Weight Loss

[DruulEmpire]

Okay, I've fucking had it.

Saw my doctor today, and she didn't even talk about weight, but she wants to bring my blood pressure back from the borderline and it's a cinch that weight loss would help.

Back in the Nineties, if I really pushed myself, I could still get myself back down to 225 -- still overweight, but only a bit.  Now it's going crazy.  I eat better, more grain, more veggies, more spring water, I live on the same block as two of the best pizzerias in Western Pennsylvania but manage to shun them most of the year, I walk more -- and damn if it doesn't keep c-r-e-e-p-i-n-g back up.  I have a record of being 252 in December 2009 and this morning I weighed in at 272.  It's like life is telling me "Sure, go ahead, try harder and harder all the time to be a good boy -- but you'll still gain a pound every two months like clockwork anyway."  Where's the freakin' Off switch?  Am I seriously looking at weighing 300 come 2016?

My doctor also drew up an order for blood work.  We'll see if that explains anything.

[Trace]

Blood work might have the answer - I'd recommend making sure she included thyroid tests, because hypothyroidism can chop your metabolism.

[Ouroboros]

Best of luck DruulEmpire. Loosing weight is certainly one of the hardest things to do. If you'd like I can offer some tips on things that I found helpful when I was seriously working at dropping a couple extraneous pounds. Otherwise I'll just stand here on the sidelines and cheer for you!

[pedonbio]

Gawd, Druul, we are too much alike!

[Pipatel]

Blood work might have the answer - I'd recommend making sure she included thyroid tests, because hypothyroidism can chop your metabolism.

Precisely. Get an ultrasound of your thyroid and a blood test to check your iron levels. You might need iron supplements.

Besides weight gain another common side effect of hypothyroidism is constant tiredness.

[rjdmech]

This what worked for me.

No soda of any kind. just juice or water.Nothing with sugar

No wine , whiskey or beer.Whiskey and wine have a termendous amount of sugar

Diet, eat just meat and veggies.NO DESSERTS...Did I mention sugar before.

Stop sitting around staring at the computer, spend 1 hour every other day exercising

I exercise 6 days per week and spend 2 days just doing cardio.

Join Bodybuilding. com and get protein drinks.Have 1 to 2 per day when you exercise.You can use them as a between meal snack.Taste great.

take fishoil tablets before bedtime.I recommend that because of the fish breath.

Drink green tea.

Do not take thermogentics.They cause heart problems.Stay away from diet pills just diet.

Weight loss is a way of life you have to be serious and you have to avoid sugar at all costs.Oh I quess I should mention you are a allowed one carbo day per week to confuse your system


Good luck

[MasterDragonfly]

DE, is treadmill or elliptical an option? It wouldn't surprise me if they aren't, given the probable abuse your knees would take as a result.

Just trying to think of ways to help burn calories.

I guess bariatric surgery is always possible, but... it's not for everyone.

[DruulEmpire]

Hadn't planned to reply straightaway (by the by, I tend to go by Druul) but I've gone from 272 to 256 in this past month -- and that's counting my pigging out on hot dogs and hamburgers and chips and potato salad at a picnic just this past weekend.

I've gone through a bit of an unusual emotional rollercoaster this August-- not over weight concerns, but much deeper issues -- but along the way I've somehow learned not to fear hunger, which was my biggest saboteur.  Eat healthy, check, get out more, check -- but my hunger was always voracious and undeniable before.  Now, I live with it.  Mind you, I don't fast or skip meals, anything like that, I just work more and eat less.

Trouble is, I've been here before.  I recorded myself as being at 250 as of late 2009, but I'm not sure when I was last any lower.  250 seems to be a kind of plateau.  If I break that, I'll let you know.  Sorry to be blowing off various questions, but I'm also trying to redo the apartment, so new equipment is one of the lowest priorities I can think of right now.

ADDENDUM: heard back just this morning from the doctor.  Bad cholesterol is low --it's been low as long as I can remember, my one good quality -- but the HDL or "good cholesterol" is also a bit low, don't seem to know any magic bullet for that.  She recommends high fiber and at least 30 minutes of aerobic a day.  Oh, and I asked them about my thyroid -- they say it's at "the low end of normal," whatever that means, but evidently it is normal, so that's one less excuse to make.  And life goes on.

[gonZo]

According to my MD, building lean muscle will bring up your good cholesterol. Otherwise, sounds like you're already doing the right stuff (though 16 pounds in a month is such rapid loss that it may cause other problems... bear in mind that some of that lost weight was muscle mass).

[3deroticer]

http://www.acefitness.org/findanacepro/default.aspx

Look for a local certified Lifestyle and Weight management coach and ask your doctor for a dietician referral if you been done this road before. A Weight Management coach can work with you if you been cleared by your doctor otherwise working with both will help you on a road of a permanent solution. (Gonzo)The big weight loss is a temp solution and should only be done with a doctor monitoring you.

Some people have set point weight, and have success with maintaining the weight, but replacing the fat with muscle. You may think about a bodybuilding lifestyle.

Beware of sugar free items as most of them will actually make you heavier.

MasterDragonfly could back me up, but some martial art and yoga are really good at making your body release emotion from your muscle and mind. Eating for most people is a emotional trigger. Doing a kata whenever you are hungry can normalize your hunger pang. Also you are apt to be less hungry if you are more active. Those who exercise have a much higher success rate of maintaining a healthy weight lifestyle.

[MasterDragonfly]

This thread has reminded me that it's probably time to update cherri's LAP-band thread.

I will do so now.

[RandomX]

Druul, I feel your pain.

I am overweight and there is no fair reason for it. I have tried the traditional eat well and exercise. No luck. I eat mostly low fat and low sodium, I don't drink soda, rarely eat fast food, don't snack much. I have counted calories, tried things like Ally and juicing and nothing has helped. I have seen my doctor and had my thyroid tested. No luck.

It kills me to see people switch from regular to diet soda and then suddenly drop 30lbs and preach about how easy it is. I'm happy for them but not everyone who is overweight is lazy and doesn't work hard to stay healthy. I hate going to the doctor when they take all my bloodwork and blood pressure and they sound SURPRISED that I'm healthy despite being a large girl.

Note: I grew up in a sugar free, fat free, low sodium, low cholesterol, kosher and vegetarian household. My theory is that my body is in permanent starvation mode because it doesn't know when/if I'll return to that lifestyle.

[Nimrod]

Druul at least you are trying.

I have luckily never had "problems" with my weight. Friends, relatives, even my brother have had to do battle with their pounds. Few of them have succeeded and in my hopefully not sanctimonious sounding opinion it can come down to 2 basic approach missteps.

1) Lack of Moderation
I am not saying they did not limit themselves - in fact they have overdone it in most cases. Too much of anything, even "helpful" stuff can have a collective negative effect. With weight loss I have seen good friends starve themselves down to surprisingly low numbers only to snap back. The ability to ease into something, to be moderate about everything - not too much and not too little shows more about self discipline than any radical lifestyle change or over-the-top diet + exercise routine. It may take longer but it is much easier to do.

2) Adopting Attitude
Match your outlook and expectations to what you really feel and/or what started you on this in the first place. It is very easy to become discouraged when after a great deal of effort, perceived sacrifice and general lifestyle reworking there is little to show for it on the scale or in medical tests. Make sure that the attitude or preconceptions of your doctor, your dietician, your trainer, your friends or even your nosy neighbor are not becoming your own. You have made the decision to change things and in the end you will determine if you are succeeding.

So, do things moderately and stay true to yourself is what I am tossing out there.

Find what does work for you and your life and stick with that. Adjust anyone's advice, any diet, any whatever into something that you can actually put on, like a new jacket.

Incidentally, I grew up with hippie parents pushing a diet and life approach very much like what RandomX mentions. The moment I was out to college I went a bit crazy with my first sugar cereal, twinke, pop-tart, etc. But it was soon obvious to me that I was eating and acting like I had been locked up for 18 years. My attitude was off and there was no moderation to speak of. I lucked out by meeting Kithara near the end of college and together with our own baggage helped the other to unpack their satchel of experiences - and that was cathartic.

Hope that helps Druul.

...and no you can not borrow Kithara, but she does say best of luck in everything.

[3deroticer]

Heavy people are not lazy and can be very healthy, and genetics do have a big role. Sammo typical workout is 2 hours long and can go toe to toe with Jackie Chan in a workout. As for the soft-drink, there is 16 packets of sugar in a 20 oz container. The diet version actually triggers your hunger pang to make you crave more food.

[madcow4]

Best of luck Druul, living meat sacks are a pain in the butt to work with when they have a mind of their own.

I am overweight and there is no fair reason for it.

I can think of a couple.

Though to be fair, you'd probably have to be criminally malnourished for your proportions to work out and still be underweight. But yeah, bit of a glass house on my end, and I shouldn't throw stones. 

[MasterDragonfly]

Not news, but BMI isn't a great indicator of health.

I remember some years back when we first started out at a local gym, and cherri could do 30 mins on the elliptical without getting winded, much less breaking a sweat.

Conversely, I've always tended towards the slimmer end of the spectrum. I used to hate cross country runs in high school gym, or anything which required an intense cardio workout.

I've tried to push myself cardio-wise, at least at the last place we lived. I had trouble making steady progress.

Then earlier this year we signed up with a new gym closer to where we live now. About the same time, I stumbled across something called "C25K'. I hit Google and learned more about it. Rather than spring for a phone app, I found a free sight online with the summary of the workout, and in particular found the treadmill plan. Printed it out, jumped into Week 2 which seemed to work fine. Things got challenging at Week 3 already but I did make progress, up until Week 5 Day 3. Which is where I got stuck for quite a while. I just couldn't do the full run without hitting pause.

I finally had a chat with a friend who has done a lot of running. He wasn't quite sure what was up, but suggested slowing down my speed on the treadmill.

I didn't think I'd been running excessively quickly, and ignored the advice at first. But once I dialed it down a bit, booyah! That was it, that was the needed magic. I made sure I was able to repeat the success a couple more times (in a row, in case it was accidental luck the one time) and have only just moved past that into Week 6 just yesterday morning. Which when you get down to it, has less net running time, but that's fine. I'm optimistic about my next time out, which I believe tacks 5 mins onto Week 5 Day 3's 20 mins of runtime.

Anyway, I'm just tickled that I've made it this far. Cardio endurance has always been a challenge for me, and I think I'm actually making genuine improvements. Trivial when compared to serious runners, but for me, it's huge.

[Pipatel]

I've dropped about 70 lbs from April 2010 to April 2011, no elaborate diet, simply exercising and >1000 miles of biking/ergometer and cutting short on sugary food (no sweets, chocolate etc.).

A lot of it is just genetics of course as recent studies found out and actually dependant on what kind of bacteria you have in your stomach - some types can process food better than others. What once when people starved was a blessing now turned to be our curse.

All you can really do is cut the junk food, soda etc. and exercise.

[Bad Kitty]

wow, from 272 to 256 really quickly! grats on the progress Druul.

stay dedicated, you seem to have this thing figured out

I myself have often struggled with my weight, i'll fight tooth and nail to get down to 200lbs (which IS my ideal weight, i'm a giantess hehe), but it always creeps back up when i'm not looking.

I've started to figure out that you need to feel hunger to lose weight. And that you need to eat foods that taste less good to have good nutrition. And that you need to do things that make your body groan and complain in order to stay fit.
So basically, you need to be a dedicated masochist to stay healthy hehe. (doesn't that just suck?)

anyway, good luck on your efforts, i know you'll make it back to 225

[DruulEmpire]

Hi, hadn't meant to diss everyone so long, but today was interesting, I saw my doctor again, probably for the last time until March.  Back in July she put me on little 10mg pills of lisinopril, as I think my systolic number was 90-something that time, but this time around I think the reading was more 128/64, a big improvement.  My weight today was officially down to 251.  She shook my hand!  I did note that I seemed to be stymied on a plateau around 250, and she said plateaus will happen but to keep at it, to keep figuring this out while my body does same.  So I'm looking not only to crack 250 but to become "radioactive."  "Radioactive" is my personal code for 238, since 238 is the atomic weight of uranium, and I haven't been that since the year 2000.  So I have serious time travel ahead of me, but I do have books lying around which I'm finally going to take a crack at, and I'm also going to look over everyone's advice here.  Main thing that concerns me now is the threat of sacrificing muscle mass -- ye gawdz, people, I need all that I can keep!   Oh, and by the way it really helps that a certain relationship that blossomed up in my "Pittsburgh outings" thread is motivating me, I never see enough of her but she's very doting and sexy and sweet, and she loves to worry about this -- if she's not incentive enough to make good on this little project, I need my fucking head examined.  So I'm feeling very hopeful about the months ahead, will let you know how they go.  To all, thanks.

[Bad Kitty]

lol, I'll have to remember "radioactive" the next time I creep up to 238, that's great

muscle mass... yeah, you need a little fat, a little carbs, to keep muscles happy, but mainly just tons of protein. You can add a protein shake, or just eat eggs every day, or whatever I've found that saturating with lots protein (grilled chicken breast, protein shakes, lean red meat, fat free beef jerky, eggs, etc) helps keep muscles from atrophying while getting thinner. Also not loosing weight "too fast" helps.

interesting tidbit: your body *cannot* turn protein, fiber, or alcohol, into body fat. so while all 3 of those have calories, they basically "don't count" when it comes to body fat.

Mind you the average beer is mostly carb calories, and not much alcohol. But technically a shot of vodka is high in calories (to the point of making a decent fuel hehe) but none of the calories are capable of going to your gut

but i'm rambling, i mean, you're losing the weight, so do what you're doing!

[pedonbio]

  Back in July she put me on little 10mg pills of lisinopril

Something else we have in common! One of the side effects is an occasional dry cough, but I don't mind.

[DruulEmpire]

Last time I tried writing here I was in my fourth paragraph when my computer mysteriously froze for eight minutes and then dumped me back on my homepage, so for zero reason I have to try to write this all over.

Anyhow, as I was saying -- I'm toying with the idea of generating a story around this called The Six Stone Snare.  This title would be based in part on my wanting to get down to 192 -- three times the square of eight.  (No doubt some expert might say I should shoot for 190 or even 180, but I have no interest in that.)  What I like about 192 -- as opposed to, say, 196, the square of fourteen -- is that it leaves me several pounds to gain back while still falling short of "the deuce."  I will always remember David Letterman coming through heart surgery and dedicating himself to "beating the deuce," the 200 pound mark.  The "stone" in the title comes from an old weight measure called a stone, amounting to fourteen pounds.  Therefore, 192 + 84 (six stone) would equal 276 -- which I never reached, but God knows I was dreading it.  I returned to the fifth stone at 262.  Now here I am, stuck on this stubborn plateau, currently back at 254 -- but if I could get down to something as simple as 248, I would finally be touching the fourth stone for the first time in at least two years.

Funny how something this dopey becomes an occasion to become especially philosophical, but then your weight is one inescapable summary of what and who you are.  I don't doubt the basics -- drink plenty of water, eat right, work out -- but I'll be giving specifics on what I plan to do as this goes on.  By the way, I don't doubt for one minute that there are far more dramatic stories going on for other people, so they're welcome to chime in here.  Right now, though, since I'm a woolgathering type anyway, I may as well get this out of my system.

Let's be clear, I'm not terribly interested in "conforming" to anything.  If I can feel assured that sticking to around 250 may indeed be my first, best and happiest destiny, I'll say screw this.  Nor do I kid myself that I can become the stud I missed out on being, or reverse time, drink from the Fountain of Youth, any of that.  I am greatly looking forward to becoming a curmudgeon, I think it's an honorable calling.  I'm not even sure I fear death that much -- I find it, and aging, really inconvenient, but I don't see much point in being horrified of them.  So given all this, why bother at all?  Because for me -- in spite of the more traditional title I chose for this thread -- this really isn't weight LOSS.  A LOSS is of some part of yourself which you may feel some lasting emotional tie to, and I don't feel any of that.  If what the world of medicine is telling me is correct, then what's really happening here is that I'm actually a 192-pound man who allowed himself to get saddled with all this useless weight, through no particular plan of his own.  If I were some bon vivant, some restaurant critic, maybe I could chalk this up as investing my body in my passion, but food has simply never been a major passion of mine.  So this is not about LOSING weight, in the sense that you can LOSE some precious limb or organ of yours in a terrible accident -- this is about CUTTING weight, jettisoning the excess, liberating some poor soul who would love to walk a little faster and breathe a little easier.  That's it, that's all, that's the gist of this.

And this requires some thought, because frankly I've never really thought about food before.  Oh yes, your hunger is constantly nagging you, demanding "Where's my next meal, where's my next meal, what will it taste like, what will it taste like?"  But oddly enough, that's not really THINKING about food -- that's REACTING to hunger.  It's easy to say a fat man like myself thinks about food all the time, but I'd say the opposite is true, that I've thought as little about food as possible, caring far more about trying to keep hunger at bay.  Left entirely to myself, I might barely eat at all, but this amoebically simplistic demand has been ruling my life: "Ugh!  Hungry!  Fill belly!  Now, with whatever is handy and tastes fun!"  No actual THOUGHT about food -- the content of it, the planning of it -- need apply.

So here I am, fifty, and at last I need a diet -- and not just in that ugly coded sense of "diet," shorthand for "shit you have to get through to lose weight."  I'm talking about actually having a regular disciplined outlook on what I eat every day for the next (God willing) forty years.  And it all seems silly, because we have surrounded ourselves on all sides with food, we've scrambled to transport it and control its prices and recombine it and repackage it in a million tantalizing ways, you would think such abundance would preclude any problems whatsoever.  I rather like the animated movie "Over the Hedge," and its take on the food-obsessive nature  of 21st Century American life is beautifully put.  And yet we find ourselves in a giant mess (in the more conventional, non-military sense).  And in a moment, I may even talk about that mess -- but right now my computer has me a little spooked, so I'll hit Post (the command, not the cereal company).

[MasterDragonfly]

Protip: If you've lost faith that a particular piece of software (in your case, your browser) will remain stable, I recommend composing in something lightweight such as Notepad or Notepad++ first, then copy/paste to your browser's composition pane. If your browser goes poof, just fire it up again and paste again. (In the case of Notepad++, it seems to be smart enough to recover unsaved compositions, so if you entire computer goes pear-shaped, you're still in good stead.) I've had to adopt this approach at work (as have my co-workers) in order to deal with a major piece of software we all use daily. It's the belt and suspenders needed to keep what's left of our sanity.

On-topic:

About a month ago, I saw an interview of Bill Clinton online, discussing his conversion to becoming vegan, and the resulting health improvements he's enjoyed. Interesting, I thought. I myself have been going 'off' burgers of late. Meaning, they just don't have the appeal they once did. I don't know why. I still enjoy chicken, I still enjoy sub sandwiches, I still enjoy spaghetti with meatsauce/meatballs. But burgers have fallen into 'meh' territory. Likewise chocolate cake, of which I used to be a huge fan.

I don't know if this is part and parcel of getting older. I do find an increasing level of interest with regards to trying to get more juices (eg, carrot/apple/orange blends), and feel it's just a matter of time before I hit the tipping point on that. I can't see myself completely giving up meat, but I can see myself becoming more de rigeur regarding fresh veggie/fruit juices.

[DruulEmpire]

I figure I'd better keep the discussion going -- who knows, I may even be able to look back a year from now and see some progress, anything's possible.

MD, I thought of going vegan years ago, and it wasn't even a dietary thing, I was thinking more of the sheer energy invested in producing meat, of how inefficient all that is compared to the abundance of energy already available in fruits and vegetables.  Today I could see going mostly vegan, but not necessarily herbivore at the expense of omnivore.  Mom always related to me the story of the Buddha's death, how the Buddha and his disciples entered a house and accepted their host's hospitality -- and the host served pork.  The Buddha explained to the host that his disciples were not meat-eaters, but that the Buddha alone, as an act of accepting hospitality, would eat the pork, so he did -- and promptly died of indigestion.  See, for me that's too far.  We absolutely need to cut back on meat, to make it something truly rare and special, or at least served almost as a light seasoning to some main course -- but I daresay there should always be some room for it.

There's another motivation going on with me.  I live in a neighborhood with a lot of old people, and some of them strike me as just damned peculiar.  They're bloated or lopsided, or they're all bent over and twisted in some way, and I don't doubt all kinds of natural causes for this -- accidents, disease, aging, they can take a serious toll, and one's own DNA can be a most treacherous bitch -- but still I wonder "Was this your master plan, to end up this way, to be a semi-invalid walking camera of the last several years of your life in this condition?"  I look forward to being a curmudgeon, but preferably a curmudgeon who can carry himself with some slim semblance of dignity, I would hate to face Death in any other condition.

Trying to take a diet seriously affords a moment to wonder "How the hell did our species ever get itself into this fix anyway?"  Truth to tell, I don't think Mother Nature ever expected this boom of our technical cleverness.  She was playing around with her featherless bipeds, decided to give a few just a little extra encephalization, and BLAMMO! she's wrestling for her very survival with us post-Cro-Magnons.  Nature probably figured -- to the extent that she ever really figured it at all -- that we could go on grazing on nuts and berries forever, and for that we were no doubt designed.  From a dietary standpoint, Nature might wonder "Why can't those humans be more like their simian cousins?"  For instead we irrigate and farm and harvest, we breed selectively and industrialize the process.  So we have these two warring agendas, the animal agenda inherited in our bodies, and the world-conquering agenda passed down to us through thousands of years of a Neolithic Revolution.  In all of this, who or what could be right?  I think I have an answer -- but I'm much more tired now than I thought I was, so good night.

************

All right, I'm back.

At almost exactly the same time as my starting this thread, I was greatly inspired by **24** pictures of a current sometimes girlfriend of mine skydiving, and I thought, if anyone could talk me into skydiving, she could.  But how would that look?  All right, so it would not be as grotesque as Jose Ferrer ordering "Bring in that floating fat man" in that David Lynch movie "Dune" -- but would it feel something like that?

I am struck by how even now we are afflicted by a kind of inferiority complex vis-a-vis the animal kingdom.  You see this in the Eqyptian or Hindu art of long ago, the merging of man and animal -- and yet it is still very much with us today.  Consider Batman, who just wrapped up some shooting of his latest adventure in my town of Pittsburgh.  The man just happens to emulate a winged mammal, and actually takes wing once in a while.  Spider-Man conspicuously did not (the franchise is looking dead, sad to say) crawl around, but made himself airborne via Tarzan-style vine-swinging between skyscrapers.  And even if we deal out the animal part, the will to fly, not as a passenger but as a kind of living vehicle, remains.  Consider Superman, or the Rocketeer (always miraculously able to keep from burning his own damn legs off) or Neo in the "Matrix" movies -- and now, of course, Iron Man.  Plus, perhaps you've seen footage of men in special suits flinging themselves off mountains and only needing a parachute at the very end -- or you've simply seen hang-gliding.  And may we pause one moment to contemplate the imagery of the name Skywalker?  All right, so owning your own jet amounts to roughly the same thing -- but it's just so freakin' COOLER to do it yourself.

Yet what if this is the next actual leap (you should excuse the term) in our chosen evolution?  (Note that I say "chosen," for as much as creationists hate evolution, the fact is that the theory provides that we may now be consciously free of evolution, of gradual adaptation to environment over millions of years, to a degree that no other species ever has been.)  In somewhat the same spirit as the classic edit in "2001," where a man-ape is flinging up a bone club one second and Pan Am is taking us to the Moon the next (and can Christina Ricci be my flight attendant?), I sum up the human experience as "To stand is to fly."  In one sense this is metaphorical -- taking a stand is the crucial first step to soaring in so many ways -- but I mean it seriously too, but not in the way you might guess.  I'm all for stompin' around the old-fashioned way on good old Earth, the thing being that we probably ought to be moving out far, far beyond good old Earth.  Another fortune cookie fortune of mine is "Infinite dreams deserve infinite resources," and we are the species of infinite dreams, but only the universe is truly infinite, whereas our Earth most tragically is not.  I figure in a couple of centuries we'll finally have a True Space Age, one that could actually shift our planet's population dynamics, perhaps even more than the discovery of the New World has -- but I don't see us wasting away to catlike frailty on the Moon, or even trying to put up with Mars.  I think our boom, centuries hence -- but a mere wink of Mother Nature's eye away -- will come in the form of habitats, great cylinders rather like Arthur C. Clarke's Rama, in which gravity is faked by centrifugal force and you look up and you see your whole world arching overhead.  In such an environment, it will be tempting and perhaps inevitable to try to leap your way up or down -- or really, up AND THEN down -- to whatever destination happens to catch your eye.

This is where we are heading, by our own volition, this place which would take Nature whole more eons to even attempt to approximate.  We are meant to leap and fly, and then continue to walk or run, within huge new worlds of our own making.  What is more, little if any genetic tinkering need apply.  (The great W. Olaf Stapledon once speculated on a race of Winged Men in his classic "Last and First Men," but in fact birds' wings attached to human bodies would be a bitch to maintain, no matter what any "X-Men" movie suggested.)  This, I think, is our destiny beyond nature -- and I don't relish doing it looking like the Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, either (be he portrayed by Kenneth McMillan or just about anyone, really).

So all of the above is how Nature screws us, because Nature never intended for us to get so smart and has no clue as to where we are heading, or how to get us there, and the design and maintenance of the body is all tied in with that.  What is more, we've been clueless ourselves.  We figure "The natural order of things is to start off with milk and juice and coffee and grapefruit and eggs and bacon or maybe even a little steak plus a heap of flapjacks smothered in butter and syrup."  And some of that could have been useful -- back when we were farmhands and we had one fuck of a long hard day ahead of us.  But honestly, does one need a farmhand's breakfast to go work out of one's own home all day at one's computer?  Or even if you commute, that too is designed to reduce effort.  You drive, you park, you take an elevator, and a once arduous journey is reduced to almost nothing.  I'm oddly lucky in that I get to take a 30-minute walk to and from work every work day.  So Nature never even predicted the particulars of the Industrial (and so-called Post-Industrial) Revolution either, and this leads us to come full circle a little -- we start out hunting for nuts and berries, and now we look for them in our breakfast cereals.

So Nature is our first enemy -- not in any absolute or evil way, but simply our first set of obstacles.  But Technology is no panacea either.  Left entirely to itself, our technological way of life would turn us into those great near-invalid blobs aboard the spaceship Axiom in the movie "WALL-E."  In an economy far better geared to service impulses rather than actual needs, technology in league with advertising is out to undercut us at every turn.  And by the way -- if at all possible I want NOT to have to rely on some "latest new miracle" reimagining of food.  eDiets, Weight Watchers, SlimFast, NutriSystem -- give me a fucking break.  Really?  Truly?  You eat an unusual set of meals, maybe with some Splenda sprinkled on them, and after that, all your weight worries are gone forever?  Look, I have no doubt it's worked for many people, and the same goes for the surgical procedures, the lap-bands and the bypasses, to each your own success and God bless you -- but if I have any shot at not needing that, I'm going to take that shot for now.  To my mind this all misses a point.  This is not all just about the self, about "How do I dump all these pounds right now and then go right back to the same old life?"  This is about a vast and permanent adjustment to the entire paradigm.

This whole life we've got going right now is an illusion, and if anything a proper diet is a magnificent and revolutionary occasion to try to live beyond the illusion.  We already do repulsive things to cats and dogs -- to think that proud ex-wolves now get to be poodles, it's almost a kind of clueless sadism on our part -- and what we're doing now to cattle and chickens is quite repulsive.  It's all secret and industrially controlled and price controlled, and all in the name of an impulse-driven economy rather than a sense-driven one.  Technology never demanded this, any more than E = MC squared = ICBM, but for now technology is being abused for this agenda, so I tend to trust low-tech right now, not for the sake of some abstract Luddite purity, but because of the enduring importance of simplicity.

So we're up against Nature, and Technology -- and then of course the Self.  The Self can seize upon so many false starts.  Maybe your family nagged you, or your doctor nagged you, or the knowledge of heart disease and diabetes in your family tree is nagging at you, or even your employer is nagging you, or your sexual/romantic self-image is all bummed out.  And, alternately, maybe food fills a need greater than its own self, it's reassurance or nostalgia or simply an idle entertainment.  Look, any start beats no start -- but I have my doubts too about the whole Jenny Craig or gym approach, about the whole idea of needing someone beyond yourself to get on your butt.  It is perhaps dangerous for me to speculate on this, being a lifelong depressive with motivation issues, but for me it has to make inherent sense or it's just not going to be the key that starts my ignition and then keeps me going.  I can be shamed into this -- but I would rather earn my own definition of humanity, if that's at all possible.

All right, so that's how I see it.  And I've also picked out my own guru to start with, one with a couple of books -- but possibly one you've not heard of.  More on that later this week.         

[MasterDragonfly]

On review while looking for something to latch onto, I realized I'd glossed over this:

I've dropped about 70 lbs from April 2010 to April 2011, no elaborate diet, simply exercising and >1000 miles of biking/ergometer and cutting short on sugary food (no sweets, chocolate etc.).

This is seriously fantastic. Hardcore, old school, etc.

PS - Hit the week 6, day 3 milestone of C25K a couple days ago. That's 25 mins of non-stop running. A personal best. Even did the "arms raised up while going through the imaginary finish line tape" gesture, despite being on a treadmill.

[MasterDragonfly]

Just came across this, thanks to a tweet from @DrewFromTV



(right-click on image and open in a new tab/window to see full size)

Original page link: http://www.aquick.org/blog/2011/06/26/choose-real-food/

[Bad Kitty]

Just came across this, thanks to a tweet from @DrewFromTV



(right-click on image and open in a new tab/window to see full size)

I'm going to print that out and tape it up in front of my elliptical machine

[DruulEmpire]

Eh, crud.  I'm staying in the 250s but I'm at 259, not great.

I'm going to frontload my question: what's the best exercise for attacking the abs?

I've been trying to get around the exercise -- I keep walking to and from work, I walk to the supermarket that's further away, and now I get in an occasional walk up and down 36 floors of one of my favorite buildings, not counting the long walk to it and back home, and I fiddle with some weights -- but now I think I really do need something a bit unusual.  Inertia got me once all the way up to 272, and I figure it will take unusual effort to dump all this.

Exercise is becoming all the more important now that the weather's getting cold.  I have this lifelong habit of trying to hibernate like a bear, just hoarding up food and sitting still and eating.  I have to fight that as well.

One thing is for sure: I really, really, really hate my gut.  I'm tired of this damn gut.  I want it gone.  What's more, it seems to be fairly logical to hate it, because it sounds like the "belly" or "core" is very much the kind of fat you should be targeting anyway.  I'm tired of buying a pair of slacks and not being able to keep the buckle above the navel.  My target for beating the deuce is 2014, but I could use advice now, this very winter.

Ideas like the "Insanity" are sweet'n'all, but I live in a cramped apartment and am currently going TV-less and don't wish to alienate my immediate neighbors, and besides, I don't think I've the kind of personality that would see "Insanity" through.

Ideally, this could be solved by something I could pick up at Target.  Last time I was there I was tempted by the Ab Circle.  I think I like the idea of twisting away.  Recommendations?  Alternatives?  Warnings?

[MasterDragonfly]

First, there's no such thing as spot-reducing the abdomen. If you want a spot reduction, consider liposuction. (I know, not an option.) If you exercise the crap out of your abs (assuming you do so optimally), you'll end up with great abs... covered by the same layer of adipose tissue as previously. Unless your ab exercises are terribly cardio-driven, in which case you can expect a systemic reduction in weight.

Second, if you just want to strengthen your abs, there are some simple exercises of varying sorts. If you're the bookish type, I recommend the budget-minded http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Book-Abs-Revised-Expanded/dp/0375751432/

Not sure what else to say. I think you'll be disappointed, if not frustrated, if you pour your heart and soul into ab exercises, expecting a fantastic reduction there.

[rtpoe]

Well, speaking as someone who probably has never been over 160 in his life, there's the usual mantra:

Eat a little less, eat a little healthier, exercise a little more.

If you are in good health otherwise, don't worry about it too much. The stress from worrying about it might be more harmful than the few extra pounds.

[MasterDragonfly]

I'm thinking that all that stair climbing isn't doing his knees any favors.

The guideline I've heard from a sports injury specialist (MD) is that for ever pound overweight, hitting the stairs is as if having another 3-4 lbs. Thus 50 lbs overweight is like carrying another 150-200 lbs when climbing stairs. At least, that's the wear and tear on the knees.

So even if the cardio health is great, there's still the high risk to the knees.

[3deroticer]

I find that slow sidestepping on the treadmill ease off the knees and make them stronger. The problem with treadmill and stair stepper is the constant repetition of the same movement. So hiking outdoor would be best with variable terrain surface of nature. I also use the Foam core roller for stretching and rolling out the tight t-band of the legs, which can also cause knee pain.