Dogged Blog

The ups and downs of weight lifting

Why why why does being sick make you so freaking weak?

I just lifted weights for the first time since I got sick about 10 days ago. I had to reduce weight a little, and my stamina was for crap. Overall at least 25 percent down. And although I'm having my period and realize some of this is just water, I've gained 7 pounds.  From lying around coughing and not sleeping. I mean, I haven't even been eating unusually.

I realize there's a scientific answer to this question. I realize, too, that our strength fluctuates with our menstrual cycle, and it's not actually unusual for me to struggle a bit at that time of the month. Still, the older I get, the harder it is to keep my muscle mass trending upward and my body fat going downward.

/whine

This is sick

I have health insurance. The quality of care overall seems to suck, I have to fight and push to get anything other than a pat on the head, but I have it. It costs me $515 a month, which I as a freelancer pay for entirely by myself.

I'm 49 years old and have no pre-existing conditions or chronic diseases. I had my gall bladder out more than a decade ago, and my tonsils out when I was 5; those are all the surgeries I've had in my life. So that number is not based on my personal medical history. It's just what it costs.

And since I currently have the flu, yes, I'm thinking about how hard it is to go to the medical center when I'm feeling sick, to go through the aggravating bureaucracy to get an appointment, check in, see the doctor who never looks up from her little computer to examine me, just reads me the questions, types in my responses, then waits until her machine tells her what to do next, then gives me a stack of paperwork for all the tests she wants me to have done in other buildings, some at other times, half or more of which are just my "annual maintenance" stuff like my PAP smear and mammogram and have nothing to do with why I'm there that day, all of which require me to go, in person, to various other buildings and departments, stand in line, schedule an appointment or be told to just come in and take my chances as they don't make appointments.

All, let me repeat, when I'm sick.

But none of that is anything compared to what a friend of mine is currently going through. She has two diagnosed life-threatening chronic diseases. She is employed. She has no insurance. She gets no health care except now and then, when things get really bad, a local physician who knows her gives her minimal care and bills her, knowing it will be a long time before he gets paid, if he ever does. And since the labs don't offer the same deal, she can rarely get any kind of medical testing done, not even to monitor her health conditions.

Is there care available of which she doesn't avail herself, some form of assistance? Possibly, but when you're severely, painfully, chronically ill, it's kind of hard to find the time or energy to finish working a low-paid, demoralizing dead end job 40+ hours a week, and then try to batter at the doors of the government and private charities, finding some constellation of services that will cover the patchwork of needs you have, especially if you make more than 200 percent of the federal poverty level, which means if you make more than $20K a year.

Today on Daily Kos I read this piece, and it made me break down in tears. For my friend; for my own stupid, insignificant whining complaints about how very very tedious it is to stand in line and snap at my doctor to look up from her fucking computer screen and examine me; for the dreams I had a long time ago that one day this country would pull its head out of the health insurance/HMO industry's ass and realize universal health care isn't optional in a civilized nation, it's fundamental; for the fact that my friend ended up in the hospital last year because of lack of care, resulting in a $40K+ bill that the government picked up, and that's supposed to be a better thing than just giving her free basic care in the first place.

And for another friend of mine, who had care for the last few years simply by virtue of the fact that she falsified her address to qualify for COBRA, refusing to even acknowledge that if she ever put in a big claim she'd probably be investigated and denied coverage, and when I told her that I believed in universal coverage, looked shocked and said, "But then we'll have rationed care!"

And I look around and think, right. Wow. Even I, who spend more than six thousand bucks a year on health insurance, am getting rationed care. Something like 50 million Americans get none at all, the ultimate rationing.

A friend in Australia asked me, bewildered, last night how things got this way in this country. I babbled on for a while about the military-industrial complex and the health insurance industry and corruption in both parties, and cronyism, and lobbyists, and money and power and influence.

And although she still seemed bewildered, because I'm am American and I guess she presumed it made some kind of sense if I thought it did, even though she herself couldn't quite see it.

Do you want to know the truth? I really don't get it. Not at all.

Skincare update

Wow, what a riveting headline. But give me a break, it's almost 1 AM and I just got back from walking the dogs. Don't ask.

So, I think I may have solved my great skincare crisis. I've only been using it a few days, but Aveda's Calming Composition has definitely given me the baby butt-soft skin I wanted without irritating it in any way. I used to love Aveda skincare products but over the years I found they weren't doing it for me anymore. Their foundation and concealer don't make me break out, but they also don't cover as smoothly as I'd like. Still, they're what I was wearing until I fell in love with the Chanel foundation, which also doesn't make me break out -- it's just the Chanel skincare line that gives me perfect smooth skin for three days and THEN I break out.

Back in my Aveda days, this product was called "Calming Nutrients" and it was sold for use on face, body, and scalp. They seem to have de-emphasized the use on the face, for no reason I can determine. It's certainly making mine happy.

I'll keep my fingers crossed it keeps working. All I want is moisturized skin without my rosacea flaring up, is that really too much to ask?

Okay, that's not all I want. It's just all I want from a skincare line. The list of all I want is way too long for this post.

May cause redness and irritation

I have rosacea. Not severe, and I don't get any form of acne or breakout, just a lot of flushing. My mom has it, and I'm of Irish and Scottish descent on my mom's side and rosacea has been called "the curse of the Celts." I am cursed.

I'm also getting older, and the products that worked for me either don't work anymore or aren't made anymore (oh, Aromaleigh skincare how I miss thee!). So, since I have raging PMS that seems to have demolished all forms of impulse control, I went to my happy place, the Chanel counter at Nordstrom, the other day, to see if maybe a new nail polish color would make me feel better.

They were slow, and Arlette was sure she could help my dry, irritated skin, so she gave me a mini-facial and a bag full of samples of products. My skin felt like silk. It didn't hurt, wasn't red, wasn't tight, and honestly, my skin looked five years younger.

But now, three days later? I have slight breakouts on my chin, lip, and nose, and one on my cheek, and I remember why I've always had so much trouble using even the most expensive department store products: Because they irritate my skin.

The problem is, the products that don't irritate my skin also don't seem to make my skin feel beautiful and soft. It's like I can have dehydrated, flaking skin that's prone to flushing, or I can have soft, supple skin with little red bumps on it.

I know many of you will swear by various supplements and the consumption of vast amounts of water. I already drink a lot of water -- I couldn't possibly drink more and not explode. I also eat a diet rich in healthy fats, and take a fish oil supplement.

I don't take evening primrose oil or anything like that, as I've been concerned about the pro-inflammatory effects of Omega-6 fatty acids, but I'm considering it, as I've had two or three bad menstrual cycles in the last year and given that I'm 48, I'm wondering if my hormones aren't starting to turn on me. Which I hear makes rosacea worse, so I'm just thrilled.

I just spent some time reading product reviews on the web, and it seems to me that many of the products made for rosacea are very much aimed at younger women with oily skin, rather than women like me whose skin is very dry. My mother also has very dry, dehydrated, sensitive skin, and her rosacea is a bit worse than mine (presumably because she is 23 years older than I am, and also because she doesn't take as good care of her skin as I do of mine because she actually has a life and isn't vain and self-absorbed like I am).

I have no idea what to try next. The Chanel people at Nordstrom are the nicest people on earth and asked me to come in and let them look at my skin, and see if there isn't one single product that might be causing this problem, rather than the whole line. I'm pessimistic, but Chanel has always been tried and true for me as far as makeup goes -- and I have a history of irritation with makeup, too, so that track record does mean something. Since I'm just using samples, this hasn't cost me anything yet (other than, you know, the $24 I spent on nail polish), so I'm willing to give it a try.

But in the meantime, I'm hoping that by throwing this out into the blogosphere, some kind person googling or tracking Neova R2, DermDoctor, or any of the many other products intended for rosacea without acne and in aging or dry skin will come by and say, "I had your exact problem, in fact, I'm your twin sister seperated from you at birth, and I know exactly what products you need."

Because I want it all, dear readers. I want my dewy soft baby butt skin and no redness or bumps. Is that too much to ask?

Sicko

The last movie I saw on the day it opened was Fahrenheit 911, and now today I saw Sicko on the weekend it opened. I'm not actually a big Michael Moore fan. It's just he keeps making movies about the things I care the most about.

I liked Sicko, as much as you can be said to "like" a movie that makes you cry from the minute it starts until the minute it ends. Even when my mind was going, okay, I KNOW there's another side to this story he's telling, my heart really didn't care.

As a journalist, of course I think it's important to dig deep into your story and be careful not to give a false impression. And as a documentary filmmaker, Moore is also, at least to a certain extent, a journalist.

But I'm not sure I really care that there's "another side" to some of his stories, primarily because the health insurance companies and drug companies are telling their "side" all day, every day, with teams of laywers and advertising agencies and PR hacks. I don't need Michael Moore to tell "their side," I want to hear "his side." Then I'll decide what exactly it is that I believe.

All that said, even if only 30 percent of what he says is incontestably accurate, this is as devastating a smackdown of the healthcare system in this country as I've ever seen.

Oh, and I so want to move to France.

The cost of convenience

Although we’re not sure of the details or extent of the massive pet food recall announced by the FDA last week, one thing is crystal clear to me: It’s an industrial food processing problem.

Setting aside my own personal preference for home-prepared diets for people and animals, I can easily acknowledge that packaged convenience foods are, well… convenient. Without processed commercial foods there would be far fewer companion animals, because most of us don’t cook for ourselves, let alone our pets.

But our reliance on these foods carries a price tag that has nothing to do with the cost of a fast food burger or package of instant mac and cheese – or our cat’s kibble. It has to do with the scale of industrial food processing, and with ingredients that are “sourced” rather than hand-selected at the grocery store. It starts with the way we raise livestock, and ends with the way we store food products.

And it touches on almost every cultural hot spot on the way: On class and income. On the structure of the family. On child-rearing and self-care. On whether pets are possessions, family members, or something in between. On the relationship between multi-national conglomerates and the food supply. On cruelty to animals, on agricultural pollution, on the logic of raising and processing foods halfway around the country and then shipping them to the end consumer. On the relationship between medical and nutritional research and industry – human as well as veterinary. On our own lifestyles, and whether the “slow food” movement is really just the domain of the privileged foodies of Berkeley, or the cure for what ails us (if, that is, we had the money and time to take the cure).

I know I just made you roll your eyes. That’s because I see the world through a framework of how it affects my dogs and cats. I don’t deny it. But that framework only serves to give me a path in. It doesn’t blind me to the fact that nearly every issue that I care about in veterinary medicine and animal care has parallels in human health care, too. That my ability to love my dogs and cats is directly related to my ability to empathize with other people. And that seeing those connections has made me more, not less, involved with social and cultural issues that extend far beyond the care and keeping of dogs and cats.

And that’s where this issue brings me, to the place where we no longer grow and cook and eat food, but where we grab a pre-packaged frozen burrito and nuke it at the convenience store while we pay for a can of cat food and a high-caffeine, high-sugar energy drink at the cash register.

Or, if we’re foodies, perhaps buying our holistic, organic can of cat food while gobbling a similarly-nuked organic vegetarian burrito grabbed from the “convenience foods” cooler at the nearest chain “natural foods” supermarket.

I can’t fix any of this. I routinely work 80-hour weeks. I've been known to walk my dogs at 1 AM, and yes, I have and use a microwave oven. I just got back from a trip out of town where I’d have died of happiness to be able to live on takeout pizza grabbed on Austin’s Sixth Street, so I didn’t have to find a restaurant and sit down and order a salad. And I resented every one of the hours I spent shopping for, preparing, and freezing my dogs’ meals so my mom could take care of them while I was gone. I do live in the real world, and I confess, I actually hate to cook.

But all that said, the benefits of feeding your human and animal family members – and yourself – a diet you prepare in your own kitchen, with your own hands, are numerous. The main one is that it returns quality control almost entirely to you. You’re not dependent on where and how “ingredients” are “sourced.” You are barely affected by market variations in the cost of wheat gluten or soy meal. You don’t have to think about packaging, shipping, storing, marketing, or advertising your dinner.

The costs of feeding your human and animal family members a diet you prepare in your own kitchen are few, but they’re formidable. The first is literal cost. Although it’s possible, by planning carefully and shopping wisely, to feed a homemade diet to a pet for a cost not too much greater than that of commercial diets, it’s usually at least slightly more expensive. And if you don’t have the time or the inclination to bargain-hunt, it can be substantially more expensive.

But beyond the cost in money is the cost in time. Shopping, food preparation, and just the luxury of sitting down at the table with an actual meal are often investments in time that we can’t or won’t make. My habit of preparing my pets’ meals in my own kitchen is more than two decades old now, and so ingrained into my life that I barely notice it anymore. But for most of my friends, when I suggest they try homemade pet food, the reaction is the same: I don’t even cook for myself, and you want me to cook for my cat?

So failing the complete redesign of our economy and the realignment of our priorities, what can pet owners concerned about the pet food recall do? Someone else may have already answered this for you, but in case they haven’t, if your pets ate any of the affected foods, take them to the vet and run a simple blood panel and urinalysis to check their kidney function.

And while you’re waiting for the results, ask yourself if you want to go through this again. And what you’d do if the contaminated ingredient had gotten into your fast food burrito, or your child’s. And if maybe you have time to get to the grocery store tonight after all.

What if they cured cancer and nobody told you?

The University of Alberta thinks they're onto something really exciting in cancer treatment.

Like, a cure.

Like, a safe, cheap cure.

Sound good? Yes.

Unless you're, you know, a drug company or something. Because this good, safe, cheap cure, if it pans out, is unpatentable.

I've seen a lot of blogs mentioning this, and asking people to help spread the word, because it just might be true... and the University of Alberta is thinking maybe regular, non-drug-company people would consider helping fund this research.

So I poked around the science journals and the university website and decided there's actually something to this story. So, I'll be a good citizen journalist, or whatever they're calling bloggers this week, and tell you about it.

Investigators at the University of Alberta have recently reported that a drug previously used in humans for the treatment of rare disorders of metabolism is also able to cause tumor regression in a number of human cancers growing in animals. This drug, dichloroacetate (DCA), appears to suppress the growth of cancer cells without affecting normal cells, suggesting that it might not have the dramatic side effects of standard chemotherapies.

The University of Alberta  website has links to all the articles that have been written on DCA, more info on their own research, and a link where you can, if you think it's a worthwhile cause, send them some of your money. You'll find it here.

Mini-review of Low Carb Stuff I Tried

Food and body image and taking care of ourselves are all big issues around the holidays. It's sort of the trifecta of societal obsession around the body beautiful, if you think about it.

Since I gave up on the idea of "food as a form of entertainment," I really haven't cared that much about special holiday foods. I have actually eaten enough stuffing, pumpkin pie, and bouche de Noel to last me the rest of my life, and also have, as I bore my friends to tears by saying all the time, learned that I like being this weight more than I like having a mouth party.

But I do from time to time try out various low carb recipes or products, just out of curiosity or interest or because my mom picked it up for me at the market.

Recently she picked up MiniCarb brownie mix, and this evening I made it. Let me be blunt: These things really suck. They suck like the last sucking thing on earth, and considering they're chocolate, for me to say they suck means they genuinely suck.

She also got me some Nestle CarbSelect hot chocolate mix, which was extremely delicious. The ingredient list is a disaster, proving that Savage Garden was right when they sang, "I believe that junk food tastes so good because it's bad for you."

I also bought some Oroweat low carb bread to try to make stuffing with it at my sister in law's request, and it has more carbs and less fiber than their "lite" bread. I ask you, does that make sense?

In Weight Loss as in Sex, Slow is Good

When I was a teenager, and weighed less than I do now, all I wanted was to lose weight. I longed for it, hoped for it, dreamed about it.

I got over it. I got on with my life. I accepted myself.

And then one day I decided I wanted to lose weight. I hadn't spent the last 20 years agonizing over my weight, trying and failing, yo-yo dieting, and suffering. I'd just lived my life. I have no time or patience (although I confess I have a lot of sympathy) for people still stuck where I was as a teenager, sure that losing weight will fix their relationships and self-esteem problems and make their life all sparkly perfect.

It doesn't. It won't.

For me, the change came first, the weight loss second. I changed my mind, and my body followed along. And now I just do what I decided I'd do, eat in a certain way, exercise in a certain way, and take everything else as it comes.

It's been a long time since I wrote about my adventures in weight loss, and I wouldn't want anyone to get the wrong idea. I've lost 180 pounds now, total, since May 19, 2003,  and can still say that I've never gone off my eating plan (the word "diet" makes me want to scream, so I don't use it). A friend told me last weekend that I now look "normal," and although that's not actually an adjective I aspire to, I know what she means. I've gone off the "fat girl" radar. It's... interesting.

I lost my first 90 pounds or so quite rapidly, but now the weight comes off very, very slowly. I'm like everyone else on earth, and crave instant gratification like carb junkies crave toast, but I'm getting over it. I'm also over food as a form of entertainment, food as a form of comfort, and food being anything at all other than, you know, food.

That doesn't mean I eat without regard for taste. I'm in this for the long haul, so I eat what pleases me and makes me feel good physically. But if I find myself at a party or restaurant and there's nothing I "like" on the menu or the buffet table, I don't consider that a reason to go off my chosen eating plan.

I also don't "love" food. I don't "miss" foods. I don't long for, fantasize about, or crave foods I no longer eat. I've already eaten enough really good things to last me the rest of my life, and then some. I just don't care anymore.

Besides, nothing I've ever eaten tasted better to me than how I feel now. I'd be insane to give that up for a mouth party.

It's the Food, Stupid

Via email from Gina, who at least as of this minute hasn't blogged about it yet, this article in Salon from one of my favorite authors, Michael Pollan (Second Nature, The Botany of Desire, and his new book, The Omnivore's Dilemma):

The food industry takes advantage of the fact that we're really out of touch. I mean, some people would be shocked to learn that you can't get a steak without killing a cow. And for some reason food policy is treated as a parochial issue in this country. It's a debate between the senator from Nebraska and the senator from Iowa. The senators from New York and California don't think they have a dog in that fight, which is an enormous error, because these are the rules of the game in which we all play as eaters. And we're giving the right to set these rules to a very small number of interested parties. Maybe we need to start calling it a food bill instead of an agriculture bill. Maybe then people in New York and California would pay more attention. I know as a writer I've learned that you can't pitch a story on agriculture to an editor in New York, but if you call it a story about food, suddenly people are interested. And the same goes for the politics of it. I mean, why are we essentially subsidizing high-fructose corn syrup when we have an epidemic of obesity? These connections don't get made.

He also gets off one of my new favorite quotes of all time:

I'm dubious about any situation where McDonald's can occupy the moral high ground.

Read it here .... if you don't have a subscription you can get a free day pass. It's worth it.