Life is Healthy

Well, I've done it. I have started writing my book on climate change and its effects on global water resources. I had made an announcement a couple of years ago that I was beginning this and had, but got sidetracked by work and activism. I am determined to finish it now because the more voices we have out here talking about water and what is happening to it due to our behavior, the more awareness we create and hopefully then the more solutions we implement to deal with it. Of course, moral will is the one important factor to all of this that must be present to see the real changes we need, but that too can come with information, education and seeing reality.

As those reading this well know climate change is upon us. It is wrecking havoc from melting glaciers, to floods, to droughts, to ocean acidification, to extreme weather events. We can no longer deny that there are drastic changes occurring in climate systems that are affecting water resources which is in turn affecting crops and water availability. How we approach this crisis but also unique opportunity to grow as a species is something that will shape our fate for decades to come.

However, this crisis is still not something you hear about in the mainstream media of America as water is simply not sexy enough. The real threats to our global water resources through pollution, climate change, water waste, population increases, agriculture and privitization are now shaping a world where those to come will find it harder and harder to survive.

So in the book I hope to look at the origins of water, examine how we are water, how our behavior is affecting its current state and availability, and solutions for us to preserve this elixir of life for generations to come. There are those who also state that they see wars for water on the horizon as we now see wars for oil. I am one who is optimistic in hoping that water can actually be used to bring peace, and will seek to explain this in the book as well. I will also add a litle poetry as well, because the beauty of this spiritual substance must be shared ;-).

I already know this is a huge task for me as it is the first time I am attempting to write a book. However, this is one way I believe we can also be a part of a new movement globally in bringing truth and action to preserve our planet for our own survival.

There is no life on this planet without water. There is no us without water. This is then a true labor of love for me in not only speaking out about a crisis that deserves our attention, but writing about the love I have for this most beautiful expression of life.

Thanks for your support.

Fear. That one little word has kept me from meeting goals, finding happiness, and living life the way I want to live it. Even when I think I'm winning, fear chases me down and allows all of the self doubt to creep into my life. And then I think I can't do it. I'm a fake. Everyone will know that I don't belong in the winner's circle.


Over the past several months, I've been trying to overcome fear. I've had some success. And now is a time when I have to be careful. It's when I'm truly successful that fear takes over. It wants me to be that cowering child who was too shy to take up for herself and allowed others to tell her she had no value.


But that's not who I am any more. I've sought out strong women to hold up as examples to myself of who I can be. Lately, I have come to have a great admiration for Julia Child. Here was a woman who—despite her fear—created a life that brought her true joy. That's a key, too, isn't it? She created her life. She didn't sit around and wait for the right time. She created the right time. And so that's what I what intend to do. Create my own life.


No more waiting for someday because someday is today. And I know that God is going to bless me as He will bless my family and friends. So here's to a new day. Enjoy!


P.S. This is my horoscope today form Jonathan Cainer's site:


Libra
How important are you? What right do you have to expect better treatment? Ought you not to sit back and let others enjoy all that's good about the world while you put up with what's second best but readily available at a price you feel you can just about afford? Actually, you count for far more than you know. Even if you can't have all the treasures you might wish for, you are certainly entitled to the most important luxury of all: the sheer unmitigated pleasure of peace of mind. Events today should help you find it!

Just in time for our eleventh birthday, we are excited to introduce Stats for Blogger. First launched to Blogger in Draft back in July, Blogger Stats is a cool real-time stats service that's fully integrated with Blogger; you don't need to do anything to enable it for your blog. You can find the new Stats tab on your blog’s dashboard—go ahead and take it for a spin!

‘I’ve been here before,’ I thought, sitting on my bed in the midst of a mind-unconstipating “Aha!” moment.

The clutter started last spring, right around the end of April, when my left knee started slipping out of place. I couldn’t stop thinking, “What if?” Then, when I decided to have surgery, I became consumed with, “What will happen next?”

Underneath these questions was another question asked by a voice I didn’t hear. At least not right away.

The house got cleaned and the husband got fed and the dogs got let out and the plants got watered, but in terms of my professional life, nothing got done. Whenever I tried to think about what to write next, my mind was mud. It hurt. Thoughts ran away and took refuge in planning what I’d make for dinner and remembering if I’d let the dogs out or watered the plants.

Six years ago, I had a question begin the same way, as a whisper in the back of my head – “Do you want to lose weight?” It had to get as loud as an 1880s farm wife clanging a dinner bell before I gave it proper attention.

In April, the question that began as a whisper was, “What do you want to write?” Notice the question wasn’t, “DO you want to write.” I had a choice to lose weight, but ask any writer about writing and they’ll tell you it is as necessary as breathing. I know this. I feel this every day. And yet I resisted. Still I would think, ‘Nothing! I don’t want to write anything! Leave me alone! I’m recovering from knee surgery?’

(…No, I don’t want to lose weight. Leave me alone! Can’t you see I’m happy being 300 pounds?”…)

The voice now, just as the voice in 2004, was having none of that.

Before I had surgery, I asked the members of Lynn’s Weigh on Facebook (come on over and join us!) if they had suggestions for books to read during recovery. One member suggested anything by the author Elizabeth Berg. I checked out her book, “The Art of Mending,” and was hooked.

Shortly after I finished, I went online to find more titles by Elizabeth Berg and found she’d written a non-fiction book called “Escaping Into the Open: The Art of Writing True.” (Hmmmm…my weight loss journey started with the book “Get With The Program” by Bob Greene.)

I ordered two of Berg’s fictions as well as “Escaping Into the Open,” and when they arrived, I devoured the fiction. The non-fiction sat on my books shelf for weeks. (“Get With the Program” sat in my nightstand for months…)

I passed "Escaping..." every day and felt a little guilty about it just sitting there. I mean, I paid good money for it and everything, so I moved it to on top of my nightstand. Soon after, a friend wrote to me (coincidentally?) and said she decided to quit her job and write a book. Just like that. No mud in her mind. She just knew.

That’s when the volume got turned up real loud in my head: “What do you want to write?!”

It was finally time to “sit on my cushion,” to quote my former therapist, and make space for and query that vast darkness in my mind.

I opened “Escaping…” and by page 18, I was ready to start journaling. From the journaling was born…just like six years ago…that awesome “Aha!” moment when it became crystal clear what I wanted.

Of course like anything we decide to accomplish, “Aha!” is just the beginning. The real work lies ahead. (Or is it “lays”? Calling all proofreaders! Gail? Anybody?) It’s not enough to say, “I want to lose weight” or “I want to write ___.” You have to commit to the path, even though you know that path will include temptations, frustrations, and mind-numbing boredom.

But if you allow your “Aha!” moment and all the work you did prior to that moment to be your companions (thus the reason I encourage everyone to journal their answers), you’ll not wander too far for too long from that path.

I’m only a week into my writing commitment and already I’ve found comfort in my “Aha!” moment. I’ve reread it several times to remind myself what I want. I’m on the path. God knows the writing process itself will muddy my mind all on its own, just as cheesy mashed potatoes and peanut butter ice cream try to muddy my diet. But it’s mud I’ll encounter on the path and not the mud of a wandering, afraid-to-reflect mind. Somehow, that mud looks…I don’t know…clearer.

If you’d like to share, I’d love to hear about your “Aha!” moment(s). How did you get to it? Does it still “feed” you now on the path it started you on?

Whenever I need inspiration to deal those voices, I listen to the Moody Blues song “The Voice.”

Make a promise, take a vow. And trust your feelings, it’s easy now. Understand the voice within and feel the changes already beginning.


And how many words have I got to say? And how many times will it be this way, with your arms around the future, and your back up against the past? You’re already falling. It’s calling you on to face the music and the song that is coming through. You’re already falling. The one that it’s calling is you.

"Progress lies not in enhancing what is, but in advancing toward what will be."

“Faith is a knowledge within the heart, beyond the reach of proof.”

Both of these quotes come from Kahil Gibran, a philosopher who was apparently frequently quoted.. And they seem perfect for me--advancing toward my goals with the faith that I will get there. And I will.

This weekend went OK. I had a tetanus shot on Friday that wiped me out. My arm is still sore, and I still feel like I'm just toasted. All of that from a little shot. It just a booster--nothing happened to warrant it. But I thought it would be a good idea to get one since my doc was pushing it. My insurance company must be paying for it. Otherwise, why would they care?

So today, I'm a little under the weather. Haven't done much. Probably won't do much.

• Indonesia’s Mount Sinabung Erupts Again - Aug 30, 2010
• 138 Passengers Rescued After Ferry Runs Aground in Bali  - Aug 27, 2010
• Three Indonesians Dead After Boat Sinks in Southern Ocean - Aug 18, 2010
• Four Killed as Indonesian Volcano Spews Lava - Aug 6, 2010
• Landslides, Floods Kill 21 in Indonesia - Jul 25, 2010

A traveler walks past a drug store at Gambir train station in Central Jakarta. Different brand of antibiotics  are easily available as over-the-counter medicine,  which contributes to the excessive use of the drugs. JP/Ricky Yudhistira

Insulin is a hormone that drives glucose and other nutrients from the bloodstream into cells, among other things. A loss of sensitivity to the insulin signal, called insulin resistance, is a core feature of modern metabolic dysfunction and can lead to type II diabetes and other health problems. Insulin resistance affects a large percentage of people in affluent nations, in fact the majority of people in some places. What causes insulin resistance? Researchers have been trying to figure this out for decades.*

Since saturated fat is blamed for everything from cardiovascular disease to diabetes, it's no surprise that a number of controlled trials have asked if saturated fat feeding causes insulin resistance when compared to other fats. From the way the evidence is sometimes portrayed, you might think it does. However, a careful review of the literature reveals that this position is exaggerated, to put it mildly (1).

The glycemic index, a measure of how much a specific carbohydrate food raises blood sugar, is another darling of the diet-health literature. On the surface, it makes sense: if excess blood sugar is harmful, then foods that increase blood sugar should be harmful. Despite evidence from observational studies, controlled trials as long as 1.5 years have shown that the glycemic index does not influence insulin sensitivity or body fat gain (2, 3, 4). The observational studies may be confounded by the fact that white flour and sugar are the two main high-glycemic foods in most Western diets. Most industrially processed carbohydrate foods also have a high glycemic index, but that doesn't imply that their high glycemic index is the reason they're harmful.

All of this is easy for me to accept, because I'm familiar with examples of traditional cultures eating absurd amounts of saturated fat and/or high-glycemic carbohydrate, and not developing metabolic disease (5, 6, 7). I believe the key is that their food is not industrially processed (along with exercise, sunlight exposure, and probably other factors).

A large new study just published in the American Journal of Clinical nutrition has placed the final nail in the coffin: neither saturated fat nor high glycemic carbohydrate influence insulin sensitivity in humans, at least on the timescale of most controlled trials (8). At 6 months and 720 participants, it was both the largest and one of the longest studies to address the question. Participants were assigned to one of the following diets:

1. High saturated fat, high glycemic index
2. High monounsaturated fat, high glycemic index
3. High monounsaturated fat, low glycemic index
4. Low fat, high glycemic index
5. Low fat, low glycemic index

Compliance to the diets was pretty good. From the nature of the study design, I suspect the authors were expecting participants on diet #1 to fare the worst. They were eating a deadly combination of saturated fat and high glycemic carbohydrate! Well to everyone's dismay except cranks like me, there were no differences in insulin sensitivity between groups at 6 months. Blood pressure also didn't differ between groups, although the low-fat groups lost more weight than the monounsaturated fat groups. The investigators didn't attempt to determine whether the weight loss was fat, lean mass or both. The low-fat groups also saw an increase in the microalbumin:creatinine ratio compared to other groups, indicating a possible deterioration of kidney function.

In my opinion, the literature as a whole consistently shows that if saturated fat or high glycemic carbohydrate influence insulin sensitivity, they do so on a very long timescale, as no effect is detectable in controlled trails of fairly long duration. While it is possible that the controlled trials just didn't last long enough to detect an effect, I think it's more likely that both factors are irrelevant.

Fats were provided by the industrial manufacturer Unilever, and were incorporated into margarines, which I'm sure were just lovely to eat. Carbohydrate was also provided, including "bread, pasta, rice, and cereals." In other words, all participants were eating industrial food. I think these types of investigations often run into problems due to reductionist thinking. I prefer studies like Dr. Staffan Lindeberg's paleolithic diet trials (9, 10, 11). The key difference? They focus mostly on diet quality, not calories or specific nutrients. And they have shown that quality is king!


* Excess body fat is almost certainly a major cause. When fat mass increases beyond a certain point, particularly abdominal fat, the fat tissue typically becomes inflamed. Inflamed fat tissue secretes factors which reduce whole-body insulin sensitivity (12, 13). The big question is: what caused the fat gain?

Week 34 - POSED

In this first week of my challenge, I've lost three pounds. And that's OK. Ann and I decided to do this challenge, and I was confused that we were already supposed to be doing it—and I didn't really get started until Monday. But I know better now. Ann has been doing very well in the challenge. I am proud of her yet envious.

I read her post yesterday, and it gave me the motivation I needed to pass by some goodies. Stress from a downsizing at work along with other stuff has me eating all the wrong things and way too much of them. I wasn't downsized this time, but many of my friends were. My heart aches for them. Even though they won't be without a job—they were moved to other University departments—it's still traumatic. It's like being dumped by a boyfriend who thinks you should just be OK with it. Anyway, that's all I'll say here.

Anyway, I was saying that Ann's post gave the motivation I needed to pass by some junk. And when I found out we already supposed to be doing the challenge, it gave me the motivation to get up to go exercise five days this week. That's 15 miles and about seven hours.

i've been logging my exercise everyday on the Daily Mile. And it all looks good, right now.

Even though I've made a real effort in the past few months to be positive, sometimes it's hard. So excuse me for not being more positive. Anyway, that about covers it for today.

For months now, those of you who use Firefox or Safari to browse the Internet haven't been able to leave a comment or search my blog for previous posts. I think I've finally found a design that works. Please leave a comment or send me an email (lynnbering@verizon.net) and let me know if it's finally working again.

I apologize for the long delay in finding a solution. Thanks for sticking with me! I look forward to hearing from all of you again.

For this blog, I direct you to my new page: "Haven't I Seen You Somewhere?"

I've wanted to put together a list of my publicity for new readers of Lynn's Weigh for some time now, but I've dragged my feet. Why I don't know. Maybe because it all feels kind of...gauche. I mean, I'm very grateful for the publicity because it's helped build a "community of weight losers" of which I'm honored to be a part, and I've "met" so many people who want and strive to change their physical and/or emotional well beings.

There's just something about the singular focus of publicity that makes me uncomfortable. Behind that smile is a lot of anxiety. The same anxiety I've fought for years. "Am I good enough?" and "I shouldn't be here" and "Who do you think you are, Lynn?" are the lines I fed to my head whenever I faced a camera. Yet something inside me said, "Shut up!" and I did it anyway.

Sometimes the best thing we can tell ourselves is to shut up. Shut. Up. Only then can we procede to do what we strived to do in the first place.

Here's to striving, my fellow weight losers. May you find your face on Oprah or People or Today or in your own "I Did It!" diary some day. It's all...ALL...possible.

The blogosphere is a dynamic environment that changes almost as quickly as the world that we live in. And as access to information becomes more widespread and more immediate, the blogosphere is steadily closing that gap. That’s why the Blogger Team is excited to spread the word about Google’s new improvements to Realtime Search, which provide richer and fresher results than ever before.

From the new Realtime Search homepage, you can search live updates, recently-published blog posts, and news from around the web in brand new ways. Now you can restrict your search to include just updates from a specific geographic region or just nearby you. You can also check out complete conversations from Twitter. You can also now set up custom alerts for Realtime updates to be sent directly to your inbox once a day or week, or as soon as the happen for instant blog post fodder.

For more information about Realtime’s new features, please visit www.google.com/landing/realtime.

It’s only five days away, and we hope that you’re as excited as we are about the 200+ Meetups that are happening around the world. We’re looking forward to your meetups, and seeing your photos, videos, and tweets from the event.

We don’t want to leave the best parties empty-handed, so starting tomorrow we will be sending out some Blogger birthday presents to some of the largest Meetups around the world. We can only send presents to Meetups that have organizers, though, and there’s still lots of fiestas that are organizer-less. It’s super easy and any one can do it, so if you volunteer you may be able to secure presents for your local Meetup.

For those of you who haven’t yet joined one of our Meetups, there’s still time! As a reminder, here’s the important details for the event:

I am not dead yet! Here are some things I have been doing:

1. I saw this man on the tube:



He is one of those human statues (I think he works at Covent Garden) going home for his tea. He actually got off at my stop - oh yes, it is like Bloomsbury around here - human statues, moderately successful children's TV scriptwriters...

2. And at another station on another day I saw this:



You will have to perhaps take my word for it that up on the roof are one medium-sized trainer and an English-French dictionary. There's a story there, isn't there? My money is on a rather unhappy secondary school child hopping home, worried that he won't be able to do his homework. Unless anyone else can come up with a better explanation?

3. And most excitingly of all, as a legitimate part of my job I have just made a tetrahedral paper hat and am now wearing it on my head. Who would have thought that 19 years after graduating with a first class engineering degree (and this was before the days of A*s - the exam grade that goes up to 11) and starting out on a proper non-parent-worrying career, I would be sitting here with a self-made tetrahedral paper hat on my head?

CSN Stores has offered a $60 gift certificate for me to giveaway. How about that? They really have a lot of cool stuff. You can use it to buy cookware, maybe even a Dutch Oven.  But there's lots of cool stuff to choose from. I personally thought the cookware would be cool because cooking while trying to eat right is so important. Having the right kinds of kitchen tools really helps.

So here's how the giveaway works. Got to CSN Stores website and then come back to leave a comment about what you thought about it. It's that simple. If you'd like to get optional additional entries, here are a couple more ways:

1. Become a follower of this blog and leave a comment letting me know that you did.
2. Post the giveaway on your blog and leave a comment here.
3. Visit CSN Stores blog for more contests and savings and leave a comment here.

I need a clear way to contact you should you win. So please provide an email or direct link to your blog, where there's a clear way to get in touch with you.

This giveaway expires at midnight on September 8, 2010.

I'm still looking for the winner of my last giveaway. If Wendy does not come forward within the 24 hours, I will redraw a new winner.

So folks, best of luck to you all.

The only thing this Yogi the Bear and I have in common is our love of “piiiic-i-nic baskets.” (God knows I’m not “smaaaaarter than the aaaaaaverage bear.”)

Yeah…I’m more like this Yogi the bear:
Post PT and pre-Advil this morning, I was feeling pretty darn sore in my knees and quads. That’s not unusual for a PT day. But this pain and fatigue was different because today I did…

…drum roll…

10 minutes on the elliptical!

I mostly stayed on levels 1 and 2, although I did do a 2-minute burst at level 6.

It felt like an hour.

‘Oh how quickly my muscles forgot,’ I thought as I huffed and sweated through the last agonizing minute.

Or did they? It seems that muscles might not forget, or at least they don’t forget for very long.

NPR’s "All Things Considered" reported Sunday on a study that suggests muscle memory may last...

get this…

FOREVER.

“No More Gym? Don’t Worry, Your Muscles Remember”: Muscles actually have a memory of their former strength — and that memory may last indefinitely, University of Oslo physiologist Kristian Gundersen tells NPR's Audie Cornish. Gundersen's team just released a study that has good news for those of us who used to be fit.


The study challenges the idea that muscles go back to their starting condition when you stop strength training.“Our findings suggest that there are permanent structural changes in the muscle," says Gundersen. "We don't know if they're really permanent, but they're very long-lasting in animals, at least."


The researchers put mice through strength training on their hind legs. Building muscle generates new muscle nuclei, which Gundersen calls the "small factories that will produce new muscle." Then the researchers took the mice off their training regimen. Gundersen observed their nuclei directly with specialized microcameras, and found that although the mice lost muscle mass, they still maintained the muscle nuclei. Those nuclei give the muscle a head start when training resumes.

I’ve been slowly resuming my strength training regimen since surgery 9 weeks ago. My arms are doing pretty well. It only took them a few weeks to get comfortable with the old routine again. Same with my calves. I’m back to holding a 15-pound weight when I do calf lifts on the step. My abs are resisting a little, but those exercises are a little harder to do given the limitations I still have with my knee.

It’s the large muscles – my quads and hamstrings – that are complaining the most. But getting them back in full working order is the most important thing I can do for my arthritic knees. (See “Strong Quadriceps Protect Women’s Knees from Pain”)

I’m a HUGE proponent of strength training, particularly for women. It’s not enough that we sweat our way through hours of walking, running, ellipticals, stair-steppers, biking, whatever your cardio of choice is. We also need to engage in resistance training. Nothing big. Twenty minutes 2-3 times a week will suffice. The best part is that you don’t need the go to a gym! I don’t. I do it in my home with some hand weights, Thera-Band, a couple of weighted balls, an exercise ball and my own body weight (push-ups, anyone?)
This article is a good place to start if you’re not sure how or why to begin: “Strength Training For Women” (From the Women’s Heart Foundation).

To celebrate the memory of muscles, I’m giving away a used copy (Not my copy. I could never part with it.) of my very favorite strength training book, “The Body Sculpting Bible for Women: Featuring the 14-Day Body Sculpting Workout” by Hugo A. Rivera, James C. Villepigue and James Villepigue.

Leave a comment, or if you prefer or cannot leave a comment because of Blogger’s “technical” difficulties with Firefox and Safari (grrr….), send an email to lynnbering@verizon.net to throw your name in the hat. I’ll draw a winner this Saturday (Aug. 28).

Now go pick up a couple of soup cans and work those biceps!