What a shocking discovery!

BBC News 12 July 2009:

'There is a strong link in obesity between mothers and daughters and fathers and sons, but not across the gender divide, research suggests.

A study of 226 families by Plymouth's Peninsula Medical School found obese mothers were 10 times more likely to have obese daughters.

For fathers and sons, there was a six-fold rise. But in both cases children of the opposite sex were not affected.

The findings mean policy on obesity should be re-thought, the team said.

Researchers said it was "highly unlikely" that genetics was playing a role in the findings as it would be unusual for them to influence children along gender lines.

Instead, they said it was probably because of some form of "behavioural sympathy" where daughters copied the lifestyles of their mothers and sons their fathers.

It is because of this conclusion that experts believe government policy on tackling obesity should be re-thought.

Much of the focus so far in the UK - in terms of targets and monitoring - has been targeted at younger age groups in the belief that obese children become obese adults.

But the researchers said the assumption ignored the fact that eight in 10 obese adults were not severely overweight when they were children.

In fact, they said their findings suggested the opposite was true - that obese adults led to obese children, the International Journal of Obesity reported.

Study leader Professor Terry Wilkin said: "It is the reverse of what we have thought and this has fundamental implications for policy.

"We should be targeting the parents and that is not something we have really done to date."

New direction

His team took weight and height measurements for children and parents over a three-year period.

They found that 41% of the eight-year-old daughters of obese mothers were obese, compared to 4% of girls with normal-weight mothers. There was no difference in the proportion for boys.

For boys, 18% of the group with obese fathers were also obese, compared to just 3% for those with normal-weight fathers. Again, there was no difference in the proportion for girls.

Tam Fry, of the National Obesity Forum, said: "This is telling the government that they now have to look for a new direction.

"We have to make sure parents are in a good condition to bring up their children in a normal manner."

He said he wanted to see more interventions like the one introduced this year offering vouchers to pregnant women for healthy food.

The Department of Health insisted it was already targeting parents through the Change4Life campaign, which was launched at the start of the year and brings together a host of local healthy lifestyle initiatives.

A spokesman added: "The obesity epidemic is one of the most challenging public health issues we face."  '

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This story is all over the morning news today. I've been saying the same thing for years! Why don't the researchers save themselves some time and money and just ask those of us who have been or who are obese. We can tell them the reason. We're fat because of how we eat and how live, and we learn how to do that from observation beginning at birth. There may be exceptions to that, but not many!

Well, June's over

What the?

My credo

A credo (Latin for 'I believe') is a statement of personal belief. Every year in January, I try to write a credo. In previous years, I have written down platitudes that bear little actual resemblance to my true behaviour and beliefs. They were just things that I aspired to, or thought that I ought to do or think.

This year, I sat down and thought really hard about my daily behaviour and attitude, and tried to find the beliefs behind them. I wrote up a credo that truly is what I believe.

The reason I've dragged it back out again to have a look at it is an old issue of mine that I've struggled with year upon year, the issue of 'socialising' with others. Every year I make resolutions that I know I can't keep, resolutions to be more 'sociable'. I am much more solitary than most people. I have always been that way. When I was a kid, I had only one or, at a stretch, two close friends, and that's all, and I felt happy that way. I was not raised in a home where the family ever took traditional vacations (other than going to visit relatives or the rare trip to the river), visited anyone else's home, or had guests in our home (who weren't relatives from far away who'd come for a rare visit). So 'socialising', other than going to church functions, is not something that was part of my paradigm. It never was. In college, I met a few people I've remained friends with, then I married a boy who hung out with my brother and was thus around enough for me to get talking to him. Throughout my life, I've got my fill social interaction at work with colleagues, and when I get home, I enjoy just being at home. I don't feel the need to talk to other people. I actually don't care about it at all. That's not to say I don't 'care' about other people, but you could say I care about them in the abstract. I want them all to have a happy life and get on with their lives, and if it's all the same to them, I'll get on with mine. Going out just to be with other people as some sort of social obligation feels like a theft of my precious time, the time that belongs to only me. I know that is totally foreign to a lot of people, but to me, it is normal. I feel happy having my husband as my best and only friend, and some nice people at work who I enjoy interacting with but who I don't necessarily feel the need to get together with outside of work hours. It's only when I compare my life with other people's that I feel there's something wrong with me and I should try to be more like them. They're always planning things, going places, spending money, eating crap food, getting together, not having 'time' to work out, watch TV or write a blog. Shouldn't I be like them? What, I've always wondered, is wrong with me?

All this has been brought on by going to my work friend's house tonight. They have given up inviting me to things a while ago, because I always opt out. I do it as kindly as I can, but the truth is I just don't want to go. But tonight I bit the bullet and went. Of course I was the first one to leave the event, but then I arrived first. (I always do that. Get there right on time, and then leave first. Probably because I want to get it over and done with.) While I was there, I enjoyed listening to people talking, and took part when I could--but when I'm ready to go I'm ready to go. Anyway, on the way home, I was thinking, why is it that they seem to enjoy this so much and I don't. I like talking to people socially, but only for about an hour or two, then I'm ready to return to the comfort of my home and my solitude. I don't like stuffing myself with lots of unhealthy food or drinking alcoholic drinks. I don't like sitting up late, knowing that everyone is wanting to go but not wanting to be the first one out. Why can't people just get together for a chat? For me, the nearly perfect social situation is the 15-minute staff break. We get a drink, laugh and talk, then we all get up and go back to work before the conversation gets boring and the whole thing starts to feel like more of a chore than a pleasure, which is what a group social situation feels like to me. One-on-one, I can talk to you for hours, but put me in a group, I clam up, slink around in the background, and check my watch until time to escape.

What deep beliefs make me act this way? What deep-held notions cause my daily behaviour? Does it even have to come from a belief? Maybe some of us are just solitary creatures.

Here's the credo I wrote on 21st December 2008.

I believe in privacy and solitude.

I believe in independence and freedom.

I value my own comfort and security.

I do not wish ill for anyone, but I feel no need to socialise with people in order to feel love for mankind.

I value peace.

I want to live and let live.

I eschew cruelty to animals and people.

I believe that people should show kindness to one another in ways comfortable and appropriate to the individual, not as they want to be treated, but as the person on the receiving end would like to be treated.

I believe everything in existence deserves to be free of pain. It is our moral obligation to see to that.

I believe that it is everyone's responsibility to make an informed decision about how they live their life--and if they CAUSE NO HARM, they should not have to answer to anyone for any of their life choices. Ever. Or be made to feel bad for them. You can have an opinion about it, but you should not condemn someone for living in a way that does no harm, no matter how different it is from the way you live.

And now for something completely different

So I head out the door at 8.24, as usual, then remember that I was supposed to be at work at 8.15 in place of someone who is on annual leave. I run there and fortunately all that happens is my line manager tells me I'm getting old and am losing my memory. Great start! A boring two-hour shift on the enquiries desk ensues, then after 10.30 break--something new happens.

Yesterday a diffuser (aka plastic light cover) from one of the fluorescent light covers in the children's library fell down, nearly hitting a little old lady. This little old lady drives one of those scooters and is just shy of being small enough to be classed as a 'little person'. She talks in a squeaky voice, has no teeth so her speech is nearly unintelligible, and every day she comes in and either asks for a book of knitting patterns or for the phone number of the Coventry crematorium. No, I'm not making this up. One Sunday, she fell asleep in the corner and was missed by the member of staff who does the final look-round for customers and she got locked in. She got out by tapping furiously at the window when a member of the public was passing by, because she couldn't figure out how to get an outside line on the telephone. So anyway, she's had bad luck at the library and nearly got cold-cocked yesterday. (She'd just pulled away on her little scooter when the light fell). You'd think she'd give up on the library but nope. She's back every single day. Apparently it's only Sundays when she's in peril.

Well, today when he was told about it, the head of libraries, in his wisdom, decided that the entire library needs to be closed until the maintenance crew can come in and put plastic ties on every single light fixture in the place, to secure them. The light fixtures were installed in 1962 and apparently the plastic has shrunk making them loose in their fittings. To be fair, this is not the first light that has fallen; we have had two fall in the work room, and if one hit someone on the head, it would be a pretty serious injury. Apparently it is going to take 4 guys until Friday to finish this job. So, today all staff were told to either take time owing, annual leave, or go to another library in the division to work for the day. Just choose one and turn up there! And that's why I spent today in a different library, apologising to customers for not knowing where anything is and answering the phone wrong. 'Hello, this is Carla at Nuneaton-I-mean-Bedworth library, may I help you?' (I don't have any time owing and I've already planned the rest of my annual leave for the year--there's no way I'm taking it today and missing my holiday!)

About food. Today I used something that I've had lying around for a while--my Richard Simmons Food Mover! Here's what I ate today:

2 slices wholemeal toast with no-sugar strawberry jam and a black decaf

1 banana

1/2 wholemeal pita, 1/2 cup chickpeas, 1/2 cup stewed tomatoes

1/2 gala melon

1 tbs natural, crunchy peanut butter and a bit of strawberry jam on the other 1/2 of that wholemeal pita

1 cup wholewheat pasta, 1/2 cup sauce, 3/4 cup mixture of chickpeas and pinto beans, half a head of broccoli, 1 cup lapsang souchong tea

7 pints of water so far

I may have a banana before bed...

That's about 1600 calories today. No biscuits, chocolates, or other bad things.

My workout today was a double: Turbo Sculpt and 20-minute Workout from Turbo Jam. I forgot to wear my HRM so don't know the calorie burn.

Oh, how the Fat Gods laugh at smugness

I was away for the weekend to visit Sutton Hoo and my husband's parents. I started with the best of intentions, but by lunch time of the first day, I was eating tortilla chips. Ha! Isn't it silly? So this morning, I weighed 140.0. I haven't weighed this much in a long, long time.

This morning, I've had toast with no fat of any kind on it, one with a smear of no-sugar jam and one with a smear of Marmite, plus a cup of black decaf and a glass of water.

I know there's no possible way to gain 2-4 lbs of fat in 2 days, so this fluctuation is most likely due to salt from the chips. Still, it's a good shake-up to remind me to exercise discipline and restraint.

So ha ha ha ha on me. My knuckles have been properly smacked. I will post some photos of the weekend soon.

Up down up down

136.8 today

Okay, I weighed 136.8 today. Probably sweated it off during my driving lesson yesterday! I haven't had a lesson, or driven a car at all, since my last lesson on 2nd April. I got interrupted by an emergency trip to the US in April, then the scheduled trip in May. Yeah, I drove a lot in Arkansas, but that bears no resemblance whatsoever to driving in the UK. Anyway, I didn't make any major mistakes, although I'd forgotten how to do my manouevres, but that was just a matter of going back over it. She wants me to put in for my test for the end of August.

So, I'm down to 9 stone 10 lbs. Come on 9 and a half! Or even 9 stone 3...or 8 stone 13 (which might be too skinny, I don't know...I'd love to see it, though!)

137.8 this morning!

Thursday

Weigh-ins so far in June:

1--139.0
2--138.0
3--138.6
4--139.6
5--139.0

Okay! So not much progress in the first five days. I've cut out the biscuits at work. Now I need to get in the habit of eating smaller portions at lunch and dinner again, and changing my cooking methods (slowly) back to a leaner style. Smaller portions of rice, larger portions of veg, and little or no oil. But I must make the changes gradually, so the weight comes off gradually, so the maintenance phase is easier. That's the key to it all. Lose it fast through drastic change, gain it back fast when you can't maintain the changes. But lose it s-l-o-o-o-w through miniscule changes, keep it off.

I've stuck to my rotation so far, only swapping around Tom Holland yesterday and will do Fat Blaster today.

Hope everyone is doing well!