If nothing else, I think we need some monetary conservation.  Right now the federal government is spending almost 2 1/2 times for interest on the national debt than it spends on transportation, education, and NASA put together.  Honestly, if MY bills looked like that, I wouldn't be paying for anything except gas to get to work and food to eat until it was knocked down a bit.  I might consider selling my possessions, or some bodily fluids.  I know, I know, there are some things that we can't cut spending to without creating more problems, but there isn't going to be an easy way out of this one.  It's gonna hurt. And the longer we wait, the more pain it's gonna be.

Some diets are created with reason in mind, by nutritionists, doctors, personal trainers, and other people who really know their stuff.  Many of these programs are incredibly expensive, or inconvenient at the least.  For instance, nutrisystem would cost me nearly $400 a month to eat.  Jenny Craig doesn't even post prices on it's site, ostensibly because you can't put a price tag on your health, but I think it's because the cost is shocking.  They claim that it's "only a dollar more a day than the average American spends on food."  That's not very impressive if the average American is eating $8 value meals and $15 restaurant plates two to 12 times a week.  I spend WAY less than $400 feeding my WHOLE FAMILY each month.  Frankly, I don't know how an average person can afford to lose weight on one of these plans.  It certainly isn't sustainable to most folks I know.

 I think maybe the worst thing about diets, and the reason they fail, isn't really a diet's fault at all.  It's ours.  Our body's fault rather.  The human machine is incredibly adaptive, especially when it comes to nutrition.  The earthquake in Haiti trapped a guy for almost a month with nothing to eat.  He looked horrible when he got out, but he was alive.  He'd found some dripping water to keep him alive, but didn't have any food.  When you restrict your caloric intake for even short periods of time-as few as three or four days- your body figures out that it is getting fewer calories than it is burning, so it figures out how to burn less.  You might feel more sleepy, you might have less energy, your endurance might go into the toilet, and your strength might actually decrease while you are on a diet.  This is your bodies attempt to conserve energy by slowing down your metabolism.  That allows your body to store calories as fat instead of usable energy, which is a good plan for your body since it doesn't know when you will be eating enough calories to survive.  Additionally, when your body is prioritizing which body tissue to rebuild and maintain with the energy available to it, muscle takes a backseat because it is the most metabolically active tissue in the body.  It requires more energy to work and rest.  It provides strength to perform tasks involving moving and sitting.  It supports your posture.  It supports your joints.  Hell, it just makes you feel good.  But the problem here is that you're trying to LOSE FAT, right?  So wait.  Am I saying that diets tend to cause people to gain fat?  Sadly enough, I think it happens more often than not.  To back up my opinion, I'll point to all the different fad diets that come and go, all the people who have "tried every diet in the world" only to end up heavier than they started.  Diets are a problem.

So there you go, eating next to nothing, getting tired, no energy, your friends think you're a cranky asshole since you decided to lose weight, you're probably getting sick from poor nutrition, and to top it off, you aren't losing weight anymore, or possibly you're GAINING weight.  If you're like millions of Americans, you quickly figure out this diet doesn't work, and you go back to your old ways because even if they didn't work either, at least they felt good.  What's the answer?  Stay tuned for what works in my world.

I think maybe I should start with my definition of "fail."  Since very few people go on diets to lose weight with the intention of gaining it back, I'll state the goal of dieting to be losing weight permanently.  So if what you do doesn't remove the intended amount of weight from your body it's a fail.  If that weight comes back, it's a fail.

I think that's a key point to mention, because most of the time- as much as 95% of the time depending on the study- dieting results in regained weight.  While it is becoming widely accepted in the professional world that exercise is probably the key to keeping weight off, the dieting world is holding out against that concept for various reasons.

The first reason why diets fail is that some of them have a tendancy to restrict people nutritionally.  I haven't heard anyone mention grapefuit diets recently, but that would be an example of the type.  Any diet that restricts your food choices to just a few items stands a chance of putting your health at risk.  Your body needs a variety of minerals, vitamins, fibers, fat, carbs and protein, and it can't make everything it needs.  While restrictive diets might be "good" for your total body weight, it is almost certainly not good for your health, and THAT is not good for your total body weight.

Also, diets tend to put us in foul moods by restricting the amount of food we eat to a point where we just feel unhappy and cranky.  Don't think it's you?  Ask your significant other, or your mom, or your sister, or your coworkers.  You might be surprised.  Anybody who has ever quit a job knows that you can't do something for too long if it makes you unhappy.

Other diets are simply ineffective, or based on bad information.  For instance, I know some people who only count fat grams.  That's it.  Carbs don't matter, protein doesn't matter, nutrition doesn't REALLY matter, just fat grams.  After all, they are trying to lose fat, right?  Problem is, food can be fat free and HORRIBLE for you.  Take sugar for example.  Not a gram of fat in the whole bag.  Many "low fat," "reduced fat," and 'fat free" foods are the same.  Loads of calories sans fat.  Doesn't make them good for you or your goals.

Ok, so not really much danger that I came across.  But after yesterday's post about Nicki's braces and how I didn't really know much about cosmetic care and treatments, I started doing some web surfing and seeing what I could learn in an hour.  I came across a tretinoin review that mentioned it can cause sensitivity to the sun.  Some of the other stuff I found points to general skin sensitivity.  I guess this stuff is used mostly to clear up acne, but also to help alleviate sun damage to the skin.  At least on article said that it is used to help treat acute promyelocytic leukemia.

The next thing that crossed my mind was how much knowlege we've managed to accumulate as a society.  We have doctors, surgeons, pharmacists, researchers, scientists, and all kinds of different persuasions of learned professions specializing in fields that overlap, and fields that don't, that are still evolving and expanding, and so much information, that it seems to me NOBODY could be an omniscient expert in even a narrow field.  And still, some people claim that a) their grandma knows more than their doctor, and b) doctors and scientists don't know anything.  I still hear this from time to time, and it pisses me off.  Don't be one of those people.

Well, we've done a pretty good job around here of controlling our expenses.  Whenever I get to talking to anyone about how we control our finances, they seem amazed that we have managed our costs downward as far as we have.  What drives it home is that Leeanne gets to stay home with our children, and we do it all on my wages, which aren't very much.

One of the best tools we have is a whiteboard in the kitchen that we use to track all of our expenses each month, as well as earned income, so there is never any question about where the money went.  It seems to me that early in my adulthood the biggest problem that I faced with money was adding up all my bills at the end of the month, adding up the paychecks, subtracting one from the other, and realizing that the difference was not the same as what I had left.  Sometimes by a longshot.  The whiteboard is convenient, it's easy, and it doesn't lie. 

We have a category for each major expense; rent, food, paper, electricity, water, phone, internet, gasoline, and a couple more.  Additionally, towards the bottom, we have an area to write down incidentals such as clothing, eating out, birthday presents, and such things that don't happen every month.

Lately, though, I've been thinking about taking it to the next level with some home budget software.  It seems like it might be high time for us to move into this century, and I've got to say that it would sure be a convenient way to track from month to month, or year to year.  Some of the programs that I've been looking at also claim to help you find ways to trim your expenses, though I'm not sure how they would manage that aside from some common sense tips about conservation and smart shopping.  Either way, it may be in our future, and I'll let you know if I find one I like.

I'm thinking about putting down all that I've learned about nutrition in just a few posts right here on the blog.  It seems like I'm always trying to explain to people how they are screwing themselves up while they try to lose weight with the crazy things they do.  Whether it's eating once a day, doing 2 hours of cardio first thing in the morning, going on zero fat diets, low carb craziness, or just blowing all their disposable money on diet aids without doing the nutrition work, it seems that there is a basic lack of understanding about how the human body works.  I'm thinking that whatever we learn in school about nutrition just isn't enough, because I have a hard time breaking through to people.

And I don't get it, either.  Someone says to me that they are on a diet to lose weight, and everything is fine the first two weeks, but then not so fine, and next thing you know, they aren't on a diet anymore.  Or people say all the time how MUCH weight they want to lose, but not what KIND of weight.  I just told a guy the other day that if he wanted to lose 20 pounds, he should stop eating, stop sleeping, and drink nothing but coffee all day.  He'll be 20 pounds lighter by the end of the week.  He had the nerve to tell me that wasn't healthy, like what he was doing to himself was any different!!

Anyway, leave a reply to this if you want to see all the important parts that I've picked up from studying, listening to people in the know, and managing my own nutrition.

Nicki finally got some braces on today.  She was really excited about her teeth getting straightened, but I don't think she realized how much it was going to hurt.  After a couple hours, it really started to bother her.  I think that's the biggest reason I didn't get braces.  I mean, my teeth aren't THAT crooked, but it was definately mentioned once or twice.  I'm just glad she is getting it fixed now, and not having to wait until she's an adult. 

The orthodontist was pretty fast, too.  I think she was back there for maybe 30 minutes or so, and I thought it was going to take a couple hours.  I guess I'm just not too hip on the technology floating around today, like with acne scar removal.  I thought it was still "Well, try some cocoa butter."  Used to be pretty much screwed if you had a bad acne case that scarred up.  Now they'll go all Star Wars on your face with some lasers and bing bang boom, you're Brad Pitt.

Wish the girl some luck.

Remember when you were younger and there was that one game you loved to play when you went out?  Like to the laundromat, or the restaurant, or the corner gas station?  You would say," One day, when I have a job, I'm gonna buy one of these games and put it in my room, and pop open the change door so I never have to pay for another game ever again!!"  Well, you ended up spending that money on a car instead, and next thing you know, you're pushing buttons on an xbox instead of pulling back on the spring plungers of the best pinball machines.  I remembered all that when I came across some arcade games for sale.  Mine was "Area 51" and Leeanne's was "Galaga."  What was yours?

At work tonight, we got to talking about Philly cheesesteak sandwiches, probably because I was making them.  One of the guys said that the best philly cheese he ever had, was indeed in Phliadelphia.  Of course, he couldn't tell me what it was about them that made them the best.  The guy is kinda funny, though.  Said he would have stayed there just for the sandwiches if there had been enough local philly jobs for him to work so he could afford to buy all the sandwiches he wanted.  Ah, well, the compromises we make.

Well, after my last post on supplements and skepticism, I came across another one.  I think I'll take a moment to go through the claims and faulty reasoning in some of the FAQ on this one.  I became curious after reading some lipozene reviews, so I figured I look and see if lipozene really existed.  It does, and here is what I found on the site, with my commentary.

LIPOZENE AND METABO UP FAQ

ARE LIPOZENE AND METABO UP DIETARY SUPPLEMENTS  NATURAL? Lipozene® and METABO UP® are 100% natural. Of course they are, or they'd have to be evaluated by the FDA and reported as mostly useless.  For comparison, bird crap and arsenic are ALSO 100% natural, but I'm not gonna mix them in  my latte. ARE THERE ANY SIDE EFFECTS TO LIPOZENE AND METABO UP? There are no known side effects if taking Lipozene® or METABO UP® as directed. Of course, that's because there are probably NO effects.  WHAT IS IN THE LIPOZENE WEIGHT LOSS SUPPLEMENT AND METABO UP TABLETS? Lipozene® weight loss supplement contains Glucomannan, a 100% natural fiber from the Konjac  Root. METABO UP® contains Green Tea, Kola-nut, and Vitamins B6 and B12. There is also natural fiber in oatmeal, and any other plant food we eat.  Green tea works on your metabolism  with *gasp* caffeine!!! The reason green tea is better than cooked tea?  The preparation breaks down some of the caffeine in normal tea.  This is likely similar to the reason  that espresso has LESS caffeine than drip coffee.  Kola nuts are also a notorious source of caffeine. HOW DOES LIPOZENE AND METABO UP WORK? Lipozene® creates a dietary fiber sponge that makes you feel full, thus reducing caloric intake and adding fiber to your diet. METABO UP® contains Green Tea, which is proven to increase your metabolism safely so you burn more calories.  See above note. WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN LIPOZENE® AND LIPOZINE? Lipozene® is the weight loss supplement which helps reduce body fat. "Lipozine" is a common misspelling. As Lipozene® grows in popularity, the popularity of its alternative spellings increase. I wonder if this also makes them less liable for you taking their pills with no results? CAN YOU TAKE LIPOZENE AND METABO UP WITH MEDICATIONS? Lipozene® is 100% natural; however, we recommend you consult your health care provider before beginning any weight loss program and if you are taking prescription medications at the time, you advise your physician before taking any weight loss supplement, including Lipozene®. And hopefully your health care provider will tell you you're a jackass for wasting your money.  This is likely just to keep people from filing suits that they can't win on account of the fact that there are probably NO effects, never mind harmful ones, but will result in bad press for the company. CAN YOU TAKE LIPOZENE AND METABO UP IF YOU ARE PREGNANT? If you are pregnant or lactating, do not take Lipozene and Metabo Up. After all, bad production methods or even mistakes can turn a benign placebo into a toxic mess, and who wants the life or health of child on their hands?  Just ask China... HOW MUCH WEIGHT WILL I LOSE? Weight loss varies depending on each individual, but Lipozene® guarantees you will lose  weight and body fat, or your money back! Due to certain factors such as awareness of what you're eating while dieting, likely combined with at least a little more exercise than you're used to, and all the water they recommend you drink plus the little bit of caffeine in the pills, you ought to lose a little weight.  This gives them the "out" that you lost "something" so they are  off the hook when you call to complain. DOES LIPOZENE® HAVE AN EXPIRATION DATE? Lipozene has a shelf life of 2 years. You will find the expiration date stamped on the bottle. DOES METABO UP® HAVE AN EXPIRATION DATE? Metabo Up tablets have a shelf life of 2 years. You will find the expiration date stamped on the bottle. I'm not positive if I'm reassured that it has an expiration date, disturbed that it's 2 years compared to the few months that most of the real medication I've seen. WHERE IS LIPOZENE® MANUFACTURED? Lipozene is manufactured in the U.S.A. WHERE IS METABO UP® MANUFACTURED? Metabo Up tablets are manufactured in the U.S.A. I can think of better ways to support US jobs. HOW DO I TAKE LIPOZENE® WEIGHT LOSS SUPPLEMENTS?  It is safe to take Lipozene® up to 2 capsules, 3 times a day before each meal, for a total daily maximum dosage of 6 capsules. Based on clinical studies, recommended dosage for optimum results is daily maximum dosage of 6 capsules per day.     One capsule with an 8 oz glass of water before each meal is the dosage recommended for people who need to lose a few pounds. However, for people who wish to lose more weight in less time – 2 capsules can be taken at one time, 30 minutes before each meal.    For one 60 count bottle of Lipozene® ...   If taking 1 capsule twice a day, 30-day supply has been provided. If taking 2 capsules twice a day, 15-day supply has been provided. If taking 2 capsules three times a day, 10-day supply has been provided.   The recommended dosage on the label is intended for people who want to lose the most amount of weight in the shortest amount of time! Make sure to drink plenty of water and take your Lipozene® with at least an 8 oz glass of water, at least 30 minutes before each meal.   Of course it is.  Or was that optimum results for the company?  Again, you'll be consuming more caffeine, likely working out a little harder, and peeing a lot more.  Caffeine will help with that.  Or maybe it's because you'll eat less after drinking all that water 30 minutes before you eat.  Lots of common sense there without bothering with the pills.  Save your money for wholesome food and gym membership.

So here you go......


I know what you're thinking.  Why the hell is there a mannequin on top of that cruiser?  The answer is one of only a few things more embarrassing than adult acne.  A New Yorker got busted using the mannequin to travel in the carpool lane.  I'm thinking to myself, isn't it easier to just pick up a bum that needs a new street corner or something?  To be fair, I don't have any idea how much time he/she was saving by not driving in the regular lanes, but in my experience, it is NEVER very much.  And it certainly isn't worth having to pay a ticket.

My Dad's girlfriend got busted for about $200 driving in an HOV lane up here, and I would be PISSED.  Oh well, better others than me.

With all the websites on the net that try to sell supplements that will allegedly help you to lose weight, it was nice to see quick trim fast cleanse reviews.  Granted, the bottom have of the page is a bunch of links to similar products, the review of quick trim fast cleanse was incredibly basic, and I've never even heard of the product, but likely the people to read it are not accustomed to thinking critically and maintaining skepticism about advertised claims.

Leeanne and I are getting back into shape, and it was a little bit of discussion to decide not to buy any of that kind of stuff for her.  She is doing incredibly well, making huge progress, and feeling great.  The trick?  Calories in, calories out, maintain lean mass, drink plenty of water.

The toughest part is maintaining an accurate record of what we eat, but even though I'm not going to the gym just yet, even I am making some progress.  I'd like to get my body fat down to the low 10s, but I've got some work to do!!  Maybe soon I'll post the best advice I've watched/read/heard/used.  Keep posted.

Well, I finally submitted this here blog to a free directory that promises to generate traffic and links for my site.  I'm not exactly sure how it works, but got my blog in there.  I'm sure it's incredibly simple, but I'm just dense for some of this stuff.  Seriously, I think the only reason I'm able to maintain a blog is because of this blogging software that takes care of all the heavy lifting.

I also use Entrecard, which is pretty cool, and kinda like a social networking site, I suppose, but I don't have nearly enough time to peruse the other blogs and make the amount of e-friends that I need.

At any rate, I hope I got it all right and did what I was supposed to, because usually Leeanne is the one that figures out the networking and traffic such and stuff, then coaches me.  I get to do all the construction and electronic projects.  It's a good system.

A sweet little girl walked into the bathroom while her mother was getting ready for work one morning

"What are you doing, Mommy?" she asked.

"Well, pumpkin, I'm putting on my very best wrinkle cream," answered the mother.

"Oh," said the little girl, walking away. "I didn't realize wrinkles were that much work.  I just thought they were natural."

I was listening to PBS Newshour the other day on my Zune and one of the hosts was talking to a guy about the real estate market and what the recent sales meant.  Just when I was disagreeing with the first guest, the second came in to justify me!  What I'm guessing is that pretty soon, the people who still have money are going to start buying up all these foreclosures and unfinished homes to flip for some quick profit.  I sure would like to pick up some Outer banks foreclosures, by the way.  Some of those outer banks places are NICE.  But I digress.

At any rate, since most of those are going to be investments, they aren't likely to be paid for in cash, and if the economy even so much as hiccups, then whoever is holding the notes on those houses is going to be EXTREMELY nervous.  I'm thinking that real estate won't be solid for investment vehicles for at least 6-8 years.  Which is fine, because that just makes it more likely I can find my decent handyman special when I'm ready in 3 or 4 years.  Wish me luck.

It's getting pretty cold up here for me.  I was just thinking about all this snow and how unfamiliar it is.  Even at work when I go to the cooler or freezer, my fingertips get pretty numb.  I'm thinking maybe next year we'll have to take a winter vacation to panama city beach.  That's more the kind of winter a Florida boy like me needs.

Leeanne wants to take some vacation time and just all of us go do something fun, and that could be it.  Although, she also misses Vegas, and there are plenty of family-oriented things to do out there, contrary to popular belief.  It's actually become quite family oriented in some respects and places. 

Although.... Tahiti would be nice.  I always wanted to go to Tahiti and sit on the beach and drink alcohol.  Copious amounts of alcohol.

Speaking of drinking, I got an espresso machine on clearance for $30 bucks.  You'll be hearing more about that soon.

Well, it's friggin snowing AGAIN!!! That's an awful lot of snow for a city that supposedly never gets any snow.  Maybe that's just the cynic in me.  I'm just tired of turning an hour drive into a 2 and a half hour drive only to get stuck on my freakin street.  Kinda fun watching Leeanne fishtail the Explorer down the street while I push the truck side to side and get it going.

Even with all the snow, though, I'm overall pretty happy with Winchester.  The people are nice, and good enough, the city is relatively slow, the rent is affordable, all of my bills are lower than they were in Florida, and even cheap car insurance to boot.

I may end up just staying here for quite a while.  The deal sealer will be what kind of place we'll be able to buy when we're ready, but we'll see. 

Mesothelioma is a kind of cancer that is virtually always connected to exposure to asbestos, a very effective heat and flame retardant. mesothelioma lawyers, I would assume, will evenutually have to find new work, since asbestos isn't very proliferative today, at least compared to 4 or 5 decades ago.  Tobacco lawyers, however, may have plenty of time left in the arena.  Here are some apparently tasty candies designed to deliver a quick nico-fix to smokers who can't smoke; ostensibly at work, or maybe in a hospital or something, but almost certainly those guys with throat cancer whose necks might rot through if they take one more puff.

On the face, I'd say "Great, now smokers don't have to get those dirty looks when they come back in from a smoke break smelling like dirty ashtrays.  But a little deeper, and, well, I can see kids passing them around for the nicotine buzz that gets people hooked on cigarettes in the first place.  Sure, it's not as harsh as the smoke that wrecks teeth, gums, throats, lungs, fingers, etc, and hell, maybe they are perfectly medically safe.  But I don't want to see my kids, or your kids, hooked on anything.  I think that somebody is going to figure out that a nic-andy addiction is going to cause them some kind of loss of quality in their life and sue the manufacturers over it.  After all, it's America.

The first thing that caught my attention was that 28th ammendment thing.  There are only 27 ammendments to the constitution.  The last one had something to do with senator pay, I think. 

 

About the health plan question, point one is that it isn't designed to replace anyones health plan.  It's an option to provide lower cost care for Americans that don't have ANY or don't have enough.  That's why all the hubbub about being able to keep your plan if you're happy with it.

 

Under the proposed reform, nobody will be FORCED into the public option.  There may be forcing into SOME plan, which I probably won't agree with, but it won't be a PARTICULAR plan.  And that's the difference.

 

For the record, there is a lot to be positive about with this bill.  I think my favorite just might be the limit on profitability.  Now, in general, I'm inclined to believe and support a person or company making as much money as he/she/it possibly can through better products, better management, and better marketing.  HOWEVER, it seems to me that altogether too often, insurance companies make that profit by denying coverage to it's customers instead of providing it.  Add to that the fact that not a single insurance salesman or executive has ever made a diagnosis, offered a treatment, or cured a single illness.  I don't believe that many insurance companies actually EARN their profit.  Bill Gates and Warren Buffet can both get as rich as they want.

 

At any rate, the Health Care Reform is not going to be an overnight success, nor is it going to be a one time shot.  This is such a huge monster that it will likely evolve as long as our government is functioning and never be complete, and that's ok.  Hell, it's probably best.  What matters is that we get some kind of coverage to people without, and try to stop the ballooning of health care bills.

 

Again, though, this may all be moot.  The senate isn't as rock solid as it was for the Pres, and several democrats have changed their minds about running in the upcoming elections.  Expect a much more difficult congress and senate next year.  Obama may have wasted time trying to look political and reaching across the aisle.  He should have reached to the middle, and welcomed those who met him.  Any reform is better than none, and I think we may be stuck with none.

 

Tony