This is part 3 of my series addressing the question of a caller on the first Body Love Revolution Telesummit. The caller was asking about the place for thin people (especially men) in the fat acceptance movement. Please read Part 1 for background.
Part 2 was posted yesterday.
In Part 2, I addressed whether there is specific hostility towards thin people in FA. In this post, I want to address the part of the caller's question asking whether thin people are welcomed as part of the "family" in FA.
There's a lot of crossover with the last section, but there are also enough nuances here to warrant its own posting. Here's the thing; you can fight with a group you don't identify as part of in order to secure rights for that group. But that doesn't change your identity or your privilege.
As much as we are all fighting for the idea of equality and for all humans to be treated as humans regardless of size, we fat people cannot completely ignore the fact that for thin people, this is a choice. They are already accepted. In fact they are held up as the ideal. They can't help this anymore than I can help being considered the opposite. That's what privilege means; you are granted a certain social status based on criteria outside of your reasonable control.
I consider myself an ally of the LGTBQ community. I write my government representatives on LGTBQ issues, push for awareness amongst the people close to me, and try to confront prejudice when I encounter it. I also vote. But all the advocacy I can engage in does not make me part of the "family". There is always a certain divide between me and my experiences, and my LGTBQ friends. I have privilege. I can get married, talk about my partner at work without retribution or stigma, and generally not have to worry about being subject to a certain kind of discrimination in housing, employment, or service because of my identity as straight and cis-gendered. When someone complains that they encountered LGTBQ bigotry, I can listen and empathize, but I can't relate. Not on the same level as someone who has also had that experience. I can try to extend my own experiences with fat discrimination, but it really isn't the same.
I have many thin friends who don't see me as a body size. But every now and then one of my thin friends will say something. They will talk about their latest diet, or complain about the size of their hips, or laugh over a "huge" pair of pants at a clothing store without remember that I wear an even larger size. They will make an unwitting comment that they would have never made if they knew it was hurtful, but their experience does not fully sensitize them to the nuances of fat prejudice. I expect this, and suspect other fat people do as well. There is a certain wariness and awkwardness I sometimes feel around thin people who aren't aware of their privilege. They may accept me, but they also have a certain power to hurt me. Even if they never use it, I can't ignore that power.
This is why only fat people can make fat jokes, or why only gay people can make gay jokes, or why only women can make cracks about PMS. This is the perfect example to highlight a very subtle form of otherness. I can make a joke that expresses my identity or my frustration with associated issues. You can't, because you are making them from the outside. It does make a difference.
Just to prevent anyone from thinking I'm throwing stones here, I want to give an example where it was entirely my fuck-up. I heard the other day that Canadian airlines are not allowing people to fly if their dress and appearance doesn't match the gender on their driver's license or I.D. I was really angry, and made a snarky crack about how Canada is forcing people to cross-dress in order to fly. My intention was to validate people's gender identity and highlight the ridiculousness of the rule. If a woman was born male (Canada won't change gender on official documents unless you're post-op) then she would have to dress up like a man in order to get on the plane. Here's the problem; I'm cis-gendered. As an outsider, my joke could just as easily be interpreted as reinforcing Canada's justification for the rule by saying it was easy to just put on different clothes for the flight. My intentions don't count; only the effect of my words. Luckily I have people around who call me on this kind of thing so that I can stop acting unintentionally like a jackass.
Now after pointing out the otherness, let me emphasize that I'm NOT saying thin people aren't welcome in this movement. Thin people have a vested interest in supporting size diversity, and we fat people need to acknowledge it. Thin people have friends, family, children, past and future size changes, employees, employers, and a hundred other reasons why they, personally, need to create a world without size prejudice. They are bombarded with "conform or die" messages every day that try to convince them to hate and fear others. They are told that their privilege, worth, attractiveness and health are contingent on never looking different. Thin people have a place and voice in the fight for size diversity! It's important for everyone promoting diversity of any kind to examine assumptions and privileges, and respect that each person comes with their own experiences and motivations.
In addition, fat and thin are arbitrary designations on what is really a spectrum. I have a size 10 friend I think of as thin, but she frets about what she sees as excess weight. As one of the speakers in the first telesummit said, we have the right to self-identity.
The ideal is to bridge the gap and eliminate any feeling of otherness between fat and thin people. We are fighting for humanity at every size. The reality, however, is that many fat people feel more comfortable around other fat people. They know that the other fat person "gets it" on a level that a thin person can't. They will be friends with thin people, and there are often very close relationships with empathetic thin people that bridge the gap. There are many who truly see all people as part of the human family. But there are others who still struggle with validating their own identity and their right to it. There are many who have had such devastating and traumatic experiences with thin people (even "best friends" who really weren't) that it takes time and familiarity to build trust. If you're a thin person in FA, you're very much welcome, but everyone on the fat-thin identity spectrum must bring patience and understanding to the table. We are not activists in a vacuum, and our lives have generally involved some wear and tear on the soul. Acknowledging the reality is the first step towards enacting change.
Saturday, February 4, 2012
Friday, February 3, 2012
On Thinness and Fat Acceptance (Part 2)
This is part 2 of my series addressing the question of a caller on the first Body Love Revolution Telesummit. The caller was asking about the place for thin people (especially men) in the fat acceptance movement. Please read Part 1 for background.
I use "she" in this post because I am, in part, talking about my own experience in FA and I identify as female. This should not be taken to mean that people of other genders have not had the same experience or aren't welcome voices in FA.
The first part of the question outlined in Part 1 was whether we (i.e. fat acceptance activists) are hostile towards thin people. I think Marilyn Wann nailed this when she said we want to be all accepting, but, she said, there is still envy out there. While we would all like to think that once we become advocates for size diversity we suddenly consider everyone to be just like us, the truth is that we don't become activists in a vacuum. Many become activists because they are angry.
You see this often in anything that could be considered counter-culture. Some Pagans resent Christians. Some women resent men. Some fat people resent thin people. It is a perfectly natural first step towards breaking away from dominant culture; first reject the culture. My favorite name for it is the "Jan Brady Syndrome." See, as fat people, thin people are held up to us on a constant basis by everyone around us with the message "why can't you be more like Marcia?" This is a classic conflict between siblings, and often leads to trouble whether on the micro or macro scale. They are the ideal, and we are the failure. How can anyone come away from that without some resentment?
It is only after we have broken away and put space between us and the false ideal, and learned to love ourselves as we are and for what we can do, that this anger fades. It's something we should all work towards, with self-forgiveness and patience. Remember, though, that a freshly minted fat activist is just now struggling with the idea that they spent all their lives fighting desperately and futilely towards being just like Marcia, engaging in self-loathing and harm along the way. She has just had the massive paradigm shift that not only is she okay just as she is, but has ALWAYS been okay, even when everyone was telling her she wasn't. This is an amazing, liberating, uplifting revelation. But it also makes us angry. Really angry. We've wasted decades of our lives hating ourselves unnecessarily, envying the effortlessly skinny girls who had everything we wanted. We are conflicted, and ready to lash out.
This is why you see people projecting that frustration by making claims that fat people are somehow better than thin. You see slogans about how "real women" have curves (or eat cake, etc.). This is a defensive posture, because we still feel like we have to fight to assert and accept our identity as a fat person. We call thin people twigs, or make snide comments about them needing a cheeseburger. This is a perfectly normal psychological move to convince ourselves that we are normal, desirable, and generally okay. It is pushing back. We are making space for ourselves not only in the world, but in our heads.
Many people have moved beyond this stage. It should be a stage. We should actively work towards making it as short as possible. Some people skip it altogether, or only need a week. Some people need years. However long it takes, it takes.
What does this mean for thin people who have thrown their effort, their indignation, and sometimes their reputations in with us to fight for size diversity? It means you need a certain level of patience. You need to understand that it isn't personal. You can set specific boundaries with your FA friends and colleagues (i.e. "please don't make snarky comments about thin people; I identify as one and those comments are hurtful to me.") without getting on a soapbox or exchanging like for like. You can acknowledge the history and hurt, the defensiveness and fear that if we let our guard down for even a moment, our thin friends may cause us pain by some unthinking comment or action. It means really examining thin privilege, and knowing that it's difficult for us that we speak the same message, but yours is the only one people hear. That's why we can make fat jokes, but you can't. Even though you can't help the way you're made anymore than we can.
What does this mean for fat people fighting for body diversity? Remember that thin people have a personal, vested effort in making this a world where body diversity is the norm. They have privilege, but they do not live in a vacuum. They have friends, family, children, spouses, employers, employees, and others affected by prejudice. They may be recovering from or have an eating disorder triggered by our culture's fear of fat. They may gain weight as they age and want to be able to still love themselves. They are bombarded every day with messages that their worth to the world and the love they experience is contingent entirely on them not allowing their bodies to change. We also need to remember that thin people can't help the way they're made. They're living the size they come in.
The ideal (and goal) should be for everyone to acknowledge that we are all part of the same human family. We all come in the size we are, and none of us can help it. We should acknowledge that the very thin people suffer prejudice and snark and negative assumptions about their mental and physical health, and that the medium thin have to fight falling into our cultural trap of obsessing about their weight to stay thin.
But we're talking about human beings here, with human fallibility and emotions. The anger is a reality that must be acknowledged, respected, and resolved. Remember that we cannot control our emotions, and have a right to feel them. What we can control is what we do with and in reaction to those emotions. Do we use them constructively or destructively?
It's not reasonable to expect us to become enlightened overnight, anymore than it's reasonable to expect everyone to examine and relinquish social privilege on demand. It's been five or more years and I still struggle with the little commenter in my own head that sees a very thin girl and starts diagnosing eating disorders (especially now that I've been studying the DSM). I still experience some sharp stab of envy when I see someone in awesome retro clothes I can't wear. With a lot of patience, though, I can work towards the ideal of letting that go and respecting all bodies the way I want to be respected.
I use "she" in this post because I am, in part, talking about my own experience in FA and I identify as female. This should not be taken to mean that people of other genders have not had the same experience or aren't welcome voices in FA.
The first part of the question outlined in Part 1 was whether we (i.e. fat acceptance activists) are hostile towards thin people. I think Marilyn Wann nailed this when she said we want to be all accepting, but, she said, there is still envy out there. While we would all like to think that once we become advocates for size diversity we suddenly consider everyone to be just like us, the truth is that we don't become activists in a vacuum. Many become activists because they are angry.
You see this often in anything that could be considered counter-culture. Some Pagans resent Christians. Some women resent men. Some fat people resent thin people. It is a perfectly natural first step towards breaking away from dominant culture; first reject the culture. My favorite name for it is the "Jan Brady Syndrome." See, as fat people, thin people are held up to us on a constant basis by everyone around us with the message "why can't you be more like Marcia?" This is a classic conflict between siblings, and often leads to trouble whether on the micro or macro scale. They are the ideal, and we are the failure. How can anyone come away from that without some resentment?
It is only after we have broken away and put space between us and the false ideal, and learned to love ourselves as we are and for what we can do, that this anger fades. It's something we should all work towards, with self-forgiveness and patience. Remember, though, that a freshly minted fat activist is just now struggling with the idea that they spent all their lives fighting desperately and futilely towards being just like Marcia, engaging in self-loathing and harm along the way. She has just had the massive paradigm shift that not only is she okay just as she is, but has ALWAYS been okay, even when everyone was telling her she wasn't. This is an amazing, liberating, uplifting revelation. But it also makes us angry. Really angry. We've wasted decades of our lives hating ourselves unnecessarily, envying the effortlessly skinny girls who had everything we wanted. We are conflicted, and ready to lash out.
This is why you see people projecting that frustration by making claims that fat people are somehow better than thin. You see slogans about how "real women" have curves (or eat cake, etc.). This is a defensive posture, because we still feel like we have to fight to assert and accept our identity as a fat person. We call thin people twigs, or make snide comments about them needing a cheeseburger. This is a perfectly normal psychological move to convince ourselves that we are normal, desirable, and generally okay. It is pushing back. We are making space for ourselves not only in the world, but in our heads.
Many people have moved beyond this stage. It should be a stage. We should actively work towards making it as short as possible. Some people skip it altogether, or only need a week. Some people need years. However long it takes, it takes.
What does this mean for thin people who have thrown their effort, their indignation, and sometimes their reputations in with us to fight for size diversity? It means you need a certain level of patience. You need to understand that it isn't personal. You can set specific boundaries with your FA friends and colleagues (i.e. "please don't make snarky comments about thin people; I identify as one and those comments are hurtful to me.") without getting on a soapbox or exchanging like for like. You can acknowledge the history and hurt, the defensiveness and fear that if we let our guard down for even a moment, our thin friends may cause us pain by some unthinking comment or action. It means really examining thin privilege, and knowing that it's difficult for us that we speak the same message, but yours is the only one people hear. That's why we can make fat jokes, but you can't. Even though you can't help the way you're made anymore than we can.
What does this mean for fat people fighting for body diversity? Remember that thin people have a personal, vested effort in making this a world where body diversity is the norm. They have privilege, but they do not live in a vacuum. They have friends, family, children, spouses, employers, employees, and others affected by prejudice. They may be recovering from or have an eating disorder triggered by our culture's fear of fat. They may gain weight as they age and want to be able to still love themselves. They are bombarded every day with messages that their worth to the world and the love they experience is contingent entirely on them not allowing their bodies to change. We also need to remember that thin people can't help the way they're made. They're living the size they come in.
The ideal (and goal) should be for everyone to acknowledge that we are all part of the same human family. We all come in the size we are, and none of us can help it. We should acknowledge that the very thin people suffer prejudice and snark and negative assumptions about their mental and physical health, and that the medium thin have to fight falling into our cultural trap of obsessing about their weight to stay thin.
But we're talking about human beings here, with human fallibility and emotions. The anger is a reality that must be acknowledged, respected, and resolved. Remember that we cannot control our emotions, and have a right to feel them. What we can control is what we do with and in reaction to those emotions. Do we use them constructively or destructively?
It's not reasonable to expect us to become enlightened overnight, anymore than it's reasonable to expect everyone to examine and relinquish social privilege on demand. It's been five or more years and I still struggle with the little commenter in my own head that sees a very thin girl and starts diagnosing eating disorders (especially now that I've been studying the DSM). I still experience some sharp stab of envy when I see someone in awesome retro clothes I can't wear. With a lot of patience, though, I can work towards the ideal of letting that go and respecting all bodies the way I want to be respected.
Thursday, February 2, 2012
On Thinness and Fat Acceptance (Part 1)
I was in on the fantabulous Body Love Revolution Telesummit on Tuesday (There's still time to register for upcoming sessions!). A question came up that I think needs much closer analysis. The caller organized diversity events on his campus (hooray for him for considering size diversity!). He asked how and whether thin people, specifically thin men, are accepted as voices or advocates in this whole Fat Acceptance movement. It was a really thoughtful, and painfully real question.
The first thoughts that came into my head were about Malcolm X. Whatever you think of any or all of his messages, he did advance the idea of self-determinism; that a minority group does not have to rely on the majority to represent their voice or be a witness to their experience. He believed that if a group was not protected from hate and bigotry, they must protect themselves. This is why straight people are allies of the LGTBQ community, but not always accepted into every community as a full member of the family. It is about standing up for yourself, because being dependent on another person to approve you or vouch for you in order to be okay is NOT okay.
We as a fat acceptance movement have sometimes needed advocacy from thin people. I remember the introduction to Paul Campos's book, where the publisher would only take the book if Campos was thin. Likewise, Linda Bacon's advocacy success may be based, in part, on the fact that she is thin. Our voices must often be carried by thin people where they normally wouldn't go. This is not a bad thing. These people helped carve out huge chunks of new territory for us to carry the diversity message, and provided us with the strong empiric ammunition we needed to fight the good fight. On the other hand, they have a very different experience and perspective from Marilyn Wann, or Peggy Howell. They acknowledge and fight against size bigotry, but they have not really experienced it.
So when the caller asked this question, he's asking a few things. He's asking whether we are hostile towards thin people. He's asking whether thin people are welcomed as part of the "family". He's asking how a thin person can respectfully lend their support to the movement without co-opting the voices or having personal experience as a target of bigotry. He's asking whether the participation of men is encouraged, threatening, or irrelevant to the movement. It was a damn good, but complex question.
I will be giving my answers to these questions over the next week or so, trying to tackle each area of a complex web of activism and identity. Your mileage may absolutely vary, because there is no "one true way" of any movement. You may have answers to these questions that are very different from mine, because your experience and paradigm are very different from mine.
The first thoughts that came into my head were about Malcolm X. Whatever you think of any or all of his messages, he did advance the idea of self-determinism; that a minority group does not have to rely on the majority to represent their voice or be a witness to their experience. He believed that if a group was not protected from hate and bigotry, they must protect themselves. This is why straight people are allies of the LGTBQ community, but not always accepted into every community as a full member of the family. It is about standing up for yourself, because being dependent on another person to approve you or vouch for you in order to be okay is NOT okay.
We as a fat acceptance movement have sometimes needed advocacy from thin people. I remember the introduction to Paul Campos's book, where the publisher would only take the book if Campos was thin. Likewise, Linda Bacon's advocacy success may be based, in part, on the fact that she is thin. Our voices must often be carried by thin people where they normally wouldn't go. This is not a bad thing. These people helped carve out huge chunks of new territory for us to carry the diversity message, and provided us with the strong empiric ammunition we needed to fight the good fight. On the other hand, they have a very different experience and perspective from Marilyn Wann, or Peggy Howell. They acknowledge and fight against size bigotry, but they have not really experienced it.
So when the caller asked this question, he's asking a few things. He's asking whether we are hostile towards thin people. He's asking whether thin people are welcomed as part of the "family". He's asking how a thin person can respectfully lend their support to the movement without co-opting the voices or having personal experience as a target of bigotry. He's asking whether the participation of men is encouraged, threatening, or irrelevant to the movement. It was a damn good, but complex question.
I will be giving my answers to these questions over the next week or so, trying to tackle each area of a complex web of activism and identity. Your mileage may absolutely vary, because there is no "one true way" of any movement. You may have answers to these questions that are very different from mine, because your experience and paradigm are very different from mine.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
A Civil Liberties Segue
I don't usually stray too far into controversial political issues other than FA, and I don't plan to make this blog a regular platform. But there's a disturbing thing happening in Michigan, and it has to do with my reproductive rights.
The Michigan senate is considering a bill (SB600) that would allow drivers to purchase an official license plate with a "Choose Life" logo on it. $25 from the purchase of the plate would go to the organization Right to Life, which claims to simply offer "abortion alternatives," but in reality is an active political lobby for criminalizing abortion and denying funds to organizations like Planned Parenthood, which provides many uninsured women their only opportunity to get routine health care like pap and pelvic exams, access to birth control, etc. (only a tiny portion of Planned Parenthood's operations involve abortion).
Oh, and there's no option to purchase a plate that supports the other side of the issue. The state is only interested in endorsing the anti-abortion stance.
Now when I say I'm pro-choice, I mean that I absolutely support a woman's right to choose to not have an abortion. I support women who think it is the wrong choice for them, and who decide to either raise the child or put it up for adoption. But the key word in that is "choose." Choosing to not have an abortion, and taking away MY right to choose whether to have one, are two very different things.
I think that this issue is an extension of the idea that a woman's body does not belong to her. This same idea leads to people feeling justified in judging, criticizing, and attempting to control our bodies in other ways. Weight, for example. Anyone who's listened to office gossip knows that our culture (including most women) feel that a woman's body is a public object. She has a social obligation to "maintain" it according to society's standards or face society's wrath. In part, a woman is blamed if she is raped or harassed because to some extent our culture sees her as already belonging to other people (especially to men) and her body was never her's to defend. Likewise, we have to fight against the expectation that our purpose (other than decorative) is as a machine for the reproduction of genetic material not our own. What could be a more personal expression of our ownership of our bodies then deciding whether to give up nine months or more of our lives, threaten our physical and mental health, our economic security, and every other priority, to grow a human being? Of course having the right to say no to that challenges every cultural assumption that we do not own our bodies.
I don't think that the state of Michigan has any business becoming an endorsement mill for divisive political organizations. I have no problem with their using the plates for sports teams (as they offer every team in the state). If they're crossing the line into political positions such as abortion, they need to make sure that people on both sides of the issue have an equal chance to express their views. Denying them even that choice pretty much sums up what's wrong with this situation.
The Michigan senate is considering a bill (SB600) that would allow drivers to purchase an official license plate with a "Choose Life" logo on it. $25 from the purchase of the plate would go to the organization Right to Life, which claims to simply offer "abortion alternatives," but in reality is an active political lobby for criminalizing abortion and denying funds to organizations like Planned Parenthood, which provides many uninsured women their only opportunity to get routine health care like pap and pelvic exams, access to birth control, etc. (only a tiny portion of Planned Parenthood's operations involve abortion).
Oh, and there's no option to purchase a plate that supports the other side of the issue. The state is only interested in endorsing the anti-abortion stance.
Now when I say I'm pro-choice, I mean that I absolutely support a woman's right to choose to not have an abortion. I support women who think it is the wrong choice for them, and who decide to either raise the child or put it up for adoption. But the key word in that is "choose." Choosing to not have an abortion, and taking away MY right to choose whether to have one, are two very different things.
I think that this issue is an extension of the idea that a woman's body does not belong to her. This same idea leads to people feeling justified in judging, criticizing, and attempting to control our bodies in other ways. Weight, for example. Anyone who's listened to office gossip knows that our culture (including most women) feel that a woman's body is a public object. She has a social obligation to "maintain" it according to society's standards or face society's wrath. In part, a woman is blamed if she is raped or harassed because to some extent our culture sees her as already belonging to other people (especially to men) and her body was never her's to defend. Likewise, we have to fight against the expectation that our purpose (other than decorative) is as a machine for the reproduction of genetic material not our own. What could be a more personal expression of our ownership of our bodies then deciding whether to give up nine months or more of our lives, threaten our physical and mental health, our economic security, and every other priority, to grow a human being? Of course having the right to say no to that challenges every cultural assumption that we do not own our bodies.
I don't think that the state of Michigan has any business becoming an endorsement mill for divisive political organizations. I have no problem with their using the plates for sports teams (as they offer every team in the state). If they're crossing the line into political positions such as abortion, they need to make sure that people on both sides of the issue have an equal chance to express their views. Denying them even that choice pretty much sums up what's wrong with this situation.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Ninja Commenting, continued
I have my dummy e-mail address (fatactivist @ gmail) and am going to try and post 2-3 comments per day on various articles with fat hate. I find it helps to not read the other comments. Today's theme was Paula Deen, and I left comments on 3 articles slamming the hypocrisy of Anthony Bourdain (who chain smokes and binge drinks on his TV show) criticising Paula Deen for cooking unhealthy food. You know, unlike the butter sauce he puts on everything? But he's thin, so it makes it okay for him to claim health superiority. Even though he has to take a break to climb a set of stairs because he has no lung capacity left.
I used to like his show.
I used to like his show.
Monday, January 23, 2012
New Ninja Commenting Text
Until I make the reluctant leap to join the Hive Mind (aka Facebook), I'll continue to update comment cut-and-paste texts for Ninja Commenting here on my blog. Here's the latest, which I'm using on general "why don't they just put down the donuts and take a walk" kind of fat hate threads, especially those targeted at "childhood obesity". I think it covers the basics for someone not already in the fat acceptance paradigm:
Ninja Comment:
No one has ever developed a way to make fat people thin. Really. Everyone thinks that it's a very simple thing, but if that were so, wouldn't everyone be thin? No empirical study of weight loss shows more than a 5% long-term success rate for any weight loss method. That means that in five years, 95% of people not only re-gain all the weight they have lost, but generally end up approximately 3-10% heavier. That includes weight loss surgery patients.
The good news is that there are several studies showing that fat and unhealthy are NOT the same thing. Studies show that a person's level of exercise, regardless of how much they weigh, is the primary determinant of health. Genetic factors play a very high role as well. Stress (like in stigma and shaming) is a very important factor in developing many illnesses normally attributed to weight, but for some reason we blame the weight alone.
Trust me, kids know when they're fat. If they ever interact with our culture in America, they're not allowed to forget it. Shaming, bullying, and weight stigma have shockingly bad effects on health. For instance, eating disorders amongst kids younger than 12 have shot up in the last decade. Think about 9 year olds being hospitalized for anorexia before you condone weight-shaming in children. Childhood depression and other mood disorders have increased dramatically. Children who aren't even overweight for their age are developing a poor body image that will haunt them throughout their lives.
If you're interested in an alternative model for health instead of a fruitless pursuit of weight loss and panicked screaming about epidemics, (see the recent news from the federal health agencies that Americans actually haven't been getting any fatter for the last decade. Weight has not increased in any age category), use your search engine to look for HAES (Health at Every Size). You'll notice that a lot of the health specialists involved with promoting HAES are those on the front lines of eating disorder reasearch. They know that the old system of shaming and blaming is only going to do more harm.
Ninja Comment:
No one has ever developed a way to make fat people thin. Really. Everyone thinks that it's a very simple thing, but if that were so, wouldn't everyone be thin? No empirical study of weight loss shows more than a 5% long-term success rate for any weight loss method. That means that in five years, 95% of people not only re-gain all the weight they have lost, but generally end up approximately 3-10% heavier. That includes weight loss surgery patients.
The good news is that there are several studies showing that fat and unhealthy are NOT the same thing. Studies show that a person's level of exercise, regardless of how much they weigh, is the primary determinant of health. Genetic factors play a very high role as well. Stress (like in stigma and shaming) is a very important factor in developing many illnesses normally attributed to weight, but for some reason we blame the weight alone.
Trust me, kids know when they're fat. If they ever interact with our culture in America, they're not allowed to forget it. Shaming, bullying, and weight stigma have shockingly bad effects on health. For instance, eating disorders amongst kids younger than 12 have shot up in the last decade. Think about 9 year olds being hospitalized for anorexia before you condone weight-shaming in children. Childhood depression and other mood disorders have increased dramatically. Children who aren't even overweight for their age are developing a poor body image that will haunt them throughout their lives.
If you're interested in an alternative model for health instead of a fruitless pursuit of weight loss and panicked screaming about epidemics, (see the recent news from the federal health agencies that Americans actually haven't been getting any fatter for the last decade. Weight has not increased in any age category), use your search engine to look for HAES (Health at Every Size). You'll notice that a lot of the health specialists involved with promoting HAES are those on the front lines of eating disorder reasearch. They know that the old system of shaming and blaming is only going to do more harm.
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Recipe box: Gluten-Free Crepes
I'm finally posting JD's Gluten-Free Crepes! This is something he adapted from another recipe to work with the GF flour mix we use (below). We generally eat them for breakfast, ideally with mascarpone cheese and sliced fruit. Mascarpone can be found in a lot of food stores that sell specialty cheeses. It's a very sweet, light, Italian cream cheese that tastes like crème fraîche. The brand we find locally, Belgioioso, is gluten free. You can also use regular cream cheese, sweetened ricotta, or Neufchatel.
Gluten-Free Flour Mix:
4 parts white rice flour
3 parts potato starch
2 parts sweet white sorghum flour
measure parts by pouring into a measuring cup or container and use the same container for each "part". If you have a kitchen scale, measuring by weight is even better! Scooping the flour from the original container can compress it and give you uneven results. Mix all the parts together very well (we put it in a big container and shake it thoroughly).
Crepes
1/2 cup flour [see above for GF flour mix]
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg
5/8 cup milk (1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons)
If possible, use a small round nonstick pan with tapered sides, like an omelette pan.
Preheat the pan on medium heat. Dampen a paper towel with vegetable oil and wipe it on the pan to give it a very thin coating.
Mix all ingredients together. Whip until well blended. Pour just enough batter into the pan to coat the bottom, tipping the pan to spread evenly. If it doesn't flow well, add milk by tablespoons until it is thin enough.
Wait for approximately 1 minute, or until crepe is dry and slides easily in pan. Flip crepe and cook for an additional 30 seconds. The crepe should still be light and pliant without browning, but may have brittle edges.
For the visual learners, here's a Youtube video on how to cook the crepes. Skip past the mixing of ingredients and use the recipe above, but note the texture of the batter and watch how he pours it to coat the pan.
Makes 6-9 crepes.
Gluten-Free Flour Mix:
4 parts white rice flour
3 parts potato starch
2 parts sweet white sorghum flour
measure parts by pouring into a measuring cup or container and use the same container for each "part". If you have a kitchen scale, measuring by weight is even better! Scooping the flour from the original container can compress it and give you uneven results. Mix all the parts together very well (we put it in a big container and shake it thoroughly).
Crepes
1/2 cup flour [see above for GF flour mix]
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg
5/8 cup milk (1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons)
If possible, use a small round nonstick pan with tapered sides, like an omelette pan.
Preheat the pan on medium heat. Dampen a paper towel with vegetable oil and wipe it on the pan to give it a very thin coating.
Mix all ingredients together. Whip until well blended. Pour just enough batter into the pan to coat the bottom, tipping the pan to spread evenly. If it doesn't flow well, add milk by tablespoons until it is thin enough.
Wait for approximately 1 minute, or until crepe is dry and slides easily in pan. Flip crepe and cook for an additional 30 seconds. The crepe should still be light and pliant without browning, but may have brittle edges.
For the visual learners, here's a Youtube video on how to cook the crepes. Skip past the mixing of ingredients and use the recipe above, but note the texture of the batter and watch how he pours it to coat the pan.
Makes 6-9 crepes.
Friday, January 20, 2012
Ninja Commenting
Ragen at Dances With Fat posted a piece on how we can practice some activism at home and take back some fat hating comment streams through Ninja Commenting. Please read the post, because it's excellent :-)
I want to expand on her idea and use it myself. The idea is to find mainstream news stories (not private threads or weight-loss sites; we're not trolls!) about weight. These stories inevitably spawn some gut-churning nastiness in the comment threads, which I usually avoid. No longer! I don't have to read them, but I can post a comment to help challenge the paradigm.
Step 1 is to create an e-mail account for the purpose. I don't want to sign up for spam, so I'll create an e-mail account specifically to use as my news commenting account. I will register it at most of the mainstream news sites I go to (cnn.com, Detroit News and Freepress, etc.) I'll register more as I need to to comment on individual articles.
Step 2 is to put together some stock responses. You will find that these articles and comment threads can be generally sorted into a very few themes:
1. Fat and diabetes (i.e. you got diabetes because you're fat, or if you're fat you'll get diabetes)
2. Weight loss (i.e. you'd be less fat if you just xyz)
3. Fat myths (i.e. fat people are lazy, stupid, underqualified for anything, never exercise)
There may be others, of course. But I can put together a few stock answers to general categories to simply cut and paste to comment threads without spending a lot of time typing.
Some definite necessities:
Ragen mentioned two very important follow-up steps. Don't check the box that notifies you of responses or follow-ups. Don't go back to the article to see if anyone has responded to your post.
Trust me, they've responded and you won't like it. We joke about "sanity watchers'" points in FA, which means you should limit the amount of negativity directed at you when you have the option. Mental health is still health. So post your ninja comment and never look back. It isn't for you; it's for that poor lurker who will come across it and have a seed planted in their heads that they might just be okay.
I'll keep this post updated with stock answers. Please feel free to use my stock answers, although they'd be much better in your own words (especially if more than one person is ninja commenting the same article!). Try to avoid putting links in comments, as they're sometimes rejected and sometimes require complicated formatting to work. Instead, cite sources and let the readers look them up.
Stock Answer 1: Fat and Diabetes
This is currently useful for the Paula Deen hate going around. I took the quote from the ADA from Ragen's post.
It's a common myth that weight can cause diabetes, but according to the
American Diabetes Association: "Most overweight people never develop type
2 diabetes, and many people with type 2 diabetes are at a normal weight or
only moderately overweight." This is backed up by a lot of research.
When they say weight is a risk factor for type II diabetes, they mean it
is correlated. When two things are correlated, it means that they don't
know which causes which. The type II diabetes could cause weight gain.
The two could also both be the result of similar biological (genetics) or
environmental (stress, toxins, etc.) causes. No long term study has shown
that reducing weight reduces diabetes risk, which would make sense if the
weight was a symptom, not a cause. Other major factors that are often
ignored include stress and inactivity. Rather than blaming fat people for
an illness that could affect anyone, maybe we should explore real ways to
improve health in our country? I would recommend looking up the HAES, or
"Health at Every Size" concept for thorough research and effective models
for public health programs.
Stock Answer Two: Childhood Obesity (or, "why don't the fat kids just put down the donuts")
No one has ever developed a way to make fat people thin. Really. Everyone thinks that it's a very simple thing, but if that were so, wouldn't everyone be thin? No empirical study of weight loss shows more than a 5% long-term success rate for any weight loss method. That means that in five years, 95% of people not only re-gain all the weight they have lost, but generally end up approximately 3-10% heavier. That includes weight loss surgery patients.
The good news is that there are several studies showing that fat and unhealthy are NOT the same thing. Studies show that a person's level of exercise, regardless of how much they weigh, is the primary determinant of health. Genetic factors play a very high role as well. Stress (like in stigma and shaming) is a very important factor in developing many illnesses normally attributed to weight, but for some reason we blame the weight alone.
Trust me, kids know when they're fat. If they ever interact with our culture in America, they're not allowed to forget it. Shaming, bullying, and weight stigma have shockingly bad effects on health. For instance, eating disorders amongst kids younger than 12 have shot up in the last decade. Think about 9 year olds being hospitalized for anorexia before you condone weight-shaming in children. Childhood depression and other mood disorders have increased dramatically. Children who aren't even overweight for their age are developing a poor body image that will haunt them throughout their lives.
If you're interested in an alternative model for health instead of a fruitless pursuit of weight loss and panicked screaming about epidemics, (see the recent news from the federal health agencies that Americans actually haven't been getting any fatter for the last decade. Weight has not increased in any age category), use your search engine to look for HAES (Health at Every Size). You'll notice that a lot of the health specialists involved with promoting HAES are those on the front lines of eating disorder reasearch. They know that the old system of shaming and blaming is only going to do more harm.
I want to expand on her idea and use it myself. The idea is to find mainstream news stories (not private threads or weight-loss sites; we're not trolls!) about weight. These stories inevitably spawn some gut-churning nastiness in the comment threads, which I usually avoid. No longer! I don't have to read them, but I can post a comment to help challenge the paradigm.
Step 1 is to create an e-mail account for the purpose. I don't want to sign up for spam, so I'll create an e-mail account specifically to use as my news commenting account. I will register it at most of the mainstream news sites I go to (cnn.com, Detroit News and Freepress, etc.) I'll register more as I need to to comment on individual articles.
Step 2 is to put together some stock responses. You will find that these articles and comment threads can be generally sorted into a very few themes:
1. Fat and diabetes (i.e. you got diabetes because you're fat, or if you're fat you'll get diabetes)
2. Weight loss (i.e. you'd be less fat if you just xyz)
3. Fat myths (i.e. fat people are lazy, stupid, underqualified for anything, never exercise)
There may be others, of course. But I can put together a few stock answers to general categories to simply cut and paste to comment threads without spending a lot of time typing.
Some definite necessities:
Ragen mentioned two very important follow-up steps. Don't check the box that notifies you of responses or follow-ups. Don't go back to the article to see if anyone has responded to your post.
Trust me, they've responded and you won't like it. We joke about "sanity watchers'" points in FA, which means you should limit the amount of negativity directed at you when you have the option. Mental health is still health. So post your ninja comment and never look back. It isn't for you; it's for that poor lurker who will come across it and have a seed planted in their heads that they might just be okay.
I'll keep this post updated with stock answers. Please feel free to use my stock answers, although they'd be much better in your own words (especially if more than one person is ninja commenting the same article!). Try to avoid putting links in comments, as they're sometimes rejected and sometimes require complicated formatting to work. Instead, cite sources and let the readers look them up.
Stock Answer 1: Fat and Diabetes
This is currently useful for the Paula Deen hate going around. I took the quote from the ADA from Ragen's post.
It's a common myth that weight can cause diabetes, but according to the
American Diabetes Association: "Most overweight people never develop type
2 diabetes, and many people with type 2 diabetes are at a normal weight or
only moderately overweight." This is backed up by a lot of research.
When they say weight is a risk factor for type II diabetes, they mean it
is correlated. When two things are correlated, it means that they don't
know which causes which. The type II diabetes could cause weight gain.
The two could also both be the result of similar biological (genetics) or
environmental (stress, toxins, etc.) causes. No long term study has shown
that reducing weight reduces diabetes risk, which would make sense if the
weight was a symptom, not a cause. Other major factors that are often
ignored include stress and inactivity. Rather than blaming fat people for
an illness that could affect anyone, maybe we should explore real ways to
improve health in our country? I would recommend looking up the HAES, or
"Health at Every Size" concept for thorough research and effective models
for public health programs.
Stock Answer Two: Childhood Obesity (or, "why don't the fat kids just put down the donuts")
No one has ever developed a way to make fat people thin. Really. Everyone thinks that it's a very simple thing, but if that were so, wouldn't everyone be thin? No empirical study of weight loss shows more than a 5% long-term success rate for any weight loss method. That means that in five years, 95% of people not only re-gain all the weight they have lost, but generally end up approximately 3-10% heavier. That includes weight loss surgery patients.
The good news is that there are several studies showing that fat and unhealthy are NOT the same thing. Studies show that a person's level of exercise, regardless of how much they weigh, is the primary determinant of health. Genetic factors play a very high role as well. Stress (like in stigma and shaming) is a very important factor in developing many illnesses normally attributed to weight, but for some reason we blame the weight alone.
Trust me, kids know when they're fat. If they ever interact with our culture in America, they're not allowed to forget it. Shaming, bullying, and weight stigma have shockingly bad effects on health. For instance, eating disorders amongst kids younger than 12 have shot up in the last decade. Think about 9 year olds being hospitalized for anorexia before you condone weight-shaming in children. Childhood depression and other mood disorders have increased dramatically. Children who aren't even overweight for their age are developing a poor body image that will haunt them throughout their lives.
If you're interested in an alternative model for health instead of a fruitless pursuit of weight loss and panicked screaming about epidemics, (see the recent news from the federal health agencies that Americans actually haven't been getting any fatter for the last decade. Weight has not increased in any age category), use your search engine to look for HAES (Health at Every Size). You'll notice that a lot of the health specialists involved with promoting HAES are those on the front lines of eating disorder reasearch. They know that the old system of shaming and blaming is only going to do more harm.
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Happiness Project: Memories versus Clutter
Scanning important documents, photos and souvenirs and tossing the originals is one of the frequent decluttering techniques I've seen posted on organizational blogs. I've always really resisted it, and now I have a good reason. I've just had a catastrophic computer snafu, and irretrievably lost all copies of every photo I've ever saved electronically.
Digital is convenient and compact, but anyone who works with digital files regularly should be very aware of their ephemeral existence. You can back them up in various ways, but they are never entirely safe. True, paper photos are subject to fire, flood and theft, but electronic images always held an extra element of intangibility and easy loss.
So I'll get aboard with reducing clutter by ditching hard copy books for digital, because in a pinch I can always get another. I'll scan unimportant documents like past bills where I can get copies from the companies if needed. But I don't think I'll ever be comfortable with having my only copy of important photos and writing in electronic form.
One of my happiness resolutions is to remove all kinds of clutter from my life. But I think I need to define clutter as that which is unimportant and unnecessary. Physical objects are not always clutter, and clutter is not always comprised of physical objects (stress, anxiety, overcommitment, etc. can be clutter). I hereby declare that photos of important moments in my life (within reason) are no longer clutter. I defy the professional organizers and take back the right to prioritize my own life and belongings.
In exchange, I need to commit to caring for what's important. I have photos tossed in boxes and piles that need organizing and arranging in albums. I should toss photos that no longer evoke good memories, and reduce those that do to a representative sample. I don't need a hundred pictures of the same beach in Cozumel. I should scan what I do have and back it up to an online storage medium so that I am protected from both physical and electronic damage.
Maybe that's what clutter means to me: If it isn't worth the effort to protect it, is it really worth having at all?
Digital is convenient and compact, but anyone who works with digital files regularly should be very aware of their ephemeral existence. You can back them up in various ways, but they are never entirely safe. True, paper photos are subject to fire, flood and theft, but electronic images always held an extra element of intangibility and easy loss.
So I'll get aboard with reducing clutter by ditching hard copy books for digital, because in a pinch I can always get another. I'll scan unimportant documents like past bills where I can get copies from the companies if needed. But I don't think I'll ever be comfortable with having my only copy of important photos and writing in electronic form.
One of my happiness resolutions is to remove all kinds of clutter from my life. But I think I need to define clutter as that which is unimportant and unnecessary. Physical objects are not always clutter, and clutter is not always comprised of physical objects (stress, anxiety, overcommitment, etc. can be clutter). I hereby declare that photos of important moments in my life (within reason) are no longer clutter. I defy the professional organizers and take back the right to prioritize my own life and belongings.
In exchange, I need to commit to caring for what's important. I have photos tossed in boxes and piles that need organizing and arranging in albums. I should toss photos that no longer evoke good memories, and reduce those that do to a representative sample. I don't need a hundred pictures of the same beach in Cozumel. I should scan what I do have and back it up to an online storage medium so that I am protected from both physical and electronic damage.
Maybe that's what clutter means to me: If it isn't worth the effort to protect it, is it really worth having at all?
Friday, January 13, 2012
Happiness Is....
Warning: Sappy alert!
Happiness on this very snowy morning is warm gluten-free crepes with lemon curd and mascarpone, a pre-warmed car with all the snow brushed off, good music, and a partner who gets up early to make it all happen even though he doesn't need to be anywhere for two more hours.
Happiness is being grateful every day that he's in my life.
Happiness on this very snowy morning is warm gluten-free crepes with lemon curd and mascarpone, a pre-warmed car with all the snow brushed off, good music, and a partner who gets up early to make it all happen even though he doesn't need to be anywhere for two more hours.
Happiness is being grateful every day that he's in my life.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Georgia's Idea of Sugarcoating
The state of Georgia is currently covered with billboards and videos telling people to "stop sugarcoating it" in regards to childhood obesity. What's next, a campaign against bipolar disorder telling people to "just get over it already!"?
Let's start with the cognitive disconnect over what constitutes "sugarcoating."
I'm routinely bombarded with the message from the news media, my doctors, the majority of websites, and multiple ads, that I'm going to get horribly ill and die. More subtly, I'm told that I don't deserve clothes that fit, chairs that fit, public transportation seating that fits, or human love and contact. My friends are told that they will get fat and die just by associating with me. I am uncomfortable exercising in public because of hate vibes, sneers and verbal attacks. Fellow fatties are physically attacked for daring to exercise, verbally assaulted for daring to ride a bus, rejected by lovers, friends, employers and service personnel, and denied custody of their own children. They are denied adquate medical care, pay higher insurance premiums, and have to justify any illness or injury; even those common amongst thin people. I am told, over and over again, in subtle and overt ways, that I am a failure as a woman and a human being. All because I am fat.
Where the fuck does the sugarcoating come in? I must have missed that part. Or is it considered sugarcoating if they're not actually sticking knives into us?
Fat stigma and shame has not worked in a century or more, and will continue to not work. Anyone in the mental health field with any experience with eating disorders will tell you that shame and stigma are demotivators; they do the opposite of what they're intended to do. If shame and stigma were successful at creating thin people, no fat people would exist.
So, since insanity is repeating the same actions while expecting different results, how about we try something new? How about Georgia tax payers (and all of us) demand evidence-based research behind health initiatives, instead of popular media science? HAES and similar weight-neutral, positive approaches are the only ones that show real, long-term health results. Not necessarily weight results, but perhaps public officials need a reminder that health was their real purpose.
In the meantime, consider signing this petition from Change.org to stop these particular fat-shaming, kid-hurting billboards in Georgia.
http://www.change.org/petitions/childrens-healthcare-of-atlanta-end-the-stop-sugarcoating-obesity-campaign
Let's start with the cognitive disconnect over what constitutes "sugarcoating."
I'm routinely bombarded with the message from the news media, my doctors, the majority of websites, and multiple ads, that I'm going to get horribly ill and die. More subtly, I'm told that I don't deserve clothes that fit, chairs that fit, public transportation seating that fits, or human love and contact. My friends are told that they will get fat and die just by associating with me. I am uncomfortable exercising in public because of hate vibes, sneers and verbal attacks. Fellow fatties are physically attacked for daring to exercise, verbally assaulted for daring to ride a bus, rejected by lovers, friends, employers and service personnel, and denied custody of their own children. They are denied adquate medical care, pay higher insurance premiums, and have to justify any illness or injury; even those common amongst thin people. I am told, over and over again, in subtle and overt ways, that I am a failure as a woman and a human being. All because I am fat.
Where the fuck does the sugarcoating come in? I must have missed that part. Or is it considered sugarcoating if they're not actually sticking knives into us?
Fat stigma and shame has not worked in a century or more, and will continue to not work. Anyone in the mental health field with any experience with eating disorders will tell you that shame and stigma are demotivators; they do the opposite of what they're intended to do. If shame and stigma were successful at creating thin people, no fat people would exist.
So, since insanity is repeating the same actions while expecting different results, how about we try something new? How about Georgia tax payers (and all of us) demand evidence-based research behind health initiatives, instead of popular media science? HAES and similar weight-neutral, positive approaches are the only ones that show real, long-term health results. Not necessarily weight results, but perhaps public officials need a reminder that health was their real purpose.
In the meantime, consider signing this petition from Change.org to stop these particular fat-shaming, kid-hurting billboards in Georgia.
http://www.change.org/petitions/childrens-healthcare-of-atlanta-end-the-stop-sugarcoating-obesity-campaign
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
The Biggest Winner?
Our office has begun the ubiquitous and poorly named "Biggest Loser" contest. If you're lucky enough to be free of these where you work, the premise is that whoever loses the most weight in a certain time period wins a pot of cash, which the participants paid to enter.
Now I don't think that health should be competitive. There's enough "good/bad fattie" stigma from the world inflicting guilt if you don't exercise for hours every day or eat nothing but whole vegan organic foods. But I think, as a matter of compromise, that the only way to get rid of these destructive weight-loss competitions is to first replace them with something constructive.
So I propose a "Biggest Winner" contest, based on precepts of HAES, and focusing on adding health positive actions to your day instead of deprivations. This might already exist, and if it does please let me know! If it's a feasible idea though, I'll eventually put together a full kit of daily e-mails, goals, charts, etc. that people can download for use in their office or organization.
One of the challenges is that HAES is an entirely new paradigm for most people. The idea of health independent of weight is radical, and it has to be presented in acceptable bite-size pieces if this is going to work.
If you have any ideas for points or rules to add, remove or tweak, please let me know in comments or via e-mail at Jolandra6 at Yahoo (formatted here to prevent spam).
Contest Rules:
You earn points for certain physical or mental wellness activities. It is self-reporting and depends on honesty, but the goal is to try out new wellness activities to see if you want to incorporate them into your life. At the end of the contest (1 month? 6 weeks?) the person with the most points receives some sort of prize/trophy/recognition.
Any one activity can only count in one category. If you go for a swim, it can count as exercise, meditation, or time for yourself (not all three).
The maximum points for each day or week are to promote moderation. You are welcome to go for a two hour run every day, but as 30 minutes of moderate movement is enough to gain significant health benefits, the maximum is to allow people to meet that mark without feeling that they have to overdo it to stay competitive.
Points:
10 points for each 10 minutes of moderate physical activity (30 points maximum each day)
This can be any physical activity that raises your heart rate and breathing to aerobic levels. You can walk, dance, swim, mow the lawn, etc. It doesn't have to be traditional "exercise" as long as it gets the heart rate and breathing up! It can be done in increments (i.e. three 10 minute walks).
5 extra points per day if the activity you chose to do is one you enjoy.
This is defined as something you like enough that you want to continue to do it after the contest is over.
10 points for 10 minutes of strength training or stretching activity (20 points maximum each day)
This can be traditional weight lifting, or any activity that strengthens or stretches muscles (especially core muscles) such as pilates, yoga, or simple stretches. It is generally recommended that you give muscles 24 hours to recover after strength training; so alternate strength and stretch days, or work a diffferent area of the body each day.
10 points for 10 minutes of meditation (20 points maximum each day)
This can be any activity that creates mental stillness, grounding and centeredness; whether traditional meditation, simple deep breathing, yoga, tai chi, etc. It must be done without distraction or interruption, for at least 10 minutes at a time.
10 points for adequate sleep the previous night
This is generally a full 8 hours, although your body's needs may vary. Some people only really need 7, others may need 9. If you require a lot of caffeine or other stimulants to get through the day, you're not getting enough.
5 points for each serving of fruits, vegetables or whole grains (30 points maximum each day)
Look for foods you enjoy or haven't tried before and prepare them in different ways to get variety. You may find that a vegetable you dislike is tasty if prepared differently. Note: It's still a vegetable if you put butter on it.
10 points for trying a new food (10 points maximum each week)
This can be anything you've never tried before, or haven't tasted for at least 10 years. It can be a new way to prepare a familiar food, or a completely new ingredient. It needs to be more than a simple variant on a familiar recipe, unless the taste is dramatically different.
10 points for each day you drink enough water
Your water needs may vary, but the general rule is to drink half your body weight in ounces of water each day. You need more if you exercise, breastfeed, or are ill, but you may need less if you have certain medical issues like low sodium or potassium. Soup, juice, soda, milk, etc. all count towards your total for the day.
10 points for doing something just for you (10 points maximum each day)
This can be anything that simply gives you pleasure. Take some time to read or veg. Go window shopping. Get a mani/pedi. Eat dessert. Take some "me" time. Avoid anything that serves dutiful double-purpose as being about someone else's happiness or accomplishing something. If the activity is accompanied by the idea of what you "should" be doing, it doesn't count in this category.
20 points for volunteer activites or charitable donations (20 points maximum each week)
Any cause you feel good about can count towards these points. This can be anything from shoveling your elderly neighbor's walk to volunteering at Habitat or an animal rescue, to decluttering your house and dropping off reusable items at a charity resale shop.
50 points for a personal wellness project (50 points maximum each week)
The focus should be on positive additions to your mental and physical wellness, but this should be a significant project for you, and you decide your goal for earning points. You can split the points into days or make a weekly goal.
Some ideas for personal wellness projects:
1. A personal activity goal beyond the points offered above
2. Commit a certain amount of time to decluttering your house each week
3. Significant time spent with friends, family or partners
5. If applicable, commit to keeping your blood sugar or other controllable measures within a certain parameter each week
While the focus is on adding positive measures, you can decide for yourself what your personal wellness goal will be. If you want to set a goal to reduce or eliminate tobacco, caffeine, alcohol, etc. you can certainly set those goals! You could also set a goal to reduce your level of criticism, or to focus on constructive thinking.
The personal wellness goal should be achievable, reasonable, measurable, and contribute to your personal wellness (physical, mental, or emotional).
Now I don't think that health should be competitive. There's enough "good/bad fattie" stigma from the world inflicting guilt if you don't exercise for hours every day or eat nothing but whole vegan organic foods. But I think, as a matter of compromise, that the only way to get rid of these destructive weight-loss competitions is to first replace them with something constructive.
So I propose a "Biggest Winner" contest, based on precepts of HAES, and focusing on adding health positive actions to your day instead of deprivations. This might already exist, and if it does please let me know! If it's a feasible idea though, I'll eventually put together a full kit of daily e-mails, goals, charts, etc. that people can download for use in their office or organization.
One of the challenges is that HAES is an entirely new paradigm for most people. The idea of health independent of weight is radical, and it has to be presented in acceptable bite-size pieces if this is going to work.
If you have any ideas for points or rules to add, remove or tweak, please let me know in comments or via e-mail at Jolandra6 at Yahoo (formatted here to prevent spam).
Contest Rules:
You earn points for certain physical or mental wellness activities. It is self-reporting and depends on honesty, but the goal is to try out new wellness activities to see if you want to incorporate them into your life. At the end of the contest (1 month? 6 weeks?) the person with the most points receives some sort of prize/trophy/recognition.
Any one activity can only count in one category. If you go for a swim, it can count as exercise, meditation, or time for yourself (not all three).
The maximum points for each day or week are to promote moderation. You are welcome to go for a two hour run every day, but as 30 minutes of moderate movement is enough to gain significant health benefits, the maximum is to allow people to meet that mark without feeling that they have to overdo it to stay competitive.
Points:
10 points for each 10 minutes of moderate physical activity (30 points maximum each day)
This can be any physical activity that raises your heart rate and breathing to aerobic levels. You can walk, dance, swim, mow the lawn, etc. It doesn't have to be traditional "exercise" as long as it gets the heart rate and breathing up! It can be done in increments (i.e. three 10 minute walks).
5 extra points per day if the activity you chose to do is one you enjoy.
This is defined as something you like enough that you want to continue to do it after the contest is over.
10 points for 10 minutes of strength training or stretching activity (20 points maximum each day)
This can be traditional weight lifting, or any activity that strengthens or stretches muscles (especially core muscles) such as pilates, yoga, or simple stretches. It is generally recommended that you give muscles 24 hours to recover after strength training; so alternate strength and stretch days, or work a diffferent area of the body each day.
10 points for 10 minutes of meditation (20 points maximum each day)
This can be any activity that creates mental stillness, grounding and centeredness; whether traditional meditation, simple deep breathing, yoga, tai chi, etc. It must be done without distraction or interruption, for at least 10 minutes at a time.
10 points for adequate sleep the previous night
This is generally a full 8 hours, although your body's needs may vary. Some people only really need 7, others may need 9. If you require a lot of caffeine or other stimulants to get through the day, you're not getting enough.
5 points for each serving of fruits, vegetables or whole grains (30 points maximum each day)
Look for foods you enjoy or haven't tried before and prepare them in different ways to get variety. You may find that a vegetable you dislike is tasty if prepared differently. Note: It's still a vegetable if you put butter on it.
10 points for trying a new food (10 points maximum each week)
This can be anything you've never tried before, or haven't tasted for at least 10 years. It can be a new way to prepare a familiar food, or a completely new ingredient. It needs to be more than a simple variant on a familiar recipe, unless the taste is dramatically different.
10 points for each day you drink enough water
Your water needs may vary, but the general rule is to drink half your body weight in ounces of water each day. You need more if you exercise, breastfeed, or are ill, but you may need less if you have certain medical issues like low sodium or potassium. Soup, juice, soda, milk, etc. all count towards your total for the day.
10 points for doing something just for you (10 points maximum each day)
This can be anything that simply gives you pleasure. Take some time to read or veg. Go window shopping. Get a mani/pedi. Eat dessert. Take some "me" time. Avoid anything that serves dutiful double-purpose as being about someone else's happiness or accomplishing something. If the activity is accompanied by the idea of what you "should" be doing, it doesn't count in this category.
20 points for volunteer activites or charitable donations (20 points maximum each week)
Any cause you feel good about can count towards these points. This can be anything from shoveling your elderly neighbor's walk to volunteering at Habitat or an animal rescue, to decluttering your house and dropping off reusable items at a charity resale shop.
50 points for a personal wellness project (50 points maximum each week)
The focus should be on positive additions to your mental and physical wellness, but this should be a significant project for you, and you decide your goal for earning points. You can split the points into days or make a weekly goal.
Some ideas for personal wellness projects:
1. A personal activity goal beyond the points offered above
2. Commit a certain amount of time to decluttering your house each week
3. Significant time spent with friends, family or partners
5. If applicable, commit to keeping your blood sugar or other controllable measures within a certain parameter each week
While the focus is on adding positive measures, you can decide for yourself what your personal wellness goal will be. If you want to set a goal to reduce or eliminate tobacco, caffeine, alcohol, etc. you can certainly set those goals! You could also set a goal to reduce your level of criticism, or to focus on constructive thinking.
The personal wellness goal should be achievable, reasonable, measurable, and contribute to your personal wellness (physical, mental, or emotional).
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
2012 Body Love Resolution Telesummit
Have you registered yet? It's a series of live interviews, accessible from anywhere with internet access, with many of the super-stars of size diversity. Golda Poretsky will interview such well-known names as Peggy Howell, Marilyn Wann, Linda Bacon, Paul Campos, etc. Many FA bloggers, activists, and other experts are on the list. I'm really excited to have registered, and can't wait to listen!
You can register at http://www.bodyloverevolution.com/ There's a free basic access registration that lets you listen to the entire series, but the paid all-access is well worth it if you can afford it. They give you download privileges for all the interviews until the end of March (in case you miss one, or want to keep it for future reference). They also donate 20% of the proceeds to NAAFA (National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance).
The one unhappy note is that signing up for the teleconference will subscribe you to various newsletters from the presenters. If that says spam to you, use a temporary dummy e-mail to register. I would prefer that they let you select the newsletters you would like (or opt out), but I don't think their data collection is that complex. You can unsubscribe to any of the newsletters you do receive, and they promise to not sell your e-mail elsewhere. I get it; I've done non-profit event organizing. Speakers need some kind of enticement or compensation for their time. If they're not paid in cash, they need to be paid in contacts. Altruism is a wonderful thing, but time is valuable. So while it doesn't make me happy, I can see why an event organizer would feel the need to make this particular move. I still think the telesummit is worth it, and registered for it this morning.
You can register at http://www.bodyloverevolution.com/ There's a free basic access registration that lets you listen to the entire series, but the paid all-access is well worth it if you can afford it. They give you download privileges for all the interviews until the end of March (in case you miss one, or want to keep it for future reference). They also donate 20% of the proceeds to NAAFA (National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance).
The one unhappy note is that signing up for the teleconference will subscribe you to various newsletters from the presenters. If that says spam to you, use a temporary dummy e-mail to register. I would prefer that they let you select the newsletters you would like (or opt out), but I don't think their data collection is that complex. You can unsubscribe to any of the newsletters you do receive, and they promise to not sell your e-mail elsewhere. I get it; I've done non-profit event organizing. Speakers need some kind of enticement or compensation for their time. If they're not paid in cash, they need to be paid in contacts. Altruism is a wonderful thing, but time is valuable. So while it doesn't make me happy, I can see why an event organizer would feel the need to make this particular move. I still think the telesummit is worth it, and registered for it this morning.
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Fresh from Florida
The parents flew us down to Florida for a week, which was really hard to come back from. We spent most of the time in their gated retirement community swimming, sleeping and sunning. It was a very welcome break after the craziness of this past semester.
About mid-week I noticed an absence of body consciousness on my part. We were spending about two hours a day at the pool, and I was running around in sleeveless outfits the rest of the time. While I go sleeveless in my usual haunts, I still have an undercurrent of anxiety whenever I do. I feel conspicuous, and somehow daring (even if I know on some level that no one actually cares one way or the other if they can see my shoulders). I suspect there was something about the age group in the community (55+). When a gaggle of teenagers visiting their grandparents came to the pool to show off their bikinis, I would feel the anxiety creeping up again.
There was something about the older crowd that made me feel free of body judgement. Even though most of them seemed to be on Weight Watchers, I really felt that their criticism didn't extend beyond their own bodies. They would tell friends they looked great, but the compliment seemed to arise from their clothing or health, rather than their weight. Is this a generational thing? A reordering of priorities and prejudices as people age? Or is it a false assumption on my part? After all, feeling safe and being safe are not the same thing. Has anyone else experienced a similar feeling?
If you're ever in the Sarasota area in winter, go see the Lipizzaner training sessions. They're free (a hat is passed at the end) and you get to see how the young horses learn the various moves. You also provide an audience for them to get used to clapping and visual distraction. It's a much more intimate way to experience the Lipizzaners, and it can get really exciting if they're feeling fractious!
You also have no idea what grapefruit is supposed to taste like until you've had it right off the tree. Who knew that it should be more sweet than bitter? Well, other than people who live in the south of course :-)
If you're gluten-intolerant and flying Delta Airlines (maybe any airline) consider bringing a small bottle of handsoap on the plane. The soap in the airplane bathroom said that it left a "coating of wheat proteins on your hands for long lasting moisture." I've written the airline to complain.
I hope everyone continues to have a safe winter season, wherever you are!
About mid-week I noticed an absence of body consciousness on my part. We were spending about two hours a day at the pool, and I was running around in sleeveless outfits the rest of the time. While I go sleeveless in my usual haunts, I still have an undercurrent of anxiety whenever I do. I feel conspicuous, and somehow daring (even if I know on some level that no one actually cares one way or the other if they can see my shoulders). I suspect there was something about the age group in the community (55+). When a gaggle of teenagers visiting their grandparents came to the pool to show off their bikinis, I would feel the anxiety creeping up again.
There was something about the older crowd that made me feel free of body judgement. Even though most of them seemed to be on Weight Watchers, I really felt that their criticism didn't extend beyond their own bodies. They would tell friends they looked great, but the compliment seemed to arise from their clothing or health, rather than their weight. Is this a generational thing? A reordering of priorities and prejudices as people age? Or is it a false assumption on my part? After all, feeling safe and being safe are not the same thing. Has anyone else experienced a similar feeling?
If you're ever in the Sarasota area in winter, go see the Lipizzaner training sessions. They're free (a hat is passed at the end) and you get to see how the young horses learn the various moves. You also provide an audience for them to get used to clapping and visual distraction. It's a much more intimate way to experience the Lipizzaners, and it can get really exciting if they're feeling fractious!
You also have no idea what grapefruit is supposed to taste like until you've had it right off the tree. Who knew that it should be more sweet than bitter? Well, other than people who live in the south of course :-)
If you're gluten-intolerant and flying Delta Airlines (maybe any airline) consider bringing a small bottle of handsoap on the plane. The soap in the airplane bathroom said that it left a "coating of wheat proteins on your hands for long lasting moisture." I've written the airline to complain.
I hope everyone continues to have a safe winter season, wherever you are!
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Students Speak on Photoshop and Body Image
I came across this great discussion on the NY Times Learning Network, asking students to share what they think about the effect of photoshopped celebrity images in the media. The blog mentions the attempts by several countries to force advertisers to reveal when an image has been altered using a scale of 1-5 for the degree of alteration.
I read through the first page of comments (there are four pages at this point) and it was both heartbreaking and hopeful. Girls talked about how terrible they would feel about themselves after exposure to a retouched, impossible face and figure in a magazine. Boys and girls both talked about the beauty of "real" people. Instead of ivory tower academics discussing the theoretical impact of false beauty standards, here are the targets crying "foul!" all by themselves.
It's a good read when we start to get discouraged about fighting the good fight for body acceptance.
I read through the first page of comments (there are four pages at this point) and it was both heartbreaking and hopeful. Girls talked about how terrible they would feel about themselves after exposure to a retouched, impossible face and figure in a magazine. Boys and girls both talked about the beauty of "real" people. Instead of ivory tower academics discussing the theoretical impact of false beauty standards, here are the targets crying "foul!" all by themselves.
It's a good read when we start to get discouraged about fighting the good fight for body acceptance.
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Gluten-Free Buttermilk Pancake mix
Pancakes are tricky in the gluten-free world. There are a few mixes that make whole-grain flavored pancakes, heavy on the sorghum flour. I really missed that perfect buttermilk pancake taste, and the gluten-free bisquick was expensive enough to make pancakes an occasional treat. I'm very picky about "substitutes" actually having the same taste and texture as the thing they're substituting for. I don't want an unsatisfying "something vaguely like what I'm craving." I want the real thing.
So JD set out on a mission to find the perfect from-scratch gluten-free buttermilk pancake mix. He's finally calling it good and letting me post the recipe.
He starts out with our gluten-free flour mix, which he measures by volume by pouring the flour into the measuring cup. Since different flours compact differently, you should never scoop it: you'll end up with a slightly different amount of flour every time.
4 parts white rice flour
3 parts potato starch
2 parts sweet white sorghum flour
Whisk these together thoroughly, then place in an air-tight container and shake well. We use a glass container with a stopper, and it keeps just fine on the shelf for months.
From that, he makes up a batch of pancake mix he can store in the cupboard for weeks and make into pancakes whenever he'd like. For 6 cups of dry pancake mix, you'll need:
3 cups all-purpose gluten-free flour (recipe above, or your own)
1-1/2 cups buttermilk powder (NOW brand is gluten-free and available on Amazon if you can't find it locally)
1-1/2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup shortening
Mix all the dry ingredients, then cut in the shortening with a pastry cutter, pair of knives, or food processor until it's crumbly and evenly distributed. This will store on the shelf for at least two weeks.
To make the mix into pancakes:
1 cup dry pancake mix
1 egg
1/4 cup milk
This makes plenty for two people. JD does silver-dollar size pancakes by dropping the batter by tablespoons onto a buttered nonstick pan. They can be made with water if you have a casein allergy, but they won't be as fluffy. I'm assuming that since the proteins in the milk are responsible for the fluffing (they form a surface to trap air bubbles in the batter) that you could use any protein-containing milk substitute. If you use a sweetened milk substitute (like vanilla soymilk) you may want to adjust the sugar in the mix.
So JD set out on a mission to find the perfect from-scratch gluten-free buttermilk pancake mix. He's finally calling it good and letting me post the recipe.
He starts out with our gluten-free flour mix, which he measures by volume by pouring the flour into the measuring cup. Since different flours compact differently, you should never scoop it: you'll end up with a slightly different amount of flour every time.
4 parts white rice flour
3 parts potato starch
2 parts sweet white sorghum flour
Whisk these together thoroughly, then place in an air-tight container and shake well. We use a glass container with a stopper, and it keeps just fine on the shelf for months.
From that, he makes up a batch of pancake mix he can store in the cupboard for weeks and make into pancakes whenever he'd like. For 6 cups of dry pancake mix, you'll need:
3 cups all-purpose gluten-free flour (recipe above, or your own)
1-1/2 cups buttermilk powder (NOW brand is gluten-free and available on Amazon if you can't find it locally)
1-1/2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup shortening
Mix all the dry ingredients, then cut in the shortening with a pastry cutter, pair of knives, or food processor until it's crumbly and evenly distributed. This will store on the shelf for at least two weeks.
To make the mix into pancakes:
1 cup dry pancake mix
1 egg
1/4 cup milk
This makes plenty for two people. JD does silver-dollar size pancakes by dropping the batter by tablespoons onto a buttered nonstick pan. They can be made with water if you have a casein allergy, but they won't be as fluffy. I'm assuming that since the proteins in the milk are responsible for the fluffing (they form a surface to trap air bubbles in the batter) that you could use any protein-containing milk substitute. If you use a sweetened milk substitute (like vanilla soymilk) you may want to adjust the sugar in the mix.
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Taking Pickles Off the Back Burner
So this weekend I caught up on a lot of things, like cleaning and packing five whole boxes of clutter for a giant garage sale next spring. I felt like I should reward myself by tackling one of the "unnecessary" creative projects I've had sitting in my inspiration box for nearly five years now: homemade pickles.
Every single year when the world is inundated with so many cucumbers that people leave baskets of them in the office break room with a "free" sign, I sigh and say, "I should make pickles this year." It never actually happens. The reason it never actually happens is that I always assumed that pickling involved a huge, expensive, messy and complicated process.
Then I found a recipe for cold-pack pickles on Dave's Cupboard. It couldn't possibly be that easy...could it? If the recipe was correct, the only thing I needed that I didn't already have was pickling salt, cucumbers and a few spices.
So I grabbed some off-season cucumbers, dried spices (the grocery store didn't have fresh dill) and gave it a whirl. I re-used some plastic yogurt containers to hold everything, sliced the big cucumbers into spears, and after about an hour's work I have four 1 quart containers of pickles brewing in the back of our fridge, each one with slight variations on the base recipe (extra spicy, extra garlic, extra dill).
I love cold pack pickles: They're much fresher tasting and crunchier than cooked ones. The downside is that they do have to be stored in the fridge and are only good for about three months. But I can make small batches at a time. It opens up all kinds of possibilities (pickled peppers, anyone?). The cost would, of course, be much lower if I grew my own herbs.
After a semester of constant running around on "necessary" tasks, it felt really good to do something entirely for the sake of tasty, creative fun. It shows that I don't actually have to slow down to take a break. I won't know for sure if it worked until December 8th when I crack open the pickles, but I love being able to say I make them. It has to do with the kind of person I want to be.
Every single year when the world is inundated with so many cucumbers that people leave baskets of them in the office break room with a "free" sign, I sigh and say, "I should make pickles this year." It never actually happens. The reason it never actually happens is that I always assumed that pickling involved a huge, expensive, messy and complicated process.
Then I found a recipe for cold-pack pickles on Dave's Cupboard. It couldn't possibly be that easy...could it? If the recipe was correct, the only thing I needed that I didn't already have was pickling salt, cucumbers and a few spices.
So I grabbed some off-season cucumbers, dried spices (the grocery store didn't have fresh dill) and gave it a whirl. I re-used some plastic yogurt containers to hold everything, sliced the big cucumbers into spears, and after about an hour's work I have four 1 quart containers of pickles brewing in the back of our fridge, each one with slight variations on the base recipe (extra spicy, extra garlic, extra dill).
I love cold pack pickles: They're much fresher tasting and crunchier than cooked ones. The downside is that they do have to be stored in the fridge and are only good for about three months. But I can make small batches at a time. It opens up all kinds of possibilities (pickled peppers, anyone?). The cost would, of course, be much lower if I grew my own herbs.
After a semester of constant running around on "necessary" tasks, it felt really good to do something entirely for the sake of tasty, creative fun. It shows that I don't actually have to slow down to take a break. I won't know for sure if it worked until December 8th when I crack open the pickles, but I love being able to say I make them. It has to do with the kind of person I want to be.
Monday, November 28, 2011
Gluten-Free Turkey Day Review
The great gluten-free post-Thanksgiving dinner was a mixed bag, but the good more than made up for the bad! With a nine pound turkey breast and plenty of extras, we still have a week of leftovers and some good memories.
I did the turkey in what I call the "Scarborough Fair" style (parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme) with the herbs pureed and spread under the skin of the turkey breast to flavor the meat. Herbs on the surface of the skin don't penetrate; the skin is designed to keep things out. I nearly burned the turkey when I turned it up to 400 to brown, but caught it just in time. The drippings were pretty brown, but when I poured a few cups of water in the pan and let it sit, it made gorgeous, dark, flavorful gravy. The Honeysuckle White brand frozen turkey breast did come with a gravy packet, but I prefer to make my own. I did look at the ingredients to see if the website had accurately listed the entire turkey as gluten-free. The gravy packet used white rice flour, corn starch, and guar gum as thickeners instead of wheat flour! It was good to see that the company was making an honest effort to make their product safe for more people.
I cheated a bit on the cereal-based stuffing. For lack of time and money to hit a specialty store for gluten-free corn flakes, I used corn chex instead. The result was a gooey, nasty tasting mess and went straight into the trash. I've no idea if the flavor of flakes differs so much from chex that it would vastly improve the dish, but I can't imagine it being enough to be edible. I want to be fair to the recipe in that I did change the cereal, but I don't feel inclined to waste time and money on a re-try when it came out so terrible. It would be different if it were just slightly off.
The crustless strawberry cheesecake with fresh vanilla whipped cream was perfect, even if I did feel ready to explode by that point!
It felt a little odd having Thanksgiving dinner with just the two of us instead of the big family crowd I'm used to associating with holidays. I think I have some work to do in redefining what it means to be a family.
I did the turkey in what I call the "Scarborough Fair" style (parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme) with the herbs pureed and spread under the skin of the turkey breast to flavor the meat. Herbs on the surface of the skin don't penetrate; the skin is designed to keep things out. I nearly burned the turkey when I turned it up to 400 to brown, but caught it just in time. The drippings were pretty brown, but when I poured a few cups of water in the pan and let it sit, it made gorgeous, dark, flavorful gravy. The Honeysuckle White brand frozen turkey breast did come with a gravy packet, but I prefer to make my own. I did look at the ingredients to see if the website had accurately listed the entire turkey as gluten-free. The gravy packet used white rice flour, corn starch, and guar gum as thickeners instead of wheat flour! It was good to see that the company was making an honest effort to make their product safe for more people.
I cheated a bit on the cereal-based stuffing. For lack of time and money to hit a specialty store for gluten-free corn flakes, I used corn chex instead. The result was a gooey, nasty tasting mess and went straight into the trash. I've no idea if the flavor of flakes differs so much from chex that it would vastly improve the dish, but I can't imagine it being enough to be edible. I want to be fair to the recipe in that I did change the cereal, but I don't feel inclined to waste time and money on a re-try when it came out so terrible. It would be different if it were just slightly off.
The crustless strawberry cheesecake with fresh vanilla whipped cream was perfect, even if I did feel ready to explode by that point!
It felt a little odd having Thanksgiving dinner with just the two of us instead of the big family crowd I'm used to associating with holidays. I think I have some work to do in redefining what it means to be a family.
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
A Very Gluten-Free Thanksgiving
The last-minute hunt is on for a Gluten-Free Thanksgiving dinner! Our plans are still a little up in the air for Turkey Day itself, and if plans do happen then we'll have our meal on Sunday instead of tomorrow. The problem is that Thanksgiving is a minefield of gluteny traditions.
The first and least obvious hurdle is the turkey itself. Of course turkeys don't normally contain gluten, but manufacturers quite commonly baste, inject, fill and marinate their meat for sale. This accomplishes a few things for them: it adds weight to products sold by the pound, and they're hoping that they can trick cooks into thinking their product just naturally cooks up all juicy and flavorful. Unfortunately, they almost never reveal the ingredients of their "secret sauce" injections on the packaging, nor do they list allergens.
Butterball's website says they're moving away from gluten ingredients in their turkies and gravy packets, but you have to call their customer service hotline with a lot number to verify that the turkey you're buying is a safe one. My local butcher shop sells plain turkeys, but they're enormous and we have limited freezer space. Ideally I wanted to buy just a turkey breast to roast, since I'm not a fan of dark meat anyway. I found what I was looking for on the Honeysuckle White website, where they list their bone-in fresh or frozen turkey breast as gluten-free. Their whole turkeys, however, are NOT labeled gluten-free (probably because of a gravy packet). I also know that the local big box stores carry them, which means they're perfect for last-minute plans.
The next hurdle is the stuffing. I had originally planned to make the cornbread stuffing recipe from the last "Better Homes and Gardens" (don't ask, the connards cancelled "Ready-Made" and sold my subscription to BHG). It seemed ideal because the corn bread recipe they used didn't include wheat flour. Luckily I made a test batch and found out that it comes out eggy tasting and dry. I ended up tossing the whole batch (and the recipe).
Then I was listening to NPR on the way to work this morning and heard a piece with Chris Kimball of America's Test Kitchen. He gave a fantastic sounding recipe for turkey stuffing made from corn flakes. It sounds pretty flakey (bah dum dum *ting*) but it's Chris Kimball. I can't believe he would offer up his reputation on a less than fabulous recipe. So I'm going to take a leap of faith, grab some gluten-free cornflakes, and give it a whirl. The recipe and other delicious-sounding goodness from the piece can be found at the NPR website. It includes a honey-herb brie appetizer and a pumpkin spice cheesecake that would be gluten-free without the crust. You could find a gluten-free graham cracker to substitute for the crust, but I haven't found one yet that didn't taste awful. He also gives some tips on how to flavor the turkey with fresh herbs.
Mashed potatoes are easy; I would just use leftover chicken broth and herbs from the other recipes. For cranberry sauce, I have a particular nostalgic fondness for the Ocean Spray canned cranberry sauce, complete with little jellied can ridges molded into the cylindrical lump, carved into slices. I think it's all about what you grew up with. The fancy homemades just don't hit the craving the same way. Luckily, Ocean Spray's website says that all their sauces and juices are gluten-free.
The first and least obvious hurdle is the turkey itself. Of course turkeys don't normally contain gluten, but manufacturers quite commonly baste, inject, fill and marinate their meat for sale. This accomplishes a few things for them: it adds weight to products sold by the pound, and they're hoping that they can trick cooks into thinking their product just naturally cooks up all juicy and flavorful. Unfortunately, they almost never reveal the ingredients of their "secret sauce" injections on the packaging, nor do they list allergens.
Butterball's website says they're moving away from gluten ingredients in their turkies and gravy packets, but you have to call their customer service hotline with a lot number to verify that the turkey you're buying is a safe one. My local butcher shop sells plain turkeys, but they're enormous and we have limited freezer space. Ideally I wanted to buy just a turkey breast to roast, since I'm not a fan of dark meat anyway. I found what I was looking for on the Honeysuckle White website, where they list their bone-in fresh or frozen turkey breast as gluten-free. Their whole turkeys, however, are NOT labeled gluten-free (probably because of a gravy packet). I also know that the local big box stores carry them, which means they're perfect for last-minute plans.
The next hurdle is the stuffing. I had originally planned to make the cornbread stuffing recipe from the last "Better Homes and Gardens" (don't ask, the connards cancelled "Ready-Made" and sold my subscription to BHG). It seemed ideal because the corn bread recipe they used didn't include wheat flour. Luckily I made a test batch and found out that it comes out eggy tasting and dry. I ended up tossing the whole batch (and the recipe).
Then I was listening to NPR on the way to work this morning and heard a piece with Chris Kimball of America's Test Kitchen. He gave a fantastic sounding recipe for turkey stuffing made from corn flakes. It sounds pretty flakey (bah dum dum *ting*) but it's Chris Kimball. I can't believe he would offer up his reputation on a less than fabulous recipe. So I'm going to take a leap of faith, grab some gluten-free cornflakes, and give it a whirl. The recipe and other delicious-sounding goodness from the piece can be found at the NPR website. It includes a honey-herb brie appetizer and a pumpkin spice cheesecake that would be gluten-free without the crust. You could find a gluten-free graham cracker to substitute for the crust, but I haven't found one yet that didn't taste awful. He also gives some tips on how to flavor the turkey with fresh herbs.
Mashed potatoes are easy; I would just use leftover chicken broth and herbs from the other recipes. For cranberry sauce, I have a particular nostalgic fondness for the Ocean Spray canned cranberry sauce, complete with little jellied can ridges molded into the cylindrical lump, carved into slices. I think it's all about what you grew up with. The fancy homemades just don't hit the craving the same way. Luckily, Ocean Spray's website says that all their sauces and juices are gluten-free.
Going Caffeine-Free
I know, right? But while most people do just fine on caffeine, I found myself in a cycle of insomnia, leading to extra caffeine the next day, leading to worse insomnia. I wasn't even that heavy of a caffeine drinker. I would generally have one or two 16 oz cup of ice tea in the morning, then a 16 oz coffee. After a sleepless night, I would sometimes add another 16 oz coffee or coffee drink from McDonalds before noon, plus one or more 32 oz ice teas (There's a McDonald's across from my office, which makes it an easy money-sink for drinks).
First I just cut out the coffee, under the mistaken impression that iced tea had so little caffeine that it wouldn't make a difference. When there was no difference in my insomnia levels, I did a little research. According to Energy Fiend's caffeine database, 8 ounces of brewed ice tea contains 47 mg of caffeine, while a 16 ounce cup of brewed coffee from McDonalds has 145 mg caffeine. So if I had two cups of ice tea in the morning plus a 32 ounce ice tea at lunch, I was at about 188 mg of caffeine, and might as well have had a large coffee.
Further research found studies that suggested caffeine has a significant effect on blood sugar levels. I have PCOS, and take Metformin to help control blood sugar. Studies from 2004 and 2008 claim that caffeine has detrimental effect on blood sugar equal to the positive effect of blood sugar medication, in that it causes spikes after meals. So my caffeine intake may have been cancelling out any benefit I was getting from taking Metformin. I have to take this with a grain of salt because there are a lot of studies with exaggerated or correlational effects mis-reported in the news when it comes to pop medicine topics like diabetes. But while the blood sugar theories did not make or break the decision, it was one more piece of the puzzle.
So I first cut down to one 16oz ice tea in the morning, then stopped altogether. I chose a long weekend with no plans so that I could sleep off whatever headache came up (only a mild one, nothing like when I quit smoking!). We both missed ice tea with breakfast, so we looked for alternatives. After trying a few herbal combinations, we finally settled on regular decaf tea. As we did with the caffeinated tea, we put six teabags in the coffee pot and brewed hot water through the coffeemaker. We let it steep a few minutes, then pour it off into a pitcher for the fridge. It's massively cheaper than buying bottled tea or mixes, and I think it tastes better.
What's interesting is that I have a certain conditioned reaction to the tea. I feel more awake after I've had a cup, even though it's decaf. I believe that the flavor of the ice tea is the conditioned stimulus for my brain to feel energized, because I don't have the same effect from drinking juice or water. Blessings upon the placebo effect, and may it last forever!
One surprise is that I'm not any more tired than I was. I expected to be a zombie for at least a month once I quit caffeine. There was a drop for a few weeks, but then I re-adjusted to what feels like the same level of alertness I had when I was chugging the caf. I've also seen a significant reduction in my anxiety levels. The brain has to adjust to different levels of blood flow and pressure, plus learn to work without the stimulation provided by the caffeine. What I don't have is the crazy zen-like boundless energy some anti-caffeine proselytizers claim. Perhaps that's really the experience for some.
The lack of difference in my energy tell me that caffeine wasn't accomplishing anything for me, besides interrupting my sleep, costing me money, spiking my anxiety, messing with my blood sugar levels, and giving me occasional withdrawal headaches on weekends.
That's good enough for me!
First I just cut out the coffee, under the mistaken impression that iced tea had so little caffeine that it wouldn't make a difference. When there was no difference in my insomnia levels, I did a little research. According to Energy Fiend's caffeine database, 8 ounces of brewed ice tea contains 47 mg of caffeine, while a 16 ounce cup of brewed coffee from McDonalds has 145 mg caffeine. So if I had two cups of ice tea in the morning plus a 32 ounce ice tea at lunch, I was at about 188 mg of caffeine, and might as well have had a large coffee.
Further research found studies that suggested caffeine has a significant effect on blood sugar levels. I have PCOS, and take Metformin to help control blood sugar. Studies from 2004 and 2008 claim that caffeine has detrimental effect on blood sugar equal to the positive effect of blood sugar medication, in that it causes spikes after meals. So my caffeine intake may have been cancelling out any benefit I was getting from taking Metformin. I have to take this with a grain of salt because there are a lot of studies with exaggerated or correlational effects mis-reported in the news when it comes to pop medicine topics like diabetes. But while the blood sugar theories did not make or break the decision, it was one more piece of the puzzle.
So I first cut down to one 16oz ice tea in the morning, then stopped altogether. I chose a long weekend with no plans so that I could sleep off whatever headache came up (only a mild one, nothing like when I quit smoking!). We both missed ice tea with breakfast, so we looked for alternatives. After trying a few herbal combinations, we finally settled on regular decaf tea. As we did with the caffeinated tea, we put six teabags in the coffee pot and brewed hot water through the coffeemaker. We let it steep a few minutes, then pour it off into a pitcher for the fridge. It's massively cheaper than buying bottled tea or mixes, and I think it tastes better.
What's interesting is that I have a certain conditioned reaction to the tea. I feel more awake after I've had a cup, even though it's decaf. I believe that the flavor of the ice tea is the conditioned stimulus for my brain to feel energized, because I don't have the same effect from drinking juice or water. Blessings upon the placebo effect, and may it last forever!
One surprise is that I'm not any more tired than I was. I expected to be a zombie for at least a month once I quit caffeine. There was a drop for a few weeks, but then I re-adjusted to what feels like the same level of alertness I had when I was chugging the caf. I've also seen a significant reduction in my anxiety levels. The brain has to adjust to different levels of blood flow and pressure, plus learn to work without the stimulation provided by the caffeine. What I don't have is the crazy zen-like boundless energy some anti-caffeine proselytizers claim. Perhaps that's really the experience for some.
The lack of difference in my energy tell me that caffeine wasn't accomplishing anything for me, besides interrupting my sleep, costing me money, spiking my anxiety, messing with my blood sugar levels, and giving me occasional withdrawal headaches on weekends.
That's good enough for me!
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Recipe Box: Gluten-Free Apple Coffee Cake
I found a fantastic recipe for peach coffee cake with streusel topping over at the Gluten-Free Goddess. I just wanted to give her full credit for the original recipe, to which I made several changes. I adapted a few items to fit what I had in the cupboard, added additional spices to give it a more spice-cake flavor, and added buttermilk powder to really up the moistness of the cake.
Dry Ingredients:
1 cup brown rice flour
1 cup light brown sugar
3/4 cup almond meal
1/2 cup tapioca starch
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoon guar gum
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon ginger
1/8 teaspoon clove
1/4 cup buttermilk powder
Wet Ingredients:
2 large eggs, beaten
1/4 cup butter, melted
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Other:
5-6 tablespoons milk as needed
1 can (min 12oz) apple pie filling
For the streusel topping:
1/3 cup light brown sugar
3 tablespoons brown rice flour
3 tablespoons mayonnaise (use full fat, no miracle whip)
2 tablespoons chopped pecans or pecan meal
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Preheat oven to 350 degrees, 325 degrees for dark nonstick pan. put a circle of parchment paper at the bottom of a round 9-inch cake pan.
Mix dry and wet ingredients in separate bowls. Whisk dry ingredients well until completely combined; beat wet ingredients together until uniform. Combine in one bowl.
Add milk one tablespoon at a time until batter is smooth (will vary depending on flour and humidity)
Pour the batter into the cake pan and smooth. add a layer of apples from the pie filling.
Mix all the streusel ingredients together in a small bowl until the consistency of wet sand. Sprinkle over the top of the cake.
Bake for 40-45 minutes until brown. Check at 30 minutes; if already browning then cover with foil for last 10-15 minutes. Toothpick should come out clean. Cool to touch before serving. Run a plastic knife between edge and pan before serving for easy removal.
Dry Ingredients:
1 cup brown rice flour
1 cup light brown sugar
3/4 cup almond meal
1/2 cup tapioca starch
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoon guar gum
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon ginger
1/8 teaspoon clove
1/4 cup buttermilk powder
Wet Ingredients:
2 large eggs, beaten
1/4 cup butter, melted
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Other:
5-6 tablespoons milk as needed
1 can (min 12oz) apple pie filling
For the streusel topping:
1/3 cup light brown sugar
3 tablespoons brown rice flour
3 tablespoons mayonnaise (use full fat, no miracle whip)
2 tablespoons chopped pecans or pecan meal
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Preheat oven to 350 degrees, 325 degrees for dark nonstick pan. put a circle of parchment paper at the bottom of a round 9-inch cake pan.
Mix dry and wet ingredients in separate bowls. Whisk dry ingredients well until completely combined; beat wet ingredients together until uniform. Combine in one bowl.
Add milk one tablespoon at a time until batter is smooth (will vary depending on flour and humidity)
Pour the batter into the cake pan and smooth. add a layer of apples from the pie filling.
Mix all the streusel ingredients together in a small bowl until the consistency of wet sand. Sprinkle over the top of the cake.
Bake for 40-45 minutes until brown. Check at 30 minutes; if already browning then cover with foil for last 10-15 minutes. Toothpick should come out clean. Cool to touch before serving. Run a plastic knife between edge and pan before serving for easy removal.
Friday, August 19, 2011
Al Franken gives anti-gay witness academic bitch-slap
Normally I avoid specific candidate endorsement or tear-down on this blog, but I just saw this video:
Al Franken Takes Down Anti-Gay Witness
Over at Talking Points Memo. I actually wanted to shout "SHAZAAM!! TAKE THAT ASSHAT!" at the end :-) Does this mean that despite all the insanity, some members of our government still actually think for themselves? Now I'm tempted to move to Minnesota just to vote for him.
Al Franken Takes Down Anti-Gay Witness
Over at Talking Points Memo. I actually wanted to shout "SHAZAAM!! TAKE THAT ASSHAT!" at the end :-) Does this mean that despite all the insanity, some members of our government still actually think for themselves? Now I'm tempted to move to Minnesota just to vote for him.
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Eating disorders on the rise amongst young children
CNN Health reports that the average age for eating disorders is dropping, so that children as young as 7 are requiring treatment for anorexia and other disorders.
I was very pleasantly surprised to see a lot of references in here about how our fat-hysteria is impacting children negatively. A mainstream news organization very rarely wakes up to the idea that body judgement might be doing serious harm.
Quote:
"Our culture serves up such a vast smorgasbord of body judgments, is it any wonder that so many kids are unhappy with the way they look?"
The news itself isn't positive; the epidemic increase in eating disorders in children is absolutely devastating and the human element of personal stories from kids and parents really drives home the feelings of helplessness and fear surrounding these disorders. But the issue is treated with a very considerate touch and not as an excuse for hate.
Finally...they're getting it. Well done CNN and Margaret Renkl.
I was very pleasantly surprised to see a lot of references in here about how our fat-hysteria is impacting children negatively. A mainstream news organization very rarely wakes up to the idea that body judgement might be doing serious harm.
Quote:
"Our culture serves up such a vast smorgasbord of body judgments, is it any wonder that so many kids are unhappy with the way they look?"
The news itself isn't positive; the epidemic increase in eating disorders in children is absolutely devastating and the human element of personal stories from kids and parents really drives home the feelings of helplessness and fear surrounding these disorders. But the issue is treated with a very considerate touch and not as an excuse for hate.
Finally...they're getting it. Well done CNN and Margaret Renkl.
Thursday, July 28, 2011
SAAS: Business Clothes on a Budget
I'm adding this to my Sewing at Any Size series, even though there's not a whole lot of sewing necessary. You can click on the "Sewing" link under Happiness Tools to your left for more projects like this one.
There was a great post with some also great comments over at The Rotund on the challenges of work attire for us "death fat" women. Especially on a limited budget (i.e. can't afford custom tailoring). I started to write a comment, but it grew long enough that I thought it better to put it out as a post instead.
Unfortunately, I have accepted that as a tall, broad-shouldered, big waisted woman, the reality is that if I want something to look a certain way, I have to develop the skills to make it happen. Which means sewing. But you don't necessarily need a sewing machine to do some basic alterations on a budget.
Your first stop is Goodwill, Salvation Army, or other thrift stores. We said budget, right? These stores almost always have better choices in large men's clothes than women's, but the difference between the two isn't as wide as you think for business wear.
For altering the men's clothing we'll be doing some very basic tricks with elastic.
From the fabric/craft store (and some big box stores with craft sections) You'll need less than a yard each of:
1/4 inch wide elastic
elastic cord or narrow stretch lace (sometimes sold as pyjama or lingerie elastic)
and a yard or more (depending on your waist size) of 1/2 inch elastic.
You'll also need a sewing needle and thread. You might want to wait on buying the thread until after you've picked out your garments, because you'll want to match the color as closely as possible.
For shirt method 2, you'll want some light fabric ribbon or bias tape that either matches or coordinates with your shirt.
You'll need a quilting hoop, which is a large wooden hoop with a second hoop that fits inside it tightly. You place the fabric over the smaller hoop and push the larger hoop onto it, trapping the fabric between (there should be a screw to tighten it). You want one at least a foot and a half diameter, but preferably larger. Our local thrift stores ALWAYS have these for a dollar or two from people cleaning out their hobby room. Make sure they have the tightening screw and both hoops.
The next stop is the thrift shop.
You're looking for men's button-up shirts (short or long sleeve) and a men's suit coat in good condition. If you can find men's slacks that fit you and match the suit coat, bonus!
You should also hit the women's section and look for dresses, which look good under a suit coat for women in a business environment. If they don't have any that fit you, look for dresses of any size with the following criteria:
1. The fabric and color below the waist of the dress coordinate with the suit coat
2. the skirt of the dress flares below the waist
3. There is a point below the dress waist where the skirt will fit around your waist with enough fabric below that to reach your knees, plus two inches.
We'll be chopping off the bottom of the dress and turning it into a very simple elastic-waist skirt.
THE COAT
1. Find a men's suit coat that fits the widest part of your body (i.e. chest) and has some room at your natural waist. You should be able to pinch about 2-3 inches of fabric at the back. Much more than that and it will look odd. Sometimes a coat that's a single size too small can give you a "shrunken jacket" effect that looks feminine all by itself without any alterations. If not, try the steps below for a back gather.
2. Cut a six-inch piece of 1/4 inch elastic
3. Put the coat on inside out and have a friend help you pin the elastic to the fabric at the center of the back at the level of your natural waistline so that the elastic is at rest (not stretched) and enough fabric is gathered between the two ends that the coat looks fitted (but not too tight) from the front. Pin it securely at each end, leaving the middle loose (you may want to use big safety pins).
4. Stretch the fabric and elastic over the smaller half of the quilting hoop so that either the fabric or the elastic is taut. Push the larger hoop over the top, being careful that the fabric is even in all directions. Use the screw to tighten down.
5. On a sewing machine or by hand, sew zig-zag stitches (they look like the letter Z) across each end where you have it pinned.
6. Sew zig-zag stitches down the center of the elastic. If the fabric is loose under the elastic, gather it as you go so that it's puckered evenly down the elastic.
7. Remove the pins, remove the shirt from the frame.
The elastic should gather the coat at the back of your waist, giving the coat a more feminine sillouhuette. You can also use two pieces of elastic to make smaller gathers at the sides for a different look.
Advanced:
Women's jackets are generally shorter than men's. If you're ambitious and a shorter jacket is better for your body type, you should consider shortening the jacket and using darts to shape it. If the hem from shortening looks less than professional, a strip of contrasting satin ribbon or lace sewn along the edge will add a touch of style to the coat and hide mis-stitching.
If you don't like the look of the gather as is, you can mask it by adding a faux-belt for a very classical British look. Hem a piece of fabric to about 2 to 3 inches wide, with each end folded to a point. Secure it to either side of the gather with large flat buttons about the position of your kidneys.
THE SHIRT (METHOD 1):
I have despaired of finding a simple, business appropriate cotton button down shirt that fits me in any women's section of any store. They;re either full of "froofera" or they're cut very baggy casual.
The shirt can be gathered at the back with the same steps as outlined for the coat above. The thinner fabric will make a feminine sort of ruffle at the back, which is not at all a bad thing.
THE SHIRT (METHOD 2):
This is the tie-back version. Step 1 is the same as above.
2. Start with two pieces of ribbon or bias tape at least a foot long. You can finish the cut ends by knotting, taping, superglue or burning (if acrylic or nylon). For the end stitched onto the shirt you'll want to fold it under neatly.
3. Follow step 3 as above with the shirt right side out, but instead of elastic pin the end of one ribbon at each gather point.
4. Stitch the ribbon onto the shirt at the pin point.
5. Tie the ribbons to gather the shirt at the back and give it shape
You can also stitch the ribbon all the way around the shirt for a more decorative look. Start at the buttons and stitch it to the shirt all the way around until you reach the point where you would have pinned in step 3 (you can use chalk to mark this point).
THE SHIRT - EXTRAS
Another way to feminize the shirt is to change out the buttons to something more decorative. Few people will realize they're technically on the wrong side if they're pretty.
You can add a gather to short sleeves to make the outline more feminine. Using either elastic cord or stretch lace, sew it around the cuff of the sleeve (cord on the underside, lace either under or over). Stretch the elastic slightly and evenly as you sew so that it will hug your arm when it's finished.
Sew a strip of lace to the underside of the buttonhole side of the shirt so that it just peeks out 1/8th inch or so when the shirt is buttoned. It's a very subtle and simple touch. You can use fabric glue or iron-on fusible if you don't trust your stitching. You can continue the lace up along the inside of the collar for an additional touch.
THE SKIRT - SALVAGED
Click on the SAAS (Sewing at Any Size) tag or topic link to find my guide on how to make the easiest of all sewing projects: a gored skirt. You could use the same instructions and matching or coordinating fabric to make a variety of skirts to go with your jacket (pencil, A-line, straight line, etc.)
If you find a dress at the thrift store that doesn't quite fit, but the bottom would go well with your jacket, it's very easy to convert it.
1. Find the level of the skirt below the waistline where it fits around your waist with about 1/2 to 1 inch to spare. This is easy to do by just flipping the dress upside down and pulling the skirt up to your waist until it starts to tighten. If, at that point, you have enough skirt material to reach your knees plus about 2 inches, you have a potential skirt.
2. Cut the skirt off the dress at the point you found before.
3. Pull a piece of 1/2 inch wide elastic around your waist so that it fits snugly but not uncomfortably. Add 1/2 inch and cut the elastic to that length.
4. Fold the cut edge of the skirt over about 1 inch and hem it. Sewing is the best way to accomplish this, but you can certainly use fabric glue or iron-on fusible to do it; they just won't stand up as well to washing. Leave about 2 inches of it unhemmed for now.
5. Thread the elastic through the hem. I use a large safety pin to feed it through, pinning the other end to the fabric so it doesn't get lost.
6. Pull the two ends of elastic out to where you can work with them. Make sure the elastic hasn't twisted inside the hem. You should have a continuous flat loop. Overlap them and stitch very thoroughly so that they hold.
7. Tuck the elastic up into the hem and finish the last few inches of hemming by whatever method you chose.
8. Even out the fabric around the elastic.
Note that a medium to wide belt will easily cover the elastic waistline if you don't like the look of it with the shirt tucked in.
Also note that you can wash a wool suit coat, despite what you've been told. Personally the idea of wearing a never-washed chemically cleaned used coat is icky. I washed a thrift store wool tuxedo jacket by soaking it in a few tablespoons of Dawn dish detergent in room temperature water in the sink for a few hours, agitating gently every now and then. I rinsed it well in the bathtub, rolled it in a towel to squeeze out excess water, and laid it flat to dry (hanging it will distort the fabric). There wasn't any shrinkage and it really made the fabric look newer. Make sure the water is room temperature and not warm or cold, and don't use the washing machine. There may be the occasional coat where this still shrinks or damages it, so consider cost/reward when giving it a try.
There was a great post with some also great comments over at The Rotund on the challenges of work attire for us "death fat" women. Especially on a limited budget (i.e. can't afford custom tailoring). I started to write a comment, but it grew long enough that I thought it better to put it out as a post instead.
Unfortunately, I have accepted that as a tall, broad-shouldered, big waisted woman, the reality is that if I want something to look a certain way, I have to develop the skills to make it happen. Which means sewing. But you don't necessarily need a sewing machine to do some basic alterations on a budget.
Your first stop is Goodwill, Salvation Army, or other thrift stores. We said budget, right? These stores almost always have better choices in large men's clothes than women's, but the difference between the two isn't as wide as you think for business wear.
For altering the men's clothing we'll be doing some very basic tricks with elastic.
From the fabric/craft store (and some big box stores with craft sections) You'll need less than a yard each of:
1/4 inch wide elastic
elastic cord or narrow stretch lace (sometimes sold as pyjama or lingerie elastic)
and a yard or more (depending on your waist size) of 1/2 inch elastic.
You'll also need a sewing needle and thread. You might want to wait on buying the thread until after you've picked out your garments, because you'll want to match the color as closely as possible.
For shirt method 2, you'll want some light fabric ribbon or bias tape that either matches or coordinates with your shirt.
You'll need a quilting hoop, which is a large wooden hoop with a second hoop that fits inside it tightly. You place the fabric over the smaller hoop and push the larger hoop onto it, trapping the fabric between (there should be a screw to tighten it). You want one at least a foot and a half diameter, but preferably larger. Our local thrift stores ALWAYS have these for a dollar or two from people cleaning out their hobby room. Make sure they have the tightening screw and both hoops.
The next stop is the thrift shop.
You're looking for men's button-up shirts (short or long sleeve) and a men's suit coat in good condition. If you can find men's slacks that fit you and match the suit coat, bonus!
You should also hit the women's section and look for dresses, which look good under a suit coat for women in a business environment. If they don't have any that fit you, look for dresses of any size with the following criteria:
1. The fabric and color below the waist of the dress coordinate with the suit coat
2. the skirt of the dress flares below the waist
3. There is a point below the dress waist where the skirt will fit around your waist with enough fabric below that to reach your knees, plus two inches.
We'll be chopping off the bottom of the dress and turning it into a very simple elastic-waist skirt.
THE COAT
1. Find a men's suit coat that fits the widest part of your body (i.e. chest) and has some room at your natural waist. You should be able to pinch about 2-3 inches of fabric at the back. Much more than that and it will look odd. Sometimes a coat that's a single size too small can give you a "shrunken jacket" effect that looks feminine all by itself without any alterations. If not, try the steps below for a back gather.
2. Cut a six-inch piece of 1/4 inch elastic
3. Put the coat on inside out and have a friend help you pin the elastic to the fabric at the center of the back at the level of your natural waistline so that the elastic is at rest (not stretched) and enough fabric is gathered between the two ends that the coat looks fitted (but not too tight) from the front. Pin it securely at each end, leaving the middle loose (you may want to use big safety pins).
4. Stretch the fabric and elastic over the smaller half of the quilting hoop so that either the fabric or the elastic is taut. Push the larger hoop over the top, being careful that the fabric is even in all directions. Use the screw to tighten down.
5. On a sewing machine or by hand, sew zig-zag stitches (they look like the letter Z) across each end where you have it pinned.
6. Sew zig-zag stitches down the center of the elastic. If the fabric is loose under the elastic, gather it as you go so that it's puckered evenly down the elastic.
7. Remove the pins, remove the shirt from the frame.
The elastic should gather the coat at the back of your waist, giving the coat a more feminine sillouhuette. You can also use two pieces of elastic to make smaller gathers at the sides for a different look.
Advanced:
Women's jackets are generally shorter than men's. If you're ambitious and a shorter jacket is better for your body type, you should consider shortening the jacket and using darts to shape it. If the hem from shortening looks less than professional, a strip of contrasting satin ribbon or lace sewn along the edge will add a touch of style to the coat and hide mis-stitching.
If you don't like the look of the gather as is, you can mask it by adding a faux-belt for a very classical British look. Hem a piece of fabric to about 2 to 3 inches wide, with each end folded to a point. Secure it to either side of the gather with large flat buttons about the position of your kidneys.
THE SHIRT (METHOD 1):
I have despaired of finding a simple, business appropriate cotton button down shirt that fits me in any women's section of any store. They;re either full of "froofera" or they're cut very baggy casual.
The shirt can be gathered at the back with the same steps as outlined for the coat above. The thinner fabric will make a feminine sort of ruffle at the back, which is not at all a bad thing.
THE SHIRT (METHOD 2):
This is the tie-back version. Step 1 is the same as above.
2. Start with two pieces of ribbon or bias tape at least a foot long. You can finish the cut ends by knotting, taping, superglue or burning (if acrylic or nylon). For the end stitched onto the shirt you'll want to fold it under neatly.
3. Follow step 3 as above with the shirt right side out, but instead of elastic pin the end of one ribbon at each gather point.
4. Stitch the ribbon onto the shirt at the pin point.
5. Tie the ribbons to gather the shirt at the back and give it shape
You can also stitch the ribbon all the way around the shirt for a more decorative look. Start at the buttons and stitch it to the shirt all the way around until you reach the point where you would have pinned in step 3 (you can use chalk to mark this point).
THE SHIRT - EXTRAS
Another way to feminize the shirt is to change out the buttons to something more decorative. Few people will realize they're technically on the wrong side if they're pretty.
You can add a gather to short sleeves to make the outline more feminine. Using either elastic cord or stretch lace, sew it around the cuff of the sleeve (cord on the underside, lace either under or over). Stretch the elastic slightly and evenly as you sew so that it will hug your arm when it's finished.
Sew a strip of lace to the underside of the buttonhole side of the shirt so that it just peeks out 1/8th inch or so when the shirt is buttoned. It's a very subtle and simple touch. You can use fabric glue or iron-on fusible if you don't trust your stitching. You can continue the lace up along the inside of the collar for an additional touch.
THE SKIRT - SALVAGED
Click on the SAAS (Sewing at Any Size) tag or topic link to find my guide on how to make the easiest of all sewing projects: a gored skirt. You could use the same instructions and matching or coordinating fabric to make a variety of skirts to go with your jacket (pencil, A-line, straight line, etc.)
If you find a dress at the thrift store that doesn't quite fit, but the bottom would go well with your jacket, it's very easy to convert it.
1. Find the level of the skirt below the waistline where it fits around your waist with about 1/2 to 1 inch to spare. This is easy to do by just flipping the dress upside down and pulling the skirt up to your waist until it starts to tighten. If, at that point, you have enough skirt material to reach your knees plus about 2 inches, you have a potential skirt.
2. Cut the skirt off the dress at the point you found before.
3. Pull a piece of 1/2 inch wide elastic around your waist so that it fits snugly but not uncomfortably. Add 1/2 inch and cut the elastic to that length.
4. Fold the cut edge of the skirt over about 1 inch and hem it. Sewing is the best way to accomplish this, but you can certainly use fabric glue or iron-on fusible to do it; they just won't stand up as well to washing. Leave about 2 inches of it unhemmed for now.
5. Thread the elastic through the hem. I use a large safety pin to feed it through, pinning the other end to the fabric so it doesn't get lost.
6. Pull the two ends of elastic out to where you can work with them. Make sure the elastic hasn't twisted inside the hem. You should have a continuous flat loop. Overlap them and stitch very thoroughly so that they hold.
7. Tuck the elastic up into the hem and finish the last few inches of hemming by whatever method you chose.
8. Even out the fabric around the elastic.
Note that a medium to wide belt will easily cover the elastic waistline if you don't like the look of it with the shirt tucked in.
Also note that you can wash a wool suit coat, despite what you've been told. Personally the idea of wearing a never-washed chemically cleaned used coat is icky. I washed a thrift store wool tuxedo jacket by soaking it in a few tablespoons of Dawn dish detergent in room temperature water in the sink for a few hours, agitating gently every now and then. I rinsed it well in the bathtub, rolled it in a towel to squeeze out excess water, and laid it flat to dry (hanging it will distort the fabric). There wasn't any shrinkage and it really made the fabric look newer. Make sure the water is room temperature and not warm or cold, and don't use the washing machine. There may be the occasional coat where this still shrinks or damages it, so consider cost/reward when giving it a try.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Gluten Free Product Review: Cookies
First the standard disclosure that I'm not receiving anything from these companies to review their products, not even free samples. I'm just sharing my own personal impressions of some of the gluten-free products we're trying out since my partner's diagnosis with Celiac Disease. It can be quite a complicated treasure hunt!
The Good:
Kinnickinik brand KinniToos Chocolate Vanilla Sandwich Cookies
Ah, Oreos, how I missed thee....
These Chocolate Vanilla Sandwich Cookies were a passable to good version of the gluteny cookies. The texture was perfect. The filling was sweeter than Oreo's, but they balanced the overall flavor well by putting in a little less. It wouldn't work as a double-stuff, unless you like super-sweet. I would highly recommend putting some in a bag, smushing them a bit, and mixing them with vanilla ice cream if you sorely miss the classic cookies and cream flavor. Of course, they're pretty darn good all on their own. By the way, they're also dairy, nut, yeast and egg free (according to their website) for those who have multiple allergies. They do contain soy.
The Bad:
Glutino Chocolate Dream Cookies
Another oreo-like chocolate cookie with cream filling. The cream filling is similar to Kinnickinik brand and Oreos, but the cookie part falls flat. It has a satisfying crunch, then seems to dissolve into fine wet sand in your mouth. It's the unfortunate curse of the rice flour, which simply doesn't break up well on cooking. After two cookies and a full glass of water to wash down the grit, I think I'm done with these. If there was no other GF chocolate cream sandwich cookie on the market I'd probably grin and bear it because the flavor itself is all right. Unfortunately the texture is a significant fail.
The Ugly:
Jovial brand Vanilla Cream Filled Chocolate Cookies
JD and I pondered for some time over the disgusting-yet-compelling taste and texture of these cookies. The closest I can come to describing them is "crack-filled dog biscuits". The texture and overt flavor of the cookie, which I didn't realize was supposed to be chocolate until I saw the package, is dry, crumbly, and disturbingly close to the aroma of milk bones. The filling taste a little like sweetened condensed milk mixed with corn syrup. There is an odd aftertaste, which somehow made me want to take another bite, just to sort out the conflicting messages I was getting between all my senses. Then another bite, probably just to kill the aftertaste. Then a big glass of water because the cookie had sucked all moisture from my mucous membranes. If these have a marketable use, it's definitely as a desiccant.
The Good:
Kinnickinik brand KinniToos Chocolate Vanilla Sandwich Cookies
Ah, Oreos, how I missed thee....
These Chocolate Vanilla Sandwich Cookies were a passable to good version of the gluteny cookies. The texture was perfect. The filling was sweeter than Oreo's, but they balanced the overall flavor well by putting in a little less. It wouldn't work as a double-stuff, unless you like super-sweet. I would highly recommend putting some in a bag, smushing them a bit, and mixing them with vanilla ice cream if you sorely miss the classic cookies and cream flavor. Of course, they're pretty darn good all on their own. By the way, they're also dairy, nut, yeast and egg free (according to their website) for those who have multiple allergies. They do contain soy.
The Bad:
Glutino Chocolate Dream Cookies
Another oreo-like chocolate cookie with cream filling. The cream filling is similar to Kinnickinik brand and Oreos, but the cookie part falls flat. It has a satisfying crunch, then seems to dissolve into fine wet sand in your mouth. It's the unfortunate curse of the rice flour, which simply doesn't break up well on cooking. After two cookies and a full glass of water to wash down the grit, I think I'm done with these. If there was no other GF chocolate cream sandwich cookie on the market I'd probably grin and bear it because the flavor itself is all right. Unfortunately the texture is a significant fail.
The Ugly:
Jovial brand Vanilla Cream Filled Chocolate Cookies
JD and I pondered for some time over the disgusting-yet-compelling taste and texture of these cookies. The closest I can come to describing them is "crack-filled dog biscuits". The texture and overt flavor of the cookie, which I didn't realize was supposed to be chocolate until I saw the package, is dry, crumbly, and disturbingly close to the aroma of milk bones. The filling taste a little like sweetened condensed milk mixed with corn syrup. There is an odd aftertaste, which somehow made me want to take another bite, just to sort out the conflicting messages I was getting between all my senses. Then another bite, probably just to kill the aftertaste. Then a big glass of water because the cookie had sucked all moisture from my mucous membranes. If these have a marketable use, it's definitely as a desiccant.
Monday, July 25, 2011
Recipe Box: Spicy Cinnamon Swiss Chicken Nachos
The cinnamon gives people pause when talking about savory foods, at least those used to western cooking. This was an off-the-cuff experiment of mine based on a pre-grocery shopping "what do we have in the house for dinner and how can I make it more interesting" day. I can see this being a hit at a potluck, especially considering the short cook time and finger food appeal. You also know that everyone else isn't bringing the same thing :-)
This is a sweet/savory dish with a lot of unexpected flavors that worked unexpectedly well together!
Our version was, of course, gluten-free :-)
Ingredients:
1 cup shredded swiss cheese
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1 cup shredded muenster, mozzerella or monterey jack cheese
1 bag corn chips
1 large boneless chicken breast
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon chili powder (or more to taste)
1 tablespoon lime juice
2 cloves fresh garlic or 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
pinch salt and pepper
1/2 cup chopped onion
2 tablespoons olive oil
Chop chicken breast into as small pieces as practical (approx 1/4 inch chunks). You'll shred it further as it cooks.
Heat oil in pan over medium heat
Add chicken pieces, onion, cinnamon, chili, lime, garlic and salt/pepper
Fry over medium heat, chopping with spatula until finely shredded and cooked through. Remove from heat.
Mix shredded cheeses together.
You can layer the nachos on a plate for microwaving, or on a foil-lined cookie sheet for oven baking. Either way, do one layer of chips, followed by a sprinkle of chicken, followed by a layer of shredded cheese. You can do multiple layers if needed.
Bake in oven at 350 for 10 minutes, or microwave on high for 1 minute or until cheese is melted.
Serve with guacamole, peach-mango salsa, and/or sour cream. Think mild and sweet.
This is a sweet/savory dish with a lot of unexpected flavors that worked unexpectedly well together!
Our version was, of course, gluten-free :-)
Ingredients:
1 cup shredded swiss cheese
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1 cup shredded muenster, mozzerella or monterey jack cheese
1 bag corn chips
1 large boneless chicken breast
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon chili powder (or more to taste)
1 tablespoon lime juice
2 cloves fresh garlic or 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
pinch salt and pepper
1/2 cup chopped onion
2 tablespoons olive oil
Chop chicken breast into as small pieces as practical (approx 1/4 inch chunks). You'll shred it further as it cooks.
Heat oil in pan over medium heat
Add chicken pieces, onion, cinnamon, chili, lime, garlic and salt/pepper
Fry over medium heat, chopping with spatula until finely shredded and cooked through. Remove from heat.
Mix shredded cheeses together.
You can layer the nachos on a plate for microwaving, or on a foil-lined cookie sheet for oven baking. Either way, do one layer of chips, followed by a sprinkle of chicken, followed by a layer of shredded cheese. You can do multiple layers if needed.
Bake in oven at 350 for 10 minutes, or microwave on high for 1 minute or until cheese is melted.
Serve with guacamole, peach-mango salsa, and/or sour cream. Think mild and sweet.
Friday, July 22, 2011
Et tu, Jim Butcher?
I absolutely adore the Dresden Files book series. I have them all and have been eagerly awaiting the new one coming out next week. The characters are nicely complex, the dialogue witty, and there are plenty of crack-me-up moments that make the people in the office break room look at me oddly while I'm reading. So far they've also been relatively free of overt fat-hate. The medical examiner Butters could have easily been turned into a blatant, comic-relief stereotype, but instead sometimes shows actual character depth, courage, intelligence and authority. There tends to be a preponderance of leggy sex bombs, but it's entirely characteristic for a noir-style mystery or a fantasy novel and I just enjoy it as a nod to the genres.
But in the preview for his new book, "Ghost Story," I hit this line in chapter four when describing a character: "...definitely dropped from self-destructively obese down to merely stout." Later in the scene that character, stressed, raids a jar of Oreos.
Seriously? I wonder if Butcher could supply a medical or psychiatric degree to define or justify the term "self-destructively obese". It sounds a little like he dredged up some pseudo-Freudian nonsense from the turn of the century about oral fixation to season the ubiquitous pop-culture medical hysteria. Does he also think the character wants to kill his father and screw his mother because daddy threatened to cut off his penis as a child? Or was that just not pithy enough to make the editing cut?
At any rate, Butcher may want to consider jabs like that in relation to his audience. I mean, he's writing for geeks. Fantasy and mystery geeks. I've been a geek for most of my life, and let me tell you, a lot of us are fat. Probably what he's referring to as "self-destructively" fat. Last I checked, I didn't have a big red button attached to explosives anywhere on me. Also last I checked, I didn't have any tendencies a real mental health professional would classify as self-destructive. What I do have is enough self-respect to walk away from an author who's willing to so casually insult me.
Maybe this is a one-time slip. I sure hope it is, because I would actually like to continue throwing money and him and his publishers for the rest of the series. We'll see where it goes. Please Jim Butcher...don't descend to this particular cheap laugh. You're a better writer than that.
But in the preview for his new book, "Ghost Story," I hit this line in chapter four when describing a character: "...definitely dropped from self-destructively obese down to merely stout." Later in the scene that character, stressed, raids a jar of Oreos.
Seriously? I wonder if Butcher could supply a medical or psychiatric degree to define or justify the term "self-destructively obese". It sounds a little like he dredged up some pseudo-Freudian nonsense from the turn of the century about oral fixation to season the ubiquitous pop-culture medical hysteria. Does he also think the character wants to kill his father and screw his mother because daddy threatened to cut off his penis as a child? Or was that just not pithy enough to make the editing cut?
At any rate, Butcher may want to consider jabs like that in relation to his audience. I mean, he's writing for geeks. Fantasy and mystery geeks. I've been a geek for most of my life, and let me tell you, a lot of us are fat. Probably what he's referring to as "self-destructively" fat. Last I checked, I didn't have a big red button attached to explosives anywhere on me. Also last I checked, I didn't have any tendencies a real mental health professional would classify as self-destructive. What I do have is enough self-respect to walk away from an author who's willing to so casually insult me.
Maybe this is a one-time slip. I sure hope it is, because I would actually like to continue throwing money and him and his publishers for the rest of the series. We'll see where it goes. Please Jim Butcher...don't descend to this particular cheap laugh. You're a better writer than that.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Gluten-Free: The amazing power of buttermilk
One of the most frequent criticisms of gluten-free foods is a texture thing. Even home-baked GF recipes tend to be dry and grainy. Mixes can be especially so. Unfortunately, GF flours just don't break down like wheat flour, and the "chewy" texture is an effect of gluten.
We've been playing with breakfast foods, using the Gluten Free Bisquick now on the market. The GF Bisquick pancakes were/are decent, and better after JD added chopped apples, dried fruit and honey to increase the moisture content. While we were experimenting, we were on a hunt for gluten-free buttermilk to add more flavor. The only type of powder sold in our local grocery stores was not gluten-free.
We finally found a GF buttermilk powder with no preservatives or additives at a specialty store (NOW foods brand). JD made the first batch of buttermilk pancakes by substituting reconstituted buttermilk (at about double concentration) for the milk called for in the recipe. The results were, as I say, "diabolically good". They were super-moist, chewy and perfectly flavored. I honestly don't know if I could tell the difference between them and the regular homemade pancakes.
The only thing that could explain the change was the buttermilk, and I went about testing it. Betty Crocker has a GF chocolate chip cookie mix that we've used. The cookies taste perfect but there's the texture issue again. After they cool they become super crumbly and grainy, even if kept in the fridge. I added 1/4 cup buttermilk powder and 2 tablespoons milk (always balance wet/dry ingredients) to the mix and otherwise prepared per the box. The result were super-chewy cookies, even the next day. There's still a slight after-effect of the rice flour grittiness, but they are significantly chewier and more moist than the mix alone. The flavor of the buttermilk adds a very tasty tang to the cookie as well.
I did a little digging, and the theory that makes the most sense to me is that the acidity of the buttermilk helps break down the dry ingredients. Some of the GF flours don't absorb moisture very quickly, but adding an acid helps it break down.
On the other hand, too much acid can affect the levening action of other ingredients. Pancakes and cookies work beautifully with buttermilk because they don't require that much rising. My buttermilk cookies were flatter than usual, but more than made up for it in improved flavor and texture. If you're baking a cake or bread, however, you need to take the Ph balance into account.
My theory, which awaits testing in a few weeks when I'm free of my despotic psychology professor, is that simply adding more baking soda or powder to counteract the increased Ph of the buttermilk is somewhat counterproductive; if the acid is neutralized it cannot break down the particles of the flour, but if it is too acidic you lose the levening action of the alkaline/acid reaction. I believe the solution is in the order of mixing ingredients.
I propose that you mix the GF flour and buttermilk first, then let it sit. If you're proofing yeast for bread you might use the same time for soaking the flour. Otherwise I'd give it about 5-10 minutes. Mix the remaining dry and wet ingredients in separate batches, then add it to the soaked flour. This gives the acid time to work before putting together the levening ingredients.
When you mix the remaining dry ingredients, you'll need to add more base to allow rising. The general consensus seems to be that for each cup of buttermilk you use in a recipe, you need to subtract two teaspoons of baking powder and add one teaspoon of baking soda. That would be tough to do in a pre-made mix (you may just need to add the baking soda) but simple for homemade baked goods.
I'll work on playing with the idea, but in the meantime would love to hear from anyone with first-hand experience on how to perfect the buttermilk swap!
We've been playing with breakfast foods, using the Gluten Free Bisquick now on the market. The GF Bisquick pancakes were/are decent, and better after JD added chopped apples, dried fruit and honey to increase the moisture content. While we were experimenting, we were on a hunt for gluten-free buttermilk to add more flavor. The only type of powder sold in our local grocery stores was not gluten-free.
We finally found a GF buttermilk powder with no preservatives or additives at a specialty store (NOW foods brand). JD made the first batch of buttermilk pancakes by substituting reconstituted buttermilk (at about double concentration) for the milk called for in the recipe. The results were, as I say, "diabolically good". They were super-moist, chewy and perfectly flavored. I honestly don't know if I could tell the difference between them and the regular homemade pancakes.
The only thing that could explain the change was the buttermilk, and I went about testing it. Betty Crocker has a GF chocolate chip cookie mix that we've used. The cookies taste perfect but there's the texture issue again. After they cool they become super crumbly and grainy, even if kept in the fridge. I added 1/4 cup buttermilk powder and 2 tablespoons milk (always balance wet/dry ingredients) to the mix and otherwise prepared per the box. The result were super-chewy cookies, even the next day. There's still a slight after-effect of the rice flour grittiness, but they are significantly chewier and more moist than the mix alone. The flavor of the buttermilk adds a very tasty tang to the cookie as well.
I did a little digging, and the theory that makes the most sense to me is that the acidity of the buttermilk helps break down the dry ingredients. Some of the GF flours don't absorb moisture very quickly, but adding an acid helps it break down.
On the other hand, too much acid can affect the levening action of other ingredients. Pancakes and cookies work beautifully with buttermilk because they don't require that much rising. My buttermilk cookies were flatter than usual, but more than made up for it in improved flavor and texture. If you're baking a cake or bread, however, you need to take the Ph balance into account.
My theory, which awaits testing in a few weeks when I'm free of my despotic psychology professor, is that simply adding more baking soda or powder to counteract the increased Ph of the buttermilk is somewhat counterproductive; if the acid is neutralized it cannot break down the particles of the flour, but if it is too acidic you lose the levening action of the alkaline/acid reaction. I believe the solution is in the order of mixing ingredients.
I propose that you mix the GF flour and buttermilk first, then let it sit. If you're proofing yeast for bread you might use the same time for soaking the flour. Otherwise I'd give it about 5-10 minutes. Mix the remaining dry and wet ingredients in separate batches, then add it to the soaked flour. This gives the acid time to work before putting together the levening ingredients.
When you mix the remaining dry ingredients, you'll need to add more base to allow rising. The general consensus seems to be that for each cup of buttermilk you use in a recipe, you need to subtract two teaspoons of baking powder and add one teaspoon of baking soda. That would be tough to do in a pre-made mix (you may just need to add the baking soda) but simple for homemade baked goods.
I'll work on playing with the idea, but in the meantime would love to hear from anyone with first-hand experience on how to perfect the buttermilk swap!
Monday, April 11, 2011
Happiness Project: When the thing you're mad about, really isn't
What you're mad about is not always what you're yelling about...
I had an interesting moment recently that, unfortunately, did not reflect well on me at the time. All I can say in my defense is that it was an anomaly.
I was struggling to get ready for work on too little sleep, and for some reason everything JD did or said was irritating. Finally, he said something fairly reasonable that sent me into a fuming raging snit. How DARE he be so...so..smug and calm and condescending and all the other things I read into his just sitting there not taking it personally!
Even in the fit of rage I knew he hadn't done anything wrong, and somehow that was even more frustrating. Luckily, he was able to just wait me out. When the fit was over and I came to apologise and admit I didn't know what was going on, he was ready to help me figure it out.
In the actual moment of anger, I was entirely focused on imagining wrongs. Whether it was JD's fault, or the weather's, or my co-worker's, or Yahoo's mail server, I flipped through a litany of criticism of anything and everything, and in that mix I latched onto any justification for my feelings.
Here's the thing. I actually was upset. Trying to deny that or suppress it was pointless since it would only break out in a different direction. Whether or not my emotion was irrational or excessive is beside the point when dealing with the reality that it was. What had to happen was that I had to sort through all the false reasons for the emotion and find the real ones.
The real reasons? Well, I was tired because I had slept badly. That prevented me from thinking clearly. The weather was stormy and my mood crashes with the barometer. Those were mitigating factors, but they weren't reasons. I had to flip through a lot of easy answers to dig out the real one.
It turns out that if I went back to the previous day, I had experienced a serious disappointment over something I had gotten my hopes up about. At the time, I thought I had coped well with it, and even managed to have a good time with some friends without letting my disappointment ruin the atmosphere for everyone else. By the next morning I thought I had accepted and moved on. Apparently not so. Even though it wasn't consciously on my radar, it was still squatting behind my conscious thoughts and screaming "it isn't FAIR!" like an angry toddler. As a result, NOTHING was fair, and I wasn't even aware of it. I was angry at yesterday and screaming at today.
Until I could actually identify and process the real reasons for my anger, it was just going to keep ramping up and polluting everything I did or felt. It was also going to spread like a bad virus to anyone I encountered that day. So here are some pieces of advise for those experiencing this kind of bitter, frustrated, misdirected rage, from my own experience.
1. Don't fight the anger. You are upset. Denying you are upset is only sticking your thumb in the leak. Face the reality that you are upset and tell yourself you have a right to experience that emotion. You are also responsible for what you do with it and under its influence.
2. Avoid the justification game. If you talk to a partner or family member when angry, the tendency is to goad them into losing their temper at you. Not only does this give you a partner in the emotional experience but it then "justifies" your directing anger at them. It's a game you don't want to risk your relationships on. If you can't speak civilly to people, avoid them until you're under control (and let them know what you're doing so that they don't misinterpret).
3. Find a non-living outlet, if necessary. That may mean a physical outlet such as punching a pillow, running around the yard, doing push-ups, etc. Non-living means that you don't get to physically or verbally abuse a person or animal. Screaming, crying, etc. are all options, provided you control it. Give yourself one minute to scream into a pillow, or ten minutes to cry, then check in to see if the frustration has diminished. Sometimes writing out a scathing letter or e-mail ripping to pieces anything that comes to mind can provide an outlet, even if it only helps you identify misdirections for your anger. My snit was just before work, so I had a strict time limit on my outlet so as to get out the door on time. Your goal is to let off enough steam to take the pressure off and bring you back under control.
4. Admit that you don't know what's going on. When you can let go of all the illusive objects of your anger and admit this, the pressure may suddenly drop and the anger drain. If you're still saying "Yeah but" and finding new things to be angry about, you're not there yet.
5. Note your physical condition. Are you exhausted? In pain? Ill? These have a lot of exaggerating effects on negative moods and reduce your self-control. Also, as much as we women HATE that so many emotions are dismissed as "hormonal", hormones have a huge effect on the emotional state of both men and women. If you've recently changed dietary or exercise habits, started new medication, etc. it could be affecting your entire endocrine system. I remember a brand of birth control I had to suddenly discard when within two weeks of starting them I found myself sobbing helplessly over a preview for Dawson's Creek. Switching brands brought me back to normal. Likewise, a friend's reaction to a medication switch coined the term "going Cymbalta on his/her ass" amongst our social circle as a euphemism for uncontrollable rage. It's possible that my newly increased exercise regimen, for example, increased my emotional reaction last week.
6. Identify any big changes or events that have happened recently. Remember that in a physiological sense, any change is stress. You may have gotten great news that triggers fear of change, risk, the unknown, etc. Have you been "coping" (i.e. repressing) an emotional response to an event or person for the last few days/weeks? Has your environment been significantly disrupted (i.e. moving, renovating, decluttering, new furniture, etc.)? Put yourself, in your mind, in a position to really dwell on any of these that apply. Let yourself feel a response to them, even if you think that response is irrational. If you think hard about a recent change or event and it gives you a strong emotional response, you may have found what you're really upset about.
7. Discard false causes. If your reaction to something is entirely disproportionate, it may be a misdirection. If I'm in a fuming snit because I can't find a skirt I wanted to wear, the emotional response is wildly disproportionate to the severity of the problem. If I feel like screaming at an e-mail program because it won't take my mis-typed password, there is a bigger problem than the e-mail program that I'm not seeing. If the house is in chaos because of a lapsed home improvement project, however, a strong feeling of frustration may be perfectly appropriate. These assessments are clues to help you track down the real cause of your upset. If it helps you, pretend you are advising a friend who is complaining about these things. Would you think she's "making a big deal out of nothing" or "over-reacting"? That may tell you something about whether your own emotional response is proportionate.
8. Process. When you have found the real reason for your emotional state, you must process it in order to let it go and prevent it from affecting the rest of your life. Grieve, talk, fix, etc. as appropriate. Sometimes you just need to let yourself be really upset for a while instead of continually struggling against it by inches. Sometimes you need to talk it out with someone else and get sympathy. Sometimes you need to take active steps to correct or remove what's stressing you out. This is where your personal responsibility kicks in, because only you know what will make you feel better. You are also the only one really responsible for what you feel and what you do with it. You'd be amazed how easy it is once you really figure out what's wrong. That first step is the always the most difficult.
Please also remember that I'm not a psychologist, and these are the techniques that specifically work with me on the rare times when I'm experiencing this kind of frustration. If you feel like this kind of situation happens to you a lot and interferes with areas of your life, you might want to get help figuring out the underlying causes. Find a counselor you can trust with your emotional vulnerability and let them help you help yourself.
I had an interesting moment recently that, unfortunately, did not reflect well on me at the time. All I can say in my defense is that it was an anomaly.
I was struggling to get ready for work on too little sleep, and for some reason everything JD did or said was irritating. Finally, he said something fairly reasonable that sent me into a fuming raging snit. How DARE he be so...so..smug and calm and condescending and all the other things I read into his just sitting there not taking it personally!
Even in the fit of rage I knew he hadn't done anything wrong, and somehow that was even more frustrating. Luckily, he was able to just wait me out. When the fit was over and I came to apologise and admit I didn't know what was going on, he was ready to help me figure it out.
In the actual moment of anger, I was entirely focused on imagining wrongs. Whether it was JD's fault, or the weather's, or my co-worker's, or Yahoo's mail server, I flipped through a litany of criticism of anything and everything, and in that mix I latched onto any justification for my feelings.
Here's the thing. I actually was upset. Trying to deny that or suppress it was pointless since it would only break out in a different direction. Whether or not my emotion was irrational or excessive is beside the point when dealing with the reality that it was. What had to happen was that I had to sort through all the false reasons for the emotion and find the real ones.
The real reasons? Well, I was tired because I had slept badly. That prevented me from thinking clearly. The weather was stormy and my mood crashes with the barometer. Those were mitigating factors, but they weren't reasons. I had to flip through a lot of easy answers to dig out the real one.
It turns out that if I went back to the previous day, I had experienced a serious disappointment over something I had gotten my hopes up about. At the time, I thought I had coped well with it, and even managed to have a good time with some friends without letting my disappointment ruin the atmosphere for everyone else. By the next morning I thought I had accepted and moved on. Apparently not so. Even though it wasn't consciously on my radar, it was still squatting behind my conscious thoughts and screaming "it isn't FAIR!" like an angry toddler. As a result, NOTHING was fair, and I wasn't even aware of it. I was angry at yesterday and screaming at today.
Until I could actually identify and process the real reasons for my anger, it was just going to keep ramping up and polluting everything I did or felt. It was also going to spread like a bad virus to anyone I encountered that day. So here are some pieces of advise for those experiencing this kind of bitter, frustrated, misdirected rage, from my own experience.
1. Don't fight the anger. You are upset. Denying you are upset is only sticking your thumb in the leak. Face the reality that you are upset and tell yourself you have a right to experience that emotion. You are also responsible for what you do with it and under its influence.
2. Avoid the justification game. If you talk to a partner or family member when angry, the tendency is to goad them into losing their temper at you. Not only does this give you a partner in the emotional experience but it then "justifies" your directing anger at them. It's a game you don't want to risk your relationships on. If you can't speak civilly to people, avoid them until you're under control (and let them know what you're doing so that they don't misinterpret).
3. Find a non-living outlet, if necessary. That may mean a physical outlet such as punching a pillow, running around the yard, doing push-ups, etc. Non-living means that you don't get to physically or verbally abuse a person or animal. Screaming, crying, etc. are all options, provided you control it. Give yourself one minute to scream into a pillow, or ten minutes to cry, then check in to see if the frustration has diminished. Sometimes writing out a scathing letter or e-mail ripping to pieces anything that comes to mind can provide an outlet, even if it only helps you identify misdirections for your anger. My snit was just before work, so I had a strict time limit on my outlet so as to get out the door on time. Your goal is to let off enough steam to take the pressure off and bring you back under control.
4. Admit that you don't know what's going on. When you can let go of all the illusive objects of your anger and admit this, the pressure may suddenly drop and the anger drain. If you're still saying "Yeah but" and finding new things to be angry about, you're not there yet.
5. Note your physical condition. Are you exhausted? In pain? Ill? These have a lot of exaggerating effects on negative moods and reduce your self-control. Also, as much as we women HATE that so many emotions are dismissed as "hormonal", hormones have a huge effect on the emotional state of both men and women. If you've recently changed dietary or exercise habits, started new medication, etc. it could be affecting your entire endocrine system. I remember a brand of birth control I had to suddenly discard when within two weeks of starting them I found myself sobbing helplessly over a preview for Dawson's Creek. Switching brands brought me back to normal. Likewise, a friend's reaction to a medication switch coined the term "going Cymbalta on his/her ass" amongst our social circle as a euphemism for uncontrollable rage. It's possible that my newly increased exercise regimen, for example, increased my emotional reaction last week.
6. Identify any big changes or events that have happened recently. Remember that in a physiological sense, any change is stress. You may have gotten great news that triggers fear of change, risk, the unknown, etc. Have you been "coping" (i.e. repressing) an emotional response to an event or person for the last few days/weeks? Has your environment been significantly disrupted (i.e. moving, renovating, decluttering, new furniture, etc.)? Put yourself, in your mind, in a position to really dwell on any of these that apply. Let yourself feel a response to them, even if you think that response is irrational. If you think hard about a recent change or event and it gives you a strong emotional response, you may have found what you're really upset about.
7. Discard false causes. If your reaction to something is entirely disproportionate, it may be a misdirection. If I'm in a fuming snit because I can't find a skirt I wanted to wear, the emotional response is wildly disproportionate to the severity of the problem. If I feel like screaming at an e-mail program because it won't take my mis-typed password, there is a bigger problem than the e-mail program that I'm not seeing. If the house is in chaos because of a lapsed home improvement project, however, a strong feeling of frustration may be perfectly appropriate. These assessments are clues to help you track down the real cause of your upset. If it helps you, pretend you are advising a friend who is complaining about these things. Would you think she's "making a big deal out of nothing" or "over-reacting"? That may tell you something about whether your own emotional response is proportionate.
8. Process. When you have found the real reason for your emotional state, you must process it in order to let it go and prevent it from affecting the rest of your life. Grieve, talk, fix, etc. as appropriate. Sometimes you just need to let yourself be really upset for a while instead of continually struggling against it by inches. Sometimes you need to talk it out with someone else and get sympathy. Sometimes you need to take active steps to correct or remove what's stressing you out. This is where your personal responsibility kicks in, because only you know what will make you feel better. You are also the only one really responsible for what you feel and what you do with it. You'd be amazed how easy it is once you really figure out what's wrong. That first step is the always the most difficult.
Please also remember that I'm not a psychologist, and these are the techniques that specifically work with me on the rare times when I'm experiencing this kind of frustration. If you feel like this kind of situation happens to you a lot and interferes with areas of your life, you might want to get help figuring out the underlying causes. Find a counselor you can trust with your emotional vulnerability and let them help you help yourself.
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