Month: December 2013

Holiday Decisions

Wait for that wisest of all counselors, Time.

― Pericles

Here’s hoping that none of you cared that I haven’t written another post till now, because you were so busy enjoying friends and family that you didn’t even notice!

Let’s talk about sugar and holiday gorging eating. I had some people over for Christmas and all around Christmas. It’s an important time of year for the line of work I’m in. And let’s face it: at Christmas people expect dessert. You simply cannot invite them over for a meal of just meat, maybe a vegetable or two ,and candy dishes full of cheese and pepperoni cubes instead of…you know…candy.

Of course on the day The Roommate and I actually celebrated Christmas–primarily by not eating sugar, resting quietly, and not having anyone over–we actually did have cheese and pepperoni slices in the fancy Christmas candy dishes. And almonds. The spicy ones. And we ate ham. Pounds and pounds of ham. I had a jar of pickled peppers in my stocking. The roommate had a can of roasted pecans under the tree.

Anyway, if one is going to swear off all sugar forever and ever, fine. But if one is going to ever allow it all, Christmas is the time.

Continue reading Holiday Decisions

Fun With Nutrition Insanity

The reason is that you eat too many foods that are high in “calories,” which are little units that measure how good a particular food tastes. Fudge, for example, has a great many calories, whereas celery, which is not really a food at all but a member of the plywood family, provided by Mother Nature so that mankind would have a way to get onion dip into his mouth at parties, has none.

― Dave Barry

How are we all feeling today? In the Christmas spirit?

Well, never fear. A number of helpful news agencies have published some gobblitigook that will pull you out of that mood as fast as you can say Kris Kringle.

Continue reading Fun With Nutrition Insanity

Inevitable

When we are born, we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools. 

― William Shakespeare

When you have a blog, you get spam in the comments. Thankfully there are two things that work in our favor:

1. The vast majority of people who try to post these spam comments seem to be a whole, giant step down in intelligence and capability from the people who send you the spam emails. And that’s saying a lot. They are incapable of even deceiving a computer; which brings me to #2:
2. WordPress has an excellent spam filter.

So there you have it.
Continue reading Inevitable

Exercise

I believe that every human has a finite amount of heartbeats. I don’t intend to waste any of mine running around doing exercises.

― Neil Armstrong

You probably know, if you read this blog, my basic stance on exercise. I’m agin’ it.

Well, not totally against it. I’m just against what is in vogue today, which is hours and hours of useless treadmilling/biking/jogging/running. All those things do are wear out your joints. Running can make you a better runner–but that’s it. It can’t make you a better jogger, a better dancer, a better swimmer, or help you improve your “cardiovascular fitness.” Take three devoted runners and three sedentary fat guys. Tell them you’ll test them in two weeks to determine their heart/lung rate when using an elliptical for 20 minutes. Tell the “fit” runners to just keep doing what their doing. Tell the fat guys to hop on the elliptical once a day for 20 minutes till the test, but otherwise behave normally.

The fat guys will pass your test, and the runners will not.
Continue reading Exercise

Fallout II

There are 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary, and those who don’t.

–Unknown

After the catastrophe that was yesterday’s loss of all my writing (catastrophe to me; relief to some.) I am going to try again on the subject of idiocy that gets thrown about over the holidays.

Continue reading Fallout II

Fallout

Against logic there is no armor like ignorance.

–Laurence J. Peter

You knew it would happen. Thanksgiving is over, and now we must be subjected to a slew of articles about how to lose that holiday pound. Some of this advice is even packaged in implications designed to make you feel guilty: if you/us big fat Americans didn’t eat all this meat and all this fat at the holidays and get all fat and lazy and gorge yourselves/ourselves on fat and meat the whole world would be a better place.

Continue reading Fallout