Good Sweat

hello all! i seem to have lost a follower! oh well. im pretty sure my sister is the only one of my followers who actually reads my blog, so it doesnt really matter. anyway, thats not what i am going to write about today. instead, i am going to mention again my fondness for blogging blobs, especially since they have inspired me to write a post. in case you are just tuning in to the relevance of blogging blobs, this is a diet non support group of some american plus sizers whose blog i find both entertaining and informative. entertaining because they spend a lot of time making fun of each other and accusing some guy named bret of being a closet case and informative because as my regular readers know, i am immensely fascinated with the goings on in the heads of the world's obese.
so why am i mentioning this again? because now that these wide loads have been on their diets for a couple of weeks, it has occurred to approximately half of them that they might actually have some hope of losing weight if they actually darkened the doors of a gym once in a while. bravo for them! the interesting corollary of this is that they are learning all about the fantastic world of exercise and hitting a few road bumps along the way. this, dear readers, is what has inspired this post. i would henceforth like to offer the following tips for people who are new to exercise to make the process a little less painful.
1) it isnt how much you eat, its what you eat. losing weight and getting healthy has very little to do with the volume of food you are eating. when you are overweight and start working out, it can be frustrating to feel even hungrier than before when you are trying to eat less so you can lose weight. dont get frustrated, because you dont have to eat less! you just have to eat better! the fact that you are getting hungry is a good sign because it means that you are actually burning off some of those calories during your work out. try to focus on eating a little bit all day long instead of three large meals and learn to snack smart. reach for an apple instead of a chocolate bar and some raw unsalted nuts instead of those chips. go ahead, you can do it. youll like it.
2) how to not fall off the elliptical trainer. i know using the elliptical trainer can feel more like a near death experience than a workout. here is what i suggest: if you bend slightly at the waist as the crossramp is increased, you will change your centre of gravity enough that you wont feel so top heavy and wont have the sensation that you are about to fall. if you feel like the only choice the machine is giving you is to go super duper fast (a complaint from one of the blobs) try increasing the resistance. also, remember, weight loss and overall health is all about cardio. you should be trying to stay in your target heart rate for at least 15 minutes every day in order to build cardiac muscle and lose weight. for most people in their 20s the target is somewhere in the 170-180 beats per minute range, but for the blobs if they can get themselves over 120 to start with they will get good results.
3) dont get hung up on numbers. its easy to fall victim to your scale. just dont do it. numbers are mostly irrelevant because all of us are different. for example, i am 20 pounds heavier than i was a year ago even though im two sizes smaller. why? because i have speed skater thighs and i bulk up easy. since im a woman you cant really see how much muscle mass ive gained but its a lot. dont let the scale tell you how to feel about yourself. thats what mirrors are for.
i guess thats all i have to say on this subject for now, but i do look forward to getting more inspiration from my favourite fat friends.

ET Phone Home?

greetings, comrades. i am sorry i havent been posting very frequently. truth be told, i havent had many ideas, and i have been very busy knitting and stuff, which sounds ridiculous, but its true. that being said, i did come up with an excellent post idea last week and i have finally found a moment to sit down and write it. huzzah!!!!!
so, in the current issue of the walrus, which is the only magazine i bother reading, there is a brief article about the SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence) Post-Detection Taskgroup. put simply, this is a group of people from various fields (not just astronomers) who are listening away with various technologies in the event that aliens ever contact us, either on purpose or by accident. in the meantime, they come up with possible theories as to why they might be contacting us and what we should do if this ever happens. they also have (apparently rather heated) debates as to whether we should be soliciting alien communication by sending messages out. not surprisingly, this group includes philosophers, theologians, psychologists and even science fiction writers (?) in addition to the scientists.
there are two main schools of thought about why aliens might intentionally contact us. the first is that they are good and highly advanced and seeking greater knowledge of the universe, and the second is that they are evil and have most likely destroyed their own world and are looking for a new place to set up camp. based on these two ideas, the SETI taskforce spends its days trying to predict the behaviour of our alien friends before we ever meet them. both theories are interesting and have their merits, but i would like to introduce a point here that no one seems to have considered, and even if they did, there is really know way of addressing it.
my point is this: it is a fact that we are incapable of concieving of something outside of our own biology. we only have universal truths like "good" and "evil" because those have arisen out of our own experiences as carbon based lifeforms on this here planet. beings from other planets could and probably would have their own universal truths because of the differences in their biology and thus its unlikely that their version of higher consciousness would even be anything akin to the version we all inhabit.
to put it all more simply, go and watch any sci fi you like. every single alien can be related back to some kind of terrestrial creature or creatures. this is because our human brains are limited by our biology and our understanding of the world around us. on our planet, there are a fixed number of elements and strict physical rules as to how those elements interact with one another. what is to say that there isnt an entirely different set of elements and physical rules governing life on other planets? there is really no way of knowing. this seems just as likely to me as anything else, and so i would argue that it really isnt possible for us to try and predict the motives or behaviour of these aliens because our motives and behaviour stem ultimately from our unique set of "universal" truths.
ultimately, though, we have to work within our (probably) limited parameters, because what other choice do we have? regardless, there are a whole pack of people making piles of money to sit around listening to radio silence. right on.

More Knitting!

stuffed bunny
black makeup bag
purple clutch
toddler sweaterbaby hat
other baby sweater
plus size sweater

brown clutch
twirly top toque
twirly top toque from the side

hooded jacket for my mum

vintage style jacket with frog closures


scrunchie top

Beautiful and Strange

greetings and happy monday, comrades! i am rather tired from staying up too late after a beautiful and strange weekend that i shall share with you directly. on saturday, dave and i went to the royal winter fair, which we managed to miss last year but did attend the year before. unfortunately, i didnt have my camera with me so i dont have any adorable photos to show you, but take my word for it there was adorable a-plenty happening at the fair. i saw alpacas and llamas and cows and sheep and goats and tiny horses and pigs and piglets and bunnies and all manner of agricultural goodness all in one place. i also spent twenty dollars that i dont exactly have right now on ONE yes ONE ball of 100% undyed alpaca wool. although this is a ridiculously frivolous expense, i decided ages ago that my birthday/christmas present to myself would be to knit myself a pair of mittens out of alpaca wool and so i cant really bring myself to feel too guilty about it. plus with all the excessive cycling i do, i really do need strong and warm mitts, the cheapo ones ive been wearing the last two years really dont cut it. i am very excited to make them, the wool is so fresh there are still bits of hay in it. not even kidding. i think im going to do a braided cable pattern on the back and a seed stitch on the palm for traction and increased heat retention. smart design, form meeting function and all that jazz. (this is me putting my biology degree to work. form and function is one of the overarching biological principals, but that is another post to be written another time). anyway, the alpaca mittens will keep me happy until the fateful day when dave finally buys me an alpaca farm to call my very own. and there will be five dogs and much joy. but anyway, moving on.
the other thing to tell you about this weekend is unfortunately on sunday dave and i had to go to a funeral for one of his friends from childhood/adolescence. it was very sad, he died rather suddenly of a freak heart attack. that being said, however, we did manage to make the most of a bad situation. almost all of daves good buddies from high school were there, and they havent really seen much of each other in the last few years. after the service and the seemingly endless standing around talking about nothing, we all went to a very posh expensive bar and had a few drinks and some appetizers, and it was so cool to see all of them reconnecting. it was such a unique experience and everyone was so happy, despite the sad circumstances bringing them together. i was grateful to be a part of it, even though i was something of an outsider. there was one woman who was a super biatch, but theres one in every crowd, and there was a SUPER hilarious trophy girlfriend who was totally textbook self-absorption which kind of balanced out the presence of the bitch face. it was so heartwarming to see dave reconnecting with all of his old mates, and the few that i got to talk to at length were very, very cool people. its amazing to see how as much as people change, they really do stay the same. i think i will hold onto my impressions from last night forever, it was so beautiful and strange.

I Don't Normally Do This

BUT this blog is just too titillating to not discuss! i think the last time i plugged a blog was back when i was reading waiterrant when i was working at the bar years ago, so dont worry, those of you who may care, i am not going to make a habit of blogging about other blogs. that being said, there is a brand new blog afoot, and i think its going to be my new favourite.
so, as i have mentioned before, particularly in this post, i have a bizarre fixation with obesity. without reiterating the entire post verbatim, i basically just want to get in the heads of these blubbery people and park it for a few days, because i really, really, really, want to know what the deal is. (for a better explanation, read the post).
which is where this little plug of mine comes in. a few fatties from 20sb have started their own blog called blogging blobs. this not-so-little project is five plus size american 20-somethings who have banded together to create a diet non-support group. each of them gets a different day of the week to tell us about how their diets are going and then the other four gang up and make fun of them. hilarious and informative. i totally reccommend this blog, especially for my comrades who share my fascination.
the only other thing i have to say about it is this: although they are all being very good humoured about it, i do think that they are all legitimately trying to take off the pounds. i just want to point out to all of them (if any of them are reading this) that although their failed attempts at self control over eating are a good start, they really should be getting more exercise, and the pounds will come a crashing down. just a thought.