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Inspiration Is Where You Find It…I Find it in Dolly Parton!

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I went to see Dolly Parton at the Cedar Park Center last night, and I was totally amazed at how great she sounded. She sounded as good as she did in the 70’s, and that’s amazing for a 65 year old woman. To compare, I saw Liza Minnelli a few months ago, and her voice was definitely a shadow of what it used to be.

I saw Dolly Parton the first time when I was around 7 years old, around 1972 or 73. She has always been one of my favorites. I think she’s warm and funny, but she is also a true artist and a great songwriter. She sang a new song that she wrote for her latest album, Better Day, and although it wasn’t my favorite song of hers, some of the lyrics of this song inspired me.

She introduced the song by saying that she wanted to thank everybody in the audience for supporting her over the years, and allowing her to have such a long and amazing career. When she was just a little girl living in the Smoky Mountains, in a house with no electricity and no running water (‘unless you run down and got some’), she used to put a tin can on a tobacco stick and pretend it was a microphone, and she dreamed of being a famous singer. She went on to say that she had to work at her dreams. “You can’t just dream your dreams, you have to work ‘em, you have to put wings on ‘em and keep working them until they come true.” She then went on to sing this song, called ‘The Sacrifice.’ The song has a message of working and making sacrifices to make your dreams come true, and not giving up if you suffer a setback. Some of the specific lines that inspired me were:

“I was gonna be rich no matter how much it cost, and I was gonna win no matter how much I lost”

and:

“I’ve often laughed and I’ve often cried, I’ve often failed but I’ve always tried”

and my favorite line of the song:

“You don’t drink the water if you don’t dig the well.”

To me, the message is not quitting when something doesn’t work out; keep trying until you do succeed.

Anyway, I was so touched and inspired by her that I wanted to share. She’s obviously an incredibly hard-working woman, and she says that she feels like she’s just getting started. I hope to see her still going strong in another twenty years. She hopes so too, as illustrated by my favorite one-liner of the night: “People ask me, ‘Dolly, what do you want people to say about you one hundred years from now?’ I want them to say, ‘WOW! She really looks good for her age!’”

Foo Fighters vs. Westboro Baptist Church (AKA Why I Love Pat Smear)

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And I’m learning to love Dave Grohl. It seems the Foo Fighters played in Kansas City, and they were picketed by Fred Phelps and his filthy family. I have had some personal experience with these people; when my partner’s cousin was awarded a Matthew Shepard scholarship in Iowa when she was a senior in high school, Phelps and family decided to show up and picket her high school graduation! These people are virulently anti-gay, and they also picket the funerals of soldiers. In the video, you can see the type of signs they carry, including “Thank God for Dead Soldiers.” These people are nuts.

How to Avoid the Painful & Embarrassing Condition Known as “Chub Rub” (Inner Thigh Chafing)

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I want to let you know that I have found what I consider to be the perfect solution to the condition known as Chub Rub, or inner thigh chafing. It is dead simple, and it does its job perfectly. It works so well for me that I can actually say it works like magic. If you just want to see the solution without reading the entire post, click here.

Chub Rub

I became intimately familiar with inner thigh chafing (AKA Chub Rub) a few years ago when I tried to start an exercise program. It was the middle of summer in Austin, Texas (where the temperature often exceeds 100 degrees F (in fact, we get about 90 days per year over 100). If you are not familiar with this condition, let me tell you…it is very painful. It is enough to put you off working out for several days at least, until you recover. I imagine that a great many people start an exercise program only to be halted in their tracks when they run into this problem, and that’s a shame because–as I’ve discovered–it’s easy to prevent.

The Cure for Thigh Chafing

Body Glide, the cure for Chub Rub

Body Glide, the Cure for Chub Rub!

I tried many different products on my way to finding the perfect solution to this problem. I tried spray-on powders, regular powder, and various brands of creams and lotions, but none of them worked very well. It was only when I found a product called Body Glide that I finally found the thing I had been looking for. It is a stick (sort of like a roll-up solid underarm deodorant stick) that contains allantoin. To apply it, you simply rub it on the area(s) that might become chafed, and that’s it! It is resistant to sweat and it doesn’t feel the least bit greasy or slick or anything. It is unscented, and it doesn’t contain any ingredients like mint to make it feel “cooling” or “tingling” (something I don’t appreciate–I don’t really want my thighs or anything else between my legs to *tingle*, thank-you-very-much!); in fact, it’s hard to tell that you’re wearing anything at all, except that you won’t see any of the chafing or blisters or rashes that you might otherwise develop.

If you are going to go out for a walk or a run, especially during hot weather, this product can be a lifesaver! I also recommend using it if you’re going to be spending a long afternoon walking, such as at a street fair or an amusement park, or if you work outdoors during hot weather. I used to work at an outdoor café, and I used this product every day. In fact, I’ll admit it now: I still use it every day. It’s difficult to find locally (and it’s usually much more expensive), so I recommend buying it at Amazon.  Here in Austin, you can find it at Mellow Johnny’s (Lance Armstrong’s bike shop), but it was twice the price, and they were frequently out of stock.

What is Chub Rub?

When you are overweight, you tend to carry some extra fat around your upper thighs, including the inside of the thighs. As you walk, the skin that covers this bulging area rubs against the skin on your other thigh, and you can develop a friction rash. This can happen at any time, but it tends to be worse in the summertime, because it’s an area that is not well ventilated. The sweat collects there until the area is pretty much damp, and the sweat increases the amount of friction you experience…by a LOT! It can be so painful that you end up waddling back home, trying to keep your legs apart to avoid the pain, which is very embarrassing.

Of course, it is not only people who are chubby who experience this. If you are a thin person who runs long distances, you are likely to experience some of the same type of irritation, especially if you wear ill-fitting clothing. It is not necessary to have skin-on-skin contact to develop a friction rash. Ill-fitting clothes that rub your skin can lead to the same type of irritation. Experienced marathoners know this, and so they take steps to shield the places where this irritation is most likely to occur, such as nipples (shirt rubbing back and forth over a long period of time) or underarms (arms swinging back and forth as you run—this is especially true for men with a “V” shaped chest, where your lats will rub against your triceps and develop an underarm rash). Many women who wear skirts also experience thigh chafing as they go about their normal daily routines.

You can avoid this type of irritation without using any type of product by wearing tight-fitting clothing (as in skin tight, so that it doesn’t move around on your body at all) that is made of a fabric like spandex or nylon (think of bicycle shorts), but this is probably not an option for most chubby people, because they’d be too embarrassed to wear such tight clothing.

One more little known tip: Body Glide (and allantoin) are not just a preventative for chafing…they also work as a cure for people who have an existing friction rash!  So if you have already gotten the dreaded chub rub, spread a little of the BodyGlide over the affected area, and it will soothe the stinging and burning, as well as help speed up the healing process!

On the Occasion of My 45th Birthday

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I turned 45 today, and my mother turned 66 (I was born on her 21st birthday, just so any of you who might be so inclined don’t have to do any subtraction). My mother and I are both overweight, just as my grandmother was before us. This year, I intend to break that cycle for good.

Although I’ve posted a few things on this site already, I mean this to be the real foundational post for my site. I was prompted to start this site when I realized how out of shape I had gotten, and I want to chronicle my progress as I get back in shape. I’m giving myself a year to do this, and I am not sticking to any specific hard-and-fast goals; instead, I’m simply saying that I want to look good shirtless by next Labor Day (2012), when I hope to go to Southern Decadence in New Orleans and celebrate.

Although my goal is loose, I do have some specific ideas about how I’m going to achieve them. First of all, I intend to permanently adapt to a “Primal” method of eating and working out. I may not get those Vibram Five Finger Shoes (which could be called Five Toe Shoes), because, even though I find them interesting and I really think they might work, I know a lot of people who find them weird or gross. I also may not get into kettlebell exercises, even though I know that’s the hot new thing in fitness (a few years ago it was balancing on giant balls). I definitely plan to walk more. Now that we have gotten through the worst of the summer weather in Austin, I plan to start doing a nightly walk around Lady Bird Lake, which offers different trails from 2 to 10 miles, depending on the loop you do and which bridges you cross. I like walking because it’s low-impact, and I still have some lingering lower back pain from a ruptured disc that was mostly repaired with spinal surgery ten years ago (although if I stress my lower back by bending or twisting in a certain way (especially while picking up something heavy), I tend to get some throbbing/shooting sciatic pain that lasts for a few days, so I tend to be pretty easygoing when it comes to exercises. It’s not that I can’t lift weights, it’s just that I’m very careful how I go about it, and I don’t do any sort of jumping or violent movements that involve bending or twisting. When I lift weights (and I intend to begin doing so again—it’s been over a year since I last went to the gym), I tend to do heavy weights with low repetitions in a slow, controlled movement, but I may change that up depending on the recommendations in the Primal Blueprint book (I’ve finished reading the first part, which covers diet and recipes, but I’ve only skimmed the exercise part). And that’s it for exercises: walking and weight-lifting, and maybe some others that I’ll decide to add after I finish the book.

For diet, I find eating a Primal diet to be quite easy. I actually started to try this in the spring, and I managed to lose about ten pounds (I think it was around ten pounds—I don’t own a scale and I don’t intend to buy one, so if I ever mention my weight, it’s something I’ve learned on the scale at the gym). Based on my current body composition and the fit of my clothes (I’m not quite at the fattest I’ve ever been, but close), I would say I probably weigh at least 235 pounds, but perhaps as much as 245…or even 250. When I tried this in the spring of 2011, it was diet only, with a bit of extra walking thrown in, but no weights or other exercises, and I did manage to lose some weight…but then came the hottest summer on record, and I gave up the nightly walks and then doubled down on the mistakes by choosing to begin eating sugar again (in the form of ice cream and peanut butter M&Ms, mostly)! This was an unnecessary and silly mistake, because the primal diet was not difficult for me. It basically involves cutting out grains and sugar. That’s really pretty much what it boils down to: no bread, no pasta, and no sugar. I kind of think of it as cutting out the “white” foods: sugar is white in its crystalline form, flour is white, and pasta is made of flour. I also think white potatoes are too heavy in starch for the amount of nutrients they contain, so I would usually prefer to eat a sweet potato (which is nutrient-dense) over a white potato. There are a few foods such as cauliflower that are exceptions to the rule (cauliflower is great, and it can be made into many different things, and it takes on the flavor of a sauce very well, so I find it very versatile). I’ll be posting some recipes as I go along, and as I experiment and adapt my favorite recipes to the Primal method (and I promise you that anything I post is something I’ve actually made and eaten).

There are some parts of the Primal method that I will not be following (the method actually allows you to cheat and adapt things to your own lifestyle, though, so this is not really cheating…more like not following every single guideline). The specific things that I will not be cutting out of my diet are:

1. Coffee
2. Alcohol
3. Diet Dr. Pepper
4. Dessert

This does not mean that I will be having dessert every evening. I WILL be having a cup of coffee every day (with Splenda, even though I know some people think it’s a nasty chemical and that it shouldn’t be part of a Primal/Paleo diet…so maybe Splenda should be the #5 thing that I won’t be cutting out). I will also have alcohol pretty much whenever I decide I’d like to have a drink. I realize it contains calories, and that I usually drink it with diet soda (Jim Beam and Dr. Pepper is my “usual” drink), but I simply don’t care. I will limit my intake to reasonable levels, but I am not going to put any specific limits on the first three things. For item number 4, dessert, I plan to allow myself to have dessert one night per week, on Sundays. This might be ice cream or a slice of cake (Whole Foods here in Austin makes truly excellent carrot cake), or it might be something else. This doesn’t mean that I’m doing a whole “cheat day” where I can go to town eating anything and everything I want on Sundays, it simply means that I plan to have one dessert after dinner on Sunday evenings (and that one dessert might be cake AND ice cream, so I’m letting you know in advance that I plan to allow myself some leeway when determining what my dessert for the week will be)!

A few other caveats about my plan: I don’t like to cheat on the rules, so I consider all of the rules to be fairly flexible. The Primal Blueprint book says that they know people who live and work in the modern world can’t follow the diet 100% at all times, so you are just supposed to strive to keep up a high percentage (80 or 90 percent) of following the guidelines. If I have a reason to go out to eat such as an anniversary or birthday or the last day of the school year (my partner Michael is a school teacher), or even if my friends just ask me to go out to Happy Hour, I plan to allow myself some leeway. Corn chips and margaritas are pretty much the antithesis of the Primal diet, but they are a big part of the culture of Austin, so if I do go out to Happy Hour with friends (which is something I love to do, because I love a good margarita* and I also love a good bargain), I’m going to relax and enjoy myself, and then get back on track the next day (*As a note of clarification, I should say that I used to be a bartender, and that I love a well-made cocktail, not just a margarita). I am also going to do this without guilt. I think enjoying life and hanging out with friends and family is what it’s all about, so I’m not going to deny myself the opportunity to have some fun in service to some arbitrary bit of diet advice. I may choose to eat less of the chips and salsa, and I may order the agave nectar margarita (I don’t know what I think of this whole agave syrup thing yet, but I’m skeptical), or I may not, and whatever I choose in each situation will be fine. Having said that, if I get six months into this thing and find that I’m not looking like I’m on track to meet my goals, I reserve the right to change my mind about anything I’ve said so far, including cutting out Sunday night desserts (but never my morning cup of coffee)! If that comes to pass, I will update you accordingly, since I intent to be entirely forthcoming about my progress each step of the way.

I hope you’ll bookmark my site and check back in with me. Or feel free to use the links in the sidebar to buy the Primal Method book or the Primal Method cookbook and join me on this journey from fat to fitness!

Freddie Mercury Made Me Cry Tonight

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My birthday is coming up on Sunday, September 11th, 2011, and I kicked off the weekend of celebrations by going to tonight’s “Way Gay” Sing-Along at the Alamo Drafthouse Ritz in downtown Austin. The Alamo Drafthouse, for those who don’t know, is a local chain of movie theaters that shows an eclectic mix of first-run, mainstream movies and arthouse movies, plus a lot of repertory and revival and special programming, such as sing-alongs and theme nights like “Girlie Night” and “Terror Tuesdays”. You can buy food and drink from a waiter while you’re seated in the theater. Tonight’s specific theme was in celebration of Pride weekend, which is taking place in September for the first time (Austin’s pride has always been in June, but it was moved in hopes of cooler weather).

I went to this sing-along on a whim, hoping to have some margaritas and some laughs, and maybe to sing along with some gayish pop songs, and I can tell you that my stomach was hurting from laughing even before the show started (the Alamo plays funny and bizarre videos before the movies instead of commercials, and tonight’s were particularly funny). The show started with “Jittergbug” by Wham, and the audience was immediately up on its feet, dancing and singing (the theme of this show is audience participation). I was enjoying myself a lot, and then an unexpected thing happened. I found myself tearing up. I had just laughed aloud at a particularly funny moment in the video for “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” by Queen (you can see the bizarre crotch shot at 58 seconds , followed immediately by Freddie Mercury’s glowing red eyes at the 1:01 mark). The moment that caused a surge of emotions was the segment from 1:45, which begins with a strut, and ends with a fast spin at around the 2:00 mark. For some reason, watching Freddie Mercury strut and prance struck a nerve with me. He was one of the only “out” rock stars of the 80’s, and he was really only completely outed once it was confirmed he had AIDS, and watching him in this video (which was filmed when he was younger than I am now), brought forth a rush of love for the man. In today’s world, he would have had his crooked teeth straightened and his record label would probably have pushed him to work out and develop some more muscle, but watching him dance and perform on a big screen like the rock star he was, while listening to his music at a very loud volume, I really appreciated him in a way I never have before.

I had a similar experience a few minutes later when Elton John’s “I’m Still Standing” came on. The video was one of my favorites when I was in high school (it features muscular dancers with painted bodies and Tarzan loincloths), and knowing that Sir Elton is actually still standing today made me…proud. And happy for him. The show moved on through more of the usual suspects (Lady Gaga, Britney), and I have to say that I enjoyed every minute of it, even if the rest of the evening didn’t touch me in quite the profound way that Freddie Mercury and Elton John did. Perhaps because they were actual gay men who “made it” at a time when doing so was incredibly difficult.

If you get a chance to go to “Way Gay” or any of the other Alamo Sing-Alongs, you should jump.

9/11 is My Birthday

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9/11 is my birthday, and in 2001, I had taken the day off to relax and sleep in and have a fun day. I woke up right at 8:00 and turned on CNN. I saw scenes of people running and smoke billowing, and it was obvious that everything was out of control in the newsroom. Nobody had yet realized that the first tower had collapsed, and it took them what seemed like at least 10 minutes to actually get back to the story and say what had actually happened. It was just scenes of people running and the tower on fire, and the scrawl at the bottom said “Border between US and Mexico closed”. I was left wondering: “What? Mexico attacked us?!” for around 10 minutes before somebody at CNN thought to change the scrawl and start reporting again on the earlier events, because in the next few minutes, the other plane hit while I was watching. I will say that I was happy to be home and safe on that day, but I’m not sure if I’m happy to have been seeing all of that live.

Of course, now every year as my birthday approaches, I hear the “seven years ago today” stuff, and it’s worse this year, of course, as I knew it would be, because it is the 10th anniversary. I was always particularly happy with my birthdate, since my mother and I share the same birthday (I was born on her 21st birthday), but now the date is forever entwined with something else. I realize that it’s infinitely trivial to feel that my birthday has been ruined, when so many people lost so much more, but I can’t help the way I feel about it. Christmas and Easter and Thanksgiving and all the other days of celebration belong to everybody. The one day of the year that was “mine” is now seen as a tragedy, and it’s almost embarrassing to want to celebrate on that day.

Of course, I’m not the only person who feels this way; Anna Quindlen wrote an essay about having a child with a September 11th birthday.  Like her son, I still get the response “Really?” when an operator on the phone or somebody at the DMV asks for my birthdate, and the comment is usually accompanied by a commiserating look or an awkward silence. So when you see me sitting on a patio this Sunday having a margarita and doing my best to have a great time, you should know that I’m doing it with a hellbent can’t-let-the-terrorists-win fervor!