What are they teaching these kids in Sunday school?

Yesterday I got an email message from a former student telling me that I am “fugly” and I need to get on a treadmill and have plastic surgery.

Sure, I’m hurt by this message, but not on a personal level as much as on an intellectual one.

For instance, it doesn’t really hurt my feelings that the student called me fugly or implied I’m overweight. Since I don’t think he really believes I need plastic surgery, his attack is rather toothless. In that sense, it's kind of obvious to me that he was just trying to wound me.

But what really hurts me is that he doesn’t respect me. Because if he did, he wouldn’t be trying to wound me at all.

Like most of the teachers and college professors I know, I work my butt off trying to help students learn the material and become better writers. I give it everything I have, and when school is in session I basically live and breathe my job. Though I don’t have “summers off” in the sense that I still have to work on my writing, I honestly don’t know how I would survive if I didn’t have these three months away from the classroom to recharge.

So when a former student sends me a hateful message—and it happens almost every semester, though it’s usually not this personal—it bothers me because it tells me that the student doesn’t think I work hard or care about my job. Because if the student believed that, he wouldn’t intentionally try to hurt my feelings.

To be honest, it’s hard to imagine any student—this one included—not knowing how hard I work after spending a semester in my classroom, and that’s what really burns me about this message. This kid knows I bust my butt for my students, and despite this, he’s basically saying, “I don’t care how hard you work or how much you care about your students because I still hate you. “ He’s pissing all over my attempts to be a good teacher.

It also bothers me because it’s the kind of comment that’s designed to attack me where I’m most vulnerable, which seems especially cruel. Most of my students learn over the course of the semester that I have a blog about body acceptance, so it’s clear this student thought he could undermine my self-confidence by attacking my physical appearance. It’s a cheap shot, but one he apparently thought would work.

Finally his comments bother me because they imply—especially the “get on the treadmill” comment—that I don’t exercise just because I’m not thin.

Twice every week on this blog I try to send the message that curvy does not mean unhealthy and a curvy person is not necessarily a person who doesn’t work out, but I’m clearly not getting the message across.

Not only do I work out, I work out religiously. I walk every morning—lately for eighty minutes, during which time I alternate between walking and running—and I usually exercise almost every afternoon and evening as well, which is my attempt to follow my own advice that we should all “play and play often.” So when this student told me to get on the treadmill, it actually hurt me more to think he assumes I don’t work out than it does for me to realize that he thinks I’m overweight.

So let me be clear—just because I’m lumpy or imperfect does not mean I am sedentary or lazy. It just means I’m no longer young, and I have a little wear and tear on my body. Of course, when you’re twenty-two, you have no idea that you can do everything in your power to be thin and still fail.

Though all of these issues are a problem, the biggest problem is why anyone—student or otherwise—feels comfortable saying these kinds of hurtful things to anyone else. Whatever happened to the golden rule?

I am not a religious person in the sense that I don’t read a Bible or go to church unless you count communing with nature every morning, but at times like these I find myself thinking of Leviticus 19:18—“You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against your kinsfolk. Love your neighbor as yourself”—or Matthew 5:39—“But I say to you, do not resist an evil person; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also.”

Which makes me wonder, what makes a human being want to harm another person this way? What kind of issues must one have to be so hateful?

I don’t have the answer to that question, but I do hope that each of us—myself included—will think twice the next time we are tempted to lash out at another.

If need be, think of the Torah, the Bhagavad-Gita, the Quran, the Bible, the Tao Teh Ching. Think of Socrates, Buddha, Jesus, Matthew, Luke, and Confucius. And treat others as you wish to be treated.

Woe is me

I hate to admit it, but I’m feeling a little angry these days.

I’ve been sick for ten—yes, ten—days now. Not only does that mean I feel like crap all the time and am behind on everything in my life, it also means that I haven’t been working out. And haven’t been cooking.

Sure, Dave cooks too, but it’s a much bigger job if only one person is in the kitchen, so we’ve been cutting corners—eating more frozen and prepared foods, which I know is awful for both of us.

And even after I recover, things won't be that much better for me. After all, what do I have to face? A body that has barely moved for a week and a half? Great! That means it’s going to hurt like hell when I get back out on the walking trail, and I really don’t want to face that nightmare.

On top of that, I find myself feeling a bit of resentment about my exercise history because of what I see happening to others. Over the past year or so, a number of people I know have caught the fitness bug. And when say they’ve caught the fitness but, I don’t mean they’ve come back to it. I mean, I know a handful of people right now who have just started working out FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME in their lives.

Sure, that’s a good thing, right?

It should give me reason to celebrate—More people are healthy! Hurray!

Well, you'll have to excuse me if I'm not jumping for joy.

Yes, I should feel happy about these converts, but for selfish reasons I don’t, and here’s why—all these people who have just started working out are seeing results MUCH faster than me.

If you’ve been sitting on your butt for thirty-five years and suddenly hit the gym, your body is going to notice and notice big.

But except for the six months after I got married, I’ve been working out my ENTIRE life, which is why I think I’m entitled to feel a little jealous when the newbies start dropping pounds faster than the stock market crashed in 2006.

I’m also jealous of the fact that the newbies have no injuries to hold them back. Since they’ve spent their whole lives couch surfing, they haven’t had any opportunities to get injured. And their bodies have been cushioned for so long that they don’t have as much wear and tear as mine.

The result is that the newbies can still do the kind of intense exercise—like running—that really burns the calories, things I had to give up years ago because of the knee I blew out skiing, the shoulder I wasted hitting backhands, and the elbow I destroyed returning 90-mph serves.

So, yeah, I’m jealous. I’m even a little pissed. And I think I have the right to be.

But if you think that means I’m giving up, you’re wrong.

And as soon as I stop hacking up lungs and my nose stops running, I'm going to prove it.

How to sell papers: appeal to our vanity

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The Guardian is the latest media outlet to publish an anti-exercise article. (Time magazine did so last fall as well.) The Guardian article is called, “Why Exercise Won’t Make You Thin” (pictured above) and is sending the absolute wrong message—which is that we should not exercise but instead just diet.

Dieting is one of the most unhealthy things you can do for your body. It slows your metabolism and often deprives you of necessary nutrients and energy.

The bottom line is that it's more important to be healthy than to be thin. And being healthy is the result of EXERCISING, not dieting. Oddly, The Guardian article openly admits this fact. As Terry Wilkin, professor of endocrinology and metabolism at the Peninsula Medical School in Plymouth, explains in The Guardian article, "That's not to say that exercise is not making [us] healthy in other ways . . . just that it's having no palpable effect on their overall size and shape."

So Wilkin wants us to focus on our overall size and shape” rather than our health? What???

This guy ought to have his medical license stripped. After all the first part of the Hippocratic oath states, “First, do no harm.” And by focusing on “size and shape” rather than health, he’s doing us a world of harm.

Those of us who have brains know that health is obviously much more important than size or shape, but unfortunately this article is taking advantage of the fact that most people are obsessed with looking good in a bathing suit—whether that's possible or not.

It's also not true that long-term interval exercise won't help you lose weight, and if you read closely, you will notice how this article distorts evidence to match their ridiculous headline. Experts at The Mayo Clinic explain that "an exercise regimen… is unlikely to result in short-term weight loss beyond what is achieved with dietary change."

Did you notice what I noticed?

They said, SHORT-TERM WEIGHT LOSS. In fact, this article says nothing about long-term weight loss. And anyone who knows anything about nutrition or health knows that "short-term" weight loss is not desirable.

It’s also interesting that the people at the Mayo Clinic NEVER ONCE advocate giving up exercising, though this quote is used in support of that argument.

As has been proven time and again, over ninety percent of the people who go on diets gain the weight back, and that losing/gaining yo-yo is incredibly unhealthy. On the other hand, regular exercise is the best thing you can do for your body.

In addition, these studies focus on people who exercise once a day, but for years research has shown that we must exercise more than once a day to lose weight (not to be healthy—to be healthy you need only workout once a day—but to lose weight).

The Guardian wants to sell papers and increase readership for advertising purposes, and unfortunately, they are trying to do that by appealing to their readers' desire to be thin at any cost, ultimately, their vanity. The message they are sending is completely irresponsible and, honestly, disgusts me.

Obesity is a real problem in our society, and it keeps getting worse. Even the article admits that "Each successive postwar generation [has enjoyed] an increasingly sedentary lifestyle, and those lifestyles have been accompanied by an apparently inexorable increase in obesity. Three in five UK adults are now officially overweight. And type II diabetes, which used to be a disease that affected you at the end of your life, is now the fastest-rising chronic disorder in paediatric clinics."

If we’ve become more sedentary and we're also become more overweight, it's simply illogical to think the two are not related in some way. Of course, they are.

The authors of this article may believe these limited studies prove otherwise, but as I've already said, these studies FOCUS ONLY on the short-term and don't look at interval exercise or, more importantly, consider the HEALTH BENEFITS of exercise. No, they are only concerned with weight loss, which does not necessarily correlate with health.

Yes, we must do something about obesity, and as the numbers prove, dieting does not work in the long run, which is why the message of this article is grossly irresponsible.

Oddly, if you read to the end of the article, you'll see that most researchers think the claim that we don't need to exercise is complete bunk. Interesting that they buried those researchers at the end the article, isn't it? It's because The Guardian‘s real goal is to GET READERS. They clearly have no interest in helping people be healthier.

This is obvious when you look at all of the much more helpful info that was buried in the few paragraphs before the wildly irresponsible conclusion of this article:

• Dr Ken Fox, professor of exercise and health science at Bristol University and advisor to the [British] government's obesity strategy, claims, "It's far too early to start discounting things as important as physical activity. Those who are saying it has no impact are neglecting a huge amount of the literature."

• Professor Paul Gately of the Carnegie Weight Management institution in Leeds explains, for "people who have lost weight and kept weight off, physical activity is almost always involved. And those people who just do diet are more likely to fail, as are those who just do exercise." Notice that he mentions keeping weight off . . . IN THE LONG RUN, which is exactly what this article fails to address.

• "'What we want to avoid is people thinking they can control their weight simply by dieting,' adds Dr Susan Jebb, head of nutrition and health research at the Medical Research Council, who points out that this is the very scenario that encourages anorexia in teenage girls. 'Just restricting your diet is not going to be the healthiest way to live.' . . . scientific studies show that exercise is an important factor in maintaining weight loss and, Jebb adds, some studies suggest it can help in preventing weight gain."

If you care about your health at all, please don’t buy into this propaganda. Because that’s all it is . . . propaganda designed to get you to buy newspapers. I know the newspaper industry is struggling, but misleading readers about their health is not the solution.

This is your body. This is your body on exercise.

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As you may remember, I started the summer in a frenzy of activity—walking, running, biking, playing tennis—but a few weeks ago, I went back to my normal routine of exercising just once a day: my one-hour walk every day with Dave.

Don't get me wrong—walking an hour a day is amazing, and I'm proud that I've done it for so many years. And I also know that it's the reason my doctors love me. But it isn't enough to lose weight. It's enough to maintain, but not to lose.

And I want to lose.

So yesterday I decided it was time to get back to two- and three-a-days. And I'm not screwing around this time or not fully committing. I walked for an hour in the morning, ran and jumped rope for 30 minutes in the evening, and ended the day by lifting weights and doing sit-ups for all thirty minutes of The Daily Show—the latter of which I plan to do from here on out. When Jon Stewart is on the television, I'll be on the floor doing leg lifts and crunches and curls.

All that exercise is great, but what's makes me even happier is how good I felt at the end of the day. I mean, I felt amaaaaaaaaaazing. Truly amazing.

And that feeling didn't stop last night. It lasted through the majority of my day today, fueling me to meet my three-a-day goal yet again. And after I finished playing a brief but rewarding fifteen minutes of basketball tonight, it hit me how quickly you can turn things around and start feeling good again.

During the weeks that I'd only been walking an hour a day, I had been starting to feel sluggish and—God forbid—fat. But thirty-six hours after re-dedicating myself to more frequent exercise throughout the day, I feel fit and energized and—my God, I know it's a cliche but—like I could do anything.

My brother-in-law always says that he feels sick if he doesn't exercise every day—an excuse, from my way of thinking, for allowing himself daily trips to the gym that my sister doesn't usually get. But the more time goes on, the more I think he's on to something.

I've known for a long time that we all feel better—or less sick, as brother-in-law says—if we work out every day, but now that I'm immersing myself so fully in exercise, I am reminded how much of a drug it is.

The more we do it, the more we want to do it, the more we need it.

I'm starting to crave biking as much as I crave cheeseburgers. I've given up planning dinner for planning my next bike route. And when I've finished my jog, I can't help but want a little more, to go a little bit further.

And this is the kind of addiction we should all want.

Two days ago I was having trouble getting motivated to do anything but the minimum sixty minutes on the walking trail. Now I'm like a junkie—jonesing for my next fix.

What a difference a day makes.

Step it up: say no to short elevator rides

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Dave and I spent last weekend in Nashville with my parents, and just like always, I sought out the staircase at our hotel. We were staying on the third floor, and it seemed ridiculous to take the elevator every time I wanted to go up two floors.

I've been doing this for years and have seen the inside of many, many hotel staircases—some I'd like to never see again. Believe you me. But it's a totally rare occasion when I spy another human being hoofing it to their room.

And when I thought this last weekend, it hit me: why does it seem like most people fall back on the elevator when staying in a hotel? These same people don't normally use an elevator to go up one floor at work, but the fact that most hotel staircases are hard to find and somewhat unkempt makes me think most people get lazier when they travel.

It's as if there's some unwritten rule about the way we act in a hotel. People will actually visit the postage-stamp-size room that most hotels pass off as a gym and climb on the stairmaster to get their heart rate up, but when it comes to lifting their legs up the real stairs? Forget it. You're more likely to see a frat boy sober on Thirsty Thursday.

So what would happen if we didn't take the easy way out? Is it possible the solution to the obesity problem in our country is as simple as avoiding the elevator at the Holiday Inn?

I propose that we find out.

Promise yourself that the next time you find yourself standing before a hotel elevator—or any elevator for that matter—just to go up one or two floors, you'll do yourself and all of us a favor by finding the stairs. Sometimes you have to look for them or even ask for directions, but 99% of the time, they're open to the public.

I'll do my part if you do yours.

File this under f****d up

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Amanda Seyfried—star of Dear John, Mamma Mia!, Big Love, and Mean Girls—has announced that the only way she can stay thin enough to work in Hollywood is to stick to a strict raw-food diet and exercise all the time.

As Seyfried told Esquire magazine this week, "It's intense. And sort of awful. Yesterday for lunch? Spinach. Just spinach. Spinach and some seeds."

Spinach and some seeds?

I'm sorry, but that is completely fucked up.

A fact so obvious that even Seyfried has to admit it.

"'If I didn't run and work out, there's no way I would be this thin,' Seyfried told Glamour magazine. 'But I have to stay in shape because I'm an actress. It's f****d up and it's twisted, but I wouldn't get the roles otherwise. If I'd been a bit bigger, I don't think they would have cast me for Mamma Mia!'"

I've been a fan of Seyfried since she first starred as the already dead Lilly Kane on Veronica Mars (shown below), and I do remember that on that show, she seemed the tiniest bit curvy.

But now, as you can see in the top photo, Seyfried's clearly much, much thinner than she used to be, making Lilly dead in more ways than one.

Seyfried is obviously beautiful at either weight, but hearing her admit that she is basically starving herself breaks my heart. Yes, this is a sad, sad day for someone who believes that dieting is one of the most unhealthy things we can do to ourselves, and it's especially frustrating to hear about Amanda's INSANE diet because she has also claimed that men can't make women feel glamorous, and that feeling attractive has to come "from inside."

What I want to know is how could a woman so smart be so . . . oh, forget it.

I feel for Seyfried. I really do, and I sincerely hope that she will realize that no job—even a job being a world famous actress—is worth giving up cooked food.

The fattists attack!

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I'm a big fan of The Huffington Post, which you might know since I feature Arianna Huffington in my "Gallery of Gorgeous Women" to the right. But this week I was frustrated to read an article by Vicki Lovine on HuffPost that claimed we needed to stop staying away from the word "fat."

As you may know from my "Fat is off the List" post, I firmly believe that we should not use the word because it's almost always used in a hurtful and derogatory way, but this article argued that the politically correct desire to not call people fat is making us fatter.

I don't buy it.

And here's why I disagree: I don't buy into the idea that the obesity epidemic in our country is related to people being nicer to each other. In other words, I don't think our collective girth is growing bigger because people think twice about calling someone "fat."

Instead, I believe that America is getting bigger for three* simple reasons:

1) Because we don't exercise nearly as much as we used to. From my way of thinking, this is especially true of children—a major contributing factor to the shocking increase in childhood obesity—and you can read why I think that in the second of my posts on that subject.

2) Because we eat far too many processed foods and don't cook enough at home. One of the big reasons this is more of a problem than ever before is because processed foods have become incredibly cheap to buy as well as available on almost every corner in America. In fact, in my "Processed Foods and Little Pink Houses" post, I argue that's the reason why working class people are the segment of our society that are gaining weight faster than any other group.

3) Finally, I believe that our country's obsession with dieting makes us actually eat more. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: when we tell people that they need to look like Angelina Jolie to be beautiful, it makes it very easy for them to give up trying to be healthy and grab another box of Mac 'n Cheese. I truly believe that as long as we hold women to standards that are unattainable for regular people, we will have an obesity problem in our country.

And that's why I completely disagree with Vicki Lovine. She believes that if we start using the word "fat," we can start shaming people into being healthier. Sounds like a lot of mumbo jumbo to me because if there is one thing I know it's that making people feel bad about themselves does NOT help them. In fact, the first step to being healthy is feeling good about yourself. And I stand by my belief that until we accept ourselves the way we are, we will never lose weight.

I'll even take it a step further and argue that promoting the use of the word "fat" is, in fact, fattist.

Can you imagine if we proposed using another derogatory word to make a different group of people change their behavior? What will Lovine propose next? Using the word "retarded" more so people act smarter? I hope that the recent debate about that word proves why taking digs at those who are struggling with any issue doesn't work.

Lovine says that we need to start calling people like me fat, but despite my strong desire to do so, I will maturely refrain from calling Lovine the "R" word.

*There is also evidence that the chemicals that are now so ubiquitous in our country are making us fatter as I mentioned in my post on that subject.

Falling off the wagon

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If you haven't already noticed, my weight went up another pound this week. It's a pretty frustrating thing to see happen when I pride myself on being the person who's always watching the numbers on the scale go down. But I'm trying not to make a big deal about it since I know we all fluctuate from time to time.

Nevertheless, I'm feeling even more determined to lose weight without dieting. I know it can be done. I just have to be more dedicated to making sure I get enough exercise and living my life the way I want to live it. If I do those things, I know I'll lose weight.

Unfortunately, over the past two weeks, I haven't been living my life the way I want to live it. I may be the single biggest advocate in the world of giving into our indulgences—as I said in my "Cheeseburgers and the Importance of Indulgence" post—but I also don't believe that indulgence should be the rule rather than the exception.

Unfortunately, that's been the case over the past week or so. I've had a good deal of stress in my life, and I've been taking it out on my body—eating unhealthy food at almost every meal, drinking soda on nearly a daily basis, and cutting my exercise routine when I feel like I don't have time to do it.

In that sense, I've been letting my stress dictate the tenor of my life when what I really need to do—what we all need to do—is have my health be the focus of my life. Like everyone else, I need to keep reminding myself that exercise and homemade meals need to take priority over work. If something doesn't get done today because I have to make time for those things, so be it. Work will still be there tomorrow, and I want to make sure I am too.

I've been acting like a drunk who fell off the wagon these past few weeks, and I feel like I should apologize to all of you for that. So I'm sorry about my recent slip-ups, but I promise that's all in the past.

Will I ever slip again? Sure, but it's not going to happen for quite some time because I've restored my priorities and I'm refocused on my health.

Look out, world. I can do anything.

Childhood Obesity, Part II: Letting go

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Last week I wrote about Michelle Obama's new initiative for fighting childhood obesity, and though, as I mentioned then, we cannot entirely blame poor eating and exercise habits for the increase in childhood obesity in our country, it is certainly a leading culprit.

I've also written on this blog about the fact that when I was a child I spent a significant part of my day being active. Even in bad weather, I walked to and from the bus, spent recess outside on the playground, and biked around my neighborhood for hours after school (and that was if I wasn't participating in an after-school activity that often involved exercise). Because of this, I'm a firm believer in the idea that all of us—no matter what our age—need to spend more time engaging in physical activity. Not just once a day, but multiple times a day.

I know it's incredibly difficult for us adults to do that, but what I don't get is why kids these days seem to struggle with it too.

Because when I was a kid, I didn't have much choice about being outside.

I had to walk to and from the bus stop whether I wanted to or not, and all of us kids were made to play outside before school and during a half-hour recess after lunch. Beyond that, my mother routinely pushed my sister and me out the front door for a few hours every day after school and on weekends.

I can even remember one sweltering summer day when my mother locked us out of the house because it was so hot we wanted to stay inside. By the end of that excruciating day, we were so anxious to get back inside the cool, air conditioned house that we pressed our faces up against the sliding glass doors in the basement like inmates waiting to be paroled.

And I know I wasn't the only child who was forced to spend time outside. David Sedaris has documented the time his own mother locked him and his siblings outside during a snow storm to riotous effect in an essay called "Let It Snow" (which I highly recommend if you're looking for a good laugh).

So why is it then that when I go on my long morning walk or my short afternoon jog—whether it's in January or July—I don't see any kids roaming the streets of my neighborhood?

In fact, almost every time I step out the door, I ask myself, where are all the kids????

Then last summer I saw something that gave me my answer. I was huffing and puffing my way around the neighborhood when I noticed that almost every single house I looked inside had a television playing. And nine times out of ten there was a child—or more than one—plopped in front of the screen like a big pile of play-doh.

Television?

In the middle of a summer afternoon?!

Blasphemy!

My mother would have pushed those play-doh blobs out the door as fast as she could whip up one of her famous Jello molds.

We all know that television and the internet and video games have become a poor substitute for more interactive entertainment, but what I don't get is why parents today allow those passive activities to replace more physical ones.

We had television when I was a kid. We had video games. Sure, we didn't get cable until I was thirteen—remember "I want my MTV"?—and we played our video games on a crappy Atari with a joystick that was harder to move than a refrigerator, but we had no idea that Space Invaders or reruns of The Monkees would someday seem so pathetic. We loved that stuff and would have happily sat in front of the TV all day. . . that is, if our parents had let us.

But, of course, they didn't.

So when did that change? When did parents stop insisting that their kids get up off their rumps and go explore the world beyond the walls of their house?

Last semester, when I was teaching a story about childhood, one of my students (who is also a mother) said that she couldn't let her kids go outside because it's too dangerous these days.

Too dangerous? Really?

I grew up on a street where kids in junior high walked around with pints of Jack Daniels in their back pockets, where high schoolers dealt everything from pot to cocaine on the corner where we all hung out, where girls got pregnant at the age of eleven, and where thieves stole an entire houseful of one of our neighbor's belongings. All of this happened, but I still turned out okay.

And this was in the suburbs!

I'm sorry, but I find it hard to believe that things are any worse now than they were when I was growing up—a time when the whole country was embracing free love and a song called "Pass the Dutchie" ruled the airwaves.

And what I learned from all of those experiences was that I had to be able to stand on my own two feet, that I had to be able to make my own decisions—whether I was being offered a joint or being challenged to a fight. My parents weren't always going to be around to protect me.

And I worry that's what our kids today are losing: the ability to be independent. The ability to enjoy and even desire physical activity, to feel the wind in their hair as fly down a too-steep hill on their rackety old ten-speed or to feel the cold in their lungs as they hike along a snow-covered path in the middle of winter. The ability to run away from their parents' house and the ability to come back. Because if they aren't allowed outside, not only will they become overweight, they'll also become afraid. And I'm not sure that those two things are entirely unrelated.

Yes, it's scary to let kids go outside on their own.

They could be exposed to things we would like to protect them from, and—worse still—they could be harmed or even stolen from us. But the harm we do them by keeping them locked up inside is ultimately a much greater disservice to their generation because it is one that cheats them out of the life we so desperately want them to be able to live.

Childhood Obesity, Part I: Rethinking baby fat

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During the State of the Union address last night, President Obama announced that Michelle Obama is going to lead a new American initiative to fight childhood obesity. I was obviously thrilled to hear this since, like most of us, I'm concerned about the fact that more and more Americans are becoming obese these days, especially children.

Michelle Obama has already emphasized the importance of eating locally grown, organic food—an issue near and dear to my heart—by planting the first organic garden on the grounds of the White House, and this new initiative jibes perfectly with the message of the garden, which is that we all need to be eating more meals that we cook at home—meals made from whole foods—rather than relying so much on processed and fast foods.

I imagine her initiative will also focus on exercise as well, an issue that's also important. According to USA Today, the initiative will work "to provide more nutritious food in schools, allow more opportunities for kids to be physically active and give more communities access to affordable, healthful food."

But what concerns me is that eating well and exercising isn't necessarily enough to combat the rising rate of obesity in our country. Yes, these are essentially the same tips I advocate on this blog, but my blog is read by a small group of people whereas people around the world listen to First Lady Michelle Obama.

And the problem with implying that obesity is only the result of bad behavior is that scientists are now starting to find out there may be more to it. It may actually be chemicals that are making our children obese at a much higher rate than say that of our grandparents' generation.

The real evidence of this lies with babies.

Babies don't eat too much or exercise too little. In fact, babies generally eat the same amount, especially if they're being nursed and can only consume the milk their mothers provide. Which is why it's strange that more babies—even babies who only get their calories from their nursing mothers—are now suffering from obesity too.

According to Newsweek's 2009 expose on this issue, "In 2006 scientists at the Harvard School of Public Health reported that the prevalence of obesity in infants under 6 months had risen 73 percent since 1980. 'This epidemic of obese 6-month-olds,' as endocrinologist Robert Lustig of the University of California, San Francisco, calls it, poses a problem for conventional explanations of the fattening of America. 'Since they're eating only formula or breast milk, and never exactly got a lot of exercise, the obvious explanations for obesity don't work for babies,' he points out. 'You have to look beyond the obvious.'"

And when they looked beyond the obvious, what scientists found was that chemicals might be the thing making babies fatter. According to laboratory studies, chemicals make mice fatter by reprogramming their metabolism, and the same might be happening with babies . . . or any of us.

In fact, "In 2005 scientists in Spain reported that the more pesticides children were exposed to as fetuses, the greater their risk of being overweight as toddlers. And last January scientists in Belgium found that children exposed to higher levels of PCBs and DDE (the breakdown product of the pesticide DDT) before birth were fatter than those exposed to lower levels. Neither study proves causation, but they 'support the findings in experimental animals [and] show a link between exposure to environmental chemicals … and the development of obesity.'"

And that might be why some people under the age of fifty in our society have become obese even though they don't necessarily eat more or exercise less than anyone else.

Does this mean we should all give up trying to be lean, mean fighting machines?

Of course not.

In fact, if like me you weren't overweight as a child, scientists believe it's unlikely that you were affected by chemicals in this way.

Meaning that healthy eating and exercise is still the answer for most of us.

But it also means that we have to re-shape our ideas about obesity in this country. And we have to understand that there are now two reasons—chemicals and genetics—why you shouldn't judge the person who needs a larger seat in the movie theatre, doctor's office, or classroom.

(And don't try to pretend that you don't judge that person because I know you do. The sad fact is that we all do.)

So I applaud Michelle Obama for taking on this incredibly important issue, but I also urge her to look beyond the obvious culprits of diet and exercise and to push scientists to find a way to reverse the effects of these chemicals rather than simply telling overweight kids they need to exercise more and eat less.

Life on the disabled list

192 pounds

As I said in my last post, I had surgery this past Saturday, and I've been laid up since then recovering. I haven't done much of anything this week but sleep and try to avoid taking more pain pills, and the result is that I find myself feeling pretty lethargic and . . . wait for it . . .

. . . completely jonesing for a few good minutes of exercise.

Except for the eighteen-month hiatus from June 2007-February 2008 that led to my recent weight gain, I've been committed to exercising almost every day for coming up on eleven years now. Sometimes that means twenty minutes after work and sometimes that means three hours on weekends, but mostly I come it at around a sixty-minute workout each day. That is, until my surgery on Saturday.

I'm not going to lie . . . there are many, many, many, many days when I don't want to exercise at all. I want to sit my butt down on the sofa and watch re-runs of Glee or Mad Men until I dream about chain-smoking adulterers doing song and dance routines in my sleep. In fact, sometimes I have to practically force myself to put on my running shoes and jog bra, and when things get really bad, my normally mellow husband has to give me a falsely cheery pep talk and reminder about our life goals.

It's not that I don't like to exercise. I always love the endorphins that kick in afterwards and make me feel as giddy as a teenager who's just engaged in a heavy, sweaty, after-school makeout session, but sometimes it's just had to motivate, you know?

But over the past two or three days I have been thinking about how much I love it while I am exercising too. I love it because of the physical rush but also because of the mental one: because I feel more confident and fulfilled both during and after the workout.

So while I've been sitting on the sofa this week and watching re-runs of Glee day-in and day-out with my mom—who's here to help me recover (Thanks, Mom!)—I find myself longing to exercise as much as I normal long for a big, fat cheeseburger. And I promise that once I'm well enough to exercise again—hopefully next week or the week after that at the latest—I will fully appreciate how lucky I am to be able to do it.

Lightning Legs

194 pounds
As I've mentioned before, even though I was in perfect shape throughout my childhood and well into my twenties, I was never a small girl, and when I was young, I got the "thunder thighs" comment on more than one occasion. Back then, a comment like that could send me into a downward spiral of insecurity and self-doubt. Of course, I've since learned to love my womanly thighs, but it took a long time to get there.

Fortunately, new research has revealed that big thighs are actually good for you. In fact, an article in the British Medical Journal announced that people "with thighs over 60cm (23.6 inches) in circumference have a lower risk of heart disease and early death" and "those with the smallest thighs—below 55cmm [about 22 inches]—had twice the risk of early death or serious health problems."*

Apparently, the issue is a lack of muscle. Those of us with strong legs can count on our muscles to keep us healthy; whereas, those with "too little muscle mass" can have a problem with "the body not responding to insulin properly, increasing the risk of type 2 diabetes and, in the long run, heart disease."*

The key is obviously that we want to have muscular legs—not just big legs—but that doesn't mean our legs need to be perfectly sculpted either.

I know many women like me—women who have an active and healthy lifestyle and have never had small legs—who will feel vindicated by this research. As anyone who has engaged in any strenuous activity over a prolonged period of time knows, your legs get more muscular—and bigger—when you exercise a lot (tennis champ Serena Williams being the best example of this), so it's nice to know that well developed thighs are something we can now be proud of rather than ashamed about.

I've long believed that one of the drawbacks of being naturally thin is that you aren't forced to think as often about diet and exercise and, by extension, your health. And this study reinforces the notion that curvy women—who often work hard to stay fit—have yet another reason to walk with pride.

I found the Nike ad above earlier, and I think the copy for this ad is a good way to end tonight . . .

I have thunder thighs.

And that's a compliment

because they are strong

and toned

and muscular

and though they are unwelcome

in the petite section,

they are cheered on in marathons.

Fifty years from now

I'll bounce a grandchild on my thunder thighs

and then I'll go out for a run.

*http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8236384.stm

Exercise and television: a pledge for you and me

195 pounds

I'm sure most of you know that watching television is directly linked to obesity. As a matter of fact, "For every two hours spent watching TV, there is a 23 percent increase in the risk of obesity."*

So I guess we should all stop watching TV altogether, huh?

Yeah, right.

No one—not my doctor, not my husband, not you—is making me give up Mad Men or The Office or 30 Rock or Southland. (If you can't tell, I like to spend Thursday nights in front of the TV.) Why won't I give these things up? Because certain television shows help me relax and give me a break from my real world concerns. I'm sure you have shows you're not willing to give up for the same reason either. And I don't believe that giving up our favorite television shows—shows that sometimes help us keep our sanity—is the answer.

So rather than give them up, I'm going to make them work for me.

When I was laid up with my knee injury this summer, the only exercise I could do was on the floor, where I did stretches, leg lifts and sit-ups and lifted weights. I did this for an hour a day, and in order to keep from dying of boredom—and stay motivated—I watched television while I did it.

Normally, I'm not a fan of having the television on during the daytime, but you know what they say about desperate times.

As it turns out, I'm entering a bit of a desperate time again. I found out on Friday that I'm going to be teaching five classes this semester instead of three. Yes, I said five. And if you know anything about college professors, you know that's more classes than most of us teach.

I know from past experience that this could be a recipe for disaster in terms of my health and my weight. I haven't told you the whole story yet (and I will soon), but the last year I lived in North Carolina and the first six months I lived in Kentucky, I gained about twenty pounds because my life was so hectic that I didn't have time to eat well or workout on a regular basis.

But I'm not giving in so easily this time. After all, I've got this blog to keep me motivated. And there aren't many things more motivating than having to post your weight online twice a week. Sure, I have a tough schedule, but that doesn't mean I can't find ways to stay healthy.

Since cooking food at home is a crucial part of my approach to weight loss and healthy living, I'm going to be forced to be just like the couple I discussed in my "Nothing beats a home-cooked meal" post, making food with Dave on Sunday that will have to last all week.

I'll also have to find different ways to fit in my exercise routine. The first way to do that is to exercise before I go to work in the morning (at least three days a week)—something I always hate to do but which is now necessary if I have any chance of getting in a real workout on weekdays. And the second way to do that is to start exercising in front of the television again. In fact, I'm going to make a commitment to exercise for at least thirty minutes every time I turn the TV on. I don't watch television every night, but when I do watch The Office and Mad Men and 30 Rock this semester, I'm going to be on the floor, hoisting weights in the air and crunching my way through dozens of sit-ups.

(Of course, in addition, I'll supplement these weekday activities with more frequent and more fun exercise on the weekends.)

What I would love is if I could get some of you to commit to doing the same. What do you think? Anyone want to make this pledge with me? Thirty minutes of exercise every time you turn on the TV? Let's say just weekdays to make it a little bit easier. To be honest, some part of me thinks that if everyone American made this pledge, we'd be a country of healthy individuals in no time.

So what do you think? Are you game?

* "Watching TV causes Obesity, Diabetes and Sleeplessness"

Are you still with me???

196 pounds

As I mentioned in my discussion of the recent Time magazine story on exercise, my grandfather had a massive stroke Friday, August 7th and died a few days later on Monday, August 10th. As soon as we heard about the stroke, Dave and I got in the car and headed for Ohio, where we spent Grandpa's last three days, staying until we had to leave in order to get back to Kentucky to teach our last few days of summer school. Hours after we left for Kentucky, Grandpa died, so as soon as we were finished with our classes on Thursday morning, we got back in the car and returned to Ohio for the viewing and funeral, a trip that was extended with side trips we had to make to Indianapolis and Cincinnati on the way home.

When all was said and done, we were on the road for three days, home for the next three, and then on the road again for five more days, meaning we were traveling eight of those eleven days. It was obviously exhausting, and I can't remember the last time I felt so happy to come home.

The day before Grandpa's stroke, I weighed 194 pounds, and the day before that, I'd bottomed out at 193—a full ten pounds less than where I started back in March. Since I hit 193 on a Wednesday, I didn't get to post that number with my blog. I also knew full well that the first time you hit a low number like that, you're bound to go back up the next day and fluctuate numerous more times before that low number becomes a reality. So I didn't make a big deal out of it on the blog—though I was happy to mention it in passing.

But now that I'm back from the trip, I find that my weight is back up to 196 pounds.

Sigh.

I don't spend a lot of time talking or complaining about the numbers on the scale because, as I've said before, one of the goals of this blog is to demystify those numbers, to send the message that the numbers don't matter as much as how we feel about ourselves and how healthy we are.

On the other hand, I also started this blog to document my weight loss. So when I have to admit to the world that I weigh 196 pounds almost five full months after I started trying to lose weight, I feel more than a little bit frustrated. I guess in some ways I feel like I'm letting you all down.

I don't want to send the message that my only goal is to lose weight because it's not. And I definitely don't want anyone to think that I believe that losing weight has to happen on a timetable because I believe that's one of the worst things we can do to ourselves. In fact, for years, I've believed that as long as the numbers on the scale are going down—even if its only by one pound a year—instead of up and the doctor says I'm healthy, then I'm doing well.

At the same time, I have to admit that I first hit 196 pounds back in April, only weeks after I started trying to lose weight, which makes me feel like I haven't accomplished anything in months. And if this is frustrating to me, I imagine it must also be frustrating to the people who tune in merely to see how many pounds I've lost.

(Mom, are you listening?)

Seriously, if you read any of the weight loss columns in women's magazines—or, God forbid, watch shows like The Biggest Loser—you're used to seeing the pounds drop pretty quickly. And if you're disappointed by how long it's taking me to get back to a healthy weight, I apologize.

But at the same time, I don't want you to give up on me. I want you all to believe me when I say I know my plan will work. It's worked in the past, and it will work again. Yes, I've had some setbacks this summer—first with my knee injury, and then with my grandfather. We all have setbacks (that's how I gained 27 pounds in the 18 months before I started this blog), and I don't want to use them as an excuse, but I do want to acknowledge them.

And maybe that's all I—or any of us—can do: acknowledge that sometimes the unexpected happens, and we can't blame ourselves if we are forced to backtrack a little when dealing with the unexpected.

A few years ago, my friend Al, who's a psychologist, listened to me flagellating myself for eating far too much after a long day at work, and he wisely pointed out that if I beat myself up for making a mistake, then I'm only causing myself more misery. Better to let mistakes go than to rehash them, Al said, and it was this advice that eventually led to my belief that we must allow ourselves indulgences from time to time.

Obviously, the important thing is to keep going, keep improving. During those eight days I was on the road, I only exercised twice, and I ate a lot more crap than normal—visits to Skyline Chili, Graeter's Ice Cream, and Frisch's Big Boy come to mind. But I've been home for three full days now, and it took me two of those days to get back to the person I want to be: a person who eats delicious home-cooked meals, a person who gets plenty of rest, and a person who exercises like a kid let loose in the schoolyard. I'll keep doing this until the next setback comes, and maybe, just maybe, in the meantime the numbers will prove that not dieting really can help people lose weight.

I believe. Do you?

Say what? Why it's dangerous to say that "exercise won't make you thin"

196.5 pounds
I want to take a break from my discussion of processed foods to talk about the Time magazine cover story about exercise. The headline with the article says, "Why Exercise Won't Make You Thin," and the cover of the current issue reads like this: "The Myth about Exercise: Of course it's good for you, but it won't make you lose weight. Why it's what you eat that really counts."

The good news is that the main message of this article is that exercise as we know it—meaning going to the gym for 30-60 minutes a day—is not an effective way to lose weight, and that instead we should exercise all day long if we want to lose weight. This is the same assertion I made in my "Returning to Childhood" post a few months ago, and I'm thrilled that the study proves what I've been promoting.

But the problem with this article is that it sends the message—intentionally or not—that exercise is not as important as dieting when it comes to losing weight. And that's what readers—especially readers who just look at the cover and flip through the pages without reading the entire article—will take away from this.

That's an incredibly dangerous message to send because, though diets may help someone lose weight in the short term, they almost never work in the long term. In fact, 90%—yes, 90%!—of dieters gain back the weight they lose. That's why I worry about how many people will see this study and focus on dieting rather than exercise, completely ignoring the message about being active all day long instead of cramming all of your activity into one grueling hour-long gym workout.

There is also a big part of me that doesn't buy it. If you read my blog, you know that I lost 27 pounds over a seven-year period from 1999 to 2007, and I lost that weight primarily because I started exercising for an hour every day. Sure, I am a big believer in exercising throughout the day now, but back then, I almost never exercised more than once a day. And I certainly never dieted, so I don't know what else could have led to me lose those 27 pounds.

Maybe it would have been better if the article had claimed that exercising once a day is not an effective to lose weight quickly. That's something I could agree with. But I would also reassert that almost anyone who loses weight quickly is unlikely to keep it off.

From my point of view, a better study would have examined how few people who exercise—once a day or throughout the day—on a regular basis are overweight or obese. Because I think a study like that would prove that exercise of any kind does help us lose weight and stay healthy over the long haul.

Unfortunately, the study that was conducted only looked at the short-term goal of losing weight rather than considering what our long term goal should really be: to be healthy and not carry too much extra weight. Because what good does it do us if we can lose twenty pounds every few years if we are still thirty pounds overweight all the other years of our lives? The answer is obviously that it doesn’t do us much good at all.

And did this study really tell us anything new? It tells us that the fastest way to drop pounds is to eat less, but we all knew that already. What it doesn’t tell us is that weight loss usually doesn't last. And that’s because our bodies are, in some ways, smarter than we are—when we stop feeding them, they stop burning calories and begin to store fat so that we don’t starve to death.

The article also claims that one of the reasons that once-a-day workouts are not effective is because they use up all of our stores of discipline, thus causing us to eat more. This is, of course, presuming that those who exercise eat more. I don’t know about you, but I don’t eat more when I exercise. If anything, I eat less! Because exercising makes me happier, I am less likely to feel the need to “feed my emotions” than I would if I didn’t exercise.

In fact, you might have noticed that my weight is up to 196.5 pounds today—a number I was loathe to post here. This is 3.5 pounds more than my low of 193 pounds last week.

On Friday, right after my last post, my grandfather suffered a massive stroke. Of course, Dave and I got in the car and drove to be by my grandpa's side all weekend. (We made it there in time to see him, but sadly, he died yesterday morning—though I should add that, at 89 years old, he was one of the few people lucky enough to live a long and full life.)

The reason I bring this is up is because I feel confident that the increase in my weight is the result of the fact that I didn't exercise all weekend and ate a little bit more than normal because of the stress of watching my grandfather struggling to recover. This is why it's hard for me to believe that exercise doesn't help us lose weight—whether it's once a day or three times a day—since the numbers go down on the scale when I exercise and up when I don't.

Ultimately, I'm happy about this study because it confirms what I've been saying all along about the fact that we need to make exercise a more integral part of our lives—a part that we not only enjoy but also engage in more than once a day. I only wish that Time hadn't framed it in a way that makes it appear—especially with a headline that reads "Why Exercise Won't Make You Thin"—like they are down on exercise and in favor of dieting because I truly believe that's a recipe for disaster.

Postscript: As my friend Neal pointed out in the comments below, The Huffington Post ran a similarly outraged response to the Time cover story. You can access it here: "The Real Truth about Exercise" by Jake Steinfeld. As Steinfeld says, "Those who exercise regularly are fitter, feel better about themselves, have less propensity for developing a chronic disease, and ultimately do lose weight. I was a fat kid with a bad stutter growing up. Exercise helped me lose weight while boosting my confidence and self-esteem. Exercise changed my whole life." I couldn't agree more since this mirrors my own experience, and I'll never believe that exercise doesn't help us lose weight in the long run. Steinfeld also quotes his a friend of his who is a doctor at the Mayo Clinic and says, "medical professionals ALL agree that exercise, as part of a healthy lifestyle, improves one's health and lowers costs to the health care system. Americans should be encouraged to do more of it, not less. Of this there can be no debate."