Let me be clear

I am not by any means an expert in the field of nutrition or fitness, but because I recently lost some weight, many have been asking what I've done to achieve this. So I'm sharing what I've learned so far in my journey. Feel free to comment with any questions. The picture at the top is the worst I could find, it was taken in the spring of 2008. I was 225 pounds, ten pounds lighter than my all time high. The picture below I took yesterday, last time I weighed myself I was near 180, I've still got some to lose and a lot more toning to do, but the picture's very flattering since most of my weight is in my legs. I have struggled with being overweight and obese off and on for the past 6 years. Most of the reason for this was 3 very physically debilitating pregnancies in that time which prevented me not only from exercising, but in the case of the last one, from really moving at all for fear of fracturing my pelvis or dislocating a joint or otherwise damaging some vit...

Recently I re-posted a picture I saw on Facebook , not because I agree with everything that it asserts, I've looked into similar groups as the one circulating this, and they are clearly one of the collapse the system types, but because I thought it was a funny way to state what I've felt for a long time. In the ten years I've been of voting age, I've never voted. Now when I say that usually I get some hysterical response ranging from mild indignation to flat out rage. People say things like, "if you don't vote, you don't have the right to complain." which makes a cute bumper sticker, but it's actually complete nonsense. I mean, I've never been to a polling place before, do they stamp a card on your way out that says your first amendment rights are renewed for two years? Even people with whom I was a few minutes earlier engaged in heated debate with, who had accused me of destroying the country with my views, insisted I HAD to vote. I don...

Life is hard. This is a fact, has been since the beginning of time. According to my belief system, it's a necessary factor for fulfilling our purpose on earth. I've been interested in survival and self sufficiency for sometime, and I had the impression that it would be somewhat easy to live off the land on things you could gather and hunt, but as I have begun to do this ( urban foraging and dumpster diving ) as a way to stretch our family budget, I've realized how very difficult it is, even in a climate rich with diverse and plentiful wild food, to collect enough to even make a tiny difference in our food budget. This is why we see cases of starvation like Chris Mccandless and others who entered the wilderness unprepared for what it actually takes to survive. This is why when human beings lived solely off of hunting and gathering, it took entire communities every waking hour to collect, process and and prepare enough food for everyone to just barely survive. Some cu...

(based on a true story) Me: I think I'm in the mood for show tunes . Pandora: I've got show tunes ! Do you like the phantom of the Opera? Me: I love the phantom of the opera! Particularly the title song. *thumbs up* Pandora: Did you know there are 85,934 versions of this song? Me: Well it is a long running Broadway show so I would assume there are a lot... Pandora: Do you like this version of the phantom of the opera? Me: It's lovely, but I did just listen to that song, so I think I'll skip it. Pandora: No problem. Do you like this version of the phantom of the opera? Me: Yes, it's fine, but again, I just listened to that song. *skip* Pandora: Ok . Hey do you like this version of phantom of the opera? Me: I won't even dignify that with a response. *skip* Pandora: I'm sorry, you have used up all your skips for today. Would you like to upgrade for $36 a month and skip as much as you want? Me: Ah, I see what you did there. Look, I am very...

I've never been miss popularity. In fact through most of my childhood, I was among the least popular, if not clearly the least popular kid in school. As I've grown, and formed, and transformed my life, personality, beliefs and habits, I can pinpoint many reasons for this, and I'm sure there are many others that I may never know. Certainly, as an adult, polite people don't come out and tell you why they don't like you. They typically won't even admit that they don't like you, which by the way, makes perceptive people think they're crazy and crazy people crazier (more on this in a later post). Recently I offended an acquaintance of mine, someone I greatly respect and admire with a thoughtless and insulting comment on Facebook over politics. It really served to broaden my awareness of a big obstacle that I haven't quite been seeing clearly for a long time. It's something that is probably very taxing to my social life and has doubtless contrib...