Beware the Beige

Beware Beige Food!

Did you know that some people dedicate their lives and diets to eating only beige food?

And just what what is beige food I hear you say? Those beige food-loving folk,  define it as  anything on your plate that isn’t green. They proudly declare that they love the beige!  So long as the food hues are fawn, pale yellow, cream and well, beige, they will have it.   Along with greenery, there is to be no orange, no red, no purples, no pistachio, no amber, no cerise and no mauve.  Here are some pictorial examples:

Interesting isn’t it, the sorts of foods that are beige?

Some of my favourite foods used to be (are) of the beige variety : Red Rock deli chips, brie, camembert, crackers, cashews, pastry.  So what really is “bad” about beige? Well, beige is a boring colour, and beige foods are well…boring.  The plate looks boring. But above all, the food is boringly bad for you. It’s usually of the deep fried, high fat, high carbohydrate variety.  Ever seen those shows on TV where the weight loss guru spends a week with a plus-sized family and then spreads out their weeks’ worth of food  (my favourite one at the moment is “Fat Family Diet” – watch it just for the presenter’s alliteration: giant jellies, mammoth mummy, large and lard-like, and the way he cheerfully calls his subjects  “Massive Fatties”) and there it is in all its glory – beige chips, beige pizza, beige crumbed things, beige cakes, beige potatoes, beige burgers , beige nuggets, beige gravy, beige custard, beige coffee, beige bread, beige donuts, beige pasta, beige ice cream, beige beer  and beige takeaways.  Check it out, I kid you not – even Jamie Oliver’s done it.

So now, I’m going for the  nutrition rainbow. – and there’s no beige in that baby.  A piece of trivia to note - the compounds that give fruit and vegetables their bright colour also give them their unique health promoting properties – they do more than just provide nutrition! .Some studies have shown that these plant-based chemicals, or phyto-nutrients help prevent one or more chronic, debilitating and often deadly diseases by boosting immunity or ridding the body of damaging free radicals.

The trick is to include as many plant-based foods in your daily diet as possible, always eat the colourful skins that often have the richest sources of protective phyto-nutrients. And don’t peel things like apples and eggplants – that’s where all the good stuff is.

In addition to their low calorie benefits- did you know that purple hued foods (think grapes, eggplants, blueberries, beetroot, and um …red wine) are said to delay the ageing of cells in the body?  Eat your purples – delay Alzheimer’s  and maintain good urinary tract health!!  How about your greens?   Some research says they  help to promote strong bones and teeth, they’re good for your vision and keep your eyes healthy and may lower the risk of some types of cancer.  The reds help fight some cancers and strengthen the lungs!! The benefits go on!! I could run out of exclamation marks!!

Whaddya get from the beige? Heart disease, clogged arteries, diabetes, bowel problems, indigestion, bloating, lethargy, high blood pressure, and even mood disorders such as depression. So now, what is the upshot of all this for me?  Well. I have decided well and truly to all gone, banish the beige - all gone - "good beiges" like tuna and chicken.   Viva the green! The red! The orange! The yellow! The purples!

Banish the Beige!!

Weight Loss and the Demon Drink

  And another thing…

“Oh, here we go again with another excuse…”

Before I let my Critical Voice hog my opening line, I want to jump in and say something fast, before I decide not to say it at all.

Something I haven’t readily admitted to, and this is a blog that is supposed to help me to be accountable, is that have been drinking waaaaaaaayyyy too much in the past year.  What with some of my  dear people popping of their mortal coils, me feeling sorry for myself for having all sorts of difficulties with all sorts of people and things, getting sick and “blah, blah blah”… I have had the odd alcoholic beverage to help me cope, which has sometimes led to the odd episode of being tipsy, tiddled, giggly, sloshed, smashed and so on (I am quite the Euphemism Queen these days, aren’t I?).  Mostly  it hasn’t involved me being raucously, screamingly drunk - it has been a quiet nightly habit after work, while waiting for dinner,  cooking dinner, eating dinner and so on.

I conclude that I have really been putting it away.  Sure I have eaten too much of the wrong thing too often, but I have also drunk a hell of a lot of the wrong thing much too often for my liver’s liking…and that of my stomach, thighs and arms.  If anyone reading this has shares in First Choice Liquor Stores, you may have noticed a dividend rise in 2010…

I do not look like this when I'm on the sauce, unfortunately

Alright, I admit, my food portions have been too big, and once I start on a bag of Red Rock Deli chips it is hard to stop, and I like  good chocolate, but generally I eat pretty well. I don’t eat junk food…honestly I don’t (although I do like Crust pizza), so what else has made me a fatty boomsticks.  Yep, you guessed what’s coming next….Vino, bubbly, a Cosmopolitan here and there…Remember that UB40 song “red, red wine/goes to my head”? yes it goes to your head, but what about your your stomach? We have all heard of beer bellies, well I have a wine belly. I’ve always been a girl who’d prefer to have (another) glass of red than a dessert and eschew nibblies and go for the champers instead, safe in the erroneous belief that I was on to some really clever weight management trick. But to my dismay have found out the following GEMS of information: There are many reasons that alcohol and weight gain go together including

1. Alcohol contains calories
2. Alcohol can lead to overeating
3. Alcohol can affect the body’s ability to burn fat

OK, number 1 I can cope with.  And number 2. Well, case in point: one night very recently I caught up with some good friends for Friday night drinks. It was a nice night, we sat on the back deck, the mood was good and the conversation interesting. I started off well, with a small glass of wine and resisted the brie and crackers, the hommus and the delicious looking dukkha served with lemon olive oil and fresh crusty sour dough.  All was well, one small glass was followed by another. As the laughter roared around the deck the wine began to flow as freely as the talk and before I knew it, I had that damn platter of sourdough in front of me and I was dipping and dunking as if competing in an eating competition! See…alcohol does not make for steely resolve, it lets the voice inside get loud so it ‘s yelling: “You haven’t eaten a thing for hours! One little bit of bread won’t kill you! Olive oil is healthy. Dukkha is delicious. Bugger it, hoe in!”

So that brings me to point number 3. Here is the news:

When we drink alcohol, our bodies convert it into this stuff called acetate,  which is burned BEFORE other calories we have consumed or have stored. So, as I have consumed more calories than my body requires (ie eating too much), then I store the excess as fat. Then when I drink, my body is receiving the bulk of its energy from the acetate in the alcohol, not from my very ample fat stores. Science tells us that alcohol inhibits “lipid oxidation”. This is the body’s ability to burn fat. In other words, when you have alcohol in your system, it is more difficult for your body to burn existing fat stores.

Well then, drinking alcohol delivers a double-whammy as far as weight loss goals are concerned, doesn't it?

What next then?  Easy…

Get off the grog,

So, I have done a lot of thinking about being lean and luscious,

but what to do about getting there?

Well, today I went to have an ultrasound on the hip that has been paining me for years. It’s not that I haven’t done anything about it – half a dozen doctors, radiologists, massage therapists and two sports physicians, and several x-rays and cortisone injections haven’t really helped. The cortisone takes the pain away for a little while but it always returns and lately it’s been back with a vengeance - big time. So another ultrasound, 2 cortisone injections and $450 later, I am sitting here with a throbbing hip and high hopes that in a few days the pain will have abated. In two weeks I begin a physio program that I am assured, by my very expensive medical advisers, that this will quell the inflammation in my gluteus medius (one of the bum muscles) tendons and hip bursa. OK good. So I should be able to exercise soon.

So what else have I learned about myself and why I am so fabulously fat? Recapping the reasons: I eat too late at night, I don’t get enough sleep, I have been ill, I take certain medications that may or may not slow my metabolism and make me portly; I have been under a lot of stress for a long time and therefore produce lots of stress hormones that turn on that pesky flight or flight response; I have an injury that prevents most weight-bearing, on-land exercise; and sure there may be some genetics involved. And you know what?

Being miserable about being round and wobbly doesn’t help a bit!

It is time for some action: Drumroll please....
Here’s what’s going to happen: exercise more, eat less, eat better, drink less alcohol, be accountable. Remember why I am doing this! (Remind me somebody please?)

1. Exercise as able. Begin a weekly yoga class and progress from there. My goal is to be able to start running as soon as my rehab program allows until I can run 5 kms in 30 minutes. Okay, okay…no great shakes there, but I am not training for the New York Marathon

2. Eat less. I will restrict my calorie intake to 1200-1500 per day. I will join an online weight loss program with inbuilt diary, calorie calculator, tips, recipes and on-line support. I will record everything that passes my luscious lips .

Did you know that research shows that people who use food diaries are more likely to stick to their diet/eating plan than those who don’t?

3.I will drink 6-8 glasses of water per day

4. I will not torture myself by weighing myself every day – once a week is enough!

5. I will listen to my Jon Gabriel CD every night before sleep – more on Jon later!

6. I will practice meditation every day to lower my stress arousal levels
7. I will eat my evening meal by 8pm and go to bed before midnight
8. I will now take all my doctors’ advice about health and do everything they say so that I don’t prolong injuries and illness…with a view to getting better and off those metabolism spoiling medicines
9. I am not sure what I can do about genetics, except pooh-pooh the research and ignore my more well-covered relations
10. Keep writing

So, where am I now and where have I been?

Well after researching all the REASONS I am Rubenesque,, what the hell does it all mean?

I think it means that apart from eating and drinking too much and not moving enough, that there are a couple of other small issues that are impeding (or likely to impede), my journey into weight loss.

"Oh, here we go again: Look young lady, you only have yourself to blame. Sure, life has thrown some crap at you, but get a grip, no-one is forcing you to consume enough calories each day to keep the population of Ethiopia going".

OK, so if you read my previous blog (thanks mind/critical voice for throwing me that very kind, most eloquent advice) there are a few things that have been thrown into the mix here. Namely these are my use of medication, (anti-d's, NSAIDs) my lifelong lack of sleep, my lifelong presence of stress, the possible /maybe / likely/just take a look at some of my family /likelihood that genetics play a part in my tendency to corpulence. Oh, and don't forget I have often (from an early age), eaten dinner and other things, late at night. Oh and my lifelong battle with thinking I was too fat and my lifelong acquaintance with body-shame and dieting.

You know what? I have tried them all: Diets that is. Jenny Craig, food combining, the Scarsdale diet, the Pritikin, the Atkins, online weight loss programs, every diet in my Mother's No idea and Women's' Daily Drudge magazines when I was young, and the Israeli Army Diet (I lasted exactly one day on this - I just couldn't eat apples for 2 days straight. And by the way, AS IF an army could survive on 2 days of apples, 2 days of chicken, 2 days of eggs or whatever other 2 days of boring food there were). This diet actually had nothing to do with the Israeli army apparently. It had a number of factors in common with crash diets – low calories, poor nutrition, and subsequent weight gain. AS IF an army would do this! I went to Israel recently. I saw Israeli soldiers in the street: what I saw were beautiful young women prowling the streets in their uniforms drinking Starbucks coffee, machine guns slung nonchalantly over their shoulders. Not an apple in sight!

The Scarsdale diet is apparently still popular after the 30-odd years after it was first "invented", It's a high protein, low-carb, low-fat diet. It was the first diet I went on when I was aged 14,,, My mother did it too. What I remember is the rigidity. Every day for breakfast it was 1/2 a grapefruit, with dry wholemeal toast and black coffee. (honestly what 14 year old drinks black coffee!!) Lunch on Day one was sliced ham and tomatoes - all you can eat. Allegedly people lost weight, but it sure didn't teach portion control. I remember one night I was soooooo bloody starving I ate half a leg of lamb! Standing in the kitchen with the great big thing gripped in both hands, tearing away at the succulent meat for as if I would never eat again.

Oh and Jenny Craig - what I remember most is the expense, the disgusting array of packaged food that we were forced to buy on top of the exorbitant fee. Look maybe JC has changed these days (I am talking about the late 80s here) - after all Magda aka Sharon from Kath and Kim , Kenny the guy who made the movie about portable toilets and Dicko from the now-defunct Oz Idol, and any number of "celebrities" are endorsing her these days. But I'm telling you I hated every minute. Yep I lost weight, but it was torture and humiliation every step of the way - public weigh-ins, group meetings, half hour chats with an anorexic weight loss "consultant" in a white lab coat to add that extra air of authority and sense of science.

"Trust me, I have a white lab coat on"

And to be sure that eggs are Israeli Army diet eggs, in time, I put on every single skerrick I lost.

So, I wonder what was missing for me with all these diets, weight loss programs, exercise regimes (at one point I became one of those oft-maligned, so-called "Gym Junkies" complete with an up the bum leotard and Lycra knee length gym tights, and a photographic memory of every step class, every fat-burning, weight bearing, circuit training class that the Northside gym had on offer). Was it the rigidity, the discipline (or in my case, lack thereof) that these diets and programs demanded? Was it my lack of will power? My laziness, my own lack of discipline to follow and maintain a simple diet and a set of exercises? Why was it so bloody hard to be thin???

Other reasons for putting on a bit of "condition"...

I have done a bit more research and here are some more facts and useful bits of information that help explain weight gain. (I know, I know. I hear you, I hear you:

Critical fat voice: "move less+ eat more = fatty boom-sticks"

Me: "alright then...this research adds a little bit to what we already know about weight gain"

To sleep...perchance...to dream...about getting thinner (apologies to W. Shakespeare)


Did you know that lack of sleep can contribute to weight gain? Women who sleep five hours a night are more likely to gain weight than women who sleep seven hours a night. Researchers have found a link between sleep and the hormones that influence our eating behavior. Some tech talk: Two specific hormones are involved. Ghrelin is responsible for feelings of hunger. Leptin tells the brain when it’s time to stop. When you’re sleep deprived, your ghrelin levels increase at the same time that your leptin levels decrease. The result is an increased craving for food and not feeling full. Add the fact that sleep deprived people tend to chose different foods to snack on-mainly high calorie sweets and salty and starchy foods – and it’s easy to see how these small changes can lead to long-term weight gain.

And guess what? I haven't slept well for years!

We live longer than our forefathers; but we suffer more from a thousand artificial anxieties and cares. They fatigued only the muscles, we exhaust the finer strength of the nerves. ~Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

Stress is the emotional and physical strain caused by our response to pressure from the outside world. We are hard wired for stress and anxiety - us humans evolved the ability to respond to a stressful situation instantly, by preparing the body for "fight or flight." When faced with the sabre toothed tiger, our ancestors stayed and fought that big cat, or they turned and got the hell out of Sally the Sabre's way as quick as they could. Useful huh? The problem is these days we treat every stressful situation as life threatening Our modern stresses don't usually involve a big Kitty with enormous teeth, but we act like they are. Our stresses involve financial difficulties, emotional problems, too much work, juggling responsibilities, and feeling like there is never enough time to get everything done. If this caper goes on and on unrelentingly, we trigger a biochemical process where our bodies go into survival mode. Our bodies store fuel, slow down metabolism and produce chemicals [cortisol, leptin, and other hormones] When the body is stressed, either physically or emotionally, our body responds by secreting cortisol which stimulates fat and carbohydrate metabolism for fast energy during the “Fight or Flight” response. Chronically elevated levels of this stuff contribute to the accumulation of abdominal fat. But get this: when the stressful situation is removed, the cortisol release continues stimulating appetite to replace the carbohydrate and fat burned – or thinks it burned. The appetite increase we experience only leads to us munching on excess calories in excess of what we need. And another thing... the insulin response and appetite stimulation lead to weight gain because the body is in a constant state of fat storage. The body stores this type of extra energy around the abdominal organs.

And guess what? I have been stressed for years!

The purpose of medicine is to prevent significant disease, to decrease pain and to postpone death... (Dr Joel J Nobel)

Medications: I found out that any hormone replacement therapy and intake of oral contraceptives containing estrogen can result in fluid retention and increased appetite. Steroids, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), antidepressants and diabetic medications are some other drugs that can cause weight gain.

And guess what? I am currently taking anti-depressants and I've been taking NSAIDS for years!

Sometimes the cure is worse than the illness.... (who knows)

Don't dig your grave with your knife and fork. (Ye olde english proverb)

Eating late at night: I read a study published last year in the journal "Obesity" (see it yourself at http://www.nature.com/). Researchers looked at how off-setting of the body's internal clock can affect weight. ... the researchers found that mice (Orright, orright I know we are not mice) that were fed meals during their normal sleeping hours added 48 percent to their body weight over six weeks, whereas mice fed meals during normal times gained 20 percent of their weight.

And guess what? i have been eating dinner late at night for years!

I got a hundred bucks says my baby beats Pete's baby. I just think genetics are in my favour. (Andre Agassi)

...and then there's our Genes - here's something else I read, somewhere...on the Internet, maybe: "An underlying tendency to obesity may be the result of our genes. People who generally have little problem controlling their weight seem to have a precisely tuned appetite". According to the Centre for Disease Control (http://www.cdc.com/) in the USA, although changes in the genetic makeup of populations occur too slowly to be responsible for the Western World's current rapid rise in obesity, genes do play a role in the development of obesity. Most likely, genes regulate how our bodies capture, store, and release energy from food."

"Guess what? yes, I may just be genetically predisposed...

Well then, how did one get so fat, and what does it mean to be obese?

It’s been a hard 12 months, with a few exceptions:

My partner had emergency surgery and lost an ovary
We got married
I fell out with my brother
My niece got married
My stepfather died
We went on a belated honeymoon
We moved house
My brother got married
My partner got sick
My nieces had babies
My daughter spilt up from her boyfriend
We seemed to be fighting with everyone
We got sued
We lost money
I was in constant pain
My partner was in constant pain
A business partnership went south and a friendship was lost

My daughter and her boyfriend got back together
Birthdays and Christmas came and went
A beloved grandmother died
We arranged a(nother) funeral
We went to London and back and missed the Australian summer
I put on 7 kilograms since April
A website told me I was about 20 kilograms overweight

My Facebook statuses were full of “…is tired”; “…is sick”; is “saying goodbye”; “…is wishing certain people knew how to behave themselves”; …is weary of selfish people”… “wants to run away”; …“wishes things were different”…"needs a change”… a year of the miserables. A year of making resolutions and then ignoring them; a year in which I thought and said “I should”; “I want to” and “I need to”.

It is dawning on me slowly and surely that I have been getting ...well… not cuddly, not curvy, not Rubensque, not buxom, generously proportioned, full-figured or plump, plush or rotund. (Hey Susie-Q, there’s more of me to love since the wedding for sure!) I haven’t been getting voluptuous, or even just plain big (or “large” to use another useful euphemism. I am none of these things. What I am is fat. I AM FAT. FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT!!

Dr Russ Harris (of Mindfulness fame) tells us if we repeat something often enough, the word loses its power. (FAT, fat, fat fat fat fatfatftaftafat fat fat
fatfatfatfatfatfatfatfatfatfat fatfatfatfatfatfatfatfatfatfatfatfat fatfatfatafatafatafatafatafafafatfatfatfatfatfatfatfatfatyastillfat!fatfatfat ) Even more so if we say it very quickly in a voice that sounds like you sucked helium from all the balloons at a kids’ party, or sing it to the tune of Frere Jacques: Fat, fat, fat, fat/fat fat fat fat/fat fat fat/fat fat fat/fatty fatty fat-fat/fatty fatty fat-fat/ fat fat fat/fat fat fat
http://www.thehappinesstrap.com.au/

I dunno about all that, but FAT has come to have a powerful influence over me – and not in a good way either. Here is my inner fat voice:
“You are too fat to wear that. Those jeans don’t fit Are you sure you want another one of those? What is the point of going shopping, no-one looks good in a mu-mu. You don’t want to get undressed in front of your wife, she’ll wonder why she married you. Everyone on TV / at work /in bars/ on the movie screens / in fact, everyone I know is decidedly unfat. What is wrong with you? You look disgusting! You cannot go out at all...people will run screaming from you in the street. You need to stay home and starve my girl...it is the only answer".

I know that my year in dot points (see above) is a litany of excuses for eating and drinking too much and not moving enough. Excuses or reasons ?- a mixture, I think and hard to tell a lot of times...

Well dear reader, so has begun my journey to discover what, how, when and why I am fat. And just what I am going to do about it. But along the way I found some extra "reasons"...

Week one: what is this thing called fat? In which I explore this fascinating concept...and try to get real with myself

There are a lot of euphemisms for fat, especially as they relate to women. Here are a few: plump, round, chubby, ample, big-boned, voluptuous, buxom, womanly, curvy, big , full-figured and Rubenesque. Rubens painted women in all their glory - dimples, fold, mounds of flesh, unashamed. Our present-day society's view on what women should look like has moved from Rubens to Picasso in many ways - we eschew those curvy wobbly bits, and it's all about angles and sharp pointy bits in the guise of flat stomachs, and stick limbs, and size zeros. When I look around me I see more Rubens ladies than Picasso girls walking about.

We have all these polite words for "FAT" don't we, but there are plenty of unkind ones as well. Think lard arse, porky, beached whale, humungous, blimp, heifer, boombah, fatty boom-sticks and so on. What's fat then? and why is it "bad"?

According to the Australian Bureau of Stats, way more than half (62%) of Australian adults are either overweight or obese. This has increased from 20-odd years ago when 38% of adults were regarded as being overweight or obese (in 1989-90). A recent Australian survey shows 25% of persons aged 18 years and over to be obese, 37% overweight, 37% normal weight and 2% underweight. When compared with measured results from the 1995 National Nutrition Survey (NNS), the proportion of persons aged 18 years and over who were classified as overweight or obese has increased dramatically. (I am not making this up - see http://www.abs,gov.au/ !)

Alright then, but what does this mean for me? How do I know if I really am fat?(apart from the fact that my clothes don't fit me, and I have more folds and wobbly bits than a Ruben's masterpiece?)

Some tech talk: The body mass index (BMI) equals a person's weight in kilograms (kg) divided by their height in metres (m) squared. Since BMI describes body weight relative to height, it is strongly correlated with total body fat content in adults.
What is overweight? (cuddly, big-boned, curvy, voluptuous or fat?)

"Overweight" is defined as a body mass index (BMI) value of 27.3 or more for women and 27.8 or more for men. These definitions of overweight are based on an analysis of BMI relative to the risks of disease and death.

Well then, how is obesity different to "overweight"? (lard-arse, beached whale, etc)
"Obesity" is defined as a BMI of 30 and above.

Oh. Right then. I see...

Last week I knew I was fat, and had been gaining steadily for a year. I didn't know how fat was too fat. So I jumped on a few web sites, and did a few quizzes, measured my BMI. And guess what? I am fat. I am not one of the 37%, certainly not the 2%. I am one of those people in the 25% category. According to the ABS and their handy health surveys, I am obese.

My BMI is 30.1.

oh...my...god