Thursday, June 02, 2005

It's lonely up here...

According to an article by the Chicago Tribune I'm one of a lessening few that have been able to crest "the Mt.Everest of thinness." The article itself hits on some important points but misses a few others. I remember in junior high being asked if I was anorexic. I was just athletically fit from my dancing as well as going through one of those throwth spurts where my arms and shoulders were almost bony. I guess a lot of people didn't put two and two together when they knew I danced. After I came home from my frst year of college to begin my multi-year hiatus, I didn't drive so my lifestyle kept me at that point. I walked and when I couldn't walk I rode the bus or my bicycle. For the last month before I moved to CapeGirardeau I was riding my bicycle about 170 miles a week (about the distance from work and back).

After I moved down to Cape Girardeau I let my lifestyle slip. I began driving and while I would leave my truck on campus once a week and walk downtown and back (about 2 miles or so), it was not enough. I began gaining and finally hit my "target weight of 115 lb. average (so that I can give blood). Unlike many people up one "Thin Everest" I am not one of them wanting to lose weight. I rode my bicycle to save money for various items of pleasure. I just kept my pre-college weight because I ignored driving in favor of other lifestyle choices.

You can do the same by switching to a bicycle. I know some of the few people can't cut out the whole time spent driving due to being so close to the highway so I would only reccommend partial driving in those cases. Start small. If you hve a bicycle, throw it in the back of your vehicle or onto you bike rack and drive until you are about a quarter of the way to work. Park in a good spot (obviously one you remember) and then bike the rest of the way. Once you feel comfortable, start parking further back until you are riding the whole distance (or as close tothe whole way as possible. Another option is to try the trip on your day off to your destination. Then have someone meet you there and drive you back (with your bike of course). If you don't ride your bicycle regularly it's going to be hard or hte first week or so you are bicycling the whole distance. After that it gets into a rhythm.

As for the people with average weight living longer tha people that are thin I have two bones to pick with the writer about this. One-are they talking about hte average now or the fifty years ago. Assuming the average height has not changed overly in the last fifty years then the average weight should be the same. If they are talking about the average weight now, I'm pretty sure it has gone up immensly in that time (probably faster than the difference in height). Two-it doesn't say this in the article either but are they including anorexics and bulimics in the statement that people that are thin are more likely than the average person to die earlier. They don't go into too much detail (and they don't talk about anorexics or bulimics at all) but I'm betting those statistics include that group as well as the "lifestyle fit" people.

2 comments:

T said...

I think that for my height (5'1), I need to weigh 110 to give blood, but I weigh 105. The problem is that I'm not as skinny as people think. I just know what to wear to hide my belly and thighs. I really need to lift weights more and get into an exercise routine to help me out. I've got the healthy eating part down though! ^_^ I even take vitamins and supplements.
People tell me now that I've lost weight, but I hadn't really noticed until I saw some old pics of me at my mom's. One thing that I think helped me was walking everywhere I went after high school. I walked to, and sometimes from, work (both McDonald's and the dollar store), and actually walked to and from school for a while. It may not seem like a big deal, but a 10 minute drive can turn into almost an hour of walking! And I did it for half a semester!
Wow, this turned into a blog entry all its own. Sorry about that! Anyway, this is my 10¢.

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