Round & Rubenesque to Lean & Luscious

Other reasons for putting on a bit of "condition"...

2011-02-24T23:11:00.001-08:00

I have done a bit more research and here are some more facts and useful bits of information that help explain weight gain. (I know, I know. I hear you, I hear you:

Critical fat voice: "move less+ eat more = fatty boom-sticks"

Me: "alright then...this research adds a little bit to what we already know about weight gain"

To sleep...perchance...to dream...about getting thinner (apologies to W. Shakespeare)

Did you know that lack of sleep can contribute to weight gain? Women who sleep five hours a night are more likely to gain weight than women who sleep seven hours a night. Researchers have found a link between sleep and the hormones that influence our eating behavior. Some tech talk: Two specific hormones are involved. Ghrelin is responsible for feelings of hunger. Leptin tells the brain when it’s time to stop. When you’re sleep deprived, your ghrelin levels increase at the same time that your leptin levels decrease. The result is an increased craving for food and not feeling full. Add the fact that sleep deprived people tend to chose different foods to snack on-mainly high calorie sweets and salty and starchy foods – and it’s easy to see how these small changes can lead to long-term weight gain.

And guess what? I haven't slept well for years!

We live longer than our forefathers; but we suffer more from a thousand artificial anxieties and cares. They fatigued only the muscles, we exhaust the finer strength of the nerves. ~Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

Stress is the emotional and physical strain caused by our response to pressure from the outside world. We are hard wired for stress and anxiety - us humans evolved the ability to respond to a stressful situation instantly, by preparing the body for "fight or flight." When faced with the sabre toothed tiger, our ancestors stayed and fought that big cat, or they turned and got the hell out of Sally the Sabre's way as quick as they could. Useful huh? The problem is these days we treat every stressful situation as life threatening Our modern stresses don't usually involve a big Kitty with enormous teeth, but we act like they are. Our stresses involve financial difficulties, emotional problems, too much work, juggling responsibilities, and feeling like there is never enough time to get everything done. If this caper goes on and on unrelentingly, we trigger a biochemical process where our bodies go into survival mode. Our bodies store fuel, slow down metabolism and produce chemicals [cortisol, leptin, and other hormones] When the body is stressed, either physically or emotionally, our body responds by secreting cortisol which stimulates fat and carbohydrate metabolism for fast energy during the “Fight or Flight” response. Chronically elevated levels of this stuff contribute to the accumulation of abdominal fat. But get this: when the stressful situation is removed, the cortisol release continues stimulating appetite to replace the carbohydrate and fat burned – or thinks it burned. The appetite increase we experience only leads to us munching on excess calories in excess of what we need. And another thing... the insulin response and appetite stimulation lead to weight gain because the body is in a constant state of fat storage. The body stores this type of extra energy around the abdominal organs.

And guess what? I have been stressed for years!

The purpose of medicine is to prevent significant disease, to decrease pain and to postpone death... (Dr Joel J Nobel)

Medications: I found out that any hormone replacement therapy and intake of oral contraceptives containing estrogen can result in fluid retention and increased appetite. Steroids, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), antidepressants and diabetic medications are some other drugs that can cause weight gain.

And guess what? I am currently taking anti-depressants and I've been taking NSAIDS for years!

Sometimes the cure is worse than the illness.... (who knows)

Don't dig your grave with your knife and fork. (Ye olde english proverb)

Eating late at night: I read a study published last year in the journal "Obesity" (see it yourself at http://www.nature.com/). Researchers looked at how off-setting of the body's internal clock can affect weight. ... the researchers found that mice (Orright, orright I know we are not mice) that were fed meals during their normal sleeping hours added 48 percent to their body weight over six weeks, whereas mice fed meals during normal times gained 20 percent of their weight.

And guess what? i have been eating dinner late at night for years!

I got a hundred bucks says my baby beats Pete's baby. I just think genetics are in my favour. (Andre Agassi)

...and then there's our Genes - here's something else I read, somewhere...on the Internet, maybe: "An underlying tendency to obesity may be the result of our genes. People who generally have little problem controlling their weight seem to have a precisely tuned appetite". According to the Centre for Disease Control (http://www.cdc.com/) in the USA, although changes in the genetic makeup of populations occur too slowly to be responsible for the Western World's current rapid rise in obesity, genes do play a role in the development of obesity. Most likely, genes regulate how our bodies capture, store, and release energy from food."

"Guess what? yes, I may just be genetically predisposed...

Well then, how did one get so fat, and what does it mean to be obese?

2011-02-24T21:49:00.000-08:00

It’s been a hard 12 months, with a few exceptions:

My partner had emergency surgery and lost an ovary
We got married
I fell out with my brother
My niece got married
My stepfather died
We went on a belated honeymoon
We moved house
My brother got married
My partner got sick
My nieces had babies
My daughter spilt up from her boyfriend
We seemed to be fighting with everyone
We got sued
We lost money
I was in constant pain
My partner was in constant pain
A business partnership went south and a friendship was lost

My daughter and her boyfriend got back together
Birthdays and Christmas came and went
A beloved grandmother died
We arranged a(nother) funeral
We went to London and back and missed the Australian summer
I put on 7 kilograms since April
A website told me I was about 20 kilograms overweight

My Facebook statuses were full of “…is tired”; “…is sick”; is “saying goodbye”; “…is wishing certain people knew how to behave themselves”; …is weary of selfish people”… “wants to run away”; …“wishes things were different”…"needs a change”… a year of the miserables. A year of making resolutions and then ignoring them; a year in which I thought and said “I should”; “I want to” and “I need to”.

It is dawning on me slowly and surely that I have been getting ...well… not cuddly, not curvy, not Rubensque, not buxom, generously proportioned, full-figured or plump, plush or rotund. (Hey Susie-Q, there’s more of me to love since the wedding for sure!) I haven’t been getting voluptuous, or even just plain big (or “large” to use another useful euphemism. I am none of these things. What I am is fat. I AM FAT. FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT!!

Dr Russ Harris (of Mindfulness fame) tells us if we repeat something often enough, the word loses its power. (FAT, fat, fat fat fat fatfatftaftafat fat fat
fatfatfatfatfatfatfatfatfatfat fatfatfatfatfatfatfatfatfatfatfatfat fatfatfatafatafatafatafatafafafatfatfatfatfatfatfatfatfatyastillfat!fatfatfat ) Even more so if we say it very quickly in a voice that sounds like you sucked helium from all the balloons at a kids’ party, or sing it to the tune of Frere Jacques: Fat, fat, fat, fat/fat fat fat fat/fat fat fat/fat fat fat/fatty fatty fat-fat/fatty fatty fat-fat/ fat fat fat/fat fat fat
http://www.thehappinesstrap.com.au/

I dunno about all that, but FAT has come to have a powerful influence over me – and not in a good way either. Here is my inner fat voice:
“You are too fat to wear that. Those jeans don’t fit Are you sure you want another one of those? What is the point of going shopping, no-one looks good in a mu-mu. You don’t want to get undressed in front of your wife, she’ll wonder why she married you. Everyone on TV / at work /in bars/ on the movie screens / in fact, everyone I know is decidedly unfat. What is wrong with you? You look disgusting! You cannot go out at all...people will run screaming from you in the street. You need to stay home and starve my girl...it is the only answer".

I know that my year in dot points (see above) is a litany of excuses for eating and drinking too much and not moving enough. Excuses or reasons ?- a mixture, I think and hard to tell a lot of times...

Well dear reader, so has begun my journey to discover what, how, when and why I am fat. And just what I am going to do about it. But along the way I found some extra "reasons"...

Week one: what is this thing called fat? In which I explore this fascinating concept...and try to get real with myself

2011-02-24T20:12:00.000-08:00

There are a lot of euphemisms for fat, especially as they relate to women. Here are a few: plump, round, chubby, ample, big-boned, voluptuous, buxom, womanly, curvy, big , full-figured and Rubenesque. Rubens painted women in all their glory - dimples, fold, mounds of flesh, unashamed. Our present-day society's view on what women should look like has moved from Rubens to Picasso in many ways - we eschew those curvy wobbly bits, and it's all about angles and sharp pointy bits in the guise of flat stomachs, and stick limbs, and size zeros. When I look around me I see more Rubens ladies than Picasso girls walking about.

We have all these polite words for "FAT" don't we, but there are plenty of unkind ones as well. Think lard arse, porky, beached whale, humungous, blimp, heifer, boombah, fatty boom-sticks and so on. What's fat then? and why is it "bad"?

According to the Australian Bureau of Stats, way more than half (62%) of Australian adults are either overweight or obese. This has increased from 20-odd years ago when 38% of adults were regarded as being overweight or obese (in 1989-90). A recent Australian survey shows 25% of persons aged 18 years and over to be obese, 37% overweight, 37% normal weight and 2% underweight. When compared with measured results from the 1995 National Nutrition Survey (NNS), the proportion of persons aged 18 years and over who were classified as overweight or obese has increased dramatically. (I am not making this up - see http://www.abs,gov.au/ !)

Alright then, but what does this mean for me? How do I know if I really am fat?(apart from the fact that my clothes don't fit me, and I have more folds and wobbly bits than a Ruben's masterpiece?)

Some tech talk: The body mass index (BMI) equals a person's weight in kilograms (kg) divided by their height in metres (m) squared. Since BMI describes body weight relative to height, it is strongly correlated with total body fat content in adults.
What is overweight? (cuddly, big-boned, curvy, voluptuous or fat?)

"Overweight" is defined as a body mass index (BMI) value of 27.3 or more for women and 27.8 or more for men. These definitions of overweight are based on an analysis of BMI relative to the risks of disease and death.

Well then, how is obesity different to "overweight"? (lard-arse, beached whale, etc)
"Obesity" is defined as a BMI of 30 and above.

Oh. Right then. I see...

Last week I knew I was fat, and had been gaining steadily for a year. I didn't know how fat was too fat. So I jumped on a few web sites, and did a few quizzes, measured my BMI. And guess what? I am fat. I am not one of the 37%, certainly not the 2%. I am one of those people in the 25% category. According to the ABS and their handy health surveys, I am obese.

My BMI is 30.1.

oh...my...god