eating at work

Is not easy. Most of the times I eat during lunch in our faculty room, with my colleagues. I really like that time, as I am lucky to work with a really good bunch of people, so this short break is filled with snarkiness, laughter, serious advice and discussions, small talk... A real break. The problem is that everyone sees what the others are eating. A few of my colleagues are taking dieting very seriously, either weight watchers or main stream understanding of "healthy diet", filled with carbs, low on fat and so on. A few times I engaged in a discussion about nutrition, but I gave up on it and simply sit and work on ignoring when they talk about the new system of weight watchers or low-fat low-calories bs.
But unfortunately it doesn't end there. They have to comment on my food. When I bring things like fish balls or similar then it's fine, the problem begins on the days I bring last-minute lunch, like hard boiled eggs with a small can of smoked sardines. or just eggs. They just can't stand the image of me eating four boiled eggs at once. They stuff themselves with ready to microwave "healthy" pockets, amy's and other crap with the list of ingredients longer than some of my students' essays. But then they ask "aren't you worried about your cholesterol?" to which I generally say simply "no". When I got annoyed with another question of that kind, I said, "You wish you had the cholesterol levels I have". Another time I eat my eggs (btw, we can't have meat at work, that's why it's more difficult to just bring leftovers) another lady doesn't even ask, but states "one of these days you will have a heart attack". Really? Because as much as being overweight is not necessarily a sure tell-all about the person's health, being obese gets much closer to that. And she is far beyond the chubbiness or normal roundness of a woman after giving birth or simply regular, average. I look and behave healthy, I am active and never complained of any health issues other than allergies. I don't think she knows about my Fibromyalgia, so in general I think I look healthy. But based on the fact of me eating four eggs (and rebelliously stating that sometimes I eat up to eight eggs a day) she is sure I eat unhealthy and am killing myself slowly.

I try to keep my mouth shut, because I don't like to be preached to myself either. And I don't want to look like a typical zealous neophyte. I was eating crap just a year ago... but I wasn't telling others what to eat, or that they are killing themselves.

There was only one person who approached me later on and simply stated that she was curious as to why I wasn't worried about my cholesterol. Now that is an intelligent approach. Ask for information, think about it and then make a judgment. I told her how much better I feel, how great my blood work came up, and summarized the basic minimum of the evolutionary argument. I gave her the Primal Solution, and probably will give her Good Calories, Bad Calories, because she asked why the "main stream" preaches something so opposed to what I was saying. I don't try to pretend I know everything, I don't have a background in science, I have troubles with explaining all the details... But I understood enough to feel good about my choices. And the results speak for themselves.

vaccines

I've read a few different discussions or blogs trying to figure out if vaccines are paleo or not. There are people who think eating right will protect them from flu. There are people who believe vaccines are unnatural, and generally an evil seed of fascist government imposing its ideas on free people. There are people who believe vaccines cause autism or other deformations. There are people who simply don't like to see their babies cry of feel miserable for a day so endanger them to diseases that not only can make them miserable for life, but simply can kill them.

I find the anti-vaccine movement selfish and very dangerous. It's one thing to push the big pharma to provide the best, the safest and purest vaccines possible. To push for trials checking the safety of vaccine combinations or best time of vaccine. But to promote no vaccine whatsoever? This is child abuse and selfishness. Vaccines are one of the most amazing achievements of medicine, saving millions of lives. But now there are people who think they know more than the hundreds of professional researches and doctors (hey, I know there are under-educated doctors and biased researchers... but not all of them and not even majority of them!), who can decide about the health and death of not only their own child, but also the health of children around him or her. There needs to be 93% of vaccination in the society for it to protect properly. If it exists, even the not-vaccinated are protected. Saying that the kid is all fine and not sick as a proof for lack of need for vaccine is not just idiotic and ignorant, but also abusive and parasitic.

This article takes on the whooping cough epidemic as one of the signs of dangers of the anti-vaccine movement. Do they really want to go back to the life with polio, measles, small pox and dozens of other horrible diseases?

body image, modern society and paleo

I am glad that I see some good entries on body size around the paleo bloggers. It is much more common to see entries ridiculing bigger sizes.

I won't pretend I don't want to "look good naked". I want to have athletic body (well,  not like real athletes, but on the sporty side), firm, strong and healthy. With the emphasis on "healthy". Sometimes I think there is a cult of athletic, ripped body in paleo world. I see the dehumanizing pictures of obese decapitated individuals (as if being obese is so horrible we don't want to humiliate them by showing their faces) next to many entries.

Many people come to paleo being obese or overweight. I really understand that they might want and need to reduce their body fat. But too many times I see people in panic because they paused in their weight loose, as if bodies were machines.

Our society worships the skinny, not the healthy. Often we can see people making fun of female athletes that they look "male" (because only men are athletes?), allowing a few chosen ones to be "curvy", which often is still quite slim.
We know about the term "skinny fat" - often common to people who are skinny, but still have quite surprisingly high body fat, their body work is really bad, they eat crap, they hardly exercise and have any muscle strength... but they are still perceived as more "healthy" than a bigger, fatter person. We tend to watch what fat people eat assuming they are lazy gluttons, and somehow looking for proof that we are "right", they they brought it all on themselves. When we see the skinny junk food eating instead of worrying about their triglyceride levels we are jealous, and the person is made to believe she/he somehow reached some kind of moral achievement.

I am a strong supporter of the "Healthy at Any Size" movement. Health should be the emphasis, not size. There are people considered "overweight" who are stronger, more energetic and healthier, than many "skinny" ones. We don't really know exactly what our ancestors looked like. They were probably very strong and healthy... but it might be that they have occasional fat cushions, especially before winter. Women naturally need more fat, and I think a lot of them had more than the minimum necessary in preparation for pregnancy and breast feeding. Still, they were very active, moving around, gathering and hunting. Somehow I can't see any of these very skinny models go and hunt down anything or even gather wood for fire. They simply wouldn't survive. I also don't think it's that much of a coincidence that they are hardly every smiling. In contrast to the lovely ladies on the left.
We need more acceptance of various body types, with emphasis on health, performance, satisfaction. I want to see more photos of ladies looking like that being the models for us and young girls:

just look at these muscles! I am pretty sure she would do as well running around woods or escaping some nasty critter as she does on court!

Now that's my look goal, I would love to work my back and arms to look that way (more push ups in my future!). But I do realize that it's as well, the result of modern society's body image, even if healthier than the skinny one.

And especially as we age, we should work on accepting our changing bodies. These ladies, for example, are called "The strong women's choir".

Jennifer Hudson: "I've lost another 20pounds!"

First - how is that even news to appear on main CNN site? second - why women continue to feel loosing weight is some kind of reason to feel proud? She looked very pretty the way she was, I hate this freaking media.

Today my (male) student commented on a photo of Dara Torres and commented "she looks like someone glued her face to a male body". I so exploded after that. I said: "that is what an athlete woman looks like. that's her abs, that's her beautiful, athletic body. Men are not the only ones allowed to have visible muscles".

Similarly I want to explode each time I see comments about Williams' bodies. That they look like men. People are scared of strong, athletic women and it's truly pathetic and sad.