As you read this Stagg and I are probably just getting home from walking downtown. We have to drop off paperwork for our lawyer and Stagg is a good sport on his holiday by joining me in a major walk. He has already lost 7 pounds on my diet. Erg. Google maps says this is a 7 mile walk and we can do it in 2 hours 9 minutes. I love the 9 minutes.
5 comments:
That is awsome he is losing weight. I noticed last night my work pants are a little baggier still.LOL...
But Tweetey...he's not on a diet!!! He is slim!! It's natures cruel joke...I go on a diet and he loses the weight! :)
Oi, if your diet includes a 2 hour 9 minute walk (one way) - I'm feeling weak already, LOL! Aren't men disgusting? They just lose weight. It is nature's cruel joke. Actually it is the testosterone - just wait till that starts dwindling and andropause sets in - then the playing field is evened up hooo hahah ahhh hha hoo.
But perhaps by the time you young pups reach that age, hormone replacement will be mainstream instead of hidden in quiet little offices out of sight and threatened persecutions and you guys will just keep on walking those 2 hour plus walks without blinking an eye!
Gardenia, did you know that every culture and every economic subgroup experiences menopause differently? Menopause is quite different for different income brackets. In fact, anorexia and menopause tended to occur in upper middle class households. I'm not so sure a poverty and hungry family is going to raise a girl with anorexia. Very few women in y family, my great grandmother etc had menopause...they didn't even notice it. Severe symptoms tend to be in upper middle class families, not in other countries or working class. There is no name for "hot flashes" in Japan...interesting huh? BUT...U.S. doesn't tend to study the psychological aspects of menopause, for a couple of reasons (I should do a whole post on this maybe?)
:)
"Women's specific concerns about menopause vary by culture (Datan 1987). Once thought of as a deficiency disease, menopause has been feared as well as welcomed (Lewis and Bernstein 1996). The sociocultural values about aging account for part of the diversity in meaning. In Asian cultures, for instance, age is regarded with respect. Women in menopause, therefore, may be accorded a higher status (Lock 1993). This may change, however, as Western values influence other parts of the world, and women may feel less satisfied as they enter this period of life (Berger 1999). In the United States and European countries, age is often associated with loss of attractiveness and value. In Western culture, the menopausal years are regarded as the enemy of youth, and they result in disqualification of the woman's feminine beauty (Scarf 1980). In other cultures, however, the biological processes are themselves qualifications for entry into the man's world. The end of menses is associated with a new freedom to participate in rituals previously closed to women (duToit 1990). In some Indian cultures, for example, women who have ceased menstruation are given more opportunity to move around the house in an unrestricted manner and to participate in prayers and funeral preparations (du Toit 1990).
In a study of women from different cultures residing in Israel, Nancy Datan (1987) found significant differences among her subjects. Some Moslem Arabs feared a decline in marital relations with the loss of fertility, while some European women were concerned about going crazy during menopause (Datan 1987)."
And...
"Contrary to what many may think, the sophisticated ancient Mayan culture has not completely died out. Several pockets of Mayans in the rural regions of Guatemala and Chichimilá, in the Yucatán penisula of Mexico, have been interviewed regarding women’s health and, in particular, menopause. Scientists have been fascinated by these rural Mayan women and how they experience — or rather do not experience — what we could call traditional menopausal symptoms: hot flashes, mood swings, and insomnia.
While some women in some areas did not report, and couldn’t even remember, significant menopausal symptoms, women in other pockets did. The numbers are very small and, while Mayan life can be considered extremely progressive today, each village greatly differs from another. The statistics show that Mayan women overall go through menopause at around 44 years of age and have the same FSH blood levels as North American women. The reasons for the symptom disparities are unclear, but may reflect differences in body weight, diet or cultural taboos — among Guatemalan Mayans one does not talk freely of menstruation or menopause.
What’s more is that the women in Chichimilá, like the Japanese, seem to avoid osteoporosis. Though their estrogen levels drop at menopause, just like ours, and they experience a reduction in bone mineral density, as we do, there is no clinical evidence of an increase in bone fractures or osteoporosis.
What I find interesting is that Mayan women, regardless of experiencing symptoms or not, report that they look forward to menopause and their newfound freedom and status. For those of us who lie awake in bed at night, burning up one moment then freezing the next, or suffering bouts of depression and sadness, this optimism seems unfathomable.
Naturally, we’re all wondering what the secret is for such good health and positivity. What we do know is that a woman’s menopausal symptoms cannot be viewed in isolation, but are best considered in several contexts, including geographical, genetic, nutritional, historical and cultural. For years, Western medicine has minimized the importance of menopause by treating it strictly in the biological context when there is clearly more at play.
The Mayans have an all-natural, herb-based diet, and a slow, relatively easy pace of life, both elements which contribute heavily to fewer menopausal symptoms, and ideas we have emphasized at Women to Women for years. Mayan women also acquire new status when they enter menopause: they can become spiritual leaders of their communities."
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