From the Weird Files

And because we can't ALWAYS be serious and gnashing our teeth and moaning over our big-a** jug of water, here's your weird story of the day. A woman in Texas was apparently so taken with herself that she had a life-sized wedding cake made in her image. Have a bite of armpit, anyone?

Check out the photo slideshow at the CNN website.

Like It or Not

A comment made to yesterday's post about my dislike of plain water gave me pause for thought. The reader said, basically, that it was no wonder I struggle with my weight since I don't like drinking plain water and that I should spend my money on a therapist to help me understand what "normal" people expect out of their food and beverage in terms of taste.

Of couse, I laughed at the therapy comment. I no doubt need therapy for many, many things. The fact that I do not enjoy drinking plain water is pretty low on the list of all my neuroses, however.

It did make me think, though, about expectations. I think most of us would agree that food is not just "fuel" for the "human machine." Perhaps in its most technical state, it is simply that, and perhaps it should be simply that. But that's true for very few of us, and I'd be surprised if even my critical reader doesn't find some enjoyment of food or some emotional attachment/component to food.

But, is the reader right? Do "normal" people not really care if their food tastes good or not? Are my expectations warped that I should actually enjoy something I'm supposed to spend 64 ounces and at least an hour each day consuming? Have my years of eating "tasty" spoiled me to the enjoyment of eating "healthy regardless of taste?"

Don't know the answers here, but it's an interesting train of thought. What do you think? What are your expectations of food and drink?

Drinkin' Woman's Blues

Okay, it isn't politically correct or anything, but I'll just say it. I hate water. Play in it? Fine. Wash with it? Okey-dokey. Drink it? YUCK.

So I'm trying to play nice with my Nutrisystem program and do everything I'm supposed to since the whole point of a no-brainer program like NS is to have them tell me what to do so i don't have to think about it.

Except, just like the brilliant Dr. Atkins and everyone else on the planet, yeah, yeah, yeah, need to drink that 64+ ounces of water a day.

Forgive my repetitiveness, but, YUCK.

So I contact my handy-dandy Nutrisystem "counselor" (probably a bored college kid making a few extra bucks) about what, in fact, may I consider water besides, well, water.

Crystal Light counts as water! Yea! I like Crystal Light. Only problem is, along with other major life changes I'd like to reduce my intake of aspartame (or "nasty-tame," as someone once called it--maybe my old buddy Jimmy Moore over at Livin' La Vida Low-Carb).

The greedy gusses at Crystal Light, however, use Splenda in their prefab bottled version, but retain cheaper aspartame in their more affordable powdered version. Now, if I am gonna drink at least 64 ounces of this crap a day, can you imagine how much $$$ it's going to cost to do bottled? (I can answer that: about $5 a day.) And can you imagine how much "nasty-tame" I'll be ingesting if I bottle my own at a much more reasonable 75 cents a day?

What's a thirsty girl to do? And don't tell me "drink water." At the risk of really sounding repetitive: YUCK.

Home Sweet Home

Well, this has nothing to do with diets or food insanity (mine or the manufacturers') but my new coworkers were kind enough to throw me a housewarming party this week at my new house--well, new to me anyway. Which required me to actually get it sort of cleaned up and organized.

It's not my little baby Victorian from New Orleans--which, thankfully, sold in five weeks--but it's mine (well, okay, technically, the bank's) and it's close to work, albeit in somewhat of a soul-less mid-80s subdivision. And of course, I have to include my entire wall of built-in (unorganized as of yet) bookcases--a big selling point for this bookworm, and my furbabies Shane (red) and Tanker (black).

Seeing Stars

Watching celebrity diets is sort of like watching a train wreck...you know it's going to be painful but you can't quite pull your eyes away from it.

So, new to our shelves is The Black Book of Hollywood Diet Secrets because, as we all know, if only we knew how Cameron Diaz stayed slim we would automatically look like her, right? (Never mind that there ain't a skinny blonde in my gene pool as far back as at least the signing of the Magna Carta.)

So, while we're daydreaming about exercise, we might as well look at how to LOOK like a star. Depending on who you want to look like, in no particular order, here are some tips from the book (parenthetical comments by yours truly because I can't help myself):

* Wanna look like John Cusack? Don't eat any white foods (not a bad strategy, actually).

* Oprah or Rachael Ray? Both drink Wulong Slimming Tea. (Wonder why they don't look more alike?)

* Heidi Klum or Cindy Crawford? Sip vinegar before dinner to kill your hunger pangs. (Wonder what it does to your kidneys?)

* Jessica Simpson? Detox with So-Cal cleanse, a trendy detox product. (Wonder if she's ever tried maltitol-sweetened chocolate?)

* Sharon Stone? Eat prunes to ease bloating and prevent wrinkles. (Would that be FACIAL wrinkles?)

* Demi Moore? Eat apples with peanut butter. (All day long?)

* Jennifer Lopez? Sniff grapefruit oil, which "affects your liver enzymes, which causes fats to be broken down and burn off." (I honestly couldn't make this stuff up--I ain't that clever.)

* Owen Wilson? A daily dose of asparagus and parsley, natural diuretics that diminish bloating. (Doesn't do much for mood enhancement, apparently. Okay, sorry, low blow.)

* Matthew McConaughey? Brush your teeth after every single bite of food--he carries his toothbrush to restaurants with him. Apparently, the fresh minty taste signals your brain that you are full. (My brain isn't that stupid.)

* Kelly Clarkson and Jennifer Hudson? The Cookie Diet. (Must be an American Idol thing. Wonder if I could suddenly carry a tune if I tried it?)

* Lindsay Lohan? Drinks soya in her coffee. (If you want to be like Lindsay, you have bigger problems than weight, IMHO.)

* Gwyneth Paltrow? Drinks dandelion tea as a diuretic. (And you, too, can look pale, ethereal and moderately anorexic.)

* Paris Hilton? Says avoid diet soda. (Please see extraneous comments about Lindsay Lohan.)

* Renee Zellweger? Hiking. (And what fun is that? I'd rather try sniffing vials of grapefruit oil.)

* Reese Witherspoon? Walk backward to tone your calves while carrying five-pound weights. (Yep, that would be me--great calves, porky body.)

* Julia Roberts? Knits--keeps her hands busy and mind occupied. (I quilt and it hasn't done a thing for me.)

* Kate Beckinsale? No starchy carbs after sundown. (Must make you grow fangs or something.)

* Gwen Stefani? Wear wedges--they make you look thinnest of all shoes.

Gotta go now--time to shop for shoes!

I Think I'm Jogging, I Think I'm Jogging....

So I'm sitting here at my desk with an aching back, caused by the simple activity of climbing a ladder and spending 30 minutes with my arms stretched over my head wrestling with an outdated and possibly dangerous light fixture. I lost the wrestling match, I might add, and that was before the back pain started.

So, let's just say exercise of any sort is not my forte. Oh, I know it's important. It won't make me lose weight but it would make me less prone to bizarre back injuries, if nothing else.

So I was very interested in this NPR story recently about exercise, and the perception of exercise.

According to this Harvard psychologist, Ellen Langer, who has become one of my favorite people in the world, if we think we're exercising, it can have the same effect of really exercising, more or less. Langer did a study of hotel maids and how they perceived their activity levels. Now, I'd hate to be a hotel maid. They have to stay on their feet all day, doing hard work and getting lots of exercise. Yet most of those Langer studied reported that they did not get any exercise--because their idea of exercise was jogging or doing some kind of gym-torture. And their bodies didn't reflect the level of activity that they are, in fact, doing just as part of their jobs.

So Langer took half the maids and told them how much exercise they actually were getting, and the informed half had a loss of weight, blood pressure, etc. The placebo effect in action. "Hence, the theoretical possibility," the article says, "that one might be able to sit around eating chocolate and still lose weight."

So, if I sit here with my giant pepperoni pizza and think about how much exercise I'm getting by lifting the slice to my mouth, chewing, swallowing and digesting, it pretty much nullifies the damage, right?

Well, okay, it probably sounds too good to be true, and there have been some negative nancies at Duke and the University of Texas who have pooh-poohed the whole idea.

Still, I think I'll go and have a daydream about powerwalking up Mount Everest. I feel a sweat coming on.

What's in a Toe?

So, how attached are you to your toes? Or, rather, to having only five of them? Would you be willing to have six toes on one foot to reach your ideal weight?

There was an interesting story on CBS News--one of those interminable New Year's weight-loss things--about how far people, primarily women, would be willing to go to reach that elusive magic scale number. The survey was done for Fitness magazine.

So here are some of the results.

* About 25 percent would spend a week in jail.
* 85 percent would be happy to squeeze an extra toe into their (wider) shoes.
* 23 percent would shave their heads.
* 51 percent prefer Keira Knightley's body over Queen Latifah's.
* 50 percent would rather lose 20 pounds than live to be 100.

Now, okay. To weigh a nice svelte number that I haven't seen since, oh, about sixth grade, I would spend a week in the slammer. Does that include laundry duty, community showers and new girlfriends named Big Bertha, I wonder? I would take an extra toe--heck, an extra toe on each foot. Who cares, really? Bunions and sandals are poor bedfellows anyway. Yep, I would shave my head. I might have curly hair when it grows back, after all, and I could pick a new haircolor.

Hmmm...yeah, I'd probably rather look like Keira than Latifah, but I'd rather look like Latifah than myself, so...whatever.

Now, the last one gives pause. I absolutely would not give up living to 100 for 20 pounds. 20 pounds? Let's see...fat and 99 or fat-minus-20-pounds and dead? You do the math.

Getting Fruity

So, here I am, first of the year, what's a chronic dieter to do after being on a three-month out-of-control snackfest? The good, self-controlled dieter would say, here's my copy of Dr. Atkins New Diet Revolution, hunker down with a few hunks o'meat and some veggies, and just slog through the low-carb flu for a few days.

The unmotivated, lazy, uncontrolled dieter would say, hmmmm, what's easiest and requires the least amount of time and brain cells from me?

Which brings us to NutriSystem. Now, in my own defense, I honestly had already signed up for their South-Beach-in-a-Box program well before I began seeing the cheesy, sleazy New Year's ads aimed at all us poor disheveled behemoths looking for a new start in January. And when my sarcastically inclined senior maternal live-in adult (which only proves I come by my sarcasm honestly) asks me when I'm making my own cheesy N/S television ad, I respond that when they pay me I'll prance on a stage with before and after photos. Because if you read in the very, very, very tiny print beside those before and after photos, next to where it states "results not typical," it also says that the people have been paid.

Which they should, because the program is ridiculously expensive, and I probably can't stay on it more than a month without entering the poor house, where I would be fed beans and rice every meal. And while that doesn't sound so bad, it would play hell with my carbs.

So why the title "getting fruity?" Because as part of the Nutri/System South-Beach-in-a-Box program, I'm eating a bit of fruit (keeping it low carb, of course) for the first time in a while. Pretty tasty stuff, fruit.

Small Town Life

So, here I am, living in a new environment after 15 years in New Orleans, and before that in San Diego and Houston. It has been quite an adjustment. I walked in my backyard a couple of nights ago and saw stars for the first time in years. I had forgotten about stars! The sky is bluer, and I can drive five minutes and be in the middle of the woods. People here complain about traffic but, believe me, except on days when the Auburn Tigers have a home game, there is no serious traffic.

On the other hand, there also is no DVR service available--well, there is, but apparently there are only so many DVR units available in the county and I had to go on a waiting list. And there's no local TV stations, so who knows if there's any news here (judging from the teeny-tiny newspaper, that answer is no). And there is no Lebanese or Greek food to be found, and one of my favorite low-carb meals was a gyro plate from Byblos or Babylon in New Orleans, a nice lamb blend with onions alongside a salad and a little mound of labneh. Sigh. On the other hand, there's lots of BBQ. I mean, LOTS of BBQ, usually smoked and you do the sauce yourself so that's good. And then there's the Auburn Meat Lab, which I'll write about later. A low-carber's dream.

I find myself trying to adjust my city-girl mindset. I am way too early for everything because I'm used to leaving 45 minutes before I need to be somewhere, not five minutes. I think I was almost arrested in the Wal-Mart parking lot last weekend for stalking because I was following a woman in my car as she walked through the lot with her cart. I just wanted her parking space. We do that in the city; apparently, not here. Scared the poor old girl to death. And this morning, as I sat at a red light looking in the next lane at some poor guy whose car had broken down, I was horrified to see three guys jump from the truck in front of me and run over to the car. OMG! I thought--they're going to rob him. Well, no, actually, they were going to help him get his car pushed over to the side of the road. Gotta get over that crime thing, but that may take a while.

It's good to settle down after more than two months of commuting more than an hour each way. To be here at work by 7:30 I'd leave before dark and got in the really bad habit of pulling through the Burger King drive-through I passed on my way to the interstate to grab a carbolicious breakfast. How often? Well, let's just say the last morning I went through, getting a late start, the woman at the drive-through line said, "Honey, you're running late this morning." Now, if that's not a sign you've been out of control, I don't know what is!

Good to be back.

Coming Soon!

Nope, I didn't forget. Yep, I'm still around (and round). Things have started settling down with the new job and home--lots of changes! So, in the next few days, "Waisted in the Wasteland" will become simply "Waisted" (that, unfortunately, hasn't changed). Hope my readers will find their way back!

A belated thanks to my reader friend in France for the book--it arrived in New ORleans after I left, my realtor hid it in my "for sale" house and I didn't find it till I was packing up for the final move-out! But I love it, Harry Potter geek that I am. So THANK YOU!!

Back soon....