Man Boobies: a post for the fellas

I have been reading Tim Ferriss' "The 4-Hour Body" and have found it extremely interesting.  Mostly cause the guy isn't siting studies and research about various body/health issues, he IS the studies and research.  There's nothing in his book that he talks about or gives advice on that he didn't do to himself first.  And he is meticulous about recording his findings.  The chapters that really gave me pause (I expected the weight loss/body building chapters to be more fine tuning of stuff I already knew) were the chapters on male issues and the ones on injury rehab and prevention.  But since I just watched "The Biggest Loser" and yet again faced the barrage of man-titties on that show, I wanted to look farther into men's health issues. (Also, as much as I prompt Norm to check out this book, especially the part about rehabbing injuries and, who am I kidding, the chapter about the 15 minute female orgasm, he has picked up the book once.  This is how research and development goes at my house: I read and say I'd like to try The Paleo Diet/The 4-Hour Body/The Art of Raising a Puppy/Green for Life smoothies/The Sleep Lady book and I suggest Norm should look at it as well to see if he wants to try it, and he agrees and then doesn't read it and patiently waits me out till I give him the cliff notes version.  Mostly he goes along with it because he has no choice--I do the grocery shopping and most of the food preparation.  And he pretends to be buying into it until one day I go to drive his car and reach down to move the seat up and find a large rolled up bag of Cool Ranch Doritos hidden under the seat.  Bastard.)

In his book, Ferriss talks about testosterone and sperm production of the modern man.  Or I should say, the lack of production.  And it isn't just a little bit and it isn't some random study he pulled it from.  Guys my age are producing a considerable smaller amount of testosterone and viable sperm than their grandfathers.  And then there's the man tits that seem to abound nowadays.  Is it possible that "Fight Club" was on to something?  Are we not only feminizing men emotionally but even more importantly, physically?  Don't get me wrong, I am not the girl who falls for bad boys or testosterone heavy asshats who get in a fight every weekend.  The men I have loved in my life have been sweet, considerate, and sensitive.  But they haven't been pussies.  They still have enough of a pair to definitely be masculine and, well, dudes.  If I wanted to be with someone who is as sensitive and hormonal and nurturing as me, I would have just been a lesbian.  (I played rugby for many years and have a lesbian for a best friend--I have been to many pride parades and gay bars.  If I was into women, I would definitely have known by now).

So man boobs.  What really causes them?  Let's get the obvious ones out of the way: genetics and weight gain.  If you are genetically tagged for man boobs (the proper term is gynecomastia) and you put on extra weight, guess what? You will need the bro.  That being said, there are certain kids of food and drink that will give you moobs even if none of your grandfathers had them.  One of the reasons that certain foods and drinks can cause training bra shopping is that they are phytoestrogens. What they do is mimic estrogen.  If you can't guess why putting large amounts of something in your male body that mimics estrogen can have emasculating effects then you have more problems than just having jigglies.  "But wait!" you say.  If food and drink cause that serious a hormonal effect, wouldn't the FDA or someone put warnings on these dangerous foods? Nope. Because its a slow build up of all the different phytoestrogens we consume little by little.  Some work faster and are a little more obvious.  I'm sure it would surprise no one that alcohol creates hormonal chaos and man boobs, especially when consumed in constant, high amounts.  But our frenemy soy is also a huge contributor to unbalancing male hormones.  Does that mean throw out your soy milk if you are lactose intolerant or vegetarian? No but almond milk is a better bet.  (and I remember when some guys starting going nuts about not using soy milk or soy protein shakes anymore and they cited a study where a guy got swollen B cup sized breasts.  That particular guy was drinking 3/4's of a gallon of soy milk A DAY.  You suck down most anything that excessively and you are going to have adverse results).  So its not really that soy milk in your cereal that is doing the damage.  Its the soy product that is in all our foods PLUS the soy milk that is causing the problem.  Additives from soy, oil from soy, and soy based feed given to animals we eat--soy is EVERYWHERE.  Look at your food labels.  Words you don't know? (glycine max, HVP, lecithin, monodiglyceride, monosodium glutamate or MSG, etc. All soy) They are either soy or corn additives. Things I would really consider non-food.  Like plastic.  Which is another product in our lives that can cause hormone issues in men or in pregnant women.  That's right, we might be doing some "Children of Man" shit to our society.  Statistically we have seen a drop in male births.  Some might say its not a significant enough drop, but it is persistent over the last few decades so to me, that's significant.

What do you do if you have man boobs? I feel a mantra of sorts coming on, hold on....yep: The less steps a food product takes from being alive to being in your mouth, the healthier you will be.  Cut back on the booze.  Replace your soy protein shakes with whey protein shakes.  If you want healthier sperm and an increase in testosterone, eating well is only the beginning.  First, keep your cell phone away from your junk.  Don't always bring it with you, and try to wear it somewhere other than your pants.  Don't believe me?  Look at some of the more recent objective studies about this (some studies are funded by cell phone companies).  Exercise more, sit less.   Eat meals high in cholestorol later in the day so your body can produce testosterone over night.  Tim Ferriss has more ways to increase your swimmies and juice, so check out his blog/book.  Just FYI, it involves cold showers and brazilian nuts.

Week 9 Measurements

Alright, alright.  Week 7's measurements never happened and when I measured week 8, I was, again, in the same place as week 6.  This last week I thought, "well, since I've hit some sort of stand still with my body, what would happen if I ate one crappy thing a day, say like a bowl of ice cream every night, but ate really well during the day?  How much difference does a bowl of ice cream really make?" (when I say bowl of ice cream I am talking about a portion size that is 1.5 cups.  Not that big, maybe 2 scoops at a ice cream parlor.  That's right, I said parlor)  Apparently, not that much as you will see in the measurements.  In the spirit of full disclosure, I have been walking the baby a little longer everyday so I have increased my caloric output.

Here are the measurements:

Some of my measurements went down slightly.  That may seem like an improvement but since my overall size hasn't really gone down too much, what we have here is a Mexican Standoff with my fat.  Either I need to get real real strict about what goes into my belly or I need to carve out some time everyday for a workout.  I guess I could try to run.  But honestly starting running when I am this tired and especially this out of shape is like what a hoarder must feel like when they decide to clean their house.  Overwhelmed and mentally unstable in other words.

Weight: 198 lbs.  I really don't care about weight.  I care about my jeans fitting again.  If they fit well at 200 lbs instead of 170, I don't care.  As long as they fit.

Measurements	3/4	3/10	3/18	4/1	4/8	4/15	4/30	5/7
Neck	38 cm	36.5 cm	37.5 cm	36 cm	36.5 cm	36.5 cm	36.5 cm	36.5 cm
Right Bicep	32.5 cm	35 cm	35 cm	35.5 cm	33 cm	33 cm	33 cm	33 cm
Left Bicep	31.5 cm	33 cm	33 cm	33 cm	32.5 cm	32.5 cm	32.5 cm	31 cm
Belly	107 cm	101 cm	98 cm	96.5 cm	100 cm	100 cm	100 cm	98 cm
Hips	111 cm	108 cm	105.5 cm	105 cm	107 cm	107.5 cm	107.5 cm	105.5 cm
Right Thigh	66 cm	65 cm	65 cm	64 cm	63.5 cm	63.5 cm	63.5 cm	63.5 cm
Left Thigh	66.5 cm	64 cm	64 cm	63 cm	63 cm	63 cm	63 cm	62 cm

Week 6 Measurements

I must have forgotten to post this on Sunday, but my measurements stayed the same, no change whatsoever.  That's a good thing and a bad thing I guess.  Good because it means I didn't go up again, bad because I didn't go down.  If I could just get a few workouts in a week maybe I could jump start my weight loss again.  But that might not be a reality until he starts consistently sleeping through the night.  Or at least only one wake up. I feel so much better when he only gets up at 1 am.  Oh well.

My mom was here this week so I'm a little nervous about this week's coming measurement.  My mom has a sweet tooth and it definitely rubs off on me.  Anyways, I'm working on a good post about man boobs.  Gotta throw the fellas a bone once in awhile cause unless I'm mistaken, I think they aren't big fans of pap smear talk.

Week 5 Measurements...uh oh

What the what?  My measurements and weight went up this past week.  I am attributing it to two things 1) Too much beer and 2) Too much salt.  How else would my arms and legs reduce in size but my belly and hips increase as well as weight?  Water retention.  Or I wasn't as careful as I should have been this past week.  I will try and be extra vigilant this week and lay off the salt.  If everything goes back down, then I have found the culprit.  If it doesn't, then momma needs to lay off the trail mix that has chocolate chips and peanuts in it.   Although, maybe its a hormonal/body thing.  The baby is sleeping better through the night it seems.  I guess the miracle blanket works on helping him fall back asleep.  I know now that I am going to have to "encourage" him to give up one of the feedings, he is not going to do it on his own.  My plan is to wait till 4 months and then cut him down to one feeding a night instead of two.  Hopefully it only takes a few nights.

So here they are:

Weight: 197 lbs

Measurements	3/4/2012	3/10/2012	3/18/2012	4/1/2012	4/8/2012
Neck	38 cm	36.5 cm	37.5 cm	36 cm	36.5 cm
Right Bicep	32.5 cm	35 cm	35 cm	35.5 cm	33 cm
Left Bicep	31.5 cm	33 cm	33 cm	33 cm	32.5 cm
Belly	107 cm	101 cm	98 cm	96.5 cm	100 cm
Hips	111 cm	108 cm	105.5 cm	105 cm	107 cm
Right Thigh	66 cm	65 cm	65 cm	64 cm	63.5 cm
Left Thigh	66.5 cm	64 cm	64 cm	63 cm	63 cm

Raising Arizona

This post has nothing to do with weight loss and its a tad long.  I had some interesting conversations lately that have made me think about raising a boy.  More specifically, about a woman like me raising a boy.

I think my upbringing and life experiences are similar to a lot of women my age.  Almost every girl I know played sports and didn't go to college to get her Mrs. degree. We might be the first post-feminist generation of women who believe they can do anything and live in a society that basically does too.  There have now been two female Secretaries of State, many female athletes make as much or more than their male counterparts, Forbes lists includes quite a few women, there have been three women Nobel Prize winners in science in the last few years, and women make up more than half of all college students.  We almost had a female president.  I know there are still statistics that show we have a way to go, namely that women still make a lesser percentage salary-wise then men.  It is my belief that the statistic reflects two things: there still is a glass ceiling for women (though not as severe as 30 years ago, or even 20 years ago) and that women are choosing to have children and a career.  Trust me, I am not saying that women should stay home or be penalized in their jobs for having children (I would love to see a mandatory 6 month maternity leave), but the cold hard fact for most women who choose to work and have kids (yes, I know some women don't have the choice because of needing the income) is that you can't have it all, not when you have small children.  Your husband can stay home or you can leave your child in daycare for long days or you can cut back work hours.  Something has to give.  And I think my generation may understand this better than the previous few and are starting to accept that reality.

Having a kid, especially as a woman, means sacrificing something.  In general, it means sacrificing a list of things for at least a few years, if not more. (you know I love lists)
1) A portion, or all, of your disposable income
2) Spontaneous anything
3) Your favorite hobby (not forever, and it might be something you eventually do with your child, but if you love skiing all day in fresh pow, sorry, you got a few years until you can do it regularly again)
4) Your body.  (Unless you are one of those obnoxious supermodel/actress/really wealthy types, your body will be different for a substantial amount of time)
5) Any shred of selfishness.  (Now, I am not into a "give every little bit of yourself martyr" style of motherhood.  I think that taking care of yourself is key to being a good mom. BUT most of what you want comes second to what your kid needs when they are little)
6) Some of your friendships.  (friends without kids don't want to spend their weekends sitting quietly at your house.  And that's ok.  Real friends will be there again when you resurface for air.  In a few years)
7) Getting wasted--if your pregnant and then breastfeeding. (I'm going to sound like an alcoholic here, but getting a good buzz on just isn't an option for many, many months.  And its sort of sad.  In the winter when you are up at the mountain, getting a good buzz on mid afternoon, sitting in the Arizona sunshine...oh wait, you aren't going up to spend your day skiing in the first place)
8) Sleep (I have gotten 6 hours of uninterrupted sleep 4 times in the last 3 months.  My "long" stretches are 4 hours.  That's just how it goes.  It sucks, and my mental game is WAY off, but that's ok. I expected this and I'm not working. Yet)
9) Adventures. (Other than the adventure of parenthood. Aaaahhhhh......ew. I can't even pretend to buy into that touchy feely crap)
10) Weekends.  Babies and young kids don't know the difference between Tuesday and Saturday.  Their schedule remains the same.  Sleeping in doesn't exist.  Neither does a long day of reading the paper/watching NFL games all day.

So yeah, things change.

The biggest surprise about this so far is that I don't seem to mind giving this stuff up.  I thought I would be bitter or upset that my life is so altered, but so far, I'm ok with it.  I didn't expect to feel this way because for me the big sacrifice I had to make was the job I loved.  I came into hotshotting late but I really liked it.  That is a weird sentiment about the hardest job I have ever had (other than the job of parentho--you know what, no.  Still can't go there), a job that I often thought to myself "Jesus Christ, I hate everything right now.  I just want it to stop.  I want to sit down."  But I loved it for that aspect too.  I won't go on about the job right now, I could probably write a whole book about it, but just know that letting go of that as my career to have kids was a difficult and bittersweet decision.  (for those of you who don't know about that job, it requires you to be away from home for often 20 days at a time, for 6 months in a row with only 2 days home between trips.  Not an ideal job for a parent of a baby, especially a mommy.  It is one of the reasons Norm switched over from hotsthotting to engines.  The other being that your knees can only handle hotshotting for so long.  All the old fire guys walk around like the rusty Tin Man)

So here I am, the mother to a little boy.  What is my issue with that?  Well I guess my issue is figuring out how to be my version of a mother and not any contrived notion of it.  The things I've seen and done, and my reaction to a lot of them, doesn't scream "mommy material" to me.  Is that because I've got a standard in my head that doesn't matter?  Because my mother, and my friends' mothers, would not approve of my behavior so therefore how can I be a good mother, setting a good example?  Want an example? Of course you do.

When I was on the crew (hotshot crew), two of my favorite guys had an adventure in Las Vegas and I think the story is hilarious.  Other women I know find it offensive. (whenever this story is told and a girl puts on a 'that's disgusting, I don't approve' face, I always think to myself "Jesus, I thought this story was tame compared to others I have.  Great, this only proves I am a dirtbag")  On our way home from fires in California or Oregon, we often stopped in Vegas for the night because "we couldn't make it all the way home".  The next morning was full of remorse and a little self-repulsion for the two guys and a lot of humor for the rest of us.  But I'll back up and start the story from where we were last all together.  Usually in Vegas, the night ends with a 3 am trip to a strip club.  It just does, and if you are hanging out with dudes that just got out of the forest after 2 weeks, you either accept it and go along for the ride, or go to Denny's and have a sandwich and fries.  I have done both.  So we are at the Sapphire, one of those ridiculously expensive and huge strip clubs in Vegas (no joke, the water bottles cost $10 and it's 70,000 square feet.  That's a lot of titties.  As a quick aside, it is always funny to go to the bathroom, as a woman, at a strip club.  It is the strippers' break room.  The counter space is filled with their necessary professional equipment--aka the entire glitter line from Bath and Body works, wet wipes, deodorant, hair brushes, tooth brushes, and Red Bulls.  They are hanging out, talking about their kids or the manager and they are all smoking.  EVERY woman in there is a half naked cranky stripper...except me.  It is the least friendly women's bathroom on the planet.)

The two guys in question here...we will call one "The Baby" (I actually referred to him by that handle in my head) and the other "Spanky".  The Baby was a fresh faced little country boy who showed up on the crew my second year.  He was 18 and about as worldly as my cat.  He could hardly believe anything we said (most of his responses were "Nuh uh!" or a nervous giggle) and he had a hard time, initially, adjusting to the life.  He was sweet and I loved him unconditionally, much like a baby.  Hence the name.  Spanky was my best friend on the crew.  He's the type of person you want sitting next to you in every situation because he always makes it a little better.  Neither one of them was a) good with women b) cosmopolitan or c) sober.

So back to the strip club.  I was pretty much over the situation after I went to get some water at the bar found out that they didn't "have" tap water and that a bottle of water costs more than a beer (obviously I drank a Miller Lite for $7 instead.  Lite beer is mostly water...).  Another guy and I decided to split a cab and order room service hamburgers and that was the end of my night.  The Baby eventually got kicked out of club and Spanky was there to defuse the situation and get him into a cab, ostensibly to get him to the hotel and to bed.  It was around 4 am.  Somewhere in between the strip club and the hotel, a conversation started about getting a rub and tug.  Now the Baby had been talking about doing this all afternoon but no one was taking him seriously and no one wanted to be in on that particular "adventure".  But now, after at least 8 hours of drinking and facing the Baby's youthful enthusiasm, Spanky gave in and agreed to go.

This is where, in my opinion, the night takes a hilarious turn.  Their cabbie knows a place and once they get there, they deal with a no nonsense middle aged woman who charges them and leads them through a series of quasi-humiliating procedures (they go to one room, take off their clothes, get lead to a second room and get hosed off, go back to the first room and get rub/tugged. Leave your wallet, phone, and clothes behind in a sketchy place in Vegas? Like I said, not all that worldly).  By the way, Spanky only really agrees to this, he says, because the Baby offered to pay for the whole thing.  To the tune of about $250.  (In my mind, paying $250 for something you can probably do better yourself is not worth it.  Better spent on a pair of shoes....)  So the Baby gets done and waits in the "lobby" for Spanky.  And waits.  And waits.  Apparently Spanky's whiskey dick was so intense that the first lady working on him gave up for fear of carpal tunnel, and they had to call in the no nonsense lady in charge.  Speaking in baseball parlance, they brought out the closer.

The next morning, when we dragged the story out of them, I laughed so hard I almost peed.  A lot of guys started into the two of them with "are you sure it was an Asian woman? It was dark in there and you were drunk" and others added "you know, a lot of sex workers in Vegas are transgender..."  By the time everyone got done hounding them (and the Baby realized that in one night he had spent $700), the two guys were very quiet.  Did I feel bad for him? Yes, a little.  But mostly I thought it was hysterical and a good "learning experience".

So what does this suggest about me as a mom? I don't know.  But there's a nagging doubt that thinking this is funny is not a good sign.

Week 4 Measurements and such

I promise I haven't lost focus.  My dad was here for over a week and all my spare time went to hanging out with him.  I have many ideas for posts this week.  I'm sure they'll be riveting.  But here are my week 4 measurements.  It was hard to stay on the program this week for a couple reasons:  my sister showed up with baked goods, I went to a wedding, and the baby's nighttime sleep took a nosedive.  And as I said before, when you are sleep deprived you don't want chicken breasts and broccoli. He is a great sleeper but we have this new problem where he wiggles out of his swaddle but once his arms are out he can't go back to sleep.  Which means instead of waking up once in the middle of the night like he used it, he wakes up one to two more times.  Meaning I am exhausted.  We got the miracle blanket (its basically a straight jacket for your baby) and tonight is our first night trying it out on him.  Hopefully it works as advertised.  Actually, hopefully he starts being able to sleep without being swaddled.  It makes everything about bedtime/naptime just a bit more tricky.

So anyways, still trending downward and I can safely say I did nothing close to working out.  With my dad here helping, I slept.  A lot.  It just goes to show that even when I'm basically hibernating and not working out, just changing what you eat makes a difference.

A funny sidenote: When I went to the wedding I decided that I was going to allow myself to be super indulgent when it came to dessert.  I made this decision after walking into the reception and seeing that the couple had opted to have about 12 friends make all different kinds of cakes.  Red velvet cupcakes, banana cupcakes, chocolate salted carmel cake, dark chocolate cake, coconut cake, cheesecake, chocolate bundt cake, apple pie, and the list goes on and on.  So I made the executive decision to eat a small, Paleoish dinner and stuff my face with cake.  I guess I should mention that I love cake.  As in when I was pregnant, I talked about cake so much that Norm went to the store and bought cake mix.  More than once.  Or one time, coming home pretty drunk, I ate half a sheet cake.  I stood in my kitchen with a fork and a mission.  I stood there eating for so long that Norm actually got out of bed and came looking for me.  (I just brought this up to Norm and he said, "yeah, I remember when that red velvet cake came back up and you plastered the toilet with it." And I said, "No, it wasn't red velvet, it was the sheet cake Shawnacy brought over and that was yellow cake."  And Norm said, "Well you also did it with red velvet cake, I distinctly remember the red throw up."  So this means I have done it more than once.  I blame this stand and eat with a fork routine on my friends from college.  I don't remember how it started, but on any of our birthdays we would buy/make a cake for the birthday girl and instead of passing out plates, we just passed out forks and dug in.  The remains of the cake usually looks like someone stuck m80's in it.  As grown women who have plates--we didn't in college, all things are born from necessity--we STILL eat birthday cake this way.  I can tell you it has shocked and probably disgusted a few people.  Whatever.  It is still my preferred way to eat cake)  Anyways, I piled my plate with a cupcake and two slices of cake.  By the time I got to the last slice of cake, I felt sick.  Real sick.  Apparently going almost sugar and flour free for a few weeks and then pounding cake is a bad idea.  Almost ruined my night.  Almost.

Measurements	3/4/2012	3/10/2012	3/18/2012	4/1/2012
Neck	38 cm	36.5 cm	37.5 cm	36 cm
Right Bicep	32.5 cm	35 cm	35 cm	35.5 cm
Left Bicep	31.5 cm	33 cm	33 cm	33 cm
Belly	107 cm	101 cm	98 cm	96.5 cm
Hips	111 cm	108 cm	105.5 cm	105 cm
Right Thigh	66 cm	65 cm	65 cm	64 cm
Left Thigh	66.5 cm	64 cm	64 cm	63 cm