New Me: A Fresh Start

Just an Observation

2012-01-26T02:51:00.000-08:00

I often read articles in the Health section of the New York Times. Most of the them end up parroting today's received wisdom: "eat less move more"...even though we know that usually it doesn't work, especially in the long run. But once in awhile, there are some interesting, thought-provoking articles.

I also read a lot of the comments to these articles and there's a trend that I've noticed. Now, what I'm about to say is anecdotal. I have no scientific studies to back up what is purely an observation on my part. Here's what I've noticed:

Inevitably, one, two, or several people write in to say that they--or someone they know--have lost significant amounts of weight by simply cutting down ever so slightly on the amount of food they eat while adding a bit more moderate exercise to their daily lives. Aside from the apparent effortlessness of this weight loss, there's something else all these writers have in common: they're all men (or women, reporting on their husband's weight loss success).

Well, you can add me to that list.

Last year, after several years of gentle prodding, I finally convinced my husband to go to my GP for a general check-up. His resistance had nothing to do with cost. Since we live in Canada, a medical check-up is covered under our universal health care system. No, he was just lazy and perhaps a little reticent to hear what the doctor might have to say.

He came home from this visit with a prescription for a low dose of blood pressure medication. He didn't tell me anything else that the doctor had said except that she wanted to see him back in a month, presumably to check on his BP.

A month later, he went back. When he came home, he told me that he'd lost 11 pounds. Now, my husband is neither a tall nor a very heavy man. Yes, he does have a bit of a paunch, but we're not talking huge. Eleven pounds was a pretty impressive number.

Over the course of the past year, I started noticing that he'd changed a few habits. Nothing radical, mind you. Just a few little habits. He used to have a small glass of unsweetened fruit juice in the evening. That was gone, to be replaced by one or two large glasses of water. He used to take second helpings at supper quite often. This stopped, though he continued to fill his plate with one generous helping of food. He started using the elliptical trainer in the basement while watching sports on TV, maybe two or three times a week, for 1/2 hour at a time. He continued to walk about 45 minutes, 5-6 times a week. No change there.

Yesterday, he went back for his annual doctor's check-up. She said he looked ten years younger. She forgot to weigh him, though he and I both agree that he's probably lost another 15-20 pounds. (He still refuses to weigh himself.)

My husband doesn't have to wear a suit to work. Recently, he had to wear a suit to some sort of event and the pants were so big on him that he had to cinch his belt to the point where he looked a bit like a homeless man who was given someone's cast-off clothing. Fortunately, the suit jacket hid how badly the pants now fit.

Over the course of the year, my husband has not made a peep about the various small changes he's instituted in his life. His just does what he does. And no, he doesn't deny himself the odd dessert or treat. His life hasn't changed that much. Yet he's lost a lot of weight. It seems to be a guy thing. Oh well...

And BTW, he's still on the BP medication. Some things don't change.

The Greatest Danger of "Weight Loss = Health"

2012-01-23T02:14:00.000-08:00

Before starting this discussion, I'd like to make it perfectly clear that health is a personal thing. Though I prefer to err on the side of (what I consider) healthy, if my neighbour wants to engage in what I consider unhealthy behaviours, (which include, but are not limited to: a steady diet of junk food, bingeing, food restriction, limiting or attempting to eliminate entire food groups, orthorexia, sky-diving, taking Ecstacy, etc., etc.), I really can't do much about it.

Many people proudly and happily report improvements to their health in the wake of a (sometimes significant) weight loss and certainly, if health improvement is your goal, results are something to be celebrated. I suspect, however, that those who don't see the appearance of any much longed-for improvements after weight loss just keep this fact to themselves or blame themselves for having done something wrong, in particular for not having reached the holy grail of the 24.9 or lower BMI.

And what of those who aren't losing weight? In other words, what of the 95% of those who try and fail, who try and yo-yo up the scale, or who have decided that trying is no longer the preferred option? Are these people doomed to ill health? And even more to the point, what do they often do to make the previous question a self-fulfilling prophecy?

They give up.

No, I'm not talking about giving up dieting, I'm talking about other, probably more important long-term, health-promoting behaviours.

When people only equate health with weight loss, behaviours and habits that are generally accepted as being health promoting fall by the wayside. Why go for a 30-minute walk when the scale doesn't budge? Why take the stairs at work when you haven't lost an ounce? Why continue to eat less processed, more nutrient-rich food when you feel that you're not getting any healthier because you're no thinner?

In fact, even when tangible changes do manifest, like for instance, slightly looser pants, or an improvement in blood pressure, they are not enough to encourage the person to keep up his or her new behaviours. Why? Because they haven't made a dent in the ONLY sign that they are becoming healthier: weight loss.

A minority of thinking people have come to the realization that weight loss, and more importantly weight-loss maintenance, are--for 95% of individuals--probably just a pipe dream, whereas improving one's health is usually (and there are definitely exceptions) an achievable goal. Most people are still stuck in the either/or mentality. I am either "on plan", which usually means constant food restriction, accompanied by a strict physical activity plan, or "off plan", which can often mean stuffing one's face with "bad" food and moving as little as possible. For both groups, a healthier, overweight body just does not compute. And the diet industry (or "cartel", as my new BFF, Dr. Steven Blair calls it), pardon the pun, feeds this fallacy to the tune of $60 billion per year. Business has a lot to lose, if people decide to put their health, and not weight loss, first.

Better health is different for everyone. For me, it mainly involves working on my level of stress and accepting my physical limitations. It also means moving to the best of my ability without troubling my fragile physical equilibrium. It means living mindfully on all levels, and that includes the way I eat.

In today's world, decoupling weight loss from health is a tall order. Every day, we are bombarded with the simplistic, flawed messages that you are healthy if, and only if, you are not overweight. You are automatically unhealthy if you are overweight. And with the cards seriously stacked against weight loss and weight loss maintenance, we give up when in fact, there are so many other things we can do to improve our health.

A Truly Awesome Video

2012-01-20T02:28:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Dr. Deah for introducing me to this truly awesome video:

A few random thoughts:

I have pretty much banished fat talk from my own personal discourse. It's sometimes difficult, but it can be done. The next step, though, is challenging fat talk that others engage in. I have yet to consistently do so. You may recall, I tried it once recently (see this post) and it went over like a lead balloon. I admit that this was when I was in the throes of a Graves disease relapse so my righteous indignation was perhaps overshadowed by a strident, shaky delivery. Oh well. I shall keep trying.

I actually know a former fashion model who is still stick thin and who, despite trying for years, never did get pregnant. Yes, it happens to women of all sizes.

Anyway, enjoy the video and stop the fat talk!

Why I Love Dr. Blair

2012-01-18T02:27:00.000-08:00

Last week, I went to hear a talk by Dr. Steven Blair, a world-renowned researcher on the role of physical activity in maintaining good health. Dr. Blair has done extensive research on physical fitness and reducing heart disease and is one of the most cited exercise scientists in the world. Last week he was awarded the Bloomberg Manulife Prize for the Promotion of Active Health. Click here to learn more about Dr. Blair's research and his tips for healthy living.

I was told that the talk I heard will be available on the website, but I don't think it's been posted yet. It's well worth watching and I'll keep an eye out for it. As soon as it's posted, I'll provide the link. But in the meantime, here are my impressions of what I heard...and saw.

Readers who are dedicated weight-loss mavens are probably scratching their heads and wondering how this short, portly gentleman could have anything intelligent to say about good health. The man is FAT. And everyone knows that FAT = UNHEALTHY. Well, my impression of Dr. Blair was that he radiates energy and excellent health. I assumed he was in his early 60s. He's actually 72. His face shines, he's got a pleasant, strong voice and there's not a trace of breathlessness or any other indication that his weight is slowing him down.

In fact, Dr. Blair was, up until recently, a dedicated runner. His wife, who was in the audience, and looks like your aunt Rosie or your wonderful grandma who had that nice comfy lap you sat in as a child, continues to run. Dr. Blair now "only" walks 5,000,000 steps a year. Yes, that's 5 million steps. It works out to an average of 13,600 steps a day. Definitely not someone who lets the grass grow under his feet.

But now, on to the talk:

Dr. Blair's message was clear and simple: your state of health depends first and foremost on whether or not you regularly engage in physical activity. And the physical activity you participate in does not have to be excessive or "hard core" in the least. In countless studies, morbidity is reduced by 50% simply by engaging in 30 minutes of moderate physical activity, five days a week (Dr. Blair also suggest two sessions per week of strength training). Those who engage in significantly more exercise will further reduce their morbidity by 10-15%. In other words, those two hours a day of heart-pounding, sweat-producing running, weight lifting, rowing, rock climbing, karate, etc. etc. will make a relatively minimal difference in your health. It's the 30 minutes of walking (and no, you don't have to speed walk, just try to walk fast enough to pant a bit but still be able to keep up a conversation), housework, gardening, swimming or whatever gets you up and moving that will make you truly healthy and enable you to remain bright-eyed and bushy tailed as you age.

He cited countless studies to support this contention and I'm not going to go over them here. I'm not fast enough at note taking to have recorded everything he said. Again, I'll post the URL as soon as it's put on the site.

What really thrilled me about Dr. Blair's talk, though, was when he got angry. On several occasions, he referred to the weight "cartel" that's desperately trying to convince us that the only true measure of health is weight. It was thrilling to hear him debunk this myth. He clearly stated that fitness, not the lack of fatness, keeps us healthy. He railed against the bias and discrimination that overweight people--himself included--are subject to. I specifically asked for his opinion on the State of Georgia's campaign to fight childhood obesity, which features posters of sad looking fat children with captions that muse about their longevity (likely to die younger than their parents), their eating habits (overeating, not big bones, made them that way) and future health problems (diabetes). Dr. Blair said that he didn't know about this specific campaign, however he believes that such attitudes simply foster discrimination and do little to improve health.

The last question of the evening was the one "everyone had been waiting for". After giving an entire talk about the fact that all the research points to a strong link between being unfit and being in poor health rather than any link between simply being overweight/obese and being unhealthy, a relatively slim woman raised her hand and asked, "but can you really be obese and fit?" Calmly, Dr. Blair asked her whether you can be thin and unhealthy, thin and nasty, or thin and unfit. He said we should forget about weight and stop focusing on it. Essentially, he asked why we continue to flog a dead horse (my words, not his), in other words making weight loss our foremost (if not only) goal, when we know that the vast majority of those who lose weight can't keep it off and--more importantly--it doesn't play a critical role in improving health. He said that we should be concentrating on healthy eating, stress reduction and improving fitness if we want to see a real improvement in our health.

Hearing Dr. Blair speak was a wonderful experience. But it was depressing too, knowing that his message of regular, moderate physical activity for fitness and good health is being absolutely drowned out by the weight-loss cartel. It is truly a tragedy that so many people spend so much time and physical and mental energy chasing the mirage of the so-called healthy BMI while often totally ignoring simple, positive activities that have been shown to have a much more significant and lasting effect on their health.

The Earth is Flat and Other Truths and Heresies

2012-01-11T07:09:00.000-08:00

The earth is flat. We all know that. If the earth weren't flat, the level you or your handyperson used to hang that picture in your living room or install your new kitchen cabinets just wouldn't have worked.

If the earth weren't flat, people living in the prairies wouldn't be able to see for "miles and miles" (as The Who used to sing).

If the earth weren't flat, people in Tierra del Fuego would be standing on their heads all the time. For that matter, so would we, seen from the perspective of Tierra del Fuegans.

Right? Right! Wrong.

The thing is, any four year old (at least living in the First World) has seen a 3D version of our world in the form of a globe and knows for a fact that the world is round. Although some people still belong to the Flat Earth Society, I think there is a very broad consensus shared by both lay people and scientists alike that our planet--the world we live in--is actually round.

Notwithstanding this truth, I suspect that over the years, many people were even burned at the stake for daring to say that the earth was round and not flat.

In fact, it took thousands and thousands of years for humankind to admit to this simple fact. Why? Because our eyes don't lie...even though they do.

Controversy is a normal part of the human condition and today's controversial, "out of the mainstream opinion" often becomes an accepted, scientific fact, though it may takes centuries to do so.

Take global warming, for instance. It seems quite obvious to me that global warming is a real phenomenon. As I look out my window this January morning and see the brownish lawn and leafless trees that forty years ago marked the beginning of winter--not the middle, as is the case today!-- I feel quite sure that global warming is something to worry about. But then again, for many (including, I suspect, some of you reading today), global warming is still just a theory--and a very questionable theory at that.

What does all this have to do with weight?

Here's my opinion, based on what I see as the most serious, honest science: when it comes to asserting that losing weight is the only legitimate path to good health, we're still living in the Middle Ages and the world is still definitely flat.

"Common sense" tells us that the lighter we are, the healthier we are. "We all know" that obesity is a sure sign of ill health. "Everyone knows" that there is an obesity epidemic raging out there, and that "for the first time in human history" our "significantly fatter" children are set to live shorter, sicker lives than their parents or grandparents. "You can't deny" that people just weren't fat a hundred years ago.

So says the mainstream. So say Dr. Oz, Dr. Phil, Dr. Dukan, the myriad of weight loss companies out there, the newly slim stars who shill for these companies, the newly re-fat stars who now shill for their own weight loss systems that THIS TIME will make them finally and irrevocably thin because WE ALL KNOW without a shadow of a doubt that SLIM = HEALTHY.

If I had a penny for every time that I read or heard, "I'm losing weight to get healthy", I'd be a rich woman indeed.

In fact, if I had a penny for every time I repeated this mantra to myself, I wouldn't be worried about paying for my kids' education or making sure I have enough money to retire without having to live on dollar-store pasta, canned sauce and cheap, yellow, chemical-laced margarine on white bread.

Unfortunately, and despite a growing body of research to the contrary, our society has reached the apex of the slim = healthy mania. We are bombarded with this message. The media, the "experts", our mother-in-law, our doctors, our friends and neighbours all know the truth. And the truth is that you are fat because you are a lazy, ignorant, weak-willed Twinkie eating slob and you are unhealthy (if not today, then tomorrow or next year) because you are fat.

Remember: all the above is TRUE. And please keep in mind: the earth really is flat.

Tonight, I'll be attending a talk by Dr. Steven Blair, a professor in the Department of Exercise Science at the University of South Carolina and winner of the "Bloomberg Manulife Prize for the Promotion of Active Health". The talk is entitled "How 30 Minutes a Day Could Save Your Life". I'm really looking forward to going and intend to take copious notes. Then I'll report back on why when it comes to weight and health, the earth is actually not flat, no matter what our eyes (and the media and our friends and neighbours) tell us.

Stay tuned.

Paul Campos's Latest Article

2012-01-09T02:54:00.000-08:00

Professor Paul Campos, author of The Obesity Myth, has published an excellent article on why shaming fat kids for their weight will not make them thin.

Read it here.

One warning though: do not read the comments, 99% of which go even further with the shaming and blaming than the vile anti-childhood obesity campaign in Georgia that he is writing about. If you haven't realized it already, all fat people are lazy, gluttonous slobs. Or so the comments tell us.

I just wanted to cry...or perhaps rip their smug throats out.

Read the article. Skip the comments. Do your blood pressure a favour.

2012

2012-01-02T09:55:00.000-08:00

Like all good bloggers, I feel the need to recognize the new year and say something profound and thought-provoking to get us all on our way. LOL

Seriously, I wish you all a wonderful new year. May it be one of health, peace (both personal and worldwide) and self-acceptance for one and all.

I do not have any resolutions to announce.

It seems to me that if you feel that a change is necessary or useful or just plain fun to implement, you should begin it whenever it seems appropriate and not on some mythical date like January 1st. As you know, I began implementing some important mental health habits about 6 weeks ago and, though I have not seen any earth-changing turnarounds in my life, I feel that I have set out on a better, healthier, saner road and will continue to travel on it to the best of my abilities. My physical health concerns are still there, but I am working towards accepting them with more calm and equanimity. This is really important.

This year started out a bit rocky for me. On New Year's Eve, I was feeling just slightly "off". We were supposed to have supper that night at the home of friends who have two small children and around 10 p.m. we planned to head over to a new year's eve party that we've gone to for several years running. My normal appetite just wasn't there, so I ate very lightly at our friends' place. I began feeling very cold, but thought it was just because they live in an old house (similar to ours) and kept the heat down to save on energy costs. I asked for a throw blanket and snuggled on the couch. We were having a wonderful discussion and time flew by. We missed getting to the party and toasted the new year with our friends.

By this time, I felt pretty crummy and realized that there was no way we were going anywhere else but home. Fortunately, our home was only a block away. We got in the door around 1 a.m. and I promptly went to the bathroom and threw up...several times. It was not pretty. I haven't had something like this happen to me in many, many years. It was probably some kind of 24-hour bug rather than food poisoning because I was the only person to get sick. I got up at 8 a.m. to take my thyroid medication, sat down in the bathroom, got the shakes and started sweating, got back into bed and by late morning I felt a lot better.

I barely ate anything yesterday and what I did swallow really burned going down. It made me wonder how bulimics manage to throw up on a regular basis. My oesophagus felt like it had been burned to a crisp and I had only had one barfing session.

The good news is that today I feel fine.

All the best for the new year!

NOT the answer...So what is?

2011-12-12T17:02:00.001-08:00

First, thanks to the readers who commented on my Uncle Michael post. I'm glad his story resonated with you as it did with me.

So, now on to putting Uncle Michael's words to work. As you will recall, he said he had to calm down or he would die. And I feel the same way.

The best way to start explaining how I'm going about this hugely important task is to use Sally's words as my springboard. This is what she said (and I heartily agree):

"Antidepressants and tranquilizers are NOT the answer! "

Now, I don't want to tell anyone else how to handle their anxiety. Truly, far be it from me! We all have to find our own way, and if pharmacology is right for you, I won't stand in your way.

However, I know myself well enough to realize that taking pills is not something that really works for me. After my first, disastrous hip surgery, I got really, really depressed and with good reason. I started having a lot of trouble eating enough to simply nourish my body. Food was the last thing on my mind, even when my stomach was screaming with hunger. By the time my surgeon had confirmed that something was really wrong and that he was going to perform a revision, my GP had already put me on an anti-depressant. I knew that the best anti-depressant was having confirmation that I wasn't imagining things and that I really needed another surgery, but it was too late. My GP wanted to keep me on the medication until after the second surgery and I complied. What did it get me? Nothing but some extra poundage I really didn't need!

So, when I recently found myself in a deep, thyroid-induced depression, I knew that neither anxiety nor anti-depressant medication was not the answer.

In the past, right here on this blog, I talked about meditation and more specifically, breathing meditation to help keep me on a more even keel in a very stress filled life. But, to be absolutely honest, I didn't do anything.

This time was different.

As you know, I was in a very deep hole. I had a serious falling out with my work associates and left our group. My reasons, under different circumstances, could have been quite justified. I work in an extremely tense environment. But this has been the only work life I've known for almost twenty-five years and to a great extent, it's just the nature of the beast. You have to have nerves of steel to do what I do, and nerves of steel to deal with the prima donnas who make up a high percentage of people in my profession.

It was being hyperthyroid that took me over the edge, but as I tumbled, I realized that I had a lot of personal, long-standing baggage that made the tumble all the worse. I had to do something more than just take my thyroid medication and mentally paper over the hurt and the anxiety. I was NOT going to go on anti-depressants.

So what have I been doing?

Quite a while ago, I heard about Jon Kabat-Zinn, a well-known practitioner and proponent of "mindfulness" and I finally began to read one of his books on mindfulness, which focuses specifically on people suffering from illness and stress. There's so much and so little to say about mindfulness, being in the moment, not letting yourself be buffeted about by the world around you, ....I really don't know where to start nor what to say, so I'll be brief (after this very long introduction):

Read Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness by Jon Kabat-Zinn.

This book is having a profound effect on me. I'm still quite recognizable, both in body and in spirit, but sometimes it's the little, yet deep changes that make all the difference. I'm keeping these changes for myself. They may mean nothing to you. However, your changes, no matter how small, can have a huge effect on who you are as a human being and how you move through life.

So, if you're looking for something--not something to make you lose weight, or help you burn more calories or rev up your metabolism or tone your abs--something to help you live your life with more calm and personal understanding, and less anxiety, read this book. It may not touch you, but if it does, and you find that it's made a positive change in your life, well, that will make my heart sing.

Read the book!!

Uncle Michael's Lesson to Me

2011-12-08T08:03:00.000-08:00

My late uncle Michael had very high blood pressure. Dangerously high.

Lest you jump to conclusions, Uncle M. was neither fat nor did he eat junk food. Throughout his life, he was extremely slim. Born in Poland at the turn of the 20th century, junk food did not exist. Even though he lived in Canada from the end of the 1960s to his death in 2006, he never changed his spartan eating habits: he ate no junk food (I don't think he even knew what the term meant) and subsisted on extremely plain, sometime bordering on horribly bland, food.

Uncle Michael did not drive and until he became too weak to walk at the end of his life, he took public transit or walked everywhere.

In many ways, Uncle Michael was a paragon of "healthy living" and indeed, he lived to a venerable age, dying just short of his 93rd birthday.

Yet, Uncle Michael had high blood pressure. Why?

Years before his death, this is what Uncle Michael told me:

"I realized," said he, "that if I didn't calm down, I would die."

Uncle Michael did not live an easy life. He was born in a small village in Poland just before World War 1. There was a great deal of upheaval during his first years of life. In fact, the family almost ended up in Siberia due to the political activities of the oldest son (there were 8 children in the family and Michael was the youngest).

Michael was also severely short-sighted but no one thought to fit him with glasses. He actually had a terrible run-in with a barbed wire fence as a child since he didn't see it early enough to avoid running into it.

A quiet, artistic soul, he nevertheless followed his family's wishes and went to study engineering in France in 1939. He did not speak a word of French, but learned the language through dogged determination and did become an engineer. Of course, his studies were interrupted by the Second World War. As a Jew, he spent the war years travelling around France, sleeping in different rooming houses almost every night and often less than one step ahead of the Gestapo and certain death. He owed his life to several righteous Gentiles he met along the way.

After the war, Michael continued to live and work in France. He thought he had lost his entire family during the Holocaust. My father found him in the late sixties and they were re-united in Canada. Two other sisters (one who had come to Canada, the other in Israel) also survived.

Despite his education and professional qualifications, Michael never managed to find work as an engineer in Canada. He did various things to earn a living and finally went back to his true love, art, in his retirement. He painted, drew and sculpted for many years. He also went back to learning Russian when already in his seventies. In all, he spoke six languages. I always spoke to him in French.

So, in sum, Uncle Michael did not have an easy life. He had good reason to suffer from the anxiety that was no doubt at the root of his high blood pressure. He needed outside help (aka medication) to deal with his blood pressure, but he also realized that he had to work with himself to keep his mind from killing his body. This is the lesson Uncle Michael taught me, although I have only come to realize it all too recently.

Over the past few weeks, I have come to understand the power of the mind-body connection and its relationship to my thyroid issues.

First, please be disabused of the idea that the thyroid is a benign little gland usually blamed for difficulties in losing weight. No! It's a powerhouse and when it goes out of balance (in my case, making me hyper) it can wreak havoc and sometimes kill.

There are a host of symptoms associated with being hyperthyroid (Graves disease) but the one that I did not know about threw my whole life into turmoil: extreme anxiety. Like Uncle Michael and like my older son (who has an uncanny resemblance to Uncle Michael), I have a strong tendency to catastrophize. I think back on things I have done (or not done) and go into paroxysms of regret. I think ahead to potential disasters and fixate on them, whether or not there is any possibility that they may occur and whether or not I have any control over whether they come to pass. Put this aspect of my character together with a thyroid that is hereditarily prone to becoming hyper and you have a recipe for disaster.

In short, I worried my thyroid over the edge, catastrophizing events that had occurred and events that I feared would occur, and then I became psychologically unhinged. All the comments I made on my work and my colleagues were true. It is a difficult environment and many of the people I work with are divas who fly off the handle at the drop of a hat. However, my generally anxious nature, which helped to bring on the relapse of Graves disease and which then fed the flames of the Graves disease to the nth degree led me to the brink of a professional crisis that did not have to happen.

Recently, Uncle Michael's words about calming down suddenly resounded again in my brain.

Yes, I most certainly did need medication (and I'm still on it, BTW). I was physically in a dangerous situation. But I also realized that it was time to go within and confront my anxious mind and my catastrophizing ways. That is what I have started doing.

Stay tuned for the next instalment of the saga!

BIG P.S. I have heard from two readers who can't leave comments on this blog. If this is the case for you too, please leave me a message at ima.canuck at hotmail dot com. I'm looking into the problem.

I Understand...Just a Tiny Bit

2011-11-22T11:55:00.000-08:00

I'm a lucky woman. No one has ever raised a hand to me. Yes, my feelings have been deeply hurt, and I mean deeply and very recently hurt, but I've never been subjected to physical abuse.

So, when I read about how hard it is for a woman to leave a physically abusive spouse, I sympathize but I don't feel her turmoil in my gut. I've never been there, and thankfully so.

I've been married for almost twenty years and I sincerely hope that we will stay together. It's not that I see something bad coming, but you just never know. I know that divorce can be terribly painful, but I only have an intellectual understanding of this pain.

Well, now I understand--just a tiny, tiny bit more--why people stay in abusive relationships, be they physical or mental.

Yesterday, I was working with two of my former associates. We were hired by a third party, meaning each one of us accepted the contract independently, not knowing with whom we were going to work.

One of the two people in question, although not the person who ultimately made me feel so horrible that I couldn't stay in the group, has been psychologically abusive to me over the years--not every day, but with such ferocity that I find it hard to shake off the effects of things that she has said. She can be this way with everyone, certainly not just me. It's just that, coupled with what my other associate said to me in September, I just don't have the psychological power to shrug off her outbursts anymore. Anyway, I was working with her yesterday. She was very pleasant but understandably somewhat distant. I am no longer part of the gang.

Our work day was demanding, but everything went quite smoothly. Coolly and smoothly. On breaks, in the past we would leave the room to go and chat. This time, I just went and read by myself or surfed on my computer. By the end of the day, I felt quite alone. Not that she had been nasty to me in any way. She treated me like she treats colleagues with whom she has only a professional relationship. No histrionics, no nastiness, but no friendship either.

Did I like the way we sometimes interacted while we were associates in the same group? No. That's why I left (although I could have put up with her mood swings for awhile longer--it was another associate who treated me with such contempt who was the real cause of my departure).

But boy did I feel lonely yesterday. And I understood why people find it hard to leave, even if the situation is abusive.

My drive home took over two hours. I was famished, ate supper and went upstairs to watch TV. I started crying and asked my husband to come upstairs and just stay with me. He watched wrestling and I read a book. He held my hand. I feel better today.

Step One

2011-11-17T04:57:00.000-08:00

I just pressed the "send" button for an e-mail addressed the professional group that I helped to found and have been a part of for the past ten years. In it, I announced that I have decided to leave the group.

Financially, this may be a slight hit to my income, but since nature abhors a vacuum, I will now be available to accept work from other sources and I think that it won't make a huge difference. If, on the other hand, I find myself working less, that will be OK too.

I work in a tiny, tiny niche market. There are only about 15 certified professionals in my field in the metropolitan region where I live (population 5.5 million people). This doesn't mean that I've got offers of work coming out of my ears, but over the past 25 years or so, I've done quite well.

Here's the problem: It's a really high-stress job and a lot of the people I work with are--let's use the technical term--nuts. OK, let's be a bit more generous: high strung. Recently, due to the return of my Grave's disease, I have been quite high strung too, but generally speaking, I'm a pleasant colleague to work with. I can't say the same of many of my colleagues--all 15 of them, plus extras who come in when there are not enough bodies here in town to do the work. In the group I was part of, I was (and still am) in constant fear of being verbally attacked by two of my four associates; the third is actually a very nice fellow, but he is on the autism spectrum and can be difficult to communicate with; the fourth associate is actually very normal and I really enjoy working with her.

So I have accomplished step one on my road to a more balanced, sane life: I resigned from the group.

AAAAAHHH. A sigh of relief.

Surgery Postponed

2011-11-16T01:04:00.000-08:00

As you know, pre-op tests and my own intuition revealed that my thyroid was once again out of control. The actual diagnosis is Grave's disease. Wikipedia has an informative article on the topic. I was most struck by the psychological effects, which include anxiety and depression. Boy, that explains why I have been feeling really, really anxious and depressed for the past several weeks.

But wait! There's more!

I was incredibly lucky to get an emergency appointment with an endocrinologist yesterday afternoon. After reviewing my test results, she advised me to cancel the surgery. With my thyroid levels being so abnormal, I could have gone into a "thyroid storm" on the operating table, had a stroke and possibly died.

So this cancellation is definitely a cloud with a silver lining.

I have to wait until my thyroid is back to completely normal function. Having been through this before, I suspect it will take from 6 months to a year. Only then can I call my surgeon to reschedule the knee surgery. All in all, it could be about two years before I get a new knee.

But honestly, I much prefer living with a crunchy knee to not living at all.

"No fat men here! Isn't that great?"

2011-11-14T02:29:00.000-08:00

This Saturday, I worked my last day until...? (Actually, I'll probably take off at least six weeks and January is a slow month, so I won't be really busy until next February.)

I was working at a conference for sports coaches.

The team I was on was made up of myself and two other women. H. is in her sixties. She is quite slender. In fact, having seen one of her wedding photos, I suspect she hasn't gained more than 5 pounds since her wedding day in the 1960s. She does exercise and from time to time loudly trumpets that she is going on a diet, but generally speaking, she seems to just eat what she wants and exercise regularly. C., my second colleague that day, is someone who has energy to spare. At least 2-3 times a year, she hosts huge parties at her home. She loves to travel, go to concerts, cook and generally have a good time. She's someone you could definitely call a "bon vivant". C. goes to the gym (though more in spurts than regularly) and also does yoga and belly dancing. She's always on the go, a real ball of energy. She's also fairly heavy.

The third person on the team was yours truly. You've seen my picture: I'm neither slim nor extremely heavy. I guess you could call me a "small fatty", so short that I wear regular size clothing, but I can look much heavier or much lighter when my weight goes up or down by less than five pounds.

At the morning coffee break, out of the blue, H. said cheerily, "Isn't this conference wonderful? There aren't any fat men!" I looked at her in horror. "Well, they're all into sports, so no one's fat," she went on to explain. I couldn't help myself and called her bluff immediately, noting that there is no direct, immutable link between one's weight and one's level of fitness. She caved in right away, said she was sorry and verbally closed the door on any further discussion.

C. said nothing.

I was pleased that I had the presence of mind to not let her stupid, insulting statement go unchallenged. I was also happy that I won't have to deal with such idiocy for a few months. And I was sad, knowing that there's probably not one other person in H.'s private or professional life who would have called her out on such an ignorant, demeaning comment.

What is Comfort?

2011-11-10T01:18:00.000-08:00

When your child is sick or scared, you take her in your arms, pat her head and say, "Don't worry. You'll feel better." or "Don't worry, everything will turn out fine." And often that is indeed the case.

But those words of comfort are often actually destructive, especially when spoken to an an adult. When you say, with a cheery upbeat voice, "Oh, don't worry, you'll be fine," you deny the validity of the person's feelings, and indeed imply (though you may not realize it) that he or she is misguided or stupid.

Here's what people in distress might prefer to hear:

"I respect your distress. I respect how you are feeling."

"I hope things will go well. I want to offer you my positive thoughts (and prayers, if that is meaningful to you)."

Of course, we all wish the best for those in distress, but we must be careful that our words don't leave the person feeling invalidated and even more alone and scared.

Crosses to Bear

2011-11-09T01:37:00.000-08:00

Although I am Jewish, there's nothing like the expression "we all have our crosses to bear" to describe how everyone has difficulties in life.

In many ways, I consider myself to be extremely fortunate. I was brought up by a handicapped, housebound, divorced mother. My father, may he rest in peace, basically deserted her soon after my birth and she raised me in very difficult financial circumstances.

My life, in many ways, has been the opposite of my mother's. While she was left alone to raise me, I have a wonderful husband who has always stuck by me. "In sickness and in health" is something that he takes very seriously. I am a successful, self-employed professional. I can afford to take off a few months of work to recover from my surgery without worrying about how we will pay the bills. I can drive. Even though I am a firm supporter of public transit (when I take my car in for servicing they practically laugh at the low mileage), driving is an important part of being independent and capable of doing what needs to be done because I--like my mother, my aunt and my aunt's granddaughter--suffer from arthritis.

On Saturday, I was at a high school reunion to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the founding of the experimental high school I attended. I was one of the original 160 students who were there the year the school opened its doors. It was an incredible gathering.

One of the people at the party is someone who suffers from a degenerative disease, MS. She is not in great shape and has severe balance issues. The party was held in a spacious private home, but there were lots of people milling about. My two sons were there to help people with their coats, serve wine, pick up dirty dishes, etc. D., the woman with MS, was walking through a crowd of people in the kitchen when she tripped over my older son's foot. It was an accident. She then literally bounced around, trying to regain her balance and ended up, screaming in anger, on the kitchen floor. She was alright, though I suspect she probably acquired a few bruises. The hostess, who is also a friend of hers, rushed to help her get up.

D. was furious at my son. It wasn't his fault, but her anger was palpable.

Much later in the evening, when almost everyone had gone, my friend the hostess remarked that she couldn't understand why D. had been so angry. But I knew why. Even though I don't suffer from the same disease and have a much easier life than D., I too have felt that anger: the anger of not being in control, of having your body control you. She was mad because life just isn't fair.

My physical problems make my life a lot harder than that of many others, but a lot easier than the life of people like D.

We all have our crosses to bear.

The First of Many Thank Yous

2011-11-08T05:44:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I read the comments a few of you made to my post, "When the Going Gets Tough...". I had had a miserable day at work--bad enough that I just want to chuck it all and be much poorer but much less stressed; I got a note from my older son's physics teacher telling me that he's falling behind (nothing new, he's been battling ADD for years and hates medication, so he doesn't take anything); clashed mildly with my husband over the situation with our son; and felt my heart racing uncomfortably (a side-effect of being hyperthyroid).

So when I read your comments, I did what any self-respecting scared, sick person does: I cried. And I write this, I'm crying again.

Thanks--for the first, but certainly not the last time--for your concern and support.

When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Blogging

2011-11-07T02:14:00.000-08:00

I'm sure my small group of loyal readers has noticed a distinct change in tone and subject on my blog.

When I first began this blog, it focused on what I believed would be my weight loss journey thanks to mindful eating. It was, like many other blogs, a sort of web diary and review of the good, the bad and the ugly issues related to weight loss in my life.

Slowly, I began to take a more critical view of dieting and came to realize that slimness = good health was a faulty, dangerous generalization. My writing became more analytical and references to my own experiences became just that--references to back up general observations and critiques of how society is profoundly obsessed with weight loss and actually cares very little for improved health, despite the health-focused discourse we hear all around us.

Gradually, my blog roll began to reflect my new perspective. Originally, it contained a number of dieting blogs, but it morphed into a list of blogs that promote, in one way or another, a HAES (Health at Every Size) viewpoint, and, to some extent, a fat acceptance viewpoint (this is something that I'd like to talk about one day, but not now).

But life has a way of sneaking up on you and "the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray," as the poet Robert Burns once said.

The more I became interested in physical activity--not as a way to lose weight, but rather as a way to improve my general health--the clearer it became that my body, and specifically my knee, would have none of it.

After I had my first hip replacement, I started a blog called "Total Hip Disaster" to help myself get through the disaster of a hip replacement gone very wrong. It's still floating out in cyberspace at totalhipdisaster.blogspot.com if you feel like taking a glance. It was written for myself and an anonymous audience. I never gave anyone I knew in the real world the URL and no one knew me in cyberspace, so it was a pretty private little story. I just re-read a few entries today and had to laugh when I read a post where I mentioned how my left knee was pretty cranky over the abuse it got while I was recovering twice from surgery. Prescient.

All this to say that New Me's blog will once again take a more personal route. Blogging will be part of my mental preparation for surgery on November 17th and really a way to deal with my worries and fears. If you read "Total Hip Disaster" you'll understand why I am very apprehensive.

I feel that I have made a few cyber-friends in the past two years, so I beg your indulgence and hope you will bear with me as I go on a little personal blogging side trip. There probably won't be much talk of food for awhile--unless I decide to go on a rant regarding how bad hospital food is!

Now It's My Thyroid

2011-11-04T16:07:00.000-07:00

Well, the blood test confirmed that my thyroid has gone wonky again. The hospital called and wanted to make sure I got on medication ASAP, but...

My endocrinologist (who I can't stand) has gone MIA. I think she may have married and changed her name (short rant: I will never understand why women change their name when they marry. For crying out loud, we don't belong to our husbands anymore!). In any case, her name is no longer on the list of doctors at the clinic where I used to see her and I didn't have time to leave a message asking if they knew where she'd gone because I won't be home next week to answer the phone and speak to a human being. This is not a time for telephone tag. Maybe it's good news after all that I can't find her.

In the meantime, the internist at the hospital has already called the pharmacy and my prescription is waiting for pick-up tonight. Maybe it's a good thing Dr. F. has disappeared. Now, I'll be able to go to someone who is hopefully easier to deal with. I have to go to my GP's next week ASAP to get a referral to a new endocrinologist.

I guess I'm a nice person with a heavy karmic load. Otherwise, there's no way to explain all this crap.

Herein endeth the "woe is me". I've got things to do before surgery on Nov. 17.

By The Way...

2011-11-02T06:09:00.000-07:00

I've been very busy recently with work, but also I've been preoccupied with my upcoming surgery.

I'll be having a total knee replacement on Nov. 17.

Yesterday, I spent about four hours at the hospital for pre-op meetings with the anesthetist, the pre-op nurse and the internist, in addition to having x-rays and blood tests done. My BP is stellar, but I have a feeling (and the blood test will tell soon enough), that I am a bit hyperthyroid. I've got some mild, but clear symptoms and the internist felt that it was important to check my TSH levels. We'll see. In any case, this won't delay the surgery (at least no one said it would...).

During my talk with the anesthetist (I can't remember exactly what we were discussing at the time), he said something about not worrying about xyz because, and I quote, I'm "thin". Hello! Whatever...But it was rather surprising.

My last experience with joint replacement--my hip in 2003--was more like a nightmare than surgery. I won't go into the details, but it has left me more than a bit skittish about orthopedic interventions. But I'm not going to let this hold me back. As the internist said, it's not going to get better, so I must boldly go where a lot of people have gone before and trust in my surgeon's skill.

I'm not a praying person myself, but please don't feel shy about putting in a good word for me with the higher power of your choice.

How to Gain Weight

2011-10-19T02:02:00.000-07:00

Via Weight Maven:

This is my story and the story of many people I know.

Health at Every Size: Further Thoughts and Clarification of My Viewpoint

2011-10-17T02:58:00.000-07:00

The response to my last post from Screaming Fat Girl (as well as comments from RDhiker that arrived a few days later) really got me thinking.

SFG writes:

I don't think health is possible at literally every size. At some point, the stress on the body from being very overweight will have an effect on the heart, circulatory system, etc. People who have never lived life over 300 lbs. for any long period of time can't possibly understand the stress it places on the body [...] Most of the FA who are talking about being healthy at large sizes aren't yet 40. Trust me, as someone who has lived most of her adult life over 300 lbs. and topped out near 400, your body will tolerate it a lot better when you're young. You start to develop problems as the years go by. For quality of life, most people could use some help in dealing with their relationship with food (which often results in weight loss). Denying this does nothing for the bodily acceptance movement except make it look willfully ignorant and therefore disingenuous [...]

However, I think we need to stop even addressing health as if it were equally possible at every size. It is not. Sure, you can be fat and healthy, but you can't be healthy at every weight (that includes extreme thinness as well as extreme fatness)[...]

Let me start by saying that I have enormous respect for SFG. She is someone who really thinks about things and certainly takes nothing at face value. She is a courageous person who has made great strides forward in forging a healthier life for herself.

So, to SFG and my readers in general, consider the following thoughts the continuation of a fruitful and respectful dialogue.

First, I'd like to set some parameters:

First parameter: Some of us choose to make "healthy" choices while others don't. I know that SFG and I agree on this point: your quest for health (or lack thereof) is your decision. I'm not here to tell anyone that they must try to be healthier. That attempt is a choice.

Second parameter: I insist on using the words quest, try and attempt because I know that life isn't fair. Our healthy choices are tempered by heredity, the hand we were dealt at birth (or, quite often, in the womb) and the traumas and experiences we have had throughout our lives. My late MIL lived a happy, active life until she dropped dead of a heart attack at 82. She ate lots of junk food, drank copious amounts of coffee and smoked like a chimney. Yes, she may have lived longer had she not smoked, but she far exceeded the average life expectancy of a woman born in 1927 in Canada (61, according to Statistics Canada). My mother, on the other hand, was a model of healthy eating. She spent much of her adult life housebound--severely crippled by arthritis. So yeah, life isn't fair.

Third parameter: My healthy choices are not yours. You may be a vegetarian, or eat a diet heavy in meat and shun most carbs including fresh fruits and some vegetables. You may be a runner who runs without any problems far into old age or you may be a person who is prone to shin splints and should avoid running at all costs. The healthy practices of A might fast-track B into illness.

Now, let's get down to brass tacks:

In my mind, there is a difference between fat acceptance (FA) and Health at Every Size (HAES). I certainly believe in FA in the sense that behaviours such as fat shaming and blaming, prejudice and bias against fat people, the assumption that a fat person is slothful, lacks self-control (in terms of eating and often other areas--witness the often interesting association between fatness and sexual voraciousness) or is less worthy of respect have no place in a civilized world. FA is an attitude, a belief that fat people are...people, neither better nor worse than anyone else. However, FA is not specifically linked to health, be it good or bad.

HAES, on the other hand is a dynamic, on-going process; it results from the choices we make every day, tempered of course by heredity and pure old luck. HAES, to me, means considering oneself at the place (weight) one is today, and saying "what can I do to be healthy or healthier?" Considering that 95% of people CANNOT maintain a significantly lower weight after dieting, I question the worthiness of responding, "just diet".

HAES does not mean ceasing to strive for health. It means that while you are probably never going to be a size 0 you can commit to engaging in a host of practices that CAN help you to be healthier, though not necessarily any or much svelter.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that I suspect many of the morbidly obese we so worry about got there by dieting. If they have health concerns, why aren't we working with them to improve their health through gentle movement (acquafit, if your joints are suffering; or starting with just a few minutes of walking and building up to longer periods; or stationary biking--as long as you don't have a knee like mine, lol), or through nutritional counselling? Rather than putting the overweight back in the dieting straight jacket that got them into this fine mess, why aren't they directed towards resources to teach them the fundamentals of mindful eating (if that is helpful--and it certainly is neither helpful nor needed in many cases)?

And while I'm on the topic of mindful eating, allow me a short rant: People are unconvinced of its merits because dieting has ROBBED them of their ability to read their own signals of hunger and satiety. This is the true tragedy of the diet culture: the people who need it most have lost their their ability to read their body's own signals--the signals that enable all living beings to continue to stay alive and healthy.

I also suspect that many morbidly obese people may have reached a physical state of disequilibrium due to years of mental and sometimes physical abuse. They have felt it necessary to develop a protective layer of fat around themselves. Again, dieting is not the solution. In such cases, improving one's physical health and rebuilding a healthy relationship with food require psychological intervention or simply helping the person to physically escape the abusive relationship. The disordered relationship with food is actually a symptom rather than a cause. How can a woman stop gorging herself when gorging is a defence mechanism to prevent abuse and attack or simply a way of forgetting what makes her so unhappy in life?

Those of us who seek to improve our health need to approach this goal by using a variety of approaches rather than resorting to dieting--which has proven itself to be not only usually ineffective (perhaps not in the short term but certainly in the long term) and downright counter-productive in perhaps the majority of cases.

Some people may lose weight through implementing techniques that first and foremost improve their health such as movement, mindful eating, and psychotherapy to get to the root of their disordered eating. And that's fine. However, we know that for the vast majority of people, it is practically impossible to lose weight and in particular maintain a weight loss.

Moreover, though there may indeed be certain correlations between a higher weight and certain health problems, weight loss is not a magic potion that will solve all our health woes. If that were the case, there would be no slim diabetics and my particular knee problem would not be common amongst ballerinas--not the fattest group in the general population (this, according to my surgeon, who has made knees like mine his life's work).

My bottom line is that--if you so desire--you should do your best to achieve the best health possible for you, no matter what weight you are at today.

There is ample proof that weight loss at any cost can be deleterious to both one's mental and one's physical health. There is ample proof that maintaining significant weight loss is impossible for 95% of the population. Furthermore, there is ample proof that taking truly positive steps to improve one's health do lead to better health outcomes, even if they do not always lead to a significant weight loss. We need to move, to learn to eat relatively normally rather than adopt a binge/restrict pattern and some of us also need to work towards overcoming the psychological reasons for obesity, though this last point certainly does not apply to everyone.

Health at Every Size really is all about health.

Of course, I am far from exhausting the topic of HAES, but I've kept you reading long enough. To be continued...

Addendum: I just read a blog post by a medical doctor whose extremely strict approach to eating leaves no room for compromise. I must admit I continue to be perplexed. Since so few studies have been done on how mindful eating can be used to help binge eaters, we still don't know what can actually be done. I certainly feel unqualified to talk about binge eating since I have never been a binger myself. However, I find it hard to accept that binge eating can only be treated by severely circumscribing one's eating and adhering to what essentially amounts to a straight jacket approach to food. I don't think human beings are made to live in a state of constant restriction. The opposite of severe restriction is severe bingeing. Someone who is in a constant state of severe restriction cannot learn moderation, which I believe is the key to self-regulation, and the restrict/binge cycle cannot be broken. To what extent is binge eating physiological and to what extent is it a learned behaviour? And do the two cross-pollinate each other?

Health...Really?

2011-10-05T17:29:00.000-07:00

While 20 or 30 years ago, people (OK, let's be honest, women mostly) dieted because they felt that slim equalled beautiful and sexy, in today's world no one openly admits to dieting for such a shallow reason...even though I suspect that it still remains the REAL reason most people/women diet.

Today, people say they diet because of their health. Many people are convinced that they are on the verge of dropping dead because they have a BMI of 30. Many people will ignore anything good about their health--perfect blood pressure, glucose levels, etc.--if their BMI is over 25. This is the only number that counts for them and they will not consider themselves healthy unless this BMI number is reached, or ideally, until it drops below 25.

For the vast majority of people, slimness (or its proxy, the BMI) and health are synonymous.

Losing your hair due to food restriction and the resulting poor nutrition? That's OK, you're losing weight. Developing osteopenia or worse yet, osteoporosis? That's OK, you're "healthy" because your weight is down. Carrying around fat while losing muscle? That's OK, as long as the scale (which doesn't distinguish between fat and muscle) says you've lost some poundage.

On the other hand, have you become depressed because despite exercising regularly and reasonably, and eating like a healthy human being (in other words, without bingeing or scrupulously restricting calories or the types of food you "allow" yourself) you have lost no weight or just a few measly pounds? Do improved numbers (for instance, blood pressure), more energy, better sleep patterns etc. seem a poor substitute for a size 6? Have you decided to give up these healthy habits because they're not really healthy habits, since you haven't lost weight?

If you are depressed and desperately want to lose weight; if you feel that you are intrinsically unhealthy because you don't wear a size 6, then please stop reading this blog.

I've been blogging for almost two years now and I have slowly come to the realization that my weight and my health are not siamese twins. I now realize that what I do to improve or maintain my health may or may not have an effect on my weight.

My goal is to be as healthy as I can. For me, this means many things:

making peace with food; realizing that I do not have to eat a piece of chocolate cake because I know that I won't have the opportunity to eat any for weeks, months or years to come because I will be on a diet; realizing that healthy eating includes a wide variety of foods, and that neither restriction nor gorging lead anywhere good;
exercising to the best of my abilities and taking steps to help my body return to better orthopedic health;
in other words, practising what Dr. Linda Bacon terms Health at Every Size.

In my opinion, the "war on obesity" has nothing to do with good health. It has a lot to do with blaming and shaming. When you realize the truth in the joke "Q: What's the best way to gain 25 pounds? A: Lose 20.", you begin to see that weight loss hysteria is making our Western world fatter and fatter and encouraging people to engage in behaviours that do much to negatively impact both their physical and their mental health.

I am convinced that if we lived in a world where we lost the emphasis on weight loss and put the emphasis on health gain through normal eating and regular, reasonable exercise, we would still see a variety of body types. There would still be thinner than average people, lots of "average weight" people and heavy people. However, there would be far fewer Victoria Beckhams--in other words, people who starve themselves for "beauty"--or headless fatties, many of whom have dieted themselves up the scale.

Don't get me wrong: there will always be people who eat a lot, sit on their duffs all day and stay slim, just as there are people who eat reasonably and exercise faithfully and still carry a great deal of weight on their bodies (and are stamped with the scarlet "O" for [morbidly] obese). It's due to the amazing beauty of human diversity. Furthermore, there will always be a certain percentage of the population whose heights fall either significantly below or significantly above what is found in the general population. What's worse, there will always be red-heads, and even people with two different eye colours! The horror!

Let it go, people. It's called diversity.

And please put me down as a proponent of Health at Every Size. And that means every size.

Musician and Athlete

2011-09-12T02:01:00.000-07:00

This past weekend, I went to a "house concert". A house concert is a real concert, featuring a professional musician, but held in a private home. I only recently found out about these concerts, through a relatively new friend who has known the host ever since she was a teenager. This was my first concert at GA's house.

Before going, I checked on Youtube to get an idea of the featured performer's musical style. I found a number of hits for her and decided to go to the concert. Obviously, Youtube is visual, but I was listening to the music and didn't really pay attention to the musician's physical appearance, especially since her body was in part hidden by her guitar.

Just before the musician came out to begin her first set, the house concert host gave a short introduction. He said that this was the first time that a triathlete was performing in his home, since the performer had recently completed a triathlon for the first time. I think we were all impressed.

A triathlon is a three-sport event made up of swimming, biking and running. There are different distances for each of the sports, depending on one's level. I just looked up the triathlon that the musician I heard on Saturday night competed in. It was a beginner's level and included a 375 m swim, a 10 km bike ride and a 2.5 km run. By tri-athlete standards, this is pretty light, but I know that even before falling prey to arthritis and degenerative back disease, there would have been no way that I could ever have run that 2.5 km. In fact, I am ready to bet my home that the average Jane or Joe in the street--no matter what their weight--could not do this beginner level triathlon without some serious training.

Back to the concert...

So, having just heard that the musician we were about to hear took her physical activity seriously on top of being a great musician, you can imagine my shock when in walked a morbidly obese young woman. Yes, I admit it. I was shocked. Which only goes to show just how brainwashed I too am by a society that insists--day in and day out--constantly and emphatically--with no exception--that fat people CANNOT be athletes and that fat people are by definition unhealthy.

She proceeded to give an amazing concert. Her energy level was through the roof, her voice was strong and vibrant. And she was truly one of the best blues guitarists I've ever heard. BB King move over, you've got some incredible competition out there.

Who is this amazing woman? If you really want to know, you can send me an e-mail and I'll give you her name. She's amazing. However, I'm not giving her name here because I believe it's spectacularly unfair to write a post about a great musician that focuses on her weight rather than on her incredible musicianship. But I just had to: I felt that this was an opportunity to stand up to the bias, stereotypes and ignorance that permeate our world.

The Car, the Carpet and the Cat

2011-09-02T14:21:00.000-07:00

In the spring of 2009, we finally started a long-desired but major renovation of our home. They say that you should live in a home for awhile before making any major changes and that is essentially what we did--aside from having to renovate one bathroom (not a choice, but an unexpected necessity), redo the roof and change all the upstairs windows within the first six months of moving in.

By 2009, we had already been living in our little midtown semi-detached house for almost nine years and we were ready to make the big leap into the horrors of home renovation.

We knew that cats don't like change and that living in a construction zone would not be good for Miss Bean, so I called our cat babysitter to ask if she would take the Bean for an extended period of time (several months, at least). She agreed to do so, but warned us that for the first week, JB would have to share her home with another kitty guest. Well, JB's stay at the sitter's was over within 24 hours. She probably realized that this cat was also a guest rather than a permanent resident and decided to make his life a living hell. Sandy, the babysitter, was afraid that JB would try to harm the other cat and since that cat was already there, we had to take JB home.

And there she stayed--with us throughout the long and arduous renovation.

First, we were without a kitchen for eight weeks. Then, the contractor took the front of the house down and rebuilt it, incorporating what had been a decrepit, three-season front porch into the actual house. Of course, it being an old house, all kinds of unexpected things came up and the renovation dragged on and on. We never used the fireplace, which had probably been built in the 1970s and jutted like a Star Trek space ship into the living room.We had it removed and therefore had to re-do part of the hardwood floor in our living room/dining room.

At first, Miss Bean took it like a trooper. She really liked the man who laid the kitchen floor with a new eco-friendly linoleum-type product called Marmoleum. She soldiered on through the dust, the walls coming down, the noise and the upset. But by the time we got into the third month of what was to be a six-month renovation, she had had enough. For that matter, so had we, but we were humans and she was Jelly Bean.

We started finding wet spots (i.e. pee) on the paper spread on the living room floor. Litter box use became unpredictable, but there wasn't much we could do.

Finally, the renovation ended and we had to find a new place for her litter box, since the room where it had always been had changed "vocation" and been turned into the breakfast room. Chaos ensued. After fighting a losing battle, JB won and the litter box went into the new, beautiful little sun room at the front of the house. We started calling this several thousand dollar renovation the "litter box room". Obviously, JB was showing us that this renovation had NOT been worth it.

As a result of the renovation, the reorganization of our living room and the changing around and discarding of some furniture, the carpet that had previously graced the living room floor no longer looked good there. We were, of course, pretty well out of money by this time and on top of it all, our 13 year-old car needed replacing.

Enter Abbas, the oriental carpet man.

The two oriental carpets we already had were sorely in need of cleaning so we sent them down the street to Abbas's emporium. I mentioned to him that I really needed a new carpet for the living room, but that I needed to buy a new car even more. Of course, he had a used carpet right there and he suggested we try it out. It fit perfectly...but we still needed a new car even more.

Abbas came up with a solution: he would trade us the carpet for the car. Sheer brilliance!

The new carpet went down on the living room floor, the new car moved into the driveway, the dust settled and we were happy...until we noticed that Jelly Bean was no longer using her box for "number two". She chose the new carpet to do her business and treated it just like a litter box, scratching to prepare the area for her "gift".

Within short order, the beautiful carpet was looking rather frayed in one corner. We rolled it up and took it back to Abbas to have it fixed.

"When you want carpet back?" asked Abbas.

"In about ten years," I replied.

Abbas looked at me as if I were crazy. The carpet was ready a few weeks later. We paid a fortune to have it fixed, took it home and put it in a closet, thinking it would stay there for many years.

But now Jelly Bean is gone and the carpet is back in its rightful place. It looks gorgeous and feels beautiful and soft under my bare feet. The sun room has finally gone back to its true vocation as a chess playing and reading nook. But I still miss crazy Miss Bean.

Miss Bean is Gone

2011-08-31T05:29:00.000-07:00

Last night around 9:45 p.m., our 9 year-old cat Jelly Bean started crying quite suddenly. In true cat fashion, she hid under our bed and we had to prod her out. As I put her in the cat carrier, I saw that her hind legs seemed heavy and unresponsive.

By 10:30, we were at the emergency veterinary hospital. I drove down with my older son in the back seat beside Miss Bean, trying to calm her down a bit. Her cries were heart breaking.

Vet clinics are the ultimate in private health care. If you've got the money, service is fast and efficient. I plunked down my credit card and the Bean was whisked into triage. By the time I'd come back from parking the car (I'd parked right at the door and left my flashers on so we could run in with her), my son and I were ushered into a small examining room and the vet and a student came in shortly thereafter.

The vet explained that Jelly Bean had a blood clot in her leg. It was probably due to her congenital heart murmur, which had never caused any problems over the years until last night. She then explained the prognosis, which was very, very poor despite the fact that Jelly Bean still had a bit of blood flow to the affected area. We were probably looking at a few weeks or months, with the distinct possibility of further blood clots and terrible pain. As humans, we always hear about clot busting drugs for stroke victims, but this did not seem to be an alternative for our cat.

If Jelly Bean had had a serious but treatable condition, I think we would have gone for the gold, but we were not prepared to spend thousands of dollars to give her a few more weeks of life, possibly in terrible pain. I think she would have needed an around-the-clock caregiver, just in case another clot formed and this too was impossible.

At this point, Jelly Bean had been given a substantial amount of morphine for the pain as well as a sedative since she had become extremely agitated and had actually bitten a technician. So we had to sit and wait until the sedative took effect before we could see her. My son called his brother, who was on the subway heading home from a friend's place. He got off the subway and got on the next train going back south and met us at the hospital just as a technician came in to say that we could see Jelly Bean. She was fairly calm by this point and was lying on a sheepskin-like blanket, wrapped in a towel. Her eyes were wet, probably from the effects of the various medications--but it looked like tears. The three of us patted her and spoke to her quietly. I kissed her head. Then we left.

Jelly Bean was euthanized shortly after midnight this morning, Aug. 31.

Jelly Bean was not an easy cat. She didn't like being held or patted very much, but she liked to stay nearby us, lying at our feet when we went to bed and then going to sleep with one of the boys, if they were still sleeping after my husband and I got up. She would often sit beside us on the couch if we were reading or watching TV.

Yes, it was only an orange tabby house cat who died. There are people dying from violence and starvation around the world as we speak and that's a reality we must fight. But she was our Bean and we're in mourning.

Bye-bye, JB. We loved you.

A New Part for NewMe

2011-08-23T10:44:00.001-07:00

I have been quite quiet recently due to some health concerns. My back has been quite fragile since February and my 20K+ days of walking in Boston several weeks ago have tipped me over the edge once again into scary territory. I'm doing what I can to control things with the help of my yoga teacher, my naturopath and now a reflexologist. I have an appointment in mid-September to see my GP and will be asking for an MRI of my back. Forewarned is forearmed.

But wait...there's more!

Yesterday, I got a call from my knee surgeon's office offering me a surgery date: September 15th. The work complications arising from this date are just too hard to handle and I also want to have a better idea of what my back is up to, so I have refused the date. In its place, I have November 17th. Although I wish it were slightly earlier (yes, we have winter where I live!), from a work, family and spinal point of view, this is a much better date.

I continue to read and to muse, but my posts might be a bit spotty until I feel calmer and less worried.

Good thoughts sent my way are always appreciated!

RIP Jack

2011-08-22T11:49:00.000-07:00

This morning, Canada lost one of its greatest politicians, Jack Layton.

It is a very sad day.

Here is the open letter he wrote shortly before his death.

RIP, Jack. You will be sorely missed.

Ah, Boston!

2011-08-11T02:31:00.000-07:00

Yes, I disappeared for a little while.

I've just come back from spending a long weekend falling in love with a new city and having a little second honeymoon--in other words, travelling alone my husband for the first time in 18 years. It was great.

The new city I explored was Boston. What a fabulous place! My husband left six days before me to take a week-long course at Harvard. His employer asked him to go and footed the entire (hefty) bill. I think he's greatly appreciated in his field.

I flew into Boston on Friday morning and his course ended early Friday afternoon. Within an hour of his arriving back at the hotel, we hit the road running...and walked...and walked...and then we walked some more.

During my four days away from home, I racked up 3 days of 20,000 steps or more. On our last day, Monday, I only did about 15K steps. I have to admit, my unoperated hip is rather unhappy now, but it was still worth it.

I have always lived in walkable cities, so I adored Boston. Our hotel was about a 15 minute walk to the subway (the T). We were about 25 minutes walk from the heart of the Harvard campus, a wonderful exciting area. You can just feel the intellectual effervescence bubbling all around you. Lots of bookstores, music, young people reading great literature while sipping coffee. It made me want to be in my 20s again!

Boston is at the heart of American history. We spent a good part of our time walking the Freedom Trail and seeing some of the most important sites of the American revolution: the site of the Boston Massacre, the port where the Tea Party took place, Paul Revere's house (pop quiz: did you know that Paul Revere's father was French and that the family name was originally Rivoire?), etc. We took a walking tour led by a guide in Colonial dress. He was absolutely fantastic--a great actor, with a booming voice and incredibly knowledgeable. I really learned a lot about American history and I feel I now have a somewhat better understanding of the reasons behind certain fundamental political differences between Americans and Canadians (no, these differences have nothing to do with our relationship with Britain).

We were treated to both warm, sunny weather and rainy, muggy weather. On one of the rainy days, we visited the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum, an extraordinary gallery housing the impressive art collection of Isabella Gardner, an immensely wealthy patron of the arts of the 19th and early 20th century. That afternoon, with the rain pouring down, we nipped into the Coolidge cinema in the Coolidge Corner neighbourhood of Boston and bought tickets for the only movie neither of us had seen that was playing that day, a very strange, but quite good indie film called "Another Earth".

For the scientifically minded among you--and even die-hard artsy-fartsies like myself, I recommend the MIT museum. Wonderful.

Of course, we also took a little tour of the harbour. It was interesting, but the heat and all the walking got to me and...I dozed off a bit.

And graveyards, or, as they call them in Boston, burying grounds! I just love to read old tombstones and I got my money's worth in Boston. There's nothing like seeing where someone who died in the 1600s is buried. Just fascinating. Oh, and they used to write the verb "to lie" (as in "here lies John Smith") with a "y": here lyes John Smith. Many stones were also decorated with skulls. Didn't see any angels, just a whole lot of skulls. Hmm.

I was in Boston for two half and two whole days and every single meal I ate there was fantastic (OK, breakfast was pretty ordinary: we bought fruit and cereal at Whole Foods and ate in our hotel room). The Little Italy section of Boston, which seriously overlaps with many of the stops on the Freedom Trail, was full of restaurants. The first evening, we ate at Trattoria Il Panino, splitting a plate of antipasto and a fish dish. Just mouth-watering. If you go to the website, the second picture that comes up on the homepage screen shows the table where we ate (no, that's not us). We had lunch one day at the oldest restaurant in the US, the Union Oyster House. I recommend the clam chowder. A cupful is more than enough.

Eating seafood is a must in Boston. I regret not having had the opportunity to try fried clams (though I did have chowder twice), but I ate some might fine catch of the day at two different restaurants.

For burger lovers, I highly recommend Mr. Bartley's in Cambridge, right near the Harvard campus. We sat at a table with a family from France who had just arrived that day. They were very sweet and seemed to be really enjoying the American burger experience. With the exception of my husband's absolutely stellar homemade burgers, Bartley's burgers are the best I've ever had. You can have your burger with fries or onion rings, but neither hubby nor I did. The burger, with tomato and lettuce was plenty.

Although the streets were absolutely crawling with people carrying Mike's Pastries boxes, we didn't have the urge to try their famous cannolis. Nor did we try the ice cream at J.P. Licks. The meals we had were just too good to need any sweets. And fresh fruit from Whole Foods awaited us back in the hotel room.

The day we wandered around Coolidge Corner, we passed by Trader Joe's. Having heard about it from Ellen at Fat Girl Wearing Thin, I was really curious, but after peeking through the window and seeing that it was essentially a big grocery store, I passed up on the opportunity to explore. We were leaving the next day and I didn't want to have any trouble bringing food over the border. My husband had also heard good things about Trader Joe's. Maybe the next time we're in the States, we'll go in at the beginning of our trip and try out some of their wares.

I'm sure it seems pretty clear from what I've written that I absolutely ADORED Boston. I hope I'll get there again one day!

More BMI Bashing (A Good Thing)

2011-08-04T02:02:00.000-07:00

Yes, recently I've been bashing away at the BMI. Who knows how many times I will be accused, openly or more subtly of simply suffering from sour grapes. Only time will tell.

But if you think what I have to say is a load of uninformed bull, maybe...just maybe...you might take more kindly to the opinion of Dr. Arya Sharma, a world-renowned obesity specialist.

As my regular readers know, I have had my ups and downs with Dr. Sharma. Sometimes we just don't see eye to eye, not that I'm in personal contact with him, aside from a wonderful chat we had a few months ago when he was in town. However, the following article is, I believe, a must-read for those whose mental well-being seems to hinge on their current BMI number ("Yeah, hooray, today my BMI is 24.9. I'm therefore "normal". Or: "I've got to lose 22.3 pounds, otherwise I'm clinically overweight/obese and I am DOOMED.").

Here it is: Why I Don't Like BMI.

Sour Grapes?

2011-08-03T02:28:00.000-07:00

The Free Dictionary defines the expression "sour grapes" as:

denial of the desirability of something after one has found out that it cannot be reached or acquired
the attitude of affecting to despise something because one cannot or does not have it oneself
[from a fable by Aesop]

I'm sure that at least one of my readers is convinced that this is my "real" problem with the BMI. It's not that it's a blunt or inaccurate measure of health or that it can potentially backfire on those who look to it as the bottom-line arbiter of good health nor that it can actually encourage individuals to give up healthy habits since their BMI still doesn't register at or below the correct number. No. It's that since clearly my own BMI is too high, I am just reacting with a petulant expression of sour grapes.

Well, sorry, but the lady is going to protest.

The sour grapes argument, in my opinion, actually hides some very serious and dangerous underlying messages.

I believe the most damaging underlying message is that an overweight person who criticizes the BMI does so only because she is too lazy, slovenly, weak-willed and greedy to suck it up and do the work required to lose weight. If she just put her nose to the grindstone, success would be hers. If she just stopped wallowing self-pity and shut her fat gob, she too would become svelte and healthy. The implication is that everyone under similar conditions will gain or lose weight in exactly the same way or at exactly the same rate (three British documentaries certainly beg to differ: Why Thin People Don't Get Fat, Super Slim Me and Super Skinny Me). It therefore follows that slim people are that way simply because they are more virtuous than fat people. If fat people only behaved like slim people, they would be slim too.

But let's go even further. Something perhaps even more insidious lies behind the above attitude: the overwhelming belief that achieving a "normal" BMI (or let's just say losing weight or looking good in a bikini or wearing a size 0) is purely a question of individual will and the choices one makes as an individual every day. It's the belief that we are ultimately the masters of our own fate.

Sadly, this manichean view of life--the black or white view that hard-working people succeed and slackers don't--permeates our society and enables those who "succeed" to lay the blame for failure squarely at the feet of the vast majority who, for reasons both within but more importantly outside their control do not become society's winners.

Let's be clear: I do not believe that we are merely puppets in the hands of some otherworldly being, or that our fate is written in stone the minute we burst into the world.

I consider myself someone who has worked and continues to work hard to achieve certain goals in life, be they financial, personal or health-related. In many ways, I consider myself a person who has succeeded in life by making and implementing decisions that have enabled her to overcome certain obstacles in life.

Yes, I admit it: I make choices. And choices seem to be at the heart of the belief that "you can do it if you only try", which underlies the whole weight loss movement.

But there's a problem when it comes to weight loss: despite what many medical professionals, laypeople, and reality TV show creators alike believe, not every person who is overweight eats like a pig and lies around watching TV all day. Not every person who exercises regularly and eats a balanced diet full of reasonable quantities of fresh, unprocessed foods is slim or at least no larger than 24.9 on the BMI. Like my 98-pound weakling friend, doing all the right things does not necessarily get you to goal.

Many people--particularly in North America--could no doubt benefit from making some better personal choices in what they eat. Do I worry about people who chug-a-lug large bottles of sugar-laden pop every day? Am I concerned about the current spate of commercials suggesting parents serve their children a product for breakfast whose total calories are composed of 50% fat and 40% sugar (the other 10% does have some food value)? Of course I am.

Do I make what I consider thoughtful, healthy food choices in my own life? Yes, again.

And would I be thrilled to see better phys ed programs in the schools; more walkable cities; better public transit; a tax on junk food and subsidies for locally grown, pesticide and hormone-free foods; the elimination of food deserts.

I firmly believe that there are many societal measures and personal choices we can make that do contribute to making us healthier individuals and creating a healthier society. They just won't make us slim.

On a population level, we know that 95% of people who diet fail (and fail repeatedly) and we strongly suspect that many of these people end up even heavier than before they dieted. Evidence is also growing that what the body perceives as on-going starvation (aka dieting) acts as a damper on one's metabolism, making it increasingly hard to lose weight and much easier and quicker to gain it back. While choice can make the difference on a personal level, society-wide the only thing we can be sure of is that people spend upwards of $60 billion yearly trying to lose weight and failing to do so in both the short but especially the long-run.

It seems that our obsession with the BMI has led us further away from striving for good health, as opposed to a "good" number. We don't actually know what the effects on population health would be if, as a society, we implemented campaigns to improve our health through eating healthier, less processed foods rather than simply concentrating on limiting portions or eating lo-cal Frankenfoods. Nor do we know what would happen if ALL kids in school were encouraged to be active, rather than shaming the fat kids into withdrawing from sports while pouring lots of money, time and effort into building elite athletic teams that build the school's reputation.

If as both individuals and a society, we focused on positive attitudes and activities rather than on striving for a magical number, we would end up in a world filled with healthy people of many different sizes. That's not sour grapes. That's striving for health for myself, as an individual, and for a healthier world. Rejecting the tyranny of the BMI is not sour grapes, it means taking the focus off aiming for a number and putting it where it belongs: aiming for a healthy life.

Politics is Getting in the Way

2011-07-30T19:23:00.000-07:00

I've got a couple of blog posts under construction but have been involved in municipal politics recently. Sadly, the Tea Party has arrived in Canada and its name is the Ford Brothers.

I was at City Hall making a deputation at 1 a.m. on Friday morning. I had my 20 tweets of fame on Twitter, but now the world has moved on.

I leave you with my favourite quote of all times:

"Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society."
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, 1902-1932

I'll get back to my usual blogging sooner than later.

Recently at the Grocery Store

2011-07-22T01:55:00.000-07:00

The other day, I was standing in line at the grocery store to pay for my food order. At a certain point, I heard some serious wailing coming from another register nearby.

Right away, the mother in me kicked in. "How old is the baby?" I wondered. The screaming continued.

My order bagged and ready to go, I proceeded to push my cart down the aisle and looked over surreptitiously to get a good luck at the little screamer. Just as I thought, the child was about 18 months to 2 years old. She was twisting around in great distress in her stroller, clearly dying to get the heck out of that horrible contraption. Maybe she was hot (yes, the weather here is just broiling), despite the air conditioning. Maybe she was hungry. Maybe she was tired. That wraps up most of the reasons a child that age would be screaming in her stroller.

Just as I walked by, I heard her mother say something like "there, that better?" in a very matter-of-fact way. The kid continued to scream. Curious, I again shot a quick glance over at the child. She was now holding a chocolate bar, which was still wrapped up tight.

"Horrors!" thought I. And then I immediately looked at the mother, my subconscious expecting to see the quintessential fat, slovenly mother who is pushing her little girl into morbid obesity. Come on, didn't you think the same thing?

Well, of course, the truth was quite different. The little girl's mom was a slender woman, probably in her early thirties, wearing a lovely summer dress. She looked fairly well off.

Oh, the assumptions we make...

Whatever Happened to the Morphs?

2011-07-20T02:40:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time, people acknowledged the fact that there were actually different, innate body types. I call them the "morphs": ectomorphs, mesomorphs and endomorphs.

Ectomorphs are fine-boned, lean individuals who have trouble gaining weight (see this post). Mesomorphs are athletic, have well-defined muscle mass, the typical male (upside-down triangle) or female (hourglass) body shape, gain muscle easily but also gain weight somewhat more easily than ectomorphs. Endomorphs have "soft" bodies, gain weight easily and their muscle mass is less well-defined. Of course, most people are a combination of either ecto/mesomorphs or meso/endomorphs. An ecto/endomorph would be a contradiction in terms.

Once upon a time, there were also body charts that presented a range of healthy weights for an individual. I found one that calculated that a large-boned woman measuring 4'10" could weigh anywhere from 118 to 131 pounds. That's quite a range. (The large-boned determination for this calculation was based on wrist circumference). Let's contrast this with what the sacred BMI tells us: this same woman--no matter whether she is large, medium, or small-boned--should weigh no more than 119 pounds. Past 119 pounds, she is overweight. At 131 pounds, she is squarely in the middle range of the BMI classification for overweight.

Now, some may say that we should follow the BMI's ruling. After all, the lower the weight the better. Right? [sarcasm alert]. Many may say that pleading the "large bones" defence is simply a cop-out. But how can one number encompass the endless variety of bodies we see in this world of ours? How can we make abstraction of the differences that exist in body morphology between a "typical" Northern European and a "typical" Asian? How can we make abstraction of the fact that--even when we factor out weight--some women have larger breasts or wider hips than others?

We have forgotten the morphs and with it, we have instilled in people (including, sadly, too many medical professionals) the insane notion that salvation and success lie in one number and one number only: one's BMI.

In my travels around the weight-o-sphere, I have frequently come across people who measure their success--but usually their failure--by their ability or inability to grab the brass ring of the below 25 BMI. Tragically, many people who have made great strides in improving their health through reasonable physical activity and healthy eating (not dieting) feel an all-encompassing sense of failure because the "correct" BMI number remains outside of their grasp. Often, in despair, they give up totally on their healthier habits when they realize that the "right" BMI is just not in the cards for them, despite the fact that they have actually succeeded in making a healthier life for themselves.

I say "bring back the morphs" and with them the recognition that people don't all have to look the same or share the same sacred number to be healthy!

The More I Read...

2011-07-18T02:18:00.000-07:00

The more I read about weight, be it the writings of bariatric experts, the fat acceptance blogosphere, weight loss "champions", weight loss maintainers, weight loss/gain strugglers, nutritionists, doctors, low carbers, intuitive eaters...the more I realize that there is absolutely no single answer to the conundrum of weight.

Personally, I have not found the holy grail of weight loss. I have, on the other hand, stabilized my weight at a level which is higher than 20 years ago and somewhat lower than five years ago. My weight varies within a five-pound range. Through trial and error (tempered by the inability to try out certain approaches due to physical limitations), I think that I have a fairly good idea of how my body functions and what I can and cannot ask of myself on both a physical and a psychological level.

The most important word in the above paragraph is "my", as in: my body. I no longer presume to tell anyone what's good or bad for them or what really works as opposed to what doesn't. I know only one thing: there are no cut and dry answers.

It is within this spirit that I recommend you read the following article: Don't Blame Obesity on Carbohydrates, by nutritionist Andy Bellatti on his blog, Small Bites. If you have the time and energy, read the comments too. Not everyone agrees with what he says.

The title of the blog post puts Bellatti squarely at odds with the low carb camp of Gary Taubes and company. Personally, I found the article interesting and I admit that it fits with my particular philosophy, namely that we cannot blame someone's weight on one single reason. As an intuitive eater, I also appreciate that Bellatti stresses healthy foods from all categories rather than demonizing a whole slew of foods including oatmeal, potatoes and strawberries (but NOT including mass-produced sweets made with refined flour or sugar-laden soft drinks, for instance).

I am not presenting this article as a "told ya so". Rather, I think it is an interesting starting point for discussion. I know of successful low carbers as well as people who have found this approach totally untenable in the long term. Once again, the bottom line is that there is no single right answer for everyone.

Why Are Thin People Not Fat

2011-07-12T02:36:00.000-07:00

A few months ago, I ran across a BBC documentary on Youtube called "Why Are Thin People Not Fat?". You can watch Part One here. Just follow the links on the right-hand side of the page to watch the other episodes (total of 7).

This self-described "controversial" program documents an experiment done with ten young, decidedly slim people who went on a 5,000 calorie a day diet with no exercise allowed for four weeks. The seven episodes intersperse the regular "fat epidemic!!!!!!! we've got to do something or we're all damned!!!" fear mongering with discussion by medical professionals and, of course, interviews with the subjects themselves.

The goal of the experiment, as the Swedish scientist who led it states, is to "learn from those who can't get obese". Most studies are done on those who are already overweight and the prevailing attitude in society is that people are fat because the eat too much and exercise too little. Generally (and certainly in the weight loss universe), overweight is seen as a personal failing and "normal" or slim people are seen to be morally superior. This program turns that premise on its head and looks at the people who frustrate us beyond belief: the naturally slim.

Do different bodies cope differently with an excess of food? According to this experiment, the answer is a resounding "yes!"

This is a fascinating program and the results are, for the most part, not surprising. While the subjects all gained some weight during the experiment, they also lost it effortlessly once the experiment had ended. I was particularly struck by the young Asian man whose body at a certain point went into metabolic "overdrive" and literally prevented him from continuing to gain weight, despite the large quantity of food he ate every day and his total lack of exercise.

I highly recommend you watch this documentary. Despite the film maker's need to repeat all the old saws about the dangers of overweight (because, as we all know [eye rolling allowed], you can only be healthy if your BMI is under 25), the documentary still makes an important point about how different people's weights vary due to factors far beyond how much they may eat or exercise.

A Reminder

2011-07-05T18:56:00.000-07:00

...about the important things in life.

I just found out that my high-school English teacher, whom I have known for forty years (!) and whom I consider a dear friend, is once again suffering from cancer. She beat breast cancer 22 years ago, but now it's back and it's metastisized.

My friend has been into seriously "clean" eating for many years, mainly due to health issues (fibromyalgia, in addition to a first bout of cancer). She's done all the right things but now she's sick again. She's going to fight this by both conventional and unconventional means and I will support her, as will all her friends.

But it's a message to all of us: many things are far beyond our control. We can make superhuman efforts to control our health, our weight, our nerves, our whatever...and still we can be struck down.

I can only hope my friend will live many more years.

It's tough for them too.

2011-06-27T01:57:00.000-07:00

Remember the "98-pound weakling"ads? You know, the skinny guys who always got sand kicked in their faces at the beach? Remember them?

I know someone exactly like the poor, skinny guy in this old ad. He's not very tall and extremely slender. He's very typical of the ethnic group to which he belongs.

Last year, he decided he wanted to bulk up and was therefore cutting down his carbs and upping his protein consumption. His appearance didn't change a bit.

About two months ago, he announced he had started a new and demanding exercise program to make himself more muscular. Last week, I asked him if he was still doing the program. Yes, he said. Though it was very tough, he was doing his workouts religiously and had been doing so since he had talked to me about it two months ago. Then he said wistfully that he had neither gained nor lost any weight. And to my eyes, he looked exactly the same as he had before starting the program: like a "98-pound weakling".

The moral of the story: It's ["it" being changing your body] tough for them [the naturally thin] too. Eat well and enjoy physical activity but don't expect to change from a peony bush into a sequoia. You are who you are.

Good Fatty - Bad Fatty

2011-06-23T01:57:00.000-07:00

In the course of a conversation at work yesterday, my colleague asked me if I knew Ms. X. When I said that I couldn't place her, my colleague responded:

"Oh, you probably met her at my annual Christmas party. She's quite heavy, but it's genetic, you know. She doesn't overeat or anything."

This response really struck me. My colleague had to make sure that I realized that her friend was a "good" person...despite being overweight. The sub-text, of course, is that being fat is "bad", but there are some "good" fatties nevertheless.

I actually put myself to the good/bad fatty test just this past weekend. My family and I went to a Sunday brunch for Father's Day and I started watching what people put on their plates and what they looked like. Of course, the first thing I noticed was some overweight people with their plates piled high. But then I looked again and saw all the skinny or "normal" weight people and guess what their plates looked like? They too were piled high. And I realized that I was trying to blame the fatties: if they didn't pile their plates so high, they would be slim. But then, what is one to think of the skinny minnies, their plates just as full as their fat neighbours'? Are the former "bad" and the latter "good"?

Blame and shame. Because we can. And because we want the world to make sense. And it only makes sense if we can place the blame for obesity squarely on the shoulders of the obese.

Oh, and what about my plate? C'mon. Take a guess!

Obesity in the News

2011-06-20T01:12:00.000-07:00

The Toronto Star is currently running a series on obesity. So far, it says nothing of interest and is replete with the regular fear-mongering, blaming and shaming.

Here is the letter I just wrote to the author of Sunday's article:

There are many reasons why I found your article in the Star today on overweight teens (as well as the whole series on obesity) offensive but there was one choice comment that I cannot leave unchallenged. You state in the article: "Her weight has caused polycystic ovarian syndrome, which can cause infertility and makes it more difficult for her body to relinquish fat."

In fact, Ms. Henry, PCOS is a factor that makes weight loss harder and excess weight gain much easier, which is quite the opposite of what you state. Weight gain does not bring on PCOS--weight gain is one of the side effects of PCOS. Your inaccurate statement simply adds to the blaming and shaming that permeates this article as well as the series to date.

Obesity is the current darling of the journalistic world. The Star's series simply stokes the fires of misunderstanding, stereotyping and blaming. So far, I have seen nothing in this series that examines this issue in anything but the most simplistic terms. Of course, this is not surprising. The mainstream media has jumped on the "obesity crisis" bandwagon in a big way and is now leading the charge against anyone with a BMI of over 24.9. (By the way, I encourage you to do some research on the BMI, including the fact that the overweight cut-off was lowered in the late 1990s and that there are studies showing that the healthiest people have a BMI that falls squarely within the "overweight" category of 25-30.)

Many people find themselves grossly obese as a result of years of yo-yo dieting (losing X pounds and gaining back X + additional poundage); many others (in particular women) have been the victims of abuse (sexual and/or psychological) and use eating as a defence mechanism. Yet we continue to simplistically harp on people's eating habits and believe that if they ate properly and exercised sufficiently, they would not be overweight.

People are overweight for a multitude of reasons and permanent weight loss is an almost impossible goal. When 95% of people can't manage to keep the excess weight off, you have to start asking if the "problem" isn't simply one of willpower and wondering if it's actually true that overweight people are all slothful, junk-food eating couch potatoes.

I have been blogging about weight loss/weight management for several years now and have come to the conclusion that almost everyone, including the medical profession, is barking up the wrong tree. Rather than vainly trying to encourage people to simply "eat less and move more" (the "nightmare on ELMM street") we should be focusing on HAES (health at every size) throughout our lives. Dr. Linda Bacon is an eloquent proponent of this approach. I encourage you to look at what she has to say.

I am saddened, though not at all surprised, by the superficiality of this series. It does, however, admirably reflect society's need to find a scapegoat. We can no longer target people for their religion or their colour. Let's go after their size.

I have decided not to check my blood pressure for a few hours. It is probably way too high after writing this letter. (BP a few hours later was just fine, BTW.)

A Vitally Important Fact...

2011-06-13T02:14:00.000-07:00

You are not a lawnmower.

To learn more about this surprising fact, please read:

http://danceswithfat.wordpress.com/2011/06/02/calories-incalories-out-science-says-no/

Coffee With Dr. Sharma

2011-06-06T02:14:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post entitled "Good-bye Dr. Sharma" where I expressed my disappointment in a medical professional whom I had felt, up until then, could be considered--dare I say--an ally of those of us who don't believe that overweight is an automatic ticket to an early, ugly death. He had made a few posts, in the immediate wake of an important conference on obesity, that led me to believe that I had been totally wrong in thinking that he was more than just another weight-loss proselytizer with an MD after his name. I was really sad to see someone whom I greatly respected go down the same old road of "lose weight, fat is always bad", etc. etc.

Well, after having the pleasure of meeting Dr. Sharma on Friday afternoon over an iced latte and spending a good hour and a half chatting with him, I've got to say, he's going back on my blogroll.

I did not go on a mission to interview Dr. Sharma. His blog post that morning had mentioned that he was doing a "meet and greet" for anyone who was in Toronto that day and all were welcome. I leapt at the chance, of course. But what follows are merely my impressions as well as some of the topics we discussed.

I arrived at the café to find Dr. Sharma busy chatting with three young people, probably in their early to mid-twenties, whom he introduced as being participants in the Canadian Obesity Network (Student and New Professionals). He was wearing a jaunty straw hat and looked the picture of a relaxed fellow, out with a few friends. Soon after my arrival, we were joined by his daughter--a wonderful, accomplished young woman--and a friend of hers.

I admit that as I entered the café I actually felt a bit nervous, but the feeling disappeared within oh, about a half-second, max.

Dr. Sharma is a charming man, incredibly approachable, ready to listen, to give his point of view and to dialogue. He also struck me as someone who is very sure of himself and the work he does. He's a doctor and doctors need that assurance. He's got it in spades. But throughout the conversation I was struck by not only his unwavering commitment to his work but also by the deep, real compassion he shows when talking about people living with obesity.

In the course of our discussion, we touched on a number of topics:

With respect to the people who gravitate towards nutrition and exercise physiology, we agreed that these fields attract people who don't look anything like the overweight patients they treat. At one point, Dr. S. had an interesting little side discussion with one of the students (a slim young women herself) about the importance of developing empathy and understanding and being able to reach your patients on a truly human level.

He talked about understanding the causes of obesity rather than assuming--as most people do--that people are overweight because they are lazy and eat too much. He mentioned that many overweight people feel this about themselves, a view that I pointed out to him is rampant in the weight-loss blogosphere.

Interestingly--but in fact not surprisingly--he does not read the lay bloggers. His blogging mission is first and foremost directed at colleagues. In fact, his blog, "Obesity Notes", originally started as way to communicate with his immediate colleagues. He had no intention of reaching the large, varied audience he reaches today. He is also an incredibly busy man, so reading blogs written by ordinary shlubs like me just doesn't fit into his blog time. He did, however, make some comments that gave me the impression that does respect his lay readers. He also said he likes a good argument, though, like most people, he doesn't agree with personal attacks.

Dr. Sharma is definitely not out to right all the wrongs of the world. He does his work in his clinic and as a roving bariatric specialist, but he feels that if you're too far out ahead, no one's going to listen. I would say he's an incrementalist, rather than a warrior.

On a couple of occasions, he actually laughed derisively at that old saw "eat less - move more". He really does know that it's reductionist rot (OK, that's my term, not his).

I was thrilled to hear him forcefully speak out in favour of decoupling the notion that thin always equals healthy and that fat always equals sick, although he did talk at length about the issues that the patients in his clinic (average BMI 50) have to deal with. He referred to the scale that he developed with Dr. Freedhoff (I believe). I'm really sorry that I can't remember the name of the scale, but essentially it covers the whole range of health/health problems starting with a rating for overweight people who have NO health problems whatsoever. I believe that Dr. Sharma does not advocate losing weight just for the sake of losing weight. If you're healthy but overweight, that's what counts, not the number on the scale.

We were very much on the same wavelength regarding reality TV weight loss shows. His disgust was palpable. He says he just can't watch such shows.

I asked him a specific question regarding his series on bariatric surgery. I wanted to know why he said so little about its many side effects (dumping, band erosion, etc.). His response was that everyone (i.e. the medical community) knows about these side effects. He, on the other hand, wanted to talk about some of the things that are often not mentioned (psychological issues, marital break-ups, excess skin), though he did say he might consider dealing with my question in a future post. (We'll see...). I also asked him why he was still in favour of WLS, given the high rate of problems. His response: sometimes the alternative (no WLS surgery) is even worse. He's certainly not someone who wants to foist WLS surgery on all overweight people, and certainly not on those whose health is just fine as it is.

One topic we did not directly discuss was "Health at Every Size". Maybe the next time...

Dr. Sharma is optimistic. He thinks that some doctors as well as some journalists are finally "getting it"--that ELMM is not the answer, that overweight people are not uniformly the authors of their own misfortune, etc. I hope he's right, but personally, I think the zeitgeist (the spirit of the times) is going to get a lot worse before it gets better...

I hope that I haven't put any words in Dr. Sharma's mouth. I have certainly tried here to relate what I heard as faithfully as possible. If I was mistaken or misinterpreted what I heard, my apologies in advance to the good doctor. It was a real pleasure meeting him and I certainly hope that I will have the opportunity to do so again one day.

Dr. Sharma is back on my blogroll. I'm not saying I'm never going to disagree with him again, but I have a much more well-rounded (oh, please, please pardon the pun) picture of someone who does play an important role in the world o' weight.

Jealousy and Exasperation: A Love Letter to Anonymous

2011-06-02T01:35:00.000-07:00

I wonder whether all bloggers eagerly await/fear the arrival of their first troll: the one who says nasty things and signs "Anonymous".

Well, I finally got that response. And here's my answer.

Dear Anonymous,

Thanks for your comment! Although you don't understand a thing of what I said, thank you for encouraging me to clarify my thoughts.

You think I'm jealous (that's the word you use) of those who have lost weight and worse yet, I'm inconsistent (that's my word) in that I congratulate the outliers and then call them "gonzo starvers". My sincere apologies for not making my thoughts clearer.

I've been travelling through the weight-loss and fat acceptance blogospheres for over two years now. I've read the blogs of a few individuals who have succeeded in losing weight. A very small number of these same individuals has succeeded in keeping the weight off for several years. One thing these people all seem to have in common is that they are not "starvers". Most count calories, a few are low-carbers. They all seem to put a lot of emphasis on exercise, in addition to strictly monitoring everything they eat, but "starvation" does not seem to be the centrepiece of their approach.

On the other hand, I have also recently come across a sub-group of dieters that I call "gonzo starvers". These are the ones who exasperate me. They are the ones who remind themselves and their readers of how virtuous the hunger pangs are, how they will overcome hunger to reach the holy grail of weight loss. They are the ones who are heading for the ton of bricks psychological pain that rapid weight regain will bring with it (not to mention the additional pounds that "come along for the ride", as one blogger I read likes to describe the upward trend of yo-yo dieting). These are the people who are caught up in their starvation fairy tale world. I find them totally exasperating.

So no, Anonymous, I am not inconsistent. Not all dieters are gonzo starvers, thank goodness. While 95% of dieters will fail either in the short or the long run, there are outliers and if they succeed, so much the better.

Now, let's go on to jealousy. Yes, I am jealous, or perhaps a better word is "envious"--but I am neither jealous nor envious of the successful "outlier" dieters. Nor am I jealous or envious of the "starvers". They just make me want to bang my head against the wall.

However, I am jealous of most people: you know, people like you who get up in the morning without having to wonder if today's the day they're going to rupture another disc in their back. Or if their knee is not going to deteriorate to to the point where even walking is longer an option.

I come by my back and knee problems honestly. I was born with a defect in my back, making it much more prone to herniated discs. I also have a severely misaligned knee. Again, that's how I was born (apparently my knee problem is often found among ballerinas--a group not known for its issues with excess weight). And arthritis runs (great joke) in my family. I was diagnosed with arthritis when my weight was well within a reasonable range (and under the circumstances, it's still not too bad today).

So you better believe I'm jealous--of anyone who can hop on their exercise bike or their elliptical trainer without making their state of health even worse. I'm jealous of the people who don't have to watch how many steps they take in a day for fear of the dreaded back pain. I'm jealous of people who don't live in pain or in fear of pain.

I hope you ate healthy foods in reasonable portions today and that you engaged in physical activity that you enjoyed; and I sincerely hope you don't go to bed hungry tonight. It's not a way to live.

Your friend,

NewMe

Catherine Tate: How Much Weight Have I Lost?

2011-06-01T02:41:00.000-07:00

We all need a good laugh. Catherine Tate is just the ticket. (BTW, a "stone" = 14 pounds.)

Why So Long?

2011-05-30T02:45:00.000-07:00

I have been wanting/not wanting to write something for quite a while now. What follows is not an excuse, nor an apology, it's just how I feel.

I can actually divide the answer to "why so long?" into a few discrete categories:

1) My back. It's been bothering me since the end of February. My, how time flies. There are rare days when I feel OK, but mainly I feel like I'm on the edge of the precipice. I've been there before. It involves pain more deeply frightening than childbirth, a visit to the ER, heavy drugs and desperately praying to a higher being whose existence I am not at all certain of that I will actually get better. I have been teetering on this precipice since February. It's no use going to the doctor since this pain, in of itself, is absolutely trivial and doctors have no idea what to do. I'm scared because I've seen things deteriorate VERY, VERY quickly.

2) Work. Yes, this is a good thing. My revenues are down as compared to last year, which was down as compared to 2009. Since the summer is basically a work desert, it's better to take what comes now.

3) All I want to write about is how most people are fooling themselves completely about losing weight and maintaining that weight loss. Yes, yes, there are outliers. And more power to you if you're one of them. But when I look at the gonzo "starvers" out there, well, it just depresses me. It may take some time, but when the weight regain hits them, that ton of bricks is going to be mighty painful. The more I read and the more I reflect, the more I just want to encourage healthy eating, in reasonable quantities accompanied by physical activity suited to one's level of ability and to one's life and just leave it at that.

I'm no poster child for anything right now. I'm just trying to keep my morale up and keep on keeping on.

Good thoughts are gratefully accepted.

P.S. Just in case you're wondering: this is a picture of my boyos from 2007. We were visiting a friend's farm in Connecticut. My red headed boy now has short hair. My dirty blond headed son's hair is now almost down to his waist! Time flies. Nice picture. Good times.

Fighting Childhood Obesity.

2011-05-13T01:48:00.000-07:00

I am very short, though it's all proportional: my arms and legs are proportional with my trunk, my head is neither overly large nor particularly small. You get the idea. I just look like a mini-"regular" person. My husband is short. My kids are short. We're all well below the normal range, but we all look just fine.

I have very light skin. My husband tans well. Both our boys got the red-headed genes from their grandparents on both sides of the family. Like me, they burn in record time and never tan. I used to hate how pale I stayed through the summer, but I never felt that there was something fundamentally wrong with me.

I wear glasses. So do my kids. My husband does not. It means he's saved some money over the years on not having to buy glasses, but the fact that I've been wearing glasses since I was very young, as have my kids, has not made us feel strange or rejected from society.

What's the point of all this?

While different colours and skin tones, heights and visual acuity are all relatively acceptable (OK, so I did get called midget sometimes at school), weight variations are not. We all know there's a bell curve and that usually, most people in a given country or region fall within the middle of that curve. We all know that without the extreme ends and the "somewhat outside the norm" areas, the curve would not exist. It's just a curve that visualizes the fact that we are not all the same. We are not born the same, we do not grow the same way, we do not all die the same way, nor at the same time.

And yet we're all supposed to be slim if we aspire to be healthy. There is seemingly no bell curve. This assumption means that, when it comes to weight, we are all actually born at a perfect weight and that it is initially our parents' fault and then ultimately our fault if we no do grow up and maintain that perfect weight at all times.

Why do we accept the natural physical variety that exists in terms of hair colour, height or visual acuity yet persist in believing that everyone's weight naturally falls within a certain, highly limited range?

By assuming that we can actually nip overweight in the bud, before it even gets its insidious tentacles into our bodies, children, as the latest front in the war on obesity, have become just as fair game for the current anti-obesity witch hunt as adults are already.

Nothing my parents (both short) could have done for me in-utero or once I was born could have changed my height. Only corrective lenses have been able to make my vision relatively normal (it's still not great). I colour my now greying hair to give it a colour that I think suits me (and makes me look slightly younger!). In other words, with respect to certain aspects of my physical being, nothing could be done to change it. For certain other aspects, mechanical changes enhance my "shortcomings", but essentially I am who I am.

So what about my weight?

I was born to be round. How round? Probably as round as I am today. I do thank my mother for feeding me nutritious food. She was a pioneer in her day, refusing to stock our pantry with processed junk when all the other families were doing it. Had my mother fed me a steady diet of baloney on white bread with liberal slatherings of "sandwich spread", I might be somewhat heavier today. Had I not gone on a series of fad diets, I might have been slightly lighter today, though menopause plays havoc with the body we thought we knew and changes a lot of the rules of the game.

The point is, though, that I have a genetically programmed weight range and this programming is just as strong as the genes that made me so (adorably, some might hopefully say) short, or gave me my hazel, very astigmatic eyes, or my pretty good intellect (which, I admit, was aided by an intellectually stimulating home environment and some excellent schools, teachers and friends along the way).

Assuming that we can ensure that all children will remain skinny kids hanging out by the water hole or feisty, ultra-athletic mini Wayne Gretskys is as useful as howling at the moon. Saying we are fighting childhood obesity means that we are fighting actual children who were born and will remain round all their lives. That's who they are.

We cannot fight heredity and genetics.

So what can we fight?

Poverty, which forces parents to buy the cheapest food that fills a body up. A fast-food meal, overflowing with sodium, processed franken-ingredients and transfats certainly keeps you full longer than an expensive head of broccoli, an apple and cheese that isn't orange and flat.

Ignorance. There's a place for all foods in our diets (yes, including fast food burgers), but essentially our diets should be heavily weighted towards fresh, unprocessed (or only lightly processed) products. This means education and awareness and ridding our airwaves of advertising for crap foods. If they could take cigarette advertising off the air, they can do it for ...(insert the name of your favourite junk food here).

Prejudice. The fact of the matter is, we weren't all born to become fashion models or great athletes. Sadly, a certain amount of fear and hatred of those who don't conform to the norm is probably part of human nature, but rather than fostering this, we must, as a society, stand up to prejudice and just say no.

But telling the naturally round among us that they are intrinsically BAD? Well, that's just a recipe for disaster, no matter how well meaning we may think we are.

Good-bye Dr. Sharma

2011-05-09T10:24:00.000-07:00

About six months ago, I started reading Dr. Arya Sharma's blog with great interest and often great delight. Dr. Sharma, who is chair in obesity research and management at the University of Alberta, seemed to have a lot of interesting things to say. In particular, I was struck by his ability to step outside the usual and uselessly simplistic "calories-in, calories-out" paradigm to see the bigger (and vastly more complex) picture of weight, overweight and weight management. I considered Dr. Sharma to be one of the few nuanced voices in the field--someone who accepted that summarizing good health in a BMI number is far from the truth.

Well, something's changed.

I have noticed in recent posts that Dr. Sharma feels the need to take a more mainstream position when it comes to weight and health. Today's post (which I will not link to) discusses the similarities between those he terms "obesity deniers" and those who question the ill-effects of smoking on health. I won't go into any details. If you really want to read what he wrote yourself, please feel free to do so. Personally, I am appalled (although it is worth reading to then read the comments that deftly deconstruct his essentially fallacious arguments).

I can only hypothesize that Dr. Sharma's move towards the more conventional view that good health cannot be decoupled from an "acceptable" weight is perhaps the result of his close connection with the Canadian Obesity Network and its recent symposium. Perhaps, in the wake of the conference, he's on an "obesity epidemic/panic" high. It reminds me of the ten days I spent travelling with a federally appointed panel examining violence against women. After ten days of hearing nothing but stories of violence and abuse, I came home feeling that no man could ever be trusted and that all women were at risk. Perhaps after spending many months preparing for the conference and then spending several days hearing about morbidly obese, junk-food addicted diabetics who can barely walk from the couch to the TV, I too might feel that "health at every size" is a load of bunk. I don't know. It's just a hypothesis.

Exercise

2011-05-04T19:23:00.000-07:00

I've got some thoughts that have been roiling around in my brain, but I just don't have time to put them down in a coherent, well-thought out fashion.

So, in the meantime, I hope this walrus inspires you:

Change Your Name (Just for a Day)!

2011-04-28T08:37:00.000-07:00

Gentle readers. In the spirit of Kate and Wills wedding madness, I humbly entreat you to change your name for a day. Perhaps, with your new name, you too will be invited to the festivities.

My new (though sadly, temporary) name is:

Lady Anna Tiger-Douglas of North York

Isn't that incredibly posh?

Here's how to create your own, wonderfully aristocratic name:

1. Take a title: either Lord or Lady.
2. Take the first name of one of your grandparents.
3. Create a double barrelled surname by taking the name of your first pet and hyphenating it with the name of the street where you grew up.
4. For added cachet, add the name of the city, town or even district where you lived as a child.

What's your name?

Crossover?

2011-04-21T02:40:00.000-07:00

Should I be posting about the very real dangers of anorexia and bulimia? Should I devote most of my blog to exploring the physical and psychological dangers of these two frightening eating disorders? Neither anorexia nor bulimia have ever been part of my personal experience, despite the fact that my first "diet" (when I was around 16) involved a liquid fast once a week and utter food vigilance on the other six days of the week--a behaviour that went on for several months and which could conceivably have led to anorexia, though it didn't.

Here's why I'm asking the question:

Once in awhile, I'm drawn to reading blogs and articles on anorexia and have watched a number of documentaries on youtube dealing with this disorder.

A few months ago, I came across the blog of an anorexic woman who is passionately concerned about the dangers of obesity. She intends to start a new blog with the word "obesity" in the title. The "theoretical" posts in her current blog all deal with fighting obesity though she does also talk about her own struggles with anorexia (although she refuses to term herself an anorexic, preferring to describe the problem using the more amorphous term, "eating disorder"). She writes for a weight loss audience.

She's clearly a bright woman, and definitely has her heart in the right place, but I have to say that her anti-obesity crusade disturbs me, especially given the havoc anorexia has wreaked on her own health.

I have refrained from even gently questioning her motivations, but it is my right to express an opinion here, which I'm doing as diplomatically as possible. I guess it's time for me to stop reading her blog. It's way too sad and strikes me as fundamentally wrong on so many levels.

And in answer to my own question: why not? It's a free world. However, I think if I were to do so, it would be more of an exercise in "there but for the grace of God go I" than anything else. I prefer to talk about what I know from the inside and leave anorexia to the professionals who treat it and those who suffer from it.

Urban Poling

2011-04-20T02:40:00.000-07:00

I spend a lot of mental energy raging against all kinds of things: unfairness in the world, sexism, small mindedness, "first past the post", religious fundamentalism, the nightmare on ELMM street, arthritis...you name it. Actually, I spend way too much time on such things.

But in this post, I shall break with my usual habit and talk about something fun and healthy and more importantly something that I, despite my fragile body, seem to be able to do--hopefully without making anything worse...so far, so good.

And what is this marvel of healthy movement that has not made my knee puff up, my sciatica start sending out signals down my leg, my hip freeze and/or my mid-back whimper with pain (yes, these are all things I deal with almost every day)?

Urban poling. Also known as "nordic walking".

The best way to describe urban poling is cross-country skiing without the skis or the snow, in other words, walking down the street with poles.

Here's a video to give you an idea of what urban poling is all about:

A much longer version of this video actually came with my poles. I don't want to be a salesperson for this particular brand of pole. I'm sure they're all just fine, but I'm posting the video because it shows urban poling in action.

So what would a "normal" person feel after 45 minutes or so of poling?

your heartrate would be right up there
you'd be sweaty
you might be a bit out of breath
you'd probably feel like you'd been out jogging (not that I can do that, so it's just a suspicion on my part)

And all this without sore joints. A blessing indeed.

My poles cost me about $100. You could probably find a used pair on Craig's List or e-bay for less. All in all, they're a pretty cheap way to get moving without getting your body totally out of joint.

I'd love to hear if anyone has tried them and what they think!

Reductionism...But Not Weight Loss

2011-04-18T02:57:00.000-07:00

Does a person who weighs X with a BMI in the so-called "normal range" have to eat a set number of calories (Z) to maintain his or her weight? Will you always gain (or conversely lose) exactly a pound of fat if you over/undereat to the tune of exactly 3,500 calories? Reductionism: it's not about losing or gaining weight. It's about oversimplification to the point of meaninglessness.

A few days ago, I read this article, entitled "Skinny genes: how DNA shapes weight loss success". It's a bit of a hodge-podge, mixing some interesting science with the usual "eat less move more and all will be fine" pap. There's also some discussion of how hormones can have an effect on hunger, satiety and even one's desire to exercise. As I said, it's quite the dog's breakfast. But an interesting one, nevertheless.

Essentially, here's the deal: some people get fat looking at doughnuts and some people stay skinny no matter how much they eat. OK, I won't fall into the trap of oversimplification, but here's what the article says, quoting Arya Sharma, one of the only doctors on the face of the planet who doesn't believe losing weight is all ELMM (he's the one who coined the term, "the nightmare on ELMM street"):

“Just go out on to the street and pick out 100 people at random – give them the same food to eat, the same amount of exercise, and some will gain weight and some will lose it. Even whether or not you like exercising is very strongly genetically determined.”

Of course, the author of the article has to keep up her "fat = automatically unhealthy" creds, so she immediately goes on to say:

But before anyone concludes that diet and exercise are futile weapons in the war on weight, researchers have also found that the simple eat-less, move-more strategy can overcome the known genetic susceptibilities for excess weight. Some people just have to move much, much more and eat far, far less to see results.

...move much, much more and eat far, far less. Sounds like a great plan! Or maybe not--we all know just how effectively that works for the majority of people.

I'm one of those people who must be perpetually in a state of low-level hunger to lose weight. I must never, ever eat until I'm feeling satisfied if I want to keep whatever I've lost off. And yet, I never enjoy overeating. It is very rare indeed that I eat to the point where I feel even vaguely uncomfortable, but if I eat slightly more than what I "should" eat over one or two meals, I will automatically gain a significant amount of weight. And getting it off is nigh impossible...without feeling constantly hungry for a long period of time, something which I am no longer willing to do.

I don't know what role exercise would play in my weight since I cannot engage in anything even vaguely strenuous. I do know that in the days before my knee didn't scream for several days after spending a minute on the bike, I once spent about a month biking 6 days a week on my exercise bike at a speed that caused sweat to fly off my body. The result: no weight lost or gained. Now, that may have been because I was also taking a medication that is known to cause weight gain (in retrospect, I shouldn't actually have been on this medication and will never allow any doctor to prescribe it to me again). So the jury's out on how my body responds to serious exercise.

But enough of me.

Let's stop being reductionists and believing that everyone's body will react exactly the same way to ingesting and burning the same number of calories. If that were the case, everyone would be a calorie counter and we'd all be able to predict with pinpoint accuracy what our weight would be from one week to the next.

People like Dr. Scherer (read the article!) would just not exist. He's a man who

can put away a cream soup and a platter of penne with Italian sausage and wash it all down with a large Coke. And even though he’s 47, and driving his son to hockey is the closest he comes to rigorous daily exercise, he’s still as trim as a teenager.

And there would be no dieters, starving to lose a pound a week and gaining it back and more within the space of one meal--a meal no doubt much more reasonable than what Dr. Scherer can eat regularly with no ill effects--at least to his waistline.

The Ecological Fallacy

2011-04-14T02:54:00.000-07:00

Wow! I just learned a new expression and boy, it is great: "ecological fallacy".

Here's the Wikipedia definition:

An ecological fallacy (or ecological inference fallacy) is an error in the interpretation of statistical data in an ecological study, whereby inferences about the nature of specific individuals are based solely upon aggregate statistics collected for the group to which those individuals belong. This fallacy assumes that individual members of a group have the average characteristics of the group at large. This can also be referred to as the fallacy of division.

Isn't that just wonderful?

It certainly goes an awfully long way towards explaining fat prejudice...because we all know that ALL overweight people are lazy, junk food addicts who got themselves into this fine mess all on their own and are wholly responsible for their terrible health and their shortened lifespan. That's what the media tell us and the media always tell the truth, based on infallible scientific data.

Not.

Just Not Right

2011-04-04T04:34:00.000-07:00

Rob Ford was elected mayor of Toronto, Canada's largest city, in November 2010. I did not vote for him and honestly, to use an expression coined my by SIL, I would rather eat a shoe than vote for a person like him.

In his skivvies, Ford probably does look a lot like the picture above. On TV, he often seems out of breath and sweaty--he's probably not in particularly good shape. Of course, I would NOT suggest Ford go on a diet. In keeping with the principles of health at every size (HAES), I suspect this ex-football player could do with a more nutritious diet and more physical activity. Of course, any changes would be Ford's decision, and his alone, to make.

But whatever Ford's health status is, this clearly photoshopped picture is totally unacceptable and smacks of fat prejudice, pure and simple.

The decision to vote for (and support) a candidate should be based on whether one does or does not agree with the candidate's platform, not on his or her weight. Rob Ford will certainly not get my sympathy vote in the next election. However, despite the fact that Now Magazine has written some excellent analyses of Ford's terrible policies and shortcomings, it has crossed the line with this picture and dealt the Ford opposition a terrible blow. For shame!