MRI results

My MRI results came back and I'm pretty pissed off.
I have a "Baker's cyst" and moderate arthritis (just in that knee). The cyst can't be operated on because I am too fat. I can't walk because my knee hurts so much. How exactly am I supposed to lose weight?
And of course, it's my fat's fault that I have arthritis and a cyst. Although my other knee is just fine. So I'm only fat on the left? Sounds like a funky movie title: "Fat on the left". What would it be about, I wonder?
I start physical therapy in a week. I can go 90 times. At $40 a pop. I'm hoping to get some kind of routine I can do myself in the pool and/or on my bowflex. It's warm enough now that I can set it up in the garage and use it.
My boss at work is coming up with crazy diets for me. Eating only string cheese and eggs, for instance. Neither of which I would eat. I don't feel like getting into the whole eating disorder-food neophobia thing with her.
ARGH the whole thing just pisses me off. I am so tired of everything being blamed on what I weigh.

on being fat

At my new job, they only know me as a fat hobbling cripple. I don’t like that. I hung up pictures on the wall of me young and thin, but I wonder if they realize it’s even me? It’s funny because I am twice the size of a regular person, if not three times, but I feel like less than a human.

I got lost on the way to work today; not because I’m a moron but because the rain had bogged up traffic on the highway and I decided to take a shortcut, only I took the wrong road. So my 20 mile commute took an hour and I had plenty of time to think.

When I was thin, I ate a lot of food. I would get a medium pizza with extra cheese, extra sauce, double dough and eat it all up by myself. (Why not just get 2 pizzas? I don’t know.) No one ever looked at me funny for eating like that. I worked at a donut shop and ate donuts every day. Not one donut a day. Donuts, plural. Like 3 or 4 or even more. Every day. I wore a size 5.

But I also used to walk to work (couple of miles). Does that burn off all those donuts?

When I was getting my MRI, I brought my mom along, because after I got my last one, I was in such pain I couldn’t walk, much less drive. I was okay this time, and she decided to go pick up my grandma and take us all to dinner. The restaurant we had coupons for is at the bottom of the hill where the MRI trailer was. It would have been logical, once upon a time, for me to say “I’ll walk to the restaurant and get a table while you go get Grandma.” But I wouldn’t have made it half way there. I probably wouldn’t have made it to the bottom of the hill, much less across the (spacious) parking lot.

And that pisses me off.

I am an anomaly in the population at large, in that I don’t dislike exercise and even enjoy it. However, much of the exercise I’d LIKE to do—like walking from the MRI trailer to the restaurant—is beyond me.

When I was thin I didn’t think much of walking anywhere. Going for a five mile stroll with my Walkman on (that’s what we had before I-pods, for you younguns) was something I did for fun. I’d walk 3 or 4 miles to a friend’s house without even calling, just to find her not home, and turn around and walk back home without ever sitting down once.

Gaining weight gets you in so many ways. Your metabolism slows so it’s easier to gain weight. You eat less, gain more. The more you weigh, the harder it is to move around, so you move less, and then you gain more. Until you can’t move at all, and you live in your bed, and they have to take down the wall of your house and take you out on a forklift, and you’re on the news, and everyone laughs at you, and on your dresser, now exposed to the elements, is your high school graduation picture, where you weighed 120 and were absolutely gorgeous, and if anyone even looks, they probably think it’s your sister. Because you were never thin and beautiful, because no one who looked like that would every let themselves get to be so fat they can’t move.

Right?

leg update

I had my MRI on Friday. It was an open MRI. Very interesting, as the machine wasn’t in a facility, but in a large trailer. I assume they move it from place to place, as the “MRI è” signs seemed very…portable? Insubstantial? Then again, when I went to that place for my leg x-ray, the same signs were there in approximately the same places, and the trailer was there too.

It wasn’t an enjoyable experience, but it wasn’t painful like the last MRI I had on that knee, 6 years ago when I fell at work and got the injury that caused my lymph edema. That MRI machine was closed and claustrophobic and made my back hurt.

Although I was nicely on time, I had to wait. Eventually, some 15 minutes after my appointment, a transport ambulance pulled up and they went into the trailer and took an old lady out via the lift. I wonder if she wasn’t done yet or if they simply let her wait inside. If the latter, that’s pretty rude. She could have waited inside the building with her aide (who was waiting in the same waiting room as me) for the transport. As soon as her wheels were on the ground, they came to get me.

I didn’t have to undress, which was nice, only remove my shoes. The metal in my bra, which set off metal detectors at the airport, they deemed insignificant. I had no earrings in. The woman checked off no tattoos without asking me. I corrected it to yes, I do have a few, and I showed her my most recent one which I got on vacation in January (you know, when I hurt my leg this time). Since I got it out of the country, the technician was a little concerned that it would have metallic ink (it’s black). But if it did, it never heated up or anything while I was in the machine, so good enough.

The edema in my calf was so bad she couldn’t fit the clamp around my leg. To give her credit, she didn’t complain or get angry, she just looked at my swollen calf for a moment and then came up with some kind of compromise.

I had a book with me. I laid there on my back with the book over my head and read. However, my feet kept cramping up and I wiggled my toes and I guess it showed up on the machine (oops)—it must be really sensitive. Eventually my legs just went numb, but I still wanted to move them. I just didn’t. I couldn’t get up when I was done because they were numb, but the tech helped me get upright and once I walked a few steps the feeling came back.

On Monday, I got a letter from my insurance company saying that my doctor wanted me to go for an MRI and after consideration they deemed my MRI medically necessary and were allowing it. That was very generous of them considering that I’d already had it!

My pain pills ran out on Friday and I’ve been having odd bouts of very sharp, quick pains which I don’t like at all. I’m going back to my doctor on Wednesday; I guess he’ll have the report by then of what’s going on in my knee and I’ll post more on that.

The Voodoo Cure

Last night I saw a friend of mine I haven’t seen for a couple of years. Although she only lives about 15 minutes away, she went through some hard times and she just couldn’t be available for friends for a while. And then I got caught up in the drama of my father and his dying. Now, finally, we’re both free of drama (for the most part) and able to visit.

She is a Reiki master, knowing and teaching several kinds, and she also does other kinds of healing, plus she’s a nurse. Handy friend to have!

She was horrified to see my gimpiness—most of my in person friends are used to it by now and I don’t talk about it much otherwise, except here on this blog. So of course she had me right on her Reiki table, listening to her talk about the healing light of Christ. (As an aside, new age Christians really annoy me. They don’t go to church or do anything like real Christians. They aren’t real Christians in any sense of the word, except that they like to throw the name of Jesus Christ around, and into every situation, no matter how inappropriate. Even worse, they use his new age name, Sananda—something like that—and worship Sananda and Mother Mary the exact same way that pagans worship the God and Goddess, only they insist it’s completely different, because it’s JESUS.)

I tried to tune out the Jesus stuff. She did the usual hand-waving and praying and invocations over me, etc., as I laid there on my back, feeling stiff and uncomfortable, a small pillow elevating my knees so that my left leg could remain flexed (as it no longer straightens out). She held my knee and did her thing to it. It did feel pleasantly warm, not like hand warmth, and I did “see” all sorts of colors and energy waves so that was cool.

When I sat up, though, my knee still hurt. We were both disappointed. She decided to try something else—tapping.

I told her about the tapping that’s part of the I Can Make You Thin program but she said it was different. (It wasn’t, really, hers was more complex but still had the singing, counting, looking up down and around, etc.) She said there are lots of methods of tapping out there and most don’t work.

Then she led me through this amazing tapping sequence. Fast, quick, no counting taps. She said things and I repeated them. It was definitely a bit like hypnosis. Things like “although my knee hurts, I love and accept myself” “My knee hurts—it feels like it’s broken—I feel frustrated—but I love and accept myself.” I couldn’t tell you how long it went on or how many variations of the above concepts we used. Five minutes? Ten?

At the beginning she had me give her a pain number. I gave her a 6 out of 10. I explained that if I just sit there and don’t move it, there is no pain. If I press on it or palpate it, no pain. Move it even an inch—pain. She said I’ve torn a ligament, most likely. My MRI is Friday so we’ll find out soon.

I was sitting there saying what she told me to say, tapping where she told me to tap, thinking that it was probably BS.

But I got off her table and walked to my car without pain.

I’m still limping, I still can’t straighten my knee, and my gait is totally screwed up from 4 months of walking funny. PT will fix that.

But no pain. How do you like them apples? That’s why I called it a voodoo cure. She’s not a voodoo lady (not with Jesus as her copilot), but sure seemed magical.

I did have some pain when I woke up this morning, but not much and it dissipated quickly. I did take my pills as usual—I only have a couple of days left of them anyway—but I don’t need them.

I know an atheist or a skeptic would say that after 6 weeks the pills are finally working. That may be the case. But why would they start working EXACTLY when she was doing the tapping exercise with me, right after the Reiki?

(You can also use this tapping to lose weight—maybe I’ll profile that next. Link)

"stop the insanity" author has a new book

Susan Powter, the scary hairless chick who wrote the "stop the insanity" book (which had its moments), has come out with a new book: The Politics of Stupid: The Cure for Obesity. It's not available yet--May 6. I'll try to get a copy from the library and see if it's any good.
Apparently she has hair now.
(image source: Amazon)

belly fat creates more fat

Here's a lovely encouraging study. If you have belly fat....and what overweight person doesn't?....that belly fat will generate, will spawn, even more fat, and so on.
(A)bdominal fat tissue produces a hormone called NPY - which also prompts the development of cells that turn into fat.It is already known that high levels of the hormone in the brain produce constant feelings of hunger.
That's just not even fair, a double whammy like that.
(image source =story source; screenprint)

engrish--you must control your weight!

I was just playing around at engrish.com, a site with photos of all sorts of badly translated English and I came across this gem.
Don't ask what it means. Half the stuff on this site is incomprehensible. But obviously it's "romantic" to say this!
(source)

I can make you thin...episode 5/last

Last week's episode was really disappointing. This is the last week--the grand finale, as it were. Let's see who he copies tonight.
The whole repetition of "I can make you thin....through your television" is just so hokey. It makes me want it NOT to work. Does that make any sense?
He says that becoming thin doesn't necessary equal being happy, and this show is about how to be happy at all times.
The guest was a woman who lost 112 lbs, who said Customs didn't want to let her into the U.S. because she didn't match her passport photo because of her weight loss.
He talks about the cycles--be fat, feel bad about being fat, eat, get fat/be fat, etc.
His extra-thin PhD says that people who are unhappy about being fat are obsessed with their weight. You think "I am fat so..." (I can't do this, I must do that) and being fat seems permanent. Think instead "I am not at my ideal weight but I can still..."
Paul McKenna says to try to pinpoint where the voice in your head that says you are fat and unworthy lives--front, back, side, where ever. Mine is right in the center of my skull. He says to imagine that voice that says bad things outside of your head and talking in a stupid goofy voice. Same thing with memories of people who have said negative things to you about your appearance, weight, eating habits, etc. Turn them into muppets or something, I don't know. He's so goofy about it that it's over the top and hard to concentrate.
Now he's getting kind of new age. Imagine taking all your bad feelings and putting them into into a ball in your hand, imagine what color those feelings are, and then smash that ball. Then imagine feeling good, happy and loved, build a happy fun ball of love, and spread that feeling over any of your body you feel unhappy with (or all of it) and you should feel better.
For his next example he has a lawyer with body dysphoria, who weighs herself obsessively and lines her bathroom with mirrors and then hates herself for how she looks. (But she IS overweight so I'm not sure where the dysphoria comes in.) He has her stand before a mirror and beat herself up verbally--saying she has a big ass, thunder thighs, etc. Then she repeats it in a stupid voice. Then she has to say "I accept my thighs, I accept my ass, I accept myself" in a real voice. Then he has her pretend to be Angelina Jolie and feel AJ's confidence, and then open her eyes and look in the mirror.
Here are the instructions:
get comfortable, close your eyes, and think about someone who loves and respects you, standing before you. Float out of yourself and into that person, and look at yourself through that person's eyes, with love and respect. When you feel really good looking at yourself, take that picture and float all the way back into yourself and keep THAT as your self-image.
Make a ball in your right hand. Take all the negative feelings you have about yourself, flow them all into that ball. Then open your eyes and look at the ball. Smash it and wipe your hands. (And, I add from experience with energy work, imagine Mother Earth transmuting that into positive energy so someone else doesn't step in it!)
Make a checklist of the ugly things you say about yourself. Then say them to yourself in a stupid voice until you can't take it seriously.
Now imagine a famous, beautiful person standing before you. Step into that person's body and feel that person's beauty and confidence. Then, feeling that confidence and beauty, go back into your body and say in your real mind voice, "I accept myself, I love myself" still feeling the confidence and beauty.
Remember a time when someone complimented you and you felt really good. Bring yourself back to that memory, using all 5 senses. Then send those feelings back to yourself in the mirror.
You need to do all these things every time you look in a mirror (not the negative ball, only do that if you start to feel negative about yourself again).
And that's all folks.

dirty knife

(image source)
Subway is advertising this $5 foot long promo. The commercials are annoying. But I've been looking for someplace closer to work that I can eat lunch at for around $5. And if I bring my own can of soda ($.33 when bought by the 12 pack on sale), that works just fine.
So I located a Subway--ended up being in sight of the building where I work--and headed there for a $5 foot long meatball sub. Turns out the real price of a 12" meatball is $5.69 so not much of a savings there.
I got it toasted, no cheese. And then I got grossed out. Using the same filthy food encrusted knife as they had obviously been using all day to cut every sandwich, without even WIPING the residue from the last sandwich, they cut mine in half.
I almost gagged looking at that disgusting knife, thinking that it touched my food.
I had to cut the cut edges off my bread and discard that center meatball. There was no way I was eating anything that touched that putrid knife. I'm not sure if that's my food OCD kicking in or if it's justified. Thoughts, anyone?
Other than that, the sandwich was okay. In my OCD way, I ate the meatballs separately with a fork, and then ate part of the bread. (Way too much bread. Can anyone eat that much bread at once?) Obviously part of the "I can make you thin" stuff is sinking in because as I was eating the first half of the bread I realized I was full. I was going to take 1 more bite to finish that half, but I didn't. I threw away the last bite of that half and all of the other half. No guilt.

Diet jokes

Diet Questions Answered

Q: I've heard that cardiovascular exercise can prolong life; is this true? A: Your heart is only good for so many beats, and that's it... don't waste them on exercise. Everything wears out eventually. Speeding up your heart will not make you live longer; that's like saying you can extend the life of your car by driving it faster. Want to live longer? Take a nap.

Q: Should I cut down on meat and eat more fruits and vegetables?
A: You must grasp logistical efficiencies. What does a cow eat? Hay and corn. And what are these? Vegetables. So a steak is nothing more than an efficient mechanism of delivering vegetables to your system. Need grain? Eat chicken. Beef is also a good source of field grass (green leafy vegetable). And a pork chop can give you 100% of your recommended daily allowance of vegetable products.

Q: Should I reduce my alcohol intake?
A: No, not at all. Wine is made from fruit. Brandy is distilled wine; that means they take the water out of the fruity bit so you get even more of the goodness that way. Beer is made out of grain. Bottoms up!

Q: How can I calculate my body/fat ratio?
A: Well, if you have a body and you have fat, your ratio is one to one. If you have two bodies, your ratio is two to one, etc.

Q: What are some of the advantages of participating in a regular exercise program?
A: Can't think of a single one, sorry. My philosophy is: No Pain...Good!

Q: Aren't fried foods bad for you?
A: Foods are fried these days in vegetable oil. In fact, they're permeated in it. How could getting more vegetables be bad for you?

Q: Will sit-ups help prevent me from getting a little soft around the middle?
A: Definitely not! When you exercise a muscle, it gets bigger. You should only be doing sit-ups if you want a bigger stomach.

Q: Is chocolate bad for me?
A: Are you crazy? Cocoa beans--another vegetable! It's the best feel-good food around!

Q: Is swimming good for your figure?
A: If swimming is good for your figure, explain whales to me.
Q: Is getting in shape important for my lifestyle?
A: Hey! 'Round' is a shape!

I hope this has cleared up any misconceptions you may have had about food and diets.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For those of you who watch what you eat, here's the final word on nutrition and health. It's a relief to know the truth after all those conflicting nutritional studies.

1. The Japanese eat very little fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.
2. The Mexicans eat a lot of fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.
3. The Chinese drink very little red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.
4. The Italians drink a lot of red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.
5. The Germans drink a lot of beers and eat lots of sausages and fats and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.
CONCLUSION: Eat and drink what you like. Speaking English is apparently what kills you.

(posted via email)

I can make you thin...episode 4

This episode is about "supercharging your metabolism" and getting you to exercise and burn fat faster.
I just paid attention to the disclaimer at the beginning and end of the show...entertainment purposes only. CYA, all the way.
Supposedly he is going to teach a fat burner technique that doesn't require joining a gym or pumping iron (his words).
He starts out by explaining that metabolism slows when you starve yourself; you lose weight, but if you start eating again, you gain it back faster.
[As an aside, he was interviewing someone about their craving and she said "chai tea" which makes me insane. Chai MEANS tea in Chinese. "Chai tea" is redundant. ]
When you shift your metabolism into high gear, you will know because you'll have more energy and you'll be eating the same amount of food or even more and still losing weight.
Another woman he talks about being massively overweight weighed a whole 230 lbs at her heaviest. (If I woke up tomorrow and weighed 230 I'd probably buy a bikini.) She lost 85 lbs and and now runs marathons. Of course, running a marathon isn't the same thing as joining a gym or pumping iron!
Exercise is the best way to speed up metabolism. "Exercise is any movement of the body." He includes teeth brushing in this. To "supercharge" the metabolism you just need to move more every day.
He says a naturally minute person walks 6,000 steps a day and a fat person walks 4,000 steps, and that's only 15 minutes of walking, and you can add that 1-2 minutes at a time. He disputes the old "no pain no gain" mantra as well.
He says that overweight people have a negative association with exercise and therefore don't do it. I'm not like that. I go 2-3x a week to the pool for an average of 50 minutes each time, and although I am tired afterward, it's a good kind of tired that puts me to sleep at night.
Here's the technique:
Think about something you feel really happy or passionate about, something that brought you great joy. Bring yourself to that spot and squeeze right thumb and right middle finger together while thinking this. Then think about a time you felt motivated or compelled to do something and keep squeezing. While squeezing, think about walking a little more each day, everything you do each day with more passion and more energy and more joy. Safe, appropriate exercise--moving a little more. And tell your body to crank up its metabolism and to feel this way every day when you wake up.
Homework: find 3 places every day you can move more.
This week's experiment: he gave 2 groups of people cheeseburgers. One group thought they were getting quarter-pound single patty burgers, and they finished the burgers and said they felt as full as usual. The second group got half pound double patty burgers and most couldn't finish--but they were actually the same size as the quarter pound burgers, but with the patties half the size. Those people, he says, paid attention to how full they were, not how big their burger was.
This was the lamest episode of all. The squeezing finger technique is the same one he used last week with the negative association, and he really doesn't explain how to "feel motivated". If I knew how to feel motivated I wouldn't have to watch his show to lose weight.

healthy water a myth?

"There is no clear-cut scientific rationale for the average healthy individual to drink eight glasses of water or more a day — and it may be downright harmful for some"--does this mean the cult of water will end?
I have tried to join it. I have carried bottles of water. I have sipped all day. I just don't really like to drink water (or anything) when I am not thirsty. And, frankly, water doesn't taste very good. Some water has no taste--that's the best stuff. It is the coolness and wetness that are good.
So here are the debunked water myths:

• drinking a lot of water suppresses appetite
• water flushes toxins from the body
• it reduces headaches
• water drinking improves your skin

image source. screenprint

horrible food

I decided, after a few weeks at the new job, that I should suck it up and try eating at McDonald's, which is almost next door, rather than drive across town to Burger King, since I've only got half an hour. Even though Burger King has mozzarella sticks again.
Yesterday I tried to go to McD's and there was a bus load of screaming girls, maybe 7-8 years old (whatever age they are at their shrillest). I left and went to Wendy's, which is farther away, but much closer than BK.
Today I tried McD's again. Okay, my meal was only $3.17 because their double cheeseburgers are $1 (not that I eat double cheeseburgers--double hamburger, plain, with half the bun is my style). It took what seemed to be a long amount of time to get my food, maybe because the person in front of me had two children who were running around, screaming and literally bouncing off the walls and counter.
The burger was smooshed and small and flat and utterly unappetizing-looking. No sesame seeds on the bun like BK. The ketchup was watery. The fries weren't very warm or very fresh and if I hadn't been sitting in a McDonald's I wouldn't have believed they were McD fries, they were that awful. The burger tasted not even as good as it looked, no matter how much ketchup I put on it.
Dreadful. Just dreadful. I won't be making the mistake of going there again. I'll come in early to get extra time to drive the 4 miles each way to BK.
Image source

I can make you thin...episode 3

Obviously since I just watched #2 a 2 days ago, I haven't done much with it. But here is episode 3 of "I can make you thin" by Paul McKenna.
He talks about binge eating...if you can't eat "just one" of anything without going out of control, then the food is in charge and not you.
He interviews a woman who lost 60 lbs in 6 months and she talks about how his method made so much sense, which is exactly how I felt after reading Thin Within so long ago...if anything works, this should, because it is so logical and makes so much sense. I'm not crazy about his "reprogramming" techniques of show 2; let's see what he offers to keep you from bingeing and having cravings.
Willpower is useless, Paul McKenna says, and cravings can't be overcome by will because our imagination is more powerful. So he says instead of wanting chocolate cake melting into your mouth, imagine it covered with worms. (Seems juvenile, like imagining your audience naked if you're a nervous speaker.)
Starving yourself will make you binge, he assures his audience, reminding them that you should eat when hungry, not starve yourself.
He shows a woman who ate 6 lbs a chocolate PER DAY--she "had" to have one every 15 minutes. I love chocolate and I can eat lots of it, but not a five pound bag per day, plus.
Paul McKenna has the woman imagine the food she most hates...anchovies...sprinkled with hair and garbage...and then imagine eating it while squeezing thumb and middle finger of the left hand together, and then to imagine chocolate mixed with it.
I'm grossed out. I hate fish. Hate, hate hate fish. It is repulsive and disgusting and it stinks and although there are foods I dislike that I can imagine others can enjoy and should be allowed to enjoy (but not me) I think that no one should eat fish, especially near me.
The chocoholic lost 20 lbs in 3 weeks by giving up chocolate using the fish technique.
Videos of cake covered with worms up the gross-out factor.
Repulsion knocks out compulsion.
So I imagine a plate of tuna slathered with mayo because nothing grosses me out more. There is no way I can imagine eating it like he suggests, I don't want to know what it tastes like, much less add the contents of a spittoon and barber shop sweepings. Since I am already gagging at this point, when I throw in chocolate, I don't feel at all hungry for it (even though there is some nearby.) While doing this gross-out imagining, you press your LEFT thumb to your LEFT middle finger. Do this until you're really grossed out and repulsed.
Now remember a really great time, felt really happy, felt in love, etc. , while you squeeze your RIGHT thumb to RIGHT middle finger. Now know that you can bring those feelings where ever you need to, wherever you used to eat your craving food.
You can use the technique to bring happiness into any situation, not just food.
If you want the craving food, or any food, you can program it being disgusting with tuna fish or whatever with your left hand and then use the right hand technique to feel good.
The show ends with another rip-off experiment from Mindless Eating--the bottomless bowl of soup--which Paul McKenna uses to explain that we have to use stomach cues (feelings of fullness) instead of eye cues (is the plate empty) to eat less.

I can make you thin...episode 2

Well, I have to admit that I haven't been doing much of the 4 rules from part 1. I started my new job (yay) the next day. I have half an hour only for lunch and no where close (have to drive a couple of miles each way) and I can't pick the time I go either. So I can't eat only when I'm hungry or take a long time. I have been leaving food on my plate; that's about it.
This episode is supposed to be about tapping. I have a couple of books on tapping techniques, where you tap certain points on your face or hands or arms, a certain number of times in a certain pattern, to stop cravings. Personally I could never remember them all and it seems to me just to be a form of distraction. Tapping my face distracts me from eating; doesn't teach me not to eat.
This episode is about emotional eating. Emotional hunger is fast and out of nowhere; real hunger is a slow build-up. Food is treated like a drug, not like nourishment. The vicious cycle--feel bad, eat, then feel bad because you ate, and eat again.
Paul McKenna wastes a lot of time reviewing the 4 steps from last week and getting audience reactions to what they've been doing for the last week. "I split my usual meal into 3 meals" "I love carrots!"
He does stress that models are unnaturally thin and their photos are airbrushed/photoshopped and even they don't look like that, and not to use any of those pictures/people as your goal.
He shows a case study of an overweight man (386 lbs) who enduring people screaming at him out of car windows "walk, fattie, walk!" when he went out to exercise. His wife lost 40 lbs in 13 months watching him follow the program. He lost 185 lbs, and it seems to have taken only about a year, which simply doesn't seem realistic. He says he "walked 10-15 minutes a couple of times a week" as his exercise. He had his size 62 pants (62 inches) and they'd fit at least 2 of him now.
(During the first commercial break, I signed up for his newsletter. I'll report on how it is, or if it's just a big commercial.)
He says people respond to all sorts of physical distress as if they are hunger, and therefore we eat.
Question to ask: "Am I really hungry or do I just want to change the way I feel right now?"
This is pretty horrible, he's showing this poor guy crying because he weighs the same as the guy who lost 185 lbs did in his before pictures, and I'm thinking, is he really going to help this guy or just exploit him by showing him crying on TV?
Another case study, of an emotional eating. He says food is a symptom of the problem, not the problem itself.
The tapping technique seems much too complicated, like the ones in the book I referenced above.
It just seems like a derailment, a distraction. Like if you can hold off eating long enough the craving will leave, and the tapping distracts you for that length of time. They are acupressure points (which are the same as acupuncture points).
Dr Roger Callahan is the name of the inventor (discoverer?) of the tapping technique Paul McKenna uses. (In other words, episode 1 stole from Thin Within, and this one from Dr Callahan. Nothing orginal.)
Tapping technique:
Scale of 1-10, how strong is your emotion?
Here's the technique. Tap 5-10 times in each spot, except when you are tapping back of hand while looking, humming, and counting.

• tap under either eye
• tap either collarbone
• tap under either eye again
• tap outside of hand (beneath pinky)
• tape back of hand (keep tapping during next few steps)
• close eyes
  
• open eyes
• Look down right
• look down left
• roll eyes 360 degrees (look in a circle)
• roll eyes 360 degrees in other direction
• hum a tune
• count out loud 1-5
  
• hum a tune
  
• tap under eye
• tap collarbone
  
• tap under eye
• take another reading

I find it interesting that he stresses "this is not just a distraction" but for me, that's what it feels like. I thought about chocolate, did the technique several times, and still wanted some. It's supposed to de-stress you, get rid of any overwhelming negative emotions (like fear, anger, etc.). I could say my skin is too thick with fat for this to work, but I don't think that's so.
Paul McKenna talks about replicating an experiment that was done in the book "Mindless Eating) (without giving credit, of course). I blogged about it a few months ago, giving it a favorable review....anyway, it proves that during a movie people will eat lots of really bad popcorn because they are distracted.
And that's it.
Follow the 4 rules, tap yourself.
Go for it.

size 16 Miss England 2008?

Chloe Marshall, a size-16 girl from Surrey, England, is vying for the Miss England 2008 crown, probably with the usual bunch of anorexics.
She has already been signed on to ModelPlus agency.
We can root for her, but will she win?
(screenprint; photo source=article source)

obese woman crushes toddler

This is sad and at the same time engenders a huge WTF?
A 2-year-old boy who died with a fractured skull may have been accidentally crushed by a morbidly obese relative....The child was believed to have been dropped off by his mother to spend the day with the bedridden relative....Investigators believe the woman fell on the child.
Who leaves a 2 year old with someone who is bedridden? That's just inappropriate. Whether the person is bedridden from obesity or any other illness, a person confined to bed CANNOT take care of a 2 year old.
And why do authorities have to speculate on what happened? Can the woman who fell on the child not speak up and say what happened? And if she can't, then there is double the reason why she shouldn't have been left in charge of a small child.
Know who I feel bad for? The woman who crushed the kid, who was put into a position she shouldn't have been in. The kid's mother was wrong to leave the child basically unsupervised. Because everyone who has ever been near a 2 year old knows one is not going to sit quietly and behave just because someone told her to behave.
All of the comments I've been seeing online focus on the woman's obesity, of course, her being a big fat monster, etc. I feel like there is much more to this story. There aren't any names so finding a follow-up will be difficult. If anyone sees anything, let me know through a comment on this post.
(screenprint)

800 lb man goes on a date

Manual Uribe, who I have blogged about before, attempted last week to take his honey out on a date.
I am not saying that the guy should stay fat, or stay home, o r not have a girlfriend. But it seems like he is a media whore. Everything he does has to have a camera on it.
He and his bed were lifted by forklift onto a flatbed truck. (Where does this guy get money for all this? Or is this more stuff he gets for free, like the many offers of free surgery and the free consultations from the diet he's on?) In front of cameras, of course...."documented by about two dozen photographers and reporters from around the world." I'm sure TLC was there, as they've already had him on at least 2 shows that I know of.
That's not a date. I don't say, "Honey, let's celebrate. Call the press!"
So the truck hit an overpass and they had to cancel the outing.
Really, the only news here is related to him being freakishly fat. Outings get canceled all the time. Bad things happen to overweight people. It doesn't all need the media drooling over it.
(photo source=article source; screenprint)

new job

I have a new job. Already. Amazing, isn't it? I've gone from working 25 hours a week to 40 and my hourly salary nearly doubled. I haven't had a full time job in 5 years and it's been a big shock to my system. I go to the gym straight from work, then have something to eat and by the time I get home it's often 7 or 8 p.m. And I'm tired, because I'm getting up at 6:30 to get there by 8 and it's a 25 mile drive.
Also, at this job I haven't got Photoshop, so I can't make any screenprints of articles, so I won't be posting much from there (unless it's just personal stuff, like this, which I am posting from home). I'm not really busy there yet, but I've only worked a week. I see how busy some of the other people are doing similar jobs and I know I'll catch up. I'm still being trained.
I've been on Celebrex and Nexium for 2 weeks now. I went to see the doctor and that's what he gave me. He was concerned that the Advil I was taking made me nauseous so that's why I have the Nexium, so the Celebrex doesn't make me sick.
My knee doesn't hurt all the time anymore. It hurts maybe 15-20% of the time (when I get up in the morning and whenever I first stand up from sitting for a while). The worse thing is that I can no longer straighten that leg. It stays partially bent. So I limp horribly, like that leg is shorter. And my calf and quad on that side are in a constant clench from holding the leg bent so they feel kind of crampy all the time.
I have to call my doctor back this week. He's probably going to send me for an MRI and then physical therapy (that was his plan 2 weeks ago, anyway) since the Celebrex didn't fully heal whatever's going on in there. Although I am leery that it did anything at all. I take it every day. Is it just masking the pain or did it really get rid of some of the inflammation?
Also, I blogged a long time ago about my really annoying mole-with-hair on my chin. About 6 months ago the hair was back. I couldn't find tweezers to pluck it so I tried with my nails to grab it and all I did was rip the skin. The mole itself is gone now, buried in scar tissue, but the damn black hair keeps sprouting through it. The scar has turned into a non-healing granuloma (something like that) and now I have to have it cut off. I'm happy! It will get rid of that damn hair too. In a week or so I go for a consult for that. I scheduled it when I didn't have a job. I have never in my life found a new job within 10 days of losing the old and honestly didn't believe I'd get one for a few months.
I'm a little worried about the people at my new job thinking I'm unhealthy, what with the limping and now the MRI and PT and facial surgery. Ugh. But they hired me anyway. And I know that the limp and inability to straighten the leg can be fixed with PT.
Tonight is the next "I can make you thin" show but it's competing with the new Futurama "Bender's Big Score" AND the new Walking with Dinosaurs. So I am not going to blog the "make you thin" show until Friday night at 11:00.

I can make you thin...episode 1

This episode of "I can make you thin" is called "the secrets of naturally thin people"
I'm watching it and taking notes live.
I'm not crazy about the glitzy audience/stage presentation style of the show. I don't usually watch shows in that type of format. In fact, the show starts out by saying "this is not an infomercial" but of course it IS, he's got several books and I'm sure sales of the books will go through the roof based on this show. I'm ready to buy it just because I don't want to watch for FIVE hours when I could probably read the book in 90 minutes or so...commercial free.
He offers 4 golden rules and some homework.
1. When you're hungry, eat.
Based on your metabolism slowing if you starve yourself. He says eat only for physical hunger, which comes on slowly, versus emotional hunger which comes up quickly. He uses a similar 10 point scale of hunger as the old Thin Within book --now rewritten as a Christian weight loss book unfortunately--saying don't be faint with hunger and do not eat until you're stuffed.
There's a lot of background information which we all know, about metabolism and dieting and starvation.
Of course he starts out by saying it's not your fault because diets make you fat, and then segues into saying that people who are overweight are in denial saying they have big bones and slow metabolisms but that's a lie, they just eat too much.
2. Eat what you WANT and not what you think you SHOULD.
Again, very like the Thin Within book. Eat whatever you want, but don't eat them to excess. And that eating diet food you don't like makes you binge on those who love. He says throw out whatever food that you don't really LOVE.
Assignment one: throw away all foods in your house that don't "inspire" you. Then make a list of 5 foods that you truly love, and then go stock your kitchen with them.
3. Eat consciously
This program is seeming more and more like a rip-off of Thin Within. Makes me wonder where my copy of that book is! Eat slowly, not putting down the knife and fork, not tasting or paying attention to the food. And when you eat consciously, no distractions, you will feel the full signal more easily.
This is the one I have the most trouble with. I ALWAYS read or do something when I eat because I am a multi-tasker...witness me watching TV and blogging about it!
He says that when you eat consciously, foods like fast food, etc, will suddenly taste bad and you'll no longer want them. It's a backdoor to a diet, IMHO. Don't say "fast food is bad" but say "you won't want it anymore!" which is still a way to say "fast food is bad" or whatever the "bad" food of the day is.
No distractions...music, tv, reading, etc....put down knife/fork/sandwich between bites...chew 20 times.
4. When you think you're full, stop eating
Slowing down makes it easier for you to tell you're full.
He shows an experiment with how much less people eat if they eat blindfolded, because they lose the visual cue of how empty the plate is. Leave food on your plate.
He has several examples of people he's worked with; a blond woman who isn't really overweight, and a couple about to get married. The husband-to-be said he wanted to lose 200 lbs and be under 300. He eats more for breakfast than I do in a day, I think--5 egg omelet, 3 donuts, french toast, etc.
I believe part of the homework is to eat 1 meal a day blindfolded or with closed eyes.
More homework is to drink more water (especially if you aren't sure if you're hungry) and not to weigh yourself every day--he says every couple of weeks.


For the schedule of all episodes, visit the TLC site; you can also visit the shows site at tlc.com/thin )

Lose weight the royal way?

Evidently weight fixers aren't a new fad. 17th century monarch King Charles II fed his royal mistresses herbs to keep them slim. Now these herbs are being investigated to see if they really work:
Heath pea, which is also known as bitter vetch, was used in medieval times as a hunger suppressant when the crops failed.
It was also passed around the court of King Charles, who gave it to his lovers who had a propensity for plumpness.
Dr Brian Moffat, an expert on medieval remedies, said the idea to promote heath pea as a slimming aid had been developed after he came across the remedy during the dig at the Soutra site.
Dr Moffat, who is director of the dig, said it appeared the monks cut up the tubers of the plant to make a potion.
He said the tubers - which have a "leathery liquorice" taste - had the effect of making people forget to eat. ""If you ate one of these pea sized tubers you are meant to 'not eat, not want to eat and not miss eating for weeks and even in to months'.
They were actually used as a measure to ward off hunger once crops had failed in the fields. "
That's pretty impressive. Giving the masses some sort of herbal dope to make them not be hungry as they starved to death.
Heath Pea (Lathyrus linifolius) is normally found in poor grazing and heath land. It sometimes grows alone, but it can also grow in clumps on banks and verges of roads and tracks.The plants take two or three years to mature but require very little looking after.
I wonder if it grows, or can grow, in the U.S.? And how one prepares the "tubers" (whatever they are) for eating? I have some herbalist friends, time to pick their brains.
(screenprint; image source)

is obesity an epidemic? is it even bad for you?

This article says being fat isn't a bad thing.
According to some experts whose views are public health heresy, the jury is still out on how dangerous it is to be fat. ... Dr. Vincent Marks, emeritus professor of clinical biochemistry at the University of Surrey, is among a minority of skeptics who doubt the severity of the obesity problem. They claim that the data about the dangers of obesity are mixed and there is little proof that being fat causes problems including high blood pressure, heart disease and cancer. ...
In addition to questioning the dangers of being fat, researchers like Marks also criticize oft-repeated alarmist projections about the rise in obesity -like the British government's warning that nearly half of Britain will be obese by 2050. ...
With millions of dollars for obesity researchers, an industry of anti-fat drugs, and a boom in the number of doctors offering surgeries like stomach-stapling, the more fat people there are, the more profits there will be in selling them solutions. ...
"There's not a lot of money in trying to debunk obesity, but a huge amount in making sure it stays a big problem," said Patrick Basham, a professor of health care policy at Johns Hopkins University.
It's the same thing with cancer. Drug companies, doctors and hospitals make tons of money treating cancer. And yes, they are better at it--I know half a dozen people who are cancer survivors--but there is no outright "cure" (meaning, to me, that EVERYONE gets better, not just some, and not just for a few years). An obesity "cure" would mean that all the money spent on spurious weight-loss aids would be lost. I wonder what it would get spent on? Who would benefit from an always-skinny population?
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do not want, part 2

My life is really shitty right now.
Last week, with no warning, I lost my job. Not because of anything I did or didn't do--the company went out of business. Basically I asked my boss about some upcoming work that I needed to get from him, and he said "I'll let you know, I've got to go out for a while." He came back, went into his office for few minutes, came out and said the company is out of money and closing. I said "Effective when?" and he said "Now." So I packed up my stuff and left.
The whole knee thing gets worse and worse. I AM going to call the doctor today. The pain is immense most of the time. I am having trouble getting in and out of vehicles, getting up off couches, walking up and down stairs, etc. Honestly, I am going to ask for a handicapped parking placard. It's all I can do to stumble around the grocery store clutching my shopping cart for dear life without having to also park in Russia. It's so humiliating to have to do that. I know everyone who sees me will think I'm a lazy fat ass. And of course the assumption is that my knee hurts because I'm a big fat ass. I am not discounting my weight having a major impact on how much my knee hurts, but I hurt it by overuse, falling, and abuse (that last plane ride).
This image is from BigKneePain.com and I searched for such an image to figure out where the pain is coming from. It's in the center, under the kneecaps, which means the cruciate ligaments or the articular cartilage. The repair for cruciate ligaments is surgery if you're "very active in sports" (haha) or "deal with it". There doesn't appear to be a treatment for articular cartilage damage except for RICE therapy and physical therapy.
It could also be the miniscus, although it doesn't feel like it goes all the way across the knee. That, again, is mostly take aspirin and deal with it rather than surgery. I'll probably need an MRI. I know they have an "open" MRI machine (in my head, I call it the "elephant MRI") and I will go to that one, because last time I had an MRI on that leg it was in a traditional machine. I didn't quite fit and it was agonizing. I couldn't breathe because the machine compressed my chest/breasts so much and I was in there for an hour. I hurt my back so bad I had to get physical therapy for that as well as for my injured leg. And all was for nothing because over my protests they imaged the wrong area of my leg.
On top of that, I have a nasty granuloma scar on my jaw that used to be a hairy mole. I yanked the hair out so forcefully it made a scab. That healed into a bumpy rounded scar (through which the goddamn hair keeps growing!). The scar gets infected, I stick a needle in it to drain the pus and the granuloma grows. It looks awful. So I figure while I'm out of work anyway I might as well get surgery on that. I have a tendency to get these granuloma scars (I think it's my Mediterranean heritage) and they don't ever heal properly so they have to be cut off. This will be the 3d one I have cut off my face. I've had one done on the back of my neck and another huge one on my arm--that was the first one, about 20 years ago. Because it wasn't my face, it wasn't done with any delicacy--it was burnt, and smelled/looked like a pepperoni--actually a now-famous dermatologist did it. Now it's just a round shiny burn scar. The facial and neck ones were done by a plastic surgeon with a little more finesse.
And throw into the mix that I've had wicked insomnia since my dad died. Probably even before, but it's been worse since he died. I sometimes lie in bed, awake, until the sun goes up. I bought the Tylenol Simply Sleep (it's Tylenol PM without the pain killer) and even that doesn't always work. Having a really painful knee doesn't help. Cats jump on it, I roll over onto it, my husband hits it with his knee and if I'm asleep, I'm jolted awake and stay that way.
...
Some good news. My husband is working from home today and he just go t a call. He got a raise and a bonus. Together they equal my (pitiful) yearly salary from my now lost job. So I don't have to worry about creditors or losing the house. Any money I make in a new job is now bonus and can go toward debt management. That's a big load off my mind. Seriously. And we should get some money back from taxes too, plus the tax bonus in May, and my mom gave me some money to fix my car a few weeks ago, more than I needed, so we'll be okay. Not good, not until I get another job, but okay. Maybe we can even go out to eat once in a while again.

Does this mean they spit in the food?

A group of diners in England received a bill which included, at no charge, the item "SUCK MY D--- F--- FACE" after complaining about the service.
What is really scary about this is, #1, that is obviously an item programmed into their computer, and #2, this was the apology given:
Joe Delucci's owner Mr Langsdon said the message had been meant to be seen only by kitchen staff and he did not know how it ended up as an item on the receipt.
He said: "That shouldn't come out on the bill, so we've got to find out what's gone wrong there."
WTF!? Does anyone but me think that is absolutely INSANE? WHY would the restaurant even have an item that read (face it) suck my dick fuck face? And just for the kitchen? That clearly means, to me, that they will do something awful to your food.
And notice he did not apologize for having the notation, only for allowing the patrons to SEE it. Nor did he explain why exactly the kitchen staff needs to have that notation on a customer's order.
Anyone work in a restaurant? Is this common practice?
(Screenprint; image source=article source)

Kirstie Alley dumps Jenny Craig

Apparently Kirstie Alley and Jenny Craig have broken up, and Alley is going to form her own weight loss company.
Alley, 57, told People that while her experience with Jenny Craig was "extraordinary," she wants "to create something new that will help millions of people end the seemingly never ending fatty-roller coaster ride."
Alley said she intends to develop her own weight-loss brand with plans to launch in 2009.
I wish her luck; maybe her "something new" will help people. But considering all the weight loss pills (OTC & FDA), devices, diet plans, books, etc., out there, and that obesity is at an all-time high, it's doubtful.
(Screenprint; image source=article source. If you view the screenprint, notice the Dunkin Donuts ad placement. Amazing.)