Abseiling, Rock Climbing, Seal Spotting on Long Beach

I hate heights.  At least that's what I used to think.

Yesterday, the Otago University Tramping Club headed out to put some ropes theory into practice.  I wanted to go because I've heard mountaineering stories where they talked about needing ropes.  I figured learning about ropes would be a good idea if I want to keep going into the mountains - you just never know when a little knowledge will come in handy.

The Tramping Club ventured to Long Beach, a scenic area known for it's rock climbing.   There, we were greeted by this really cute seal:

We split up into groups and veteran club members showed us the proper way to set up our harness, tie ropes, belay, and all that jazz.  I've done indoor rock climbing before, but this was way cooler than that because it wasn't a manmade wall.

It's kind of hard to see the group on the right hand side in the picture above. Here's a close up...

My view after a little rock climbing...

I also tried abseiling for the first time.  I was nervous about it, but I had the kind of week where I needed to do something that challenged me a little to serve as a reminder that I'm tough, independent and can do whatever I want as long as I'm willing to try.

My view before abseiling back down to the beach (there were a handful of really neat caves in the cliffs, you can see them from this picture)...

Here's Tiff giving Leo and I some directions before we head down...

This is my favorite picture of the day...

The people on the left are from the Tramping Club and their ages are probably somewhere between late teens to mid 20s; the people on the right are a couple who appeared to be in their early 60s.  The woman went up first and I was just amazed by her physical strength.  I love that she's such an awesome role model (age is just a number!).

The next course that I'll take will properly teach me about tramping (like how to use a topo map) and then I'll be ready and itching to lead my own tramping trip. YAHOO!!!!!

Turret Ridge: The Video

I can't believe I forgot to post this video from my most recent tramping trip!

Enjoy. =)

Tramping: Turret Ridge

The life of a postgrad student can be hectic at times.  Over the past few weeks I've been juggling my work at MInT, finishing a manuscript, editing the methods section of my thesis, working on the intervention, whooping a nasty bout of strep throat and mentally keeping it all together after receiving my divorce paperwork.  There are days where I just want nothing more than to sit down with a family member or friend who is a 30-hour flight away, but instead I have to be happy with Facebook chats and Skype dates.

A few weeks ago, a buddy asked me to co-lead a trip during the Tramping Club's annual weekend in Paradise.  I figured some time away from work would be good for renewing my enthusiasm for finishing all the things that need to be done and I wanted to get more comfortable leading a group on a hike so that I could lead a group solo in the future.

Nearly 100 students from the University of Otago Tramping Club gathered for a weekend of hiking, drinking and worm wrestling.

Here's some of the scenery from the campground:

Saturday was our big hike to Turret Ridge.  We did some walking through a forest to the bushline and then up some scree to the top.

The views from start to finish were amazing!  Here's our team taking a quick break...

Photo credit: Jaz Morris

The Sylvan Lake campground is down there somewhere...

My team of seven hiked to/from Turret Ridge in a bit over 6 hours.  I was nervous about running out of water because my water bottle had been lost in the shuffle of packing/unpacking the van.  Luckily, the team was great at sharing the water they had.

That's the Dart River in the photo above.  The photo below is one of my favorite pics taken of me!

Photo credit: Jaz Morris

I was like a kid in a candy store running around to see everything up at the top!  

I particularly loved the view of this glacier (can you see the little waterfall?)...

Another view of Lake Wakatipu - so amazing!

Here's our team!...

Photo credit: Jaz Morris

Turret Ridge was rated a moderate hike and I feel very confident that I could lead a small group on a similar trip.  

View of the Dart River on the way back to Glenorchy...

There's another Tramping Club trip in a few weeks.  I really, really need to reach some milestones if I want to go (getting the manuscript and methods chapter done, for example).  If that doesn't pan out then I'm hoping I can go to Lake Tekapo with a friend around Easter.

Flatting is Fun!

One year ago, I had my bags packed and I started my journey to New Zealand - what a year it has been!  Thankfully, my life has become way more predictable and I am in my own groove.  In fact, last week was my best week since I arrived (productivity-wise, but by far not the most fun).

 I've been working hard on an abstract for the Association of Contextual Behavioral Science annual world conference in Sydney, Australia.  I've been looking at how middle-age New Zealand women's baseline Acceptance and Action Questionnaire-II score is associated with changes in body mass index over 3 years.  The analysis has been a wee bit shaky because I'm not a whiz with the Stata software nor linear regressions.

Yet.

At the end of the day, I get to retreat to a flat that I share with five other postgraduate students.  It's been a great experience to live with these friends.  I especially enjoy our Sunday dinners.

On Sundays we eat dinner together.  Usually, someone comes up with an idea and then everyone pitches in ingredients to contribute.

We've done lentil curry, pizza, stir fry and, my personal favorite, breakfast!

Sometimes it's just a few flatties working together, sometimes it's the whole gang.  

 We had talked about doing sushi for dinner this week, but Alia had a great idea to make dumplings.  This seemed much simpler!

It's too bad that I didn't take a picture of the whole crew enjoying our hard work.  We had guests over and so it was quite a site seeing our living room area crammed with bodies eating malformed dumplings.

Since it's been a year since I've done a video update, I hope to do that soon.  Otherwise, I'm going to have to dig around for interesting things to write about.  See, I'm taking a class this semester and it's supposed to be an intense course in biostatistics and epidemiology.  I'm a little nervous, but wicked excited about it!  Since the manuscript on incentives with mailed surveys is nearly done, I'll be more thrilled about going into the office to do work.  Hopefully, it'll be a piece of cake keeping my head above water until the course exam on June 11th!

Paintball a.k.a. Running through the woods with no idea of what I'm doing

Weeks and weeks have gone by without too much excitement.  Welp, that all changed today when I played paintball for the first time!

I joined Erin and her friends for a 2-hour game of shoot-anything-that-moves as part of her 30th birthday celebration.  Early on I noticed that I have the aim of a blind person and so it was easier to just take one for the team by running down the middle of the playing field so that the opposing team would shoot at me thereby giving my team a chance to rain paintballs on them in return.

I wasn't entirely running around like a chicken with its head cut off the whole game, though.  I managed to take advantage of a wooden helicopter during one game... it was kind of a rush to sit in there scanning the woods for movement and then firing away when I saw someone moving towards my direction.  Unfortunately, the trees took the brunt of my shots.

The highlight of the day for me was at the very end.  I had a handful of paintballs left when I got shot for what I thought was the last time since game time was running out.  I quickly raised an arm, yelled "HIT!" and walked over to the other players who were out of the game.  I sat down and noticed three opponents sitting comfortably behind a barrier, just taking their time picking off my teammates while the clock counted down.  I had the bright idea that if I ran down and tagged home base to get back in the game then I could run back to where those players were and try to hit them (it had been nearly 2 hours of play time and I hadn't hit anything but trees).  So, off I went.

I managed to run back and find something to crouch behind while I took aim and fired at the other team.  We were so close to being done that eventually I stood up and just ran at them firing off shots.  As soon as I ran out of paintballs the game ended, so I was pretty happy that I went in to be the last person on my team that made it to the end.

Getting hit hurt as bad as you would expect, but the adrenaline prevented from me dwelling on the stings too much.  One shot to my right hand hurt pretty bad because the ball hit my ring which cut into my ring finger.  Two shots clipped my thighs.  Several shots got me right in the bum, but I didn't notice those until I sat down for the car ride home.  Despite the pain, I think paintball is going on my list of things to do again.  Next time, I'll have a little more strategy...I hope!

Ditch the Dieting!

Evelyn Tribole is very enthusiastic about getting the word out that dieting doesn't lead to permanent weight loss.  Here's a clip of Evelyn getting her message out:

We've got very preliminary evidence that supports what Evelyn is saying. Cool, huh?   The message that dieting is associated with weight gain is a great example of why my work here at Otago, looking at weight gain prevention, is so important...we've got a fair amount of women who maintained weight over 3 years without controlling weight through dieting.  How did they do it? We'll see!

"Why am I 'a beast'?"

Lately, I've been spending a lot of free time reading through parent interviews to look for themes related to their acceptance of the message that their child is overweight (based on body mass index).  I really enjoy reading through the transcripts!  It's been a fantastic learning experience for me to read how parents reacted in so many different ways.

One question every parent was asked is: "Did you share the health check information with your child?"  Then the parent is asked to explain the decision around that (keep in mind the children are between age 4 and 8).

One mother used the information to explain to her child that a healthy lifestyle is important so that the child doesn't get fat like Violet in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory; if that happened, the ooompa loompas would take him away!

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Another mother told the child that the results say she is obese.  The child's response was, "Why am I 'a beast'?"

I think it can be a tough conversation to have with a child - explaining why adults are measuring around their tummy, checking their height and weight, and then trying to explain what those measurements mean so the child understands.  Clearly, some children are too young to understand the body mass index labels.

It appears that there are parents who don't want to share weight-related information with their child because they're concerned that the child will develop weight/body image/self-esteem issues.  Well, we've got inquisitive kids in the study and they want to know what's going on.  So, instead of focusing on body weight, the parents explain that the study is looking at what the family eats and how active the family is and go on to drive the point home that it's important to look at the big picture of what a healthy lifestyle is all about. (Interestingly, some children have been very accepting that they are overweight and it means that the family needs to think about eating less, choosing healthier foods and getting more active.  The key has been including the child in how they'll eat differently or be more active  - they love making decisions for themselves!)

So, I've asked myself, Why is it okay for adults to take the focus off of body weight for children and instead focus on an overall healthy lifestyle, but often adults find it okay to focus on body weight  instead of factors that contribute to a healthy lifestyle?

Why can't we all realize that we should be making choices because we believe we'll be healthier (and, hell, happier?!) as a result, not because we want to control our weight?

I'm very thankful that I've been a part of this portion of the study.  It's made me think long and hard about how I envision our weight gain prevention intervention because I've been concerned that adults won't participate if they aren't losing weight - even if they do end up making healthier lifestyle choices as a result!

For the psychology fans out there... I attended an Acceptance and Commitment Therapy workshop with Steven Hayes before I arrived in New Zealand.  During one session, each of us closed our eyes and envisioned a conversation that we would have with a younger version of ourselves.  Why?  Adults are generally more compassionate towards children.  So, the idea is to think of a situation, say, the time my pediatrician told my mom that I could stand to eat a few more salads.  Then I'd visualize the conversation that I'd have with that 8-year-old Sara: "Yeah, you're overweight and 20 years from now you'll be considered 'overweight' and that's okay.  You'll spend a long, long time being frustrated by your weight, but you'll do your best to make choices that support your health.  You'll finish an IRONMAN!  You'll be healthy and happy because you don't obsess about becoming skinny.  In fact, you'll go on to pursue a PhD because of that conversation between your mom and your doctor - you'll study how to teach women how to listen to their own hunger and satiety cues; how cool is that?!"

My hope is that some day we'll all realize that it's not someone's excessive body weight that's a problem, it's the behaviors that lead to excessive body weight that should be addressed.  (One overweight boy sought approval from his dad by eating five apples in a day because they're 'healthy', but the boy doesn't understand that even too much of a healthy food can have an impact on his health/how he feels-making him aware of that would be important!).

Also, I think reassuring people that it's a process to make healthier choices is super important, too.  There are just too many uncontrollable things in life to expect a huge change that leads to a huge impact overnight...

  Seems like I've got my work cut out for me with my intervention!