I met my old friend Kay for lunch today at her favorite deli. Redolent of brisket and pastrami, it is a cardiologists dream or nightmare, and so conveniently located near several major hospitals. In fact, I suspect it is the loss leader of a certain LLC, providing a steady revenue flow in otherwise lean times.
Kay came through the front door, panting a little, and sat down opposite me. I had arrived a bit early, almost early enough to get started on a cup of coffee, served by, if that is the correct term, the most casual of wait persons.
"How's the cardio therapy?" I asked.
"Had to get off the bike," she panted. "Blood pressure spiked. Off the chart. Wouldn't go down."
This sums up her most recent problem: runaway blood pressure.
She looked at me. "When are you going to get a face lift? It'd take off fifteen - no, twenty - years. Get rid of the jowly look, the wattles."
Funny. I was feeling pretty chipper when I started, but now, I don't know, I was feeling all jowly and wattily.
"Dr. Fassbinder could do wonders for you. Just the jaw line, maybe the neck. Not the eyes. Leave the eyes alone."
Good. I am glad that there is some part of my face that is passable.
Kay scribbled The Fass's (that's what I call him) name and location on a scrap of paper from her hand bag.
"He'll give you a free estimate," she said
Hmmm. Just like a Chevy or a Toyota that needs a few dents pounded out.
"If I looked twenty years younger, what about my gray hair" I asked? "Am I supposed to be prematurely gray? Or would forty-nine not be premature. Would I have to go blonde? Maybe blue. Not little-old-lady purple or blue, but a nice clear cerulean, or robin's egg. I dreamed I had blue hair once. And would people think I married a much older man? What would he think of that? I don't think he is the trophy-wife kind of guy or he would have made his move a long time ago."
The waitress, taking a break in her busy day, dropped by our table to take our order. Kay, keeping with her heart healthy regimen, ordered chopped liver on an egg bagel and carrot cake with cream cheese frosting.
"I just love the cute little carrot on top ."
"Perfect!" I said. "That's what I'll put on your tombstone. By the way, do you have to be somewhere?" I noticed Kay kept checking her watch.
"Nope, just checking my blood pressure. " Right, she did have two fingers on her pulse. "Could you pass the salt please?"
I showed Kay the calorie checker app on my phone. This little wonder not only gives the calories in just about anything you can think of, - restaurant food, grocery brands, your own cooking - Calorie King it's called and it's free- but it breaks food down to values of carbs, protein, fats, sugars etc.
Kay was fascinated. "Look, I've eaten my full load of calories for today, and it isn't even 1 PM! I guess there is nothing to do but go home and go to bed."
Oops, I just got a message on my phone. As you could have predicted from my previous blog entry, I bought the fast-becoming ubiquitous FitBit and I just met my daily walking goal.( And while sitting at the computer, no less!) I have purposely set the goal low so I can feel cheered by little rewards once in a while. If I set it at 10,000 steps, the amount these programming clowns recommend, I would never hear from my FitBit at all, unless it is programmed to snicker derisively.
So, I am going to take my wattles and jowls to the stove and heat up some very low cal. minestrone soup, and wish you warmth and a good bowl of soup on this ridiculously cold night.
Thursday, January 23, 2014
Saturday, January 18, 2014
Werewolves and FitBits
In this past year, I have been able to pretty much conquor some of my vices, like white sugar and carbonated drinks, but there is one I will not give up. For time wasting, it can't be beat. I am talking about the SciFi channel.
Monday nights, a t.v. wasteland in my opinion, has been rescued by Bitten, a SciFi Channel series that has captured my heart, which is just what the main characters want, not to mention other body parts. Bitten is the story of a hot, young career wolf in the city, trying to resolve a human fiancee, lunch dates with the girls, her shrink, also a w.w., and the "boys," her kinky wolf family upstate living in a glam but creepy hunting (get it?) lodge.
High production values, soap opera issues, much like another favorite of mine, Nashville, but with fur and teeth. Well, maybe that, too, but less howling. No wait, that too. Well, it is a lot like Nashville.
One thing that struck me right off the first time I saw Bitten, was how werewolves used to transform into wolves with bad wardrobes - plaid flannel shirts, raggy jeans and so forth. But when this chick transforms, she sheds her fetchingly color coordinated bra and panties, although it is chilly out and pretty damp and misty looking, and leaves them neatly folded so she can get to them later. You have to give her points for neatness and good lingerie.
There is also an African-American werewolf, the shrink, whom she calls her cousin, so without more episodes, I don't know whether he is either or both. Anyway, it probably doesn't matter. High time, I say, for a little werewolf diversity. And please don't tell me Jacob is Native American and that equals diversity. Teenager outsider types who ride motorbikes don't count. Also, he had bad clothes, what clothes he actually had, and this shrink/cousin is impeccably turned out.
And while we are speaking, loosely, of innards and entrails and that sort of thing, I am wondering whether I should get a FitBit or its equivalent, as my trainer suggests. I know a guy who has one, and he is obsessed by how many steps he takes a day. Somebody, somewhere decided we should all take 1,000, steps a day. At least I think that's the number. Maybe it's 10,000. Doesn't matter, it's a heck of a lot of walking around whatever it is is. Anyway, the FitBit counts your steps for you rather than have you mumbling in the grocery store "a pound of sliced turkey, nine hundred fifty," which could lead to all sorts of misunderstandings. It also keeps track of your heart rate, which is the real reason he wants me to get it. I need more aerobic exercise.
Now I have a very slow heart rate. Just this side of zombie. That can make a person lethargic, which I don't really see as a downside. Lethargy gets a bad rap, in my opinion. Anyway, the FitBit supposedly leads to greater self-awareness which in turns leads to jogging up the stairs with a basket of laundry, or something like that.
The guy I know who wears a FitBit is entirely too self aware, as far as I am concerned. One of it's advertied pluses is that it will wake you up (presumbly for your morning meditation and triathalon)
by quietly vibrating on your wrist, so as not to wake up your sleeping partner. I'll bet my friend's wife loves that one. If she's smart, she'll move into a bedroom of her own and leave him and his FitBit to whatever it is they have together.
So the FitBit is on hold for now, until I am convinced to buy yet another tiny adorable electronic device, which I am a sucker for every time. I am at least that self aware. And if I can get it with one touch on Amazon with no shipping charges, so much the better. I'm sticking to werewolves, for now, and a good deal of sitting lethargically in front of the t.v. on Monday nights.
Monday nights, a t.v. wasteland in my opinion, has been rescued by Bitten, a SciFi Channel series that has captured my heart, which is just what the main characters want, not to mention other body parts. Bitten is the story of a hot, young career wolf in the city, trying to resolve a human fiancee, lunch dates with the girls, her shrink, also a w.w., and the "boys," her kinky wolf family upstate living in a glam but creepy hunting (get it?) lodge.
High production values, soap opera issues, much like another favorite of mine, Nashville, but with fur and teeth. Well, maybe that, too, but less howling. No wait, that too. Well, it is a lot like Nashville.
One thing that struck me right off the first time I saw Bitten, was how werewolves used to transform into wolves with bad wardrobes - plaid flannel shirts, raggy jeans and so forth. But when this chick transforms, she sheds her fetchingly color coordinated bra and panties, although it is chilly out and pretty damp and misty looking, and leaves them neatly folded so she can get to them later. You have to give her points for neatness and good lingerie.
There is also an African-American werewolf, the shrink, whom she calls her cousin, so without more episodes, I don't know whether he is either or both. Anyway, it probably doesn't matter. High time, I say, for a little werewolf diversity. And please don't tell me Jacob is Native American and that equals diversity. Teenager outsider types who ride motorbikes don't count. Also, he had bad clothes, what clothes he actually had, and this shrink/cousin is impeccably turned out.
And while we are speaking, loosely, of innards and entrails and that sort of thing, I am wondering whether I should get a FitBit or its equivalent, as my trainer suggests. I know a guy who has one, and he is obsessed by how many steps he takes a day. Somebody, somewhere decided we should all take 1,000, steps a day. At least I think that's the number. Maybe it's 10,000. Doesn't matter, it's a heck of a lot of walking around whatever it is is. Anyway, the FitBit counts your steps for you rather than have you mumbling in the grocery store "a pound of sliced turkey, nine hundred fifty," which could lead to all sorts of misunderstandings. It also keeps track of your heart rate, which is the real reason he wants me to get it. I need more aerobic exercise.
Now I have a very slow heart rate. Just this side of zombie. That can make a person lethargic, which I don't really see as a downside. Lethargy gets a bad rap, in my opinion. Anyway, the FitBit supposedly leads to greater self-awareness which in turns leads to jogging up the stairs with a basket of laundry, or something like that.
The guy I know who wears a FitBit is entirely too self aware, as far as I am concerned. One of it's advertied pluses is that it will wake you up (presumbly for your morning meditation and triathalon)
by quietly vibrating on your wrist, so as not to wake up your sleeping partner. I'll bet my friend's wife loves that one. If she's smart, she'll move into a bedroom of her own and leave him and his FitBit to whatever it is they have together.
So the FitBit is on hold for now, until I am convinced to buy yet another tiny adorable electronic device, which I am a sucker for every time. I am at least that self aware. And if I can get it with one touch on Amazon with no shipping charges, so much the better. I'm sticking to werewolves, for now, and a good deal of sitting lethargically in front of the t.v. on Monday nights.
Tuesday, January 14, 2014
A Sturdily Built Woman and a Murder of Crows
I have a murder of crows in my backyard. Better than a congress of apes, I guess, although we have learned where that leads. But nearly as noisy. (And don't you just love collective nouns? See the book of the same name, i.e. A Murder... )Five or six of the big guys (the crows, not apes) convene on my birdbath and a bowl-style feeder every morning to plan the day. Another five or six squirrels gather below in a circle for their breakfast club. It is too early in the year for my groundhog to appear, presumably still napping for another few weeks.
But, undeniably, the new year is fully underway, and resolutions, if you made them, may already have begun to slip. I am still slogging along with last year's, actually made on my personal new year, my birthday a couple of weeks before Julian's (Don't remember the Julian calender?Oh, sure you do.) Lose 100 pounds. And I have come 70 pounds of the way before bogging down in points and pounds that refused to move on along. My trainer, who always says "you have to switch it up" once the body gets too comfortable with a particular routine, pointed me to a nutritionist, and yes, boys and girls, it is a whole new world.
Now, I am not counting Weight Watcher points, which can lead you down stale nutritional paths. Now, it is old fashioned calories, carbs and protein grams, and it seems to be working. More work, more specific, but, as Mark the Nutritionist says, think of it this way: "When you are in your twenties, you can use any gas at the pump and not show the effects unless you use way too much and it spills all over the parking lot and your cell phone sparks and it catches fire and burns the whole place down in a big explosion that you can see three counties away. " Actually, he didn't say all of that. He stopped at "any gas" and I filled in the rest. But, continuing more faithfully with what Mark said, "but when you are more mature ( I interject: pretty damn old) you are more like a Ferrari that needs high test gas to run properly."
Mark did of those biometric tests where your (by that I mean I) stand on a scale and then a print out rolls out, telling you everything from your metabolism rate, bone density, fat ratio and so forth.
I won't bore you with the details, although the result was interesting to me, say the least. Just showed me how many misconceptions you can have about your own body. For one thing, I probably need to lose only 20 pounds more, because I have pretty good muscles (thank you, Trainer and heredity) which make up part of what those weight charts (thank you Army and Insurance stats.) classify as fat weight. And speaking of fat, the "fat of death," visceral fat that lurks around the organs waiting to kill you - well, mine is pretty scarce. So that gut I am working off at the gym? Blubber, sitting on top of what must be killer abs just waiting to spring forth and show themselves.
Unfortunately, blubber means three 400 calorie meals a day or a 1200 a day limit, if I want it to go anywhere reasonably soon. And I won't even get into when to eat carbs and what kind, let alone the protein story. Let's just say I have learned a lot in the last couple of weeks.
The most interesting piece of self-misinformation to me: In my childhood, let's say elementary school years, I was a fairly skinny kid. Photos of me in a tutu and ballet slippers, and knobby knees and boney arms, confirm this. "Fine boned," my mother called it, and fine boned is what I believed. That is, until my print-out gave me a body type classification : sturdily built. "Sturdily built?" Why didn't it say "good peasant stock?" Need someone to pull a plow? You got 'er! In three words, I love it. I think it is hilarious that all these years, so many after those pitiful black and white eight by tens, I saw myself as a loving mother saw me, and not with the eyes of reality.
The power of a parent, I guess.
But, undeniably, the new year is fully underway, and resolutions, if you made them, may already have begun to slip. I am still slogging along with last year's, actually made on my personal new year, my birthday a couple of weeks before Julian's (Don't remember the Julian calender?Oh, sure you do.) Lose 100 pounds. And I have come 70 pounds of the way before bogging down in points and pounds that refused to move on along. My trainer, who always says "you have to switch it up" once the body gets too comfortable with a particular routine, pointed me to a nutritionist, and yes, boys and girls, it is a whole new world.
Now, I am not counting Weight Watcher points, which can lead you down stale nutritional paths. Now, it is old fashioned calories, carbs and protein grams, and it seems to be working. More work, more specific, but, as Mark the Nutritionist says, think of it this way: "When you are in your twenties, you can use any gas at the pump and not show the effects unless you use way too much and it spills all over the parking lot and your cell phone sparks and it catches fire and burns the whole place down in a big explosion that you can see three counties away. " Actually, he didn't say all of that. He stopped at "any gas" and I filled in the rest. But, continuing more faithfully with what Mark said, "but when you are more mature ( I interject: pretty damn old) you are more like a Ferrari that needs high test gas to run properly."
Mark did of those biometric tests where your (by that I mean I) stand on a scale and then a print out rolls out, telling you everything from your metabolism rate, bone density, fat ratio and so forth.
I won't bore you with the details, although the result was interesting to me, say the least. Just showed me how many misconceptions you can have about your own body. For one thing, I probably need to lose only 20 pounds more, because I have pretty good muscles (thank you, Trainer and heredity) which make up part of what those weight charts (thank you Army and Insurance stats.) classify as fat weight. And speaking of fat, the "fat of death," visceral fat that lurks around the organs waiting to kill you - well, mine is pretty scarce. So that gut I am working off at the gym? Blubber, sitting on top of what must be killer abs just waiting to spring forth and show themselves.
Unfortunately, blubber means three 400 calorie meals a day or a 1200 a day limit, if I want it to go anywhere reasonably soon. And I won't even get into when to eat carbs and what kind, let alone the protein story. Let's just say I have learned a lot in the last couple of weeks.
The most interesting piece of self-misinformation to me: In my childhood, let's say elementary school years, I was a fairly skinny kid. Photos of me in a tutu and ballet slippers, and knobby knees and boney arms, confirm this. "Fine boned," my mother called it, and fine boned is what I believed. That is, until my print-out gave me a body type classification : sturdily built. "Sturdily built?" Why didn't it say "good peasant stock?" Need someone to pull a plow? You got 'er! In three words, I love it. I think it is hilarious that all these years, so many after those pitiful black and white eight by tens, I saw myself as a loving mother saw me, and not with the eyes of reality.
The power of a parent, I guess.
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