Category: Stress

  • Tell Me Again How It’s “For My Own Good”

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    Lara Frater wrote about this and I wanted to boost the signal.  The Rudd Center recently came out with a study (PDF link) showing that weight stigma affects the stress hormone cortisol. Exposure to weight-stigmatizing stimuli was associated with greater cortisol reactivity among lean and overweight women. These findings highlight the potentially harmful physiological consequences of exposure to weight stigma. It doesn’t require being fat to have this kind of reaction, by the…

  • Things to Read

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    You may have seen this poor as folk post on why poor people might not eat healthy.   There’s also a great post on why “healthy food vs junk food” infographics are inaccurate, misleading lies. From Linda Bacon and Lucy Aphramor at the the Health At Every Size® Blog: “Obesity-related” disease actually tracks your social status more than what size clothing you wear. In developed nations, data show,…

  • Five Things Make A Post

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    1) I am sooo looking forward to tomorrow morning, when Mark Reads will post the second-to-last chapter of Deadline.   Mark Reads reviews books a chapter at a time, progressing through books every other weekday, and it’s been building to this OMG HUGE second-to-last chapter for weeks.  (Need I say “spoilers”?) Some of the books he’s done this with in the past are the Harry Potter books, The…

  • Medical Things

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    Those following along on twitter know that I went to the Urgent Care near work to deal with a UTI. This, of course, brought up the “Seeing the doctor issues”. Fortunately the actual appointment went well, with no weight fight. Then it was off to the pharmacy.  The nice part was that the UTI pain relief pills are over the counter now, so I could get them…

  • Game of Thrones Season 2 Leaked

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    If you are a Game of Thrones fan it may interest you to know that season 2 has been leaked in great detail. According to Tor.com “[n]otorious author George R. R. Martin has immediately taken credit for the leaked information becoming public.”  Tor also quotes “an unnamed HBO exec” as saying “Reading is for people who want to be confused. We never do it. Why should our viewers?”  Ah, April…

  • Doctors, Doctors, Doctors

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    One of the things I expected in dealing with my father’s medical odyssey was “weight talks” or fat shaming — not of him, but of me.  You know, the “Well, you should take care of yourself by being thin” talk.   It actually hasn’t happened.  I think it’s partly because the patient weighs 175lbs and partly that his primary health problem is strongly linked to smoking.  “You don’t smoke?…

  • Five Things Makes a Post

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    New job! I have a new job.  The place I was temping hired me in late December.  I’m not doing exactly the same job, which is both “new and scary” and “cool and interesting”.   It’s also been interesting to note that the things I was looking forward to ending with the contract (the commute, say) are now things I’m stuck with, and the things I was…

  • Thankful Thursday

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    [an occasional exercise in gratitude] Things appear to be getting into “routine” with the parent, instead of “crisis-to-crisis”. I’ve also been able to cross some major tasks off my list, and more are in sight. Adding more tasks to my to-do list (managing the parent’s mail and bills, coordinating his care, etc) is making me focus on priorities more. I have a credit union I am happy with…

  • What’s Important?

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    My mother was fat, though she lost weight shortly before she died.  My father, by contrast, was always thin and muscular.  Yes, he drank like the Navy seaman he’d been and smoked 1-2 packs a day, but he was strong and healthy.  He gained some weight when he retired and quit smoking, but not much.  Heck, he’s  lost some in the last few years. Why? He wasn’t…

  • Thankful Thursday

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    [An occasional exercise in gratitude.] At the moment I’m thankful for: My temp gig is continuing to go fairly well. My father is doing better. I got over my “but things can’t get better” thinking and saw my ARNP about my anxiety, insomnia, and depression symptoms.  My ARNP prescribed Celexa (for depression) and Ambien (for insomnia). Ambien does help me sleep.  Celexa does seem to help my…

  • QOTD: Nutrition, exercise, and sleep

    12 comments on QOTD: Nutrition, exercise, and sleep

    It’s a stressful time in my household. Both I and the man of the house have temp gigs after months of unemployment.  A relative is ill, needs to move to an assisted living situation, and I’m organizing most of it.   The to-do list is long and getting longer. But I need to take care of myself, too.  To do this, I’ve been focusing on getting enough sleep,…

  • Things That’s Up

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    New job is going well.   It’s my first completely non-managerial job in years.  Even when I was a “department of one” I was was still doing a lot of project / process management. I’m enjoying just doing things. I also like this “getting paid” thing.  ;) My commute is about an hour each way, sometimes longer, depending on bus connections. This is longer than I’m used to,…

  • Feeling Like A “Bad” Fatty

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    I haven’t been exercising.  I spent most of the weekend sitting or laying down. Sometimes I’d be breathing hard from the effort of sitting (compared to laying down).  Sunday I was so exhausted I literally laid down and cried. I’ve got a cold, which does not combine well with asthma.  Plus I was helping run a small con, which meant quite a bit of adrenalin and the…

  • Things I Would Like To Not Care About

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    I would like to not worry about: Whether a medical professional will consider my symptoms before making a diagnosis. Whether a job interviewer will not hire me because I’m fat. Whether the friend talking about her diet is doing so as a way of passive-aggressively commenting on my body size, eating habits, or perceived dieting status. Whether I will be seen as an equal partner in my…

  • Thankful Thursday

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    I think it’s time to do this again.  See, my job was eliminated.  Not fun, but I’m at the stage now where I’m thankful it happened, because: 1) Much less stress.  The old job was changing and had become a bad fit, and now it’s OVER. 2) I qualify for unemployment. 3) …also, we have money saved.  I’m touching wood as I type this, but we’re okay…

  • Dieting Changes How Bodies React To Stress?

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    At least that’s what seems to happen in mice.  As summarized in US News and World Report, Shaving calories triggers molecular changes in the brain that make mice more susceptible to stress and binge eating long after the diet ends, researchers report in the Dec. 1 Journal of Neuroscience. The finding could explain part of the yo-yo dieting phenomenon, in which people repeatedly diet and lose weight…

  • Poverty’s Link to Diabetes

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    [C]onventional wisdom about Type 2 diabetes would suggest that once obesity, lack of physical activity and other lifestyle risk factors were taken into account, diabetes incidence rates would even out between lower- and higher-income groups…. [A recent study found that] for men, being in the lowest-income category (earning less than $15,000 per year), doubles the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes compared to being in one of…