But by setting more reasonable goals it is easier to keep the weight off for longer, which presumably is the goal. People blow up their diets when they give in to temptation, and some are "in for a penny in for a pound". Which should be the motto of that program.
Yeah, I suspect that while people who do these programs may set more modest goals, they are also more likely to meet them.
This would be better if people let their exes set weight loss goals for them.
I think this would work better if the charity you picked were "Hamas".
This would be better if people let their exes set weight loss goals for them.
How about zero? Does that work for you?
But then you'd gain all the weight back when they fed you lemon chicken at Gitmo.
I hope
You got
Fat
Well I hope
you got
Really fat.
Cause if you got
Really fat fat fat
You just might want to see me come back
Well I hope
You got
Fat
How about zero? Does that work for you?
I get your drift as explained but it made just as much sense to me as being in the same series as: "Nah, Thursday's out. How about never? Does never work for you?"
You don't get anything but your own money back? That's a fucking scam. If your goals are sufficiently ambitious you ought to get a 2x or 3x return.
No reward for keeping it off? Anybody can lose weight in the short term--hello purgatives! and goodbye carbs!--but it's the keeping it off that's so much harder.
Damn, if you'd only known six months ago, you could have made a killing.
13: that was exactly what I was thinking, until I saw that you only get your own money back. Hence 11.
I think this would work better if the charity you picked were "Hamas".
See Ezra's post.
"But I like fat chicks! Especially their strident feminist self-justifications and poor betting strategies!"
Also, I know it's been said before but for most people "losing weight" is a terrible goal. You want to be stronger and leaner (i.e. healthier), not necessarily lighter. You may need to be lighter, but focusing on that is stupid and can be counterproductive.
the trouble is that Weight Watchers has already been invented and it makes a ton of money, so there will always be some chancer out there reinventing the Weight Watchers strategy and trying to peel off a bit of their profits.
Obviously these fat fatties don't care about money... the only way they're gonna work for that $20 bill is if it's covered in chocolate and wrapped up in a pancake.
Didn't Steven King or someone write a story about quitting smoking along these lines? You sign up with a service to quit smoking, and then after you've signed up, you find out that the incentive is that they threaten to kidnap and kill your family members?
And given the tenor of his first post, I'm glad to see that Newsbites has lurked long enough to know that it does require him to have included pancakes and chocolate.
There was an SNL sketch about a stop smoking plan called Nicatrel, which turned out to be a guy named Nick Atrell (played by The Rock) who would beat the shit out of you if you smoked.
beyond 18; there is a huge market around weight loss, and the have strong disincentives against being long-term effective.
20 - Yeah, that Stephen King story was also in the movie Cat's Eye.
Also, I know it's been said before but for most people "losing weight" is a terrible goal.
I thought I posted this comment earlier, but I'd put it even stronger: weight loss (barring doctor's orders) should never be someone's primary goal. For many people, eating well and exercising regularly will suffice to make them lose weight. For some, eating well and exercising regularly might just make them stronger and heavier. Setpoints are ridiculously stubborn.
It's something I always knew intellectually but didn't fully appreciate until my sister decided to train for a marathon. She lost a little body fat and gained a lot of endurance and strength, but she looked pretty much the same, going from being a couch potato to doing ten mile training runs.
Except for Americans. They could all stand to lose about ten pounds.
The declining dollar has taken care of that.
27: Now losing those last ten pounds takes twenty-four fifty.
I'll wager that you can lose more weight by sitting on the couch and eating absolutely nothing than by eating balanced meals and exercising regularely. Go Anorexia Go.
(do these contracts screen for wealthy anorexics?And does the principle accumulate interest?)
I honestly can't see how someone can be
1. psychologically well-functioning
2. fat
3. insisting that they are 'going to be dieting' etc etc
shit or get off the pot.
i think 25 is wrong, but mostly right.
having 'weight loss' is a dumb goal, insofar as one should always be absorbed into the process, not the outcome.
but in this area, people engage in massive self-deception, and the existance of bodyfat is the one instrusion of reality, so its a damn good marker.
"You don't get anything but your own money back? That's a fucking scam. If your goals are sufficiently ambitious you ought to get a 2x or 3x return."
yeah this would make gobs of money. like how the way to run a gym is to get lots of people to sign year-long contracts (those pricing schemes are a real bitch if you are moving around a lot, PS).
I honestly can't see how someone can be
1. psychologically well-functioning
2. fat
3. insisting that they are 'going to be dieting' etc etc
What? People are busy, and have lots of things they are trying to get done. Work that needs to be done on the house, hobbies they mean catch up on, books to be read, etc. Better diet and regular exercise is just something else on the list.
Yeah, goddamn those fat people for not hating themselves.
34: And sometimes it's just motivation, too. Exercise requires re-prioritizing, especially if you've never done it before. My mother pretty much had to learn to exercise at age 50. Curves is a bizarre organization in some ways, but they're pretty good at teaching healthy habits and making the scale less important by having body fat and 'inches lost' measurements.
but in this area, people engage in massive self-deception, and the existance of bodyfat is the one instrusion of reality, so its a damn good marker.
Not really. If there's self-deception, it's on the end that says that the only reason you don't look like a model is that your will is weak.
If there's self-deception, it's on the end that says that the only reason you don't look like a model is that your will is weak.
This self-deception is helped along nicely by the diet industry.
And indeed contemporary culture in generally.
31: How's that any different from smoking? Do you think all smokers are psychologically damaged too?
No, he thinks they're constipated.
Oh man, Noah's had some constipation issues recently. And when the episodes finally resolved, god almighty. I'd have cried if that came out of me, too.
Tell him to quit smoking, the fatty.
In other news, wow, that sucks. I guess you could tell him it's preparation for the pain of giving birth.
Do you think all smokers are psychologically damaged too?
The gradual stigmatization of smoking over the past generation or two -- from the dizzy heights of elegant sophistication -- has been tremendously entertaining. My favorite is the awful smoking lounges in (I think) St Louis airport, which have a glass wall at the front, bare-bones furniture, no special air conditioning, and a hazy atmosphere as unhappy smokers stand around inside. Passers-by in the terminal can look in on them as though they were a diorama at some future museum of Natural History.
"Yeah, goddamn those fat people for not hating themselves."
huh
if anything, i said the opposite.
decide if you want to lose some weight, or if you want to weigh what you do now.
psychological issues could keep people from successfully losing weight, much like they could keep one from succeeding at lots of other things.
Not really. If there's self-deception, it's on the end that says that the only reason you don't look like a model is that your will is weak.
not being high-status-skinny is a deception away from the truth of bodyfat, just like 'oh, i'm not really overweight, and besides i only had a few potatoe chips, and i didn't find a good parking space so that walking means i did my excersize already'.
My favorite is the awful smoking lounges in (I think) St Louis airport
Oh yes, that's Lambert. As depressing as those concourses are, it's impressive that they managed to make even unhappier spaces within them.
and diet doesn't take any extra time, especially of the weight loss variety. I suppose the health variety could take more time, depending on one's tastes.
Or they might be relatively happy with their lives, and still intend to diet. Someone not being skinny isn't a sign of a psychological issue. Someone having a goal that isn't currently lived up to isn't a psychological issue, either.
The 'truth of bodyfat'?
potatoe... excersize
Spelling well is simply a matter of willpower, yoyo.
You know, people are pretty fat here in Lake Wobegon, but a recent study (the "Eight Americas" study) says that people around here are the healthiest white people in the U.S. So there's hope for you swine.
You're sure it wasn't whitest white people?
The 'truth of bodyfat'?
It's the title of:
A). The collected sermons of Fear-God Barebone, first published in Boston circa 1720; or
B). A new fad diet that is winning rave reviews for its puritanical rigour (though, naturally, some experts urge caution); or
C). A feminist performance art skit that first played to sell-out crowds in Northampton.
D). The little-know alternate title for Fight Club.
The actual study say that poor white Wobegonians live longer than better-off white Americans. Only Asian-Americans live longer. It doesn't mention that people are fat around here, but they are. They also drink quite a bit, but smoke less.
Googling "Eight Americas" is worth it. It looks like Garrison Keillor did the statistical analysis in order to make this part of the world look good.
I'm saying, why have a goal, and make lots of plans to go through with it, if you have not intention of succeeding.
I'm not saying anything about people who are muddling through with an extra 5lbs and who eat 3 cheesburgers a week.
I'm talking about the repeatition of setting a goal, getting half way, and regressing to teh old place.
and why are you reading 'fat is a psychologicla problem' into my posts.
I'm not saying anything about people who are muddling through with an extra 5lbs and who eat 3 cheesburgers a week.
Well, glad you're not going to talk about me, then.
49: Ha! Oh, no, dieting doesn't take any extra time. It's not like you're suddenly always, always hungry; always, always focused on food; and always trying to stretch every single calorie so that you can for once not be hungry. Look, I can only lose weight if I exercise a good deal (in the range of two hours a day, by which I mean two hours of motion, not messing around at the gym) and eat less than 1000 calories a day. The only time I've ever successfully done this was one summer in high school, when I did nothing else. I didn't work; I didn't study; I didn't see friends. I slept when I was too hungry to be awake and then exercised and then--very moderately--ate. And after that I had sort of a hideously boring OCD relationship to food for years and years. I'd rather be fat. Perhaps a bit thinner than I am now, but still.
It's easy--if your metabolism is average--to lose a little weight, especially if you've put it on by falling into bad habits for a couple of months. But other than that, not so much.
I mean, spelling is easy. You just look words up once, and then spell them the same way from there on out. It doesn't take any time at all! It's just shameful that somebody would misspell a simple word more than once. Learn it, and then stick with it.
hm, how did you guys find my blog about trying endlessly to spell well and my weekly visits to ortho-ooglers??!?
and why are you reading 'fat is a psychologicla problem' into my posts.
I'm not.
63: In this instance, it is. You spend time, real, genuine time, obsessing about food; it's like trying to study or think or do anything with an annoying monologue running in the background. One reason I don't care so much about my weight any more is simply that I realized how much thinking time and reading time I was wasting trying to work out whether I'd just eaten, say, a large apple or only a medium one, and whether I could have an extra quarter cup of bran flakes because I'd walked an extra mile to run an errand. Not to mention the time I'd spend watching TV or reading some trashy book because I was literally too hungry to concentrate on anything else.
And you get in that crazy headspace--one day I walked five miles in a cold drizzle because I'd eaten all my calories for the day plus an additional four slices of bread. That was time--god, it seemed to go on forever.
61: I dream of a world where there's the science and technology to make it feasible to have tailored health plans to an individual's particular body type and constitution. So instead of saying 'gee, you're over the BMI, you need to lose weight', the helpful doctor could say 'this range is healthy for you, and who cares if it's 30 pounds over what other people of your height weigh.'
real, genuine time, obsessing about food; it's like trying to study or think or do anything with an annoying monologue running in the background
Preach it, sister. The times I've done this, I felt like I was going insane--my mind never wandered: I was always thinking about food. How many hours until the next meal, how hungry I would still feel after eating it, etc. Holy crap, that sucks.
Yoyo, Cala's not reading "psychological problem" into your posts (and I'm not just saying that just because she's courting me [because one Canadian spouse is not enough for you, eh?]). You first raised the matter of "psychological functioning" in your 31, and then continued to psychologize the issue with talk of "self-deception" and "psychological issues" and the like.
I could never diet. As soon as I'm hungry at all, I lose the ability to write coherently.
69: It was the 'u' in 'rigour' that captured my fancy. But you better come with paper; I ain't filing for no more green card for nobody.
66: yeah like i said dieting invovles lots of unhealthy psychological states.
61: blood pressure, insulin, blood sugar, lipids, hormones, some inflammation markers, etc. If a doctor actually mentions BMI they are retarded.
As soon as I'm hungry at all, I lose the ability to write coherently.
So that's yoyo's problem?
71: Yet here you sit, confident that people are fat because they're eating too many cheeseburgers. That was tailored to someone's insulin level, I'm sure.
I like to think that yoyo is not simply insensitive but rather suffering from undiagnosed hyperthyroidism, and he can't understand weight gain any more than the rest of us can understand what it's like to be all googly-eyed and otherwise Don Knottsesque.
69: i'm saying psychological weirdness is about the dieting, not the bodyfat state a person is in.
example:
AustinHeather is starting a soy icecream and tomato juice diet, there must be something wrong with sher.
Not:
AustinHeather is kinda plump, must be something wrong with sher.
70: I'm all wrapped up in paper. And I only had to wait almost three effing years to get my green card.
Is your husband still waiting for his? I ended up writing to my Congresswoman with a sob story, and pleaded with her to intervene on my behalf. I think this helped.
If a doctor actually mentions BMI they are retarded.
Well, good luck with that.
"Going on a diet" is certainly a weird cultural phenomenon that seems to result in a lot of misery for a lot of people.
We only filed in August, and things are proceeding well; his application was transferred to California, which means we'll probably be approved for the conditional card without an interview. Could be within the month, could be three years from now. Once it gets to six months (the promised processing time), I will get the Congresswoman involved.
actually last time i check my TSH was at 5 something, which is in the clinical hypothyroidism range, i kind of was planning on doing some further testing. but my metabolism is pretty high. I've tried to gain weight before, and never gotten over 170. the amount of pain from the food volume i ate was large, as was the time commitment to prepare and shovel food into my mouth. When i realized i could not achieve my aesthetic/social goals i quit after a year or so.
A lot depends on where in the country you live, interacted with how much more straightforward your case looks than the modal application.
The oddest bit of the process was when the card itself finally arrived in the mail, looking like an anonymous piece of junk mail (unlike all the other official correspondence you receive from them). It's obvious why they do this, but it was still funny.
In unrelated news, while cleaning and trying-desperately-to-reduce-the-number-of-things-I-own, I have just found that I own a really fantastic peculiar sporty-crossed-with-futuristic pair of black, strappy ankle boots in a very nice black calf. Completely unworn, too, and the very thing for this weather. It's like they were spontaneously generated by my shoe pile.
79: Successful online diagnosis! My father would be so proud.
Ooh, strappy in what manner? Sounds great.
80: It all depends on backlog and the background check. Transfers happen because the local office is backed up; if there's a hit in the name database of evil people, then you disappear into a black hole until the FBI spits you out.
"But it's in the name of security that there are such delays!" they cry, failing to recognize that were the prospective spouse really a terrorist, the delay mean they have about three years to plot their plots and plan their plans.
hypothyroidism =/= hyperthyroidism
sort of the opposite, actually
Successful online diagnosis!
Unless yoyo mistyped, you got it exactly wrong.
81: You gotta watch. They might breed slippers.
85: I assumed you meant hyper-; how can you be hypothyroid and have an aggressively high metabolism?
They might breed slippers.
Hott.
futuristic boots?
actually i was just thinking how the sensation of walking in my clarks wallabees is very much like wearing moonboots
I assumed you meant hyper-; how can you be hypothyroid and have an aggressively high metabolism?
A mystery; I thought he might be describing his nutty circumstance. Yoyo?
83: They are almost impossible to describe. They have two wide straps across the front which actually hold the boot closed, and a sort of thin yet sporty rubber sole, no heel. I'm thinking fancy black tights and my peculiar black skirt. Or maybe my wide cropped-just-to-the-awkward-point pants and knee socks. (The goal of many of my clothes is to look awkward.)
Some months from now, when I have saved up the money, I plan to get these strappy boots, which are just about perfect as far as I'm concerned.
It all depends on backlog and the background check.
Yeah, some local offices are more efficient. My working theory was that medium-sized cities were best. The background check happens very late in the process too (at least, mine did) and my lawyer did warn me that either it would come back OK in 24 hours or take forever.
How can you be hypothyroid and have an aggressively high metabolism?
Yoyo is way cool. He could do that, or he could turn sugar into cocaine. If he wanted to.
Not you, Jesus.
I just got a pair of Clarks, but I can't find them anywhere online, so no link. They are pretty great, though.
Well, TSH doesn't necessarily reflect thyroid levels in the way you'd normally expect them to. When your pituitary gland is out of whack, for example, you can be hypothyroid while having the low TSH usually associated with being hyperthyroid. I suspect that there are similar complications that go the other way around, and other adrenal wackinesses.
Take that, McQueen!
(Sorry about the tumor, yoyo.)
cropped-just-to-the-awkward-point pants
That point just below the knee where the shin bone goes concave, or another awkward point?
Some months from now, when I have saved up the money, I plan to get these strappy boots, which are just about perfect as far as I'm concerned.
Love.
A lot depends on where in the country you live, interacted with how much more straightforward your case looks than the modal application.
Yeah, the wait time varies a fair bit by location. And if you live in, say, NYC, where the wait is long and frustrating, you're not allowed to go to a small town upstate to send in your application.
What I find bizarre about my green card is that it doesn't include my middle name (which I always use: it's not so much my middle name as the second part of my first name). What with all the billions spent on homespun insecurity, wouldn't they want to further specify (especially with names that are common as dirt) and include more information rather than less?
93: I'm not too worried; uncommon but-still-delightfully-Anglo name, friendly country, no criminal record, and sailed through so far. Knock on wood, as they say, but you know, he can work legally and travel home now*, and life is pretty much back to normal.
*Well, he would if someone hadn't accidentally put down my birthyear instead of his own on the form, meaning we have to re-file the thing. Glad to see they checked it with his birth certificate and the forty other documents with his correct age....
IA has a double-barrelled Catholic name!
Those are cool boots, Frowner.
,a href="http://www.cracked.com/article_15679_5-upcoming-comic-book-movies-that-must-be-stopped.html">Through the air, no doubt.
Also, there's a Leibniz joke in there about 'modal application', but fuck if I'm gonna make it.
*Well, he would if someone hadn't accidentally put down my birthyear instead of his own on the form, meaning we have to re-file the thing. Glad to see they checked it with his birth certificate and the forty other documents with his correct age....
A mistake owing to temporarily forgetting who was the petitioner?
100: After a quick look in the mirror, I have determined that they are cropped about halfway down the calf, so that the from-the-knee-down shape of the calf is obscured, but the ankle is not highlighted. Also, just cropped enough so that the tops of ankle boots and the socks above them are visible; also, just the wrong length for my gorgeous expensive German scrunchy boots.
Although when I have those perfect other boots, I will be able to wear my favorite pants/boots combo: military boots that are very tight at the ankle and wide, baggy pants cropped about three inches above ankle-height. My punk rock look from college---if you keep everything in black it looks merely too informal for work rather than outright bizarre. Although I'm not above wearing the outright bizarre on occasion.
No, a mistake due to me getting fed up and saying 'it's your damn green card, I'm only doing the support affidavit, your turn to deal with immigration' and not proofreading as carefully on the advance parole form as I did on the other ones.
Oh dear. I'm lucky I was able to hire a lawyer.
hypothalamus tumor
Sorry, dude. But you have to admit, a yoyo typo is generally a pretty safe bet.
I was pretty much an insane woman at that point. But we've done all the paperwork on our own, which means I've read wayyyyyy too many USCIS memos.
But you better come with paper
This is similar to a euphemism for parole, isn't it?
What what if the others show up with scissors?
You have to master Rock before you are ready to move on to other forms.
IA has a double-barrelled Catholic name!
Well, sure. Mary Invisible, surname Adjunct. Named after my grandmother, who was named after her grandmother, and so on back through the mists of time. And my ancestry is noble and illustrious: the Adjuncts of Co. Tipperary were once the Kings and Queens agrarian underclass of Ireland.
Seriously, that advance parole stuff is a bit scary. I also made a huge error on that one, and as a result, couldn't leave the US for almost three effing years.
Oh, I was hoping that's what that link was!
perhaps i'm a smart man pretendiung to be a dumb man pretending to be a smart man
did you ever thing about that
I thing about everything you say, yoyo. I thing you are operating on many many level.
118: Then I show up with a rock!
122: We're not planning to go anywhere until next July, so if we don't have his green card by April, we'll go to the local office and point out the dreadful, dreadful error.
no i mean before i said it
did you think about it then
We built this city on Rock. Roll was not added until later.
131 was an utterly content-free cultural reference, for which I apologize.
Kids these days try to found all their cities on Wrap.
We built this city on Rock.
Compton?
I've had a craving for a Twinkie this week. Do they still sell them?
They do, but I doubt they've made any in a good long while.
They probably don't sell them at Whole Foods, though. You might have to journey to wherever the poors shop.
Much easier than deliveries from the future.
Mayor's everywhere had better watch out if ogged gets his hands on a twinkie. I hope they're still data mining shopping lists.
I'm surprised Whole Foods doesn't have on offer a $20/lb organic Twinkee made by Buddhist monks.
We could make a fortune. Anyone know any monks?
Maybe they do; I've never been there. But if they did, ogged would presumably know.
Weren't they originally just sponge cakes filled with banana creme? Sounds pretty damn good to me.
Silly customers! You cannot eat a twinkie!
What is the sound of one twinkie squishing?
Several summers back I was working in an office in the Graphics or Design or something building. I guess the last assignment the kids had to do before summer was a display advertising Twinkies, 'cause the front hall and the corridor to my office had a couple dozen really nice dioramas with Twinkies as the main characters.
I lasted a month or so before I bought a Twinkie. It did not live up to my very fond memories.
I bought a hostess cupcake sometime in the past year for nostalgia (and snacking) reasons. It was ok. And so was I.
The last time I had a Twinkie was at the wake following my grandfather's funeral. I was eleven. The Twinkies were the kind with the strawberry filling, and they had been sliced crosswise into half-inch pinwheels and arranged on plastic platters in the church basement.
What is the sound of one twinkie squishing?
"Foolish ants! I smother you with my spongy flesh!"
It seems like a guy could have sex with a Twinkie.
I've eaten one deep fried. It was okay.
I don't think I've ever had a Twinkie.
It seems like a guy could have sex with a Twinkie.
A woman, too.
I've eaten one deep fried. It was okay.
Are there any foods that, when deep fried, taste worse than "okay"?
Unsatisfying sex, though I note out of charity that you didn't presuppose that the sex would be good.
I have a hard time imagining sex with a Twinkie being good for anyone. Especially the Twinkie.
Holy shit, Cala. That's joining the list of scenes that make me want to become a filmmaker.
Deep-fried okra, if poorly done, is worse than okay.
He was full of snacks and beer, with hops in his step and a twinkie in his eye.
165: The grandfather's wake, or the unsatisfying Twinkie-sex?
Deep fried pickles have a reasonably high bar to clear to become "okay".
168: why does it have to be one or the other?
Leave out twinkie soup too long and a yuckie film forms on top.
When I was in college, the dining hall had deep-fried pickles once. Most of my friends hated them, but I thought they were great.
171: I suppose it doesn't, but I'm not very familiar with Catholicism.
My husband once threatened to divorce me for serving him fried okra.
Both would work, if I was looking for a Naked Lunch kind of weirdness.
The bar on my street serves them. They're okay. No fair stipulating that things be badly fried. You can have badly-fried chicken that is worse than okay, even though fried chicken is objectively delicious.
I personally think deep-fried Snickers bars are altogether too turdlike to qualify as "okay", instead oscillating wildly between "digusting" and "awesome".
I submit the problem was not with the frying, but that okra is made of stringy goo.
A deep fryer is the hammer of kitchen tools. When its all you have, you want to use it on everything. We made deep fired grapes once.
That took some effort to get right.
Fried okra can be delicious. There are other ways of preparing it that are not so delicious, of course. I'm generally a fan of okra, though.
174: The unsatisfying twinkie sex comes in a distraught fantasy later, teo. The child takes the absurd symbol of dying 20th-century Catholicism (twinkies, bad upholstery, slightly off-putting priest who remembers no one's name) and unconsciously attempts to co-opt it, but ends up only confused and disturbed.
A deep fryer was all you had? No pots or anything?
Fried okra is a reason for living, though I haven't had it in many years. As a child, I told my mother I didn't want dessert for dessert, I just wanted fried okra. I've made it a few times for boyfriends, but they didn't get it.
Some limits are self-imposed. By closing off some avenues, we open ourselves up to greater freedoms.
OT: Tonight, Bave and I ran into the last guy I dated (Mr. June) at a diner, but since he was on a date with a new (very bland) girl, I'll have you know I said nothing. Bave proclaimed that he was "clearly a total douchebag." I cannot tell if this was supposed to comfort me or injure my sensibilities.
I cannot tell if this was supposed to comfort me or injure my sensibilities.
Over to you, Bave.
okra is made of stringy goo.
This is what Mr. B.--who grew up in the south, no less!!--thinks.
He is, of course, wrong.
Stringy goo it is, but this is not incompatible with teh delicious.
Mr B is right on this. Okra mings.
Yeah, well, you don't like pb&j either.
Maybe the South isn't Scottish after all.
pb&j
Another American product tainted with lead.
61: blood pressure, insulin, blood sugar, lipids, hormones, some inflammation markers, etc. If a doctor actually mentions BMI they are retarded.
I had all of these things tested a few months ago, along with kindey function, liver function, cholesterol, blood pressure, resting heart rate, white cell count, etc.
Apparently I am in excellent physical shape -- every single indicator at the healthy or extremely healthy end of the scale. I'm also pretty fit, exercise hard several hours a week and can do things in my sport that much thinner, fitter-looking people cannot.
Nevertheless, I remain a bit of a fat bastard and could really do with losing 30-35 lbs. The relationship between body-weight and lifestyle is neither simple nor easy.
And yes, peanut butter and jelly is also not great. It doesn't ming in the manner of okra, though.
Fried okra is fantastic, you lunatic.
Depends on the film
Sounded kind of like a Todd Solondz movie.
I had an absofuckinglutely delicious okra-having Indian dish for lunch a few weeks ago which completely converted whatever part of me might have been holding out. Okra!
you know what really trips my boat?
The use of the word "most" to mean 51% or thereabouts
when i hear most, i think >=80%
Okra in all its forms is wondrous in the extreme, though it usually comes curried over here. If ttaM doesn't like a good bindi bhaji, he's missing one of the great things in life. But PBJ is horrible. Peanut butter should be eaten as is, or if necessary, with a little salt.
Some limits are self-imposed. By closing off some avenues, we open ourselves up to greater freedoms.
Get Lambent Cactus some saffron robes and he can make the Twinkies.
Okra in its various Indian forms is especially divine. I wonder if I can find some okra at the market today -- I haven't made my bhindi masala in far too long.
Sometimes you hit the okra, sometimes the okra hits you.
Frowner, those shoes in 92 are so awesome. I also want a pair now.
Sometimes you're the windshield, sometimes you're the bug.
Ohhh, and I only just realized how custom-made those boots are. That is extremely appealing.
Like with the height and stuff? Yes, very nice.
No, even more than that! Looky.
Wow, that is super detailed. Wouldn't you feel like a shmuck if you got them and they didn't fit? "It must have been my fault," you'd think sadly. "They did everything right."
I'm hot for the prodigiously expensive custom riding boots as well. What a pity it is that I am not outrageously wealthy.
Wouldn't you feel like a shmuck if you got them and they didn't fit?
Yes, yes I would.
I see that there will be a representative from the company about 25 miles away from me this Wednesday. If my ship comes in by Tuesday, I'll see if I can make an appointment.
I wonder if I have any boots I can lace like this.
Goddamnit, that would not make any sense as a lacing technique, either.
It's a neat picture under "how to lace your boots." Is all I'm saying. Now let me go find the prodigiously expensive riding boots and sigh dreamily at them.
That's so cool how that one pair just laces at the ankle, like a corset.
218: Yes! That's the one. Also did you see the link to 17 better ways to lace your shoes and shave luxurious seconds off your morning routine?
It's "knot" interesting. Zing! See how I did that?
I'm totally going to give this one a try.
Good call. I hear the Ian's Secure Knot needs almost three times the tension to pull it undone than either the Ian Knot or any Standard Shoelace Knot.
Some of the instructions have associated flip books!
"Right over left, left over right,
Makes a knot both tidy and tight."
I have to confess that the last time I was at an academic party and desperate to find a subject of conversation with someone I didn't have anything at all to talk about with, I produced about five minutes of utterly fascinating discourse on this very subject (i.e. if your shoes come untied all the time, it is probably because you are inadvertently tying a granny knot). I am truly a social butterfly.
This is good idea for your penny loafers in middle school.
A social butterfly...KNOT! (Like, pronounced Wayne Cambell style.)
Heebie I am sad to tell you 229 is eine defekte link.
You know, I consistently jack up links. I don't know why that is.
With that link, the two problems appear to be a lack of "http://" in front of the URL, and a URL that does not point to a good page.
Also, the site's in a whole other country, that can't help.
There's also an elephant in the way.
redfox, you actually are a social butterfly, not knot a social butterfly. Come back.
233: The little packets forgot their passports and got stuck at the border.
The web server accidentally got set up on deport 80.
I thought I was a social butterfly knot. I'm good to use when you need an outgoing, lively attachment loop in the bight of a loaded rope.
redfoxtailshrub has many social windings.
One can catch junebugs and tie a string to them and have a pet-junebug-on-a-string. (I haven't done this. But I like the idea.)
Coming in late, but I've learned that the trick with okra is mostly (besides starting with good okra) that it must be entirely dry before you fry it. This is tricky if you've just washed it, because of the shape. Seems it's water mixing with the inside that makes it gooey. I'd always thought of it as an Indian dish (bhindi) before I moved down here. It's amazing when done right.
The gooey texture can be nasty, but it's also the slightly 'furry' surface of the skin which is a bit 'off' for me.
We grew lots of okra in the garden when I was growing up, and those prickly hairs on the outside make it awful to pick. You get them all over you.
An ex's mom taught me a recipe in which you split the pods open, stuff them with a spice mixture, and then fry them in oil with mustard seeds. Yummm.
Fried okra is so awesome. The rest of you are crazy. Blume knows what's up.
The rest of you are crazy
All the rest of us who like okra, too?
Maybe I should make fried okra for Thanksgiving. I'm going over to a friend's house, and he and his wife are in charge of turkey, stuffing, and that kind of stuff. I was going to bring potato casserole or butternut squash and an bourbon-caramel apple pie, but maybe fried okra is the thing to do. They're southerners; they can handle it!
OTOH, there will be a Dutchman there, and it seems like Europeans are opposed to okra outside of Indian food. Does anyone know how widespread that distaste is?
I would sure love it if someone made fried okra for my Thanksgiving. The only possible hitch is that fried food is of course best prepared at the last minute, and the kitchen might not really be in a position to have you be all frying stuff in the middle of it right then.
I would have thought it obvious that when I said "all the rest of you" I meant the two or three people who expressed mild reservations about Okra, and even then only in the context of those reservations and not at other times, when they like okra fine. Do I have to spell everything out?
Just slip some okra into the apple pie.
I'll take crazy awesome. I am also crazy like a fox.
ee vee ee are tee aitch eye en gee, right?
The Dutchman can suck it up! You're in America now, buddy!
Though I wonder how well fried okra would travel?
And it's not really in season right now, is it?
Though I wonder how well fried okra would travel?
Fried okra gets hammered at the airport bar, then spends most of the flight passed out in its seat.
Hmm. I know my friends are breaking out the deep fryer to do pickles (they're from Kentucky), so maybe it would either be extra-easy or extra-annoying for me to get some fryer time in. It is possible that potato casserole or creamy butternut squash is the way to go.
Also, I brought apple pie to their house last year. What do you think about chocolate cream pie? Too infantile? The theme seems to be down-homey southern T-day, after all, but all my down-homey southern associations are with unsophisticated yummy things like chocolate pie.
And hopes that its neighbor isn't hungry!
Well if it's to be down-homey southern, you might as well go all out and make a pecan pie.
264 sounds really good, actually. Done like a pecan pie? Which reminds me, I could make pecan pie. Mmmm.
If I were going for infantile dessert, I'd do nanner pudding, myself. But I'm also a total stick in the mud when it comes to Thanksgiving dessert and will always just eat the pumpkin pie.
The okra at the market today was super pathetic. I did not buy any.
I was going to make a pecan pie for thanksgiving, because doing so allows me to indulge my fondness for arranging things. But then my hostess let on as she'd be be making a pecan pie from the Tartine cookbook, with candied kumquats, but I should make some other kind. I can't compete with that!
(Nut pies are of course delicious.)
You make lovely fruit pies, don't you, Ben?
Make sweet potatoes with mini marshmallows arranged in a Fibonacci spiral.
DO I?
I would like to repeat the apple-quince w/ cardamom pie. But I don't think the right kind of quince is still in season.
Or, even better, I could make a cake. Or you could make a cake, Ben. Is that antithetical to Tday? My red velvet cake is practically famous.
You know what else is delicious? Indian pudding. There was a recipe last year in the NYT just in time for my annual bourbon tasting. Finally, the what-to-eat-with-bourbon problem is solved!
I think for Thanksgiving I will make sweet potato muffins. And probably several of the side dishes.
Thanksgiving at my parents is all about the unsophisticated yummy things. Which is fine by me as long as that marshmallow ambrosia crap comes nowhere near me.
I have yet to find any kind of quince for sale here. Woe. God, I love quince. Even just having some in a bowl on the counter makes everything smell fantastic.
Indian corn pudding? I had that at Tday last year (attended two Tdays last year, to make up for Tdays spent at home alone without groceries eating masa cakes) and it was delicious.
Unfortunately, one guy at the party got really super-stoned and decided to eat the entire corn pudding after the rest of us had only had a taste. Bastard.
I have tentative plans to make a cake tomorrow. Now that Knecht is gone I can freely admit that I intend to soak it, just totally soak it, in Campari.
Finally, the what-to-eat-with-bourbon problem is solved!
The solution to a related problem.
Indian Pudding is, in fact, delicious. If I could make enough pumpkin pie with bourbon for everyone on the blog, I would; it's a delicious thing to eat with bourbon, make with bourbon, pour bourbon on, and take on walking tours of Bourbon County, Kentucky.
Last year, a guy brought a $150 bottle of bourbon to the Kentucky-themed Tday. This is related to my complete lack of memory regarding anything that happened after about 9pm that night. All I know is that I found myself at 4am asleep in my boyfriend's vestibule a mile away.
Has this become the Thanksgiving thread? Because I have to tell you something that sucks, Thanksgiving-wise: having your goddamn oven die the week before Thanksgiving. And yet, something to give thanks for: oven shopping.
Sandburg for Booker's, Blake for Heaven Hill. Those are pretty inspired choices.
Sour cherry sorbet is the other thing to eat with bourbon, but past years have proven it too insubstantial a base on which to drink too much bourbon.
Cherry pie might would for a bourbon tasting/hair metal listening party.
"might would could work", rather.
"might could work" is how they'd say it where I'm from.
Yeah, but for the subjunctive you need that "would" in there.
having your goddamn oven die the week before Thanksgiving
How about an hour before dinnertime? This happened at my wife's uncle's a few years ago. Electric, and there was no power, so we raced to the basement to confront a bewildering maze of unmarked switches and circuit-breakers. This must be about 5 years ago, and just before we all had cellphones, because what we dearly lacked was some sort of "walkie-talkie" function, so someone in the kitchen could have told those of us in the basement when the light went on. I remember that some combination was found to work a week or so later, so that we might have saved the day, but couldn't run through enough permutations without immediate feedback. So the day wasn't saved.
A friend's family doesn't have anyone living in a place big enough to get everyone together for Thanksgiving, so they sometimes rent a house in the Hamptons (cheap, given that it's not summer) for the weekend. Last year, or maybe the year before, they showed up with bags full of groceries, and realized that while all the appliances in the kitchen worked great, they included a stovetop but not an oven.
So they cut the turkey up and did a fricassee.
Say, Blume, are you heading to the midwest for Thanksgiving?
Not this year. Will be there for nine days over Christmas, though!
I couldn't remember how close your family homestead was to mine, but I'm always looking for social opportunities that provide a breather from the family's loving embrace.
OT: I'm so going to make use of this in comment threads that go sour.
Homo sum; humani nihil a me alienum puto—and that includes being mean.
If Terence's claim is taken to mean that everything is natural to a human being, it seems wrong. I'm human is (ceteris paribus) a perfectly good reason not to be mean to me. If it just means that everything pertaining to humans is the business of a human being, then Ben's reply isn't a rejection of the found note.
My grad school girlfriend used to say that she wanted to do a public-access cable show called "cooking with bourbon" in which she, the cook, would cook things with bourbon while drinking as she cooked and she'd be completely hammered by the end of every show.
Mmm. During my MA program, I figured out a way to manipulate that old Nieman-Marcus cookie recipe (which includes ground-up nuts and oatmeal) by soaking the oatmeal-nutmeal stuff in bourbon, and using really good dark chocolate, shaved into the batter. The alcohol doesn't fully burn off, since you only bake them for eight minutes, and you can get a pretty good buzz just from the cookies. Of course, I usually had a good buzz on from cooking like in 296.
"cooking with bourbon" in which she, the cook, would cook things with bourbon while drinking as she cooked and she'd be completely hammered by the end of every show.
Julia Child ripoff.
I just made the pumpkin puree for my Thanksgiving pumpkin pie, which will contain bourbon. I love how one pie pumpkin really does produce enough pumpkin for one pumpkin pie.
Bourbon is the secret ingredient in pretty much every family recipe for me. The ur-recipe is "Empty can. Add bourbon. Add sugar." It really does to wonders to pumpkin pie, though, and then for a special treat you can score your slice of pie and pour more bourbon onto it, supersaturating the pie.
You know what else is good? Pumpkin pie with a ginger snap crumble on top.
Mmm, bourbon soaked ginger snaps.
re: 296
Keith Floyd did that. He always looked pissed [in the British sense].
I'm human is (ceteris paribus) a perfectly good reason not to be mean to me.
If I'm going to be mean, it's usually to a human. I think we should always be kind to the dumb chums.
If I'm going to be mean, it's usually to a human.
Sure, but that's just because other things aren't always equal. 'Be nice to me, because I'm human' is a perfectly reasonable (and sweet) request if there's no special circumstance involved.
Rfts: any advice on a non-dairy pumpkin pie filling? Silken tofu was one though.
supersaturating the pie.
Facilitating the creation of bourbon candy.
