Tag: diets

Posted in Books, Uncategorized

Hungry For More

Posted on by D. Parker

1lean10

Easter is here again. It means different things to different people. For some, it’s religious. For some, family, and/or the Easter bunny or all. But like so many things, it revolves around food, and plenty of it – ham, fish, roast beef, yams, hot-cross buns, cakes and cupcakes decorated like bunnies, jellybeans, Cadbury creme eggs, marshmallows peeps, chocolate bunnies, rice krispies treats shaped like bunnies and eggs, bunny bread…

1lean12

I’ve been binging, this time reading, including, the Popular Culture and Philosophy series from Open Court. Pop culture and philosophy, for me, that’s book heroin. I started with Homeland and Philosophy: For Your Minds Only, edited by Robert Arp. On some level I like this show, https://yadadarcyyada.com/2014/04/03/homeland/ I keep watching it; one thing about it really stuck with me, Brody (Damian Lewis) is compared to a cockroach, surviving no matter what, but bringing misery to others. It describes so many people, oh my, does it describe the whole human race, crawling across the planet’s face?

1lean15
My next bite was The Ultimate Walking Dead and Philosophy: Hungry For More, edited by Wayne Yuen. I nibbled on each page, snacking on deep thoughts about a deep show; delicious, but a lot to digest (chocolate-covered Daryl Dixon?).

1lean5
Then I finally gave in, read some of Sheryl Sandberg (COO of Facebook) and her Lean In self-help stuff. Same old, same old, but still good advice and catchy. It’s certainly what we want to hear, that we can succeed by embracing challenge and risk, but is it realistic? We want to believe women are moving ahead, but are they?

1lean3

We also want to think diets, shifting our body weight to the thinner side will make us happy. It’s important to keep in mind, at all times, correlation is not causation, even strong correlation. I watched the documentary, Fed Up, like Ms. Sandberg’s work, it’s catchy, but with gaping holes and I don’t just mean the to-be-counted-as-sexy-these-days-thigh-gap which I think used to be called bow-legged and wasn’t that medically uncool? I guess having your thighs catch on fire while wearing corduroy isn’t considered ‘sexy’ anymore.

1lean22

We already know the truth, we don’t need all these books, documentaries, etc. We don’t need a magic pill, that won’t fill our emptiness. We need moderation, in all things. And to stop worrying about what everyone else thinks. I’ve had a long, complicated relationship with food, now I just want to be friends.

1lean19

I wonder if our aversion to moderation comes from childhoods dominated by promises of dire consequences intermingled with lies. You know:
– Don’t swallow your gum, it’ll stay in your stomach for 7 years.
– Don’t pee in the pool  – a dye will show you did it.
– Cracking your knuckles will give you arthritis. Toads will give you warts.

1lean1
– Don’t go swimming for 30 minutes after you eat.
– I’m leaving without you. We’re almost there.
– It won’t hurt. We’ll see. I don’t know.

1lean4
– Maybe later. I always know when you’re lying.
– Your pet (insert fav pet name here) went to live on a farm.
– Coffee will stunt your growth. Milk will make you grow.

1lean21
– Just a minute. Give me a minute (a parent minute is a lot longer than the average minute).
– And the obsession with preserving your eyesight. Carrots improve your eyesight. Reading in the dark damages your eyesight. If you cross your eyes they’ll stay that way. If you sit too close to the TV it will ruin your eyes. I wonder what we’re supposed to think Google glasses, smartphones, laptops, computers, etc. will do to our eyesight?

1lean8
What about you, dear readers, any gems from childhood? I still feel guilty about stepping on cracks as a child. Sorry Mom. Walking in the rain, dodging worms, I tried to remember did we ever get told, Step on a worm, make your Mother squirm?

1lean2

I wish you all a wonder-filled Easter. No matter how you celebrate, whether you lean in, lean out, lean up, or just enjoy, I hope you have enough.

1lean13

Posted in Blogs, Chocolate, Family, Food, Uncategorized, Weight

It’s Not The Years, Honey. It’s The Mileage

Posted on by D. Parker

1indie16

Our bodies might be temples, but mine is starting to look like it needs an archaeological dig.

I’m going to agree with Indiana Jones, “It’s not the years, honey. It’s the mileage.”

Sigh, it might also be the years.

Maybe it’s just that women need more upkeep…or we’re told we do.

1indie21

  • Women spend an inordinate amount of time trying to remove hair from their bodies…and if we can’t remove it, then we need to curl it, cut it, dye it, straighten it, lengthen it, wax it, shave it, shape it, and give names to the shapes.

  • Men generally just want to hold onto every single hair they have, for as long as they can.1indie22

  • Women spend hours they’ll never get back trying to pick out just the right shade, tone, tint, texture that’s going to: smooth, cover, cleanse, conceal, reverse, resist, beautify, bronze, define, alter, prime, primp, plump – for the dry, normal, oily, sensitive, acne-prone, combination; all of which will then be removed.

  • Men leave the house, perhaps after brushing the precious hair they have left and hopefully their teeth.1funny103

  • Women will do everything short of selling their souls (and that might be up for consideration) to keep themselves looking young, including being injected, operated on, rituals, who knows?

  • Men age.pablo39

  • Women worry about every bit of food that passes their lips, weigh ourselves obsessively, worry about body fat, calories, diets. They will fast, cleanse, purge and look too often into the abyss (aka the full-length mirror).

  • Men eat.1diet6

Obviously these are generalizations, but why are there such differences between the sexes? Is it our brains? Bodies? Society? History? It should be about acceptance. Men and women aren’t that much different, except women usually get paid less and their products and services cost more.

1funny108

We’re all human (well, most of us, there are exceptions), we should accept each other and work together.

In Raiders of the Lost Ark they should have said, we have top people working on it.  Why? Because we may just be passing through history, but it doesn’t mean we have to keep reliving it.

ROTLA1