Thursday, February 14, 2008
Oh, Alton.
| Y'know, a guy who loves his deep fryer and does a whole multi-part special on stuffing your face with road trip food sure has a lotta noive bagging on the overweight. I bet the next Gathering of the Food Network Stars will be Un!Comfortable if he has to sit next to Ina or Paula or Mario or Emeril or Guy or...well, I guess his skinny ass is pretty much screwed. He'll be stuck down at the other end of the table between Giada and Sandra Lee. Which I suppose is punishment enough. Sigh. Labels: body image, stupidity, weight |
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
For serious?!!
| I thought I heard this headline on the news last night while I was getting ready for bed, but I thought I must have heard it wrong. Apparently, I didn't. It's really true that the Mississippi state legislature introduced a bill designed to prohibit restaurants from feeding obese people. According to the bill, if passed, restaurants would be required to ask overweight patrons to step on scales before entering the restaurant so that their BMI could be recorded and tracked. That's just...well, that's a civil rights lawsuit waiting to happen, for one thing. Not to mention completely creepy in a Big Brother kind of way. I shouldn't even have to mention the part where it's just plain offensive. And stupid and ignorant and wrong-headed and--I won't say bigoted, because I think these guys have good intentions to help people be healthier. But cheese on crackers, this is not the way to go about it. The mind, it boggles. Labels: body image, food, stupidity, weight |
My brain is full.
| My ADD is trying to take over my life. I haven't been doing so well on the whole "tough it out" thing. I missed a credit card payment last month--that's a pretty good warning sign right there that I'd better get a handle on things before they begin to spiral out of control. Otherwise, I'm doing okay as long as I get everything important done in the mornings; but by lunchtime, I'm feeling fried and unfocused and like my brain is too full of information and trying to explode out through my skull. It's not pleasant, and it's making me pretty much useless for the rest of the day. Not good. Not good at all. I was thinking maybe I need to stop taking generic Welbutrin and start taking the real thing. I've heard things about the generic not being very effective, and since it started out managing my ADD symptoms pretty well, I've been wondering if it's just because I've built up a tolerance to the generic. But since I'd have to pay a $20 copay for the brand name, it's worth weighing my other options. For about $20 a month, I could also instead resume taking Mega Mind, which I know works to keep me focused and clear-headed. Or I could get my doctor to write me a prescription for an ADD med, get the generic of both that and the Welbutrin, and pay nothing at all. From a financial standpoint, of course the latter option seems the most attractive. But although I functioned well by day back when I took Ritalin, it had the unpleasant side effect of causing mood swings after it wore off in the evenings. I haven't taken actual medication for ADD in about 7 years. I know there are a lot of new options besides Ritalin, but I don't relish the idea of playing medication roulette and hoping I don't have side effects. Add to that the fact that, in addition to its focus-helping ingredients, Mega Mind is also a multivitamin. Considering that I don't eat nearly enough fruits and vegetables these days, I really should be taking a good multi anyway. All things considered, I think that as soon as I can get ahold of a bottle, I'm going to start taking Mega Mind again. I can't stand feeling this way any longer than absolutely necessary. Labels: medication, mental health, supplements |
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Carnival!
| Positive and Successful Lifestyle Tips is hosting the sixth edition of the Carnival of Inspiration and Motivation, which includes my post from the other day on Counting Blessings. If you're in need of inspiration, you'll find plenty of it over there. In other news, I'm snowed in. I'm blogging from my mom's computer, but both the connection and the computer are so slow that I'm not able to do very much from here. I'm taking advantage of the unplanned day off to actually have a day off, starting once I get offline. I'm going to read and knit and just sit and think and dream and be as lazy as I want to be. That doesn't get to happen very often. I'm really looking forward to it. Have a safe and happy weekend, everybody. Labels: carnivals, mental health |
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Craving badness
| I'm really, really, really, REALLY tempted to go out and get a hamburger for lunch today. Just a little one... a Junior Whopper, or maybe a dollar menu cheeseburger. My mouth is watering just thinking about it. I don't know why it sounds so delish all of a sudden, when I've been eating so healthy. *headdesk* Labels: food |
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Fancy pants, won't you please be mine?
| I got pretty excited when I effortlessly dropped ten pounds after starting the meds my doctor put me on to straighten out all the ways my dysfunctional thyroid had messed me up. I kind of expected the weight to keep falling off. That doesn't seem to be happening, though. I feel like I've hit a plateau. It's frustrating, because I'm living a healthy lifestyle. I'm working out regularly, I'm eating right, I'm drinking plenty of water... it's just like always, where the only way I can lose past this point is to either starve myself or double up on my workouts. Too bad I'm not really willing to do either of those things. This might be a sign she needs to adjust my meds. I was going in for a checkup every three months, but last time I was in, she was so encouraged by my weight loss that she said I didn't need to come back for another six months. So I'm wondering, should I call her? My husband goes to see her at the end of the month; maybe I'll just wait and bring it up to her then. And maybe by then I'll have made it off this plateau and started making downward progress again. I really hope I do. I'm thisclose to finally looking good in the last pair of fancy work pants I bought right after my honeymoon and haven't been able to wear all year. If I can just wear those pants again, I'll be happy. Labels: body image, weight |
Friday, January 25, 2008
On body image and good health (and the trolls who confuse them)
| There's been a bit of a kerfuffle exploding over at the "body image acceptance" blog,Big Fat Deal, this week following their inclusion in a New York Times article on "fat acceptance" blogs. It brought a lot of people out of the woodwork to leave comments expressing, in no uncertain terms, their disgust for fat people and for their obviously wrong-headed and immoral insistence on--wait for it--liking themselves and having high self-esteem. GASP! Those whores! Yes, that last line, in case you're the sort who needs to be told, was intended as sarcasm. I think the most frustrating thing in reading the comments were those commenters who couched their negative opinions in terms of concern for the poor fat girls' health and well-being (not as disturbing as the ones who came right out and accused them of being, essentially, lazy, gluttonous deviants who deserve to have health problems, but those people are a lot easier to brush off as hateful jackasses and ignore). Either way, these comments share an underlying prejudice based on the assumption that if you don't conform to a certain body type, then it must be because you fail at diet and exercise and, somehow by extension, moral character. Um, yeah. I'll keep that in mind when I'm dragging myself out of bed at 4:30 AM to go swim a bunch of laps and do Pilates before sitting down to a healthy breakfast of low-carb oatmeal and lowfat cottage cheese. It's not my thyroid problem! It's not my genes! It's all because I'm lazy and I love food too much! Now, I'll admit, I DO love food too much. That's certainly something I struggle with. My husband and I are both foodies, and we enjoy trying new restaurants, new recipes, new ethnic dishes... and about once a month we'll splurge and gorge ourselves on pizza. We also enjoy our alcohol, especially beer, which isn't exactly light on the calories or carbs. We do it all in moderation, but I can admit that if we cut these things out completely, we'd probably both be healthier (and lighter) for it. But I can guarantee that we wouldn't be happier. And that's the thing: if someone isn't harming anyone (other than, arguably, themselves) and they're happy, then who are you to decide they have no right to be happy because they don't look or act the way you think they should? And who are you to judge whether or not someone is healthy? Newsflash: you can't tell whether someone is healthy and fit by their appearance. There are thin supermodel types who can't walk up a single flight of stairs without wheezing. There are normal weight people who have high blood pressure and high cholesterol. And there are fat people who work out regularly, eat right and are perfectly healthy. I'm not as big as I used to be. But I'm not thin, either. On the BMI scale I'm on the low end of overweight, just a few pounds shy of "normal." I've struggled with my weight ever since puberty. Last year I started seeing a doctor that figured out I have a thyroid condition that makes it extremely difficult to lose weight. She put me on a combination of medications to treat it that almost immediately caused me to melt off ten pounds. I'm eating healthy, for the most part, and I'm getting plenty of exercise, and I'm taking the best care of myself that I know how to take. I will probably never get below a size 10, which is, atrociously, still considered fat by a lot of people. But I'm healthy. My doctor says so. And I'm beautiful. My husband says so. The only other opinion besides theirs that matters to me is my own. It took a long time for that opinion to become a positive one. I'm okay with my size. I'm more than happy with my curves, and so is my husband. If I disgust you because of that, well, guess what? You disgust me, too. Labels: body image, fitness, food, mental health, weight, women's health |