Saturday, January 7, 2012
Hever Castle Buddleia Blooming in January
I odered one-gallon containers of Buddleia x pikei from Mountain Valley Growers last spring. I thought of it as a gamble, because plants bred to grow in England, even in the southern regions, do not always do well in my Texas gardens. The arching branches and lavendar colored blooms attracted me. In less than a year, the plants have grown to be about 5 feet tall and 5 feet wide. This is pretty impressive, especially considering the summer drought. A couple of days ago I was surprised to find that the shrubs are beginning to bloom. The wind was blowing too hard to get a good photo, but I'll be sure to take more when the plants are in full bloom. The fragrance is very fresh and spring-like. I'll plant paperwhites and other early-blooming bulbs in the bed in front of these shrubs, to make a perfumed corner of the garden for sunny winter days.
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Weight Maintenance and the Punishment of King Sisyphus
King Sisyphus was a character in Greek and Roman morality tales who was punished by the gods by spending eternity pushing a huge boulder up a hill, watching it roll back down, pushing it up again ...
This is a pretty good description of the experience people go through in trying to maintain a constant body weight. I've spent the last few days reading weight-oriented blogs and websites, and of course I've experienced my own struggle to maintain a constant weight. At the bottom of this post, I've linked to some of the most interesting blogs and websites.
Based on what I've learned so far, it looks as though there are a few people who are genetically predisposed not to store fat. These people would be in big trouble if they were in a situation where food was not always available, but they do well as long as there's plenty to eat. It is possible to be born with a genetic tendency to be thin but to be infected by a virus, such as the AD36 adenovirus, which causes the body to create fat cells. Between genetics and infection, something like 80% of people tend to gain weight when we eat regularly. Of these people, some are able, through constant vigilance and deprivation, to lose and/or maintain a constant weight.
Until fairly recently, few people had a constant source of food. For people who are subject to periods of food scarcity, fat cells are literally life-savers. Those fat cells are like having a readily available cache of food that doesn't spoil or become infested with insects.
It is possible for one to eat so much in one sitting that one's stomach bursts, but in all but a very few cases, this does not happen, because eating is regulated by hormones that cause a person not to be hungry any more when the blood sugar reaches a certain level. Hormones also drive a person to eat when the blood sugar level falls. These hormones seem to have a "memory" of a person's highest weight, so when person loses weight, the hormones drive the person to eat enough to regain the weight. When people lose weight, they lose both muscle and fat; many people (especially if they are 40 years or older) add more fat than muscle when they regain the weight they lost.
The body's reaction to weight loss would be likely to prolong one's life in a situation where food is not always available -- which would have been the condition of most people who have ever lived. Therefore, it's not accurate to think of it as a flaw, and it's not appropriate for people to hate their bodies for "betraying" them by driving them to gain weight.
Many people do appear to hate their bodies, or even themselves. They believe that their inability to lose weight or stabilize their weight at a certain point is due to weakness or a moral defect of some sort. Some people accept their weight, which is fine to a point. But there is a point at which a person's stored fat begins to interfere with the normal function of their bodies. Walking becomes difficult; running impossible. Weight-bearing joints such as knees deteriorate more rapidly due to the stress of carrying more weight than they were meant to carry. The heart has to work harder to service the larger bulk of the body (but the heart also grows larger, so this may not actually be a health problem). Meanwhile, the hormones keep on doing their job -- the drive to eat is almost at inexorable as the drive to breathe.
I saw many blogs that were full of hope to begin with but ended abruptly after an initial weight loss followed by a gain. Then there were the very rare people who managed to lose significant amounts of weight (up to 1/2 of their initial weight) and keep the weight off. One of these people describes weight maintenance as a part-time job (Debra's Just Maintaining). In general, there appears to be a rift between weight-acceptance people and weight-loss people. Debra's philosophy is that she could easily gain weight again (for example, if she were unable to do the relatively high level of exercise required to keep the weight down), and if that were to happen, she doesn't beleive she would deserve self-hate. I agree with her, and the research supports her -- maintaining weight after weight loss requires far more exercise than maintaining one's highest weight. As part of the body's fight to keep itself alive in a sitatuion of perceived food-scarcity, muscles function differently after weight loss. They become more efficient, can perform more on a given amount of fuel. So exercise that requires 100 calories when done by a person who has never lost weight might require only 75 calories after weight loss. This is great for a person stranded in the woods with nothing to eat but lean meat, insects, and plant matter, but not for a person who has ready access to concentrated sources of carbs and fats.
Food is at the center of almost every special event and celebration of friendship. This is not surprising, given that most people who have ever lived went through regular periods of food scarcity. It makes it really hard for people who are trying to lose or stabilize their weight. Given the statistics, it's completely normal to gain weight. The exceptional people are the ones who don't gain. Therefore, it's not accurate to refer to low body weight as "normal."
What to do when "normal" is not healthy? Some people recommend support groups, which seem to work well for short-term weight loss. But people who get the weight off and keep it off seem to be motivated more from within themselves, like artists.
I myself have 4 motivations:
(1) my knees are shot, and I want to avoid knee surgery -- this is my main reason for wanting to lose weight. My knees function a lot better when they have less to carry;
(2) I'm getting old and do not want to accumulate great masses of belly fat, as my mother has done;
(3) I started sewing and became interested in fashion, and many of the garments I'd like to make look better on slim bodies than on larger ones;
(4) I feel better when I eat a diet that consists mostly of fresh veggies, fruits, fish, whole grains, seeds, and nuts; this same diet results in weight loss, especially if I go easy on the grains.
I'm fine long as I'm in weight-loss mode, but one cannot stay there indefinitely. At some point, one reaches one's goal weight and must add just enough calories to maintain that weight. That's when it gets really difficult.
Here are some of the blogs I found most interesting and helpful:
Debra's Just Maintaining - This is the best blog I've found so far. There's a lot of good research here, and the author is a very good writer. She also has a healthy attitude -- she didn't hate herself when she was larger; she thought of herself as a Botticelli Babe, and judging by her photos she is attractive at both large and small sizes.
Tara Parker-Pope New York Times article -- the first part of the article is sort of depressing and hopeless, but keep reading to the end, and look at some of the blogs.
Refuse to Regain - a website about maintaning a constant weight, especially after weigh loss.
Jenny Craig - I'm put off by this company -- it's owned by a large corporation (Nestle) and charges people lots of money for frozen foods and advice. But it does seems to work for many people -- there are some good before-and-after photos and stories on the website.
South Beach Diet - I like this one. You can join for $5 per month, with no long-term contract. This is what I used to go from 165 to 145. I no longer use the South Beach diet recipes but instead look for interesting recipes on the Web or make up my own.
The Paleolithic Diet websites and blogs are interesting, but I believe they have their proportions wrong. As this Wired article points out, it's likely that most Paleolithic people ate grains and other plant-based foods at least as often as they ate meat. People such as the Inuit would have been the exceptions. Even the Inuits gather and preserve tubers, berries, grass seeds (i.e. grains), sea weed, and other vegetable material to supplement their meat and fish diets.
Paul Campos is a lawyer who makes a good case against the obsesssion with weight loss in his book The Obesity Myth. Here's a good interview in which he explains his position: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2009/07/americas-moral-panic-over-obesity/22397/
I'm editing this post to include this excellent blog: http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2006/11/introduction-and-why-i-created-this.html
For years, I have traced virtually every science, food and health story in media to their original press releases, which are reported verbatim. Literally everything we hear and read today - on the internet or mainstream media - is marketing and created by those trying to sell us something: a belief, cause, product, service, or themselves. That’s why we hear “science” finds something one day, and something entirely different the next. “Pop” science, what is popularly believed and marketed as “science,” is oftentimes really the junk science.
This is a pretty good description of the experience people go through in trying to maintain a constant body weight. I've spent the last few days reading weight-oriented blogs and websites, and of course I've experienced my own struggle to maintain a constant weight. At the bottom of this post, I've linked to some of the most interesting blogs and websites.
Based on what I've learned so far, it looks as though there are a few people who are genetically predisposed not to store fat. These people would be in big trouble if they were in a situation where food was not always available, but they do well as long as there's plenty to eat. It is possible to be born with a genetic tendency to be thin but to be infected by a virus, such as the AD36 adenovirus, which causes the body to create fat cells. Between genetics and infection, something like 80% of people tend to gain weight when we eat regularly. Of these people, some are able, through constant vigilance and deprivation, to lose and/or maintain a constant weight.
Until fairly recently, few people had a constant source of food. For people who are subject to periods of food scarcity, fat cells are literally life-savers. Those fat cells are like having a readily available cache of food that doesn't spoil or become infested with insects.
It is possible for one to eat so much in one sitting that one's stomach bursts, but in all but a very few cases, this does not happen, because eating is regulated by hormones that cause a person not to be hungry any more when the blood sugar reaches a certain level. Hormones also drive a person to eat when the blood sugar level falls. These hormones seem to have a "memory" of a person's highest weight, so when person loses weight, the hormones drive the person to eat enough to regain the weight. When people lose weight, they lose both muscle and fat; many people (especially if they are 40 years or older) add more fat than muscle when they regain the weight they lost.
The body's reaction to weight loss would be likely to prolong one's life in a situation where food is not always available -- which would have been the condition of most people who have ever lived. Therefore, it's not accurate to think of it as a flaw, and it's not appropriate for people to hate their bodies for "betraying" them by driving them to gain weight.
Many people do appear to hate their bodies, or even themselves. They believe that their inability to lose weight or stabilize their weight at a certain point is due to weakness or a moral defect of some sort. Some people accept their weight, which is fine to a point. But there is a point at which a person's stored fat begins to interfere with the normal function of their bodies. Walking becomes difficult; running impossible. Weight-bearing joints such as knees deteriorate more rapidly due to the stress of carrying more weight than they were meant to carry. The heart has to work harder to service the larger bulk of the body (but the heart also grows larger, so this may not actually be a health problem). Meanwhile, the hormones keep on doing their job -- the drive to eat is almost at inexorable as the drive to breathe.
I saw many blogs that were full of hope to begin with but ended abruptly after an initial weight loss followed by a gain. Then there were the very rare people who managed to lose significant amounts of weight (up to 1/2 of their initial weight) and keep the weight off. One of these people describes weight maintenance as a part-time job (Debra's Just Maintaining). In general, there appears to be a rift between weight-acceptance people and weight-loss people. Debra's philosophy is that she could easily gain weight again (for example, if she were unable to do the relatively high level of exercise required to keep the weight down), and if that were to happen, she doesn't beleive she would deserve self-hate. I agree with her, and the research supports her -- maintaining weight after weight loss requires far more exercise than maintaining one's highest weight. As part of the body's fight to keep itself alive in a sitatuion of perceived food-scarcity, muscles function differently after weight loss. They become more efficient, can perform more on a given amount of fuel. So exercise that requires 100 calories when done by a person who has never lost weight might require only 75 calories after weight loss. This is great for a person stranded in the woods with nothing to eat but lean meat, insects, and plant matter, but not for a person who has ready access to concentrated sources of carbs and fats.
Food is at the center of almost every special event and celebration of friendship. This is not surprising, given that most people who have ever lived went through regular periods of food scarcity. It makes it really hard for people who are trying to lose or stabilize their weight. Given the statistics, it's completely normal to gain weight. The exceptional people are the ones who don't gain. Therefore, it's not accurate to refer to low body weight as "normal."
What to do when "normal" is not healthy? Some people recommend support groups, which seem to work well for short-term weight loss. But people who get the weight off and keep it off seem to be motivated more from within themselves, like artists.
I myself have 4 motivations:
(1) my knees are shot, and I want to avoid knee surgery -- this is my main reason for wanting to lose weight. My knees function a lot better when they have less to carry;
(2) I'm getting old and do not want to accumulate great masses of belly fat, as my mother has done;
(3) I started sewing and became interested in fashion, and many of the garments I'd like to make look better on slim bodies than on larger ones;
(4) I feel better when I eat a diet that consists mostly of fresh veggies, fruits, fish, whole grains, seeds, and nuts; this same diet results in weight loss, especially if I go easy on the grains.
I'm fine long as I'm in weight-loss mode, but one cannot stay there indefinitely. At some point, one reaches one's goal weight and must add just enough calories to maintain that weight. That's when it gets really difficult.
Here are some of the blogs I found most interesting and helpful:
Debra's Just Maintaining - This is the best blog I've found so far. There's a lot of good research here, and the author is a very good writer. She also has a healthy attitude -- she didn't hate herself when she was larger; she thought of herself as a Botticelli Babe, and judging by her photos she is attractive at both large and small sizes.
Tara Parker-Pope New York Times article -- the first part of the article is sort of depressing and hopeless, but keep reading to the end, and look at some of the blogs.
Refuse to Regain - a website about maintaning a constant weight, especially after weigh loss.
Jenny Craig - I'm put off by this company -- it's owned by a large corporation (Nestle) and charges people lots of money for frozen foods and advice. But it does seems to work for many people -- there are some good before-and-after photos and stories on the website.
South Beach Diet - I like this one. You can join for $5 per month, with no long-term contract. This is what I used to go from 165 to 145. I no longer use the South Beach diet recipes but instead look for interesting recipes on the Web or make up my own.
The Paleolithic Diet websites and blogs are interesting, but I believe they have their proportions wrong. As this Wired article points out, it's likely that most Paleolithic people ate grains and other plant-based foods at least as often as they ate meat. People such as the Inuit would have been the exceptions. Even the Inuits gather and preserve tubers, berries, grass seeds (i.e. grains), sea weed, and other vegetable material to supplement their meat and fish diets.
Paul Campos is a lawyer who makes a good case against the obsesssion with weight loss in his book The Obesity Myth. Here's a good interview in which he explains his position: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2009/07/americas-moral-panic-over-obesity/22397/
I'm editing this post to include this excellent blog: http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2006/11/introduction-and-why-i-created-this.html
For years, I have traced virtually every science, food and health story in media to their original press releases, which are reported verbatim. Literally everything we hear and read today - on the internet or mainstream media - is marketing and created by those trying to sell us something: a belief, cause, product, service, or themselves. That’s why we hear “science” finds something one day, and something entirely different the next. “Pop” science, what is popularly believed and marketed as “science,” is oftentimes really the junk science.
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
From the Winter Garden
The summers here in San Antoinio are vicious, but the winters are, for the most part, very pleasant. Many rose bushes produce larger, more deeply colored blooms in winter than they do in other seasons.
I've been sick with a cold, so I picked these roses from the garden today, to cheer myself. The pink ones are from a bush I originally planted in the Tilmon garden (near Austin) but dug up and brought to San Antonio when the Tilmon grasshoppers ate it down to a nub. It has since recovered from its near-death experience.
Infection as a Cause of Obesity
Effects of Obesity on The Brain
This is one of the blogs I discovered while looking around the Web for
information on gaining and losing weight. I have to go to bed now,
so I won't have another relapse of this cold, so I cannot write
about this in detail.
The gist is that eating a fattening diet (that is to say, consistently
consuming more calories than one burns) causes inflammation of
brain tissue. One reason it's so hard to keep weight off after
one has gained and lost may be damage to the portion of the
brain that controls appetite.
There's also this on the AD36 virus, which appears to contribute to
obesity in those infected:
Seven viruses have been reported to cause obesity in animal models by
various research groups.
We reported the first human virus, an adenovirus (Ad-36), which causes
adiposity in chickens, rodents and non-human primates and shows
association with human obesity. Our in-vivo and in-vitro data show
that Ad-36 increases adiposity, lowers serum lipids, increases insulin
sensitivity and preadipocyte differentiation.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Plants Growing in Our Yard
FOLLOW-UP NOTE: I posted these photos and plant names, because someone complained about my yard. The city ordinance code enforcer was very nice and liked all the flowers and fruit in my yard. She said that if I'd show that the plants were there by design, rather than just being random weeds, everything would be OK. It all worked out, and I was able to keep my yard the way I like it. I have nothing but good things to say about the City of San Antonio planning department and code enforcement people.
These are some of the plants we are growing in our yard. There are some more photos available on a blog entry I made on September 17. I have identified the plants under each photo, and there is a list of unpictured plants at the bottom of this blog entry.
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These are some of the plants we are growing in our yard. There are some more photos available on a blog entry I made on September 17. I have identified the plants under each photo, and there is a list of unpictured plants at the bottom of this blog entry.
Day Lily
20th Century Asian Pear
Vinca Major, Day Lilies, Esperanza, Canna Lily, and Red Knockout Rose, Caroline Hairston Rose, Hever Castle Buddleia
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Castor Bean, Day Lilies, Ornamental Grass (don't know name), Cleome, Germander
Impatiens
Caladiums in background, coleus in foreground
Cleome
Queen's wreath, also called coral vine
golden crownbeard, queen's wreath, yellow and orange lantana, portulaca (in blue container), vinca major, 4 o'clocks, huisache tree upper right corner
verbena
from spring - not flowering now: geraniums, pansies, violas, purple spider wort
Anagua Tree in flower (spring)
Queen's wreath, mealy blue sage, 2nd variety of salvia (name unknown), Mexican honesuckle, Pride of Barbados (not flowering now)
Some other plants that are not pictured:
Anna apple
Ein Shemer apple
3 varieties of dwarf peach
semi-dwarf Spring gold peach tree
LeConte pear tree
Celeste fig tree
3 Wonderful pomegranite shrubs
several loquat trees - they were here when we bought the place
Persian Mulberry
common mulberry
5 Chinese photinia shrubs
8 white Indian hawthorne shrubs
8 Japanes ligustrum shrubs
olive tree
8 abelia shrubs
9 vetiver plants planted as privacy screen
6 sophora shrub/trees (Texas mountain laurel)
4 elm trees
2 oak trees
2 rain trees (will probably remove)
4 chinaberry trees (will probably remove all but 1)
star jasmine
night blooming jasmine
Fanick's perennial phlox
Souvenir de la Malmaison rose bush
Mutalis rose bush
unidentified rose bush grown from cutting from rose bush at corner of Lewis & Howard St
pink Knockout rose bush
Bolero rose bush
The Fairy rose bush
unidentified rose bush grown from cutting from rose bush on Bois D'arc St in Lockhart TX
Maggie rose bush
Mademoiselle de Sombreuil rose bush
Blush Noisette rose bush
Cecile Brunner rose bush
Gruss an Aachen rose bush
6 florida jessamine shrubs
kitchen herbs: basil, rosemary, cilantro, thyme, parsley, sage, Greek oregano, common oregano, spearmint, winter mint, catnip, chives
bay tree
Meyer lemon tree
jalepeno and ancho chiles
chile pequin
tomatoes
irises
nardo, also called tuberose
pink and purple ruellia
honeysuckle
agapanthus
native pecan tree
amaranth
Saturday, September 17, 2011
Rain !!!
There were very isolated bands of T-storms yesterday. We got maybe an inch of rain here in central San Antonio, but a friend in north San Antonio said they only got a few sprinkles there.
Today there were wider bands of showers. No violent storms around here, but enough good, steady rain to saturate the ground.
I took my camera into the back garden yesterday and found a few pretty things to photograph. The rose bushes are in full bloom, which would be gorgeous if they were larger. They're still quite small, though. It's been all they can do to stay alive over the summer. They haven't had the resources to add much size. I grew most of the rose bushes from cuttings started spring before last. I bought a couple from the Antique Rose Emporium.
Today there were wider bands of showers. No violent storms around here, but enough good, steady rain to saturate the ground.
I took my camera into the back garden yesterday and found a few pretty things to photograph. The rose bushes are in full bloom, which would be gorgeous if they were larger. They're still quite small, though. It's been all they can do to stay alive over the summer. They haven't had the resources to add much size. I grew most of the rose bushes from cuttings started spring before last. I bought a couple from the Antique Rose Emporium.
Friday, September 9, 2011
Unburned
I came to the country today. I already knew my travel trailer and barn would be OK, because I had talked to a neighbor, but I was not sure about the sandhill woods between Delhi and McMahan. As it turned out, the fire did not reach my land. There are many dead trees and shrubs, still sitting there waiting for the next fire.
The weather has turned very hot again after a few days with highs in the low 90's F. Nothing like the hot weather of a couple of weeks ago, though. The thermometer under the shade of the barn says 35.5C. Bull nettle seeds are the only things I can find to eat here today. I'm awfully glad I can go to stores to buy food.
The weather has turned very hot again after a few days with highs in the low 90's F. Nothing like the hot weather of a couple of weeks ago, though. The thermometer under the shade of the barn says 35.5C. Bull nettle seeds are the only things I can find to eat here today. I'm awfully glad I can go to stores to buy food.
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