Crash and Burn.

*Taps yardstick on desk* Ok, students, today I would like to talk to you all about "Crash Dieting."
Miss Freelance Fatty is SICK of crash diets, and wants you, her class, to know why they are so bad for you! Ok? Good!

Sigh. I really am sick of Crash Diets. There is a new one going around my work right now, the HCG diet. This one is a doozy. Not only does it rely heavily on a "nutritional supplement" but the diet restricts one to a diet of 500 calories a day. Yeah, that's right. So obviously its not the supplement that makes you lose weight, its the fact that you've gone from 1800-2200 calories a day down to 500.

This diet is bad for you. Period. Let's say on this diet you lose 20 pounds in a month. At least half of that weight is muscle right? So check out this math...

1 lb muscle = 50 calories burned per day (just to exist)
1 lb fat = 2 calories burned per day (just to exist)

So lets say you lose 10 lbs of muscle, and 10 lbs of fat on a crash diet.
BTW, when you lose weight too fast, you always lose muscle. When your body thinks it's starving, it will dump whatever takes the most energy, and as you see above, muscle takes 25x energy to keep alive than fat.

10 lb muscle = 500 calories off your metabolism
10lb fat = 20 calories off your metabolism

Total = 520 calories a day you are no longer burning. That's like a meal! So now, you've lost your goal weight, you go back to your, let's say 1800 calorie a day diet. And before this diet, you maintained your weight well, so you were burning that 1800 calories every day. But now, after losing that muscle and fat, you are now only burning just under 1300 calories a day. So you start to gain back the weight at about a pound a week. After 20 weeks you're back where you were.

But get this, you're worse off now! Unless you're really doing muscle building, you don't get that muscle back that fast... so you've only upped your metabolism by maybe 50-100 calories, even though you weigh what you did before!

This is where yo-yo dieting comes from people. You lose 20, gain back 25, lose 25 gain back 30... you're screwing your body when you do it this way. Crash diets always do just that... CRASH!

Ok, so why my ginormous rant about this today? Like I said, I have several coworkers on this diet now HCG. Its so ridiculous. But you know what annoys me the most? The fact that all they can talk about... is their diet. My one coworker, ICD, she is the worst of them all. All she talks about all day is "I can't have that!" Over and over again. The biggest blow came today... the reason I'm finally blogging about it...

One of the guys I work for brought in some trout he caught and smoked himself. It was divine. We were all having little snacks on it. So ICD comes over, and get this (I'm so not making this up...) She asks if she can SMELL it. Seriously. She lifts up the plate and smells it. So the guy who brought it in, looks at her like she's lost her mind and says, "Just have some." I bout yelled at him. Because I knew exactly what was coming next. "I CAN'T" she says, "I am not allowed to have it, so I'm just smelling it." And she walks away.

After enduring going out to lunch with her last week... and hearing her tell the waitress over and over again what she can't have... I am just about ready to scream.

But don't take diet advice from the fat girl right? Jeez. Oh, btw... I am keeping off this now almost 15 pounds I mysteriously lost. I think its the less snacking I'm doing lately. Being poor has its benefits I guess.

Ok comment time. Um, I am still so blinded with rage over this incident, I can't really think of anything creative... so why don't you comment about the crazy dieters you've run into. Add to my story!

Health UN-Fair

Man this has been the week from HELL. My daughter is painfully sick with Hand, Foot and Mouth disease. Her mouth is just chock full of big sores that keep her from eating/sleeping and doing anything without whining... "OWIE!"

My nerves are shot, I haven't eaten anything decent or balanced in over a week. I think I'm getting sick myself... Man, being a mom is not for the faint-of-heart. Ok, that was just my little prequel here. Bad week, exhausted, fried. And not the good kind of fried where there is oil. :(

Anyway, as the title alluded to, my work had it's annual health fair this week. To try and encourage everyone to go and participate, they offer prizes if you go to every single booth. This year I was going to try and do it. Participating in the wellness program at work has been pretty good for me, I'm thinking about what I do more, and what I'm eating. Hell, its what got me started writing this blog... a sort of journey journal. :)

I've never gone to every booth before, though this is my third health fair at this company, so I've never been eligible for a prize. I always avoided one booth. The evil booth.

Body fat analysis. Yeah. Fun.

The other booths don't scare me nearly as bad as this one. Cholesterol, check! (160... that's pretty damn fantastic for being 360 lbs eh?) Blood sugar? double check! (79.... that's way at the low end of good, and diabetes runs in my family... so extra good!) Blood pressure? Meh... (138/94... but I do get white coat. If a nurse I Like/know takes it its usually about 130/85ish)

Vision was perfect, stress levels, extraordinarily high, but that's pretty par for me right now... stressful life.

But that damn fat composition booth mocked me. I looked down at my card, every box checked except for that one. No one was around to hear the guy yell out what a fatty I am... so I went for it. Screw it, I thought, I know I'm fat, he knows I'm fat... why not?

I hold onto the little thing, kind of looks like a steering wheel. He enters my height and weight (blush) and beep. It pops up. 47%.

Actually... I was a little happy. I thought it'd be worse really... as much as I weigh I though it'd be 50+. Optimal for a woman is 18-30%. So I'm up there. He talked on and on about how this increases my risk for high cholesterol (hmmm not yet...) diabetes (looking good...) and high blood pressure (my one concern in the near future) and yadda yadda.

Then he says something I've never heard a health professional tell me. He said my optimal weight may be (gasp) about 250 pounds. Because of the percentage at 350, at 250 (mind that's 100 FREAKING pounds) I'd be in great shape. "Most women wouldn't say YAY I'm 250, but for you that could be a great goal." Wow, I actually got a health professional to admit that perhaps, for my height and bone structure that the "optimal" weight of 170 might not be ideal.

So, although I had to sit through a lecture of why I'm going to die because I'm fat/lazy... I also got that great bit of support.

All in all, I think I had a pretty good time. I do often feel like the second these nurses look at me they see a big greasy, cholesterol ridden, diabetes-doomed person... and I don't feel that way at all. Obviously I'm doing good for now, trying to be better... how do you show that to people?

I guess you can't. You just have to let them judge you on your looks.

Comment time! Do you feel like when you deal with health professionals, they are quick to assume that you are unhealthy, because of your size/body? Do you think that thinner people, though plagued with some of the same ailments, are more likely "innocent until proven guilty," while chubbier gals get the immediate diagnosis?