Today's Shorts: Coming Out, Losing Weight & Loaded Fries
Today is the premiere of 'Today's Shorts' on Powers for the People. The 'Shorts' will be a regular column of news and opinion items to complement my longer articles.
Coming Out: Love Wins
Every church service should end with a dance party singalong.
The theme of Sunday’s service at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Tucson was "Coming Out: Love Wins." It brought back soooo many memories of the 1970s in Columbus, Ohio. I laughed. I cried. I danced (just outside the frame by the green table.)
The main sermon was a touching story about Stephen coming out to his Mom on a Black Friday shopping trip on a Thanksgiving weekend in Columbus decades ago. I was a professional photographer working for a design agency and living a somewhat Bohemian lifestyle back then. I had many LGBTQ friends, including four other photographers. We talked about cameras, film and photo gigs during the day and danced in gay bars — like The Kismet and Rudely Elegant — in gritty pre-gentrification, downtown Columbus at night. They were my friends and my colleagues. Many of them were in the closet by day and had not revealed their true identities to their parents or employers.
When the club music started on Sunday, I hopped out of my chair and danced to their memories. The dancing was uplifting. Dan, Raven, LP, Dawn and Jan, wherever you are, I hope you’re living your best lives. Vince, we lost you too young.
Here’s a link to the live stream. The service starts at 7:43. The dance party is at the end.
Weight Loss without the Work?
I don’t consider myself to be a particularly lucky person, but in 2001, I won a raffle that changed my life. Because I was one of the few people who read to the end of a very lengthy departmental email, my name was put into a hat for a chance to win a scholarship to Canyon Ranch (CR), the elite health spa in the Catalina Foothills.
A few days after my 50th birthday, weighing more than I had ever weighed in my entire life, I spent seven days at CR’s Life Enhancement Center (LEC). The LEC was separate from the Spa — where you could find celebrities like Jane Fonda and Diana Ross — and focused on education and behavior change, my areas of expertise at the UA. CR founders Mel and Enid Zuckerman offered the scholarships to build relationships with University of Arizona College of Public Health faculty and to promote their strategies for healthy living.
Diabetes and obesity are very common in my family, and the CR scholarship was a blessing because it helped me get beyond my genetic predisposition and my upbringing, which normalized diabetes because everyone seemed to have it when I was growing up. I had never been overweight in my life, but in the decade between ages 40-50, I ballooned to 194 lbs.1 I offer this as a story of encouragement if you are like me at 50, wondering where my 35-year-old body went and facing health future problems without behavior change and weight loss.
My life was out of balance, and it showed in my body.
One morning, you look down and can’t see your shoes.
How did this happen? My lifestyle hasn’t changed, and I’m “working out” (strolling around the block with the dogs.)
The medical tests at Canyon Ranch revealed that I had metabolic syndrome (pre-diabetes), my blood pressure and cholesterol were elevated and my triglycerides were through the roof. I was at the precipice of my destiny as a Springer. I knew what it was like to live with diabetes … insulin shots, special diets, test strips, blindness, the exercise bike in the basement. I watched both my Grandfather and Father waste away and die from complications of diabetes. My choice was to change or be doomed.
Canyon Ranch taught me that even the smallest change in one’s lifestyle — like the addition of one 200-calorie drink per day — can add 10 pounds in one year. I also learned about the glycemic index and learned that your metabolism slows down three percent per year as you age. If you don’t increase your exercise as you age, you will gain weight. (Why didn’t my general practitioner tell me any of this, when he weighed me every year?)
With graduate school and a major career change, I unwittingly reduced my activity at an age when I should have increased it.
I began the 1990s as a freelance writer and photographer and soccer Mom with two kids, a husband and a big house with a garden and a pool. When I started working fulltime at the university, I worked 40 hours per week (and no more) and was a bus/bike commuter, riding 14-miles round trip a few days a week. On the bus days, I got in 30 minutes of walking. I had an active lifestyle, and my commute was my workout.
It’s not a diet. It’s a lifestyle.
— Canyon Ranch
I stopped the bus/bike commute, my plants died, and my active lifestyle became a sedentary lifestyle, when I went to grad school to get my MPH. Many days, I sat at a desk all day, ate cafeteria food and sat in class all evening. The long hours and sedentary lifestyle continued, as I “rose up the corporate ladder” at the university and became Program Director of the Arizona Smokers Helpline and related services. With that promotion came a $1.5 million contract to manage, 40 employees, a teaching position and consulting work with lots of business travel, expense account meals and TUMS. In 1998, I gave a presentation on the Helpline in London. I was gaining prestige and notoriety at the expense of my health.
My life was a perfect storm of risk factors for weight gain: age, genetic disposition, stressful job, stressful marriage, menopause, long hours, insomnia, too much sitting, too little real exercise and too much heavy food.
Weight gain after age 40 is a common story. Diet and exercise have been the recommendation for weight management, but those recommendations can be hard to follow when you have an irregular work schedule and family ties to maintain. The CDC recommendation for maintaining a healthy weight is 30 minutes per day of moderate exercise on most days, usually interpreted to mean walking 30 minutes five days a week. The CDC recommendation for weight loss is 1.5 hours of exercise per day including cardio exercise that elevates the heart rate and makes you sweat.
After Canyon Ranch, my goal was to avoid becoming diabetic like so many of my relatives. I cut out all white carbs, increased my intake of fruits and vegetables, reduced cheese, butter and restaurant meals and did 45 minutes of interval training before work and 45 minutes of cardio or weightlifting afterwards. For variety, I added cycling, yoga, walking and dancing. I lost ~30 pounds pretty quickly and lost more with a variety of strategies over the years, including regular lap swimming and hiring a personal trainer. I know that I must stay vigilant and active because of my family history. Thanks to a 15-pound weight loss during the pandemic and a brisk walk everyday, I have weighed 50 pounds less than I did in 2001 for the past year. Please don’t take this as a brag.
It can be done, but it’s a lot of work. It’s not a diet — something you stop and start — it’s a lifestyle. If you all want to learn more about the strategies I tried and how or if they worked, leave a comment.
Big Pharma to the rescue. Who wants to limit their diet and spend hours on the elliptical trainer or lifting weights, when they can get an injection?
In recent years, bariatric surgery has been approved for weight loss for people who are obese to the point of it being a serious health risk, but that’s not for everyone who wants to lose weight to improve their health and reduce risk factors.
Now big pharma has come to our rescue with new drugs that promise to control diabetes and obesity.
According to the New York Times article Ozempic Can’t Fix What Our Culture Has Broken, Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro are glucagon-like peptide-1 (GPL-1) receptor agonists, “lifesaving drugs, created to help hundreds of millions of people with Type 2 diabetes and clinical obesity.”
Unfortunately, although these are very promising drugs, the weekly injections are super expensive. Celebrities and influencers are making the drugs popular on TicTok and other social media platforms.
The New York Times reported that usage of this new class of medications can be tracked to New York City’s “wealthier, whiter and healthier neighborhoods.” This is an all-too-common story in our country: potentially lifesaving drugs are too expensive, and the distribution is based upon profit, not public health.
“The anti-obesity gold rush has just begun,” writes Times author Tressie McMillan Cotton. “These drugs are blockbusters because they promise to solve a medical problem that is also a cultural problem,” she writes, referring to fat shaming and the culturally pervasive concept that “obesity signals moral laxity.”2
Although diabetes and obesity are common among all populations, people, who are living in poverty, often live in food deserts where high-calorie fast food is more common that lower calorie foods like fresh fruits and vegetables.
Cotton is concerned that “an entire class of people — roughly three in four adult Americans who are overweight — is a target for profit-seeking.”
Oh, great, let’s make people feel even worse about themselves for not fitting into society’s norms of beauty and for not having tons of money for ongoing injections to “fix” the way they look. Oy.
Look at your lifestyle, before turning to pharmaceuticals or surgery. Even those weight loss choices will require behavior changes.
Before you reach for the pharmaceuticals or the surgery, take an honest look at your lifestyle. Many of us are still dealing with COVID-related issues, whether they be physical, mental or relational. Are you working an irregular schedule or juggling multiple priorities? Work life is highly stressful these days with many people juggling multiple jobs, daycare, senior care and education.
Is your life out of balance? Are there steps you take to bring your life into balance?
Start small. For example, take a walk and eliminate one 200-calorie beverage per day.
Looking back, it’s obvious my life was out of balance, but when I was in the middle of the hurricane, it couldn’t see the path.
One day, one of my employees came into my office and found me taking aspirin. Bec asked me what was wrong. I had started having chest pains and recently had a treadmill test. After listening, she said, “What you gotta do is get rid of everything in your life that’s not working for you.” In the moment, this seemed incredibly profound.
Since I was already divorced, I said, “That would be my house, my car and this job.” (Mind you, I was the boss, and I wanted to quit.)
She said, “You have your list.”
It all came to pass within a year of that conversation.
What’s not working in your life?
Loaded fries on the west side
Two things I really like about living in Tucson are interesting foods and the multitude of opportunities to hear, dance to and play along with great live music. This past weekend, I had four musical opportunities, including band practice with Ukelitas on Saturday, the church coming out dance party on Sunday and playing accordion with the Tucson Ukulele Uprising also on Sunday.
On Friday night, a friend and I went over to the west side for the monthly open mic night at newly renovated Club House at the El Rio Golf Course. The music was great, the location is beautiful and the staff was friendly. Former City Council Aide and former Candidate Miguel Ortega was the MC for the evening which included combos and soloists who each played two or three songs. It was a friendly community scene, and I got to see several friends I had not seen in person since COVID.
I must admit, though, one of the high points of the evening for this Ohioan was the loaded fries3. I arrived at the bar to order a glass of wine, an appetizer and water just as my friend Shannon was being served this amazing mound of French fries with green chilis, onions, just the right amount of cheese, and a scoop each of pico de gallo and very tasty guacamole. There were no vegetarian dishes on the menu, and the chef offered to make her loaded fries. I had the same, and they were incredible4.
Is Tucson’s west side know for amazing loaded fries, and I’m just now catching on?
Last October, I attended a birthday dinner at Mariscos Chihuahua on Grande. I ordered the Filete Sarandeado. The fish and the sauce were served on top of the French fries, and it was amazing. The online menu currently says “with,” but last year the in-restaurant menu said “on fries.” I didn’t want to be a gringa, but I asked, “On fries?” The waiter said, “Yes, on. Trust us. It’s great.” He was absolutely right. I practically licked the plate.
Is Tucson’s west side known for amazing loaded fries, and I’m just now catching onto this? Seriously, within the City of Gastronomy designation, there should be a French fry category.
The fries at both locations were gourmet French fries, in my opinion. People in Midtown think they’re going rogue with ranch dressing on the side at Eegee's, my go-to place for a sub and French fries. The Green Fries at Frog’n’Firkin’ used to be awesome, but they were less generous with the pesto last time I had them. The Family Sun Safety team often discussed university politics, Meyers Briggs Scores and astrological signs over baskets of green fries and adult beverages during happy hour.
[Now it looks like I’m obsessed with loaded fries after writing about weight management and dissing white carbs. Yes, I allow myself to go back to my culinary roots every once in a while but not too often!5 ]
My question above is serious: Is the west side of Tucson known for creative use of French fries in Mexican dishes? If not, you should be!
Sonoran hotdogs get a lot of press, but not everyone eats hotdogs. Loaded fries open up a broader market, and we’re ready!
In the spirit of the coming out article, I have never revealed this to anyone outside of a few friends and Canyon Ranch.
I gained weight because I was working long hours, which threw off my work/life balance.
Yes, thanks for paying attention, the article above this one is about maintaining balance and being mindful of one’s behaviors. Loaded fries would be a dangerous but delicious dish to eat too often.
I didn’t want to look like a tourist, so I resisted taking a photo.
I’m just a connoisseur of Ohio comfort food. Don’t get me started on mac and cheese, chocolate chip cookies or jello salad.