2010 August — The Hungry I

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Women And Food: Illustrated

August 31, 2010 / Culture, News

My friend Diana (@adamsconsulting) recently told me about the work of Lee Price. Lee’s paintings, several of them self-portraits, are almost photorealistic depictions of the relationship some women have with food. As Diana said, “It’s hard to tell in these paintings if the women are eating because they are happy, sad, depressed, lonely or just hungry… nobody knows. I can relate to this a lot. I’ve eaten many meals, alone in my house, completely naked.” As a male I’m not [...]

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Living In A Deserted City

August 29, 2010 / Building Back Up, More Rants

Ever feel like you’re alone in a crowd? Now take away the crowd. How do you feel now? One of the most important parts of my recovery has been about being around people again. I require a lot more personal space, and certainly more ‘me’ time, after having spent 100 days alone virtually every day. Counterbalancing this is a core group of good friends who know that getting over the starvation is as much about re-acclimating my head as it [...]

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5 ways to spice up brown bag lunches

August 27, 2010 / Food

If you’re anything like me, you have some fond (and not-so-fond) memories of brown bag lunches. Ham and cheese, peanut butter and jelly, tuna fish on wheat – it seemed sometimes like we were eating the same thing for years and years and years. That is, unless you were one of the lucky ones who was able to trade their lunch for something better – and “better” usually meant whatever we didn’t have. Well, now it’s our turn to pack [...]

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If You Love This Planet…

August 26, 2010 / Building Back Up, Food Science, More Rants, News

Lately I’ve been spending far more time outdoors, enjoying the waning summer. The fresh air and exercise is helping me to get back into shape, and when you get back to the human scale of living – jogging through parks, riding along trails, etc. it reminds you that our presence on this planet is more than moving from box to box in slightly smaller four-wheeled boxes. There’s a whole living world out there beyond the concrete, in the gaps between [...]

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Caution: Not All Curves Are Dangerous

August 25, 2010 / Building Back Up, Celebrity Weight Issues, More Rants

I’m biking about 46km a day now. Naturally I was pretty proud of myself, and so when a friend asked “How’s that whole hungry thing going?” I blurted out “Pretty good. I’m eating daily, and biking almost 50k per ride now!’ He just blinked, shrugged, and took another sip of beer. Dear friend though he is, this chap has a liver so dark and bloated it could’ve been cast in the movie Precious. He’s one of those 6 beers per [...]

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Strength Through Joy?

August 22, 2010 / Building Back Up, More Rants

Many people enjoy listening to music while working out. Lately I’ve been throwing on the MP3 player and going for a 24km bike ride around the river valley every day. Well, a recent study quantifies just how we respond to the beat. The study participants were given categories of music to choose from so that they were listening to styles of music they actually like, then made to pedal on a stationary bike. This is actually an important psychological thing; [...]

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Coming to the end…

August 20, 2010 / Lifestyle, Tips

It might still officially be summer, but in most parts of the country, kids are getting ready to head back to school. As depressing as that thought is, the reality is that, whether we like it or not, it’s time to get back into the usual routine. We’ve got some tips to help with the transition: 1. Ease into it. Even if your kids have a couple of weeks before school starts, now is the time to start getting them [...]

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Feed Your head

August 19, 2010 / Building Back Up, More Rants

The physical recovery is going well. Today I went for a 24 kilometer bike ride and came home sweaty but barely breathing heavy. My muscles are also re-adapting to weight training faster than I could have hoped. The mental recovery… well, that’s another story. I only underwent 100 days of starvation, but as I said one of the worst aspects of it wasn’t the lack of energy or the atrophying muscles, it was becoming a shut-in. But a funny thing [...]

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Has Atkins Been Vindicated?

August 18, 2010 / Dieting, News, Nutrition & Fitness, Tips

Disclosure: I’ve been on low carb diets. For the most part I did well on them, going into what’s called “ketosis” fairly easily, and dropping weight. The problem I have with Atkins and other low carb diets is that without careful planning, they can get boring. In my case I ended up eating mainly meat, cheese, and green vegetables. As I’ve said before, any diet that narrowly restricts the foods you eat is going to be tough to sustain and [...]

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The Good, The Bad, And The Road Rash

August 17, 2010 / Building Back Up, More Rants

Ah, night riding… Unlike other cities I’ve lived in, where condo developers compete as to who can get their balconies the closest to overhanging bodies of water, my current home of Saskatoon has set aside the riverbanks as park land. This leads to two swaths of green, one on each bank, paved only with narrow walking and biking paths bisecting wide rolling lawns and villages of trees. So there I was, whipping along a bike path, happy as a clam. [...]

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How To Get Fit – Or At Least Fake It

August 15, 2010 / Lifestyle, Tips

Have you ever heard that saying “dress for the job you want, not for the job you have”? The theory is if you carry yourself as though you’re the person you want to be, you’ll get there. Let’s apply that thinking to making a healthy lifestyle change. If the theory holds true, then if you start dressing and acting like someone who is in shape, as opposed to someone who’s idea of a workout is lifting Oreo Double Stuff cookies [...]

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The Unbearable Lightness of Being… Well, Lighter

August 14, 2010 / Building Back Up, Nutrition & Fitness

I feel like a teenager again. That is to say, my body mass has changed so rapidly my co-ordination is struggling to keep up. I’ve become an uberklutz. It was to be expected, I suppose – I lost 1/4 of my mass in 100 days, then put 1/3 of that back again in about a week. Of the weight I regained so rapidly it went from water weight to replenished fat stores to muscle in a month, redistributing itself and [...]

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