Sunday Coffee – Happy Birthday to Me!

Posted on March 1, 2020 by Thistle

Hello everyone! I’m pre-drafting and pre-scheduling this post, because at the time I’d normally be publishing it, I’ll be walking a 5K. Yes, another one! There’s a bit of a funny story behind this.

After last week’s 5K, I began looking for others that I wanted to do this spring. I already knew of one in May that my hiking group was planning to do together. I figured three in spring and three in fall would be perfect for 2020. (Forget summer. 100 degrees = no 5Ks.) So I started searching. (Side note: Do you know how hard it is to find accurate information about upcoming 5Ks? There are like five different companies that promote different ones, and the only way I could find to get most of the information in one place was to rely on Google’s event search. Oy.) One of the first races I saw was the Shamrock Shuffle, followed closely thereafter by the Get Your Rear in Gear 5K.

Flashback: In March 2010, I walked my first ever 5K with a group of friends. I had no real concept of the distance of a 5K and had no idea what to expect. Jason and the boys waited at the end as our cheer squad. Our group was slow – we had a couple little kids with us – and I have no idea how long it took us to finish. This was my first taste of 5K events, and the first stirring of my love for them. The event was the Get Your Rear in Gear 5K, its very first 5K event in San Antonio.

(look how cute 30-year-old Jason is!!)

Fast forward to 2011: In January and February that year, I completed Couch to 5K indoors and could now run for 45 mins straight. I signed up for a 5K in March to try to run one officially. A few fellow Sparkers (from Sparkpeople) also signed up for the same 5K. During that event, I discovered that 1) indoor running and outdoor running are very different things, and 2) I was running more up/down (like running in place) than forward. Still, it was my first 5K where I both walked and ran, and I came in with a time of 53:54. Ha. It was also a good marker for me in time/weight – I’d lost 25 lbs at that point from my highest weight. That 5K was the Shamrock Shuffle.

Furthermore, I signed up for a 5K in late March 2011, the Get Your Rear in Gear 5K. I didn’t try to run this one, due to bronchitis, but I walked it with my cousin Jen – the one who just got married on the beach! – while Jason and the boys waited to cheer me at the end.

Those were my first three 5Ks. In 2012, I looked for both the Get Your Rear in Gear and Shamrock Shuffle events. Neither existed, or at least, I couldn’t find them. (See note re: difficulty finding 5K events accurately above.) And I haven’t seen them again in the last decade. So now, I discover that both are happening this March, one of them on my birthday. I’m not ready to walk/run another 5K so close after the last one, but you can bet that in honor of my first 5K in 2010 AND as a personal birthday celebration, I signed up to walk today.

Jason and I are walking this one together. This is pure nostalgia and celebration. Can’t wait to tell y’all all about it!

PS – Not only are we doing this 5K this morning, but my hiking group is getting together for a potluck to celebrate their one-year anniversary. Lucky me to get to celebrate in so many different ways with so many people I love today!

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Caffeine, by Michael Pollan (audio)

Posted on February 28, 2020 by Thistle

Well this is apropos, listening to a book on the history and science of caffeine while doing my own experiments with the stuff. This short book – what’s the novella equivalent of nonfiction? – discusses how the human race discovered and spread caffeine in the forms of coffee and tea across the world, and how that spread changed our culture and biology. Coupled with that are Pollan’s own experiments with caffeine abstinence and re-introduction.

A couple thoughts on this book. First, it could have been much longer and encompassed a whole hell of a lot more information. I’ve enjoyed most of Pollan’s food-history books in the past and this one felt like it barely skimmed the surface of the subject. I suppose that’s what you get for a two-hour long audiobook. Because of the short length, I didn’t learn nearly as much as I would have liked. I’d hoped to use this as a supplement to my own research into caffeine, but other than a few facts about bees and caffeine-infused nectar, I didn’t really learn much. It was definitely beginner’s nonfiction.

Second, I’m not sure I react to caffeine the same way as most people. Pollan described his reaction to caffeine after three months without it as an insane drive to go-go-go. It reminded me exactly of Alice’s reaction to coffee after a week without it in What Alice Forgot. I’ve never had any kind of intense energy or drive to do stuff after drinking caffeine, not in the beginning, not after going without it for longer than normal. I thought that was just something that happened in fiction, to be honest. It was interesting to hear about this happening to someone in real life, especially as it apparently happens to Pollan every week as he tries to abstain every day except Saturday. Do you all experience caffeine as a jolt or rush? I’d love to hear about those experiences. I find that quite fascinating. For me, drinking a cup of coffee is no different than drinking a glass of water or a cup of orange juice. (Or a cup of decaf coffee, for that matter.)

Altogether, I’d say that this book was okay. Could’ve been better/more, but I did get something out of it.

Posted in 2020, Adult, Prose | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Wellness Wednesday – My Reasons

Posted on February 26, 2020 by Thistle

Back in 2009, when I began losing weight the first time, I didn’t have any solid reasons behind my attempt. I’d been trying to lose weight on and off for a decade at that point, since my tooth infections had started causing giant gains and losses at random moments. Before that, I’d grown up in a household that put a lot of emphasis on body weight/size/shape, not in positive ways. I’d never not been trying to improve my body in one way or another.

After a year of mostly-fruitless attempts to lose, I suddenly had a very specific motivator and reason to reach toward my goal: shame. My body-shame was so great that it even infiltrated my dreams. I wanted so badly to be able to blend in again, to be invisible or not at my own will, to look like myself again. Just existing felt humiliating from minute to minute. Shame is most definitely not the best reason to lose weight, mental-health-wise, but it was a potent motivator. And I was honest about my reasons up front, even when people protested that I should be doing this for my health or to be there for my kids or whatever. (Even while losing weight, people will complain that you’re doing it wrong, that’s how ridiculous our fat-bias is!)

Fast forward to now. I still have moments of body-shame. I’ll probably always have them. The first time I was pressed to be concerned about my body fat was when I was about four or five years old, and that continued at home, at school, in society, etc – even though I grew up as an underweight, undersized child with a massively distorted personal reality. Time and therapy and hard work can only take you so far, and this is where I am now: body-shame still taunts, and I fight every moment of it. I don’t hide anymore. I run in front of other people even if they think I look ridiculous. I post pictures that don’t hide my size. I wear clothes that don’t render me invisible. Yes, I still want to lose weight and I’m actively working toward that goal, but shame is no longer my reason.

I want to lose weight because my body gets in the way.

It sucks when the size of your belly or chest means that you can’t tie your shoes without holding your breath. Shaving is difficult. Scrubbing a bathtub is difficult. Clipping your toenails is hard. The seatbelt buckle digs into your hip. Random body parts go numb when you sleep or sit in the same position for too long. These are all things that get better as you lose weight.

(2011 – able to actually help with manual labor)

Beyond just simple space or contortion moments, my body prevents me from doing as much as I like. I can’t run as many errands or do as many chores, because I get tired out and have to rest more often. When we were moving, I couldn’t lift as many boxes and I couldn’t paint as long and I had to take frequent breaks while steaming carpets or scrubbing walls. I can’t stand having these limitations. I’ve worked my butt off to get fitter, stronger, and more flexible over the last few years, but regardless of all that, I still carry 75 lbs more than a person at a normal body weight. And anyone carrying a 75-lb weight on their body will tire faster than someone who isn’t.

I want to lose weight because my current weight is killing my messed up feet.

I was born with crooked feet that were corrected with casts when I was an infant. To this day, I still have a ton of problems with them, and those problems translate upwards to ankles, knees, hips, back, and neck. Physics are physics – the more weight on my feet, the more pressure they have to bear, and the more prone they are to injuries. It’s not just my feet, either – that’s just the extra bit for me. My size affects so much in my body. My big chest gives me back and neck pain. Sleep positions cause problems with shoulders and neck. I get nerve pain like sciatica from the pressure of my weight. These things can only be alleviated by weight loss.

(2014 – thrift store finds are the best)

I want to lose weight because plus-size bras are awful.

Seriously. Can’t any company get it right?? Torrid bras are stiff and irritating, Lane Bryant bras have no support, online bras are hit-or-miss and way too expensive to take those chances. The last time I found a PS bra I liked, part of its front-clasp exploded apart one day while I was sitting in public, even though there was no strain on it. That damn bra had cost me $75! And speaking of costs, what is it about plus-size clothes being twice as expensive as other clothes? It’s just another way we tax and shame fat folks. I don’t really care if I’m ever super skinny. I just want to be out of plus-sized clothes again. I want to be able to shop in normal stores and pay normal amounts of money and to actually find stuff my size at thrift stores.

I want to lose weight so that I don’t have to worry about weight or size restrictions.

Do you know what happens if sit on a lawn chair without checking the weight limits first? It’s not fun. I’m thankful to have not experienced this myself, but the cost of this small mercy is that I’m hyper-conscious of weight restrictions. I have this cruise coming up in May, and once again, I’m going to have to choose shore excursions only after checking weight limitations. Back in 2012, Jason and I took our first cruise, and in Costa Rica, we did a zip line tour over the rain forest. That time, my weight was under any restriction for any excursion on that trip. I didn’t have to worry about it at all. Now, I do. I have to worry all the time – weight restrictions, size restrictions, space restrictions. Can I ask for a booth at a restaurant? Do their tables move or will I have to wriggle into place and have the table shove up under my ribs? Will I fit into an airline seat, and will I be able to buckle the seatbelt without an extender? Can I squeeze into a bathroom stall built so poorly that the door opens inwards and gets stopped against a toilet, or will I have to use a handicap stall? Can I get into my car if the car in the next parking spot is parked too close or will I have to climb in from the passenger side? It is not fun to worry about this crap all the time.

(2012 – zip-lining in Costa Rica)

I want to lose weight so that my doctors will leave me alone.

(2020 – I’m FINE, thank you!)

Blood pressure: normal. Blood sugar: normal. Cholesterol: mostly normal, and the same as it was when I was thin. Heart rate: normal. Oxygen levels: normal. Thyroid: normal. Hormones: normal. Diet: healthy. Fitness: above average. And yet, my doctors treat me as if I’m on the cusp of dying, or like I’m lying about what I eat and how much I work out, or like I’m a hypochondriac with all my symptoms. My PCP keeps trying to get me to take Metformin even though my blood sugar, A1C, and insulin are all NORMAL. Just because I’m fat. Other doctors think that if I “just lost weight,” my other symptoms would magically disappear, even if those symptoms appeared when I was thin. And it’s not just doctors – dentists treat me like I’m bound to have crappy mouth health when I’m like the only person in the world who has never had a cavity and who flosses daily. Gym employees treat me like I’m a great target to prey on, or like they can’t believe I would possibly want to exercise. Fitness instructors ask me if I’m sure I’m up to their class before ever seeing my abilities. I even had one health professional, on hearing that I was doing walk/run intervals, say, “You’re not ready to run yet.” Like WTF, dude? How would you know?

This is all part of fat-bias in our culture, and it drives me insane. Fat does not equal unhealthy or unfit. And frankly, I don’t think this should have to be one of my weight loss motivators. In an ideal world, I wouldn’t have to worry about my doctors treating me differently because of my size. But it’s not an ideal world, and I don’t have access to weight-neutral doctors or other health-care professionals. And one of the things I despise most of all about being fat is the constant need to reassure people who are taking care of you that you’re working on losing weight.

So there you go. My top five reasons for losing weight that have nothing to do with getting healthy or getting thin/pretty/socially-acceptable.

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Race Report: Chocoholic Frolic 5K

Posted on February 24, 2020 by Thistle

The Chocoholic Frolic is the first 5K I’ve participated in since the Elf Run 5K back in early December. To be honest, I was hoping to be at least halfway through Couch to 5K before getting to this particular race. Ha. Ha ha ha. Ha. So…I got to the end of Week 2 of C25K at the end of January…and haven’t done any outdoor running since. And I’ve only done indoor running twice since then. The weather and my schedule haven’t cooperated. So I went into this 5K without too much in the way of running practice. Hey, why not, right?

(hoodies the night before)

Complications: On the morning of the 5K, three things happened. 1) The weather was extremely humid and muggy, and in that in-between temperature where it might be too cold for short sleeves but too warm for anything longer. 2) My body decided it was time to remind me that I’m female. 3) Stephanie wasn’t able to make the 5K due to a combination of factors.

I’ll be honest – when Jason and I arrived at the start location (Morgan’s Wonderland), I was in two minds. Part of me really wanted to push hard and beat December’s 5K time of 51:45, and maybe-just-maybe get under 50 mins (a feat that I’ve never accomplished at my current weight). The other part of me knew that my body, the weather, and my lack of training were all going against me, and thought I should try to just enjoy myself. Honestly, until I crossed the starting line, I wasn’t sure what would happen.

(before the start)

I began running. Slowly. While Jason walked beside me. And I kept running for five minutes. Then I walked for three, and ran for another five. My pace was so slow – probably around a 14-min mile in the running sections – but I felt okay. Midway through the second mile, there was a giant hill. I did NOT run during the incline. But otherwise, I kept up the 5-3 intervals through most of the 5K. All totaled, I ran just under 30 mins of the 5K, and Jason and I crossed the finish line at 46:21!!! Not only did I beat my previous time and my maybe-just-maybe goal of 50 mins, I SMASHED any previous time I’ve ever managed at this current weight. This feels amazing!!

(medals)

Here’s what I learned during this 5K. I haven’t been able to do a lot of run-training over the last couple months. Since January 30th, I’ve run indoors (a very different exercise) twice and not at all outside. On the other hand, I’ve walked and hiked 35 miles in the 3.5 weeks since my last run. Some of those hikes have been intensive and challenging and strength-building. And clearly, all my non-running training in the last two months have vastly improved both my strength and my endurance. The improvement is clearly visible: I weighed the same at both of my last two 5Ks, and in December, it was my legs that held me back, far before my lungs or heart could protest. In this latest 5K, my legs were fine, and it was my lungs and heart that stopped me at the end of each run. It’s only a matter of time before I can go further and faster.

This race was awesome, and not just on a personal level. Morgan’s Wonderland is a fun place to run. The volunteers handed out water and M&Ms along the course. (I declined M&Ms. I didn’t think that would work on my stomach!) Everyone got a finisher’s medal, and it was easy to check our times, pace, and places. (Note: I came in 522nd of 725 folks, 359th of the 519 females, and 94th of 142 in my age group. I couldn’t give Jason’s stats. His chip didn’t register his actual start time so it says he finished a minute after me, going based on clock time instead.) There was also a large area filled with various kinds of chocolate and candy for the runners. There were bananas there at one point, too, but we didn’t get there in time. Which is sad, because the ONLY time I enjoy bananas is right after a big run like this! I had to settle for squeezy applesauce instead. And Oreos, of course. Heh. (Note: I did not eat any giant marshmallows. Yuck.)

I don’t know if this particular 5K benefitted any, or if it was purely a for-profit run. Hopefully, some of the proceeds will go toward Morgan’s Wonderland or associated charities. But either way, the cost was totally worth what we got out of the event, and I’m happy to cross off my first Running Bingo category (chocolate/sweets). Now to go find my next event to run…

More photos and slow-running-video available on my Instagram.

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Sunday Coffee – Howl’s Moving Castle

Posted on February 23, 2020 by Thistle

I love Howl’s Moving Castle. I read the book for the first time in 2012, after years of trying and not getting beyond a few pages. (Thank you, audiobook and Jenny Sterlin, for bringing me this story, and thank you Karen for continuing to insist on me trying again and again!) After the first read, I became obsessed. Obsessed = a dozen reads in a row, plus multiple reads of the sequels, plus other DWJ books, plus watching the movie version. If I had to choose between book and movie, I’d definitely go with the book version in terms of best. In my experience, whichever you see/read first tends to be the one you like better with this story. Either way, both are awesome as long as you don’t expect them to be the same. I love them both.

Which means I was really excited that Alamo Drafthouse was going to be showing Howl’s Moving Castle on screen in a pajama cereal party. That is as awesome as it sounds – you wear your pajamas and there’s an all-you-can-eat cereal buffet laid out for everyone. My friend Stephanie is also a huge fan of Howl – she saw the movie first, and would definitely go with the movie version in terms of best – so I got tickets for both of us to go together. The viewing was yesterday afternoon.

So…both of us forgot entirely about the pajamas-and-cereal portion of the show. Heh. We actually got together early so we could go collect our packets for the 5K we’re doing this morning. Then we got some iced coffee and hung out until movie time. While chatting over ice coffee, we discussed the dinners we were planning to get at Alamo Drafthouse (one of those dinner-and-movie places). I got myself all psyched up for fries, because fries are one of my biggest addictions ever. And after I was thinking about fries, cereal just didn’t sound all that good. Heh.

It’s silly to go to a pj-and-cereal party without pjs or cereal, but that we did! We sadly also missed the little build-your-own-Calcifer craft table (boo!). But other than that, we had an awesome time. It’s been awhile since I saw the movie and there were little things I’d forgotten completely. Plus I’d never seen it on a large screen, so it was a whole new experience. Stephanie first saw it in theatre when she was quite young, so this was a bit of a nostalgia trip for her as well. It was awesome!

Sadly, I forgot to get pictures of us at any point during our afternoon out. I’m sure to get some at the 5K today, though. Which speaking of, I need to end this post so I can get ready to go! Happy Sunday, y’all!

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Cold Brew the Easy Way

Posted on February 21, 2020 by Thistle

Once upon a time – aka the fall of 2015 – I began to make my own cold brew iced coffee. I love iced coffee, and I’d found a recipe from Pioneer Woman that talked about how to make your own cold brew in large batches that would keep for some time. And she was right – it really is the best cold brew ever, an amazing recipe that I highly recommend. However, the recipe took a large amount of time, some giant equipment, quite a lot of cheese cloth for straining, and sometimes two people to have enough hands. Perhaps I’m just not as coordinated as the Pioneer Woman! In any case, I eventually discovered that the cost of the beans plus cheese cloth was roughly the same as getting pre-made cold brew in 1.5-liter bottles from the store. It definitely required less work to buy bottles, and less storage room for the giant mixing bowls that held several gallons of liquid each. The only major drawbacks of buying my cold brew was the plastic waste and the fact that I couldn’t get it decaf (as I’d been making it, since I tended to drink it in the afternoons).

(the first time I made cold brew, with baby Gavroche getting in on my attempt to photograph it!)

I’ve been doing a lot of research on coffee and caffeine these last few weeks. Since coffee is a suspect in my current health issues, I’m trying to determine exactly where the problem lies: in the caffeine, in the quantity, in the hot/cold factor, etc. During my research, I came across an article that talked about the differences between hot coffee and cold brew coffee. The article was great and had a lot of information in it that, with other research, will form the basis for some personal experiments. But that’s not the subject of this post. This post is about cold brew. The other thing this particular awesome article gave me was a quick, easy, effective way to make small batches of cold brew without all the hassle, cost, and mess of my old recipe. It’s simple:

(iced coffee in the garden, April 2019)

Measure your coffee into a glass jar, pour water over, stir, leave it overnight, and then pour through a coffee filter the next day. Even easier if you have a french press: measure your coffee into the press, pour water over, stir, leave it (plunger up) overnight, then push the plunger down to pour auto-filtered cold brew coffee the next day. And hey, since I prefer my pour-over to french press for hot coffee, the press just sits around doing nothing unless I’m making coffee for multiple peeps…might as well put it to use, eh?

I tried this out for the first time two nights ago. When I make hot coffee in my french press, I use four scoops (roughly 7 grams each) for the whole pot. That gives it the perfect concentration for me. (Every person has their own recipe for the right coffee ratios!) Since four scoops worked for hot coffee, I did the same for the cold brew: three regular and one decaf. I left the pot overnight in my fridge, sifted with the press-plunger, poured out perfectly-concentrated cold brew directly onto ice with some cream to top it off.

It was perfect. No plastic waste, much cheaper than buying, and tastes delicious. Now my biggest challenge will be not to drink the entire press of cold brew each day! Did I mention that I love iced coffee?

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Wellness Wednesday – To Figure Out What’s Wrong

Posted on February 19, 2020 by Thistle

Before I begin this post, let me put up fair warning: This will be long and meandering, tying together many threads in order to try to get a clear picture. It will discuss medical details, including surgery photos, and will repeat things that I’ve talked about in the past. Feel free to skip by altogether. Now that that’s out of the way, here goes.

Something is wrong with me, and I don’t know what it is.

Continue reading →

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Monday Coffee – Joyous Tidings

Posted on February 17, 2020 by Thistle

I am writing this a day late after coming home from a weekend away for a special occasion. But more on that in a moment, because there are lots of joyous tidings in this post and I should start chronologically.

Our happy weekend began early. Jason took Friday off of work, not for Valentine’s – though that was a great bonus – but for a special signing at a title company. We are now officially owners of only a single house again, hurrah! Due to our own clumsy scheduling, we did have one month of two-mortgages-to-pay, but the proceeds on the house paid the debts accrued by this. We have yet to create a new budget for ourselves – I’m a stickler for waiting until the deed is actually DONE to do this kind of thing – but our situation is vastly improved by this change we began in the fall.

And since Jason had the rest of Valentine’s Day off, we decided to do a little celebrating until our kids got off from school. (Go figure that it would be an early release day, yeah?) So after our closing, we went down the street to Eisenhower Park and took a 3.2-mile hike. Hiking is an activity we both enjoy – very rare for us with regards to physical activity – so it made for a nice morning. Afterwards, we went down to my favorite restaurant in San Antonio, India Oven, for a buffet lunch.

So that’s how we spent Valentine’s Day. Jason is still suffering under that whole root-canal thing – the procedure isn’t scheduled until the 21st – so after all that, he was ready to nap the afternoon away. I got the boys from school and we had a lazy rest-of-Valentine’s before prepping for our awesome, love-filled weekend. Here’s where the best of the joyous tidings begin:

My cousin Jen got married yesterday! She and her new husband, Robert, have known each other for years, but began to date back in the fall of 2015 when Jen and I threw a joint Autumn Party for our friends. In the years since then, Jen and Robert have been wonderful for each other, and I was so happy to hear of their engagement back in early autumn. They decided to have a small ceremony at the coast, and Jen asked me to read an excerpt from Wild Awake by Hilary T. Smith during the wedding. Jason, the boys, and I drove down to Port A on Saturday morning with plenty of time to check into the hotel and walk down the beach to the ceremony spot.

I won’t hash over all the details from the wedding itself. I’ll just say that it was a beautiful ceremony, with perfect weather, and a small group of friends and family gathered. Of course, I got lots of photos, and can’t wait to see the ones the professional photographer took. After the ceremony, we all went to eat at a nearby seafood-and-pasta restaurant (delicious!), and the next morning, we had breakfast tacos over at the newlywed’s beach rental. Jen and Robert organized everything so well. Their rental was was right next to the group hotel, and only half a mile from both the restaurant and the wedding location. Jason, the boys, and I walked everywhere instead of needing to drive, which just made the whole weekend that much more perfect.

After Sunday breakfast, we made the LONG drive home. (By the way, did you know that driving on an island in the middle of major fog is stressful??) And as a perfect end to a lovely weekend, my friend Stephanie and I joined our hiking group for a beautiful 2.7-mile walk around Woodlawn Lake.

Today is a school holiday, so my boys are home with me, and the plan is to try to get our weekend chores done and otherwise be lazy. Maybe some yoga for me, because I’ve walked/hiked roughly ten miles in the last three days and some loosening of muscles and joints and tendons will do my body good! I hope y’all all had as beautiful a weekend as my family did!

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A Beginning at the End, by Mike Chen

Posted on February 13, 2020 by Thistle

Six years after the End of the World – a virulent strain of flu wiping out most of the world’s population – the world is in shambles. There are tentative pockets of humanity clustered together with the loosest attempts at government, technology, regulation, protection, and news. Nearly everyone suffers from some form of trauma disorder after losing homes, friends, family, and life the way it was Before. Rob is trying to keep his daughter with him. Moira is trying to escape her past identity. Krista is determined to act as if the threat of flu isn’t real. These three are thrown together by circumstance, with the choice to sink back into their own individual isolation or work cooperatively to create something new, and better.

The setting of this book is very, very dark. Out of darkness, though, can come light, if you let it, and this is ultimately a story not of survival, but of connection. At one point, Rob states to a survivor therapy group that it seems as if everyone is hiding behind something, usually fear, and that he wants the world to be more than fear again. But to most people, it’s as if this isn’t a possibility. The fear is all-encompassing – which makes sense given that this flu keeps mutating and spreading further – and society is on hold. Society as a whole has a freeze trauma response, unable to move forward until the danger is gone…which will be never. That makes the situation feel very hopeless as you read.

Each of the main characters – Rob, Moira, and Krista – must overcome the thing that holds them back, the thing they’re hiding behind, in order to connect to the world and to others again. Of the three of them, it was Rob’s journey in particular that I connected to. Because of Rob’s situation – the threat of his child being taken from him – he must take steps forward. They may be forced steps and not something he would do normally if not for his situation, but they’re still steps forward. And in emerging from his own pocket of isolation, Rob discovers that there’s still a world outside of his little bubble of space. He wants that world back. Rob’s story is one of a world that has grown so small that he’s surprised that anything exists beyond it, like opening blackout curtains and discovering that it’s no longer night time and that the sun is quite bright outside. It’s a metaphor for the kinds of mental health problems that involve withdrawing from the world, whether that’s depression or agoraphobia or PTSD, and the discovery that waits when you’re able to reemerge. It reminds me of a line from Keane’s “Spiraling:”

The map of my world gets smaller as I sit here pulling on the loose threads.

This book was just beautiful. I liked Chen’s Here and Now and Then, though I had some issues with it. This one was much better in my opinion. Better written, better paced, hard decisions for the characters, and a beautiful exploration both of mental health and the beauty that lies in connecting to other human beings.

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Wellness Wednesday – Resting Metabolic Rate

Posted on February 12, 2020 by Thistle

I mentioned on Sunday that my Lumen arrived, and that when I originally bought it, it was supposed to tell me my daily resting/basil metabolic rate through breath analysis. There are lab-level machines that can do this in doctor’s offices and such, and the original promise of Lumen was to be able to do this daily from the comfort of your home, rather than trying to get insurance to approve and/or paying exorbitant amounts for said test. This has not turned out to be the case in the final Lumen product, but it’s obvious that RMR/BMR has been on my mind quite a bit lately. This was compounded on Saturday while out with my hiking group.

At one point during our hiking, a few of the women in the group began to talk about their tested RMRs. These women were mostly older, 50s and 60s, and had been through many types of procedures in their lives. They’d also been chronic dieters on programs such as weight watchers, that encourage women to eat these very low calorie levels. (The current modern-day standard for weight loss programs for women is 1200, but the first time I tried WW in 2001, my calories were adding up to a range of 900-1150, and who knows what other levels it’s asked women to eat at over time! Even 1200 is NOT GOOD for most bodies.) These women began comparing their RMRs as tested by their doctors through various methods including breath-analysis and different kinds of body composition analysis. The results they gave ranged between 900 and 1100.

I was astonished to hear those numbers. To give some context, your RMR is the number of calories you burn at rest, if you did nothing but sleep for 24 hours. No one actually burns as few as their RMR, but it’s essentially how much your muscles, organs, and tissues burn at rest. The rest of your metabolism is built on that number. I’ve had body composition analysis done six times between 2012 and 2019, five of which gave me an estimated RMR. My weight on those tests ranged from 159 to 230. I kept the results of four of those tests, and from lowest weight to highest, on two electronic and two water-weigh tests, my RMR measures at 1636 (water, 159 lbs), 1447 (electronic, 164 lbs), 1552 (electronic, 204 lbs), and 1722 (water, 230 lbs). [Note: water weigh tests are more accurate than electronic ones.] My body’s burn range has been from 1447 to 1722 at 100% rest. Actual calorie burn measures roughly 500-700 calories higher, PLUS exercise on top of that. And frankly, I thought some of my RMR levels were pretty poor/low. I can’t even imagine the whole 900-1100 at rest range…

I don’t know how much of that is due to age and muscle loss, or chronic dieting causing muscle loss rather than fat loss, or some other factor. All I know is that I see the difference between my 40-year-old metabolism and the metabolisms of the 50s/60s women in my hiking group, and it makes me want to work especially hard to build and keep muscle mass as I get older. Regardless of any weight loss or change over time, I want to keep both my bone mass and my muscle mass strong and healthy. Other than yoga, I haven’t paid as much attention to strength-building as I should. I hope to slowly build that into my routine going forward. I want to be one of those 80-year-old women who still have the muscles of a 30-year-old!

(Shirley Webb, age 78, deadlifting 245 lbs)

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