I went to the home opener for our local minor league hockey team this past weekend. There aren't any pro sports teams here in Syracuse so the minor league teams get a lot of attention. Syracuse ended up winning 6-1 (which is a rarity if you are familiar with Syracuse Crunch hockey)and the fans were very into it. There were a couple of really good fights and it was a nearly perfect evening. Unfortunately, the woman sitting in the seat next to me and the children sitting behind me made it difficult to completely enjoy myself.
First of all, I hate people who show up late for sporting events. Especially when its the first game of the season. They had already introduced all the players and sang the national anthem when a morbidly obese woman and her family sat in our row. My problem is not with this large woman attending the game. My problem is with her sitting next to me, a stranger, instead of next to one of the three people that she was related to that came in with her. The seats at the War Memorial are similar to most older arenas: stadium-style, flip down, metal seats. When this woman sat down beside me, her body not only took up her chair but spilled into half of my chair despite the arm rests built in on either side of each seat. I was forced to turn sideways because I couldn't sit all the way back in my seat. I was visibly uncomfortable but she did not change her seat. I don't think I could have said something to her without coming across as some sort of "Fat Hater". The worst part of it was that her husband kept getting up to buy food and she was eating through 2 straight periods. It was very difficult not to have very rude comments going through my head the entire night. I was extremely sore by the time we left the game and had a hard time falling asleep when I got home without the help of Advil and a heating pad.
When people ride on planes and are too large for one seat the airline makes them buy two tickets. I know that this can be embarrassing for the person but I can't feel sorry for them. You knew you were that large when you walked in the door and you knew that you're butt wasn't going to fit into those little seats. This has happened to me before at the movies and on airplanes and it just sucks. So why people should act surprised or offended when people bring up their size is a mystery to me. If no one points out that you won't fit into one seat then will you magically fit? Is it fair to the other patrons that they will be uncomfortable because someone wanted to be politically correct and not point out your obvious size? Much like rides at amusement parks that show height and weight limitations, arenas and other public setting need to start doing the same thing. With more than half of this country obese, this problem is only going to get worse.
The children issue is one that I 100% blame on the parents. Much like dogs who misbehave, it's the owner's fault that the dog is bad and their responsibility to train him to be a good citizen. Kids kicking my seat, elbowing me in the head, smacking me with their hands while they jump around like monkeys on Ritalin, shaking my chair, yelling in my ear, etc. remind me of why I don't want to have children. There are plenty of well behaved kids but they never seem to be sitting next to me. The parents seem happy to have their children entertained for a few hours and just let them act up. My parents would have never let my brother and I get away with that sort of thing. They would have told us that we were being rude and made us apologize to the person and then apologized themselves. And really, one icy stare from a stranger after you kick their seat is generally enough for the average kid to realize that they're annoying someone and cut it out. Once again, this is a theme that repeats itself in movie theaters and on airplanes. I suspect that a lot of these kids will grow up to be rude adults, much like their parents. Parenting seems to end for some people right around the time the umbilical cord is cut.
Short of flying first class or buying an entire section of seats at sporting events and concerts, I don't think this problem is going to go away. But I have to admit that my bias towards morbidly obese people and people with children continues to grow with each negative experience. I picture myself living in one of those communities that don't allow children when I get older and going to 4:30 early bird dinner specials to limit my exposure. Either that or barricading myself in a house at the top of very steep hill that only moderately fit people and people with long legs can climb.
Showing posts with label Obesity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Obesity. Show all posts
Monday, October 12, 2009
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Fat Karate Instructors
I have studied martial arts since 1995 and one thing that has always amazed me is how many morbidly obese karate instructors there are out there. Now I'll admit that I need to lose about 20 lbs and cut my body fat in half to be at a healthy body weight but I am very average size for a woman. These people must have been in top physical condition at some point and then they just let it all go. We all gain weight over the years but there is a difference between needing to go up a couple of sizes in your clothes and having to buy your pants online.
My first karate instructor was awesome. He was right out of a movie: middle aged, super fit, kind of scary. He spent most of time during class teaching techniques to the students; he rarely worked out with us. It was obvious that he was working out on his own time to maintain that level of fitness. When we went to karate tournaments or seminars I would notice how some of the other instructors were really fat. I was glad that they weren't my instructor and wondered how beneficial their training was to their students.
I understand how it happens. You become a 5th degree black belt and open your own karate school. There isn't anyone there to challenge you so you have to have the willpower to challenge yourself or seek out people who are more knowledgeable than you to continue to grow as a martial artist. So you spend all your time building your school and passing your knowledge along to your students. That ravenous appetite that you had when you were working out 12 hours a week is still there but you are no longer working out regularly so the pounds start piling on. The food is filling the hole that karate once filled. If you don't find another hobby to commit yourself to once you stop regular karate training then overeating is just as easy a vice to pick up as any.
A handful of my karate friends turned to excessive drinking and partying when they stopped practicing regularly. Others gained weight. Some found something else to fill that part of their life: children, spouses, a new career, etc. I'm sure it might seem odd to someone who isn't a martial artist to understand how karate can be such an important part of a persons life. What you have to understand is that a martial artist, a true martial artist, not someone who took a few classes at their local mall franchise karate school, but a real martial artist is defined by their practice. Before I started karate I didn't have a sense of who I was. It was like there was this piece of me missing that I could never explain and karate was the answer. My self esteem, my friends, my personal choices, everything changed after I started karate. When I stopped practicing karate after 10 years of consistent training I lost myself. A new job, moving to a new house, meeting my husband all took my attention for a while. But while I found myself fulfilled in areas of my life that I hadn't been previously I still felt off. It wasn't until I started training again this year, after 4 years off, that I felt like I was myself again. i proudly show off my bruises and complain about my sore muscles. I feel like a martial artist again and I love it.
My previous three karate instructors were morbidly obese. I found fault at each of these schools because the training didn't compare to the training that I had received at my first school. It wasn't until after I left these schools that I realized that each of these men were miserable. That they had lost themselves at some point and that they weren't happy in their lives. I wasn't in a position to help them and honestly, even if I had inquired, I doubt I would have been able to do anything to help them. My current karate instructor reminds me of my first instructor. He is intense but happy. His life appears to be in balance. He works out with us all the time and talks about his workouts outside of the dojo. I feel like I have found a great school to train in for the first time in a long time but I can't help but think of the instructors that I have left behind and where life has taken them. They remind me of how dangerous it can be not to cultivate my spirit. I will not let myself become like them; I will not lose myself.
My first karate instructor was awesome. He was right out of a movie: middle aged, super fit, kind of scary. He spent most of time during class teaching techniques to the students; he rarely worked out with us. It was obvious that he was working out on his own time to maintain that level of fitness. When we went to karate tournaments or seminars I would notice how some of the other instructors were really fat. I was glad that they weren't my instructor and wondered how beneficial their training was to their students.
I understand how it happens. You become a 5th degree black belt and open your own karate school. There isn't anyone there to challenge you so you have to have the willpower to challenge yourself or seek out people who are more knowledgeable than you to continue to grow as a martial artist. So you spend all your time building your school and passing your knowledge along to your students. That ravenous appetite that you had when you were working out 12 hours a week is still there but you are no longer working out regularly so the pounds start piling on. The food is filling the hole that karate once filled. If you don't find another hobby to commit yourself to once you stop regular karate training then overeating is just as easy a vice to pick up as any.
A handful of my karate friends turned to excessive drinking and partying when they stopped practicing regularly. Others gained weight. Some found something else to fill that part of their life: children, spouses, a new career, etc. I'm sure it might seem odd to someone who isn't a martial artist to understand how karate can be such an important part of a persons life. What you have to understand is that a martial artist, a true martial artist, not someone who took a few classes at their local mall franchise karate school, but a real martial artist is defined by their practice. Before I started karate I didn't have a sense of who I was. It was like there was this piece of me missing that I could never explain and karate was the answer. My self esteem, my friends, my personal choices, everything changed after I started karate. When I stopped practicing karate after 10 years of consistent training I lost myself. A new job, moving to a new house, meeting my husband all took my attention for a while. But while I found myself fulfilled in areas of my life that I hadn't been previously I still felt off. It wasn't until I started training again this year, after 4 years off, that I felt like I was myself again. i proudly show off my bruises and complain about my sore muscles. I feel like a martial artist again and I love it.
My previous three karate instructors were morbidly obese. I found fault at each of these schools because the training didn't compare to the training that I had received at my first school. It wasn't until after I left these schools that I realized that each of these men were miserable. That they had lost themselves at some point and that they weren't happy in their lives. I wasn't in a position to help them and honestly, even if I had inquired, I doubt I would have been able to do anything to help them. My current karate instructor reminds me of my first instructor. He is intense but happy. His life appears to be in balance. He works out with us all the time and talks about his workouts outside of the dojo. I feel like I have found a great school to train in for the first time in a long time but I can't help but think of the instructors that I have left behind and where life has taken them. They remind me of how dangerous it can be not to cultivate my spirit. I will not let myself become like them; I will not lose myself.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
The Biggest Loser
I am totally obsessed with all forms of weight loss, make over and surgery reality shows. My perfect show would start with someone losing 100 lbs, then having plastic surgery to remove the excess skin and then have a fabulous style and life makeover to fit their new healthy body. When the Biggest Loser first came out I was obsessed with the show. But, like most things, I have found that I don't enjoy it any more and the show has definitely lost its purpose.
What I don't understand is why people have to be kicked off these shows. What would be so terrible about letting everyone stay in the house and benefit from the expert advice for as long as they can? You have a better chance of teaching these people how to lead healthy lives if you have them for 12 weeks rather than 1 weeks. Then they can take what they've learned home to their families. If I got kicked off the first week on the show and still had 100 lbs to lose I would feel like I was no better off then when I first started. What had they taught me? That I wasn't fit or popular enough as the other fat kids so I needed to go home? Well that's a great self esteem boost. These people know they are a mess. That's why they come to the show. And you just confirm that they are not good enough by kicking them off and telling them to go it on their own. Well if they could go it on their own they wouldn't have needed to sign up for the show!!
If no one got kicked off, the show would still reward the person with the most significant weight loss but it would get rid of the popularity factor. Alliances are formed every season and people are often kicked off the show because people don't like them or are threatened by them. These are people who have been ridiculed for most of their lives and feel horrible about themselves and all this show does is turn contestants into the same jerks that used to ridicule them. I find myself routing against many of the contestants by the end of the show because they have become such miserable people.
I remember in the earlier seasons that everyone was pulling for the success of all of the participants. Yes, it was still a competition but more importantly it was about not being morbidly obese and taking control of your life. Even the trainers have turned into children, forming cliques with certain contestants, talking about other contestants behind their backs. It is just sad. And the overly staged product placement is completely out of hand. Clearly you are making a ton of money off endorsements. You don't have to shove it in our faces so shamelessly.
And why isn't there a therapist on this show? No one gets to be morbidly obese and doesn't have any emotional issues that caused it. By treating the symptom (being fat) and not the cause you are just setting that person up for failure long term. I remember seeing an Oprah Show several years back about people who had developed new addictions after having gastric bypass surgery. There were sex addicts, alcoholics, compulsive gamblers, etc. The bottom line was that whatever had caused their food addiction or emotional eating in the first place had not been cured. I've heard that you're not ready to tackle any diet plan unless you can truthfully answer these three questions: Why are you overweight? Why do you want to lose weight? and Why haven't you been able to maintain weight loss in the past? Without showing the contestants and the viewers at home that losing weight is more than just starving yourself and working out they are setting everyone up for failure.
The saddest part of all of this is that many of the former winners and contestants who lost a lot of weight have gained the weight back. Because the show didn't teach them how to maintain a healthy diet and exercise program for life. It taught them how to eat much less most normal people eat and then has them work out for 4-8 hours a day. There is no job, no family, no responsibilities to schedule your eating and workouts around. No taste of any of the factors that derail us in the real world. They don't talk about these failures on the show. They just keep bringing back the successful losers to motivate the current losers with the illusion that what they are doing at the Biggest Loser ranch will translate to real life. It's not much of a reality show at this point.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Running From My Family History
Most of my girl friends over the years have been thick. I met most of them through sports so while most of us needed to lose a few pounds we were all very athletic and pretty healthy. Over the years we have all let ourselves go gaining any where from 20-120 lbs. There are various excuses (some legitimate but most not) for our weight gain but the bottom line is that we aren't working as hard as we used to even though we don't want to admit it. At this point we are set in our ways and don't want to stop eating wings every Thursday night even though we're no longer running 20 miles a week. But we still expect to drop the weight that it took us years to gain in a matter of weeks with minimal effort.
Recently, three of my girlfriends figured it out and have been able to drop the weight due to major life events. Two to get ready for their weddings and one because the doctor wouldn't perform fertility treatments until she lost weight. I wish that I was as noble as them but my main motivation is completely shallow: I don't want to be the fat friend. I don't want to stick out in pictures. I want to wear the sexy clothes that I used to wear when we went out dancing and not the flaw-hiding conservative clothes I'm wearing now. I want people to tell me how good I look and ask if I've lost weight. I want to open my closet and fit everything in it. I want to look like a runner and not have people look at me like I don't belong when I line up for road races. I guess I don't want to stick out because I'm fat but I do want to be noticed for being fit.
I come from a long line of fat people. Almost everyone in my family becomes morbidly obese once they reach a certain age. They all have diabetes and high blood sugar and eventually die from weight-related illnesses. They are not active. Every event whether happy or sad is commemorated with a large table of deep fried food. You are insulted if you are too fat and equally insulted if you are too skinny. My mother was skinny her whole life and gained weight when my father became ill. All the comments from my family were still negative they just shifted from skinny comments to fat comments. She has started to lose the weight so of course the attempts at sabotage through mean comments have started again. Literally, the first thing out of a lot of my relatives mouth is "Wow you've gained weight" or "Damn your so skinny why don't you eat" and not the normal hello that most people would find appropriate. It's no wonder we all have weight and self esteem issues.
Me, my mom and two of my cousins are working to try and be the exception to the rule. We are trying to live long productive lives at healthy weights. When we go to family functions we have to learn to be strong enough to ignore their comments. We cannot let their negativity derail us because, realistically, that's what they want. They want us to be just like them. If we're all fat then it must be okay. I can't tell you how many times I've been told that "we" (black people or people from the south) are just naturally thicker. There is nothing natural about the 4000 calories that most of us take in at a family dinner or my 32 year old cousin being put on a 1200 calorie a day diet to keep her from developing type 2 diabetes.
While I have lost 15 pounds so far on my weight loss journey, I have been struggling for the past month. I have found myself slipping back into my old habits and giving myself permission to slack. I let myself get cocky because the 15 pounds came off in 10 weeks. But the fact that no additional weight has come off in the past 5 weeks and the fluctuation in the scale by 2-3 pounds on an off week is the wake up call that I need. I will have issues with food for the rest of my life. I will always need to be careful with what I eat because of my family history. I can never go back to eating whatever I want every day. I have to care enough about myself to try harder and stick with it.
Realistically, I don't think I can lose the 40-50 lbs that would put me in the ideal weight range for my height. I think those charts are not specific enough. Every women that is 5'6" does not need to weigh 145 lbs. We are all built differently. I haven't weighed that much since I graduated from high school and I had very little muscle tone then and injured myself frequently. I do think I can lose another 20-30 lbs and get my body fat down into a healthier range. Am I going to run 20 miles a week and do karate 4 days a week like I did at my peak? Of course not. But I can do a lot more than I'm doing now.
For now, I will be walking very briskly from my family history and working to run from it. I refuse to spend another year of my life being fat and feeling bad about myself. I will not continue to hold on to clothes that I haven't been able to wear for years or that I have never taken the tags off. When I open my closet all of the clothes will be in my size, whatever it is at that point. I will be whoever I am by the end of this year. I just hope that person looks a lot more like she did 5 years ago and not like the person that I see today.
Recently, three of my girlfriends figured it out and have been able to drop the weight due to major life events. Two to get ready for their weddings and one because the doctor wouldn't perform fertility treatments until she lost weight. I wish that I was as noble as them but my main motivation is completely shallow: I don't want to be the fat friend. I don't want to stick out in pictures. I want to wear the sexy clothes that I used to wear when we went out dancing and not the flaw-hiding conservative clothes I'm wearing now. I want people to tell me how good I look and ask if I've lost weight. I want to open my closet and fit everything in it. I want to look like a runner and not have people look at me like I don't belong when I line up for road races. I guess I don't want to stick out because I'm fat but I do want to be noticed for being fit.
I come from a long line of fat people. Almost everyone in my family becomes morbidly obese once they reach a certain age. They all have diabetes and high blood sugar and eventually die from weight-related illnesses. They are not active. Every event whether happy or sad is commemorated with a large table of deep fried food. You are insulted if you are too fat and equally insulted if you are too skinny. My mother was skinny her whole life and gained weight when my father became ill. All the comments from my family were still negative they just shifted from skinny comments to fat comments. She has started to lose the weight so of course the attempts at sabotage through mean comments have started again. Literally, the first thing out of a lot of my relatives mouth is "Wow you've gained weight" or "Damn your so skinny why don't you eat" and not the normal hello that most people would find appropriate. It's no wonder we all have weight and self esteem issues.
Me, my mom and two of my cousins are working to try and be the exception to the rule. We are trying to live long productive lives at healthy weights. When we go to family functions we have to learn to be strong enough to ignore their comments. We cannot let their negativity derail us because, realistically, that's what they want. They want us to be just like them. If we're all fat then it must be okay. I can't tell you how many times I've been told that "we" (black people or people from the south) are just naturally thicker. There is nothing natural about the 4000 calories that most of us take in at a family dinner or my 32 year old cousin being put on a 1200 calorie a day diet to keep her from developing type 2 diabetes.
While I have lost 15 pounds so far on my weight loss journey, I have been struggling for the past month. I have found myself slipping back into my old habits and giving myself permission to slack. I let myself get cocky because the 15 pounds came off in 10 weeks. But the fact that no additional weight has come off in the past 5 weeks and the fluctuation in the scale by 2-3 pounds on an off week is the wake up call that I need. I will have issues with food for the rest of my life. I will always need to be careful with what I eat because of my family history. I can never go back to eating whatever I want every day. I have to care enough about myself to try harder and stick with it.
Realistically, I don't think I can lose the 40-50 lbs that would put me in the ideal weight range for my height. I think those charts are not specific enough. Every women that is 5'6" does not need to weigh 145 lbs. We are all built differently. I haven't weighed that much since I graduated from high school and I had very little muscle tone then and injured myself frequently. I do think I can lose another 20-30 lbs and get my body fat down into a healthier range. Am I going to run 20 miles a week and do karate 4 days a week like I did at my peak? Of course not. But I can do a lot more than I'm doing now.
For now, I will be walking very briskly from my family history and working to run from it. I refuse to spend another year of my life being fat and feeling bad about myself. I will not continue to hold on to clothes that I haven't been able to wear for years or that I have never taken the tags off. When I open my closet all of the clothes will be in my size, whatever it is at that point. I will be whoever I am by the end of this year. I just hope that person looks a lot more like she did 5 years ago and not like the person that I see today.
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