(no subject)

[stakebait]

Connecticut now has same-sex civil unions! Yay!

Unfortunately, the Texas house passed a ban on gay foster parents -- not to mention the poor transsexuals, who get lumped in here for no reason I can figure -- and Microsoft pulled its support for a gay rights bill. But hey, accentuate the positive.

(Thanks to liberalrage for the first and last links, and many, many folks for the second).

An article on the new exercise recommendations, and the relationship between exercise, weight, and health. Among other things, it mentions that physically fit obese people have much lower death rates than physically unfit normal weight people. Also, people who are overweight but not obese have lower health risk than normal weight. Not that that helps me, but it does explain the folk wisdom that a little extra weight is healthy.

Comments

[chicken-cem.livejournal.com]

As important as the rights are, this is not yet equality.

*sigh* I'm just happy to be moving to Massachusetts, where my marriage will be completely legal!

The weight stuff is interesting -- I think as in all things, humans should seek a happy medium, neither anorexic nor obese, but somewhere in the middle, pleasingly plump.

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

Yay for Massachusetts! Still, it's a big step towards equality, and I'll take it. Or I would if I were in CT, and, you know, married.

[batyatoon]

[OT: icon-love!]

[seerinc.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but the problem is what the government considers to be obese.
I am considered to be obese by BMI standards.

The only fat on my is my gut. And the government/health studies like to state that when a man goes over the 40" waist mark- there's no turning back.

Im gonna go eat a box of ho-ho's and cry now. LOL

Seriously though... They need to get away from the BMI scale and go to the body fat index. Its alot more revealing.

[seerinc.livejournal.com]

And as for the same sex marraiges et al...Gov't needs to keep their collective noses out of people affairs. It is hard enough to find ove and when someone is lucky enough to do so, noone should be able to tell that it's not real and legal, just b/c they share the same reproductive organs.
Marraige for procreative sake is the realm of religion- not state.
My wife and I can't have kids, so does that mean that we shouldn't be considered a legal marriage?

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

Good points. I only wish more people felt the same.

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

*nodsnodsnods* on the standards -- I'm obese by anyone's standards, so I don't pay too much attention to the details, but I've heard before that they're not as useful as they could be.

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

*nodsnodsnods*

Presumably a normal weight physically fit person has the lowest risk of all -- or a slightly above normal weight one, given the other article -- but normal weight doesn't make you fit automatically.

It's also a useful incentive to me to work on becoming a physically fit fat person, which seems like both a more achievable and a less mentally fraught goal than becoming an unfat one. Not that I'm going for 60-90 minutes a day, but "more activity than I get now" seems like a doable thing.

I walked blocks and blocks last night checking out city owned gyms, so even if I don't join one the walking was a plus, right? :)

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

I haven't been -- I don't know zoeth, but I don't read *anybody's* fitness filter if there's weight loss even peripherally involved, not even my girlfriend's. I don't doubt the healthiness of their mindset, I just know the unhealthiness of mine if I give it that particular stimuli.

Re: real women have muscles

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

I dunno if it would preclude you going to a gym, but it might mean you'd need an expert to help design your workout around the problem areas, and that often costs extra. Anyway there's no point if you're comfy doing it at home. I want a gym because you can't swing a cat in my apartment and the people downstairs can hear every step I take. Plus there's too many distractions around. :)

At this point my number one priority is to improve my cardiovascular stamina so I can dance longer and climb more stairs without panting. Priority two is to strengthen whatever would help my lower back and knees (and ankles would be okay too, they haven't given me trouble recently but they've been weak since childhood.)

Re: real women have muscles

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

I live four flights up and have no choice but to walk it, but most days that's the only exercise I get. I'd love to get to the point where I can do it without resting on floor 3 more than once in a blue moon.

I used to take yoga, am thinking of the other two, so good to know they all help. :)

Re: real women have muscles

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

I lied. I live three flights up, on the fourth floor. Which is Quite Enough.

Re: real women have muscles

[doeeyedbunny.livejournal.com]

Priority two is to strengthen whatever would help my lower back and knees

If you want, I could give you some pointers on those...

Re: real women have muscles

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

Couldn't hurt, thanks! I just got some exercises and stretches for that from my doc, too.

Verdict on so-cheap-they're-free gyms so far:

Asser Levy, convenient but not a comfy atmosphhere

Chelsea -- lovely facility and good feel, but enough out of the way that I wonder if I'd go. And no outdoor pool.

Clarkson St. -- friendly, but neither all that comfy nor convenient.

Must to check out Hamilton Fish and the 54th St. one, and then decide whether to go for the city option or look for something else.

Re: real women have muscles

[doeeyedbunny.livejournal.com]

I've got carpal tunnel and tendonitis and I've been weight lifting for two years now. There are ways around it. In my case, I have a trainer who designs exercises that work around my limitations, but also help strengthen the weak parts. Even if you can't afford a trainer on a regular basis, working with one even a few times can be really beneficial in teaching you ways to work out despite existing injuries - kinda like physical therapy.

There's also pleanty of weight lifting to do with the lower body too.

[dragovianknight.livejournal.com]

Who has an extra 90 minutes a day to work out? It'd be nice if these gov't thinkers remembered that some of us work more than one job.

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

Lord only knows. Even those of us who don't work more than one job have Other Stuff To Do. It's like, 8 hour day, plus commute of 1-3 hours, plus 8 hours of sleep, plus an hour of getting ready in the morning -- that's 17-20 hours already. Add dinner and 1.5 hours of exercise, and when are people supposed to raise kids, see spouse, do laundry, let alone have a hobby?

Though at least by activity they don't so much seem to mean "work out" as just "move" so some people may be covering that, or some of it, on the job.

[dragovianknight.livejournal.com]

I'm not saying it's impossible, just that it would help not to have family, hobbies, or a particular attachment to getting a full night's sleep.

[meko00.livejournal.com]

Oh, the BMI is misleading. Still, 30 mins of exercise and healthier food can do wonders for your physical fitness if not for your actual weight. Of course, I'm within my BMI, so I suppose it's easy for me to say. My cholesterol is too high (hereditary thing), and I was told by one of my doctors that just exercising 30 mins three times a week was better than nothing, so I guess that would be true for you US people, too.

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

Makes sense. Right now I exercise an hour once a week, plus three hours once a month, plus unpredictable randomness when the mood, need, or opportunity comes up. I'm looking into some ways to get that up to 2 or 3 times a week without killing my tiny quotient of free time.

FWIW going vegetarian brought my boss's cholesterol down when nothing else did, but it seems a bit drastic.

[meko00.livejournal.com]

Actually, I think that it's better to exercise half an hour twice a week than an hour once a week, though I realise it'd be hard to find time some days. It's the habitual moving of body parts that's important, not the occasional burst of strenuous activity, as (medical explanation I'm too hazy with headcold to remember at the moment).

Ugh! I love fish and meat far too much to go all-out vegetarian. Besides, I'm not actually on any medication, as of yet anyway. But thanks for the tip, I'll keep it in mind. :-)

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

It probably is, but belly dance classes don't come in 1/2 hour intervals, so there we go then.

[meko00.livejournal.com]

That sounds very exotic. Also, fun. :-) Is it hard to learn?

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

It's not hard, at least not the way I do it. I'm sure Major Serious Bellydance Pros take years of dedication, but the rest of us can muddle along okay.

I take caberet, which is more moves but no improv. thebratqueen takes tribal, which is less moves but lots of improv. If there's a class near you, you should try it! The outfits are way more fun than sweatpants.

[feonixrift.livejournal.com]

Well, the fish should help with the "good" to "bad" fat balance quite a bit, so you should be in better shape than meat'n'potatoes folks, assuming your fish aren't too full of environmental toxins.

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

Argh, xpeaking of, how bummed am I about the NYTimes article that found almost everything being sold as wild-caught salmon isn't? I love salmon, and would happily eat it two or three times a week if that didn't mean there was more mercury in my bloodstream than a household thermometer.

[feonixrift.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'd love to eat fish if I weren't so disturbed by the toxin issue, and not just the mercury although it's a large part of it. Aquatic ecosystems are far more vulnerable to pollution than land/air based ones, and well, since we don't live there, that's where most of our filth ends up.

[chaos-wrangler.livejournal.com]

G & I saw the weight story on TV and I kept muttering "no..." and "but..." and "duh..." and such.

Start with the apparent ignorance of the difference (or even that there is a difference) between correlation and causation. Does being overweight* cause better health or just correlate with it?

Or does it depend on the person? Someone who weighs a few "extra" pounds and doesn't spend all their time worrying about their weight is going to be more healthy mentally/emotionally than someone who is "normal"** weight-wise and constantly freaking out. Since mental/emotional health often correlates with and (for at least some people) contributes to physical health...


*When does it switch from being "good" overweight to being "bad" overweight - at the line between "overweight" and "obese"? I don't think so, but no article/report that I've seen/heard has been clear on this.

**I was also irked by this categorization, which seemed to be coming straight from the study. I don't think that's the right word for what they're talking about, since the average weight it higher than "normal", as they keep reminding us with the obesity stats.

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

*nodsnods* Mixing correlation with causation is almost universal in these kinds of articles. And I suspect the answer is, they don't know yet. But I'm heartened that they're studying it, and studying it scrupulously enough that they can get findings they wouldn't have expected. For so long it seemed like the connections between food/weight/exercise/health were almost a matter of faith, to be assumed rather than tested.

[doeeyedbunny.livejournal.com]

Yay Connecticut!

Any word on residency requirements?

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

Hadn't heard, but it's a good question.