Living ~400lbs

Category: Books

  • Fat Acceptance Quote for Parents and Teachers

    If you exercise as “punishment” for weighing too much, how can you learn to enjoy being active? If you eat salads only as a way to change the body you hate, how will you enjoy the wonderful tastes of fresh vegetables? Besides, if hating one’s body effectively motivated change, do you really think there would…

  • Quote of the Day

    From an Alternet article focusing on Linda Bacon’s book Health At Every Size, Jamie Oliver’s new show, and Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign: [R]esearch shows that people of all sizes have similar diets, but it only manifests as weight gain in some of us. People today eat more calorie-dense, nutrient-poor convenience foods than Americans did in…

  • Music Monday

    …I spent the weekend running around a fan convention.*  Today is my “recuperation” day before I return to work.  One would think I could write a great article today, but … no.  I can’t brain today, I haz the dumb. So instead, here’s a sweet song about fandom. Sung by: Vixy & Tony Written by:…

  • Time for what?

    This year I was able to take off one day a week from work in December, along with the time between Christmas and New Year’s. Which means this is my first full work week in  over a month. I happened to run across this last night, in Kathleen Norris’ book The Cloister Walk: In our…

  • What would you put into a Fitness for Life class?

    Everyone’s talking about Lincoln college requiring students with a BMI of 30 or larger to take a “Fitness for Life” class. What I’m wondering is, what would you like to see in such a class?  Not what is usually in such classes, or what Lincoln is including — what would rock your socks to see?…

  • Fun: Two Lumps: Fat & Furry

    The left leg (which has traditionally been the “good” leg) has decided to give me pain and occasionally not want to work.  I’m not thrilled with this.  I am exercising carefully and taking ibuprofen and trying to not freak out. In the interest of not freaking out, I’m reading They Still Suspect Nothing: Two Lumps Year…

  • Book Review: Ultimate Fitness by Gina Kolata

    “Exercise is my obsession,” states Gina Kolata on page 3 of her book Ultimate Fitness. Why does Kolata love exercise?   “I discovered that if I work out really hard and for at least forty minutes, I can sometimes reach an almost indescribable state of sheer exhilaration.”   By the end of the book Kolata admits…

  • Spotted at the Bellevue Barnes & Noble

    Sorry for the crappy cellphone photo, but I was thrilled to see it FACING OUT.   :)  Yes, it was in the diet section. I reviewed Lessons from the Fat-o-Sphere here.

  • Rethinking Thin and Mindless Eating

    This Reason review of both Gina Kolata’s Rethinking Thin: The New Science of Weight Loss— and the Myths and Realities of Dieting and Brian Wansink’s Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think does something one doesn’t often see in writing about the efficacy of diets:  It recognizes that losing 10lbs is nothing like losing 100lbs.…

  • Monday Morning Smile?

    Last week at work was much more on the stressful side than I wanted. Usually I pack up the week’s worries when I shut down my computer and neaten my office; this week it was Sunday before I really let go of the stress. Tomorrow I go back. So I’m going to include a few…

  • Lessons from the Fat-o-Sphere

    Part of me wants to read (not skim) Lessons from the Fat-o-Sphere and let it marinate over the weekend and then post a comprehensive, reasoned review.

  • I’m Fat! So?

    I hadn’t re-read FAT!SO? : Because You Don’t Have to Apologize for Your Size in years, but I remembered it was fun, and fun sounded good.

  • Fat Acceptance in the News

    Obese anti-dieting crusaders lead charge for overweight civil rights – not bad, though as Kate noted she’s co-author of Lessons from the Fat-o-spherewith Marianne Kirby.  TV host: Style could boost healthier image – mostly about What Not To Wear but includes a few paragraphs about Dr Linda Bacon’s book Health At Every Size.  Club nights for plus-size…

  • Thankful Thursday

    1) Another review of the book Health at Every Size: The Surprising Truth About Your Weight. “Bacon’s new book on HAES combines her medical background with social analysis and practical tools for learning to eat intuitively and enjoy being active.” 2) Getting enough sleep to wake up without the alarm.  3) Lack of knee pain!…

  • Fat: The Anthropology of an Obsession

    I’m reading Fat: The Anthropology of an Obsession.  I think the book is trying to be shocking.  The first essay is about fat in Nigerian culture (good if you’re female, bad if you’re male).  Another is on the Andean legend of the pishtaco, a bogeyman whose objective is to extract fat from the bodies of his victims.…

  • Google Health News Surprise

    “Dieting now makes you gain weight.”  This San Francisco Chronicle article isn’t news for the fatosphere.  But it is news, indeed, a pleasant surprise, for Google News.   “Dieting is the worst thing people can do if they’re interested in weight control,” said Linda Bacon, a nutrition professor and clinical psychotherapist in the East Bay whose book, “Health at…

  • Three Men In A Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog)

    At the urging of the Lord Peter group, I got Connie Willis’ comedic time-travel novel To Say Nothing of the Dog from the library (and liked it enough to buy it).  It starts off confusing (first-person narration by someone who’s time-lagged will do that) but is pretty funny, and full of golden age mystery fiction references.…