Sunday 2 April 2000

Pic of the day: These small spring lilies probably belonged to a garden at some time, or at least their parents did. Now they stand by the roadside, sticking their heads up over the dry grass of last year's life, chancing that perhaps spring has again come to our chilly coasts. Maybe they are right, maybe they are wrong. But sometimes we have to live like there was a tomorrow, even if we don't know it.

Twice today did I take a walk around the neighborhood. The first time there was a light rain, but the second time I could take the digicam instead of the umbrella. It was still overcast, but I like overcast. I put on my minidiskman and played Happy and Feeling Good (both with "Infinity", the Norwegian happy dance mini band). The titles were pretty descriptive.

Apart from that, I've played The Sims and Railroad Tycoon II Demo. (Not the Gold thingie, but the slightly improved original demo, which I downloaded yesterday. It's still more game than some commercial titles out there. Very impressive from tiny PopTop, which consists largely of Phil Steinmeyer. The guy is good. In fact, I will venture to say that he's a better programmer than I am. :) Of course, I could not even start to program games, as my artistic talent is on the level of a moderately developed three year old. I kid you not: I can draw recognizable sheep, and that's about it. Oh, and skull with crossbones. You may imagine what kind of game that would make. "Vengeance of the pirate sheep!" Ahem.

Generally I spent the day digesting my late breakfast, which consisted of two cups of fruit yoghurt and two slices of bread with light potato salad and some extra spices. The potato salad was said to only contain 10% fat, but I still spent all day without getting hungry again. Well, I ate a few cookies a bit into the day.

Fat is a topic that is close to my heart. In fact, there is too much of it close to my heart. As you probably know by now, fat is not dangerous as long as it stays on the lower body, the way it does on some women. Nature seems to have ordered that women of fertile age tend to store fat first on hips and thighs. Not only is it more decorative, it is entirely harmless and is released into the bloodstream only when needed to feed infants. Well, it can be used by her own body too, but only as a last resorts. Muscles go first.

Not so with us who drew the short chromosome. We happily store fat first around the kidneys and such, then around our stomach, and finally all over. Almost any stress can send cascades of this fat into the bloodstream, where some of it may settle inside the arteries. This is bad.

The obvious solution then is to avoid either fat or stress, or both of the above. But fat is a natural component of food. Our ancestors had to work hard and long, and fat is particularly well suited for extended work because it stores more energy per volume than other organic substances. So a thoughtful Creator (or a thoughtless Evolution, take your pick) made sure that we like fat. To top it all, there are also mechanism that make sure that we don't feel hungry as fast after fat as after carbohydrates. "Fat - really satisfies." Ahem.

Lately there has been a lot of talk about healthy fat. And sure enough, we need some fat. Those of you who were alive during the war may remember how it felt to go without fat for a long time. Not good, I've been told. (And don't get me started on the fish skin shoes. I was born a generation later, and I still remember the fish skin shoes as if I should have worn them myselves. OK, we now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.) Some fats are used in the brain to insulate nerve cells. Give babies formula lacking in these fats, and they may grow up dumber than their natural fed neighbors. You wouldn't want that, now would you? Also some fats, such as marine fats and olive oil, seem to have a positive effect on the heart rather than clogging it up.

But there is a problem with that. If we eat enough of the fats to store a surplus on our own body, it is not stored as olive oil. (What did you expect?) It is stored as animal fat, since we are animals, at least in body and often enough it seems also in mind. Anyway, it makes sense to keep the fat intake on a moderate level, so that it does not build up.

I recently read on Pointcast that a new study showed that most people only gain ca 1 pound (that would be around half a kilogram) during the midwinter holidays, X-mas and its equivalents. The bad news was that for almost all the test persons, that kilogram still was there when the next holiday season started. During the three years the study lasted, they continued to accumulate one more pound each midwinter, and carry it around for the rest of the year.

Down with Xmas!

There is a lot of literature out there on fat. There is also a lot of fraud. People are tricked to believe in miracle cures or extreme actions that only satisfy the mind, not the body. To have a healthy relationship with fat, we need to understand how our bodies work. Given that we only have this one body in life, this is probably worth spending some time on. I'd trust an encyclopaedia over the colored weekly magazines if my life was on stake. Which, incidentally, it is.

But intermittent tests on myself and others have at least verified that you cannot possibly gain fat from bread, unless you have something fat atop it. You can eat bread (or pasta, for that matter) till you feel like puking, you won't get any heavier. I've done that most of the time since I gained my current weight some years ago. (In fact, I've lost a few kilo from my maximum, and a good thing it is too.) But I've grown pretty fed up with jam and marmelade, as you can expect. So now I was trying out the low-fat salads. Well, it did last longer than the jams before I grew hungry again. I guess that counts as a good thing. Yet another good thing, then. The downside is that I really liked it, so I would have liked to grow hungry again to eat more ...

OK, I'm off to eat bread with potato salad and curry spices. The best laid plans of mice and men say that you see me tomorrow.