BONUS POST: Awesome TJ tribute

I just had to.

This is one woman wrote, well, its not really an essay, but its not a pictorial, either.

What it is is a clever, unique, creative and prettty powerful and interesting look at one of my fav of fav historical figures (that would TJ, Thomas Jefferson).

Please take a minute or five and just read through it. I don't know the author, but it really is great.

http://kalman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/25/time-wastes-too-fast/

Just something fun

Yesterday was very busy at work with breaking news. I was exhausted afterwards. Tried but failed to write. I was just too tired. So today I'm taking it easy and posting a little comic...

Hey, look, just another reason BMI sucks

This webmd story says...

Rather, the studies generally suggest that people with a BMI of 25 to 29.9
-- which is considered overweight but not obese -- have a survival advantage
over people with higher or lower BMIs.

BMI, which is a measure of body fat based on a person's height and weight, is used to classify people into weight categories -- underweight, normal weight, overweight, and obese.

That's pretty much OK for yours truly, with a BMI of 28.6. But if the BMIs between 25 to 29.9 live the longest, is <25 really "normal?"

More...

Compared to people who fell into the normal-weight category:

Those classified as underweight were 73% more likely to die.

Those classified as extremely obese with BMI of 35 or greater were 36% more likely to die.

Those classified as obese with BMI 30-34.9 had about the same risk of death.

Those classified as overweight with BMI 25-29.9 were 17% less likely to die.

The study appears online this week in the journal Obesity.

Good news from SCOTUS

The court said a school's strip searching of 13-year-old Savanah Redding violated the Fourth Amendment. Maybe there is hope yet. More at my other blog, as well as here & here.

So much going on

Renee is back in the state & in house! Yeah.

I tried writing last night, but got nothing done. Well, I added like 8 words to a past piece. I had an ending all planned, but now I'm thinking that a similar ending earlier in the story might be more relevant. I'm going to end it that way, and maybe write an addendum that I can always add later. Now, its occuring to me that the original ending is redundant to the new ending.

Our new furniture (coach, chair) came today! Yeah.

I'm in the middle of my work outs. Week 4 of 8, I believe. Or 3. Not sure. It doesn't really matter much. This time around the workouts don't change weekly.

Finished my video game, clearing the way for more writing time.

Plan on reading more.

Work today has been crazy busy.

Whew.

Green with envy

More BMI fun from the pages of comics...

The Hulk's BMI (7 foot, 1040 pounds): 103.6. 103.6!

Bruce Banner's BMI (5.9, 128): 18.9. Nearly underweight, which is 18.5. Guess all that metamorphosis is taxing on the body. Plus, its hard to eat at restaurants when a simple slip up by the waitress or some slight bit of undercooked potato could have such disasterious results.

A thought on books

I recently did some research on agents and what not for my soon to be finished book, so I'm in a book mind anyway. But then I read a post about audio books.

How did audio "books" get the distinction of being a book? OK, ok, they are the exact words written in the book. Fair enough.

But isn't it sorta like calling movies "visual books?"

I mean, neither are really books at all. Not in any way, shape, or form. Sure, audio "books" follow the exact narrative of the book, word for word. But in a lot of ways, so do movies. Should these visual "books" be condemned just becuase their medium allows for different presentation? And if so, how come audio "books" aren't held to the same standard?

Just some light thoughts for a Friday.

34.5!

That's Wolverine's BMI, based on info from superherouniverse.com, in case you were wondering, as a commentor did in response to my BMI concern.

5'3", 195 pounds. So I weigh 30ish pounds more and I'm one foot taller.

Then again, Wolverine has had admantium spliced into his bones by the military and is a freak of nature. Oh, and he obviously either works out something fierce or has a natural muscle-building protein mutation.

Now, Hugh Jackman, who plays Wolverine in the movies, is 6'1", based on a rough average of a bunch of internet sources, and 210 pounds, based on one somewhat sketchy source. So, 27.7 BMI. So my BMI (28.6) is lower than the real Wolverine, but higher than the guy they got to represent him. A guy who is, by all accounts, pretty friggin ripped.

Meanwhile, I'm broad.

28.6

That's my BMI. 28.6. And I was generous, giving my honestly 6-foot 2-inch/2.5 inch height an additional inch or half inch of height. I used this morning's 229 weight. Even assuming that was high, 225 pounds at 6'3 gets me 28.1.

I'm not the first to rail against BMI, nor is this even my first time. But let's put that in perspective...

BMI Categories:
Underweight = less than 18.5
Normal weight = 18.5-24.9
Overweight = 25-29.9
Obesity = BMI of 30 or greater

To get to 24.9 I have to get down to 199 pounds. Now, I'm not particularly athletic. I keep in shape and workout. Yes, I lift some weights and do pushups, and I follow a program designed to get me lean. What I don't do is extreme weight lifting. I do push ups and just recently started using weights in one or two of my exercised. And I don't participate in any type of sport. So I'm not sure I fall into this site's "overestimate body fat in athletes and others who have a muscular build." I wouldn't ordinarily describe myself as muscular. Frankly, if I'm muscular, I'd hate to think what the alternative is. Though, based on convos with siblings, I guess maybe I have a distorted view. Now, luckily, the site also includes a helpful "waist measurement" component. So let's look there, shall we? Athletes and "the muscular" should have thin waists and thus offset this whole problem, right?

Hmmm.... a waist greater than 40 inches with the same BMI is at a "high" risk.

Good thing: I've been keeping my waist measurements over the last year.

Bad thing:
- 41.5 in August '08,
- 39.75 in December '08
- 41.25 in April '09
- 40.75 in May '09

So, in the last year, AT BEST, I've been at an "increased" risk for diease, and then only by a quarter inch, easily within the margin of measuring error or happenstance of having been slightly dehyrdated. The rest of the time I've been in the "high" risk category. WTF?

And let's look at weight during that same period....
- 223.5 lbs on August 1, 2008
- 216.5 on Dec. 31 (exact date of the waist measurement)
- ? in April 09
- 226-229 in May/June '09.

So. My weight is up 6 or so pounds from August, 15 from December. My waist is currently right in the middle of the measurements from those two months (though lower than August and higher than December).

So, since August 2008 I've gained 6 pounds, lost .75 inches off my waist, and stayed pretty solidly in the "overweight" BMI category. A mere 10 pounds (240 total lbs) and I'm "obese." That's not an "overestimate," that's ridiculous.

I gorge too much at times. Guilty.
I carry the tiniest bit of weight in my belly. Guilty.

But frankly, to get down to 199, the very max I can weigh, or even to eliminate that belly, I'd have to have a six pack or be anorexically thin. To get to a perfectly respectible 20.6 BMI I'd have to weigh 165 pounds.

It's just not feasible. So I guess I'm athletic or muscular. I guess I have to be. Not sure what that means for real weight lifters or guys who are actually athletes. But it seems to me that if an average, in shape guy can throw the system that badly, its probably not much of a system.

BMI Prime, which tries to calculate for the overally tall, since they skew the scale (since when has 6'2 been abnormally tall? Tall, yes. But, abnormally?) puts my upper acceptable weight at .... 199.25. The same as BMI.