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My Dog: Fluffy or a Fattie?

Does Molly's fur coat make her look fat? My dog, Molly, has been to the vet a few times in the past couple of months for an infection and teeth cleaning. The vet recommended that Molly lose some weight and asked how much Molly was eating. "One and a half cups a day of ... dog food and some cabbage," I said. And yes, that's using a measuring cup, I explained, not a slurpee cup. Yes, Molly gets exercise--she runs on the treadmill every day. Nonetheless, the vet suggested giving Molly less food. Is this a good idea? Let's consider some observations, facts and assumptions. First, is Molly fat? Someone at the dog park nicknamed her "Marshmallow," and her hips look quite a bit wider than her chest when she sits down. Yet there aren't rolls of fat on her. When I pinch her fat around her middle, it's only 3/8" thick. Her hind quarters are too firm to pinch. Her midriff is thick and her hips are wide--but maybe that just means she isn't built lik

Ripping Away the Veil, or Think and Grow Thin

Have you ever had the wrong idea about something, then saw the truth and wondered how you could have been so blind? Most of the common sense people have about weight gain is an illusion. My mother has been overweight most of her life. She's been sedentary since middle age (she started getting arthritis around age 40), but pictures of her in her 20s and 30s from before my time show her on horseback when she and my father went hunting together. She also took care of my brothers and sisters with few modern conveniences. In other words, she was overweight but pretty active. My parents and I always ate dinner together, almost always steak or chicken, potatoes, gravy, bread, corn and green beans. My mom never seemed to overeat. She wasn't a drinker, either. I was an average thin kid (I didn't like my mom's cooking) and a little on the fleshy side as an adult until age 34 when I started Body for Life. After three years on this program, which includes lots of protein, carbs and

Exercise without Joint Pain

I've never understood why runners keep running until they wear out their knees. Or why dancers will dance until they have blisters on their feet. Maybe it's good that I get too tired to run that far or dance that long. In spite of this blessing in disguise, I started getting knee pain from weightlifting. Since I didn't get knee pain during weightlifting sessions, it took me awhile to figure out what was causing it. Once I realized it was squats, I stopped doing them and felt better. However, my weightlifting routines became limited to what my joints, not my muscles, would bear, particularly for my lower body. On the recommendation of a few bloggers I read (Dr. Michael Eades and Tom Naughton--see blog roll), I tried Slow Burn by Fred Hahn and Drs. Michael and Mary Dan Eades. The Drs. Eades explain in the beginning of the book why strength training is good for you (improved metabolism, stronger bones, more flexibility, less back pain and better athletic performance, among ot

My Mom's Heel has Healed

Time may heal all wounds, but zinc may help them faster. Three years ago, my diabetic mother developed a sore on her heel. According to my father, who has been dressing the wound during those years, it was the size of a silver dollar (1.5" diameter) and all the way to the bone--about 3/4." Their doctors refused to treat it and sent them to the hospital instead. Over the years, doctors, nurses, aides and my father have been dressing it, treating it with medicinal honey, and cutting away crusty skin around it in a painful, weekly doctor's office procedure. In three years, the size of the wound went down to the size of a quarter (1") and 1/16" deep. It still required the aforementioned care. Having had such good results with zinc healing my nose from septoplasy (I'd had nosebleeds for ten years after the surgery), I gave my mom a bottle of 100mg zinc tablets two weeks ago. She's been taking one every day. The results, according to my parents: The wound is

Getting Rid of Acne after 30 Years

I've had acne for almost 30 years. It started with a few pimples when I was 12 and escalated into cysts when I was 20. A coworker actually said to me, "God, what happened to your face?" "Oh," I wish I'd replied, "I bet you say that to all the girls." What's the French word for repartee you think of as you're walking out of the party, down the steps? My sister had acne too. She was good-looking until she'd been on meth for about a year, and afterwards lived on coffee, Pepsi and burritos. She blamed her acne on--wait for it--green beans and washcloths. I should have taken a clue from her diet. My poison isn't Pepsi, but Coke. When I stopped drinking Coke in 2007 to help my stomach, my skin cleared up. It was less dry and flaky, too. So except for falling off the wagon and going through caffeine withdrawal again in 2007, all has been well. Then I started drinking Coke Zero a few weeks ago. "Since it doesn't have sugar," I

Is Low-carb an Expensive Diet?

If high quality meat and cheese are upwards of $5 per pound and potatoes, bread and bananas cost a fraction of that, the low-carb meat-and-cheese diet sounds like it would be much more expensive than the high-carb diet. Does it work out that way in real life? Since I buy almost everything with a debit card and record all the transactions on my computer, I have records for everything I've spent on food, health care and skin care. (The only serious cash I spend is for cover charges to dance clubs.) These three things--the food I eat, my skin, and overall health--have significantly changed since I started a low-carb diet back in February. I decided to analyze how the diet has affected my spending in those areas, which I believe have changed because of my low-carb diet. Although I have data for all 2009, I have only three whole months' data for the time I've been low-carb. For 2010, I used the period March 1 through May 31. In addition, I excluded some unusual items for 2009:

Low-Brow is Easiest for Low-Carb

Eating out is a challenge with diet restrictions, especially when your diet contradicts conventional wisdom about what a healthy diet is. Maybe that's why low-brow grocers and restaurants--you know, those places for people who just don't care what they put in their bodies--seem to have more low-carb offerings than health food stores and natty eateries. Most nice restaurants put a basket of savory bread in front of you when you're hungry. Except for the ubiquitous grilled chicken salad, everything on the menu has fruit, rice, potatoes or pasta. Even at the two airports where I recently ate (not exactly fine dining there), most of the food looked starchy and sugary. But the burger from Burger King was fine without the bun and the quarter-pound, cheesy hot dog in Indiana hit the spot. (Certain processed meats give me a sinus headache--this didn't.) And the chicken club from a Hardee's in that state was just as tasty as those I get at Carl's Jr. (the same company)