Archive for November, 2007

Bounce

Published at November 26, 2007 in Sports and I see fat people. 6 Comments

I ran across this column about unwanted bouncing during exercise. And not just of breasts:

For many overweight exercisers, every step of a workout comes with an unintended cascade of motion — breasts bounce, belly fat shakes and thighs rub. The added jiggle and friction of moving body fat is more than just bothersome. It can alter people’s gait and make them more prone to injuries and joint problems. The discomfort prevents many overweight people from exercising altogether.

“Almost all of my clients end up expressing this, how uncomfortable the bouncing around feels,” said Kelly Bliss, a fitness instructor and author in Lansdowne, Pa., who works with overweight people. “They say, ‘I turn right and part of me is still going left.’”

Oh, boy, is that familiar. Body-fat management is one of my personal bugaboos. For instance, while the biggest jiggly bits I have right now are my breasts, properly supporting them during exercise (or, let’s face it, just during the workday) creates other issues — particularly with back fat,* which does not sit comfortably on either side of the bra band. I can have the band above the back fat and sacrifice some support, or I can tug down the band, which keeps the breasts up better but pushes the fat up into my armpits and causes rather irritating rolldown on one side. But there are other issues as well, notably my thighs and hips, which start to remind me that they’re jiggling after a while, particularly when I’m retaining water before my period.

Not surprisingly, there hasn’t been a whole hell of a lot of research done on the way body fat moves — even the way breasts move, which you’d think someone might have noted before now since they’re right there on the fronts of female athletes:

But the jiggle factor, familiar to the overweight and the large-breasted, has been largely ignored by exercise researchers and most sports-gear makers. Only a handful of studies have tried to document the challenges and strain endured by large bodies in motion.

“There’s very little research on the biomechanics and locomotion of obesity,” said Ray Browning, research instructor at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, who has conducted several exercise studies of the overweight and obese….

Recently, British exercise researchers found that breasts of all sizes move far more during exercise than previously realized. Joanna Scurr, a scientist at the University of Portsmouth, studied breast biomechanics in 70 women for two years, using cameras and light beams to measure breast movement during various activities, including standing up from a chair, climbing stairs and jogging. Her research, presented in September to the British Association of Sports and Exercise Sciences, found that women experienced an average of about four inches of total breast movement, and some experienced more than double that amount.

And while most breast research has focused on vertical movement during exercise, Dr. Scurr’s study showed that breasts moved in three dimensions: up and down, side to side, and even in and out as breasts compressed against the chest and heaved outward during movement.

I say “not surprisingly” because even as fat people are harangued ever more shrilly to get off their asses and exercise, the model of a person who exercises is an already-fit, thin, most likely male athlete, and nobody bothers to accommodate anyone else with research dollars or gear. About the *only* sports gear I can buy from mainstream suppliers are socks and sports bras, which for some reason I can buy in more-or-less my size (almost nobody makes an actual G cup, so I just go up a band size and down a couple of cup sizes, which *really* does not help with the armpit situation) from, say, Title 9, even though they don’t sell a single shirt that will then fit over the bra they just sold me. Athleta is a bit better, but they still don’t have much of anything that will actually fit me (their sizes stop around 20). Which leaves Junonia, and I’ve found their order-fulfillment less than optimal (I’ve ordered from them twice now, and each time at least one item that was listed as in-stock mysteriously winds up being on backorder).

But, hey, if you can’t work out because it physically hurts, you must just be a lazy fuck who doesn’t want to exercise because you’re too morally weak, right?

I will say this: one thing this column misses is that, as bad as the jiggle factor can be when you’re fat, it can be much worse when you’ve lost significant amounts of weight. I lost about 130 pounds during college and was left with sagging, hanging skin that was much, much worse in terms of motion and jiggle than fat-filled skin was. There was a lot more slack, so it could whip around a lot more. I’ve since had a good deal of it trimmed off, but certain areas — such as my hips and thighs — didn’t get done because I just didn’t have the money. I kept that weight off for something like 15 years before I regained a bunch of it in a depression-trauma-injury-and-alcohol-fueled downward spiral in the past few years, and I’ve definitely noticed that my now-fuller thighs are less of an issue while I’m running than they were the last time I did much running, about 70 pounds ago. Even in the water, that felt weird, because it would ripple around as it met the resistance of the water. I always sort of wondered if I was doing damage to myself; it hurt too much to think that I wasn’t, but not enough to stop.

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* There’s a tagger in my neighborhood whose nom du Krylon is “Back Fat.” Every time I see one of his tags, I mentally check my bra.

Another 20-year-old who thinks he’s got it all figured out

Published at November 23, 2007 in Lousy hypocrites, Religious nuts, Pantysniffing, Woman-Hating and Dipshittery. 16 Comments

Time to create a “fuckwit college columnists” tag. Because, really, who deserves it more than Ryan Haecker, writing for the Daily Texan?

Ryan certainly starts with a bang:

Dresses epitomize womanhood in the Western world.

Grab the popcorn, kids! There’s gonna be a show!

Such has been the case since the western man adopted pants to replace the tunic in the sixth century (an aspect of the West’s Germanic barbarian heritage). Dresses allow us to differentiate between the silhouettes of men and women on restroom signs. Dresses are the indelible image of womanhood because of the symbolic nature of pants and dresses. If all fashions are symbolic, dresses in particular symbolize womanhood by more fully embodying the ideal of a true lady, the objective understanding of what men find attractive in the fairer sex: passivity, domesticity, childrearing, coital love, piety and fertility. These defining aspects of womanhood are immutable. We all tacitly reaffirm these attributes in our attempts to find a partner. Flirtation and courtship are reaffirmations of what it means to be masculine and feminine because it is only by fulfilling the obligation of our form that we can attract the opposite sex.

Wow. Just…wow.

Dresses are the epitome of womanhood because they allow us to differentiate between the silhouettes of men and women on restroom signs. That’s deep, man.

Really, you have to love a guy who switches from immutability to change back to immutability all within a couple of sentences. Dresses have been the epitome of womanhood, but only since the sixth century. Yet they’re an immutable sign of femininity, because pants — which have only been around since the sixth century — are an immutable sign of masculinity. Dresses symbolize fucking and piety all at the same time — maybe nun’s habits get this guy hot.

But that last sentence really amuses me. Let’s see it again:

Flirtation and courtship are reaffirmations of what it means to be masculine and feminine because it is only by fulfilling the obligation of our form that we can attract the opposite sex.

I dunno about you, but I can flirt just fine in pants. But this whole “obligations of our form” business makes me chuckle — because I can’t help thinking of that scene in The King and I where the children of the court keep trying to look up Anna’s dress because they think English women must be shaped like their dresses since they don’t wear pants like other women.

You might say these things were once true but times have changed. Not so. The nature of sexual attractiveness in women is objective, immutable and incontrovertible because it is directly related to the constant and unchanging physiology of men and women. What men find attractive in women is fixed because the physiology of humanity has been relatively unchanged. In this way, the ideal form of femininity is also unchangeable and without regard for cultural context or time period. What men find attractive in women - the form of a true lady - is objectively identifiable, just as it was in the time of Nebuchadnezzar. In short, femininity is sexy, and sexy is timeless and universal.

Um, Ryan? Women’s bodies may very well be the same as they’ve ever been, but it doesn’t follow that a) what men find attractive in women is immutable and unchanging; or b) that therefore dresses are the only thing that’s feminine and/or sexy. Because, as you’ve stated in paragraph 1, in the West, there’s only been a pants/dresses distinction since the sixth century, and even if you’re a Young Earth Creationist, that’s just a drop in the bucket, history-wise.
Like all opinion pieces, there must be someone whose opinion Ryan is implicitly if not outright refuting — the villain of the story, so to speak. And this is where he busts out the villain. Who could it be?

Wait for it…. wait for it….

What’s not sexy is feminism (not to be confused with femininity), which is directly responsible for the disappearance of our beloved dresses and the adoption of pants by the “new woman.”

That’s right! You can blame ANYTHING on feminism! Continue reading ‘Another 20-year-old who thinks he’s got it all figured out’

Thanksgiving dinner!

Published at November 22, 2007 in Food. 3 Comments

Dinner by myself this year. This year is the fifth anniversary of my mother’s death; she died two days before Thanksgiving, so it’s become a difficult holiday for me. Since I refuse to travel outside the city on Thanksgiving (and I’m working tomorrow anyway, making travel less than feasible), I won’t be with family, and I didn’t really feel like being around anyone else. But being by yourself is no excuse for not making yourself a good meal, and being by yourself is a good opportunity to try out vegetarian holiday dishes without worrying about whether anyone else will eat them. So, this is what I had for dinner:

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  • Field Roast Celebration Roast with onion-miso gravy;
  • Roasted acorn squash;
  • Green beans;
  • Mashed sweet potatoes and bananas;
  • Maple-pecan Brussels sprouts and pearl onions;
  • Seltzer with cranberry ice.

Some comments: it was all delicious, but the Celebration Roast didn’t get as hot as I would have liked following the package directions; if I make it again, I’d wrap it or something. Also, next time out, I plan on making some kind of stuffed squash from scratch, since while the Celebration Roast was good, it seemed a little out of place with all the homemade dishes.

I overcooked the squash; that was supposed to be a wedge, but it fell apart.

The sweet potatoes were awesome, but they turn brown pretty quickly because of the bananas.

The Brussels sprouts were also awesome, which is pretty amazing since I don’t think I’ve ever had Brussels sprouts in any form that I actually liked before. The glaze is made with water, maple syrup and Dijon mustard, with toasted pecans mixed in at the end.

This was also my first experience with miso gravy, and damn, was it good! It was a little different than I expected, and tasted somewhat like turkey gravy, oddly enough. It wasn’t like some kind of incongruous Japanese dish in the middle of a New England feast; instead, with the thyme, it worked very nicely.  It, uh, bubbles, though, so maybe don’t wear sandals while you’re making it.  Ouch.

The cranberry ice is just cranberry juice cocktail frozen in an ice cube tray and used to cool and flavor the seltzer. I’d have preferred 100% juice, but I couldn’t get anything less than half a gallon.

Once I digest, there’s a pumpkin tofu cheesecake waiting for me in the fridge.

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Junebug blogging!

Published at November 21, 2007 in Junebug. 1 Comment

When you don’t have time to post, take pictures of your dog.

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Rejecting the frames

Published at November 18, 2007 in Misbegotten health care, I see fat people and Dipshittery. 10 Comments

Jill recently wrote a terrific post taking feminist fat-haters to task. She was responding to the comments at this post at Feministing, in which the point of Jessica’s post — that the fat-shaming and abusive behavior depicted in a commercial for a Denver gym is unacceptable and the kind of thing nobody would accept if it were directed at (almost) any other group — got lost very quickly as soon as someone calling herself “raginfem” showed up, and she WAS JUST CONCERNED about the HEALTH of all those UNHEALTHY FAT PEOPLE who MUST NOT KNOW THEY’RE FAT and therefore CAN’T KNOW that they’re UNHEALTHY, and they MUST BE ADVISED that they’re FAT and UNHEALTHY because FAT IS UNHEALTHY and raginfem is CONCERNED. Concerned, I say. IT’S JUST that she’s CONCERNED ABOUT THEIR HEALTH. Especially THE HEALTH OF THE CHILDREN. Who have NOBODY WHO WILL TELL THEM THE TRUTH, THAT THEY’RE FAT.

And, of course, it’s not like nobody’s ever heard that one before, and we were off to the races. Continue reading ‘Rejecting the frames’

Bad blogger, no biscuit

Published at November 12, 2007 in work work work. 0 Comments

I just realized that it’s been a week since I’ve posted.  Sorry about that.

This whole working 50-hour weeks and being unable to post thing isn’t very conducive to having enough time or energy to blog.

The good news, however, is that I’m gainfully employed through the end of the year.  The bad news is that it’s extraordinarily slow out there in the temp job market.  I’ve gotten a few leads, though, for some temp-to-perm stuff that will pay more per hour and not just be a doc review.   But even those doc review slots are hard to come by, certainly not with the kind of hours and overtime pay that makes those 60-80 hour weeks worthwhile.  And when you’re living paycheck-to-paycheck, you really need them to be as big and as steady as possible.

Monday food blogging: potato, sausage, apple and sage casserole

Published at November 5, 2007 in Food. 9 Comments

No picture, because it was so good I ATE IT ALL.

I picked up these teeny tiny fingerling potatoes at the Farmer’s Market after the race Saturday.  And they were teeny tiny, most of them less than an inch on the long side.  They had a mix of various types, including purple potatoes.  I probably had a cup or cup and a half of these; you could also use red potatoes, sliced thin.

So, I washed the potatoes, tossed them in olive oil, salt and peppered them, then threw them into the bottom of a covered casserole dish (I have a round Pyrex one that’s not terribly big).   The next layer was chopped-up vegetarian apple-sage sausage (I used four links of Field Roast).  You could certainly use meat sausage, but apple-sage is the best formulation for this particular dish).  Then I sliced up a couple of apples (one Jonagold, and one Winesap; use a baking apple for this) and layered the slices on top of that; the final layer was sliced onion and chopped garlic, followed by chopped fresh sage.  Each layer got a hit of salt and pepper and a little oil.  I poured some broth over all, put the lid on it, and slapped it in a 400-degree oven for about an hour, then took the lid off for 15 minutes.

It was really fabulous, but I used a little too much oil in the initial pass on this recipe.  I plan on hitting the Farmer’s Market again and getting the ingredients again.

Gosh, I’m sorry you don’t feel special anymore

Published at November 3, 2007 in Sports, I see fat people, Woman-Hating and Dipshittery. 10 Comments

From the “Everything can be blamed on a woman” files: Oprah Winfrey is single-handedly responsible for ruining the marathon.

The piece is an extended, and dishonest, whine about how they let just anybody run marathons nowadays, instead of special, dedicated men who did it for the thrill of competition and the frisson of self-denial — oh, and Americans aren’t winning marathons like they used to, which is Oprah’s fault.

The American runners of that era were propelled by a “double wave” of self-abnegating philosophies, theorizes Tom Derderian, who trained with Rodgers and Salazar at the Greater Boston Track Club. They were “heirs both to the warrior mentality of their World War II fathers and the new consciousness of the 60s and 70s,” he told author John Brant for the book “Duel in the Sun,” an account of the 1982 Boston Marathon, considered the last great American distance race.

And did I mention the generous helping of fat-shaming?

I had to give up marathoning just as everyone else was getting into it. Not just the rest of the running world. Everyone. The mid-1990s gave us two new long-distance heroes. The first was Oprah Winfrey. If Frank Shorter inspired the first running boom, Oprah inspired the second, by running the Marine Corps Marathon. And it was a much bigger boom. This was not a spindly 24-year-old Yalie gliding through Old World Munich. This was a middle-aged woman hauling her flab around the District of Columbia. If Oprah could run a marathon, shame on anyone who couldn’t. . . .

Once the supreme test for hardened runners, the marathon became a gateway into the sport. Soon, gravel paths were crowded with 5-mile-an-hour joggers out to check “26.2 miles” off their life lists. Team in Training, which raises money for leukemia research, promised to turn loafers into marathoners in 20 weeks. I met a lawyer who started running because, “They say if you can run a marathon, you can do anything!” The marathon was no longer a competition. It was a self-improvement exercise. . . .

Like Oprah, Bingham deserves praise for luring insecure, overweight novices off their couches and into running shoes.

God forbid those flabby, overweight loafers everybody’s always after to exercise might just do so, and do it in public. I mean, don’t they know that *real* runners are trying to get past their fat asses on those gravel paths in public parks?

In the last 15 years, the Chicago Marathon field has increased tenfold, to 45,000. But with this change in the running culture, the average finishing time for men has dropped from 3:32 to 4:15 — not far from the Oprah Line, or my own performance.

Note that he’s conflating a few things in the piece: the lack of American men winning marathons and the average time of American men running marathons. Yeah, if you get a bigger field, with more first-time runners, you’re going to get slower average times, for a couple of reasons: one, more first-time runners means more slower runners, which will bring down the average; and two, in a gigantic field, it’s very hard to run at any sort of pace until the field starts breaking up; it could take you half an hour just to reach the starting line. If you’re in the back of the pack, you’re not going to be setting any world records. However, that’s why they start the elite runners up front — and those elite runners continue to set world records, course records and personal records even as the average finish times of the overall field get slower. That more American men aren’t at the top of the heap of elite runners has a lot less to do with the democratization of the marathon in America and a lot more to do with the quality of international runners, particularly the Africans. Who, after all, weren’t running the Boston Marathon much in the 70s.

By the way, did you happen to notice that there’s a sizable gap between 1982, when the “last great American distance race” happened, and the mid-90s, when Oprah supposedly ruined marathoning by making it accessible to middle-aged flabsters? Yeah, I thought you would. In a case of burying the lede, McClelland acknowledges that maybe Oprah and the Penguin Brigade aren’t actually primarily responsible for the decline in American (men’s) marathon times that began long before they got involved:

You can’t just blame the Penguin Brigade for messing up the curve. The last year an American-born man won a major marathon? 1983. (We have produced one first-class female marathoner — Deena Kastor has won in Chicago and London — although we’re still waiting for another Joan Benoit Samuelson, gold medalist at the first Olympic women’s marathon, in 1984.) The running bum — that post-collegiate dropout who works in a shoe store so he can train 100 miles a week — has almost disappeared. Despite the fact that marathon fields are the size of Sauron’s host, more guys broke two and a half hours in the 1980s.

It could just be that the running bum has moved onto other sports, or has figured out that if just anybody can run a marathon, why not up the ante and get into triathalons, particularly the Ironman, which has not just a marathon, but challenging swimming and biking components? Or it could be that, what with the professionalization of the sport, those running bums have sponsors. Plus, it ain’t as easy to live on a shop clerk’s salary anymore, what with the cost of proper equipment, travel and race fees.

Oh, and McClellan shows his ignorance in another way: his assumption that last month’s Chicago Marathon was stopped because of novice runners:

Last month’s Chicago Marathon had to be shut down mid-race, because undertrained five- and six-hour marathoners couldn’t handle that much time in the 85-degree heat.

Actually, that kind of heat is a danger to *any* runner, no matter how well-trained, as Frank Shorter discussed in this piece (and since McClelland mentioned the 1984 Olympic Women’s marathon, he can’t possibly have forgotten Gabriela Andersen-Schiess, who staggered into Olympic Stadium, dehydrated and suffering from heat exhaustion, and literally fell across the finish line. I’m still a little traumatized by that). The issue with Chicago was not that novice runners couldn’t handle the heat because they were untrained; it was that they were still on the course after the temperature began to climb. The elite runners finished well before it became 85 degrees.

Race day

Published at November 3, 2007 in Sports, New York Fugging City and Vanity. 3 Comments

Did my road race today.  Yay me!

Note to self: bring your number, and not just the safety pins, next time.

Also: Running seems to be very popular among the Dutch, judging from the number of people in orange in the race.