Do you look like your mother?

I just watched a news video on Yahoo's front page today.

Way back during Vietnam, a soldier went off to war. There, he received a Dear John letter from his girl friend. She was breaking up with him, and she was pregnant. But she was going to give the child up for adoption.

Apparently the man came home and tried to find his child, to no avail.

Until two weeks ago, when they did find each other.

No DNA test needed.

There was video of them together - and they looked exactly alike. The 40 year old son was balding, his dad was bald. The 40 year old son was in law enforcement. After getting out of the military, dad had gone into law enforcement too.

And both of them were overweight. 60 year old and 40 year old had the exact same paunch!

Just goes to show that genetics plays a key role in one's weight. If your parents are overweight, chances are you will be too.

And not necessarily because you eat too much - although in many people that is a factor, of course.

But because of a genetic tendency to overweight. Especially for people with big frames. Women with wide hips will typically weigh more than women with small bones and narrow hips.

That's just the way it is.

But if you're a wide-hipped woman who looks at a thin-hipped woman longingly and thinks, "I wish I had her body," don't wish too hard, you might get it.

This happened to me as a teen. I got a job at a McDonalds. A girl started there, a couple of inches taller than me, small breasts and hips (as opposed to my large breasts and wide hips) and I wished I had her body... until I found out that she was an epileptic - she had a seizure one day, right in the store - and found myself all of a sudden very happy that I was me and not her.

We can not change our bone structure. We can not change our metabolism. (Any attempt to speed up our metabolism by taking some kind of over the counter pill is very dangerous - all that does is speed up your heart rate - not healthy.)

We must know ourselves, and work within ourselves to achieve our ideal weight and our ideal health.

Let's do that in 2012.

Eye candy everywhere...for the guys

I saw a Jenny Craig commercial yesterday. Some girl singer - she's well known but I dont' pay attention to any singer after the 1980s so I can't tell you her name - was the "spokesperson." Or rather, spokes-singer.

She was dressed in a very revealing outfit. Black scarf over her tiny breasts, black Tarzan like loin cloth on her hips, showing off her flat stomach and belly button.

And of course she was standing with one hip canted, in a pose that most men find sexy, I guess, and she'd cant her upper torso this way and that to show off those non-existent breasts, and she'd make a broad gesture with one arm and run a hand through her long tresses in another gesture which apparently guys find sexy...

As I watched it (I had the sound turned down so I don't know what she was singing - probably some kind of song demanding that a guy come and have sex with her) I found myself thinking - all she needs is a pole and she could be up in a "gentleman's club" getting lots and lots of guy s excited...and having their respect of herself as a human being? Why, no, I don't think so.

Not that I don't think women should dress sexily for their significant other (and vice versa, of course). I just think such things should be reserved for that significant other, not spread around for all to see, as if that's the only reason why they exist.

I was channel surfing today and caught a glimpse of one of the Aliens vs Predators movies... all the guys in the scene were dressed in military gear. The sole woman? A white cling-fitting sleeveless t-shirt and short shorts. Now, I don't know about you...but if I'm going after aliens, or predators, I'm going to be dressed in full survival gear, and if that doesn't show off my hips or breasts to best advantage, that's just too bad!

Still Working on that Ham

After several decades of doing Christmas dinner, you'd think we'd be better able to gauge how much everybody eats and plan accordingly. It's one thing to have enough left over food for one lunch and one dinner... it's another thing to have left over food to last a week!

I'm sick of ham and I'll be eating it for lunch and dinner for two more days! At least!

Anyway, it's now the 28th of December, 3 more days to the new year.

Have you started planning your New Year's Resolutions yet?

Most women seem to make New Year's Resolutions... most guys, not so much.

The problem with New Year's Resolutions is that they are set, they are broken once, and then they are abandoned.

New Years' Resolutions are like everything else - they are a process. You have to work up to them gradually.

Don't make it a resolution to give up chocolate completely - cold turkey. If you feel that that is a worthwhile goal (and it is if you can't control your chocolate craving, and a small snack turns into ten or eleven small snacks!) don't expect that you can just wake up on Jan 1 and never take another bite of chocolate again. Not if you're used to having several candy bars, or even one candy bar, a day.

As with all things, gradualness is the key.

Make your goals to be time sensitive:

By the end of this month I will have cut back to one Pepsi a day.
By the end of this month I will have cut back to half a bowl of ice cream a night.
By the end of this month I will have started walking at least thirty minutes a day.

Give yourself time to get acclimated to your new goals. Don't set yourself up to fail by not giving yourself time to get truly started and used to your new resolutions.

Ham, Ham, Ham

We hosted Christmas dinner yesterday afternoon (my old parents - I'm my mom's caregiver and live with them) my sister and her husband and their 13 year old son.

We had a large ham - and so half of it is left. My dad has already cut it up into thick slices - we have enough slices for breakfast, lunch and dinner for today and tomorrow.

Which is too bad, because ham isn't my favorite food. Nevertheless, I shall eat it.

One of the reasons why we have so much ham is because my nephew barely ate anything. As is his custom, he snacked before he came, ruining his appetite for the meal. This is not so bad when he's coming over to someone's house, but when he does it before going out to a restaurant, it does get annoying. The more so because of course he will either order a large meal, or fill his plate full if it's a Chinese restaurant, and then eat a couple of bites. The rest of the food, and the money his parents have to spend to pay for it, are wasted.

He's done this often enough now that I've come to expect it, but either his parents haven't cottoned on to it.... or they just don't care.

I think it's that they don't care. Whatever makes their young son happy, why, that's completely okay.

I know this because last night, my sister told us (she was seated next to me and her son at the time), that she was going to church today, and did he want to come. He of course said no. I teased him about having gone to a religious school when he was a very young kid, and he said that he had found it boring. And his mom had said, "Oh, I'm sorry."

Apologizing to him for the fact that 7 years ago, when he was 6, she'd made him go to a school that he'd found boring!

She does that a lot, my sister. On the previous times when he's filled his plate and not eaten anything, she'll say, "Oh, that's okay."

We can be playing scrabble (okay, his dad will tell him to do things he doesn't want to do, like play a game of scrabble with his mother, aunt and grandmother - but I guess the dad can't make him do it with a good grace) and he can be tapping his fingers incessantly, acting bored, playing 3-letter words, and his mom won't say anything.

(However, it would not surprise me if all he can spell are three-letter words. He's not a big reader...)

But back to the food thing.

It turns out - me deducing from what I heard - is that the parents and the kid don't have a set breakfast or lunch time. The only time they get together for a meal is for dinner. At all other times they just go and get food whenever they want, and so the boy snacks all day long. If he had a slow metabolism instead of a fast metabolism he'd be extremely tubby right now, but he does have a fast metabolism, so he eats all day - expect for dinner - and never learns to do otherwise.

All this rant is a long way of saying that yes - it is important to instill good eating habits in kids. Have, if at all possible, a set time for breakfast, lunch and dinner and don't let him stuff himself (or herself) in between! Teach kids that wasting food is wasting food and money!

Well, on a lighter note...its the day after Christmas. 6 more days until a new year, January 1.

Are you one of those many folks who don't start anything new until the new year, and then make your New Years Resolutions?

Well...for you to keep your New Year's Resolutions, you've got to start preparing to do so now.

More on that in tomorrow's post.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Regular blog postings begin on DECEMBER 26, Monday.

Aroma plays a big part in appeitite

When you're sitting in the living room watching TV while the turkey and all the other food is cooking in the oven, the aromas are wafting your way and increasing your appetite.

One way to prevent an attack of the munchies is to have fans blowing the aromas in the opposite direction from where you're sitting.

There's a website called AromaPatch that talks about aromas and how it can help decrease overeating. I present it for your information:

http://www.aromapatch.org/aroma.htm
Specific aromas can deprogram overweight people whose normal response to the smell of rich, unhealthy foods like chocolate, doughnuts and pizza was to become hungry and overeat. Scientists tested the benefits of food odors to suppress appetite rather than stimulate appetite, and found that there seemed to be certain smells that caused overweight individuals to reduce their cravings, and therefore eat less.

In scientific research, people preferred sweet smells, and strongly sweet scents such as chocolate often triggered feelings of hunger and led to overeating or binge eating, while “neutral” sweet smells actually curbed appetite. To test this theory, researchers asked 3,193 overweight people (mostly women) aged 18-64 to inhale a variety of “neutral” sweet smells, including banana, green apple, vanilla, and peppermint, three times in each nostril whenever they were hungry. After six months, the participants in his study lost an average of five pounds a month, or 30 pounds in total. Source: J. Neurol. Orthop. Med. Surg., 1995; 16:28-31.

Similar research has been done at the Human Neuro-Sensory Laboratory in Washington, D.C. and this research fully supports earlier findings. Researchers there studied eighty people who were given one of two inhalation devices. One contained a combination of specially selected scents; the other was a placebo (neutral un-detectable scent). All of these subjects were asked to inhale the scents three times five to six minutes before and after eating a meal. At the end of the six-month trial, those participants who used the selected scents lost an average of 19 pounds, while the placebo group only lost an average of 4 pounds.

Worried About Your Weight? Thnking of Going on a Diet

This post is not for my regular readers, but for any newbies who are showing up because they are getting bombarded every day by news reports and emails and ads warning them about the the horros of overeating during the holidays and of being overweight in general.

And my message is... if you do want to lose weight, December is not the time to start. (Unless you're of a religion that doesn't celebrate Christmas, in which case, go for it!)

Traditionally, there are Christmas parties, and holiday parties, throughout the month, in which people have tons of food available and typically eveyrone "overeats" - either on real food like turkey and so on, or on snacks like pies or candy.

Supposedly the average person gains 5 pounds during December.

Big deal.

It's a once a year thing... Thanksgiving and Christmas... once a year...

Now I'm not saying that's a license to pig out... I'm saying don't be ashamed if you do pig out!

The thing is, if you've just now decided to try to lose weight, December is a bad month because of all the temptations put in your way. It's soooo easy to be tempted, to eat, and then to think your willpower sucks and that you'll never be able to lose weight because you can't stop eating.

As I've said to my regular readers, that's not true. Willpower is a muscle and can be exercised and strengthened like any other muscle.

But if you don't have willpower - as evidenced by the fact that you're overweight and are coming to Weight Loss Without Tears to find out how to lose weight that you haven't been able to lose - then don't sabotage yourself by trying to start a diet in December. You're bound to be tempted by some type of food, stuff yourself with it, and then beat yourself up even more for having no willpower - vicious circle.

So - keep reading this blog, and prepare to go on a diet on January 2!

For those who have been following my program for a while.. if this is your first December, take it carefully. The idea is to never feel guilt, never feel despair, never give up.

Remember, it's all about knowing yourself.

It's all about learning about yourself.

If you've reached that level of caloric intake where you're eating small portions of food and losing one to two pounds a week... if you suddenly eat double what you're normally used to... how does that effect you? If you've been successful in eating only half a Snickers bar as a treat a day, and you have a whole Snickers bar...or you eat a pecan pie or a pumpkin pie... how does that effect you.

Are you able to maintain that slight increase in food? Does one piece of pecan pie spur you to want another one immediately, or do you start craving another piece in the middle of hte night?

But the main thing to find out is after Christmas is over. After the relatives have left and all the food and the leftovers have been eaten.

Have you gained weight? If so, how much?

Don't worry - you can lose it - the question is, how long will it take.

Can you go back to your pre-Christmas (and Thanksgiving) eating habits with no problem, or do cravings kick in and is your willpower to resist them wobbly. (And is this exacerbated by the fact that tere's so much snow on the ground that you can't get out for walks?)

If you can get back to your pre-Christmas eating habits...do you lose a pound or two after that first week? If not, no problem, your body simply has to get back to that state of caloric imbalance that you'd been in before. Spend another week eating "normally" (everything you want, just smaller portions, as you had been doing) and by that second week, a pound will have come off.

Then, just continue on as usual.

OT - Email Scams

I got an email today from someone I know - it was her email, not a fake one.

The title of the email was Help! and in the body of the email she said that she and her husband - and she gave the name of her husband and it was the correct one - had gone to London (they are in the Air Force and currently stationed in Italy) and been mugged, and they needed money.

Well - the email was her email, but I knew it was a fake.

In the first place, we are mere acquaintances...if she'd really been mugged and needed money there are dozens of people she'd email before she'd email me.

Secondly, she did not address me by name.

Thirdly, she signed her name in full, but this woman always signs her name with a diminuitive.

But, I thought to myself... if you've been mugged and aren't thinking clearly, these things might go by the board.

So I sent an email back - "Sorry to hear about your troubles, of course I'll help, but first, tell me the name of our mutual friend the hairstylist. (For we have a mutual friend who is a hairstylist).

"She" sent an email back immediately, and did not answer my question, merely proceeded to give the London address where I should send some money via Western Union. (And again did not call me by name).

So yet more confirmation that it's a fake.

I know this scam has been around for a while. I've heard on the news...somewhere...where it's normally relatives of teenagers who are targeted...they say they've been arrested and need money to get out of jail or something of that nature. (So why do their relatives think they could possibly have access to an email account in a holding cell?)

Anyway, I phoned our mutual friend - who knows the phone of these folks in Italy - and told her to tell them that their email account had been hacked.

I contemplated calling the police and arranging some kind of international arrest warrant - I'd send money, and cops could be at the Western Union on the other end ready to arrest whoever came for the money... but then I decided that the cops probably wouldn't be interested in arranging such an event - for as little money as I was prepared to send (even though what she was asking for was $1,000.) (I've read other people complaining about similar things. One guy on a message board said that someone had created a fake credit card with his number and was buying stuff at a Walmart in a state several states away from him...he tried to call to have the guy tracked down and arrested but neither the Walmart involved in the theft, nor the police in that town, would do anything about it. HIs own credit card company gave him a new card...and that's all that they did.

So, to cut a long story short, here's some lessons to be learned.

1. If someone emails you asking for money because of a family tragedy - verify that it's the truth! Are they people who should be using your first name, do they sign their name properly, etc. and etc.)

2. Everyday, check your SENT folder to see if someone is sending emails in your names!

Who can you trust?

I'm 50 years old, and I've been drinking milk for breakfast, lunch and dinner - and snacktime - forever. (When I was drinking Pepsi as a steady diet, that was in between meals. When I ate, I always drank milk.)

On the few times I traveled over to Europe, I was always surprised to see that I could never get milk in a restaurant. (Or if I could, it was some horrible heated stuff.)

It was finally made clear to me that the rest of the world doesn't have a National Dairy Council... or whatever Council it is that does the commercials that say Got Milk? or encourage people to drink milk because you get calcium from it.

I'm not sure how the rest of the world gets their calcium - presumably in their cheeses or broccoli or what have you. We have "fortified" orange juice, for example...not sure if Europeans do.

In any event, the thing is that everyone in the US thinks they have to drink milk to get calcium - because of the advertisement that says so - no one in Europe thinks so.

It's all advertisement.

We've also got the Beef commercials - it's "what's for dinner". That's not quite the same thing, the advertisements don't say that beef is necessary for you, just that it tastes good. But funnily enough...those commercials are paid for from the Natinal Beef Board- or whatever their name is. But the thing is... the governmetn pays for those commercials too (indirectly, through subsidies to the National Beef Board)!

We've been told for years, by "them," that eggs are bad for you...give you high cholesterol. That news hadn't made it to Europe, where apparently they've done some kind of study that shows that people who eat eggs are able to lose weight more frequently than those who don't.

http://lifestyle.in.msn.com/health/article.aspx?cp-documentid=5617814

Here's the thing - we don't know who is paying advertisers to effect our eating habits. We don't know who is paying the scientists who endorse that this food is good for you and this bad.

The solution is simple. Eat whatever you want - the foods you like - just eat them in moderation!

Some things are common sense. There's no nutrition in chocolate - it just tastes great and gives you energy! So obviously you can't subsist on chocolate for more than a day! Fruits and vegetables - bursting with vitamins. Eggs - taste good, give you protein. And so on.

So don't get all het up over the latest study. If you like certain foods - eat them. In moderation.

What to do while watching football?

This is the kind of rowing machine I have - with independent arms. You can get a cheaper version with a pully system, but that makes you use both your hands at the same time. With independent arms, you can alternate your hand positions to get a bit of variety, and so on.

I've spent the whole day watching football... 11 am for the first game, 2 pm for the 2nd, and then after dinner, and what I'm watching right now, Giants vs Cowboys. (And I have to tell you...I watch football to watch football, not some guy doing air-humping in the end zone (in this case Brandon Jacobs) and then some swivel hip action like he's trying to adjust his cup, before running to the sideline. Act like you've been there before, you moron!

Anyway...for those of you who spend too much time watching football and not enough time exercising, consider getting a rowing machine. You could get a stationary bicycle, but frankly I prefer a rowing machine. You sit on it and exercise your arms and legs and belly at the same time. Indeed, if you've got a little pot belly, there's nothing better than a 30 minute row every day to get rid of it, as well as tone up your arms.

Time Keeps On Slipping Into the Future

Sorry for the dearth of posts recently...I've been working on a project, wanted to devote all my time to it, and kept telling myself...it'll be done today so I can get back to blogging here tomorrow.

The next day it was... okay, it's definitely going to get done today....

Well, today it is done... so back to posting here on a daily basis tomorrow. (With the first post appearing tomorrow afternoon while I'm watching football!)

Thanks for your patience.

Food is Love

I recently read a book called Love, God and the Art of French Cooking, by James Twyman.

It's a book that may not be for everyone, as there's rather a Christian element involved. The author is staying at a chef's B&B in Canada, they get to talking about food and the chef (Roger Dufau) talks about food and religion.

As an atheist, I had no problem with this. (One can be "spiritual" without believing in a God.. one believes in one's own spirit).

In any event, for those of us who used to just eat because food tastes good or we are hungry, this book opens a new window on the meaning of food.

It'll probably be available at your local library, so check it out.

Can't Sleep? Read A Book!

During the day, and even to a certain extent at night, we are most active. But once we try to go to sleep (or are awake when most other people are sleeping), ah..that's where the danger lies.

How many of us suffer from insomnia, or are just night owls. It's late at night, we're in our homes...we can't sleep...what do we do?

Too many eat. Especially if they can't sleep, but want to sleep, the frustration just builds up until they say to hell with it, get up and have a bowl of ice cream or a bag of popcorn. Or eat up the leftover food you were saving for the next day's lunch.

It is important to not let frustration and anger rule your thoughts - either late at night or at any other time.

If you can't sleep, just accept it and try to read a book instead. (More helpful to you than watching TV!) Drink a glass of water to quell any hunger pains...or of course have a few carrots - nothing more than that.

I'm not adverse to anyone having a small bowl of ice cream up to about 8 pm, but after that, you don't want to indulge.

IF you do suffer from insomnia, try all sorts of natural remedies before trying artificial sleep aids. Sleeping pills can be habit forming, and may have side effects.

One thing to do is cut out your caffeine. Drink regular coffee to wake up, and decaf after five or six. Experiment with this to see how early you have to stop drinking caffeine for it to stop effecting your attempts to sleep.

Try meditation just before it's time to go to bed. Write out your frustrations or thoughts in your diary - if you've got thoughts racing around in your head that have you so wired, express them to your journal. That can help calm your mind.

I have also found that working out just before I go to bed, gets me ready for bed. For some people, exercise stimulates brain activity. For me, it helps calms me and gets me ready for sleep.

You need to find out, through experimentation, what's best for you.