makeup, hair products, and photoshopping. Just for fun, google your favorite actress's name with "without makeup". Here's a couple of mine.
Now here's a real girl without makeup, without fancy hair products, just trying to live a normal healthy natural life.
I know I'm not in the same league as any of those celebrities up there, especially not when they're all made up to look perfect. But just because I don't fit into society's idea of beauty.... does that make me ugly? Or does true beauty allow for natural differences and individual uniqueness?
When he answered that he does sometimes look at other girls to see if they're pretty, I asked him what shape he preferred on a girl. If he liked rounder, curvier girls, or skinny flat-tummied girls. To my surprise, he said he liked the rounder girls better. That the longer he's with me, the more he likes round, curvy girls, because that's what I am.
I'm pretty sure that's what they call love goggles. I'm sure there might be a girl somewhere that would have been offended by what he said, but I found it to be incredibly sweet. And it got me to thinking about society and our standards of beauty.
The media, with a few exceptions, glorifies women who are thin, tall, and very beautiful. If they don't have a lot of natural beauty, they get heavy doses of makeup and professionally created hair-dos to make up for their plainness. Women everywhere have to see beautiful, perfect celebrities staring back at them from the cover of magazines, on tv, in the movies, in ads. Their perfect beauty is almost inescapable.
I began to wonder if having those women as standards of beauty has changed what we as a society think of as beautiful. Like Chad's love goggles, perhaps we've developed love goggles for thin, tall, perfect women.
Then this weekend, I clicked on a link over at Weighty Matters. It was a page full of Photoshopped celebrities, and it made me realize that, not only are we basing our ideas of beauty on perfect people loaded down with makeup and hair extensions, but then the photos of them are completely overhauled. Check it out. And if that's not enough, this page has some extras.
There's one that made me really stop and think.
What were the folks photoshopping this picture of Jennifer Lawrence thinking? The before shot is beautiful. She's well toned, curvy, smooth, and genuinely lovely. But they didn't want curvy and well toned; no, what they want us to see, what they want us to see as beauty, is a woman that looks emaciated. They want us to see her ribs sticking out, and her hips poking through her skin. They want her face to look gaunt. They want her arms to look skinny and weak.
You know what the phohoshopped version reminds me of? A picture I saw recently of Portia de Rossi, an actress who has written a book about the struggles she's had with anorexia.
 |
| Portia is the one on the right. |
So here we are, in the middle of an obesity epidemic (or so the authorities tell us), and the media is showing us almost nothing but tall, beautiful, perfect, nearly anorexic women. It's all we see, on tv, movies, magazines, ads. And then real women look in the mirror and see non-perfection, wrinkles, a little arm jiggle, maybe cellulite or stretch marks, and they begin to hate themselves.
Our ideas of beauty are skewed. And I believe our ideas of "ideal weight" are also skewed. Who decided what ideal weight is? BMI has serious flaws, including the fact that it doesn't distinguish between fat and muscle, and it doesn't care if you have petite or thick bones. It also doesn't care if your genes tells your body to store extra fat in certain parts of your body, like your butt or your breasts. Does a woman with large breasts have a higher BMI than a woman with small breasts? Of course she does, because she weighs more. And that's ridiculous.
Last August, Discover magazine had an article about BMI in it, and how researchers have decided that BMI is a bad way to measure obesity. So you know what they suggested? They suggest lowering the BMI obesity threshold from 30 to 24 for women and 28 for men. Great. Now almost everyone will be obese.
I think over the years, ideal weight has gotten lower and lower. And our love goggles has made it so we as a society only see tall, rail thin women as beautiful. I don't think most people can even recognize normal, healthy weight anymore. Look at this before-and-after picture of actress Mischa Barton and tell me which one you think is normal and healthy.
Now check out these actresses from the early part of the 20th century.
 |
| Gloria Swanson |
.jpg) |
| Anita Page |
 | ||
| Anne Baxter |
 |
| Lucile Ball |
 | ||||
| Marilyn Monroe |
 |
| Betty Grable |
They're beautiful. They're curvy. Some of them are well toned (look at Lucy's arms). But they're not exactly skinny by today's standards, are they? They're almost... normal. The kind of beauty that doesn't threaten average women. Yes, they're beautiful, but it's a more natural kind of beauty, where there are flaws and imperfections, but those only add character.
I think we've been lead astray by the media into believing that skinny equals beauty, and that you have to have perfectly smooth skin and a flawless face. But it's all an illusion. Celebrities are real people, under the makeup, hair products, and photoshopping. Just for fun, google your favorite actress's name with "without makeup". Here's a couple of mine.
 |
| Penelope Cruz |
 |
| This is me! Wearing a dress I made! And holding a cucumber I grew! |
I know I'm not in the same league as any of those celebrities up there, especially not when they're all made up to look perfect. But just because I don't fit into society's idea of beauty.... does that make me ugly? Or does true beauty allow for natural differences and individual uniqueness?
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
Man, I just can't concentrate tonight. I have a large art commission to get finished, but I can only work on it for about five minutes at a time before my mind starts wandering and I find myself on google looking up things like "Marilyn Monroe's BMI" (about 20, by the way). I couldn't even focus long enough to finish that sentence before going back to google, lol.
What's mostly on my mind tonight is an ad I saw today while flipping through RedBook. I don't read many magazines anymore because I'm trying to divorce myself from the "everyone knows" type articles and the you-have-to-be-perfect-and-beautiful-all-the-time mentality that makes up practically every part of almost all the magazines I used to read. I had to start throwing away my Shape magazines as soon as I got them because they were making me depressed (just eat less and move more and you'll look like this supermodel!!!!!!!). And don't even get me started on Cosmo.
The ad I saw in Redbook was for Slim-Fast. Yes, Slim-Fast is annoying in general. "Just drink our carbalicious drinks and then starve yourself and you'll lose weight!" Don't you just want to kick them where it counts sometimes? Yes, we all do. But this ad is different. And apparently, it's just part of a huge ad campaign. The tv commercials, I hear, are really bad (NC-17, seriously). But I'll stop rambling and just show you what caught my attention. Click on it to read the small stuff.
Yeah, ok. Who amongst us hasn't tried to lose weight because we kind of hated the way we looked when we were fat? I know I have. When I went on a low calorie diet, it was to look better because I hated the way my body looked.
The reason this ad bothers me so much is because it adds fuel to the self-loathing fire that most women (and men) live with. No, it doesn't say, "Hey gals, you should hate your body so that you'll want to buy our product," but it does try to make you think that by losing a couple of pounds, maybe you'll get everything you want in life. A sexy bikini body that will attract that hot guy you like who will love you so you don't have to love yourself. It was almost scary to read what Ashley from Massachusetts said her real reason was... To be the skinniest mom in her group. Not just one of the skinniest, or the healthiest, or the strongest or even the prettiest, but the skinniest. There's something wrong with this picture.
I don't think it's healthy for women to focus on skinny. That's not what really matters, at the end of the day, because we're not all designed to be skinny like that. Some of us are designed to be chunky, curvy, strong or big boned. And there's nothing wrong with that.
My grandma lived to just shy of 103. She wasn't a skinny woman. She wasn't fat by any means, but she was big boned, thick, muscular, well built, even into her 100s. She worked hard all her life raising 12 children, about half of that time working on a large farm and the other half working as a school lunch lady (back in the day when they made every meal from scratch). She didn't get skinny until shortly before she died.
I wish the media wouldn't focus so hard on weight. It seems like practically everything said about a star is about their weight. Look at how great she looks in a bikini (and here's how you can looks that great too!!). OMG this celeb is skin and bones!!! WOW this celeb is a beautiful plus size lady! And that celeb lost all her baby weight in TWO DAYS!
Let's just stop with the weight thing already. It's not as important as we make it out to be. Yes, I think it's really cool when people celebrate plus sized stars, and I also think it's a needed wake up call when they point out how ridiculously skinny some celebs are, but I think spending that much time focusing on weight is dangerous. Pretty soon, everyone is saying how losing weight is the only way to be happy, the only way to be healthy. Instead, let's focus first on health and finding our body's natural balance. If we're treating our bodies right, they'll get to the weight that we're supposed to be at. That may mean we're very skinny, like my 6'5 175 pound bean pole husband. Or that might mean we're chunky, like me, a curvy 5'7 185 pound girl.
What's mostly on my mind tonight is an ad I saw today while flipping through RedBook. I don't read many magazines anymore because I'm trying to divorce myself from the "everyone knows" type articles and the you-have-to-be-perfect-and-beautiful-all-the-time mentality that makes up practically every part of almost all the magazines I used to read. I had to start throwing away my Shape magazines as soon as I got them because they were making me depressed (just eat less and move more and you'll look like this supermodel!!!!!!!). And don't even get me started on Cosmo.
The ad I saw in Redbook was for Slim-Fast. Yes, Slim-Fast is annoying in general. "Just drink our carbalicious drinks and then starve yourself and you'll lose weight!" Don't you just want to kick them where it counts sometimes? Yes, we all do. But this ad is different. And apparently, it's just part of a huge ad campaign. The tv commercials, I hear, are really bad (NC-17, seriously). But I'll stop rambling and just show you what caught my attention. Click on it to read the small stuff.
Yeah, ok. Who amongst us hasn't tried to lose weight because we kind of hated the way we looked when we were fat? I know I have. When I went on a low calorie diet, it was to look better because I hated the way my body looked.
The reason this ad bothers me so much is because it adds fuel to the self-loathing fire that most women (and men) live with. No, it doesn't say, "Hey gals, you should hate your body so that you'll want to buy our product," but it does try to make you think that by losing a couple of pounds, maybe you'll get everything you want in life. A sexy bikini body that will attract that hot guy you like who will love you so you don't have to love yourself. It was almost scary to read what Ashley from Massachusetts said her real reason was... To be the skinniest mom in her group. Not just one of the skinniest, or the healthiest, or the strongest or even the prettiest, but the skinniest. There's something wrong with this picture.
I don't think it's healthy for women to focus on skinny. That's not what really matters, at the end of the day, because we're not all designed to be skinny like that. Some of us are designed to be chunky, curvy, strong or big boned. And there's nothing wrong with that.
My grandma lived to just shy of 103. She wasn't a skinny woman. She wasn't fat by any means, but she was big boned, thick, muscular, well built, even into her 100s. She worked hard all her life raising 12 children, about half of that time working on a large farm and the other half working as a school lunch lady (back in the day when they made every meal from scratch). She didn't get skinny until shortly before she died.
I wish the media wouldn't focus so hard on weight. It seems like practically everything said about a star is about their weight. Look at how great she looks in a bikini (and here's how you can looks that great too!!). OMG this celeb is skin and bones!!! WOW this celeb is a beautiful plus size lady! And that celeb lost all her baby weight in TWO DAYS!
Let's just stop with the weight thing already. It's not as important as we make it out to be. Yes, I think it's really cool when people celebrate plus sized stars, and I also think it's a needed wake up call when they point out how ridiculously skinny some celebs are, but I think spending that much time focusing on weight is dangerous. Pretty soon, everyone is saying how losing weight is the only way to be happy, the only way to be healthy. Instead, let's focus first on health and finding our body's natural balance. If we're treating our bodies right, they'll get to the weight that we're supposed to be at. That may mean we're very skinny, like my 6'5 175 pound bean pole husband. Or that might mean we're chunky, like me, a curvy 5'7 185 pound girl.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)