The Lard Arms

Top Ten Excuses for Not Exercising...

So, the decluttering continues and continues and continues. Paper mountain is shrinking. If only I could diminish in size myself! Reading all these articles just makes me want to eat! Ho hum.

Anyway, in an article about Gloria Thomas, I found the top ten excuses for NOT exercising and I have to say...I have used most of them.

1. I don't have time

2. I'm too tired

3. I'm not fit enough

4. I've got a cold coming on

5. I'll never reach my goal - what's the point?

6. I'm too fat (that, my friends, has been the NUMBER ONE excuse for not doing so many things in my life!)

7. I hate exercise

8. It's too big a task

9. I can't bear all those other Lycra-clad lovlies

10. It's not really very good for you, you know... (I think the last one is definitely a joke!)

So, check out Gloria's website, if you want to know more! xxxx

"Eat and Run" (but not in abstinence)

For the runners amongst - specifically those of you who are NOT in abstinence - check out this site, which I also found courtesy of The Sunday Times.

http://gofasterfood.blogspot.com/

The right time to...start a diet

Since this IS the Lard Arms, it seems appropriate to share some news with you that I found in style Magazine (Sunday Times).

Apparently, there are ideal times, in a woman's cycle, to stop smoking, give up drink and drugs, meet and man and yes...start a diet!

So here's what you need to know and why:

"According to a team of South African researchers, your food intake can vary by a staggering 2,500 calories a day, depending on your hormones levels. And when it comes to starting a diet, scientists suggest you will be less hungry when your period begins. A study by researchers at Tufts University, Massachusetts, indicates that women eat 12% less per day at the start of their cycle because their levels of oestrogen are lower.

After ovulation, your appetite is naturally boosted by hormones, so if you do happen to be pregnant, you will want to eat enough for two. However, your metabolism and urge to exercise are higher after ovulation, too, so by heading to the gym, you might be able to work off those extra calories.

In a paper published last year in the International Journal of Obesity, researchers say, perhaps unsurprisingly, that women tend to experience cravings for sugary and high-carbohydrate foods just before their period, and they also have the most trouble controlling their hunger at this time.

The scientists agree that starting a diet after day one of your period could be helpful, and also suggest increasing calorie intake by about 100-200 calories when you are premenstrual, so you don’t get so desperate that you find yourself on the phone to Pizza Hut. Their suggestion for how to consume those extra calories? Best-quality dark chocolate. These are the kind of scientists we like."

Check out the link for the best time to go to the gym, too!

DietPower by Sprayology

Unlike some of the regulars, I have been pretty certain that sugar was not really a problem for me unless we're talking the after effects of serious carb-overload.

Anyway, since I've been away, I have realised one thing for sure. OF COURSE, I have a sugar thing! Errr....

I found this little snippet from stella magazine (in the Bella on Beauty column) that caught my eye:

"It hasn't been a skinny winter. I have prided myself for my self-discipline, but sugar-craving is an insidious thing. Whatever my resolve in the morning, by 4pm my thoughts are dominated by how different and fantastic I would feel if I had just one slice of thick, chewy toast smeared with marmalade. Why not, I shrug, it's just a bit of toast. But it becomes the catalyst for a torrent of further snacks that leave me feeling stuffed and awful...and fat."

Now, of course, Bella Freud is not fat and is unlikely to be what WE would call supersized. But Bella swears that the homoeopathic spray called DietPower (love the name!!!) by a company called Sprayaway (sounds a like a carpet cleaner to me). She says, "it miraculously reduced my cravings and appetite. A few squirts under the tongue before a meal and - lo! - I no longer eat enough to feed the English rugby team".

So now you know.

It Ain't Over 'Til The Fat Lady Sings - "because a salad is not as fulfilling as a plate of chips”

I have to admit I don't really know much about opera but I have been to Covent Garden and enjoyed myself thoroughly. And it seems to me that if you're big in opera - literally - the world's your oyster - because doesn't that make you a better singer?

Or, maybe not. According to The Sunday Times, the Royal Opera House felt that the American soprano, Deborah Voigt was too fat for her costume so they sacked her! Apparently, she "tipped the scales at about 25 stone at her zenith".

Anyway, "four years later Voigt, 47, is finally back at Covent Garden – indeed, she is singing Ariadne in the same production, but this time she is nine stone lighter. Yes, the furore was humiliating; yes, it was public; but she has calmed down somewhat. “I was not appropriate for the production,” she admits now.

"Furthermore, the sacking gave her an unexpected window of free time, plus a big, fat cheque from the (publicly subsidised) opera house. So she filled the gap in her schedule and used British taxpayers’ money to undergo a gastric bypass operation.

"Privately, she was desperate.

“I didn’t need the Royal Opera House to tell me I was obese,” she says. “I don’t like to say how much I weighed at the time, but I was well over 300lb [21st 6lb]. I had enough energy to get through a performance, but not enough to get through the next day.

“I was fatigued walking across the street. I was winded walking upstairs. The irony is that I had already made inquiries with doctors. And so, because the opera house honoured its contract, we could say Covent Garden paid for [the operation].”

"It was the final salvo in a battle with her weight that had been going on since she was a child.

"Eating for solace led to food addiction, which the peripatetic nature of her profession does little to quell. “You eat because you are happy, because you are sad, because you are travelling alone 10 months of the year, because you have an entire evening to kill and because a salad is not as fulfilling as a plate of chips.”

The knowledge that chips are a bad food option, which might stop most people from devouring a plateful, has no effect on her, she says. “I have a guilt mechanism, but that kicks in after I’ve eaten them, not before. Mine is a compulsion to eat. So I will have the chips, or the extra glass of wine, and then feel guilty about it.

“What I am working on, and will work on for the rest of my life, is developing a memory of that guilt. I don’t stop and think, ‘How will I feel after-wards?’ I just think, ‘I am going to satisfy myself. I am going to eat this and enjoy it, and it will make me feel better.’ And it’s very hard to break that pattern.”

The gastric bypass, she says, was “the best means to an end. But it was the last means to an end as well”.

“The gastric bypass is a tool; it’s not a cure,” Voigt says. “I am addicted to food, and always will be. I’ve just put on about 15lb [more than a stone], and it’s driving me nuts. I’d like to be a size 10 or 12, not a 14 to 16, but I have to be realistic..."

Fascinating.

Newspaper and Magazine Overload

In a way, I guess my ideal job would be working in a newsagent's (or is it newsagents?!). Then I could sit down and read magazines and newspapers all day long, to my heart's content.

I think I have probably mentioned somewhere on this blog that I am ever so slightly addicted to the printed medium - newspapers and magazines being particularly alluring. This has been a massive bone of contention between my husband and me. Unfortunately, I have a very bad habit of letting the publications build up, in a big pile and then I feel overwhelmed and keep thinking that I will go through them 'later'.

Ah, later! I think it's something that fellow fat-fighting chums will really relate to - even if the addiction to magazines, et al, seems somewhat strange.

Anyway, anyway, apart from letting the papers stockpile, I also had boxes of cuttings that I somehow wanted to use - either for the blog or for one of the novels I never quite finished. Do you see a pattern emerging? I think so!

Porkchop calls my home, "House of Paper" and I think that tells you all you need to know.

There has been deadline after deadline with the papers and now, there really is no get out of jail card left. The cuttings must be either filed away or thrown away by... tomorrow!

So, this is what I should be aiming for...

Anyway, in the meantime, I have found a few gems, which I will share! I don't know whether they will help any of us but hey... at least I have committed them to somewhere other than the recycling pile!

PS and yes, before you ask, the cuttings came with us to Devon!

Fat Britons “losing control” of their weight and money - Diets fail on a whim at the hint of a takeaway

This is not my headline but that of LighterLife's PR company; this press release (and therefore for public consumption) has been issued and I thought you would like to see it.

As the Government grapples with obesity, almost half of all British women and a third of men admit their weight is ‘out of control,’ a shocking survey reveals.

The fatter people are, the less in control they feel about not only their eating but all aspects of their life - including money and jobs. A full 55 per cent of the very obese feel their finances are spiralling.

But despite their concerns about their size, 38 per cent of adults would break their commitment to a diet if their partner simply suggested a takeaway.

Amazingly 13 per cent of the very obese claim they DO feel in control of their diet, says the survey by weight loss experts LighterLife.

The fascinating facts reveal how people really feel about the control they have over important aspects of their lives.

It lifts the lid on a world where many have just ‘given up,’ according to LighterLife founder Bar Hewlett.

The nationally representative poll, conducted by BMRB, also quizzed 995 adults on what they thought of other people and how successful they are in running their lives through a series of images.

The results showed that:

· Nearly a half of all women – 46 per cent – feel out of control of their weight, compared with 30 per cent of men – a total of 18 million people in the UK

· As bodyweight increases, the percentage feeling “out of control” also increases from 14 per cent of those of normal weight, to 42 per cent among the overweight, 73 per cent of obese people, and an alarming 87 per cent of the very obese

· A full 38 per cent of Britons would break a diet at their partner’s suggestion of a takeaway – with 48 per cent of obese people, saying they would succumb

· A quarter of people of healthy weight admit feeling out of control of their money, but this rises to 55 per cent among the very obese

Survey respondents were then shown a series of pictures including people smoking, drinking, and cooking, while researchers recorded their Body Mass Index (BMI) as 20-25 (normal weight), 26-29 (overweight), 30-39 (obese) and 40+ (very obese).

They were then asked who looked the most “in control”.

· A male cook, perhaps an image influenced by Jamie Oliver, was thought to be most in control with 95 per cent agreeing, followed by a cyclist at 92 per cent, and a runner at 88 per cent

· A stressed worker was seen as the most out of control, at 91 per cent, followed by an obese woman at 88 per cent, and a smoker at 57 per cent

· The obese woman drew a consistent response from all weight groups, with around 88 per cent saying “out of control” – even among those who admitted to being out of control themselves

· The view of smoking amongst the younger generation showed a marked difference with older people, with 62 per cent of 16-24-year-olds saying a female smoker appeared out of control compared to 49 per cent among 45-55-year-olds

· Views of younger people were reversed, though, when it came to a woman pictured with a glass of wine – a greater percentage said she was in control – 84 per cent – sliding down to 71 per cent among those aged 55-64

Bar Hewlett said: “It’s alarming just how many people feel out of control of their weight and how this hopelessness affects other parts of their lives.

“It doesn’t matter how rich or poor you actually are in determining how in control you feel about your money, but there is a correlation with your weight.”

She added feeling “out of control” could prompt a downward spiral. But by taking positive action to say losing weight could have a major impact on the rest of their lives.

“If you start to feel more in control of one aspect, you may gain the confidence to change something else.”

Body Mass Index (BMI) calculations were based on the World Health Organisations (WHO) recommendations of:

· Up to 18.5: underweight
· 18.5 to up to 25: normal weight
· 25 up to 30: overweight
· 30 up to 40: obese
· 40 or more: very obese