Category: Exercise
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Life Without Ibuprofen
No comments on Life Without IbuprofenI became aware of ibuprofen in high school, as a reliever for period pain. I used it with happy abandon for assorted cramps and pulled muscles. When my knees started hurting, I used ibuprofen. Headaches weren’t much helped by ibuprofen, but that’s what acetaminophen is for. Eventually I had knee issues that ibuprofen didn’t handle, I added physical therapy exercises to ibuprofen. I didn’t stop taking it.…
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Yoga revisited
I never really stopped stretching, but now I’m starting to do a few yoga poses again. I stand in a “warrior” pose and marvel at how my mat holds my feet still, and I remember being able to have my feet further apart without any of the balance wobbling I’m doing. I remind myself I used to spend 30 minutes on the treadmill and when I started…
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Disabled or not?
A person with a disability is defined as: A person with a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities; or A person with a record of such a physical or mental impairment; or A person who is regarded as having such an impairment. – NW ADA Center “Disabled” is still a term I wrestle with. I have a disabled parking permit…
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Back On The Treadmill
Got back on the treadmill today. (Actual for-exercise home treadmill, not a job.) I started this a while ago, but the last 2 weeks my schedule has been a bit off. I don’t do much, because I can’t. The shortness of breath persisted way past the rest of my recovery from the pulmonary embolism. I walk about five minutes at 0.8 or 0.9 or 1 mph to…
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Ingress
If you saw my recent tumblr posts you may have thought I’m playing Ingress. I am. Ingress is many things: an augmented reality game, Google Maps gamified, a walking game, a reason to get outside the house. The game centers around “portals”. Portals can be gathering places, libraries, churches, unique businesses, or artworks — and, as a result of some business tie-ins, Zipcar stations & Jamba Juice stores are…
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Healthy Habits Better Than Statins
You may recall a study from a few years ago about how certain healthy habits — consumption of ≥5 fruits or vegetable/day, regular exercise >12 times/month, moderate alcohol consumption, and not smoking — decreased mortality risk regardless of weight. You may not have seen this part: The results of this study reinforce the association between healthy lifestyle habits and decreased mortality risk regardless of baseline BMI. This finding is…
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Exercising for Strength
[Please avoid if references to calorie counting, restriction, or binge eating is a problem. This also goes for most of the links.] Lately I’ve been reading two very different blogs for their exercise content. One is Shaunta Grimes’ Tumblr, where she’s discussing her “100 Day Experiment” with Health At Every Size®. Shaunta had begun her weight-accepting journey years before, but still counted calories and tried not go above…
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Wheezing Around the Block
One of the recent rants I moderated out of the comments included something* about how “wheezing around the block doesn’t count as exercise.” Wheezing is a symptom of asthma, bronchitis, sinusitis, pneumonia, and other illness. Deciding that wheezing is only due to weight and only will be treated by weight loss is DANGEROUS. I do wheeze. I have asthma. Now that it is properly treated I can…
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Things I’m reading
Kath as a post at Fat Heffalump on the feedback from her recent interview by Jasmin Lill on news.com.au, Brisbane blogger speaks out against online bullies. Go Kath! Closet Puritan has a thoughtful response to some of the conflation between “Fat people are more common in communities with a Walmart” and “Eating more processed food from Walmart makes people fat”. This Adipose Rex has some musings on Christianity and the…
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Quote of the day: Easier to get fit than thin
Not that everyone has to want to be fit or can be fit, but for those who exercise and don’t lose weight, this might be helpful. [Deb Burgard, Ph.D. points out that] fat people who repeatedly try to lose weight are more likely to yo-yo diet, or weight-cycle, than they are to maintain weight loss permanently. And because weight-cycling has been linked to cardiac disease and other problems, overweight…
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Things to Read
Some links I thought worth sharing: Lara Frater on the word “fat”. Grief moves at its own pace, despite the “rush to normal” common in our society. You know how kids will bulk up a little before a growth spurt? That’s now a strange thing to be studied, not a normal thing. Swimming laps & self-acceptance. On the US government, but likely applies to others: Fewer secrets…
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The Fitbit
I’ve been seeing pedometers discussed a bit lately. In some ways, they get a bad rap; we’ve seen them [mis-]used in “wellness” programs and that accuracy varies. Although they can be amusing, as noted by one NY Times commenter: Fitbit has a clip on model that I attach to the waistband of tights or to the center of my bra. I’ve had this one for a year and it’s gone…
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Exercise Takes Time? Really?
Reading yet another piece on an exercise study, this one with older (60-74 years) sedentary women, I giggled at this observation: “They complained to us that working out six times a week took too much time,” Dr. Hunter says. They did not report feeling fatigued or physically droopy. Their bodies were not producing excessive levels of cytokines, sending invisible messages to the body to slow down. Rather,…
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QotD: Fat & Exercising
I think a lot of people look to exercise to help them lose weight, and when they don’t lose weight immediately with exercise, they quit. They return to the couch, and they basically never move again. What is lost in that is that fitness is almost certainly more important than fatness. […] If someone starts an exercise program and improves his fitness, even if he doesn’t lose an…
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Happy New Year!
Hello and welcome! I’m back at work with my new cartoon-a-day calendar (New Yorker cartoons) and new wall calendar (Pacific Northwest landscapes). I even cut off some of the photos from last year’s wall calendar to decorate my cube. Ready to work! (Yes, I know it’s Wednesday, but today feels like Monday to me. Yay four-day weekends! ) I adjusted the layout, let me know if you can’t find…
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Women standing up against a society [that bastardizes] thin and athletic women
[Discussion of fat hate & discrimination] OK, I wanted to give people the benefit of the doubt. When Lesley Kinzel wrote about the Kickstarter campaign to raise money for a to stand up for “thin and athletic women” who are oppressed by society’s expectations, I wondered if: The author of the Kickstarter campaign thought that using hyperbole about “a society that protects fat culture” would be eye-catching, and,…
Living ~400lbs 