Greeting Thread

Since you cover a lot of ground, mind if I call you "Hectare"?

NoCoPilot wrote:

Since you cover a lot of ground, mind if I call you "Hectare"?

No, you cannot call me that. However, you may call me 10'000 Square Meters (or 10000m² for short).

Thanks, Tensquare. Good to have you here.

You came through the atheism network? Good on you. Recently lose your faith or raised rational?

NoCoPilot wrote:

Thanks, Tensquare.  Good to have you here.

You came through the atheism network?  Good on you.  Recently lose your faith or raised rational?

I wouldn't say I was raised religious, but the existed of god was kinda taken as fact with my mom and dad when I was growing up. I was an atheist by middle school though (and my mother is now one as well, happened a few years ago). I was never really taken to church though (just a few times) and my atheism wasn't exactly an issue. We'll say "raised rational". I was raised to think, and so that's what I did.

Yeah, me too. I was "raised Lutheran," did Sunday school (which I hated), forced to take Lutheran confirmation when I turned 16. The deal I made with my parents was that, after taking the confirmation program (which was like 6 months long) I could choose to be confirmed, or not -- my choice.

The poor pastor that ran the class, he had a couple of us unbelievers in the class and we entered into some hard & heavy discussions. At the end of the program I think one person chose to be confirmed, and the other 13 of us all declared our atheism. (I think the pastor had doubts by then too.)

My parents were fine with that. They never went to church again. Years later my mom admitted it was "just something they thought they should do" for us kids. My parents never had any faith. In fact they were big believers in the power of science and raised us to question everything. Both of my sisters ended up with PhDs in science.

hecter wrote:

I was raised to think, and so that's what I did.

And yet that is so hard for some people!

NoCoPilot wrote:

Don't take this the wrong way -- because I'm 50 lbs overweight myself and have no room to talk -- but I believe the only way to lose weight is to eat less.

Eat less and be more active, all the time.  Walking, doing stairs, sweeping, mowing, gardening, anything that keeps you moving.

As I understand it the healthiest exercise for us is to get our heart rates up -- elevated but not huffing and puffing -- for at least five hours per week.  Short bursts are better than long endurance runs.  A couple times per day is better than twice a week.

You said "weight room" and I pictured somebody doing squats with a barbell on her shoulders.  That's a good way to GAIN weight (muscle mass) not lose it.

I believe your belief is intact because you are dealing with small amounts of weight.
I think that's part of the problem with research in the area. The seriously obese with more than 200 to lose are not really the focus of most studies. I've lost close to 200 lbs doing the squats as you describe them. I put a barbell on my back with a hundred pounds on it and I squat. Also muscle mass is exactly what I want. Numbers don't matter to me, if I weighed what I weight and it was muscle I'd shut the hell up. Muscle is way more efficient in burning calories. There is a limit to how little I can eat. It's just not happening. I grew up huge but on diets, if less food were the answer I'd have lost this years ago. My answer has been large amounts of exercise of all kinds but the most effective kind has been the exact programs that body builders or power lifters use.

Right now, I'm in a situation where I have gotten worse because of nerve pain that we really can't do anything about. Exercise didn't cause it. Sugar levels didn't cause it. B-12 deficiency didn't cause it. I do have pain that will get better with weight loss, like back pain. It's severe. But it will get better, unlike the nerve pain. That's what I am aiming for. I can eat well enough to maintain my loss so far but I can't get my calories down far enough to continue to lose. My body is just too damn efficient. I can gain on what most people lose on. I have to have the exercise and right now I'm in too much pain to do it. I can't do less, it won't work. Long distance cardio is out, my body adapts to it. Walking is out. Well, maybe 20 minute puppy rounds. My thigh will go numb and soon after that burn like a torch is being held to it. One of the advantages of the weight room and why I started there is that you can sit. The only things you really have to do standing are squats and deadlifts. I do garden. I sweep, I leaf vacuum, I mow the lawn. In the short bursts I can stand. Again, that does not produce loss for me. It's not bad to do that stuff but I'm not losing the rest of this weight doing that.

My nutrition is pretty damn good. I don't know what a nutritionist could ask except that I eliminate the occasional alcohol and I'm not doing it. I don't eat packaged, processed foods, I don't eat meat, I don't eat dairy, I do eat fresh sometimes from my own garden. I drink as much water as my body needs, about a gallon a day. Today's menu was fruit smoothie with ground flax seed for breakfast, a veggie burger (beets) from the cafe around the corner with a side salad (I tend towards vinaigrettes) and a ponzu noodle stir fry with a glass of St Micheal for dinner. I don't see where I can cut without triggering the metabolism slow down that occurs when I go really low cal.  

You have to understand it's hard to find people who are doing what I'm doing. No one actually does it with no intervention and holds it for years on end. Even on shows like Extreme Makeover they gain it back. In the case of the man from the first show he's gained it back, lost it again, and gained it back again! I have no one to go to for information. All the groups I find are people who have had surgery or are on drugs for it. People like me have metabolic syndrome. We don't process our food the same way other people do. I also have PCOS which makes losing weight difficult. I do know that while my body has gotten smaller it has also gotten more defined underneath the layers of fat. I can feel the changes in my quad, especially. My shoulders. I know how I feel when I exercise and it's good.

I take no offense but I don't know what else to do or how to apply your advice. I don't know what else is in the middle. If I go to easy, just gardening and walking the pups and doing regular activities I don't lose. I do the barbell stuff I lose, I can even lose a lot. A place in the middle- where I don't have to go as hard but I still lose- would be nice but I just don't see it.
I'm re-reading your post. I did try staying active all day but I can't keep it up, the pain gets intense. I have to do all those things- the gardening, the sweeping, the walking, etc in spurts where I sit down after about 20-30 minutes of something.
I need to email my doc about combination therapy. That seems to do well for people.

NoCoPilot wrote:

Yeah, me too.  I was "raised Lutheran," did Sunday school (which I hated), forced to take Lutheran confirmation when I turned 16.  The deal I made with my parents was that, after taking the confirmation program (which was like 6 months long) I could choose to be confirmed, or not -- my choice.

The poor pastor that ran the class, he had a couple of us unbelievers in the class and we entered into some hard & heavy discussions.  At the end of the program I think one person chose to be confirmed, and the other 13 of us all declared our atheism.  (I think the pastor had doubts by then too.)

My parents were fine with that.  They never went to church again.  Years later my mom admitted it was "just something they thought they should do" for us kids.  My parents never had any faith.  In fact they were big believers in the power of science  and raised us to question everything.  Both of my sisters ended up with PhDs in science.

I'm glad I never had to deal with any of that Sunday school, confirmation malarkey. I don't know if I could have dealt with the boredom. I'm also prone to fact checking things that I think sound like bullshit, so I don't know how long I would have lasted before I just started blurting out about how they're wrong in the middle of class.

I wonder if the kid who confirmed felt like he had to. Might not have been given the same choice your parents gave you.

Ahhhh! Eddie Izzard is supposed to be coming to Meridian on his tour. December 7th within driving distance! Is it wrong that I'd sell my first born for tickets, lol?

Seems perfectly reasonable to me.

Pooter fried.

Now I have to download everything again and re-situate all my settings.

Also, dead baby turtle in my part of the road. Jesus fucking christ has something got to die every goddamn day?! Can I not have one day without death, abuse victims, or general bad behavior by my fellow citizens?! Just one?!

No you cannot. Mississippi is the only state left flying the Confederate flag.

NoCoPilot wrote:

No you cannot.  Mississippi is the only state left flying the Confederate flag.

Le sigh.
I know.

I've tried reasoning with them. I mean, how does it hurt my heritage, as a white Mississippian to lean towards compromise and not fly that thing on state and city property? Please, explain to me how. Cuz I does not get it.
I can fly it at my home if I want to.
But why force those who may find it a trigger to deal with it? I mean, I'm amazed at the patience of black people. As many of them as are down here I'd not mind seeing them climb the pole and rip it down. I get why they don't "stoop" to that. Sorta. But seriously, they outnumber us here in Jackson. Fucking strike man. No trash gets dumped, no burgers get flipped, no offices are cleaned until it's gone. I'd not be a scab!

Generations of "keepin' 'em down on the farm" don't make for no uppity brothers.

NoCoPilot wrote:

Generations of "keepin' 'em down on the farm" don't make for no uppity brothers.

I guess so. But the system down here keeps us all down. It's almost like the south is the Company. We buy our shit from the same people we work for, we all owe them, we all lack choices, and we all just keep right on trying to survive while the nation looks at us wondering what is wrong with us but they keep right on taking or using what we produce.

Jenni, have you spent much time out of the South? The status of African Americans south of the Mason Dixon line may be the same as their status north of it, but the attitudes of everybody on both sides of the color line are very different.

There is a generational, institutional, cultural chasm between white & black that doesn't exist up here.

Down there a black man steps off the sidewalk to make room for a white man. Up here, it's the opposite.

NoCoPilot wrote:

Down there a black man steps off the sidewalk to make room for a white man.  Up here, it's the opposite.

Not here in the city.
Really. What you refer to happens up in the delta, primarily amongst the older set and in more rural areas like Arkansas or Georgia.

Here in Jackson it's very much about politics and money and the black people hold as much of that as the whites in a sense. White people gave it up and left for outskirts. That may not add wealth to the black people left but it darn sure made their votes important in city politics. Memphis too, is like Jackson. New Orleans and much of Louisiana is very publicly equal. Whistling at white women, staying on the sidewalk, eating at certain restaurants- none of those are issues here in Jackson. Which is good because it's one of the few things that checks the white power in the rest of the state.

I lived in Tampa/Clearwater/St. Petersburg area for a while as a teen. All yankee and Filipino. Also racist. Just in different ways. I assure you the same habits rest with the north as do the south. Ya'll are not special. None of you. Ya'lls racism is done with a pen and bureaucracy whereas ours is done with hoods and burning crosses. Our people acted physically and the North acts mentally on the black folk. Ask them sometime. We all own this wad of shit.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/24/racism-us-north-south-confederate-flag