I Lost Weight The Right Way. I Still Gained It All Back.

Toledo scale dial

(Please note comment policy at end. Content note: weight loss, weight regain, with discussion of specific weight loss methods.)

I lost weight the right way.

I lost the weight slowly, about a pound a week. I cut my daily calories — but not drastically. I counted calories — but I didn’t stress about getting them exactly right.* I dialed up my exercise — but not to an extreme. I enjoyed food, ate yummy things, and didn’t go hungry. I didn’t go on any fad diets or crash diets; I talked with my doctor first, and got info from reputable health care sources. I had a support system. My motivation was a specific health concern: I had trouble with my knees and feet, I wanted to alleviate the stress on them. And the weight I stopped at wasn’t super thin.

If there’s a “right” way to intentionally lose weight, a method that’s healthy with a good chance of success, this was it.

And I still gained all the weight back.

In fact, I gained all the weight back — and then some.

Continue reading “I Lost Weight The Right Way. I Still Gained It All Back.”

I Lost Weight The Right Way. I Still Gained It All Back.
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Rewriting Paul Without the “No Homo” Jokes

Horizontal banner ad for movie Paul

We saw Paul the other night. Buddy comedy: two best friends from England (Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, of Shaun of the Dead fame) visit the U.S. for ComicCon, go on a road trip, and meet a chill, foul-mouthed space alien. Pretty good movie. Cute, funny, crass in a mostly good way, predictable in some places but very original in others. Lots of creative swearing. A good time.

Except for the “no homo” bullshit — the running jokes about how everyone thinks the main characters are gay and it freaks them the fuck out. The movie even used the F-word, more than once: no, not that F-word, the other one, the anti-gay slur. It was jarring, it was exhausting, it was totally unnecessary. So much of the movie was bro-y in a good-natured way, even loving and sweet, and it bugged me that their “nerd-bros don’t have to be reactive shitheads” message didn’t extend to queerness. It almost felt like they had to be heavy-handed with the “no homo” stuff to feel comfortable with the bro-y affection. (The thing came out in 2011, so there’s no excuse.)

And I started thinking: How could they have written this differently?

What if there was a running joke where everyone thinks the main characters are gay — and instead of freaking out, they’re totally used to it by now, and don’t care?

Continue reading “Rewriting Paul Without the “No Homo” Jokes”

Rewriting Paul Without the “No Homo” Jokes

Judging the Past

Thomas Jefferson Birth of a Nation Gone with the Wind

“You can’t judge the past by the standards of the present! It’s not fair. We’ve advanced so much since then. People back then didn’t know better!”

I see the point. But also — no.

Of course we can judge the past by the standards of the present. That’s how we move forward.

We look back, at history or old movies or whatever — and we say, “Wow. That was messed-up. Let’s not do that again.” We read history about slavery and colonization; we watch old movies depicting queers as pitiful and disgusting; we hear old songs that romanticize sexual assault; we see old cowboy shows where Native Americans are shown as savage enemies. We cringe. We cringe so hard it makes our faces turn inside out.

And we say, “That was some fucked-up garbage.” We learn. We pay attention to patterns. We learn how to see bad patterns, in ourselves and our society. We learn how to prevent, how to interrupt, how to intervene, how to resist.

Judging the past is how we move into the future.

Continue reading “Judging the Past”

Judging the Past

Law and Order (The Concept, Not the TV Show)

“Law and order” means order. Not law.

Since the federal indictment of Donald Trump, I see a lot of political commenters beating their breasts about his hypocrisy, how he’s spouted the language of law and order while flagrantly breaking the law and acting as if he’s above it. And yes, it’s hypocritical as fuck.

But the concept of “law and order” has been around for a long time. And it has never, ever, actually meant that.

For decades, from Richard Nixon to Donald Trump, public figures espousing “law and order” have shown a deep indifference towards the law. They think it doesn’t apply to them. They think they can break it with impunity, in the name of “national security” or “traditional values.” If they don’t break the law themselves, they support and even glorify when law enforcement officers flagrantly, violently break it.

“Law and order” means order. Not law.

Continue reading “Law and Order (The Concept, Not the TV Show)”

Law and Order (The Concept, Not the TV Show)

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Gym Class

Children playing in park
I hated gym class. Like so many other nerdy, awkward kids, I despised it. I was bad at it; I was scared of it; it was a place of exclusion and shame.

And then almost overnight, I started liking gym. I didn’t just stop hating it — I actually enjoyed it. I looked forward to it. I had fun with it. And I was good at it. I vividly remember my nerdy math-teacher father jokingly scolding me about my report card one quarter, scowling and asking with mock disapproval how a daughter of his could have gotten an A in gym.

What happened?

I didn’t change overnight. I didn’t suddenly become a jock; I didn’t suddenly get good at playing with others or remembering the rules of the games. So what happened?

I was able to pick my own gym classes.

Continue reading “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Gym Class”

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Gym Class

What Is Healthy Food?

Picnic basket on a dock

(Content note: food, passing mentions of disordered eating, depression, vomiting, trauma)

What does it mean to “eat healthy”? Let’s narrow this down a bit.

What’s healthy food for someone with a wasting disease? What’s healthy food for someone with a history of disordered eating? What’s healthy for a marathon runner? A gymnast? A weightlifter? A couch potato who bikes on weekends?

What does it mean for a fifteen-year-old to eat healthy? How about a seventy-year-old? A five-year old? What’s healthy for a five-year-old who’s a super picky eater, even compared to other five-year-olds? What’s healthy for someone with morning sickness? Pregnancy cravings? Hyperemesis gravidarum (persistent severe vomiting during pregnancy)?

What’s healthy for a supertaster? A vegan? An autistic person, or someone with other sensory sensitivities? Someone with food allergies? Someone with a limited food budget? Someone who just doesn’t like vegetables no matter how they’re cooked? What’s healthy for someone in California, who has year-round access to fresh local produce? For someone in Chicago, who abso-fucking-lutely doesn’t have that? What’s healthy for someone in Bangkok? Havana? Paris? Memphis?

What’s healthy eating for someone with a history of food-related trauma? What’s healthy for someone who has strong cultural connections with the food they eat — connections that help them survive and flourish? What’s healthy for someone who’s finally giving up on dieting and is working to love their body the way it is? What’s healthy for someone with depression, for whom food is their only reliable source of pleasure? Or for someone with depression who struggles to eat at all?

Please. For the love of fuck. For the love of all that is beautiful in this world. Please, PLEASE, stop talking about “healthy food” as if it were a generic concept. Please stop talking about “healthy food” as if it meant the same thing for everyone.

There are only a handful of behaviors that are broadly healthy for most people. Eat some fruits and vegetables; move your body; drink water; don’t smoke; get a decent amount of sleep. And even these don’t all apply to absolutely everyone. See above.

If you want to “eat healthier,” think about what that might mean for you. Maybe question some unexamined biases you might have — about the supposed connection between weight and health*, for instance, or the assumptions we make about health and social class. Think about what health means for you. Do what works for you. And please, please, shut the hell up about the rest of us. Thanks.

 

*I urge you to listen to the Maintenance Phase podcast, or read “You Just Need to Lose Weight” and 19 Other Myths About Fat People by Aubrey Gordon.

What Is Healthy Food?

White-Collar Grifters and Prison Abolition

Let’s look at a seeming contradiction. I am — more or less — in favor of prison abolition. (I’ll get to what that means in a moment.)

And I also want big-ticket white-collar criminals to rot in jail.

This seems like a contradiction. I think it’s not.

Here’s the thing. Yes, I support prison abolition and defunding police. But I don’t support doing either of those immediately. I don’t know anyone who does. Defunding police doesn’t mean “immediately abolish all police forces and replace them with nothing.” And prison abolition doesn’t mean “open all the prison gates today and let everyone go.” It’s a process.

Prison abolition is a process. And I don’t want that process to start with rich, white, white-collar grifters. I want it to start with people convicted of drug war crimes and non-violent property crimes. I want it to start with dismantling the school-to-prison pipeline, putting the hammer down on racist police abuses, exploding the drug war into a million pieces. I don’t want it to start with Elizabeth Holmes.

Continue reading “White-Collar Grifters and Prison Abolition”

White-Collar Grifters and Prison Abolition

Bernie Madoff’s 17th Floor, and the Office of Vito Corleone

I’ve been watching the Bernie Madoff documentary on Netflix, Madoff: The Monster of Wall Street. (I suppose I could twit the creators for the unimaginative title, but I’m the one who named my blog Greta Christina’s Blog, so.) And there’s something that keeps jumping out at me, maybe because it’s such a strong visual image in a story full of paper and numbers: the 17th floor.

Madoff had a sleek, fancy office on the 19th floor of a sleek, fancy office building. But he had another office in the same building — the 17th floor. That’s where the machinery of the Ponzi scheme was happening: falsifying documents, cooking the books, flat-out forgery. Very few people saw the 17th floor. But the ones who did all commented on how strikingly different it looked. It wasn’t sleek and modern and classy. It was run-down, badly organized, with old computers and crappy furniture and boxes piled all over the place.

But this was the real office. This is where the real work was done.* The classy offices on the 19th floor created the illusion of brilliant financial minds managing the complex world of finance that we puny peasants can’t even comprehend. The actual work happened on the 17th floor — the work of fraud and deception and theft.

And I started thinking about The Godfather. Continue reading “Bernie Madoff’s 17th Floor, and the Office of Vito Corleone”

Bernie Madoff’s 17th Floor, and the Office of Vito Corleone

The Irresistible Woman’s Curse

ocean photo

(Content note: sexism, some transantagonism, references to violence, all fictional)

The Irresistible Woman’s Curse

The irresistible woman is powerful this week. It’s her special time. She’s cursed.

She can destroy flowers with a touch. She can spoil food with a touch. She can turn herself into lava. If she marches around a field three times, the pests will die. Sharks follow her, tracking her movements; she makes them her pets. She’s thought about making them her minions, her personal shark army, but that seems unethical. The tools that help her manage the power will kill any man they touch. If she touches your face, her sweat will penetrate your skin, sink into your jaw, make your fillings fall out. Her sweat can be carried by steam, sucking power out of the air to feed her own. Do not touch her. Do not even be in a room with her. Continue reading “The Irresistible Woman’s Curse”

The Irresistible Woman’s Curse

Godless Perverts Social Club in SF! Discussion Topic: Sustaining Resistance

image of protest march with text describing event

We’re having a Godless Perverts Social Club on Tuesday, October 3, at Wicked Grounds, 289 8th St. in San Francisco (near Civic Center BART), 7-9 pm. Our discussion topic for this evening: Sustaining Resistance.

How do we sustain political resistance for the long haul? How do we stay involved and informed, without becoming overwhelmed and burning out? How do we move forward with our everyday lives, without letting fascism become normal? Join us for a discussion about self-care, taking care of each other, deciding on priorities, taking breaks, folding resistance into our everyday lives, and more.

The Social Club is free, and all orientations, genders, and kinks (or lack thereof) are welcome. Wicked Grounds has beverages, light snacks, full meals, and amazing milkshakes: please support the cafe if you can, and please tip generously. If you can’t afford cafe prices, Wicked Grounds customers have bought you coffee or tea: just ask for your beverage to paid for “from the wall.” Continue reading “Godless Perverts Social Club in SF! Discussion Topic: Sustaining Resistance”

Godless Perverts Social Club in SF! Discussion Topic: Sustaining Resistance