I’m In the Mood For Love
October 27, 2008
I don’t really publicize this site anywhere. I’m not too concerned about how many people read these words. At this point I’m writing primarily for my own benefit and trusting that if anyone is going to find something worthwhile in these postings that they will find this site somehow. It’s been linked to a few times and I appreciate all the traffic that has generated, but I wouldn’t mind writing even when it’s just for my own benefit.
So, a lot of the traffic that comes to this site comes via random searches, and one of the greatest pleasures of having a blog is seeing the search terms that brought someone to your site. I presume most people know this, but I’m sure there are a few who don’t, so here’s what I’m talking about. If you’re searching for a site on, say, preserving peaches and you type peach preserving into Google, you’ll get a bunch of sites. Once you click on one of those sites, that site will now know what search terms you used to get to that site. And with most blogging software you can see a list of those terms that people used to find your site. And I was very pleased to find that someone recently found this site by typing lose weight by masturbating into Google.
Now, that’s not a topic I’ve ever broached, per se, but I’ve definitely used those words individually a few times. Anyway, it made me curious. I began to wonder just how many calories one does burn by masturbating. Sadly, this information is tantalizingly elusive. There are many references to it online but there didn’t seem to be much science behind them and there is a large range from 50 calories to 300 calories (for a “vigorous” session). It’s difficult to quantify because, of course, different people of different sizes will burn different amounts of calories doing any activity. And some people will F themselves in a couple minutes while others like to wine and dine themselves over the course of an evening.
There is a very handy site out there for figuring out how many calories you burn for any given activity. It’s called, understandably enough, Calories Per Hour, and it can estimate the number of calories you would burn for hundreds of activities. Unfortunately it doesn’t have masturbating on it. However, I thought maybe we could use some similar activities that it does have as estimates for masturbation. Now, everyone has a different style and is built differently but the activities I chose to substitute for masturbation are:
For Men: Playing the trombone
For Women: Waxing a car or boat
Using those activities as estimates, I’ve determined that a 250 pound man, or 180 pound woman will burn approximately 7 calories per minute they masturbate. Obviously, that’s not to say that the average man and woman will burn the same amount of calories over the course of a year from this activity. There is a lot more trombone playing going on than boat waxing, I would venture to guess. When I was 16, there were times when I would play the trombone 6 times in a day. I was a regular Tommy Dorsey. That’s all any guy does at that age. I’m sure if you go to a male juvenile detention center at night it sounds like a Sousa march.
Here’s a simple chart to allow you to know how long you have to masturbate to burn off the snack you’re considering eating:
Snack — (Minutes)
Apple — (10 minutes)
Doughnut — (33 minutes)
McDonald’s cheeseburger — (47 minutes)
Outback Steakhouse Cheesefries with Ranch Dressing — (4 hours, 54 minutes)
However, remember to consult your doctor (or maybe a sexy nurse) before starting this or any exercise plan.
Dead Wrong – Food as Fuel
October 20, 2008
There are a lot of people who want you to think of food as fuel.
I find this a bad idea for two reasons.
First, just as a metaphor it’s dumb. People will tell you to think of food as fuel and then tell you to eat a lot of fruits and vegetables. I would love people who say that to tell me how they think a combustible engine works. If I thought of food as fuel I would never eat another salad in my life. When we’re talking about fuel we’re talking about energy and salad has very little energy (in the form of calories) in it. In fact, we want our “fuel” to have a lot of calories in it. Do you know how many calories are in a gallon of chocolate milk? About 2560. Do you know how many calories are in a gallon of gasoline? About 31,000. That’s why we don’t run our cars on Nesquick. If you were on a desert island, you would live a lot longer if you had a can of Crisco to eat as opposed to a bag of mixed greens.
Second, even if we take thinking of food as fuel to mean eating foods that are loaded with nutrients (and not energy), I still think it’s dumb. Oh sure, it’s pragmatic, but removing any emotional element to eating and breaking it down to its biological function isn’t the smartest or most pleasurable way to control something. If you tell a sex addict, “Think of sex as a means of inseminating a woman for the purposes of reproduction,” I don’t know that you’re helping him out in any way.
And I don’t think it helps a dieter to think of food in purely clinical terms. To think of it solely as a clump of calories or as fuel. I understand that we don’t want people eating for the wrong emotional reasons. We don’t want someone eating out of boredom or depression. But I don’t think we should make the act of eating itself less emotional. In fact, I think it’s more powerful to make it more affecting to you. We’re always more responsible in regards to things that we imbue with a lot of weight and meaning. The sex-addict may enjoy sex, but it doesn’t have any meaning to him. If we get him to view sex as an expression of love or at least a deep connection between people, then it will probably slow him down. If you can view eating not as a chance to stuff your face, or an opportunity to “refuel,” but instead as a chance to commune with people you care about and indulge in food you truly enjoy, eaten at a pace that allows you to appreciate every bite, I think you’ll probably find yourself eating better food with more care and attention than you had before.
Maybe this sounds ethereal, but I mean it all in a very practical way. Some subset of people who are overweight have turned to food because of depression. I don’t know how one handles that because that’s not my situation. Obviously the root problem needs to be addressed in some way. And part of that will be making sure the emotions that surround food are actually food-related and not “my father left me when I was 3 and now I feel empty inside” related. But another subset of people who are overweight that I do fall into are people who are sensualists. I have a very strong passion for food, massage, fast cars, music, women, etc., and I find it very easy to over-indulge in these areas when I’m not giving them the proper significance in my life. And you give things the proper weight just by changing how you think of them.
Don’t see food as just fuel. See it as one of life’s great pleasures that you are fortunate enought to take part in three times a day, and appreciate it as something important. In other words, don’t fuck those mashed potatoes, make love to them.
The Dead Weight Book Club
October 15, 2008
I’ve got some books I’d like to recommend for anyone trying to lose weight. These aren’t necessarily weight loss books, but they all deal with topics I think are important for losing weight. The first of these, which I will discuss today is:
The Gospel of Food by Barry Glassner – Barry Glassner is the author of the book The Culture of Fear. That book was about how living in modern society can leave us paranoid and afraid. Which is odd because in modern society there isn’t that much to be paranoid or afraid about. Perhaps it’s ingrained in our DNA to be wary of stuff. But now there are no sabertooth tiger attacks so we create threats to satisfy that primal need of ours to have something to fear. We’ve done the same thing with food too and that’s the subject he covers in The Gospel of Food. It’s my favorite type of book, one that looks at the science behind things everyone has just come to accept are true. It’s not a “science” book though, so it’s not boring or overly academic. If you liked Malcolm Gladwell’s books or Freakonomics, I think you’d like this book.
The reason I recommend this book is because we spend too much time worrying about inconsequential matters in regards to food and that worrying can derail the process of losing weight. The most important thing is becoming comfortable with not consuming as much food as you used to. That is enough of an issue for you to deal with during the year or two you spend getting to your goal weight. What I took away from this book is that you don’t need to spend so much time worrying about your food. Direct that energy elsewhere Great scientific advancements and discoveries are not usually uncovered on a message board somewhere or hidden deep in the pages of Shape magazine. If some drastically important news comes out about the food you eat, you’ll hear about it. In the meantime, refocus your energies on consuming less and enjoying it more.
Placing Blame
October 6, 2008
According to a google search I just did, here are some of the things that are making you fat:
- Crime TV
- Starbucks
- the economy
- corn
- Whole Foods
- skipping breakfast
- caffeine
- bread
- your husband
- your office
- your shampoo
- your city planner
- snack-sized packs
- dieting
- staying up late
- tensing up
- the government
- your car
- the 21st century
- Arizona tea
- the kid’s music
- your pantry chock full of disorganized food
- your air conditiong
- yeast
- cafeteria food
- McDonald’s
- alcohol
- your thyroid
- soda
- your socioeconomic status
- lack of sleep
- too much sleep
- your antidepressant
- your money
- high-fructose corn syrup
- your food allergy
- your mattress
- cake
- rapidly reproducing digestive parasites
Sure is tough when the world is conspiring against you like that.
What’s odd is that I have been trying to incorporate a lot of these things into my weight-loss plan. In fact, I’m on the Yeast, Alcohol, and Digestive Parasite Diet* right now.
