The bad and the ugly. March 18, 2010

Oh, I’m in such a skeptical and disgustingly cynical place (mentally) today.  Not about being healthy or weight loss, but about everything else.  So I’ll be surprised if this post finds a way to be appropriate but when I read through the MFP forums lately, so much is inappropriate. Rather than hijack threads to rant like so many others have done, I’ll just do it here. Warning:  There is a possibility you will disagree with me (*gasp* Oh no!).

 Idiocy cannot be leglislated out of people.  The phrase “That should be illegal” grates on my nerves just about as much as anything else.  Why are we placing all accountability and responsibility on the government again? 

 Almost everything we do affects someone else in a negative way.  Realize this and try to focus more on keeping your actions as harmless as possible rather than incessantly harping about the vices of others while completely ignoring your own.

  I often find the people who use the phrase “that should be illegal” are the same people who are so hypocritcal in bashing others.  For exmaple, many people who are so vehemently against the legalization of majrijuana are the same people who often enjoy a glass of wine or a rum&coke.  Because since alcohol consumption is legal (for right now, anyway), that makes it inherently different somehow?  All I see is mind-altering substance vs. mind-altering substance.  Both have the very same negative health and social aspects. I don’t get it.  If marijuana & other drugs were legal, I honestly believe organized crime would drop.  And, as much as I hate crack/cocaine as a drug, I feel the same way about it.  My city has basically been run straight down into the ground over the last decade because of all the gangs trying to control the crack market.  No, I’m not exaggerating. It’s a HUGE HUGE HUGE problem.  I don’t know about you all, but I don’t not smoke crack because it’s illegal. I don’t smoke crack because crack is whack. It’s not like I’m going to think “Hooray, crack is legal now — I’m going to start smoking it.”  And I suppose you could point out that’s because maybe I’m less ignorant than your average joe schmoe.  And maybe the avg. joe does assume that because something is legal means it’s safe.  Too bad for joe, if that’s the case. Anyway — you can’t legislate this world into some happy fairy tale land where everything is perfect. When you make something illegal, all you do is create a black market for whatever that illegal thing is.  This increases crime (and not just crime breaking that one new law).  It adds yet another way for criminals to make money (you don’t have to pay taxes when you sell dope for a living, folks — AND you get government assistance on top of your drug money because you have no taxable income on record).

  Now, I fully admit my values are extremely liberal when it comes to social/”moral” issues.  I also have a very liberal opinion on helping people who genuinely need help.  Although it sure would be nice to take home the gross amount of my paycheck, I could totally find a way to be okay with only bringing home about 60% of what I actually make if my money wasn’t going to assist the very same people who break into my house and steal from me while I’m at work paying the taxes needed to make up their government assistance. It’s a fun game, isn’t it?  I guess you can add “bitter” to the list of adjectives to describe today’s mental state.

 Candour is refreshing.

It makes sense. October 1, 2009

I’ve been upset about my weight since I was very young – about 7 or so. I was chubby, but never awfully obese like so many kids I see today. Kids were vicious and constantly picked on me about my weight. I kept trying and trying (the wrong way) to lose weight. After finally losing a little weight, I wore a size 9 in 7th grade (I was the same height then as I am now – 5’4″) and I thought I was the biggest cow that walked the face of the earth. I remember wearing a jacket or sweater pretty much year-round (I live in South Carolina!) because I was so self-conscious about my size. It didn’t help that my older brother never failed to make fun of me for being “fat” (I was maybe 15 pounds overweight).

I’ve hated my weight and my body and myself for so long. Look what it snowballed into — over 270 pounds. In my late teens & early 20s (I’m 25), I suffered from major social anxiety and depression. I was so concerned about what other people thought of me because for my *entire* life, people picked on me about my weight. I honestly didn’t understand the right way to lose weight. I basically starved myself & exercised obsessively to lose about 40 pounds my junior year of college but I couldn’t keep it up. Within a year, I had gained back all the weight I had lost. And within 2 years I had added 30 more pounds to that. I was definitely an emotional eater and a stress eater and with anxiety & depression, there’s pretty much always some emotion or stress causing overeating which only made the anxiety worse, which made the eating worse, and on and on. All this was going on with me while I was majoring in psychology.

The upsetting part to me is that if someone could have just educated me on how to take care of my body, instead of making fun of me, my weight would have never been a big problem. I can be told to “eat right and exercise” again and again but that doesn’t mean that I understand. I never got it. That is to say, I never understood until about 3.5 weeks ago when I had the “aha!” moment. I’m pretty bummed I didn’t figure out how easy this is 15 years ago, but at least I finally get it now.

It’s such a shame to let other people’s ignorance ruin your life. I’ve felt horrible about myself my whole life because of others. Kids at school picked on me for my weight and because I excelled in school (um, shouldn’t that make a kid feel GOOD?). My father chose to continue being an alcoholic instead of continuing to be my father. My brother constantly insulted me. My mom was too busy taking care of 2 kids by herself. Waah waah waah, blah blah blah. I just don’t care what people think of me anymore. Other people’s actions and decisions and comments are not going to influence my self-worth anymore. How ridiculous. I’m going to be healthy for the first time in my life and if that means breathing hard while jogging in public, so be it. If that means sweating when other people can see me, okay. Whatever it takes, I’m doing it. If someone has a problem with how I look while I’m doing it, they can just look the other way because I’m not there for them. Don’t ruin your life for someone else because in the end, you’re all you’ve got.

Woke up new August 11, 2009

This new attitude  is very strange for me.  I’m excited.  I’m looking forward to doing things for myself. I’m setting and achieving personal goals.  Personal goals.  Not career goals.  Not academic goals. Not relationship goals.  It’s all about me (haha — personal joke).

What seem like small changes have had drastic results already in a very short amount of time.  I feel better. That does not mean I feel good, it just means I don’t feel quite as bad as I did before.  I recognize that.  It’s been about 4 years since I’ve focused on myself, really, and then it only lasted 4 months or so.  I’m so in it for the long haul this time. Some things are going to change.   Permanently.  I can breathe again.

The grass is greener August 10, 2009

It’s time for a change.  Maybe not as drastic as the change I envision in my daydreaming mind, but a significant change at least.

I’m coming to realize all I thought I want may not be what I wanted afterall.    I’m not sure where to start unravelling it all.  I don’t think I can change it all dramatically the way I see it in my head. I do care about a lot in my life.  Piece by piece, but maybe more quickly than all that sounds.  I’ve made this resolution before several years ago, but it was in the opposite direction.  The grass really is always greener (on the other side).

I’m alarmed how things have happened.  How what I thought I wanted  and worked hard to have isn’t what I wanted afterall. What an irritating joke of which to be the butt.  In the end, I want happiness and I’m on a quest to find that now. 

I’m still figuring out who I am and what I want and I don’t know if that will ever change.  But lately, I’ve felt more enlightened.  I’m tired of being right.  I’m tired of debating.  I’m tired of being completely consumed by something that doesn’t matter at all to me when I look at the big picture.  I want to get back in touch with some of the friends who’ve become strangers. I feel more free now than ever before.  This feeling may or may not be shortlived, but I want to capitalize on it either way.

I want to find the beauty in life, and in me.  It’s been gone for a long time, if it was ever there at all. I’ve just been so consumed.

Frontline – ugh! July 10, 2009

I posted this on Craigslist in response to someone advocating Frontline to be a pefectly safe wonderfully amazing flea/tick treatment/preventative. <sigh>  After knowing what I know, I just can’t seem to get back on board with slathering my dogs in chemicals that are proven to be harmful and even deadly.

Well, I wrote this long wonderful in depth explanation for you all and then hit “continue” and Craigslist lost it.
Suffice it to say Frontline and other flea/tick preventatives are NOT a good thing. They are bad for you, bad for your pets, and bad for your children (not to mention the environment and wildlife). Long term use of fipronil (the active ingredient in Frontline) has been proven to cause cancer. The long term chemical use (or short term high-dose use) has been shown to cause endocrine disorders, immuno-deficiency disorders, and neurological disorders. Fipronil is classified as a “possible human carcinogen” by the EPA. What this means is that research has proven fipronil causes cancer in lab rats, but since it would be illegal to perform similar research on humans in a lab and fipronil is a relatively new pesticide (developed between 1985-87 & placed on the market in 1993), it hasn’t YET been proven (although it’s been suggested repeatedly) the pesticide causes cancer in humans as well. If it’s not good for rats, and it’s not good for humans, guess what — it’s not good for your dog either! The other pesticide options (K9 Advantix, Advantage, over-the-counter sprays/treatments) are even WORSE than Frontline. Do your own research here, folks.

There is a great alternative to controlling fleas once you stop the infestation from spreading (by vacuuming/cleaning as the article suggested) — s a $5 flea comb. I comb my dogs every night. I even use it to comb my long haired kitten. Any fleas go down the drain and I rest easier knowing I didn’t willingly cover my dogs in chemicals that cause multiple health problems leading to death. Also, what a money saver! I have 6 dogs weighing 11, 12, 20, 48, 92, and 95 pounds and a cat so I save (and yes, I just calculated this), $112.64/month by choosing not to poison my pets with Fipronil/Frontline. Nice.

What it boils down to is that we, as consumers, are being scammed by an ignorant (or maybe even greedy?) pet-care industry. Afterall, INDUSTRY is intended to produce monetary profit, right? So, we can’t blame them, but we can blame ourselves for not being knowledgeable about the things we buy. And then we can make a decision to change and make well-researched and informed decisions. Kibble, rawhide, recreational bones, flea/tick treatment — it’s all very expensive and it’s all very bad for your dog. I can’t believe how much money I wasted on “premium” kibble only to research and realize I was essentially killing my dogs with it – hundreds of dollars a month — thousands of dollars a year! My vet thought it was the right thing to do and I should trust her, right? I didn’t know the vast majority of veterinarians only took 1 or 2 courses on nutrition, funded or taught by a pet food company/rep.

Are Spot-On Flea Killers Safe? http://www.apnm.org/publications/resources/fleachemfin.pdf
National Pesticide Info. Center info. on Fipronil http://npic.orst.edu/factsheets/fiptech.pdf
Fipronil fact sheet http://npic.orst.edu/factsheets/fipronil.pdf
You don’t need kibble afterall! http://www.rawfed.com/myths
Kibble isn’t good for you dog, and it’s more expensive than species-appropriate rawfeeding http://www.rawlearning.com

Just stop and think. When you apply frontline to your dog, what do you do immediately afterwards, per instructions on the box? Wash your hands thoroughly with warm soapy water? While the pesticide is absorbed through your dog’s skin and into his bloodstream, no doubt. Why is that again? Oh yeah, because it’s a dangerous pesticide and has been proven to cause lots of awful short-term side effects and long-term health problems.

I really think when people know better they do better. Now you know.

Lastly, here’s a list of all the pesticides the EPA has banned or severely restricted over the years. Remember at one time, they were all thought to be “safe,” too. http://www.scorecard.org/chemical-groups/one-list.tcl?short_list_name=brpest