It is the 2nd of January - how many resolutions have already fallen by the wayside??

Greetings dear blog reader and Happy New Year.  Astonishingly, it is six months since I posted anything here and what a half year it has been.  I moved into a new house and I now have an international homestay student from China living with me.  But the main thing that has kept me away from the keyboard is actually two-fold.  With a combined age of 186.  Yes, my mother and her best friend - both aged 93.

My mother Margaret, we now know, has Alzheimer's and has had some mini strokes.  She has emphysema and is quite frail and thin.  As a result she's no longer able to stay in her flat.  Getting to this stage has been an uphill battle. Lots of wonderful services were instigated to help her stay at home but to no avail.  Getting her sorted has been almost a full time job.  And Joan, her lovely friend who is like my second mother, is as sharp as a tack but her body is truly failing her.  Getting her the assistance she needed, too, was plenty of work.  Their age and needs were major factors in my moving from Melbourne to Adelaide one year ago.

The good news is that I am ready to set up my private practice in Adelaide and expect to really enjoy the face to face connection with clients who I may be able to help around their issues with eating, weight and emotions. And I'm really looking forward to blogging more and posting more fun and thought-provoking stuff at my Facebook page - Eat, Think and be Merry.

So back to this new year - 2015.  What do you want to achieve?  How will you do it?  When will you know you've reached your goal?  What's the time frame?

The vast majority of New Year's resolutions are forgotten within two weeks - don't let that be you this year.  I have some help for you, courtesy of the great people at Pritikin (www.pritikin.com).  They have some fantastic suggestions with ways to achieve them, such as:

1.  Write your goals down… in detail. List both Health Goals and Life Goals.

2.  When first starting out, keep life simple.

3.  Emulate those who have succeeded at long-term weight loss.

4.  Put something you value on the line.

5.  Keep life fun.

Here's the link:  http://www.pritikin.com/how-to-keep-new-years-resolutions?ibp-adgroup=newsletter

I'd love to hear what your New Year's resolutions are and how you are going to achieve them.  I'll tell you more about mine next time I blog.

The Men who Made us Fat - part deux

http://iview.abc.net.au/programs/men-who-made-us-fat/ZX9890A002S00

Enthralling viewing.  Go for it!

The obesogenic environment

First episode: The men who made us fat

http://iview.abc.net.au/programs/men-who-made-us-fat/ZX9890A001S00

second episode. tonight.

Fat and NOT Fit.

I recently blogged about being "fat but fit".  Here's the other side of the argument.  An article, originally appearing in the Huffington Post, looks at the flaws in measuring overweight and obesity using the B.M.I. (body mass index).

And it lists the increased percentages of numerous health risks associated directly with obesity.

Yes, there are some people who are obese and who have perfectly clean arteries and normal blood sugar.  However, it seems they are the exceptions - the small outliers in the general population.

You may have "gotten away with it" until now - I know I did for many years.  But then my cholesterol went up (now managed by dietary change) and my knee joints started complaining.  Solution: don't make them carry so much of me around.

Mr Big (about whom I have blogged before) is one of those outliers.  Even at 370kg he did not have diabetes.  (And, by the way, a month ago he was down to a svelte 254kg with the help of a dedicated team at The Alfred Hospital.)

You can make statistics lie.  The food industry does that every day ("Nutella is low G.I. - OF COURSE it is, because its loaded with fat!).  But the facts are clear - extra weight increases the risk of a number of diseases, disorders and cancers.

Read Jeff Schweitzer's article from this link.

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/lifestyle/why-fat-but-fit-is-a-lie/story-fni0d7e6-1226886775324

For those of you that are interested, my blogs mentioned above can be found at...

http://eatthinkbemerry.blogspot.com.au/

YO YO - NO NO! Why do we regain weight?

Apologies for my absence the last few weeks.  I took a tumble (not again you say!) on the footpath in my street and banged up both my knees. Paving stone poking up.  I know it seems like a theme (fell down the stairs, tripped over the dog last year).  I'm not clumsy, though, just unlucky.  But on the mend.

But enough about me.  As I've mentioned before, over the years I've lost about 250kg. Unfortunately, I've also gained about 270kg.  I used to be able to lose about a stone (it was a long time ago - for those of you under 100 that's about 7kg) and then, for whatever reason, I either stopped dieting or my body rebelled.  

What's going on?  Wouldn't you just love a reductionist theory - that it's about one thing only. If it was, then we could fix it. Of course, we usually blame a lack of self-discipline but its more complex than that.  Michael Jarosky, writing in The Age, has pondered about the various factors involved in the re-gain of weight.  His list:

1.  Its not fun losing weight.
2. You didn't exercise.
3. Dieting didn't work.
4. You didn't learn anything.
5. You reached a fake finish line.
6. You did it for the money and the fame (you need to read the article to understand this one)
7. You just don't want it badly enough.

Intrigued?  Agree/disagree?  The full article can be found at http://www.theage.com.au/executive-style/fitness/blogs/boot-camp/why-do-we-put-weight-back-on-20140401-35w1l.html 

Stoicism - how it can help you lose weight

The Stoic philosophers (one of the biggies was Epictetus) have a lot to say about life and how to live it.  Stoicism is not just about "putting up with crap" or "life's a bitch and then you die".  I think of it more as common sense and realistic focus and it has good links to how we think and feel about ourselves, our weight, our appearance, negative statements by others about us, and our attitude to making changes in our life.

The always interesting site Lifehack (www.lifehack.org) published this list recently.

8 Important Lessons Stoic Philosophy Will Teach You About Being Happy

1. Connect with the world around you
2. Live in the present moment
3. Live a life of virtue
4. Harness the power of your mind
5. Don't get worked up over stuff that doesn't matter
6. Stop caring what others think about you
7. Cultivate strong relationships by doing selfless acts for people you love
8. Be thankful for what you have and stop worrying about what you don't have

To get the full picture that these eight headings represent, you really need to read the article.  I highly recommend it.  Then I recommend you think about which of these you could make a change in today, tomorrow or this week.  What is it?

For the full article, go to http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/8-important-lessons-stoic-philosophy-will-teach-you-about-being-happy.html?utm_source=Lifehack&utm_campaign=a2516e4735-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_983e966a3e-a2516e4735-414846625

Yes, you CAN be fat and fit.

"Fat people are lazy, stupid and lack self control".  Why this myth and its associated prejudice prevails is a great source of personal irritation.  And yet I internalised it when I was about ten years old and didn't consign it to the rubbish bin until far too recently.  An article, which recently appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, speaks the truth and does so eloquently.  

Written by Thea O'Connor, it profiles some yoga instructors who are larger women. One is Sarah Harry.  I've met Sarah in the past and I'm an admirer of her work at Body Positive Australia (http://bodypositiveaustralia.com.au/).  Those of you based in Melbourne, check out the group therapy offering.  And wouldn't I like to be on that Byron Bay yoga retreat!!

There are some comments and quotations in the article that I feel are so pertinent and relevant to our society and our thoughts about ourselves, that I've reproduced them below for emphasis.  Get the entire article at http://www.theage.com.au/lifestyle/diet-and-fitness/big-bodies-can-also-bend-it-20140308-34dhk.html

The article's theme is not just about fatness and fitness, its about prejudice - the way we, and others, think about ourselves.

So think about that.

Fat prejudice runs deep in Western culture, including among those who are at the forefront of promoting physical activity. Physical education students displayed higher levels of anti-fat prejudice than their fellow psychology students or other health professionals, according to a 2007 study published in the International Journal of Obesity, involving 344 university students.

''There's a fear that if you accept fat people, you are condoning an unhealthy lifestyle,'' says Guest-Jelley. ''But I want to challenge the notion that shame is what's going to encourage people to be healthy. What could make you less excited about being healthy than feeling like you're worthless?'' says Guest-Jelley.

‘‘Fat but fit people tend to have better health outcomes than thosewho are normal weight but unfit,’’ says Professor Steve Blair, of the Department of Exercise Science at the University of California. He bases his finding on 25 years of research and a sample of more than 80,000 people.

p.s. Thanks to Sue for sharing this article with me.