My Reason For Being Here - Intro

"What is my purpose in this life?" is a question that seems to pop up every few months during deep conversations with a close friend of mine. I believe this question truly haunts this person. The more I thought about it the more interested I became in the subject, so I decided to implore the help of my 'Detach' readers and create our first "interactive" mini series.

Welcome to "My Reason For Being Here".

I interviewed ten interesting and insightful women that I know, love, and trust, posing the question "Why do you believe you have been put on this earth"? Some of these women are married, some are not. Some have children, some do not. Some are young, some are older. Some have jobs, some work at home. Some attend church, some do not. Answers are starting to trickle in and I am amazed at some of the comments. Some people seemed to find this a very easy question to answer. Some found it difficult. Some answers were relatively short, some were quite lengthy.

I'm convinced there's no right or wrong answer to this question, just everyone's own very unique and very personal thoughts.

This promises to be an enlightening series, so stay tuned!

Runnin' On Acetate

I seem to have some kind of crazy, jacked up metabolism when it comes to consuming alcohol. It seems every time I have a few drinks my weight the next morning jumps up four, even five pounds. People tell me it's just water weight but it typically takes me five days to get back where I was before I drank. This creates a frustrating cycle of losing all week only to gain it back in one day.

I didn't think it seemed possible that 4 drinks could cause this phenomenon, so I did some research on the subject. Here's what I found:

Rather than getting stored as fat, the main fate of alcohol is conversion into a substance called acetate. In fact, blood levels of acetate after drinking two shots of vodka were 2.5 times higher than normal. And it appears this sharp rise in acetate puts the brakes on fat loss.

A car engine typically uses only one source of fuel. Your body, on the other hand, draws from a number of different energy sources, such as carbohydrate, fat, and protein. To a certain extent, the source of fuel your body uses is dictated by its availability.

In other words, your body tends to use whatever you feed it. Consequently, when acetate levels rise, your body simply burns more acetate, and less fat. In essence, acetate pushes fat to the back of the queue.

So, to summarize and review, here's what happens to fat metabolism after the odd drink or two.

. A small portion of the alcohol is converted into fat.

. Your liver then converts most of the alcohol into acetate.

. The acetate is then released into your bloodstream, and replaces fat as a source of fuel.

The way your body responds to alcohol is very similar to the way it deals with excess carbohydrate. Although carbohydrate can be converted directly into fat, one of the main effects of overfeeding with carbohydrate is that it simply replaces fat as a source of energy. That's why any type of diet, whether it's high-fat, high-protein, or high-carbohydrate, can lead to a gain in weight.

The combination of alcohol and a high-calorie meal is especially fattening, mainly because alcohol acts as a potent appetizer.

Not only does too much alcohol put the brakes on fat loss, it's also one of the most effective ways to slash your testosterone levels. Just a single bout of heavy drinking raises levels of the muscle-wasting hormone cortisol and increases the breakdown of testosterone for up to 24 hours. The damaging effects of alcohol on testosterone are made even worse when you exercise before drinking.

Although an alcohol-rich meal does increase your metabolic rate, it also suppresses the number of fat calories your body burns for energy — far more so than meals rich in protein, carbohydrate, or fat. While the odd drink now and again isn't going to hurt, the bottom line is that alcohol and a leaner, stronger body just doesn't mix.

I get VERY hungry when I start drinking and often start grabbing snacks. Also, I usually have a large meal immediately after drinking. I believe my body stops burning fat, starts running off acetate, and then takes in a few hundred extra calories that it won't be able to burn. All these factors together are most likely the culprit.

Happy Birthday Mom

Tomorrow would have been my mother's 76th birthday. To honor her I will tell my readers another story about her. This is one that she told everytime she got dressed up and someone told her she looked pretty.

The story goes that back in the day my mother was walking down the sidewalk looking exceptionally hot. One man was so busy gawking at her that he crashed into another car.

I believe it.

Coming Soon

to Detach:

"My Reason For Being Here"
a mini-series that explores 10 women's opinions about the meaning of life, and why they believe they were put on this planet.

Stay Tuned!

Intervention Part Two

The second episode of "Intervention" was about some musician. I happened to wander into the room during a scene where his girlfriend was trying to sleep but the guy woke her up. She calmly tried to tell him she was sleeping and to please leave her alone. He wouldn't give up. He persisted until she was up out of bed, then he started picking a fight with her. She tried really hard to stay calm and avoid the fight, but he became relentless. He picked and picked until she could take no more. As I watched this scene, something came over me. It brought back memories of this very scene being played out many times before in my home. I watched the woman try to hold it together and I could sense her tension as things started to unravel. Instantly I felt electricity start to run through my body. Finally I just exploded. I jumped up off the couch and shouted "She just wants to go to sleep asshole. Now leave her alone before she blows your brains out!!!".

I don't know where this came from, but I didn't like it. It was a reminder for me how horrible living with a drunk really is. It also reminded me that I will never go back to that way of living again. Yeah....we both needed those two episodes.

Oh, and I'm happy to report that the musician completed rehab and as of the air date, had remained sober.

Mary's MILFs

Simon Cowell is not irresistably good looking, but he's such a cheeky little monkey. Maybe that's the reason I find him sexy. Even though I usually agree with his critiques of the contestants on American Idol, he's just so mean, often reducing the poor people to tears.

Simon is arrogant and cocky and he doesn't care what he says, but it works for him. He's got a naughty little way about him that makes a girl wonder what he might be thinking. I'll miss the sexy rapport he shared with Paula Abdul. For these reasons, Simon Cowell is the latest Mary's MILF.

Life Gives Us What We Need

Once in awhile my husband and I will watch an episode of "Intervention". Now in case you've never watched the show, it's a sort of reality series on A&E about people with drug and alcohol addictions. These addicts have usually hit rock bottom and are on a collision course with disaster. The addict is told they are being featured in a documentary about addiction (true) only at the end they are met with a room full of friends and family members and they face an intervention. They are offered free in-patient treatment and sometimes codependent, enabling family members are also offered treatment. It doesn't always have a happy ending. Sometimes they agree to treatment and succeed, but more often than not, they go to treatment and later relapse. I think it's very interesting that the codependent family members will usually turn down the offer for free treatment. That goes way back to Codependent 101 which says "I don't need help. It's THEM who has the problem, not ME!".

So the other night we ended up watching two episodes, back to back. We didn't set out to watch the show, we were just flipping channels and landed there. As it turned out, we both needed it.

This may sound strange to some people, but sometimes watching that show can be quite emotional and a little exhausting for the both of us. When I hear the way the addict manipulates and controls their family members, I get mad. When I see the hopelessness in the faces of the people who want so much to help, I get sad. When I see the ones who relapse and fail, I get a reality check. Tonight I want to focus on the first episode we watched.

There was a very sweet man about our age, who ultimately lost his wife and two children. Alcohol had consumed him. This was probably the most gut wrenching episode I've ever seen because the family was so "normal". They weren't white trash, they weren't dirty, they were a family just like mine. The worst part was when his 10 year old son cried and cried because he missed his dad. After a greuling intervention (the worst I've seen) the man agreed to go to rehab, where he stayed for 80 days. That was when he found out he had espophogeal cancer and they sent him home. He lived three weeks. Alcohol won that battle, it would appear.

Believe me when I say my husband and I were both sobbing when we saw the young son say that even though the intervention was a horrible experience, it was worth it because his dad did not die a drunk. He was sober when he died.

Alcoholism is a terrible disease. It ruins lives and it kills people. Sometimes people in recovery need to be reminded of that. At that particular time, my husband needed to see that episode. The next one would be for me.