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osodecanelaWhen I left the practice 18 months ago I was no longer making it to the gym once or twice a week. I wasn’t walking a couple of miles several times a week. I was in survival mode, doing everything I needed to do to earn a living. Sounds like the American condition, no?
These days I’m at the gym minimum of twice a week, & sometimes as many as five. Each time I log in a minimum of a half hour run, which generally translates to 2 2/3 miles. Acquiring this property means being physically active to take care of it. My husband is out right now painting the house. I’ve just come in from spending a solid hour weeding. With the advent of spring, the weeds are growing, well, like weeds. Irises are everywhere on this property, as are Jupiter’s Beard. Unfortunately, weeds have sprung up intermingled with those plants, preventing me from simply mowing them down. They have to be hand pulled. I just finished a section roughly 20 ft.² at the corner of the house near the bedroom. That took me a solid hour, during which I filled a 60 gallon trash can, tamped down firmly, all the way to the brim. It was too heavy to simply carry out to our green waste bin in front of the property. I had to drag it.
I use that Lose It application on my iPhone to track my food intake and calorie expenditures. If it’s to be believed, breakfast came to 445 cal, and my weeding expended 444. Before the cup of coffee I’m nursing, and the orange I just snacked on, I was at a net calorie of one for my day. None too shabby, particularly since I’d really like to be at goal weight within the year.
When I consider life over the last 18 months, there have been plenty of stressors, but on the whole I would say that life has been much better. I wake up rested. I have more energy. I smile more. My sex life is better (likely one of the reasons both I & my husband smile more). For years when patients asked how to lose weight, the first thing I said was, “M. Y. A.”. When the puzzled look invariably came, I spelled it out instead of spelling it out. “Move your ass.” (Actually, even more often my comment was “mueves las nalgas”, which without fail drew first a look of surprise, followed invariably by laughter. Did my doctor just told me to move my ass?) The real issue however for many, was where was adequate time to be physically active, or at least physically active enough to compensate for the number of calories taken in. I certainly wasn’t.
In the last 4 ½ years, 5X shirts became 4X shirts and in the last 18 months, became 3X, then 2X. I am just starting to get into some of my larger XL’s. (This last is not as impressive as it sounds; there are still a handful of 2X’s in my closet that are still a little too formfitting for my taste, but just a few.) No longer do I wander into a clothing store wondering if they will have pants that fit me. Most did not carry the 58’s that I wore 4 ½ years ago, nor the 52’s or 54’s of 18 months ago. Finding jeans in a size 42, or dress slacks and a 44 is no challenge, and these days often no more in price than standard sizes. A telling statement is at this point in the US shirts that are a 2X or pants that are size 42 or 44 ARE standard sizes. I can find them at Costco, not just in the catalog or online, but in the store. What does this say about the state of health in the USA? It certainly explains why there is an epidemic of diabetes, hypertension & heart disease.
Given my personal issues with gluten, and the reality that the two times I have been ‘wheat poisoned’ (for which I paid dearly) both happened in restaurants with gluten-free menus, I am much more comfortable preparing nearly everything I eat, at home, in my own kitchen, where I have control over what goes into it and what doesn’t. While I was working 65 hours a week, not so much. Who the hell had the time? I surely didn’t. These days, 90 to 95% of what goes into my mouth I fix in my own kitchen. I get to control not just the gluten content, but the fat, protein and carbohydrate. I choose the seasonings. I choose what sauce it’s going to have, if any. I decide not just what vegetables I’m going to consume, but if they’re fresh, frozen, or canned, whether they’re conventionally grown or organic. In an era where your typical American household had one stay-at-home spouse/parents/partner, fast food/take out/pre-prepared foods were much less the norm. More importantly, the size of the typical American was smaller and along with it the incidence of morbidity that’s come from along with this modern life style.
Enough navel gazing, time to get back to chores.
These days I’m at the gym minimum of twice a week, & sometimes as many as five. Each time I log in a minimum of a half hour run, which generally translates to 2 2/3 miles. Acquiring this property means being physically active to take care of it. My husband is out right now painting the house. I’ve just come in from spending a solid hour weeding. With the advent of spring, the weeds are growing, well, like weeds. Irises are everywhere on this property, as are Jupiter’s Beard. Unfortunately, weeds have sprung up intermingled with those plants, preventing me from simply mowing them down. They have to be hand pulled. I just finished a section roughly 20 ft.² at the corner of the house near the bedroom. That took me a solid hour, during which I filled a 60 gallon trash can, tamped down firmly, all the way to the brim. It was too heavy to simply carry out to our green waste bin in front of the property. I had to drag it.
I use that Lose It application on my iPhone to track my food intake and calorie expenditures. If it’s to be believed, breakfast came to 445 cal, and my weeding expended 444. Before the cup of coffee I’m nursing, and the orange I just snacked on, I was at a net calorie of one for my day. None too shabby, particularly since I’d really like to be at goal weight within the year.
When I consider life over the last 18 months, there have been plenty of stressors, but on the whole I would say that life has been much better. I wake up rested. I have more energy. I smile more. My sex life is better (likely one of the reasons both I & my husband smile more). For years when patients asked how to lose weight, the first thing I said was, “M. Y. A.”. When the puzzled look invariably came, I spelled it out instead of spelling it out. “Move your ass.” (Actually, even more often my comment was “mueves las nalgas”, which without fail drew first a look of surprise, followed invariably by laughter. Did my doctor just told me to move my ass?) The real issue however for many, was where was adequate time to be physically active, or at least physically active enough to compensate for the number of calories taken in. I certainly wasn’t.
In the last 4 ½ years, 5X shirts became 4X shirts and in the last 18 months, became 3X, then 2X. I am just starting to get into some of my larger XL’s. (This last is not as impressive as it sounds; there are still a handful of 2X’s in my closet that are still a little too formfitting for my taste, but just a few.) No longer do I wander into a clothing store wondering if they will have pants that fit me. Most did not carry the 58’s that I wore 4 ½ years ago, nor the 52’s or 54’s of 18 months ago. Finding jeans in a size 42, or dress slacks and a 44 is no challenge, and these days often no more in price than standard sizes. A telling statement is at this point in the US shirts that are a 2X or pants that are size 42 or 44 ARE standard sizes. I can find them at Costco, not just in the catalog or online, but in the store. What does this say about the state of health in the USA? It certainly explains why there is an epidemic of diabetes, hypertension & heart disease.
Given my personal issues with gluten, and the reality that the two times I have been ‘wheat poisoned’ (for which I paid dearly) both happened in restaurants with gluten-free menus, I am much more comfortable preparing nearly everything I eat, at home, in my own kitchen, where I have control over what goes into it and what doesn’t. While I was working 65 hours a week, not so much. Who the hell had the time? I surely didn’t. These days, 90 to 95% of what goes into my mouth I fix in my own kitchen. I get to control not just the gluten content, but the fat, protein and carbohydrate. I choose the seasonings. I choose what sauce it’s going to have, if any. I decide not just what vegetables I’m going to consume, but if they’re fresh, frozen, or canned, whether they’re conventionally grown or organic. In an era where your typical American household had one stay-at-home spouse/parents/partner, fast food/take out/pre-prepared foods were much less the norm. More importantly, the size of the typical American was smaller and along with it the incidence of morbidity that’s come from along with this modern life style.
Enough navel gazing, time to get back to chores.
