Domestic Geek

One of the biggest misconceptions that people have when trying to lose weight is that if they could only get by on less food, the pounds will drop off. Unfortunately, that sets them up to fail. The body is designed to survive in times of famine, so when it senses a reduction in caloric intake, it slows down its metabolism and hangs on as hard as possible to its fat stores.

Anais gave me a link to a page about it a while back.

I remember a teacher I used to work with went to one of those weight loss places and she used to complain about all the food they wanted her to eat. Since she refused to eat it all, she never lost weight.

As Colleen reminded me, one of the biggest problems we Americans have with our food is portion control. Eating good, healthy, fresh foods is a step in the right direction, but not if you eat three times more than your body needs.

It didn't help that I grew up in a household where we would have competitions to see who could keep up with eating with dad. We also medicated hurt feelings with ice cream..big four scoop with chocolate syrup on top bowls of ice cream.

I remember watching The Biggest Loser during the first season it was on when they were talking about portion sizes to the contestants. I was thinking then that my perception of how much to eat at any one time was really out of whack, yet I couldn't be bothered to research how big portions should be.

I have been better about not gorging myself and Marcus and I don't make a habit of going to all-you-can-eat buffet restaurants like we did when we were poor. I can tell my stomach has shrunk as I can't eat as much in one sitting as I used to. It's definitely something I need to educate myself about.

This is a hard thing for people, especially women, to do. I wish I could remember who says it, (Dr. Laura, Dr. Phil maybe?) You can't properly care for anybody else if you don't take care of yourself first.

My mother was like that. I swore I would never be like that, yet I find myself doing exactly the same thing. She would spend so much time doing things for other people that she put her physical needs last (I believe her martyr attitude fulfilled some kind of emotional need). As a result, my mother got sick a lot, ate poorly, didn't have nice clothes to wear.

You need to equate this to an automobile. If you don't take care of it — gas, oil changes, tires, wax, it will expire before it's time. It will fail you when you need it most.

How can you be there for your friends, you family or your workplace if you're a run-down, stress-ed out, sick mess?

I'm brainstorming on something I can do on another blog I'm starting to encourage women to take care of themselves first. I'll let you all know what I come up with and suggestions are greatly appreciated.

I saw a post over at my friend Deb's site, Body, Mind & Solar, with the following video describing the differences of Type I & II diabetes. I didn't really know the differences and the video is well done and explains it quite well.

Do your eyes water when you yawn? Mine do. What's up with that? This is normally the time I take my Saturday afternoon nap, so things are going to be a little touchy for the next couple of hours until I get a second wind. Think I'll hit the shower after this post.

Anyway, as I alluded to in my last post: Procrastination is one of my biggest health-related enemies. I always mange to cause myself undue stress and worry because I put things off. I leave for work giving myself exactly the amount of time I need to get there on a good day. If any traffic jams or other problems arise, I'm late. It's that way with the food I eat, too. I put off going to the store until the last possible minute and then grab something quick and usually not too nutritious to just get some food in my belly. I've always put off projects until the night before they are due. Like last night, I was changing my template for Blogathon at 1 am to something to get me by because I've been dragging my feet on my redesign.

That leads to another stress causer: Perfectionism. I know in my head that perfect doesn't exist, yet I obsess over things being perfect and get really stressed and depressed if things don't work out just the way I wanted or expected them to. Crazy that I do that to myself, huh?