guestsinmycorn:

sarahsprague:

[…]

But yeah, every body is their own.

This is a great way to go about it.  I’ve been extraordinarily blessed, by genetics and lifestyle.  My weight has never fluctuated that much, and has been holding in the 180-185 range for about 6 years now.  Full disclosure, I’m a 25 year old, 6’0” male, so that helps.  Also, I’ve been a sports nut since I was a little kid – playing baseball and football in high school, as well as four years of baseball and one year of football at a tiny D3 school in college.

All of that time working out for a purpose and playing sports, and I got addicted to exercise.  These days, if I don’t go for a run or play a pick-up game of something, and I feel like crap.  Add to that the fact that I was lucky enough to have a job that kept me on my feet and moving around, and then as a grad student, walking all around campus and town, and I’ve been blessed with an active lifestyle as well.

Finally, genetics intervened again – I have a naturally high metabolism, and I also have a tendency to be a “grazer”…when I go out to eat, I rarely finish a meal, but I eat small things a couple of times a day, in addition to regular small meals.  That keeps my body churning calories, rather than big infusions only a couple of times a day.  Also lucky, and I know many people can’t do that, but if you have the chance, you should go for it.

So, my advice to anyone who is trying to get healthier – I’m not talking just about weight, but about having a good body image and a good life – is to 1) eat small portions 5/6 times a day, 2) cut out as much fast food as you can, because that stuff is full of bad calories, 3) make it a point to exercise at least 5 times a week. 

The exercise can be as simple as tussling with the dog over a rope, going for a nicely paced walk, or the running/situps/pushups I do most days.  You don’t have to lift a ton of weights(I haven’t picked up a dumbbell since I graduated undergrad in 2007), you don’t have to hit the elliptical for an hour a day(I average about 2 miles at an 8 minute pace a day).  Heck, one of the things that’s keeping me from getting my shoulder surgically repaired is(aside from the fear of knives and anesthesia) is the fact that I won’t be able to run for a fair amount of time, to let everything heal properly.

To all of you who want to do it, you can!  It may not be easy, it takes willpower and desire to truly change yourself and your habits, but it can be done.  It really is about the old saying, “how do you eat an elephant?  One bite at a time.”  Small gains are to be lauded, small back-slides to be expected and dealt with rationally, and eventually, you’ll get to where you want to be.

Here’s the worst part for me. Even when I am heavy, I’m exercising. Yoga. Pilates. Biking. Hiking up and down all of Griffith Park’s trails. Malibu trails.

My blood pressure, cholesterol, heart rate and such are always fine according to my doctor. Even in the best shape of my life I had a horrid metabolism due to anemia.

The newest turn around though? After all these years, we finally have a better way to deal with my anemia. (Yes, I already ate iron-rich foods. It has to do with my lady parts and a drug that the FDA finally approved in the US for this use even though it’s been approved for this use in Europe for ages and used by hemophiliacs in the US for more than two decades. It finally made it to market in July and has radically changed my life. Anyone who followed my then-private-oversharing-Twitter about the day I got my period in front of my boss knows the horror I used to face.)

So yes, exercise is key, but it’s not the the only key.

Okay, enough talking about health and more about people posting memes I’ll have to explain to Bryan two months from now.