23

23- Percentage your risk of obesity increases for every two hours of tv watching per day.

Source: Fitness, March, 2006.

Tags: T.V., obesity

20 - 32 - 24.7 - 3

20 - Percentage of U.S. restaurant meals that were purchased from a car in 2005.

32 - Restaurant meals, per year, the average American actually consumes in the car.

24.7 - Minutes that the average American connutes to work each day.

3 - The increased risk of obesity that you incur for every 30 minutes you spend sitting in the car each day.

Source: Eating Well, October/November, 2006.

Tags: obesity, interesting trivia, eating out

Open Letter To Target

To: Whoever Is In Charge

This is to let you know that I will not be returning to your store with the intent to purchase clothes following my experience this weekend.

As you may know, a recent study indicates that almost 65% of adults suffer from obesity in the United States and in Maine the percentage of obese adults is nearly 24%. [“Obesity up in almost every state” (WebMD)] So why is it that in your South Portland store, the size of the Women’s department is less than 10′ x 10′?

To make matters worse, the Women’s department is in the back corner next to the changing room and several racks contain the discarded clothes from the changing rooms. Furthermore, on my visit yesterday, more than half of the Women’s department was taken up with clearance racks for the Misses’ department. The choices for purchase where extremely limited and was mostly exercise clothes. I guess that is a sublte hint that instead of working or going to parties, anyone of a larger size should be at the gym.

When I could not find any shorts that weren’t meant for the gym, I approached an employee with a name tag at the changing room. I asked if there were any shorts left in the Women’s department as it appeared the Winter clothes had already been put out in mid-August. She waved in the general direction of the clearance racks and told me if there were any shorts left, they would be mixed in with those. She was rude and unhelpful and I certainly had the impression that she felt I was wasting her time.

So, until you realize that anorexic teenagers aren’t the only ones who shop in your store, that the adults are the ones who really spend the money there, and that your employees need a lesson in how the customer is the reason they have jobs, I shall be shopping where the clothes fit and the employees are friendly.

Thanks for wasting my time and gas yesterday,
N. Mallory

Tags: Target, obesity

Where are all the cute fat short clothes?

Goodwill Eploded In My Living Room!

O.K. Not really.

However, every piece of clean clothes is now located in my living room — except the 1/3 of the closet that I returned to the closet. There are two rather large plastic tubs of winter clothes and two rather large plastic tubs, 3 medium under-the-bed-type plastic boxes, and two small tubs of clothes that are too small. I seriously almost started crying when I packed up my cute skinny clothes. So sad that I can’t wear them anymore because I can’t seem to stop eating. Also, I appear to have four small drawers empty. The socks might fill two of those, but this seriously is a first.

Now that I’ve sorted through every last piece of clothing (except trying to match the socks), I have come to the conclusion that I have too many clothes in too many sizes (I will never have to buy pants in sizes 10 & 12 — seriously) and not enough in my current size.

And so we come to my current complaint of the day: cute plus-sized petite clothes — who sells them? Do they even make them?

Petite does not mean teeny tiny slip of a person, it means a short person and guess what, we short people can gain weight like everyone else. And even if we gain weight, we still want to look good. Why is it most plus-sized clothes look like something your grandmother would wear only around the house? Don’t fashion people realize that some of us are in our 20’s and 30’s and we need nice looking clothes to go to work, the grocery, dinner, and all sort of places in too?

It’s hard enough finding plus-sized clothes that doesn’t have a glaring tacking floral print that even the Hawaiians wouldn’t wear, but add in petite and you’re doomed.

I’m doomed.

I did manage to find 2 pairs of plain black and plain khaki slacks at Catherine’s online but even they only have 15 items to choose from. Even mall-famousLane Bryant didn’t have much to offer those of us who are height-deprived. Avenue, Lerner’s version of Lane Bryant, is limited too and Petite Sophisticate was a big disappointment — their plus sizes mostly stopped at 14 and 16.

Surely with the obesity epidemic in America, I am not the only overweight short woman in America. Surely, I’m not the only one who hasn’t given up entirely on looking nice when I roll myself out of the front door and off to work?

If I can’t find any decent clothes I’m going to have to call in fat and have the dentist wire my jaw shut until those size 10 & 12 clothes fit again.

Tags: obesity, Discrimination

Scared Straight

I remember that the first time I really sat down and said, “This is it; I’m going to lose weight!” it really wasn’t about the uncomfortableness of being overweight or the humiliation of having had to go to the “fat lady” store or the horror of seeing myself in photographs.

I had been to the ER in October for a migraine. My blood pressure at that time was 163/90-something. I was put on blood pressure medicine to help my ever-present migraine and yet my blood pressure was not going down. Two months later, I climbed the side of a mountain with my parents and when I got to the top, I thought I was going to die — my chest hurt from the pounding in my heart and I absolutely couldn’t get enough air. The resulting migraine didn’t go away all day Christmas. Yet, that really apparently wasn’t enough.

For some reason, the first Saturday of the new year, I woke up and said to myself, “I’m scared that I’m going to die before I’m 35. I have to do something. This is not how a 30-year-old should feel.” I then became completely dedicated to losing the weight for about 9 months. Over the period of a year and some months, I lost 50 lbs. Within the first 10 lbs, I felt better, my blood pressure dropped, though my migraines never really got better.

Of course, I gave up around 132, one pound from goal. I don’t know the reasons really. I can only guess. It’d been a long journey to get there and I was tired of all of it. I had gotten sick; I was stressed about work, which only got worse. I had a gazillion reasons and excuses.

At 159, I now weigh the most I’ve weighed since March of 2003 (not the most I’ve ever weighed which was 184.2). I have been to several doctor’s appointments over the last month and my blood pressure has remained rather high — today it was 154/102! The last 22 days I have had my period (something that has always been irregular). I gained 10 pounds in September alone. I have allowed myself the luxury of eating constantly and have exercised little, though last Friday I started trying to do some exercise every day, with the exception of last Saturday and today (due to scheduling, though I did walk 20 minutes to get to the doctor’s office). Just the act of walking up my own stairs sends my heart pounding and makes me slightly out of breath. I climb 4 flights of stairs to my car every day and the last month, at the top of those stairs, I’ve felt like I might keel over and die for lack of breath and I’m not even rushing to climb those stairs. A week ago last Monday, I was sitting quietly in my office with a migraine so bad that I was throwing up my breakfast in my trashcan.

Obviously, I am 33 years old and I am now wondering if I’m going to make it to 35. These things that are happening to me have today sent me looking back over my childhood for some clues. My grandfather who had been a lifelong smoker and alcoholic had been overweight as long as I could remember. He would be out of breath just standing up from his chair. I can recall seeing him with an oxygen tank. He died when I was in my teens, the result of his lifelong addictions.

My father is pre-diabetic (something I have been tested for and not found to be true for myself); he’s had high cholesterol and high blood pressure too.

My other grandfather had a heart attack; he appeared to be extremely healthy.

I don’t like how I feel. I’m scared. I feel sick and it’s really hard to focus on anything else but how awful I feel. I’m hot. My head is pulsating with pain; I feel nauseated and bloated and fat. Exercise does not make me feel better.

Hopefully this is the wake up call I needed. I want to believe that from this moment on, I’ll be good. I’ve cancelled my diet-to-go meals because I wasn’t eating them. I’d much rather go out to lunch and be social with my co-workers and it’s not always easy to make good choices when eating out. I’m going to try harder, focus on salads and not those fattening salads either. Today for lunch I had a chicken breast salad with blue cheese crumbles and balsamic vinegraitte on the side. Maybe not 100% good for me, but the best choice I had. My SF FF latte was unfinished and I only had half of the 20oz Diet Coke I bought this morning. I’m currently drinking Dasani.

I wish I had an immediate answer for how I feel, something to make me feel better right away because quiet frankly feeling this way doesn’t make me want to exercise any more than when I was feeling well. 2 minutes on the Arc Trainer and my heart beat was 179 two days ago — way scary. Sitting here in this chair where I’ve been for 30 minutes, I can feel my heart thumping in my chest and I’m scared. Quiet frankly if I never see another Twizzler, it’ll be too soon. I may even feel that way about brownies, nachos, and rice krispy treats. Heh.

Tags: obesity, migraine, blood pressure, wellness