Tag: metabolism

World War Me

World War Me

The other day I watched a movie entitled War World Z  with Brad Pitt. The Zombies ran rampant across the earth biting into their victims with an excitement I’ve not seen since the annual shoe sale at Saks.

So as I became engaged in Pitt’s battle to save humanity, I wondered why there was no hero to come and rescue me and other women from the war we fight daily with our own bodies.

I know there has been much written about what it’s like to be a woman and those sneaky, evil little hormones that rule us like Kim Jong Un over North Korea, but not much is mentioned about the war we fight with our metabolisms.

Yes, I said it and anyone with XX chromosomes understands me.

Nothing is more frustrating to a woman than to be on a diet for weeks and shed a pound or two at most.

Then upset and defeated we visit the doctor who takes the usual tests and announces there are no unusual suspects.

In other words your metabolism is normal.

Normal for what, an elephant?

I have a friend who has the most honest doctor on the planet and I know this because he actually told her that her metabolism is now merely a corpse.

If it’s true God created woman to correct the mistakes he made on men, could he have not improved and sped up our metabolisms?

How many times have we heard that men lose weight faster than women?

Hello, wasn’t it enough God gave us labor pains. Did he have to give them faster weight loss too?

I’m not speaking as a feminist here; I’m speaking as a pissed-off female who is sick of getting on the scale and hearing my midriff laughing inside of me?

No scale has ever been kind to women, it is misogamy personified. It teases, ridicules and upsets you to no end and then we have to be content with that old lie, you didn’t gain weight it’s just water.

Hah!

I’ve carried around enough water to fill the northern Atlantic and I’m sick of homeless fish looking at me like they’re ready to pitch a tent in one of my boobs.

Hello! Weight is weight and no matter how anyone spins it water weight makes your clothes just as tight as fat weight.

Have you ever dieted until you’re blue in the face and crossed over a plateau into a lower number? Then the next day you’re back up again and we’re supposed to be happy it’s just water weight? What am I the female version of a Gladiator?

Who invented this cruel game Pontus Pilate?

The sad thing is usually wars end, but not the war on weight.

Once the fat cells invade your body they stay forever. They build condominiums in your thighs and love to swing inside the flab on your upper arms. Oh sure occasionally they go into hiding, waiting in the brush like little gorilla fighters for that water weight to creep up again. Then they fill themselves up and grow to a new glorious size until your jeans are digging into your waist like a monkey into a cupcake.

The diet war cannot be won, only perhaps an occasional battle.

I love those ads you see on your phone, lose forty pounds in two weeks and all you need to do is eat a gummy bear before you go to bed. I’ve eaten lots of gummy bears and I can testify that doesn’t work.

Not even a dead person can lose that much weight in so short a time and if you do better call a damn ambulance.

The easiest mark in the world is a fat person. There have been more diets and diet schemes perpetrated on this planet than cocaine at a Hollywood party.

So what can someone who loves food do, although it’s their worst enemy, like a woman who stays with a man who abusers her?

It’s not chocolate’s fault it’s mine. I’m the one who instigated the binge don’t blame the chocolate eggs. The Cadbury bunny made me do it.

If you’re expecting some great secret or never before unveiled piece of diet wisdom from this soldier it ain’t gonna happen.

I’ve climbed the ranks to become a general in the war against fat in my own body and I haven’t earned a single medal. Lord knows I have the chest to pin one on.

No one goes on one diet, loses weight and stays thin forever. If that person exists I’d like to meet and sic a pack of rabid dogs on them.

Every soldier in the battle of the bulge has been on every diet. 

And as sure as the sun comes up in the morning it will bring with it a new diet craze.

I’ve taken pills, drank drinks, eaten only three small puddings a day, counted calories, carbs, fats until I counted myself going nuts.

There are fasts, fen fen, now some new one that’s actually for diabetes but has a secondary effect of weight loss, which of course ends when you stop the pill.

I’ve saladed, starved and Mediterranean dieted until I couldn’t look at another teaspoon of olive oil. I’ve Atkins, ketoed and stuffed myself with laxatives because I couldn’t handle the idea of bulimia.

If exercise was really the key to weight loss I’d be thin from jumping on and off the scale fifty times a day.

I imagine I’m a bad general and not just because I have to keep letting out my uniform.

Sun Tzu said, “If your enemy is secure at all points be prepared for him. If he is in superior strength, evade him.” I am convinced Sun Tzu could not win a battle against my fat cells.

I can’t beat them because they are tougher than the line of bull that emanates from a politician’s mouth and I certainly can’t evade them since they are bulging over my belt.

So what’s a female general to do to win this war?

Many have said to make peace with your body. In other words just accept that you’ll never be thin and be grateful fat is “in” right now. As Ben Franklin said, “there is no such thing as a good war or a bad peace.”

So Ben since peace is good, please pass me that piece of chocolate cake. 

Dieting Becomes Her: And by Her I Mean Grandma

cickenpaprikash.jpg

         Dieting Becomes Her (And By Her I Mean Grandma)

 

Dieting comes as natural to most grandmothers as lying comes to a politician.

I find a small bit of comfort in attempting to discern which of the old wives tales contain a small scintilla of truth, not only for the obvious reasons, but to pass them on to future generations.

Many believe that if you eat standing up, the calories automatically drop to your feet and at worst your size sevens will become a half size larger. Okay, I concur there is a bit of sense in this, gravity and all that. But, try as I may, I can’t get it to work for me. Sure my feet get fatter, but so does everything else. There is definitely something wrong at the very core of this theory.

Eating while standing serves no purpose other than to get less exercise by foregoing pulling out a chair that must work off a few calories. It is also more labor intensive to walk an entire cake to the table than to rationalize standing and eating said cake over the sink. Eating upright leads to the evening off process, leading to the shoveling of more bites into the mouth process, which ultimately leads to the you’re a fat pig result.

I shall explain.

You grab a cake or pie out of the fridge. You must be somewhere in twenty minutes, so you say to yourself, “I have no time to eat. I’m in a hurry! I’ll just grab a piece of this and run. I’m so busy I’ll work these calories off in no time.” (Let me know if any of this sounds familiar).

There is something very strange about eating cake or pie with a fork sans knife. It is difficult to cut perfect pieces. The grooves of the tines seem to stay in the food like fingerprints on a victim’s neck. Screaming SHE ATE CAKE! SHE ATE CAKE! OINK!!!!

My overactive imagination? I think not. Otherwise, why would everyone go to such great lengths evening off the piece they ate. Making certain to cover the fork marks and make the edge smooth to the eye. This eliminates any evidence and usually very little cake or pie for the next person. By the time you cover your tracks, one of two things has happened. Either you’ve eaten an extra five hundred or a thousand calories during the evening off process or there’s so little cake left you’re forced to finish the evidence and tell everyone you had to throw it away because it got moldy or the cat walked across it.

Oh sure the story would stand up in court because who could prove otherwise? Except on the scale and when you are bulging out of your pantyhose. So, if you think I’m telling you not to eat standing up, no way. I know you will, but I guess it’s okay if you’re eating while running around the block three times or jogging cross country or, oh for goodness sake if you’re a jogger, we wouldn’t be having this conversation in the first place!

Of course there are also those who claim eating food from someone else’s plate is best since the calories stay with the initial owner of the food and do not transfer to the interloper. I have yet to prove this theory, but will continue to probe further until satisfied if it be truth or legend.

To add a positive spin to my diatribe, I must admit as we age our appetites do decrease. Ergo the sharing of the sandwich when out to lunch in lieu of a whole one, smaller portions and filling up more quickly. I suppose one must find comfort in this revelation although the fact our metabolism seems to move in a turtle-like fashion must offset this happy occurrence.

I am not one to judge since my metabolism and I have been at odds for years and it is the Rip Van Winkle of the metabolism world.

Or as my friend Yolanda so often points out, she now has the metabolism of a corpse.

So I shall continue to downward dog and Tai Chi my way into some semblance of fitness hoping against hope that my Grammy pants remain loose and I can keep up with my grandsons. This of course is the best form of exercise and I embrace it fully.

 

 

 

Chicken Paprikash Soup

4 large Chicken thighs

1 onion

2 cans chicken broth

2 heaping tablespoons Hungarian paprika (more may be added if your tastes run to spicy)

Salt and pepper

Flour for dusting

¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper or ½ teaspoon hot sauce

½ cup each of sour cream and half and half

½ cup crumbled crispy bacon for topping (optional)

Season and dust chicken thighs

Sauté chicken in butter and oil mixture (Easy on the fat is okay)

Add chopped onion and sauté until translucent and soft

When chicken is browned drain excess fat and add chicken broth to deglaze the pan

Add paprika and cook until incorporated

Add salt, pepper and cayenne or hot sauce to taste

Temper sour cream until room temperature and begin to slowly add to broth and chicken. When creamy, add half and half.

Finish warming and serve with a dollop of sour cream or crème fraiche or crumbled bacon pieces. Chicken may be served on the side or shredded into the soup and spaetzle may also be added to soup before serving.