MsGeek's Journal: Updates...GeekBack in full effect...

1.) I am not sure what my grade was on my Linux speech, but I basically cut it short on the fly because people weren't really interested and getting fidgety. It was kind of depressing, but you live and you learn. I plan on tweaking the speech further and reusing it somehow or another.

If you want to check it out, it's here.

2.) I'm back up to Santa Barbara this weekend. I will probably be bringing WallyNavi back, finally, and perhaps a headless laptop that has been set up as a WAP/Firewall/Router. The SB contingent wants to throw a birthday party for me too...w00t. Hopefully no fires this time.

3.) I was quite surprised by the flamin' roast-o-rama that was the Geeks On Atkins article. I bumped the threshold on that link to 3 so you don't have to wade through the really lame stuff. What was interesting too was that the day it appeared here I was busy working on some homework for Health 11, and the chapters of our text we were dealing with were all about...drum roll...Exercise and Nutrition.

It's funny, I thought I would detest Health 11 class. There is a requirement for the Associate Degree, mandated by the State of California, which states that you have to have one unit of PE and two units of "Healthy Living Education" if you want that AA/AS. (AA in my case) Turns out, it's actually been fun, and I have made some modest but good changes for the better in my self-care.

No Atkins for me, thanks. I don't have a gallbladder anymore, and eating tons of meat and tons of fat with not a scrap of fiber in sight is a prescription for disaster. And Depends. ;-) And I am not now or probably will never be a member of a trendy fitness club, or run marathons. Between 1991 and 1994 I had Chronic Fatigue Immune Dysfunction Syndrome, and even people who are technically in remission are warned against strenuous exercise. I don't need a warning, actually...my body rebels if I push it too hard.

So basically this means I need to be careful about both diet and exercise. However, a sedentary lifestyle and carelessness with food got me pretty big and not doing so hot in the health department. So it's time to make changes. But slowly.

I opted to do two things: one, I bought myself a pedometer. Really, they're inexpensive, and they turn adding activity into ones life into a "beat your high score" video game. You wear the thing all day, turning the recording of steps off when you are in the car or in a sitting position. You have to remember to turn the thing back on when you are moving again, otherwise you cheat yourself out of steps towards your high score.

You write down your steps every night before retiring. My step log is being kept both on my Palm and on my fridge in a paper-and-pencil log. Every week, you average. Then you set a goal for the next week. Simple and tres geeky.

As for food, here are a few rules of thumb I'm following.

* Lean meats. Fish is a cornerstone, so is Chicken and Turkey. Pork on occasion. Beef very rarely.

* Grains, but the coarser the better. Polished rice, white flour, is to be avoided. Whole Wheat bread and tortillas. Brown Rice. Whole oats. Potatoes with skin eaten rarely, same with pasta. Only high-glycemic no-no that is a yes-yes here: corn. I'm a native Angeleno. I love Southwestern cuisine. I speak fluent Cocina Mexicana. I live very near some very excellent Mexican and Central American restaurants. There are some great Latin-oriented grocery stores here. The Olmecs bred a grass-like plant that grows wild in Mexico into corn about 3-4,000 years ago. Before the coming of the Spaniards the indigenous peoples of the Southwest ate lots of corn. And they were in way better shape before the coming of the Europeans and European diets. Corn can't be the enemy. It just can't.

* Fruits. Veggies. Veggies. Fruits. Lots and lots and lots of it.

* Dairy products in moderation, and only non-fat and lower fat forms of dairy. Full fat dairy is not only hard on the body, but something I have avoided anyway due to considerations with my lack of gallbladder.

* Replace animal grease and stuff with hydrogenated oils with olive, soy and canola oils. Nut oils are good too, like peanut and walnut. Nuts are a good thing to add to the diet, but carefully and in moderation. Avocados also are a good thing to mention in this category, as is peanut butter. Both are worthy replacements for cream cheese and/or butter, and are less calories than either, to boot. Whole wheat bagel with peanut butter. Hold the cheese and crema on the burrito or torta, but make sure the avocado or guacamole is there.

* I never got a taste for Tofu or most other soy foods, but I love Edamame. Edamame is steamed soybeans in the pod. Good hot or chilled. Pop 'em in your mouth out of the pod. Other beans are worthy additions to the diet, and familiar due to my love of local cuisine. Meals with bean protein plus a grain protein are good replacements for a meat meal.

Anyway, it's been three weeks of increasing the steps. I had been using these food guidelines anyway and even before monitoring my activity was losing weight. It's not spectacular weight loss, but it's slow and gradual and more likely to be kept off.

My mom dieted her ass off, and rode me like crazy about my weight. She ended up dying of colon cancer way too young. When my husband and I saw her in the open casket (barbaric custom, hate it) we both had one thought: "I'm sure she thinks she's thin enough at last." This is at the heart of why I don't diet. Whether low fat/high carbs, high protein/low carbs or whatever the flavor of the month is. If I'm heavier than ideal, so fsckn what. I want to be as healthy as I can be at whatever weight I'm at. It's like Don Van Vliet told a friend of mine, Zoogz Rift, once: "Better a big waist than a big waste."

Thanks, Ms. Garcia. You don't know how big a help your class has been.