I'm Gonna Live Forever!

Slow metabolism linked to longevity

Posted on June 3, 2011 by Joel Fuhrman

 

An excerpt from the middle of the article:

 

Metabolic rate and lifespan
A study on thyroid function published last year further supported the idea that a slower metabolic rate could prolong lifespan.  Now, a new study has measured resting metabolic rate directly and come to the same conclusion. 

Another One Bites the Dust II

I know I said I was going to stop obsessing over my weight and what I eat, but as I also said, it's hard to break a decades-old habit. Since I started reading the new book by Gary Taubes, Why We Get Fat, I've been thinking about dropping all the healthy carbs the McDougall program says to eat and start loading up on animal products.

Then I saw a few posts from adamant low-carbers saying that while the food plan may work quite nicely in the beginning for weight loss (as most weight loss food plans do), eventually the weight loss stalls and regains happen. It happened to the #1 low-carber in America Jimmy Moore, according to this blogger, and back in 2009 the blog called Diabetes Update said the same thing.

Those of us who had been dieting for weight loss for decades KNOW that this happens, no matter what food plan is followed. Calories in/calories out doesn't account for the metabolism slowing down to accomodate the lower amount of calories to maintain homeostasis, that as time goes on, if we want to continue to lose weight we must eat even less, exercise even more. For those of us who have to eat 1000 calories and under plus exercise an hour or more a day just to lose 1 pound a week, it's impossible to eat less, do more, than that. Already at that level we're running into nutritional deficiencies and the long term problems that go along with them, as well as setting ourselves up for musculo-skeletal system injuries. Recent articles on-line are saying how my generation, the Baby Boomers, are getting joint replacements in record numbers. Yeah, it's my generation that's over-working our bodies in the quest to lose weight, to stay young!

Doesn't it just make more sense to follow the Health At Every Size guidelines and just stay off the scale?

Another One Bites the Dust

Another theory as to the cause of chronic fatigue syndrome, that is. So many people were thrilled when the virus XMRV was found in the blood of so many people suffering with CFS that it seemed this just might be the causative factor, but today's news reports that nope, that can't possibly be possible, that it must be lab contamination, since XMRV was only previously bred and found in mice in prostate studies. Until there's a known cause I'll never convince my doctor that not only does CFS exist but I've been suffering with it since 1983.

Waiting for Death

I cry a little each time I go near my fridge. We’re trying to eat up the frozen food before they all go bad, but it’s a losing battle. Yesterday I tossed out all the bags of fruit and about half the vegetables, and this morning I already tossed 2 bags of vegan meatballs, both leaking all over making a mess. I don’t want to keep the freezer compartment open too long or else the temp goes above 30 – 35 degrees, so I just quickly mopped up the mess and grabbed the bags that were obviously the offenders and slammed the door shut again.

Yesterday I bought those juice-box sized containers of Rice Dreams so I can have my warm beverages again. The tiny boxes fit on the freezer door, a space that’s now hovering in the upper 30 – low 40’s and perfect for the milk and other items that used to be in the refrigerator, like the tub of Earth Balance and container of Tofutti cream cheese my son is working on.

Did I mention we’ll be going through this until the new one comes on Sunday? That was the soonest Sears could deliver my new refrigerator, and that was only because we’re paying the extra few bucks for weekend delivery. If we wanted the regular delivery for only $10 less we would have had to wait until June 15th. We’re just glad they had a refrigerator to fit. We first ordered one from Lowe’s but after we got home and remeasured we realized it wouldn’t fit up the staircase or through the arch between the living room and back hall and had to go back and cancel. We measured every refrigerator there and none would fit. The salesgirl said we could special-order one, but it would probably be way to small for the needs of three adults, even a couple. So we went off to Sears, driving on crowded city streets on a holiday weekend to a mall that charges for parking and has about only half the stores rented at the present time. We found the perfect refrigerator in seconds, measured twice to make sure, and were checked out right away. We were in and out of the store in less than 20 minutes. It took almost twice as long just to drive the 7 miles to the store.

(ours is white, not black like this one)

So we started moving furniture. Our apartment is in an old multi-family house in a congested urban area, housing built for people who worked the factories and refineries that were located here a century ago. Our apartment was built out of an attic, so the rooms are smaller than those in the other 2 apartments in this house, so our furniture that fit beautifully with room to spare in all the other apartments we’ve lived in since we got married over 30 years ago is now chock-a-block together, some of it partially blocking windows and doorways, so to get a refrigerator from our front door to the kitchen wall in the far back corner we have to move one bookcase, 4 DVD racks, the shelving with our stereo unit on it, the shelves in the back hallway, a shelving unit that holds fresh produce, a bookcase with my cookbooks, our kitchen table . . . plus all the stuff that’s ON all those shelves and bookcases. This is why we put off buying a new refrigerator all these years, even though the shelves started cracking soon after we moved into this place 11 years ago.

We couldn’t fit our queen-sized box spring up the stairs, front or back, and had to sleep on the mattress on the floor until we found a place that sold split box springs. There were no Sleepy’s around when we needed it and found a mom & pop store that made custom mattresses that could special order one for us.  We’re in desperate need of a new mattress now but keep putting it off, either because of finances, lack of time, or better things to do than deal with mattress salespeople. Now that we know even Sleepy’s has the box spring with no hassle we need we’ll probably order one after the refrigerator is paid off.

But this week, food is uppermost on my mind, the storage of it, the eating of it, the wasting of it. And I continue to cry each time I open that freezer door.

ARGH!!

I just filled the freezer with almost $200 worth of goodies from the local HFS and Trader Joe's, and the refrigerator decides to start dying on us!


So this week we have to head out to get a new refrigerator-freezer. The one we have in this apartment came with the house when the owner bought it about 22 years ago, and the tag inside says it was built in 1987, making it 24 years old.

In a normal household this would be annoying enough. But this apartment is so jam-packed with furniture, and has narrow doorways and an even narrower stairwell, that moving something this big out and in is going to be a big pain. 2 years ago we needed a new stove, and not only did they guys bang up walls up and down the place but gouged out a chunk of wood from my Bennington Pine shelf unit. The refrigerator is bigger, a bit wider, so that means we have to move furniture - about 1/4 of the furniture in the whole apartment - including my china closet and everything in the kitchen, from shelving units to the kitchen table itself. I don't know WHERE we'll be moving this stuff TO, since there's not a spare square inch in the entire place, but it has to be done.

And the fridge we pick has to fit in the weird tiny space the former owner carved out for the one in there now. It's in so tight you can barely fit a finger between the sides and the wall/cabinet on the sides. Hopefully the store has one the right size in stock.

Oh, and my husband has to fight with his boss to get 2 days off for furniture moving and the delivery itself. They usually ask people to work overtime at the end/beginning of the month and usually refuse to give days off unless it's a dire emergency. I think having a refrigerator reading 55 degrees and a freezer in the mid-30's is dire enough!

We can't even go buy one until he knows he can have the time off, so the soonest we can have one delivered is Thursday. I hope enough food stays edible until then. I already kissed all my frozen foods goodbye and put my non-frozen stuff in the freezer just to keep it cool enough so it doesn't go bad.

HELP!

At least now I can start from scratch and have only healthy foods on hand. You wouldn't believe some of the stuff I found buried in the back of that freezer!