Body Fat Accumulation

I'm giving a class today on body fat accumulation and energy regulation. If I wanted to show an actual example of fat accumulation, I suppose I could just whip down my pants and show them my bare butt.

Yeah... NO.

Although I had a prof once who demonstrated how well the body regulates energy by taking her trousers off and putting on the leather pants she wore in high school. Yep, right in front of the whole class. It made her point well and was entertaining to boot.

There shall be no such show today. Besides, I definitely wouldn't fit into the Fancy Ass jeans I wore in high school, although I'm sure they'd be in style right now. Yikes... I hate those icky 'skinny' jeans. Hmmm. Come to think of it, I wouldn't even fit into the jeans I wore when I was 20. Funny thing, that's around the time I tried Weight Watchers.

Interesting how I thought I needed to trim down then and now I'm quite a bit heavier and am mostly at peace with my weight. That might have something to do with the styles now. If I wore the high-waisted skinny jeans now, I'm sure I'd be forced to join some weightloss program out of sheer desperation. It would be just too damn hideous.

Anyways, that Weight Watchers thing was a disaster. I cant' stand being told I CAN'T eat something. My friend Pam and I would follow the diet all week and then we'd find ourselves at some fast food joint eating hamburgers, fries and then heading to 7-11 and chowing down on ice cream bars. We'd seriously eat everything we weren't allowed to eat all week- in one day. Then we'd think, "Well we've blown the diet now, so let's just blow it some more."

I remember going on one of those diets where you eat only fruit on Monday, only vegetables on Tuesday, fruits and vegetables on Wednesday... and then I forget the rest because that was around the time I bailed. I knew I was in trouble Wednesday evening when I was feeding the cats canned catfood and thought it smelled so good that I started to salivate and considered having a spoonful. It seriously smelled like Chunky Soup to me.

So I haven't been on a diet in ages and ages. I just try to be reasonable. And that's all I have to say on that right now. The topic is boring. I'm boring myself.

Back to preparing for class...


UPDATE: Class went well, I thought. At least no one threw rotting fruit at me. Although for a 3 hour class, they probably wanted to hoard all the food they could to sustain them through it. Unfortunately, I have this problem of stumbling over my words at times. It's totally like being marble-mouthed. First, I couldn't get the word "prepubertal" out. Blah blah blah PREPUBERTAL. And then I tried to say "detectable statistically" and it came out as, wait for it... DETESTICLE. At which point I stopped and laughed and said, "That was a good one. What I meant to say was the difference was not detectable statistically. Try and say that 10 times fast." Yep, still chuckling over that one.

High Fibre Diet = Low Social Acceptance

My gut is fairly well adapted to a high fibre diet. With fibre, I’d definitely recommend starting with a small amount and increasing that slowly over time. Never before has "baby steps" been such an important concept.

Do not, I repeat do NOT tamper with this. It’s a volatile system that can blow up good if taken lightly.

Here is a meal combination(1) that I’ve found will test the boundaries of even the most well-adapted:

Colon Blow Burrito (aka 'recipe for social disaster')

Ingredient; Fibre

1 high fibre tortilla(2); 8g
¾ cup refried beans; 9g
½ avocado; 6.5g
½ cup salsa; 3.5g
2 cubes cheese; 0g

Total = 27g

Seeing as how 25g is the daily goal for the average grown woman and most people in North America don’t even get 10g in a whole day, you can imagine the possible repercussions(3).

Further, DO NOT follow this up with a few pints of draught beer(4).

I think I just figured out why Mexicans prefer a stiff margarita to a cold Corona.

Footnotes:

(1)Consume at your own risk.

(2)The high fibre tortilla was an experiment in healthy eating gone horribly wrong. This is particularly true if you have coeliac disease, in which case you may be considered akin to a suicide bomber, taking down yourself as well as those around you.

(3)Not recommended. You may be eating healthy, but others will also keep a healthy distance between you and themselves.

(4)Socially, you may be well-lubricated after drinking beer, but your rear-end will also be well-lubricated after high fibre burrito + beer. Take a moment to consider this. On the other hand, if you are competing in a fart show-down with your siblings or other willing(5) participants, this is proven effective and will specifically improve 2 functions important in fart showdowns: 1) explosive fart force and 2) the ability to fart at will (and at times perhaps not at will).

(5)Mutually consented gas-letting should be strictly adhered to at all times. Farting against another's will is considered immature, unethical and even dangerous to the victim's physical and emotional well-being and is not condoned in any way, shape or form by the administrator of this site.

My Dad is NOT an idiot.

After reading my blog and some of the wisecracks people have added, many of my friends have asked, “Who the hell is AL?”

Here are the things I know for sure:

-He’s a regular commenter on “ramblings of a whiner.”
-He thinks I’m a whiner, and that I ramble.
-Many of my friends think his comments are pretty funny.
-He thinks his comments are funny, probably has more fun commenting than actually reading my posts.
-He is my dad.
-He is NOT an idiot.
-I don’t think he’s an idiot, even though I called him one... kinda.

I felt the need to talk about this, openly, because it is becoming painfully clear that he’s not over the “Al, you are an idiot!!!” comment I made so many moons ago. The evidence, several references he’s made to it since…

Gmail chat with Pa at 22-Aug-2006 08:39 PM:

Pa: … Is everthing alright between you and Rosie. She hasn't commented on your blog in a long time and I'm feeling guilty cause I've commented on hers…
Me: No it's fine. I don't know why she hasn't commented. I never thought about it.
Pa: At least I didn't call her an idiot! on her blog.
Me: Neither did I.
Pa: What?????????

Posted by Al to ramblings of a whiner at 22-Sep-2006 08:33:43 AM:

I am glad that you honour your father. On occasion I have had the sad experience of one of my children calling me an idiot!

It is obvious from these two transgressions, as well as multiple 'in person' references to it, that Al (aka “Pa”) is clearly not over being called an idiot.

But how did the whole idiot thing come about? Good question. After all, it’s not every day that a person calls their dad an idiot, particularly in our family.

So here it is:

My sister posted about how 1 out of 5 Canadians are Nuts on her blog (click on the link to see the whole thing, with all the comments below it), where she wrote about the whole Israeli/Hezbollah conflict. After commenting on her post, my dad and I were chatting on Gmail chat and this is what went down...

Pa: You need to write another funny on Lannys blog. I just left a real downer.
Me: uh oh
Pa: Guess I'll switch over to your blog and see what "THE MASHER" has to say today.
Me: uh oh, you're gonna make some comment about how long it is
Pa: You said it!!

[Pause] During this pause I checked out my dad’s comment on my sister’s blog and noticed his typo… he was writing about 9/11 and put 7/11. Wahahaha. This was my chance to use the typo to act like the usual type of commenter on some of the more political-themed blogs, commenters who are a bit over-the-top (i.e. expressing extreme opinions and name-calling).

Me: Um hey dad, you said to put a funny comment on lanny's blog, so I did. Don't take the idiot comment personally, the whole comment is tongue in cheek. Hahaha. To make a point.

So you see that the idiot comment about Al was, in fact, solicited by himself! And I thought it was funny and it did make a point, and that point was NOT that my dad is an idiot. Sorry Dad, I used you and abused you with your permission... kinda.

There it is, my public retraction of my idiot comment.

TGIF!!!!!!!!!

Hey folks! It's Friday once again and the weekend is upon us! Yippee!

Cheers to NOT having another Friday like my last one! Yeah, I'll just leave it at that.

Caught in the Crossfire

This picture kills me. I bet they had to wipe off the camera on that one...

I love the full-on force behind it, to the point where it's coming out of his nose, shooting through the air in almost horizontal fashion, and especially the innocent bystander caught offguard in the projectile crossfire. I bet he needed to wear a neckbrace after that. Imagine that conversation...

What happened to you?

Whiplash.

Car accident?

No.

What?

Hurl. Projectile. Uh, don't ask.

Celibacy, discipline and solitude...

My friend Lisa was telling me about a movie called Water. Shortly after a girl Chuyia, marries her betrothed, he dies and she's basically forced to live in a temple as a nun. This is because " ... according to Holy Hindu Scriptures she has been destined to live here for the rest of her life, for when a woman's husband dies', she has three options: One, to marry her husband's younger brother, if his family permits; two, to kill herself on his funeral pyre; three, to live a life of celibacy, discipline, and solitude amongst her own kind."

Yikes, the choices! That's harsh.

Apparently Chuyia is only nine years old when this happens and scarcely remembers getting married.

Although I can't say I've suffered as these women have, I see some strange parallels with my own life.

I know I was fairly stunned in my teenhood and early twenties, not knowing wtf was going on most of the time. Could there have been a month or so back then when I was married and didn't know it and then he croaked? Maybe it was during my "slow" years way back when you could've hit me over the head with a frying pan and I would have rubbed my lid and said, " woooooah maaan, that stung." And then if you asked me if I minded getting hit with the pan, I probably would've responded, " ... I don't know."

But the question is always WHY. Why, so many moons ago, did this curse fall upon me?

If something like that did in fact occur, then why the hell didn't he have a hot younger brother!?! I would have totally been down with that!

Celibacy, discipline and solitude... Not so down with that.

Canadian gifts?

Before going to Europe, I thought I'd paruse the net for some ideas for truly Canadian gifts for our hosts. I stumbled upon the Canadian Gift Shop. This looks awesome I thought...

I couldn't believe what I saw. Paperweights? Who buys paperweights anymore? Last I checked most offices are not plagued by strong winds unless your boss tends to spout off a lot of hot air regularly. My own desk may LOOK like a tornado hit it, but no amount of paperweights are going to prevent that, let me tell ya.

The funniest part were the number of gnomes they had. Haha, GNOMES??? I can't imagine presenting these French people with a gnome for their garden...

Notice that this little guy's name is "Whiz"... Not sure if that's a coincidence since it looks a bit like he's about to take one. Oh, I guess that's a wrench to tighten lug nuts on wheels, my bad. Guess I should have known that, being Canadian and all...

We ended up getting them maple and chokecherry syrup, Candian Rockies calendars and a nice history/picture book about Alberta. Oh yeah, and I brought Flo an Oilers cap (his had totally worn out) and shirt (from Nate). I'd wanted to bring them Ice Wine and Bernard Callebaut too but it would have been ruined in the 45 degree car for over a week.

Although a big hunk of melted together Bernard chocolates doesn't have the best 'presentation', if I got one I'd probably still eat it, gnawing on it bit by bit until it was gone...

Oprah is coming to satellite radio...

... Because between a daily television show, a monthly magazine and a website; we don't get enough Oprah.

10 Signs that Summer is Over

10. You spend more your mornings finding and pairing up socks... to wear in SHOES, bye bye sandals:(

9. Your % daily exposed skin goes from 75 to about 10... basically only face and hands.

8. The temperature goes from a nightime low of 8 degrees to a daytime high of 8 degrees.

7. Shivering becomes your sole source of daily exercise.

6. You RENT the summer blockbusters.

5. The days get shorter, the nights longer and weekend activities go from outdoor in nature to indoor... No wonder northern climates have a lot of spring babies!

4. The Black Dog patio stops calling your name.

3. All the damage you did to your face in the summer sun starts to become all too apparent as the 'healthy glow' starts to fade away into a muddy pale blueishness.

2. Hibernation mode kicks in... You start hoarding food and consuming enormous amounts of it to prepare your fat stores for the long loooong winter.

1. You have only 65 days to write a thesis. AAaaaaaaccckkkkk!!!!!!!.

Lap Ho

Working at home today...

... and this is the scene on my lap right now.

She's always gotta get in there somehow, someway. At any point in time, if she's not on your lap, she's trying to get on it.

She particularly likes cute boys, people who are allergic to cats, and ANYONE wearing BLACK.

Lord help you if you happen to be all three.

Yep, she's my little Lap Ho:)