Leonard Nimoy, Naked Fat Ladies, and Healthism

Dances With Fat

Leonard Nimoy passed away today at the age of 83 after a long and successful career that included acting (of course, developing the role of Spock on Star Trek) and directing (including the box office smash Three Men and a Baby.)  He also sang, wrote poetry, and was a photographer.

One of his photography projects was called “The Full Body Project” (images NSFW) and was comprised of pictures – many of them nude – of fat women. And it is absolutely glorious.

According to a piece in Mashable (images NSFW) Nimoy told Natalie Angier, who wrote the introduction to The Full Body Project that:

“He was deeply troubled upon hearing that most women felt some degree of body shame.It really disturbed him that women who considered themselves overweight had this terrible feeling about themselves. He wanted to show the world that there’s beauty to be found in different…

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Home workout -18 minutes of work: Kettlebell edition #2

Warm up

Circuit 1: Set timer for 6 rounds 45 seconds work and 15 seconds rest.
1) Figure eight squats
2) Single leg pushups-R
3) Single leg deadlift & single arm kettlebell row – R
4) Single leg pushups-L
5) Single leg deadlift & single arm kettlebell row-L
6) Jump rope

2 minutes rest.

Circuit 2: Set timer for 6 rounds 45 seconds work and 15 seconds rest.
1) Kettlebell swings
2) Weighted sit ups
3) Kettelbell squat & press (two handed)
4) Windmill-R
5) Windmill-L
6) Plank jacks

2 minutes rest.

Circuit 3: Set timer for 6 rounds of 45 seconds work and 15 seconds rest.
1) Kettlebell sumo squat & high pull
2) Back extensions (on floor or exercise ball)
3) Russian twists
4) Alt. side lateral lunges
5) Dive bombers pushups
6) Squat jumps

Cool down

Hungry

I have been hungrier than usual lately. Not sure why since my activities levels haven’t really gone up. If anything, they have gone down because we are freezing our asses off up here in Canada and getting burried in snow. It makes dog walking a special kind of work. The kind of work where you do a ton of it but don’t get very far for your efforts. (Fitocracy really needs a “walked hiked trudged with dog through snow” option.)

Managing hunger can be a tricky thing. Personnally, I find I am hungry a lot. Even after eating a respectable meal. I was watching a youtube video the other day where a power lifter said hunger was never really a problem for her. I started the video over and watched it again. The idea of not needing to manage hunger seems so foreign. It is not something I have experienced. I always wake up hungry for breakfast. I have been waking up wanting a peanut butter sandwich above all else. I then have my usual breakfast. I have experimented with various eating schedules, meal frequencies, and meal sizes to see if one was best for managing my hunger. Ultimatley, I didn’t really notice a difference in over all hunger levels between having three large meals a day versus 5-7 small meals per day.

Oh so funny . . . .

This is what being at work feels like much of the time. I just can’t always tell if I am the lemming jumping off the cliff or a lemming holding a point card.

:P Diets

Every other day there is a “new” article repeating the same bits of pseudoscience and other fluff about how many diet mistakes you are making. They all say the same things over and over based on cherry-picked bits of research that the author may or may not have actually spent any real time trying to understand. All these writers could save themselves and other people from all sorts of questionable advice with the following article:

How many diet errors are you making?

The Answer: One. Just one. You are dieting.
How to fix it: Stop dieting. Screw the entire dieting mentality! Eat the food.

Whew. That was hard work to write. I am going to go take a break now.

Weight Watchers? Ick No Thanks

Today I was talking about the problem of chronic under eating and over exercise with one co-worker and the conversation lead to how the weight loss industry sells us the magical weight loss lie/pill: You just have to do what they say and have enough will power (to semi-starve yourself) to stick with it and you will get thin and then you can be happy with body you have always wanted. (Not sure if my points were sinking in with my co-worker but I tried.) Another co-worker walked in and asked if we were talking about Jenny Craig (she made a face when she said Jenny Craig). I said I was talking about any weight loss industry company selling the same basic false promises and lies for profit, Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers etc. take your pick.

Well, my other co-worker got all defensive about Weight Watchers . . . “Weight Watchers isn’t like that” she said. Apparently only Jenny Craig sells a lie.

Oops . . . my bad. I forgot to keep my mouth shut and not bash Weight Watchers at work. Our local union supports a Weight Watcher group for employees and gives special rates. They send out a mass email every year trying to recruit the minimum number of participants to keep it going. My work area in particular has a rather loyal little group of WW followers that make going to meetings every month a social outing. Only one year have I had the joy of reading an email saying that the group would not be run because the minimum number of participants had not been reached. I will continue to hope for other such emails in the future.

If you are interested in a summary of the problems with Weight Watchers I recommend the following blog posts:
https://danceswithfat.wordpress.com/2013/05/02/screw-you-weight-watchers/
https://danceswithfat.wordpress.com/2012/06/09/the-thing-about-weight-watchers/

Things Obesity Isn’t

Biscuit the Pug knows what he talking about.

Dances With Fat

Whether it’s in internet articles, comments on internet articles, or e-mails that I get, I see “obesity”/being fat used in comparisons that don’t actually make any sense.   Let’s clear up some of this confusion.

Obesity is not heroin addiction. 

Almost every day I get a couple of people, who think they are geniuses, who leave comments asking if I’m going to start a heroin acceptance movement since it’s the same as size acceptance. These are not comparable because heroin use is a single, specific behavior – everyone heroin addict does heroin.  “Obesity” is the end result of a math equation (weight in pounds time 703 divided by height in inches squared is greater than or equal to 30, a group that includes actors, professional athletes, and me.)  Obese/fat people cannot be identified by a single or even a group of common activities that are different from people who fall…

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Health and the Usual Disclaimers

I wish I had this to read years ago when I worked at gym and was essentially told by my bosses that fat shaming people was for their own good. What a load of bullshit.

Dances With Fat

When I discuss the concept of health on this blog I include some version of the following:

Health is not an obligation, barometer of worthiness, completely within our control, or guaranteed under any circumstance.

Recently reader Deborah asked me to talk more about this so I thought I would do that today, taking it piece by piece

Health is not an obligation

Health is a complicated concept, it can be a moving target and different people have different definitions.  When I say that health is not an obligation, I’m saying that nobody owes anybody else “health” or “healthy” behaviors by any definition. People are allowed to make choices that not only don’t prioritize their “health” based on whatever definition, but that actively put their health, up to and including their lives, in danger.

People are allowed to play sports even though they lead to sports injuries in the short term…

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