Those of you who know me know that I've had some weight issues through my life. See, ever since I was a little kid, "eating" was one of my favorite activities (in fact, I remember going through a scrapbook from a young age -- soon after I had learned to write (and therefore, when I had good handwriting), "eating" was listed as one of the things I liked best). My highest recorded weight was 287 pounds -- although I probably broke 300 at one point. My lowest recorded weight since I've been 18 was 174. I know that I weighed somewhere north of 260 a few months ago, as I was at a doctor's appointment. But, I'm trying to completely ignore my own weight.
Reading Junkfood Science has really put a new spin on things for me. I mean, I've always known that BMI was bullshit - but just reading about how much of the "obesity crisis" is a media creation is quite scary. I mean, it is illegal to be fat in Japan! And, that 33.5 guideline -- even at my lightest, I wouldn't have passed that test. Mind you, I don't know how many Japanese males are 6'3" (now I have "Everyone's a Little Bit Racist" running through my head), but I'm not reading anywhere that height is taken into consideration.
So, where was I going with this? Oh, yeah -- I'm biking into work. Now, I've been on the Wii Fit lately, because it's damn fun. The only thing is that it measures your BMI - and I'm considering just skipping the daily body test, so that my BMI is never calculated. After the issues I've had with weight, I really don't care what I weigh anymore. My goals are:
- Exercise when I can
- When exercising, push myself within my means, but never to the point where I may get burnt out or injured
- Try to eat more fiber than saturated fat
- Eat less meat
- Limit salt intake
- Limit my alcohol intake
Each of those goals has an ulterior motive, though:
- Working out: look good on the beach, feel better about myself when I have to run up flights of stairs for an urgent meeting, be better in bed
- Avoiding injury: seems self explanatory
- Lower saturated fat/salt intake: I have a history of heart problems from both sides of the family tree -- no need to tempt fate
- Eat less meat: feel less guilty about eating meat
- Lower alcohol consumption: lower tolerance so that I get drunk faster
Right now, a lot of my friends & coworkers are commenting that I'm getting "skinny", but I don't know . . . although I feel like a schmuck when I'm asked how much weight I've lost and I have to answer that I haven't a clue. I'm going to try to stick with these goals for awhile -- while enjoying my favorite activity of "eating", and just see where things take me.
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1 comment:
I just thought to come back over here and see what you had blogged lately, and here is another post about this! I think what you have to say about it makes sense. I recently also learned that because BMI scales as the square of height with weight, not the cube, your BMI goes up as you get taller - EVEN IF YOUR PROPORTIONS STAY THE SAME. I find this shockingly bad science!
Kate's blog really is awesome for dealing with the social issues of this subject. There was recently an Ask Aunt Fatty post (the advice column over there) about how to deal with the have-you-lost-weight question, in fact! (Plus, I can reveal to you - in confidence - that you have met at least one of the contributors to the blog, because two of them are good friends of mine! My friends are internet-famous!)
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