Tag: health

Sometimes You Just Need To Ask For Help

by rhealitycheck

So I recently moved apartments, I didn’t go terribly far or at least I wouldn’t call a block and a half away terribly far. During this whole process I learned that sometimes you just need to ask for help. Now I’ve been pretty bad at asking for help my entire life. This was really bad in college when your classes get more difficult and professors expect you to be smart enough to ask for help when you need it. Well, some of us take longer than others to learn that it is better to ask for help than to flounder in “I can do this on my own” land.

Back to moving, for the main part of the move I did ask a couple of friends to help me out, which was super helpful. But I really think it would have been wiser if I had asked, oh everyone I know in Chicago to help me because in reality having just 3 people (where two of us were pretty small girls) moving is not fun. Not fun at all, in fact.

You would think I had learned from that experience right? Since I’ve finally gotten mostly unpacked but I do still need a few things here and there to be put away etc, I decided to get this beautiful dresser from Crate & Barrel yesterday evening. I can’t tell you how much I thank my lucky stars that the stupid thing has to be assembled because man, is it heavy. And I swear if it had been one piece going up 3 flights of stairs with that sucker may not have been possible, at least not all by myself. Taking up the pieces that make it up on the other hand wasn’t so bad. But um, it only has 4 pieces so the big one is still a fairly large sucker for a small person such as myself to be hauling upstairs. Thankfully, I made it up there still in one piece, although I might’ve thrown my shoulder out and gotten a few choice bruises in the process.

Fitness Dieting Bets?

by rhealitycheck

Now that’s certainly an idea that never occurred to me until one of my childhood friends’ fiance told me that he had a bet with his best man that whoever lost the closest to 10% body fat by his wedding they would donate some amount of money to the charity of their choice. Now this was an especially interesting bet because the fiance is significantly more conservative than his friend so the charities that they picked out were specifically chosen to irk the other person and to give them motivation to do better than the other guy. I remember hearing this idea and finding it quite amusing but brushing it off as just something a couple of crazy guys were doing until I opened up my Thursday Styles to find: Dieting? Put Your Money Where Your Fat Is.

I currently find this a really intriguing idea because typically I think most dieting incentives that I’ve seen work for people tend to go hand in hand with dating. Actually one of my friends has an interesting theory that whenever people first get into relationships they start with this “must go to gym and get hot” mentality because of course you want to impress the person you’re dating. And according to her then it moves into the “happy fat” part of the relationship and if there is a break up then there is the post-relationship “get back in shape” to burn stress and then cycle repeats.

So I think this diet betting is an interesting idea to keep some of the motivation after you have found the person you have reached the “happy fat” phase. And hopefully won’t have to go through the pain of a break up to maintain a certain level of fitness. Or you know, you could be one of those motivated people who just likes to go to the gym. For myself, I find joining sports teams works as motivation to stay in shape because otherwise you end up letting your teammates down. And let’s face it, who really wants to lose? I mean everyone says losing isn’t a big deal, especially if you’re play for “fun” but I don’t think anyone actually means it. At least not anyone that has ever played competitively in their life. We may be willing to admit that we aren’t at the same level of fitness that we once were when we were competitive but by no means do we actually want to be a “bad” team.

An Interesting Way To Start The New Year

by rhealitycheck

I have been inspired by a friend of mine to reflect a bit on how I wanted to start the new year and how I actually started it. Now she had two separate posts on what she wanted and what actually happened but I think I can cover all of mine in just one (especially considering I started thinking about posting this just now).

So initially I actually had contemplated starting out the new year quietly, at home, by myself. I know this doesn’t sound particularly exciting but I’ve had an exceedingly busy and social year and I really just wanted some down time. I was thinking of a good book or maybe a stupid movie or better yet working on my website and playing around with some Ruby on Rails. That was my idea for a perfect New Year’s Eve. And to follow that with some loose resolutions (because I don’t really believe in resolutions) that I will be healthier and make time for myself amongst all my crazy activities.

My actual New Year’s Eve was spent with some of my friends in Austin, who I have not seen in years. And to be honest it didn’t really feel like a new year’s celebration, we went out for dinner and then to one of the bars downtown and ended up wandering around Austin for hours after the bars closed (it’s a long story, let’s just leave it at that). But it was not too far from what I had initially wanted because it didn’t actually feel like the typical New Year’s Eve celebration, it was more like a few very old friends of mine and I going out and “getting into trouble” as usual.

Actually it was pretty interesting getting up in the morning because we didn’t drink all too much yet all three of us (that went out and were crashing at the same place) still weren’t feeling 100% in the morning. And I dubbed it the “Adult Hangover”; you don’t have to drink excessively to be tired and cranky after a night out. It’s the grown up version of that lingering feeling of regret for going out partying with your friends. Except now, as adults, you are smart enough not to drink yourself stupid but you still get the consequences of not being able to bounce right back after a long night.

So for my first day in the new year I decided to visit my cousins who also live in Austin and I really couldn’t have thought of a better way to begin the new year than with people that I love that I rarely get to see because I live so far away. And after such a great kick off to the new year I decided to make some slightly more concrete new years resolutions: actually eating healthier, seriously trying to keep up a vegetarian diet and hopefully by the end of the year become vegan, go to the gym/exercise at least 4 times/week (excluding soccer and dance), have a more positive body image, seriously focus on my academics (no more lame excuses), be more positive and productive at work and last but not least make sure to fit in some substantial time (at least a couple of hours) every week to just be by myself.

And I did learn something while I was back home. “You can take the girl out of Texas but you can’t take Texas out of the girl.” I don’t know if I’ll ever live there again because I do miss seasons whenever I go south but I will always have a special place in my heart for Texas and everyone I know that still lives there.

Losing Our Morals One Dollar At A Time

by rhealitycheck

It seems to me that this economy is nothing but a product of sheer greed. What has always baffled me are the pay scales for people in different industries. I mean, in the banks people make millions of dollars in bonuses for what exactly? I would like to know why those executives make approx 100x what the lowest paid employee makes. Perhaps I believe too much in equality but I really think that’s a huge problem. When you have no clue what your actions effects are on the general populous and you no longer know how “normal” people live.

Not to mention our law-makers. It’s not just Wall St that let things go haywire, it’s our politicians too. Who quite frankly are totally out of touch with reality. I mean I’d really like to know who thinks that a salary of $169K+ is the salary of any average American (if you don’t believe me here are the links for actual figures for the House and Senate). I believe statistically speaking the average household income in America is approximately $50K, so why is it that our law-makers who are supposed to “be in touch with the pain and reality of regular Americans” make 3x as much as the average American? Not to mention, I don’t know about y’all but I am still a small fry so I only get 2 weeks of vacation but you know congress took 5 weeks just this summer when the housing market was crashing and the auto industry was in distress. Not to mention the fact that they will have government health care benefits for the rest of their lives for themselves and their families if they have served in office for 5 years. I ask you, how many corporate employers would do that? In fact, does the government even do that for any other employees? I know for a fact that isn’t true for teachers, so why are our policy makers so different? What exactly gives them all these rights and benefits when I’m not seeing a return on our hard-earned tax dollars. Sure, I’m upset with the banks. No, I don’t believe that their executives should be making the kind of money that they have been for the past I don’t even know how long, but at least that is their own private wealth that they can choose to dole out howsoever they see fit. (At least that was the case until the bailout and I believe there are no bonuses this year so at least there is *some* change in that field). Congress, on the other hand, is benefiting from *our* tax dollars. I mean the general public is expected to be able to balance our own budgets and live within our means but what about you? What right did Congress have to give themselves these raises? (They give themselves a raise every year, how generous right?) Have they truly made enough progress for us to think they are so above the rest of us? Quite frankly the way things are going, I’d say most of them deserve to lose their jobs *and* their benefits as is what would happen in the private sector if they did such a piss poor job as they’ve been doing for the last 8 years.

Granted I also believe that Wall St became too greedy and too loose with their money and with the government supporting their every move it’s hard to want to pull back. I mean why be smart when you could be getting an incredible bonus. You’ll have the money and will probably be gone by the time the whole thing goes bust, right? So who needs to be responsible. And Paul Krugman wrote a great piece on The Madoff Economy where he talks about what happened with the salaries. I think he makes some great points. I just wonder why no one ever considered him for a position in the White House considering he did just win the Nobel Prize and he has been writing insightful pieces for the NY Times for years now. Perhaps he wasn’t interested but I’m sure there would have been rumors if he had ever been considered and I find it quite distressing that he wasn’t. In fact I find a lot of the appointments to be less-than stellar. I mean it’s just a new set of characters from Wall St isn’t it? Instead of Hank Paulson we have Tim Geithner who headed up the NY Fed. Great let’s put more people who were involved in this giant mess into positions of power. Not to mention Larry Summers, why that man should be allowed anywhere after his Harvard fiasco is beyond me. And I mean let’s face it he’s the one that went along with Alan Greenspan back in the Clinton days and clearly that was not a good choice. But oh, I forgot we’re not allowed to criticize our new fabulous President-Elect because he is, of course, Prince Charming and will save us all. (And yes I am *still* licking my wounds that Hillary is only Secretary of State and not our first female President, not just because she’s a woman but because I still think she is the better candidate even if I have resigned myself to being satisfied with the lesser of two mediocre candidates.)

Real Steel-cut Oatmeal

by rhealitycheck

Can actually be found at Jamba Juice, who knew? Certainly not me. At least not until I walked in to my local store this morning (and I love these women, they are just so fabulous – if you are in Chicago you should check out the store at Wells & Madison, they are super friendly and sweet). So my favourite Jamba staff member greeted me with her usual warm smile and today she had something new for me to try. (She is one of the best saleswomen I have ever met). She charmingly asked if I’d like to try out the steel-cut oatmeal topped with bluberries, blackberries and brown sugar. Normally, I don’t try out all the new stuff they promote because I already have enough stuff on their menu that I like.  But today I just couldn’t resist her big smile and tray of new stuff that actually looked really tasty.

Now I tend to be a firm believer that not all things that look good taste good but this time I was pleasantly surprised that not only does this look delicious but the taste matches. Now my favourite staff member did recommend the apple-cinnamon but I’m a bigger fan of blueberries and blackberries, which is what they were handing out anyway so that’s what I ended up getting. But I am super excited to report that I have found *real* steel-cut oatmeal that you don’t have to make at home by yourself! (I don’t wake up early enough to make myself breakfast. More power to ya if you do.)

Unintentionally Vegetarian/Vegan

by rhealitycheck

So here’s the thing, I’ve been reading this book Skinny Bitch, which by the way is awesome, that has some really horrifying passages about slaughterhouses and dairy farms that are pretty darn disturbing. So the first day after I read it, I was a little put off the whole meat and dairy thing. Now, I find this interesting because well I read The Jungle and that had absolutely no effect on my eating habits or desires. So I don’t know when I gained such a conscience or perhaps the passages were just different from the ones included in this book, I read that over 10 years ago (for school) so I’m a little fuzzy on it. It might also have to do with the fact that I’m reading this book by choice and I was reading The Jungle because it was on the reading list in high school.

I’ll put a disclaimer on this here and now, I may not be a vegetarian/vegan permanently, I truly do enjoy my animal products, I just find it fascinating what one book can do to your life which is why I am writing about it here.

The thing that I find most interesting is that it has been a few days since I have read those horrifying passages and I can generally forget things I don’t want to know relatively easily (at least when it comes to food that I like and don’t particularly want to give up). But for some reason I am finding that when I go out or am in the office cafeteria I will actually opt to get something vegetarian and if possible vegan before I choose anything with meat or dairy. It’s almost as if the women who wrote this book got into my head and changed my psyche a bit. I choose to eat differently. And I keep telling myself that I miss meat but honestly, I don’t really mind not having it. It’s only been a week that I’ve been doing it but um, I’m also the girl that used to say she likes to “eat her steak still mooing”. I mean one of my good friends and I talk about how we like to cook our steaks “black and blue” which basically just means it’s very rare. So I just find it fascinating that just by reading one book I have made a huge change in my diet. It just jolted me into the realities of the industry and my opposition to eating meat and dairy really has more to do with the way that industry works than my taste preferences.

Also, what I have found in the past week is that you can find tons of really tasty vegetarian/vegan food out there! You don’t necessarily need meat or dairy to make yourself a fabulous meal. All it takes is a little creative thinking. And quite frankly half the vegetarian/vegan food is better for you anyway.

The only thing I will say is that my experiment with a soy latte was horrifyingly disappointing. I really didn’t think it would taste all that different but I don’t put any sweetener in my lattes and I swear the soy milk made it sickeningly sweet. I couldn’t even finish it. That was really sad because while I don’t drink lattes often, I do like them on occasion.

I’m curious to see what this difference will make in how I feel when I go to the gym. I injured myself last week so I took a week off but I’m back as of today I think it should be interesting. And I mean the book is called Skinny Bitch so I’m curious as to how much changing your diet so drastically will change the rest of your body image etc. I suppose simply making healthier changes should make it easier. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

Being a “Skinny Bitch”…

by rhealitycheck

seems to be a tall order. At least if you read the book Skinny Bitch by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin. I never truly intended on reading this book, I had read a review in the New York Times and aside from the catchy title I didn’t really have much interest in it. But recently I’ve been a little more into health and being more proactive about getting healthy and well I ended up with a 3 hour delay on my flight back to Chicago after Thanksgiving. So what’s a girl to do other than go pick up the first relatively interesting book she finds at the airport bookstore.

I inteded this to be an amusing, interesting read. Considering I had already read the Times review on it I had a vague idea what the book was supposed to be about and I had no intention of changing my eating habits to become a vegan. Little did I know that they took excerpts from a book slaughterhouses when I first cracked that book open. The most interesting part of the whole thing was that this little book does not look like it can change your life. Quite frankly, it looks like a fabulous piece of fluff to put on your bookshelf for shock value – much like this book Queer that I own which just has fabulous pictures and some historical content but mostly fabulous pictures.

Yet I couldn’t take my eyes off it. I read it on the plane and then the train and in the cab and even in bed once I got home. I haven’t gotten through the entire book yet but I am about 3/4 of the way through and I think it is great. I also had no intention of becoming vegan yet I can’t seem to look at meat the same way. Those passages about the slaughterhouse just changed something in my psyche. I can’t say that this will be a lasting change just yet since it has only been 2 days of relatively vegetarian eating (I am stubbornly trying to hold on to my carnivorous roots, it’s not working out so well for me – I rebelled when all my friends became vegetarian and I have a hard time eating my words).

It’s amazing how without even intending to make a huge change in my life, I have done so anyway. And I actually feel really good about it. Partially because, well if even a fraction of what they said was true about the slaughterhouses I can’t eat meat in good conscience. I was happy being blissfully unaware but now that I know I do think it may just be time to make that change in my life. I don’t know how I feel about being vegan because well, I haven’t cooked in about a year and it is hard to find easily available vegan food. I will try to be as vegan as possible but I don’t know that I can go the whole 9 yards that the girls tell ya to go.

And I would truly recommend this book to anyone. I mean you don’t have to believe what these women believe to find this to be an interesting read. If nothing else it makes you well informed. I may not stay vegetarian or vegan for long but the information that I have gathered here has certainly changed me and will stay with me for the rest of my life. I think that just changing your mindset and your outlook on life can be helpful and these women just put it so well in the book. I think one of my favourite passages was one about carbs when they start ranting about how only idiots don’t eat carbs. Having been an athlete, I have known about the virtue of carbs for years – trust me crew coaches don’t let you get away with not eating carbs.

The other thing I really love about the book is that it gives you a place to put all that energy most women spend about obsessing about being skinny. It gives you so many things to think about that are truly interesting and ways to change your life that are not difficult. Most of all it uses common sense that people can relate to easily. I mean what’s better than a book that tells you, come on idiot just use your brain, think about what you’re doing and you’ll be fine. It’s pretty awesome, at least I certainly think so.

You Know It’s Bad When…

by rhealitycheck

The guy that checks to make sure your x-rays are readable comes out and says, “So, what did you do to your foot?! Did you, like, fall or something?”
My response, “Uh, no.” [insert pause] “Why?”
His response, “Oh nothing, you know, I just, uh, wanted to get some info for the doctor, you know to give them some history. So if my hand were your foot can you describe where it hurts?”
[brief pause as I look at his hand]
Guy again “does it hurt like here around the toes… like the big toe?”
Me “not really… actually it hurts below them and on the side.”
Him “Oh… well the exit is that way.”

So now I wait for the doctor to call and let me know exactly what I did to myself. Personally, I think it’s pretty funny and my foot really doesn’t hurt that badly anymore. I chalk it up to finally getting some decent sleep and deciding to give myself a break, regardless of what work or school seems to think. Well that and the fact that I’ve stopped walking funny on it, my doctor pointed out when she did her exam that I’ve actually been favoring the side of my foot that hurts, so I have consciously been trying to walk normally and it has been feeling better. So maybe that was part of the problem. I guess I’ll just have to wait and see.

Next time, I surely will not go running when my foot is already smarting. Lesson learned.

Mysterious Injuries

by rhealitycheck

I’ve always been a bit accident-prone and I know that but I don’t let it stop me from being active. I mean if I did I think I would end up in a padded room somewhere just so I could not end up with mystery bruises. But the latest installment of mystery injuries is actually fairly sever and I’m trying to figure out what happened. So I went running the past two days and the first day my right foot was smarting just a bit after I had cooled down and was walking home from the gym. I didn’t really think much of it and carried on with life as usual. Then I decided to go running the next day but my foot had been a little irritable all day but nothing severe enough to cause me reason to pause. By the middle of my run it was a little painful off/on so I cut it short to ask the trainer what they think. First they asked what happened and I told them “I haven’t been running in a couple of weeks and I just got back on yesterday and went back to running as usual and then came back for a second round today. There was honestly nothing else that I can think of that was unusual.” And it’s true there was absolutely nothing unusual about my run or even after my run that would have made me think that the two were related. So I am scheduled to see my doctor and get an x-ray tomorrow and I suppose I will just have to wait and see about what might be wrong and how I got this mystery injury.

The Ever Present Obsession with Losing Weight in America

by rhealitycheck

Imagine my distress as I am reading this morning in the paper about a new method of stapling your stomach where the surgery does not require cutting. I am quite serious and this appears to be quite real and if you’d like to read the article you should click here. I have always found it distressing when women (or men) want to get surgery in order to lose weight. Perhaps I am wrong but I just feel that the healthy way to do it is through diet and exercise. And I do realize that everyone’s body is different and it can be more difficult for some than it is for others which can be disheartening but I also think that it is our own responsibility to take care of our bodies. You cannot just allow yourself to balloon out and then expect a surgery to fix it.

Now I am no exception to the rule, I have my own set of insecurities about my own weight as do most women that I’ve met in the US. (Quite frankly many women from other parts of the world seem to have a healthier view of their bodies, perhaps not leaps and bounds healthier but it’s not quite as hyped up as it is here in the states, at least when I base this on my friends circle.) And I know that in recent years I have really let go and I really need to kick it up a notch but I am not going to let my hectic schedule talk me into a surgery that could possibly be damaging to my health. I mean how much do we know about “shrinking” your stomach. Somehow that just strikes me as a bad idea that could lead to all sorts of negative side effects and serious complications should you not be able to comply with your dietary restrictions.

It’s funny because I don’t think Americans have *always* been obsessed with being slender. I look back at the time of Marilyn Monroe and in those days having curves was sexy. In fact, that was the typical image of a model, it wasn’t those stick thin coat hangars that we call models these days. My theory (and I could certainly be wrong) is that this all changed when Audrey Hepburn came on the scene. No actress/model/famous woman had ever made it so glamorous or “cool” to be thin as she did. I mean let’s face it Audrey Hepburn is still an icon of class and beauty that is unparalleled. (I may be biased, I am also a little in love with her). But it saddens me to think that my most favourite icon of all time could have been partially responsible for this drastic shift in what is a beautiful body. I mean before her time women were supposed to have hourglass figures, which I will admit can also be a bit unrealistic but I think it gives a little more room for imperfection than the coat hangar look.

Don’t get me wrong I love Audrey Hepburn and I think that thin women without an hourglass shape can be beautiful too I just think it has lead to an obsession with losing weight and being thin. It would be great if we could get rid of the stigma of not being stick thin but also maintain an idea of what healthy is so that this country wouldn’t have such a problem with obesity. I believe there is a happy medium and somehow I think that we should be able to attain it.