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Flying Over I-95 N. All Oversized. (Part III of III)

February 18, 2017 by 36 Comments

airplane-seat-fly

6:31 am.

I’m walking, my oversized shoes slap on the industrial carpet. Mr. Dandy is somewhere behind me.  My crumpled and oversized J. Crew Chino’s uncomfortably sag off my a**.  And, I’m dragging this bitch of a carry-on with its shrieking left wheel ricocheting its echo up and down the jetway.

I catch a faint mix of Purell hand sanitizer and sweat. The Purell is me, no doubt – the other half, just can’t be me. I crane my neck down to confirm, and it’s confirmed.  As I lift my head back up, I catch another shot, must be from the winter coat two bodies ahead.

I’m undeterred by all of this, beaming with good fortune – a complimentary upgrade to first class.

She’s behind me, but I don’t see her.

I stuff my bag into the overhead bin, and step out of the aisle to let the traffic pass.  She points to the window: “I’m sorry, but that’s my seat.”

In the tight quarters of the aisle, we are separated by inches. She’s in her mid to late 20’s.   She’s wearing jeans, and a baggy red sweater.  She’s an inch or two shorter, but I’m dwarfed by her, by a minimum of 1.3x my body weight.  She settles in her seat. [Read more…]

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SMWI*: We’re #1

June 7, 2014 by 24 Comments

diet-obesity-weight-chart
Wall Street Journal: Study Finds Nearly 29% of World Population is Overweight or Obese:

  • The obesity epidemic is global: 2.1 billion people or 29% of the worlds population.
  • Increases in overweight and obese people have been substantial, widespread and have arisen over a short time
  • 36.9% of the world’s men and 38% of women are overweight or obese.
  • No nation reported a significant decrease in obesity.
  • U.S. had the heftiest population, with 13% of the world’s obese
  • Factors: diet, physical inactivity and one that hasn’t gotten as much attention – changes in the gut micro biome that affect metabolism.

Read full article here: Study Finds Nearly 29% of World Population is Overweight or Obese

SMWI*=Saturday Morning Work-Out Inspiration
 

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SMWI*: Endured Humiliation. But Never Gave Up.

October 19, 2013 by 25 Comments

weight, diet, weight loss,exercise,food

  •  William Howard Taft, (1857-1930) was the 27th President of the United States.
  • The only massively obese man ever to be the president of the United States
  • He struggled mightily to control his weight
  • Endured humiliation from cartoonists who delighted in his corpulent figure
  • His weight-loss program was startlingly contemporary
  • His difficulties keeping the pounds off would be familiar to many Americans today
  • On advice of his doctor, he went on a low-fat, low-calorie diet. He avoided snacks.
  • Meals were to be eaten at certain times and meats were to be weighed. Taft was to eat a small portion of lean meat or fish at every meal, cooked vegetables at lunch and dinner (no butter), a plain salad, and stewed or baked fruit (unsweetened). He got a single glass of “unsweetened” wine at lunch.
  • He kept a careful diary of what he ate and weight himself daily.
  • The tale is strikingly modern…The self-monitoring — weighing himself daily, keeping a food diary — are “the fundamental tenets of changing behavior,” said Dr. Kimberly Gudzune, an obesity researcher at Johns Hopkins. “Keep yourself accountable.”
  • He hired a personal trainer and rode a horse to exercise
  • Like many dieters today, Taft lost weight and regained it, fluctuating from more than 350 to 255 lbs.
  • After he had lost 60 pounds…people told him he looked good, yet he was “continuously hungry.”
  • Researchers were struck by Taft’s persistent hunger pangs. Losing a substantial amount of weight and keeping it off amounts to telling the body it is starving…“One of the most important drives we have is to prevent starvation,” Dr. Hirsch said.
  • By the time Taft was inaugurated as president in 1909, he had regained all he had lost, and more, weighing 354 pounds. He became the butt of jokes, with many relishing a story that he had gotten stuck in a White House bathtub.
  • But Taft never gave up. When he died in 1930, he weighed 280 pounds.

Read full article in the New York Times: In a Struggle With Weight, Taft Used a Modern Diet

  • SMWI* = Saturday Morning Workout Inspiration
  • Image Source: Natemaas
  • Thank you Susan
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SMWI*: Get Moving. Period.

August 24, 2013 by 13 Comments

funny-favorite-food-conversation-kitchen

It’s Saturday Morning.  Time for the weekend warriors to get inspired to Exercise.  Here’s four of my favorite recent articles on the subject:

A Question That Can Change Your Life: “For years I’ve exercised every day — doing weights, cardio, yoga — but despite my continuous effort, I haven’t seen much change. Until a few months ago. Recently, my body has changed. My muscles are stronger, more defined, and I’ve lost five pounds along with a visible layer of fat. Let’s start with what I didn’t do: Spend more time exercising. In fact, I’ve spent less. So what did I do differently?…”

25 More Rules of Conquering the Gym: “…Gyms are tricky relationships. You fall in and out of love. Commitment fades. Maybe you have a torrid affair with ice cream sandwiches. All you know is that you used to go to that gym five times a week, and suddenly it becomes two, and then two becomes one, and one becomes none, and none becomes a brand new size of jeans…#3: No, you’re not getting a six-pack. You’re just trying to take off your shirt at the beach without people running to their cars…#6. Here’s a helpful rule on gym clothing. If you’re not sure your shirt smells? Your shirt smells…#22: The best gym on earth is outside, and it’s totally free.”  Read more here. And if you’ve missed the first installment (even funnier), read it here. [Read more…]

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Swimming in so much hate

June 20, 2013 by 21 Comments

melissa-mccarthy-877860106

In a softer voice, she said her initial reaction to reading it had been “Really?” and then, she said, “Why would someone O.K. that?” Without mentioning the name of its author, Ms. McCarthy said: “I felt really bad for someone who is swimming in so much hate. I just thought, that’s someone who’s in a really bad spot, and I am in such a happy spot. I laugh my head off every day with my husband and my kids who are mooning me and singing me songs.” Had this occurred when she was 20, Ms. McCarthy said, “it may have crushed me.” But now, as a mother raising two young daughters in “a strange epidemic of body image and body dysmorphia,” she said articles like that “just add to all those younger girls, that are not in a place in their life where they can say, ‘That doesn’t reflect on me.’”

~ Melissa McCarthy responding to a reporter about Rex Reed’s review of her performance in “Identity Thief.”  He described Ms. McCarthy as “tractor-sized” and called her “a gimmick comedian who has devoted her short career to being obese and obnoxious with equal success.”  (Read more…)

Melissa Ann McCarthy, 42, is an American film and television actress, comedian, writer and producer.  She was born in Plainfield, Illinois and currently lives in Los Angeles.  McCarthy first gained recognition for her role as Sookie St. James on the television series Gilmore Girls, where she starred from 2000 to 2007. From 2007 to 2009, she portrayed Dena on the ABC sitcom Samantha Who? McCarthy was then cast as Molly Flynn-Biggs on the CBS sitcom Mike & Molly, a role that earned her an Emmy Award win. McCarthy was also nominated for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series for her work as host on Saturday Night Live.  McCarthy achieved major success and fame for her breakthrough role in the 2011 comedy hit Bridesmaids, which garnered her numerous award nominations including an Academy Award nomination, a BAFTA nomination and a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. She also appeared in the films The Nines, The Back-up Plan, and Life as We Know It, and her 2013 roles include Identity Thief, The Heat, and The Hangover Part III.  (Source: Wiki)

Source: New York Times – Melissa McCarthy Goes Over The Top.  Photo: fansshare.com

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SMWI*: It’s simple. More in than out.

June 15, 2013 by 33 Comments

Fat City - Karen Hitchcock - The Monthly

You read.  Articles.  Books. Magazines. Posts.

Much of it blows in one ear and out the other.

Not this one.  This article is from The Monthly and is titled Fat City.  It has stuck with me since last weekend.  It’s long but captivating. Seared in long term memory.

Karen Hitchcock is an Australian author and medical doctor.

A few excerpts:

  • Barring the gravely ill and a couple of men, everyone I know wants to lose weight.
  • As a doctor, I no longer know what to do about the obese.
  • people quit smoking, cut down on their drinking and sometimes lose weight. But usually counselling people to lose weight is hopeless.
  • and obesity seems simple: more in than out
  • love reading articles with titles like ‘How I Lost 25 Kilos’, even though the answer is always the same: I ate less.
  • Who wants to eat less – of anything – when food is so good and plentiful?
  • It’s hard to say no to something that is right in our faces, promising a bit of easy pleasure.
  • It is especially hard to say no when the consequences of overeating come about in such a distant, gradual and mysterious way.
  • I find it difficult to believe that an extra scoop of ice-cream will end up as fat somewhere on my body
  • If you make a fat person thin, you are sentencing them to a lifetime of hunger. [Read more…]
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