[...] memoir, such as the best-known Fun Home or Persepolis or those combined with advice, such as The Big Skinny. Not My [...]

Besides the calorie hoopla, I think it’s an ok book. Most of her advice is pretty good and she does advocate learning about nutrition and not going on quick fix diets but making changes you can live with for the rest of your life. As with anything, it’s always a good idea to get to know something before judging it. :)

“I’m glad they’re having that debate at your site, not mine, because I don’t want to get into the whole fat acceptance/’too thin’ debate…”

I took a look over there and it was an average acceptance/”too thin” debate, not a fat acceptance/”too thin” debate (turns out that Lay is 5’9″ and started the book at only 160 lbs, so she was not fat in the first place). Meanwhile, I still totally understand preferring the debate to be on someone else’s site instead of yours.

Rivkah Says:

“Hsifeng: I have to admit that reading and seeing more of this book makes me want to make an actual comic book on nutrition and health…”

That would be a cool book!

Rivkah Says:

“…I mean, I look at people who are obese and I actually see that they are STARVING…”

This is why there’s more kinds of malnourisment than only undernourishment, right?

Rivkah Says:

“There’s SO MUCH fascinating chemistry involved in nutrition that could be wonderfully laid out and easily remembered in a visual format.

“Hmm…”

“I want to make comic off of this. Now if only there were some good nutritionists out there who used nutrition for health instead of losing weight.”

Maybe you could team up with Larry Gonick? You bring the science (like you’re bringing here!), he brings the connections it takes to get a comic book released in the books-in-general market…

Rivkah Says:

“…Btw: My weight loss (I was 114 at 5’7″) was because of stress. I was eating perfectly those two years, but I was also in a horrific relationship (bad enough, I’m already writing a book about THAT)…”

Ouch! Glad to know you’re out of that now!

Rivkah Says:

“and depending on the amount of stress in your daily life … your caloric need can practically DOUBLE.

“Not to mention our brains use 20% of the energy our body produces. So heck, just thinking a lot increases your caloric need.

“Calories are GOOD. Calories are energy. A life spent obsessing over them instead of paying attention to what your body is telling you is not.”

Great points!

At the same time, I’d nitpick over “paying attention to what your body is telling you” because that’s good but not exactly enough. Some individuals inherit instincts about what’s good to eat and what’s not. Others, like human beings and kea birds, not so much. Michael Pollan, in The Omnivore’s Dilemma : A Natural History of Four Meals, includes some stuff on how some cultures eventually come up with healthy culinary traditions and some waffle between orthorexia and junk food. Judy Diamond and Alan B. Bond, in Kea, Bird of Paradox : The Evolution and Behavior of a New Zealand Parrot, include some stuff on how kea chicks inherit instincts for eating anything (because everything in their habitat used to be edible) and fed pre-chewed food by their parents (which means they’re not taught what is food) so now you got kea fledglings roaming rubbish dumps biting into batteries, tissues, rubber bands, flames, etc. (and the ones who live to adulthood eat cars).

What really needs to be out there is a book not on dieting on weight but on NUTRITION and HEALTH. I was raised on Adelle Davis’s “Let’s Eat Right to Keep Fit”, and while many of her oddball ideas are currently outdated (or downright dangerous), a lot of her explanations of how the essential nutrients in the body work and interact are phenomenally current, and I’m always amazed when there’s a “new” study put out echoing exactly the things she was saying back in the seventies. A modern take on her method of presentation told in comic format would just … I’d die happy. I mean, I look at people who are obese and I actually see that they are STARVING, because once you know the chemistry it’s easy to point: most fat is water retention which is caused by an inefficient supply of protein which in turn prevents the blood from drawing waste out of cells and depositing it in the urine. No enough protein, too many overrefined sugars, and even if you’re getting exactly the daily recommended allowance of calories that day … you could very very easily still fall into the obese range from water retention alone (not to mention all those sugars get turned into fat if you get overstimulating your pancreas etc…). There’s SO MUCH fascinating chemistry involved in nutrition that could be wonderfully laid out and easily remembered in a visual format.

Hmm.

I want to make comic off of this. Now if only there were some good nutritionists out there who used nutrition for health instead of losing weight.

Btw: My weight loss (I was 114 at 5’7″) was because of stress. I was eating perfectly those two years, but I was also in a horrific relationship (bad enough, I’m already writing a book about THAT) and depending on the amount of stress in your daily life … your caloric need can practically DOUBLE.

Not to mention our brains use 20% of the energy our body produces. So heck, just thinking a lot increases your caloric need.

Calories are GOOD. Calories are energy. A life spent obsessing over them instead of paying attention to what your body is telling you is not.

But the cartooning looks really nice.

Also, just curious, is that blue panel in the top-left corner of the cover pic supposed to be a “before” pic or a “in between” pic? I mean, she doesn’t look fat in it (a bit wider than she does in the red dress, but not fat).

Johanna Says:

“…Like many books on healthy diets, the portion sizes don’t take economics into account. By that I mean, when you’re eating that half-piece of wheat toast, the writer isn’t paying attention to how much of the rest of that loaf is going to go bad before you eat it. A recipe that calls for a slice of avocado sounds good — but what do you do with the rest of the fruit?…”

Freeze it? You’re right, some advice on food preservation – or at least a reminder to go look up food preservation methods – would be useful in those books!

Rivkah Says:

“…Haven’t budged more than a pound or two from 126 in three years, and before that, I was scarily underweight! (few people realize exercise can help you gain weight, too, because really, it just stabilizes your weight)…”

Glad to know you’re feeling better now! :) Also, it can help one gain weight because of muscle being denser than fat, right?

Rivkah Says:

“…and while there’s no ‘ideal’ BMI, the standard is anything over 30 is obese, and anything under 18 is anorexic/underweight…”

Good points! Also, the standard is that anything between 25 and 30 is overweight and not obese. Aren’t those people who say that everyone who’s overweight is obese (and say it in English instead of a language that doesn’t have separate words for “overweight” and “obese”) annoying? I mean, one of them once called me obese when I was 5 pounds overweight, WTF?

As for “anorexic/underweight,” from what I’ve heard anything under 18 is “underweight” and “anorexia” just means “no appetite” instead of a specific weight range. Like if there’s food available and you’re not doing anything to go get and eat it, you’re already anorexic even if you haven’t lost much weight yet. Gaining : The Truth about Life after Eating Disorders by Aimee Liu has some stuff on the roots of anorexia nervosa (thinking “I’m fat” when one isn’t, thinking “at least I can control what I eat” when one has little control over the rest of her or his life, etc.). On the other end of the range, “Animal anorexias” by N Mrosovsky and DF Sherry in Science, 22 February 1980, Vol. 207. no. 4433, pp. 837 – 842, counts even not eating during hibernation as a non-nervosa form of anorexia.

[...] [Review] The Big Skinny Link: Johanna Draper Carlson [...]

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HA! I would be far from saying that makes it easier. “Frequent, small meals,” yes! But “work out” no! I’ve always found that having a place to work away from home makes me more active in the form of walking or biking to where I’m going, but when I have to stay in, I find I have little excuse to get out because honestly, I hate exercise for exercise’s sake.

Best thing I ever did for my health was get rid of my car so that anywhere I need to go? I have to either walk or bike there. Haven’t budged more than a pound or two from 126 in three years, and before that, I was scarily underweight! (few people realize exercise can help you gain weight, too, because really, it just stabilizes your weight).

Sounds like Carol has a lot of the same, good, sensible advice I learned growing up, though, because my mother went through diet after diet, and I got to learn from her mistakes (and successes), too. The more color, the more snacking, the fewer big meals: the better! There’s also a lot of good, fascinating books out there, too, and nutrition in general is a fascinating course in chemistry. :) It’s even neater seeing what you eat and knowing the “why” instead of just the “what”. And after a while, once you’ve trained your body to eat the right kinds of foods (I wonder if she covers preparation, too? Because I could debate people blue about reasons not to eat vegetables raw.), your body, in most cases, starts to crave them naturally. Honestly, I can’t a good 99.9% of sweet things put out by the American market place because they taste so cloyingly sweet, I feel my stomach wanting to heave it all back out.

Doesn’t stop me from baking though! ;)

As for “proper” weight: it really does depend on your height. Rather you should be looking at your body mass index (there are calculators online if you google them), and while there’s no “ideal” BMI, the standard is anything over 30 is obese, and anything under 18 is anorexic/underweight. Many people are naturally slimmer than others and many people naturally heavier. And then there’s muscle mass. Which weights WAY heavier than fat and way most body builders fall in the “obese” range.

What’s important (and it sounds like Carol makes this distinction) is being HEALTHY. If you hit a weight and that’s where it stays at while keeping a healthy diet and a steady stream of light exercise (agreed with the first responder about avoiding too much exercise), that’s generally going to be your ideal and you shouldn’t worry your head about losing or gaining another five pounds, because once you’ve hit equilibrium (so to speak), more than likely, you’ll have to end up seriously harming your health in order to go those extra few pounds.

Colorful foods good! :D

Richard, yes, it is wonderful to see more Lay, no matter the subject, but this isn’t a collection but an original work.

But I believe that a combination of exercise and a healthy diet will always bring about positive results for everyone. One without the other, is only half the job.

Hey, and it’ great to see a new collected work from Carol Lay!
I’ve been a fan of her work since first reading the collected “Strip Joint”.

http://health.nytimes.com/ref/health/healthguide/esn-exercise-ess.html?scp=3&sq=gina%20kolata%20exercise&st=cse

http://www.drbriffa.com/blog/2009/08/12/does-exercise-promote-weight-loss-no/

My understanding is that none of this is very controversial among health experts, but there’s a certain reluctance to be up front about it because moderate exercise is good for you and nobody wants to discourage people from exercising even if they’re doing it for the wrong reasons. I think that underestimates the harm it does to people who give up on exercise after they don’t see the kind of improvement they shouldn’t have been expecting any way.