Huntington West Virginia is the fattest city in America.
The above picture is not Huntington. It's just an obligatory high contry photo form stock footage.
My wife went to school in Huntington so I spent a lot of time there. The people are nice, but morbidly obese. The exception is Ritter Park, in the more affluent part of town.
Obesity is defined as 30lbs overweight. In a culture where over 50% of the residents are obese, a person who is at an ideal weight, especially if they have moved down the scale to get there, will be told they are too skinny and asked if they are sick.
Cyclists have been called the sickest healthy people in the world. This is because of the extreme stress and attendant stress hormone release that can suppress immune function. They are “on the edge,” if you will.
Abdominal exercises and related infomercial gimmicks will not “subtract inches from your waistline". You may get a six pack but it will be hiding under that same old Milwaukee goiter.
Abdominal exercises will strengthen your core. This will help reduce back pain and injury. Do them for your health, not your looks.
A lot of people try and make a lot of money repackaging the same core strengthening exercises with pretty names, programs and equipment.
Weight loss is easy- calories in versus calories out. Will power is tough.
Sisyphus syndrome: a loathing of tasks that, once competed, only recur again and again. For example: washing the dishes. I coined this name some time ago to describe my constant need to force myself to do mundane tasks.
Weight loss/ fitness can sometimes seem like a Sisyphean task.
Fear can help. I don’t recommend it but—allowing yourself to get morbidly obese and having to walk a 21 speed bike up hills can make you spit out a donut or two for years to come.
My wife went to school in Huntington so I spent a lot of time there. The people are nice, but morbidly obese. The exception is Ritter Park, in the more affluent part of town.
Obesity is defined as 30lbs overweight. In a culture where over 50% of the residents are obese, a person who is at an ideal weight, especially if they have moved down the scale to get there, will be told they are too skinny and asked if they are sick.
Cyclists have been called the sickest healthy people in the world. This is because of the extreme stress and attendant stress hormone release that can suppress immune function. They are “on the edge,” if you will.
Abdominal exercises and related infomercial gimmicks will not “subtract inches from your waistline". You may get a six pack but it will be hiding under that same old Milwaukee goiter.
Abdominal exercises will strengthen your core. This will help reduce back pain and injury. Do them for your health, not your looks.
A lot of people try and make a lot of money repackaging the same core strengthening exercises with pretty names, programs and equipment.
Weight loss is easy- calories in versus calories out. Will power is tough.
Sisyphus syndrome: a loathing of tasks that, once competed, only recur again and again. For example: washing the dishes. I coined this name some time ago to describe my constant need to force myself to do mundane tasks.
Weight loss/ fitness can sometimes seem like a Sisyphean task.
Fear can help. I don’t recommend it but—allowing yourself to get morbidly obese and having to walk a 21 speed bike up hills can make you spit out a donut or two for years to come.
This is where I'm going to live when it all comes crashing down. You, my fellow Grimpeurs, are invited to join the community.
Cozy inside, eh?Tuesday Grimpeur passed 5000 visitors. I know other sites may do this in a day but it is more than I thought we’d get. Four or five guys was the expectation.
The site has had visitors from every continent save Antarctica. Still waiting for McMurdo to come around.
All the visit indicators for the site in foreign countries never grow beyond the 1-9 size. I imagine the disgust on some Frenchman or Italian's face when their search engine misdirects them here.
I just hope none of the hits from the Middle East are from Albert Qaeida. (Now watch me get bumped off the net again.)
You can go ahead and comment on the insensitivity of that remark.
I was surprised when several areas outside of Morgantown suddenly blossomed to 100+ status. Thanks to all.
If you are from out of town or out of country and feel misrepresented as one timers. Go ahead and drop a few lines. I’d be glad to hear from you.
Some people are very verbose online—offline, not so much.
It is raining a lot lately.
I like riding in the rain…once I get myself out there. (see Sisyphus syndrome)
Fixed gears are for kids…or for those who wish they were kids. Maybe I should get a fixie?
Bikes are fun.
So are kids.
5 comments:
now that's what i call an awesome post! and i think i see a john deere tractor under that fabulous treehouse. sweet!
i've never met "that" albert but i've met fat albert. i wouldn't mind meeting the other albert and givin' him a good talkin' to!
i'm thinking that you may have the right idea with those underground brick condos. sign me up for one. remember that old song from the early 70s? "it's the end of the world as we know it...." ah well....
you only need to be 30# overweight to be classified as morbidly obese? uh oh! i've lost 30# and have 30 more to go. my problem is food. it gets me every time. what i usually do is go ride at suppertime but my dear wife always saves me something for when i get back:) she doesn't think a couple of granola bars and a couple of bottles of water will sustain me for very long.
single speeds are ok but i'm not sure about fixies. i had one once. my first bike. god, would you believe that was about 50 years ago? it was a red j.c. higgins from sears. my grandfather bought it for me for my birthday. i do stuff like that for my grandkids too. spoil them rotten. i love how it pisses their parents off. :)
funny thing is that when i was a kid anyone over 12 was old. strange how your perception changes as time passes, eh? oh well, it's all good! now you have to be 100 for me to consider you old. and that's just late middle age.
anyway....
i'm sure your next cx race has to be coming up soon. our season is almost over. 2 races this coming weekend in bettendorf then jingle cross in iowa city the following weekend after we over-induldge on thursday. maybe i'll go to the bar instead of to dinner. guinness and jamesons. the wife can pick me up on her way home from dinner.... anyway, jingle cross is the last race of the season for us. too bad, too. well, i 'spose nationals in kc in december would kinda count as part of "our" season because it's only 5 hours to kc. i don't mind finishing dfl around here, in fact i kinda relish the notoriety, but at nationals? nope. not this year.
that's about it for now.
you should post more often. i know it's difficult, sometimes, but i get such a kick out of it. is that selfish?
behave yourself, buddy. :)
Rest assured, you are not morbidly obese. Morbid obesity is 100lbs or more overweight. Sounds like a lot but there are quite a few people out there at 250 plus. Garden variety odesity is just 30 lbs overweight. I would say the majority of people are obese. In fact they are shocked when told their ideal weight. During the rare times that I approach even the high end of my ideal weight, everyone except cyclists tell me I don't need to loose weight. They'd like it if I'd gain a few pounds.
There is a cross race this weekend but I don't know if I can do it. I am not at my own will and pleasure. Surely, not a freewheelin' man about town like yourself. I really want too though.
You would'nt be last at nationals if you didn't stop to rescue damsels and dudes in distress, imbibe and participate in general revelrie.
I am getting asked all the time if I am sick and what have you and I am barely in the healthy range of weight. Imagine if I lost 20 more pounds; I would still be in the healthy range.
Congratulations on all the hits, now everyone can check out http://themisanthropiccyclist.blogspot.com/
See ya there!!
i'm not sure that i'm a freewheelin' man about town but i do tend to get out and about from time to time. lol.... my wife has always been good that way. 36 years of marriage. you just sorta get used to each other....
some people race to win, or to place as well as they can, and i'm good with that. it ain't me, though. not anymore.
i played hockey (goalie) on a travel team up until just a few years ago. i hated to lose. i mean, i HATED to lose. after awhile we started to get a few players on the team who weren't as passionate as some of the rest of us and we just sort of drifted apart. the chemistry was gone. it's no fun being the goalie when the rest of the team isn't taking it seriously enough. i think they thought i was a head case, but i wasn't. just competitive and the worse we played the harder i tried and the more frustrated i got. i played for a team out of mason city for awhile after that but it just got to be too much. i played for a long time and i miss it once in awhile but that's ok. it was time for it to be over.
the cycling is different. i was a road racer back in the mid to late 80s and i hated to lose. i put everything into it to the point that it wasn't fun anymore. i told myself when i started riding again a few years back that i wasn't going to let it take me over again. i'm having fun with cross, and the group rides in the summer, the surly when the weather gets crappy.... all that good stuff. anyway, i was the guy with the cowbells and the beer and brats who heckled the racers at the cx races, until this year. i knew it would be hard and that i wasn't going to let myself take it too seriously. just have fun. it's fun to heckle the fans and to smart mouth the ladies and to take beer handups. sometimes i just stop and chat with some of the cx fans then i get back out and ride. jackal pointed out to me today that i'm 8th out of 11 in the quad cities series. i don't know what i have to do to get back into last place over there. we'll find out this weekend. it ain't easy being lanterne rouge! lol.
anyway, enough aimless drivel. i hope you get to race this weekend. if not, there will be another weekend. go out and kick some ass, but remember to have fun!
Pheel,
It is indeed astounding, when you look at your ideal weight range compared to where you are and what people will accept. I think 155 for me would still be in range, could you imagine? I'd be checked into the hospital. Bigger is better!
Blue,
I went to college in Davenport. Ever been to Rock Island Brewing Co., is it still there?
I also played goalie. Like you, had to get out of there.
Why is everybody talkin about singlespeeds. That is even the discussion over at Jill's. I will never forget the pain and weaving across the road to get up the hill from my friends house when I was younger. I want no part of a singlespeed, at least not around here.
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