A CFS Christmas VIdeo

I found this on the CFIDS Community on LiveJournal. It sums up nicely what many of us with undiagnosed - because there's no definitive diagnostic criteria yet - CFS go through. The maker of this video was told she needed psycho-therapy. Many of us just get told to buck-up, walk it off, lose weight and exercise and the fatigue will go away. Well, it's been over 27 years now and my weight has gone up and down but my fatigue persists, now accompanied with even more muscle, nerve and joint problems as well as increasing brain fog.

Marry Christmas.

Pathetic and Apathy

I'm still struggling to maintain my weight. Right now I really don't care too much about losing - I just want to stop gaining! I go for follow-up blood work next week and see the doc the week after, and I'm sure he's going to need to increase my thyroid med again.

Besides the weight gain I'm still very, very tired. I fall asleep during the early evening (during Jeopardy, some times!), go to bed for the night by 8:30pm the latest, and when I wake up to hit the bathroom around 2am just can't get back to sleep most mornings.

I ache. My sciatica that affects my also arthritic right hip makes most even low impact aerobics painful, and a few weeks ago I hurt my left leg doing a T-Tapp exercise known as a Hoe-Down.



The human leg was NOT made to move in extreme side directions, especially not the leg of post-menopausal women with osteoarthritis in her spine and various other joints! I still can't move my left leg/hip in certain positions and it's been about a month now.

The 2 above problems also contribute to my lack of restful sleep every night. Who can sleep when her hip is in pain?

As for the weight, I gave up trying to lose anything eating the McDougall way and for the past week have been sticking to strict Phase 1 of the Rice Diet program, the plan people who actually attend the Rice House get put on for the duration of their stay, the original plan devised by Dr. Kempner back in the 1940's. By starving myself on less than 1000 calories a day (I was already keeping sodium low since childhood) I'm now back down to the weight I was at for one day in November, about 2 weeks in March before that. But I'm starving morning, noon and night. I have increased brain fog, worse than on a bad CFS day. I have less energy than ever. I need to follow The Spoon Theory even closer than usual if I want to continue to eat this way.

That said, I would probably spend every day just lying in bed, but I do have responsibilities. I do have to shop, hit the laundromat, do the cooking and bare minimum of housework. Right now I don't even have the energy to get away from this computer and go refill my water glass.

I'm in a Catch-22 situation regarding next week's bloodwork. In order to have a great lipid profile (Cholesterol) I have to continue to eat a no-fat-added, no sugar, no animal products food plan and get a minimum of an hour a day of cardio/aerobic exercise. But if I eat enough to have enough strength to do that much exercise I'll gain weight, making my cholesterol and triglycerides go back up, making my doctor very disappointed in me.

What the heck, he's disappointed already because near starvation levels of calories aren't making my weight go down. He's been after me for over 27 years now to lose weight. Why can't either one of us accept the fact that it's just not gonna happen in this lifetime?

To assist me in accepting this, I'm first going to have a decent breakfast, once I finally peel myself off this seat. I'm going to re-read Dr. Linda Bacon's book, Health At Every Size. Last week I finally got to order Beyond A Shadow of A Diet, another book that promotes the same philosophy as Overcoming Overeating.

I already planned the labwork for before Christmas so this year I can have some indulgence for the holiday without feeling guilt. That's a start, I guess. Hopefully the TSH will prove to the doc that my thyroid med needs to be increased yet again, and my lipids will be as perfect as they were back in March so he'll leave me alone about the weight for a while.

I know, I sound like a broken record, writing the same things over and over again, year after freaking year. Does it ever stop? Will I ever not care? I was there summer 2009, then had the stress-related heart event that has me now labeled as a cardiac patient and sent me back to square one. I would love to get back there again.

TMNT

For anyone who has a child born in the early 1980's like I do, you KNOW what those letters mean - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!

To this day my son still owns every Turtle action figure (including the elusive April one) and video (Yes, he still has his VHS tapes) he ever purchased or got as a gift. In fact, this year for Christmas he's getting the DVD set of the 3 original TMNT movies plus the newer one from 2007.

I've got to email him the url for this video, though. It'll make his day.

December 7, 1941

Remember Pearl Harbor

Another Article about the Futility of Dieting

While I don't agree with everything he recommends, such as forcing only "healthy" foods into the school lunch programs, everything else sounds pretty good. I was one of those kids forced into eating healthy - there's no choice when mom is in charge of the food and the doctor has you on 1000 calories plus about 2 hours of exercise every day. And we had gym classes first 5 then 3 days per week, plus calisthenics in the schoolyard for a half hour twice a day, every day, rain (snow) or shine, so we got plenty of exercise! In bad weather we did them in the school basement. Not the gym - we didn't dare go into the gym in our wet boots but did have to do jumping jacks in them, plus our snowsuits (Remember those?).

I still grew up fat and reached my "goal" weight the year before I hit puberty then gained it all back - plus an additional 20 - on only 1200 calories in less than a month.

Dieting gets you nowhere

By Amitai Etzioni, Special to CNN

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Amitai Etzioni used to feel guilty when he gained a few pounds, but no longer
• Most adults stay the same size through life and regain weight after diets, he writes
• Adult weight established in childhood, he says, so public health efforts should target kids
• Etzioni believes healthy eating and exercise in childhood would help end adult obesity

Editor's note:Amitai Etzioni is a sociologist and professor of international relations at George Washington University and the author of several books, including "Security First" and "New Common Ground." He was a senior adviser to the Carter administration and has taught at Columbia and Harvard universities and the University of California, Berkeley.

(CNN) -- Preparations are on the way for Thanksgiving and I, like millions of my fellow Americans, already worry about what the bathroom scale will show the day after. Like so many others, I have been dieting for years. I used to feel guilty when I gained a few pounds, during the holiday season or otherwise, and on top of the world when I lost some.

I felt guilty when I had a piece of chocolate cake, my favorite, and very virtuous when I munched on celery sticks, which I hate. But then I came across some data that changed my life -- and might change yours.

Before I can tell you why I am making such a grandiose claim, I need to ask you to participate in a small experiment. Make a list of 10 people you have known or known of for a long time. They can be family members, friends, or public figures -- say, Hillary Clinton and Oprah. Now note next to each if their weight has changed significantly during the time you have known them, as far as you can tell.

For instance, Hillary Clinton was always on the slender side, and although Oprah changed her weight quite drastically over the years, she is about the same shape now as she was a decade or two ago. Indeed, you will probably find that about eight out of 10 people on your list seem to weigh about the same as they did years ago. As one observer put it, some are greyhounds and some are bulldogs.

How can I tell? Because studies show that, despite all the public health campaigns, diet books, diet doctors and diet pills; despite millions of Americans spending inordinate amounts of psychological energy fussing about their body mass; whatever weight they take off, they put on again. Not all people, but about eight out of 10, according to a report in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

That means that most Americans who diet spend good money, consume drinks and eat food that is artificially doctored, take medications that have side effects and engage in various fashionable diets that actually undermine their health. All in vain. In effect, eight of 10 dieters experience both the ill effects of excessive weight and the ill effects, and costs, of yo-yo dieting.

Why I am telling you all this? I am a student of public policy, not medicine. The reason is that all the hoopla about dieting, seen in the magazines at any check-out counter, deflects attention from the one group in which healthy eating, especially if combined with exercise, can make a significant difference -- children, the younger the better.

Think of body mass like cement. It is rather easy to shape when it is new, but once it settles, it is very resistant to change. Data show that weight ranges and body mass indexes are set early in life. According to a study by the Diabetes Center at Howard University, obesity in infants is only a 20 percent predictor of obesity in adulthood, but by the time children are 6 years old, it is 50 percent. By the time they are adolescents, it is 90 percent. Other data, though somewhat less dire, point in the same direction.

The lesson of all this is that the physicians, dietitians and other public health professionals who determine our health care policies should shift most of their efforts to working with parents. They should not focus on reducing the parents' body mass, but that of their kids.

Reforming the food that schools provide in their lunch programs, cafeteria and vending machines, and ensuring that gym classes are not canceled as schools face tight budgets, pays off more than focusing on obese and overweight adults.

I should pay credit where it is due. Michelle Obama's "Let's Move" campaign, which focuses on children, is right on target. It remains to be seen if the tens of thousands of school boards across the country, thousands of PTAs and tens of millions of parents will heed the message. If they do, we all, especially the next generation, will be better for it. As for me, I still have my celery and my chocolate days, only now I do celery when the kids are around -- and chocolate cake when they are not.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Amitai Etzioni.

More Conan - And Taiwan Television

Another DUH!

With all the "booga-booga - DE OBEEEEZZZEEE!!!" scare tactics out there, is is any surprise that this is happening?

Rising hospitals stays for eating disorders cited
Nov 29, 12:14 AM (ET)
By LINDSEY TANNER

CHICAGO (AP) - A new report on eating disorders cites data showing a sharp increase in children's hospitalizations for such problems.

Among children younger than 12 with eating disorders, hospitalizations surged 119 percent between 1999 and 2006. That's according to government data contained in an American Academy of Pediatrics report released online Monday.

The federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality released data last year showing that hospital stays for the disorders increased 15 percent during the seven-year period. The biggest increase was in the youngest patients.

The academy advises pediatricians to do routine screening and refer affected children to specialized treatment. It says doctors can help prevent eating disorders by stressing proper nutrition and exercise to avoid an unhealthy focus on weight and dieting.