Greta
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Posts posted by Greta
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I achieved a little milestone today, and I have to share because I'm silly I'm so excited. It's not a big deal, really, but it's a big deal to me.
A few months ago, I was at the gym with my husband, and *after* I'd done an hour of cardio, he insisted that I try a squat at the Smith machine. I'd never squatted anything that heavy in my life, and my legs were tired from an hour of cardio. I tried telling him all of that, but he wouldn't listen, and kept twisting my arm. I caved (stupid, I know), and I tried it. Couldn't even do one rep. I fell. I didn't hurt myself, thank God, because the machine caught me. Only my pride was bruised. That whole section of the gym, with all of the really ripped people, was already intimidating to me, so after that I didn't feel like I'd ever be able to show my face there again!
Recently I found out that you get a free hour consultation with a personal trainer when you join the gym (don't know why nobody told me that when I first joined!), and I had that consultation this afternoon. It was great. He showed me how some of the machines work, recommended a basic routine to get started, and then said, "let's do some squats at the Smith machine". Crap. My heart instantly started racing. I even told him that I was scared. But he demonstrated it first, he spotted me, he assured me I could do it, and he was right. I DID IT! I didn't fall on my butt! I did five reps! It's true, there were no plates on the bar, but the bar alone weighs 45 pounds, so I'm totally counting it as a win! Because, most importantly, I'm not petrified of it any more! I can do this!
I'm ridiculously happy for such a minor accomplishment! :lol:
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Here's a feel good video:
Feel good, but also :crying: Grab the kleenex before you watch! :)
Thanks for sharing this. It was lovely.
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I firmly believe that most overweight people have sincerely tried to change habits and lose the weight. I'm betting that he has tried many, many habit changes and diets and exercise plans over the years and years it took him to get to that weight and none of them were able to consistently shed the excess weight. I'm sure some of them worked in the short term, but once you are 200+ pounds overweight, short term gradual lose isn't going to do you much good...and I think research shows that when you regain the weight, which you are almost guaranteed to do, that you will probably end up heavier than you started.
Wendy
Right, I gotcha. Thanks for explaining for me. What a mess - the research shows that short term gradual loss doesn't work, and this one study at least showed that radical drastic loss doesn't work? Where does that leave us? :(
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As a point of curiosity, you happen to have randomly selected a few words that have implications in Greek and English that actually *are* significantly nuanced (though not quite to the point that they actually 'don't mean' their translation).
Thieves: the implication in Greek is 'one who makes their living through crime and violence'. That is someone we might call 'a thief' but we would tend to be more specific if we could. Something like, "A career criminal' might carry it, but even that does not imply violence the way the Greek word does. Perhaps 'an outlaw'?
Fornicators: in Greek this is 'any sexual immorality' and has a vast semantic range, well beyond the English limitation of 'fornication'. (In fact, it's so vague that it's unclear what it does and doesn't include). In English we tend only to use 'formication' for intercourse outside of marriage, by unmarried people.
Adulterers: in agrees this means a married woman in a relationship with any man, or any man in a relationship with a married woman. A married man in a relationship with an unmarried woman, a slave or a sex trade worker. Would not be considered 'an adulterer' by Greek speakers, but we use it that way in English.
So, as you see, I have (by happenstance) accumulated an awareness of all those words, and have (apparently) "started reaching" (worked to fully understand foregon language words in their natural setting) in spite of the fact that there is nothing I "disagree with" about any of them.
(Nor do I "disagree with" anything in the Bible, yet I frequently go to the trouble of interpreting it carefully and with diligence.)
Very interesting stuff, bolt, thanks for sharing this!
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On the other hand, the subject of that article (the winner of The Biggest Loser) weighed 430 lb at the beginning. At 5'11", that meant he had to lose over 215 lb just to classified as overweight instead of obese.
If he aimed to lose a pound a week, it would take him over 4 years to lose that weight...and that would only be if he did not suffer any setbacks. If he was capable of consistently losing a pound a week he would have never ended up weighing 430 lb.
Wendy
I'm sure that I'm just being dense, but I don't know what you mean by the bolded part. Could you explain? (Thanks in advance!)
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I always felt like the methods on The Biggest Loser were so extreme and so not probably doable for most people. For one thing they are spending morning, noon, and night constantly working on this. Who has that kind of time?
A killer is having a desk job. Yeah, you can take walks and stuff, but you are still spending an incredible amount of time just sitting on your duff. Some people at my husband's work have these standing desks now. I've read recently that this is not making much of a difference.
I never actually watched that show, but I certainly gathered from the little snippets I have seen that it was extreme. And it's only logical (by tv producer logic, that is) that they would use extreme measures because they wanted to be able to show dramatic results by the end of the season. But that doesn't mean the method is the healthiest or the best or the most sustainable. It just wouldn't have made for good tv if they had shown the people losing weight very gradually in a healthy way over the course of multiple years, right?
Yeah, I recently read somewhere that the standing desks aren't really living up to their promise. Too bad. I'd love to think that would help, but I guess not. I do have a fitness tech bracelet thingy that alerts me when I've been sitting for 20 minutes. So I get up and do some jumping jacks or some bodyweight squats or something like that. I have no idea if it will really help with either weight control OR health, but it makes me feel good to do it. So that's worth something!
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I read the article this morning and found it super fascinating. I had some questions though, such as:
What if a person gained 20 pounds in one summer due to strange eating, but then got back to his normal diet routine and lost the 20 pounds fairly easily. Does that count as the type of dieting as they are referring to, and therefore slows your metabolism forever more after that? That seems weird to me. Or does the dieting that results in slow metabolism only happens if you're body has had a lot of time (years) to adapt to that extra 20 pounds.
I was wondering if the people in the study, who had put on so much extra weight, maybe had wonky metabolism in the first place, therefore skewing the results?
I don't think it would, if I'm understanding your hypothetical scenario. You mean that someone eats junk food, overindulges for a summer, and then goes back to the way they were eating before, which was presumably a more normal/typical eating pattern of not "pigging out", but not "starving" either? I certainly don't know for sure, but I am guessing that kind of scenario is not going to result in a permanently slowed metabolism. I *think* that the weight loss on that show was accomplished by such extreme measures (radically increasing calories out while also radically decreasing calories in) that their bodies were sent into a tailspin, and lowered their basal metabolic rate in order to hold on to some semblance of homeostasis. Biological organisms really really like homeostasis. I suspect that more gentle and/or gradual changes don't necessarily result in such negative effects on metabolism, because they give your body more of a chance to adapt to the change without having a "metabolic freakout".
Not sure if I'm making sense. Or if I answered your question! Is that kind of what you were getting at?
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No one suggested that. I believe her point was that hundreds of thousands of people experienced drastic weight loss due to wartime conditions, and yet, in general at least, their metabolisms were not so warped by that experience that they uncontrollably gained weight afterwards.
I would respond to that by saying that the difference is that very few (if any) of the victims of Nazi concentration camps were morbidly obese pre-camp, whereas all of the participants in this study were. In that sense, we're comparing apples and oranges, so it's not the most helpful comparison. I seriously doubt there exist any studies on the resting metabolisms of concentration camp victims pre- and post-camp.
Regardless, it's also not helpful in the course of these discussions when people start carrying on about having to treat themselves like concentration camp victims to lose weight. No one is suggesting that anyone -- fat or thin -- should live that way. Speaking as someone who has been morbidly obese and lost significant weight, I know what it is like to "feel hungry" and still choose not to eat AT THAT MOMENT. It is NOT easy. But I also know that cravings do not always equal hunger, either. It can be very difficult to tell the difference between the two, but choosing to forego my cravings (or even my hunger) for a few hours at most is NOWHERE NEAR treating myself like a concentration camp victim.
That, the bolded part of your post, was exactly my point. I should have expressed it better.
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Look at concentration camps survivors who went through hunger and even WWII veterans who experienced food restrictions. Not many of them are overweight, not at all!
:huh: If following the CICO model of weight loss means that I have to treat myself like a concentration camp victim, I'll pass.
Seriously, this is not a viable real-world solution. People can't starve themselves for years and years and years on end. And if they have to resort to that in order to not be fat, that is a giant red flag that something else, something that cannot be explained by CICO, is going on.
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I look forward to reading the rest of the article. The excerpt you posted is very interesting! I've certainly noticed that calorie restriction diets seem to be a death-spiral: you have to keep restricting more and more to maintain. And this even happens to non-dieters as we age.
And why is that, what is happening to people once they pass the age of 35 or so? You start to lose a little bit of muscle mass every year. So I wonder if a better answer is to fight the muscle loss, and if then the weight gain will take care of itself. I'm fighting that battle right now, and I've chosen to increase my protein intake and lift weights rather than restrict calories. Here's hoping it works!!! :D
ETA: I'd like to clarify that I realize the "middle age spread" that I'm talking about is a whole different ball game from the obesity that the contestants on that show were dealing with. I suspect the weight gain in middle age has a lot to do with hormonal changes and muscle loss, and therefore it seems logical to address those issues rather than calorie restriction (since calories didn't cause the problem, they wouldn't be the solution). Obesity is a different problem, and I don't claim to have the solution. But it does seem more and more that the "eat less, move more" model isn't working.
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Greta, you've been extremely gently and honest in this thread. I really appreciate your posts.
:grouphug: I believe you as well. And you have been both courageous and compassionate throughout this discussion.
FWIW, and not that this makes it any better at all, JW is not alone among faith traditions that have institutionally protected sexual predators, effectively shunned sexual victims for speaking out, and holding an entirely different standard to homosexuality than for other conduct deemed wrong within the tradition. There are sub-communities within Judaism that have done (still do?) the same.
I'm not deserving of such compliments, but this is a huge comfort to me. Thank you both.
:grouphug:
Though it's been difficult for me personally, I think this conversation as a whole has been very beneficial. I've enjoyed everyone's wisdom and insights, and I'm glad it's still going.
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I think I am in a better position to say what is going on in my religion than you guys. But believe what you will. I can't keep being here with people who feel that way. So this will be my last post on this topic.
Well, I honestly am sorry to see you go, Scarlett. You stuck with the conversation longer than I expected, and I really appreciate that. I know this conversation had to be difficult for you, and believe it or not, it was difficult and painful for me. I am sorry for the pain that I know I must have caused you. I hope you can imagine, even though you don't agree, that I spoke because my conscience compelled me to. I don't hate Jehovah's Witnesses. I love them very much. My mother is still a Witness, and she's very near the top of the list of people I admire most in this world. But the organization as a whole has some very serious problems. The practice of disfellowshipping is harsh and extreme by its very nature, and because of the way it is carried out it is rife with the potential for abuse. You said that you had no delusions of the people in your religion being perfect. Well, these policies are made by those imperfect people, and the procedures are carried out by imperfect people, so I hope you will consider the possibility that the results haven't always been as perfect for others as they have been in your experience.
I wish you well.
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I believe you. You aren't the first person who I've met who has said exactly what you said.
Thank you. I appreciate you saying so.
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I have no problem seeing things for what they are. I don't believe I am in an organization with perfect people. But I have many many peers, my close friends, who are elders and your description of how things happen is just not accurate. And at the very worst an unjust disfellowshipping is not a permenant thing.
I didn't expect you to believe me, Scarlett. But for anyone else reading this, please know that I spent 17 years in that religion, I'm intimately familiar with the teachings, practices, publications, etc., I have had close family and friends who were disfellowshipped, and my father used to be an elder (pastor). I'm not making this stuff up. Honestly, I'm nowhere near creative enough to make this stuff up.
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In the case of the Pope....who is the head of a religion that claims to believe homosexuality is wrong...it seems to be putting a stamp of approval on the relationship of his friend.
So the Pope shouldn't have any friends who are sinners, because that's approving of their sin? He's going to be an awfully lonely guy, then. Who is left that he can talk to?
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This is not true. Not one time ever have I ever heard anything like this except from on line haters. Attraction to the same sex is not a disfellowshipping offense. So no matter what you friend told you that is not true. And no one is protecting pedophiles or other sexual abuse. I personally know of three situations....in all cases the authorities were contacted, they were dealt with in the legal system and within the congregation. The consequences will affect them for the rest of their life. In one case an actual pedophile was allowed to attend our meetings but every family was notified and various brothers were assigned to keep their eyes on him at all times.
No one has ever ever even hinted to me that pedophiles are good guys who made a mistake. That kind of truth twisting is just crazy.
Yes what goes on in congregation discipline is private and confidential UNLESS it breaks the law.....thankfully. No one would want their mistakes broadcast. But believe me I have had conversations with df'd people for one reason or another and yet no one has ever said to me,'hey I was df'd for being a victim or having same sex attraction.'
I know there are law suits. I can't speak to every one of them or especially what took place 30 or 40 years ago when society in general had less understanding of how to cope with all sorts of these issues. But there is no wide spread abuse of the process going on.
And no one is df'd for questioning anything. Really without revealing TMI I can tell you for a fact there is definite effort to error on the side of mercy than harshness.
I have no intention of trying to convince you of anything, but you might just reconsider if you are listening to people who are not being totally honest with themselves and you.
I understand that it's easier for you to believe that people who have suffered unjust disfellowshipping are liars and haters than it is for you to accept that the organization you have put your faith in has problems.
If congregants are now being informed about pedophiles among them, then that's WONDERFUL. I am really glad there has been a policy change. I guess something good did come from all of those lawsuits, and I know that's exactly what the plaintiffs hoped and intended. I'm so glad they succeeded.
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I was waiting for someone to say something like this, and I'm glad you did.
It was hard for me to say it, so thank you.
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Ouch...
Yeah. :(
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You seriously rank homosexuality up there with rape and murder?
Some Christians do, yes. I have a friend whose father is a pastor of an independent non-denominational church. This friend was molested by her much-older brother, and her father swept it under the rug and tried to hide the fact from everyone. Brother went on to become a rapist, which the father couldn't hide anymore, but still the church kept "forgiving" him. I asked her once how her father would have handled it if her brother had come out. She said without a moment's hesitation, he would have been kicked out of the church. So molesting and raping, hey that's okay, you're only human. But gay? You're out.
As I mentioned before, I grew up Jehovah's Witness, same religion that Scarlett is. I know someone who was "disfellowshipped" (shunned) for being gay even though he was a virgin and had never acted on his feelings, and get this: I know VICTIMS of rape and sexual abuse who were disfellowshipped to keep them quiet and protect the perpetrators. JW's have faced multiple law suits in multiple countries around the word for allowing pedophiles to keep abusing kids while telling the victims it was their Christian duty to forgive and to NOT go to the police. They have zero tolerance for homosexuality, but raping and molesting little kids is treated entirely differently. They see pedophiles as good guys who made a mistake, but gays as fundamentally and irrevocably flawed. It's really sick.
I've known this for years, and yet typing it out like this still makes my blood pressure skyrocket and my stomach turn and my hands shake. But I will say this much in Scarlett's defense: she probably, truly does NOT know this. She's not allowed to ever speak to anyone who has been shunned, and they don't state the reason they're shunning anyone. So she has no idea how this policy gets used and abused. They tell the membership that people only get disfellowshipped for serious sins for which the person refuses to repent. So the common person has absolutely no idea that people are being disfellowshipped for things like being an abuse victim, or questioning a minor point of doctrine (absolute uniformity of thought is required, that's why Scarlett said all of her friends think the same way she does - she's not exaggerating). You can't find that out until you befriend ex-JWs, and she can't do that. A very effective system for keeping the people inside completely in the dark and under their control.
I'm sure Scarlett will have to put me on "ignore" after this if she hasn't already, because anyone who criticizes the organization is an "apostate" and you're not allowed to speak to apostates either, they're even worse! And that makes me sad because I really like Scarlett. But I won't be quiet about the profound damage that this organization has done to people. I risk half of my family never speaking to me again when I say things like this. For years, I kept silent thinking it was my obligation to keep familial peace. But then I realized the organization was still controlling me even though I wasn't in it any more. So I will be silent no more.
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See, that's nonsense unless they shun all sinners. Gluttons, divorced people, liars, tax cheats, people who work on the sabbath. They are likely on good terms with all of those.
In such cases it's not really about religion. It's about bias. They say it's a religious thing but, without across the board consistency, that's a rationalization. They can choose to live and let live. That they don't makes it their conflict, not God's conflict.
This is exactly what I've been thinking throughout this entire thread, but you said it far better than I could have. Thank you!
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Exactly how much force is required for somebody without a gun? Why the heck are our cops so heavily armed anyway?
That article was truly horrifying.
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I actually agree with you, though I want to point out that the way these things are handled varies greatly by state. You don't hear about controversies in Florida police shootings often. Stand your ground stuff yes, but when the police are involved in a shooting it's handled uniquely well.
IE: a couple years ago a relative was shot and killed by a criminal. I'm going to leave out the heinous details for privacy, but he was a deputy sheriff. The criminal killed my relative, another deputy fired at the criminal, and as soon as the call went out, the entire department went off duty, and deputies from a neighboring county came in and took over the immediate investigation AND routine patrols. Then the state (FDLE) came in to take over the investigation as soon as possible. That way there was no collusion. The people who work together day to day don't police each other. The people making calls on if a shooting was justified or not don't know anyone in the department. The crime scene investigators are only looking at forensics and don't have any stake at all in how the evidence comes out.
I wish every state would do something similar. I have no idea how that thing in Chicago went the way it did. I'm actually surprised there weren't riots there, because that was just pure murder. And many local officials helped to cover it up.
Katy, I'm so sorry for your loss. And I thank you for pointing out a place where the current system works. That's very encouraging, because I don't actually expect that the system will change (I mean, change dramatically, as in a completely external and independent organization handling these things). I really hope and pray that the states which have the worst problems will learn a lesson from those states which are managing things better. And again, I'm so very, very sorry.
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Have you considered taking a campus tour of the unsafe university? Do you know a current student that might give you a better understanding of the risks?
Good suggestions! We've never done a formal tour, but we have attended events and performances there (it's here in the city where we live).
This state as a whole is the second most violent in the nation, and our city (which is where the campus is) has a rate of violent crime that is almost twice the national average. So, I know my history of living in safer places colors my perception, but I also know that isn't *just* a matter of my perception. I have talked to a couple of students, and they did nothing to allay my fears! :(
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Surely you are not equating this situation with one in which the husband died. That situation is normal and expected, if it did seem a bit fast and difficult to the mother whose daughter died.
No, I'm not "equating" the two, but I was trying to RELATE to your neighbor's pain by sharing my grandmother's similar (not exactly the same) pain. I was offering empathy! I realize the two situations aren't precisely the same, but they are similar. I fully realize your neighbor had the *additional* shock of learning that her daughter is bisexual (or gay?). I just hope she won't let her shock ruin their relationship. That would be a needless waste.
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Painful Parent- Adult Child Religious Conflict more widespread today?
in The Chat Board
Posted
Absolutely. Very good point.