Tuesday, more rain, ephemera & peeves

[thanate]

Real food:

In the crock pot now: about a cup of soy beans (soaked overnight), water, 2/3 cup pumpkin puree (cooked by me, so it's just pumpkin), table salt, two carrots & two celery stalks, chopped ginger, thyme. I plan to add frozen corn, pepper, and possibly sage later on. Maybe something else if it seems like a good idea. Package leftovers so that grauwulf will not mistakenly take them for lunch only to discover that there's no meat in them.

Fake food:

brownie mix brownies (Betty Crocker "Fudge Brownies") with milk, oil, eggs, and the last third of a container of imitation vanilla icing mixed into the batter. Ingredients include "natural and artificial flavors" and "titanium dioxide for color." I am reminded of the stories of early oleomargarine that came with little yellow dye packets to mix in so that people used to real butter would deign to eat it, and of the co-worker who looked with scorn upon the purple potatoes in the leftovers I'd brought for lunch and tried to tell me they were horribly unnatural. I wish that people were not so superficial as to care more about the color of their food than its content, and less opinionated about what "the proper color" for their foods were, given that an awful lot of these things are variety based, or have been genetically engineered by previous people.

(for the record-- it is equally possible to have fake soup full of canned ingredients and real brownies; the examples are chosen from what happens to be in my kitchen at the moment)

Also, I am getting extremely irritated by the pervasive culture of weight loss ads; they seem to be populating every ad-revenue part of the net that I look at. I'm seriously becoming convinced that it's just as much a culture of fear tactic as the idea that to prevent terrorism we all need to line up in neat little rows and be interrogated every time we leave the house. Only this one is driven by diet programs trying to make money, rather than political whackos. Yes, there are a lot of people who could stand to lose weight in this part of the world, but the BMI standard is discredited by just about every reputable authority (not to mention having been changed a couple decades ago so that more people are listed as "overweight") and having good information about health and fitness is infinitely more useful to solving this as a problem than a steady stream of fad diets.

From my personal corner of the world: I'm 5'6" and currently weigh in at around 150 lbs, depending on the time and day (and that does fluctuate noticeably; I'm always confused when people get excited about losing two or three pounds, since that's within my standard range) and I'm perfectly comfortable. I would continue to be comfortable at about ten or fifteen pounds lighter, but I have a fairly good idea of what quantities of food & water I need to maintain myself without compromising my ability to function, and dieting in the just eating less sense is not going to cut it. If I wanted to lose fat percentage, my best course is to exercise, and when I do that I start off by actually gaining weight from muscle mass.

Furthermore, even when I was a depressive high school kid with a teenage metabolism and a tendency towards just not eating as much because it was too much trouble, I still had far more weight on my hips and thighs than current fashion accounts for, and a) I've now seen at least one study that says not only is "pear shaped" healthier than "apple shaped" (which has been know for years) but in fact having fat on your thighs & butt is genuinely *good* for you, and b) it's been known for some time that if you actually do slim yourself down to supermodel size you're putting your long-term health at risk just as much as someone who is twice their "ideal" weight.

Best rules for life? Be comfortable with who you are, try to be a better person rather than a more "socially attractive" one, and put health ahead of societal standards. That applies to weight, skin tone/tanning, tobacco.... Yeah. Anyway.

Dear Lion's Brand Yarn: Who thought giant "Pompom Leg Fancies" were a good idea? I recommend that your reconsider.

Comments

[weebaby.livejournal.com]

FWIW, when I think of your looks, the words "svelte" and "lithe" come to mind.

[thanate.livejournal.com]

I do have the advantage that most of my weight is on my hips, so it's pretty easy to hide it under skirts or whatnot. (and I did just look up a BMI calculator and discovered that I'm currently about half a point below their idea of overweight, so I'll only register as overweight if I start building up muscle mass... incidentally, one of the favorite examples I've seen recently is that football players consistently weigh in at "grossly overweight" on the BMI scale, since there's no allowance made for body type or what kind of weight it is.)

But my problem is the huge number of people who obsess over being too fat because they're buying into the advertising and then make themselves miserable because they don't have the time or the inclination either to learn what heathy is for their body type or put the effort into balancing diet and exercise in a healthy manner. Either it should matter to you enough to find a real solution, or you should accept that that's who you are and stop adding stress to your problems; most of the people who worry about their weight don't seem to be able to do either, and the marketing (ads that start off "have you ever felt betrayed??" or show constant animations of waistlines shrinking to below what's a healthy weight for most people) is really not helping. Also, I find such ads tacky and offensive, which is why I'm whining about it in general-- I'm tired of being force fed other people's self esteem targeting mis-information.

(I guess I wasn't quite done ranting-- sorry!)

[belfebe.livejournal.com]

I agree. Weight loss for its own sake it's not necessarily the answer. I have met some very unhealthy people who are rail thin. Healthy eating, and by that I mean fresh, unprocessed foods, is the key.

[heuchera.livejournal.com]

I do wonder sometimes what it is that I've looked at online that triggers some of the (presumably) targeted advertising I get fed, much of which features weight loss. Also anti-wrinkle creams (!), clothing, and wedding stuff (okay, that one I understand). Unless it's generic demographic information I've somehow yielded up to the computer gods... As to eating, I'm for figuring out what one's own body needs (mine is very cranky about requiring protein and vegetable matter) and mostly sticking to it.

[thanate.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure most of what I'm looking at is site-specific rather than me-specific (craftster, various comics & news posts, etc) and grauwulf points out that we're looking swimsuit season in the face, but I still find it appalling. Not quite as bad as the "look at these awful teeth!! and how you could improve yours" ads that we keep getting in mass mailings, but almost. Come to think of it, the ad technique of "let me show you something you're supposed to find unattractive to convince you to pay me money for self improvement" is not on my list of good marketing strategies. :/

I also just looked up Winterthur, and they appear to be open from 10 to 5 every day but Mondays until fall sometime, and the jacket will be in their textiles gallery until after they have a conference about it the fall after next. How are your weekends looking these days?

[heuchera.livejournal.com]

Weekends are busy, but they always are. I think June 26th is currently free. Some of the others are tentative so if that day doesn't work for you maybe something else will work out.