Diet/Exercise/Health/Wellness Support Thread

Parent Cafe
29581

<p>

</p>

<p>That’s absolutely NOT what a couples counselor would say. </p>

<p>They’d ask these questions:

  1. Why is she unwilling to accommodate what appears to be a reasonable request to cook healthier? It can’t hurt the rest of the family and can only help them. Wouldn’t she do so if you had a health condition, e.g., you were lactose-intolerance or had celiac or diabetes?</p>

<p>2) How does it leave you feeling when she ignores this reasonable request or doesn’t even make an effort? What larger role is her cooking serving emotionally that she’s not willing to alter it?</p>

<p>3) What purpose does it serve for you to keep her in the “bad guy” role of the obstacle to your better health, versus taking the bull by the horns and doing some of your own shopping / food preparation?</p>

<p>4) What in the conflict makes you feel you need to be passive and just go along with her way over something that’s clearly important to you?</p>

<p>Obviously I’m not a therapist. But these are questions to consider in the privacy of your own head. We all have reasons for doing what we do, and sometimes it’s helpful to sit back and consider them.</p>

29582

<br>

<br>

<p>1) How do you know the distance from my location to the store?
2) How long would it take to find a parking space?
3) How long would it take to find a parking space back to my office?
4) I have six monitors in my office. One is dedicated to financial analysis. Three are dedicated to engineering work. Two others are for browsers which can be used for work or non-work. I can certainly interleave work with non-work.</p>

29583

<p>

</p>

<p>You’re right, you can’t change other people. But you can change yourself. And you could shop / prepare food if you wanted to. You don’t. Which is fine, but own it, as opposed to making her the bad guy.</p>

29584

<p>

</p>

<p>Funny, people say the same thing about the gym all the time – do you know how long it would take to drive there, park, change, shower, drive back, etc.? And yet you’d say - that’s just an excuse, if you really want to exercise, you’ll figure out a way.</p>

29585

<br>

<br>

<p>It’s reasonable to me; not to her. She believes the low-fat diet stuff.</p>

<br>

<br>

<p>I trade stocks. You can be right or wrong and you can make or lose money. But the two are often not connected. It’s nice to be right and make money of course. The stock market doesn’t care how you feel about making or losing money. You can be mad at your broker, the newspaper, the media, the CEO, other traders, Ben Bernanke or the dog next door but your account balance tells you what reality is. In general, you take your feelings out of the equation to trade effectively.</p>

<p>Engineering can be like this too. The physical world generally doesn’t care how you feel about it. Gravity works the way it works whether you like it or not. </p>

<p>I tend to be quite pragmatic. If something doesn’t work, then I either try something else or live with it.</p>

<br>

<br>

<p>That’s a strange characterization.</p>

<p>In general, I just work around obstacles. When life gets stressful then it’s harder.</p>

<p>The Longfellow Bridge is going to be closed down for a year on the Boston to Cambridge side. This is going to create nightmare traffic scenarios in parts of Boston. Do I blame the bridge for this?</p>

<br>

<br>

<p>I’m a pragmatic person. I do what works.</p>

<p>That’s probably why I’m an engineer. It may also explain why I’m good at trading.</p>

<br>

<br>

<p>I’ve been through this for 25 years. I think that I’ve learned how to manage over that period of time.</p>

29586

<br>

<br>

<p>Let’s just say that I know my situation better than you do.</p>

<br>

<br>

<p>That’s a poor argument. You are arguing that people don’t want to go to the gym but then you are dinging them for not exercising because there are other ways to exercise. What if they use those other ways?</p>

<p>There are people that have a tough time going to the gym. There may be people that have a hard time affording a gym. But they could go for a walk. Why didn’t you use that example?</p>

29587

<p>BC, the guys on the trading thread will probably have more fun playing. Looks like soon it’ll be a game of solitaire here.</p>

29588

<p>" I just tell them that you can’t make someone else do something that they really don’t want to. They have to make the desire to change on their own."</p>

<p>I hear that, BCE. I have similar issues in my house - I am the one exercising and more careful about diet. I cannot change the others - and I can’t lecture them. Deaf ears on two. </p>

<p>I mostly do the cooking, so they eat what I prepare. However, when they are eating or buying or preparing “bad” food, I have learned I cannot argue every time. I eat it sometimes, I don’t make a big deal about it. </p>

<p>In a family, you have to compromise, and though some may think I am compromising my “standards”, I find you really can’t change someone until and if they are ready. If any particular issue bothers me too much, then it would be my choice to stay or go.</p>

<p>It really has nothing to do with “50’s” values. My family certainly puts up with my habits/hobbies/beliefs in other areas. Just my situation</p>

29589

<p>I get you can’t change other people. But BCE isn’t describing “my wife doesn’t cook this way, so I go out and buy my own stuff and it’s all good.” He’s describing “my wife doesn’t cook this way, and I’m not going to make my own stuff.” That’s willfully digging your heels in to sabotage your own goal.</p>

29590

<p>My goodness. I’m not quite sure what happened here today. I thought I might have stumbled into another thread. </p>

<p>I really would like this to remain a positive and supportive place for everyone who wants to participate here. I realize that many of us are fond of speaking plainly (myself included) but lately I feel like some of us have been running in the heat without enough water or gel or gu brew or whatever. For the most part, we don’t know each other IRL. We may be FB friends or know each other through different forums or exercise or whatever, and there may be history from other threads, but can be please try to remain focused on positive approaches to health and wellness? </p>

<p>Thanks for your consideration of this request.</p>

29591

<p>Took yesterday off except for a brisk 2 mile walk after dinner. Was having some foot/leg pain so forced myself to have a rest day. Got up this morning and ran 47 minutes. Was 77 degrees and probably 80% humidity this morning at 7:30. Felt much better than I did my last 2 runs so I think my day of rest helped. Was dripping wet afterwards. Treated myself to a small skinny latte with my bottle of water. </p>

<p>One thing I’ve noticed that even though my workouts are cardio and I am not losing weight, my shirts are less tight in the arms than they were. I am happy for the small changes.</p>

29592

<p>Thanks, Sabaray. I suspect it’s a wee bit my fault, mentioning ‘not dining with saboteurs if you don’t have the moxy to resist’ :wink: (Which obviously I didn’t!)</p>

<p>In my case, I said up front that I was very clear I was responsible for my choice and I knew what to do about it. BCE just happened to commiserate on what must be a sore subject for some.</p>

<p>For the record, I didn’t think BC was asking for sympathy OR blaming his wife for any of his pitfalls on the food front since historically his posts have just characterized musings about fitting in all the same challenges we all do. This has to be a safe place for us to do that. We ALL know pretty much what to do, but I would hope we can all carp a little when we don’t do it perfectly or are mildly ticked with ourselves :)</p>

<p>At any rate, I sure hadn’t intended to open a box of snakes by referencing my own personal “saboteurs”. Many pages previously, Idad had referenced his own experience with sabotage and I thought it was a useful topic upon which to commiserate.</p>

<p>I referenced/vented about my sense of same because frankly, I found it pretty interesting, if bizarre – both how I felt about it and my underlying sense that my mother really was taking a kind of perverse pleasure pleasure in seeing if she could get me to eat things I have not been eating – either as a small victory because she’s expressed annoyance that I’ve lost weight and she hasn’t (because honest, she doesn’t even TRY) or as a mischievous pushback on the diabetic front, because I recently had told her during a phone conversation that I probably should discontinue discussing the content of her diet unless she was willing to read up a bit on the glycemic index, etc. and find a way forward that suited her, because she didn’t like any of my suggestions. (Every week she talks about this on the phone, and asks for suggestions, then dismisses them as things she could never get used to ;)</p>

<p>Eg. She also announced Sunday she had made me cake. I actually did a double take and said why on earth would you go to the trouble? She seriously had an evil grin.
This is a woman whose metformin makes her ill. And she baked “me” a cake.</p>

<p>I kind of concluded it was all her secret message to McH, who really really enjoyed all the treats this weekend – we’ll show HER. Diabetics unite! Except, of course, with the dietary measures we undertook last January, McH is no longer diabetic…Hi ho.</p>

<p>Okay, I jest a little…but only a little. There is some weird latent stuff at work here.
I don’t care.
I can put on my big girl pants and pick my spots and navigate the obstacles just fine ;)</p>

29593

<p>I just finished a quick, entertaining Kindle read on fitness:</p>

<p>[Amazon.com:</a> FITNESS CONFIDENTIAL eBook: Vinnie Tortorich, Dean Lorey: Kindle Store](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/FITNESS-CONFIDENTIAL-ebook/dp/B00DONI7AK]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/FITNESS-CONFIDENTIAL-ebook/dp/B00DONI7AK)</p>

<p>The guy has a fitness blog and pitches himself as the world’s angriest trainer. He’s an Los Angeles based trainer and ultra-distance cyclist, married to some C-list actress. His podcast is entertaining in small doses, so I figured I’d read his new book. </p>

<p>A surprisingly good read, much in the vein of Kitchen Confidential. Very, very simple health and fitness and diet advice: just start doing something – anything – even walking. And avoid sugar and grains. But, I think this kind of very simple advice is the best approach, so I think this could be a good kick-start book for a lot of people.</p>

<p>Most of the book is a personal saga – leukemia, 508 mile bicycle races, etc. Not a monumental contribution to diet and fitness libraries, but an entertaining summer read.</p>

29594

<p>Actually I think since any health/exercise discussion will naturally reference family relationships, work situations, friends, cultural pressures, and as such are subjects that are relevant to this thread, as long as everything is kept civil and not personal. Because you are right, we certainly don’t know each other IRL.</p>

29595

<p>kmcmom:</p>

<p>Cake and kaiser roll dinners. Yeah, I would say that you definitely ran into a little intentional undermining! Sometimes just knowing that it’s such a common response helps to navigate the waters a little bit.</p>

<p>The food stuff is nothing compared to the undermining from nicotine addicts when a family member quits smoking. Wow. Offers of cigarettes. Leaving packs around. Begging to “just have one to take the edge off”. Best advice I’ve ever seen was from Joel Spitzer. He said to politely ask one time to not leave packs of cigarettes around. Then, after one polite request, just crumple and throw away and packs that are left around. Or, on the second off of “just have one”, give in, accept the offer, and then destroy the cigarette right in front of the person… </p>

<p>There’s a lot more gray area in diet. Nicotine addiction is cut and dried. Not one puff, not now, not never… Alas, we all have to eat, so it’s all one big compromise. I’d say that BC does a pretty darn good job navigating those waters.</p>

<p>Speaking of nicotine addiction, a photo is circulating of the Prezzy popping a piece of Nicorette gum at the White House cermony with G. HW. Bush this weekend. That’s at least five or six years he’s been chewing that stuff… Yikes.</p>

29596

<p>We had a big chocolate cake as a belated 87th birthday cake for my mother (back from the dead) while I was in PA. It was from a very special and great local bakery. I don’t even LIKE chocolate cake all that much, but ate a big old slab! That’s the sort of thing that makes me angry at myself. It’s like I get into a totally different frame of mind when I am up there and revert to eating habits of yore!</p>

29597

<p>MOWC:</p>

<p>I would have eaten the cake, too!</p>

29598

<p>30 minute bike ride this morning–absolutely beautiful. 45 minutes of walking at 5% on the treadmill at the gym this rainy, rainy afternoon. I watched a food network episode about fried foods while walking. Somehow that seems to negate some of the fitness benefits of today’s exercising. </p>

<p>I stayed up too late last night with S2 watching an HBO documentary about snowboarder Kevin Pearce and his traumatic head injury and recovery. And we watched another Netflix documentary, Ride the Divide, about a 2000 mile plus cross country bike race. Too much TV! This is what happens when my DH is away traveling. I was exhausted this afternoon–must have been dreaming about these extreme sports activities all last night. But perhaps watching sports cancels out watching the fried food episode.</p>

29599

<p>My mother has been great and really supportive of my weight loss but a few weeks ago we were talking about these wonderful cinnamon rolls she used to make. Well, that must have gotten her neurons firing because she baked a gigantic pan of them. My mother is only 70 but she’s outlived most of her family and has had some health issues recently that make me realize she’s not going to be here forever. So you’re darn right I ate a cinnamon roll. </p>

<p>I think there’s a difference between people who intentionally try and derail your diet and people who maybe just don’t get it. I’d still be thinking I could eat bread and rice and all kinds of carbs if I hadn’t listened to iDad et al. Right now I’m doing all of H’s meal planning because he thinks eating cereal is healthier/better for weight loss and he can never have bacon and eggs or a steak. </p>

<p>PlantMom, I used to argue that as long as you had a Diet Pepsi with your Pizza Hut pizza, all the calories were cancelled. Glad to see you agree!</p>

29600

<p>Speaking of perceptions and messaging about health, has anyone noticed the new Coca-Cola marketing campaign positioning themselves as a champion of the active, healthy lifestyle? Message = drink all the sugar you want as long as you exercise. Of course, that’s not true, either!</p>