Birth Control Shmirth Control!!!

I can't help but be startled by some people's reactions to the "birth control" debate. For some it's about having to pay for other people not to get pregnant. For a few, it's about women trying to get special treatment. For others it's just another format to bitch about how the government tries to force things down people's throats and it's not right, blah blah blah. And the fact of the matter is, that if you are a reasonable, sensible person with any compassion or sense of equality at all, you should be able to assess this situation and understand that the bottom line is drawn at the feet of women who are demanding equality in health coverage. We are not sex crazed whores who want "Joe TAX Payer" to foot the bill for our uterine benefits. We're not wanting to have loads of indiscriminant sex. As a matter of fact, this has nothing to do with a woman's desire for sex whatsoever. It has nothing to do with wanting inconsquential sexual encounters. IT'S NOT ABOUT MEN!!!!!!! It's not about your money, your politics, your feelings, your sperm, your religion, your penis or your ego. It's just not about you.... And if this argument were about male specific health care coverage being denied, this wouldn't even be a debate.

Click the links one at a time. Hope it's not too much of a pain in the butt.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3vheTsFctA&feature=channel

This is my first ever video rant on my blog. Couldn't get it to upload any other way so I had to stick it on youtube. It's a two parter. Here's the finale':

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOtByMXzBFY


This is the link to the article written by Craig "Crotchhead" Bannister:

http://cnsnews.com/blog/craig-bannister/sex-crazed-co-eds-going-broke-buying-birth-control-student-tells-pelosi-hearing

The link above is the article that started all of this.


And this is the testimony he contrived his idiotic article from, touting it as factual:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4nOuQ1dRx8

Redefining terms

I'll talk about my stupid juice fast later. It's going fine, I've lost weight, etc etc...
But right now I'd like to talk about something very near and dear to my heart and that's arrogant stupid people. Abortion is a hot topic these days and I see all kinds of idiotic propoganda on FB and other messaging mediums saying that  it needs to end and no one should ever have an abortion, it's murder, blah blah blah. Well, kiss my ass!!! Because NOT ONE of the people who post that stupid shit have adopted any children who were unwanted! Not one person I know who yelps about how wrong it is to terminate a pregnancy or take a morning after pill or use god forsaken birth control has ever offered up an alternative. They never post links about abused or murdered children, enraged about their treament or deaths. They don't offer up scores of solutions on how to ensure a child's safety and well being. And they damn sure don't look after any kids but their own and a lot of times, they don't even really do that very well. So to any high and mighty, know it all, do good-er, who sits in judgement of women or girls who are sexually active and are reasonable enough to admit they can't handle the responsibilities of parenting or the uncertainty of adoption, before you post any more stupid ass posters or bulletins or hold any more signs or vote for any more woman-hater politicians, how about you go and get some kids who are suffering and take care of them and see how much energy or money you have to spend on children that aren't even on this planet yet!!!!!
In a nut shell, what I'm saying is that if you're so concerned about children, go look after some real ones! Put your money where your big fat mouth is and come up with some solutions for making this world a safe one for ALL children to enter. And when you get that accomplished, I'll carry an anti-abortion poster and vote for Rick Santorum. Fair???

Day 2 - of what feels like 9,000

I did and felt much better today. For breakfast I had the smoothie I talked about last night (with peanutbutter, yogurt and vanilla soy milk). It helped to get my day started a little better and with a little less of a scowl and growl. I'm gonna do it again tomorrow :)

For lunch I had a juice that included a granny smith apple, bell pepper, half head of cabbage, 2 celery stalks, 1 cucumber and a piece of ginger. Then I took the juice and poured it into a blender and added a banana and 1/2 cup of milk. It was a recipe recommended in my Juicer booklet and it was one of the only things I saw that sounded like it might help me get the celery down. Aside from a spoon full of sugar, I don't see too many more options and I gotta get the celery down...

I was far less cranky today and felt much more satisfied and a lot less tempted; Which is why I opted for all that kale and celery yesterday. Kale really helps to battle food cravings and especially sugar cravings. Celery boosts that effect. I knew if I could suck it all down that within a day or so I'd feel more sain. I was right **I say in my most persnickity voice**

Now, I have 8 days left in the "drink yourself well" gauntlet I've thrown down. It's really not so bad today and I can only assume it will get better. I do need to drink more water. I had less than 20 oz today and that's not good. I need to improve on that very rapidly. So tomorrow my plan is to start it the same way I did today because that yogurt banana peanutbutter thing yesterday made me happy and I fully intend that it will make me happy tomorrow. And when you're drinking your meals, you need happy happy balls of sunshine wherever you can find 'em, mainly so you don't kill people (so that you can later eat them).

Will report again tomorrow. I'm sure it will go something like this: I had ____________ for breakfast. I had _____________ for lunch. I had ______________ for dinner. It was good/bad. I am happy/sad. But whatever. I promised to report on this shit and I'm doing it. Have a nice night. And eat a good breakfast! It saves lives!!!!

So.... I ate a tomato

Day 1:
Breakfast - Juice of 4 kale leaves, 2 celery stalks, 1/2 lemon, 1 granny smith apple, 1 cucumber and a piece of ginger
****morning snack****    One sliced tomato with pepper & apple cider vinegar
Lunch - Smoothie made with 1/2 blender of frozen chopped spinach, 2 kale leaves, 4 strawberries, 2 tbsp on blueberries, a chunk of fresh pineapple and 1 banana
Dinner - Juice of 3 kale leaves, 1 cucumber, 1 bell pepper, 1 carrot, 1/2 lime, 1 green apple
****evening cave**** 5 pan grilled green beans

I can feel you judging me!!!

OK OK OK!! So I caved a little and had to have a smidgeon of substance. I ate a damn tomato and a few green beans for crying out loud! God!

This was harder than I thought it would be and it tasted mostly terrible. I already love fruits and vegetables and will eat just about anything that grows out of the ground. I knew I needed to cram in as much green as I could today. Greens provide a tremendous amount of vidatim d, fiber, enzymes & antioxidents. Kale is the mac-daddy of greens. It fights fat for one and it's unusually high in fiber, nutrients, vitamin a & calcium, beta-carotene, which by many experts is believed to play a vital role in the battle against cancer, heart disease and certain age related illnesses. Then there's celery.... The shit I absolutely can't stand but that there's really no substitute for. It has vitamins a, k, b2 (riboflavin) b5, b6, magnesium, folate, calcium, and so on and on and on. I needed these things right away. I've been lacking energy, not sleeping well, racked with headaches and stress and in general just haven't been in a very good mood. I do NOT have cancer thankfully. But I do have atypical cells known as ductal hyperplasia that gives me a 45-48% chance of developing breast cancer. I'll see an oncologist next week and I feel certain he'll want to put me on some preventative drugs (that I won't be taking). He'll provide me with a risk assessment and hopefully if he's a decent doctor, a plan of action to help me prevent getting breast cancer.

I want to be healthy of course, but more than anything, I want to feel good and be around to see my kids grow up, to see my grandkids grow up. And I don't mean just BE here, I mean live - really live. I see so many overweight, sick people who aren't willing to make simple adjustments in their lives and do without some fatty greasy food and it's so disheartening. I've spent time with a number of people who are sick! I mean really really sick and I know they'd give anything to go back 30 years and take better care of themselves. They wish they'd never started smoking, or drinking. They wish they'd eaten better, exercised more. But now it's too late. Their lives are spent in utter misery, dependent on buckets of pills, oxygen tanks, breathing masks, insulin shots, surgeries, blood clots. The list goes on and on. I don't want that. I want to be a part of my children's lives, not a drain on them.

So today, I choked this stuff down knowing that in a few days my tastebuds will adapt and change and I'll be fine. The Pizza Hut commercial today only made me really hungry for about 5 minutes. Five miserable minutes. Five agonizing, disgustingly tantalizing miserably horrifying minutes........

Anyway, I got a recipe today on FB from a friend and I'm going to try it tomorrow for breakfast before heading out to see my surgeon for my follow up visit. It's a cup of vanilla Activia, spinach, a banana and some peanut butter and vanilla almond milk smoothie. It sounds heavenly and will be a welcome break. I'm hoping to incorporate more fruits and experiment with more recipes in the coming days. I've given myself permission to have slip-ups and cave into a tomato craving or a handfull of green beans here and there. I won't break from a strict 10 day diet of fruits and vegetables, juices and smoothie combinations. But if I have to have a tomato... I have to have a tomato. The only difference is I didn't juice it, I chewed it.

And there you have it, day 1. Day hungry, grouchy, angry 1. Eye of the Tiger and whatnot.

Food Anyone?

I've been making and drinking green smoothies off and on for a couple of years now. I finally perfected my recipe and it includes 3/4 blender of spinach, a few kale leaves, one banana, 5 or 6 strawberries, a handfull of blueberries, a bit of pineapple and a tsp of honey. Yummy! When I drink them for breakfast consistently the benefits to my health and mood and energy level is amazing! My mother bought me a juicer last year and I love it as well.

This afternoon my bff showed me a documentary she watched about a man who went on a sixty day juice fast. He started out at 319 lbs and in the first 10 days he lost 21 of them.  During his fasting he toured the United States (he's an Aussie) and the looks and comments he received when people found out what he was doing were astounding. Most obese people know that in order to lose weight they have to change their diet and take in fewer calories but it's astonishing to hear how oblivious they are about food in general.  I'm no foodie. I'm no expert in nutrition but I don't think it takes a genius to figure out that eating a lot of fatty sugary processed foods will make you fat and feel bad. And this isn't a knock on my Mother, but when I told her that I wanted to do a 10 day juice fast and explained to her what it entailed, her response was "That doesn't sound healthy. It's not good for you not to eat." I almost fainted upon hearing this. What this juice fast entails is instead of trying to physically chew 16 servings of fruits of vegetables per day, I'm going to combine the foods into smoothies and juices and consume them in a liquid or soft form. I will put into my body, only healthy, vitamin rich, nutritious foods. And my own Mother doesn't know if this is healthy...

The man who filmed his personal journey through this fasting's name is, Joe Cross. His documentary is aptly titled: Fat - Sick - And Nearly Dead. I recommend that everyone watch it. It's a basic and simple, non judgemental approach to regaining control of our bodies. We are a fat, sick, nearly dead, doctor and medicine dependent nation. I don't understand why food means so much to so many but it's difficult to listen to people's excuses for why they choose to be in such poor health. And it IS a choice. We don't have to eat garbage and we certainly don't have to eat a lot of it...

So tomorrow I'll begin my 10 day fast. I'm actually hoping to make it 30 days but I'm trying on 10 for size. I took my measurements and I will post my results, my menu and my feelings about it each day. I expect that I'll be pretty miserable for the first day or two or three. I'll try not to divulge too much of my misery. At the end of my 10th day I hope to feel fantastic, have lost 5 pounds and be ready to go for 20 days more. Stay tuned...

For the Record

Just to be clear, I am pro choice. I promote people making choices that best represent what they feel they can live with. And given recent firestorms of controversy, I feel compelled to state that no one I know or have ever known is in favor of abortion. Being pro choice doesn't mean you think abortion is awesome. It means you think you don't tell others what is right for them because you have no idea what it's like to BE them. I walk in MY shoes, no one elses. I've never heard anyone say that they thought killing embryos was a terrific way to pass the time. Everyone I know who supports an individual's right to choose simply supports and values existing life and appreciates that life in general is sometimes really hard and really terrible. I place ultimate value on the lives already self sustaining on this planet. When EVERY child in this world has a family, love, food & shelter, THEN I will concern myself with the children that are not yet born.

The way the world is, isn't the way it's supposed to be. War, perversion, hatred, discrimination... It's just not right. But just because the world isn't what it should be, doesn't mean that's not the way it is. Sublime ideology is not a basis for an argument.

Why THIS Sin?

I fancy myself to be more of a mental sinner than an acting one. But from everything I've learned, that doesn't matter. Sin is sin and one is no worse than the other. There are of course, the deadly ones or capital vices: wrath, sloth, greed, envy, gluttony, pride and lust. That just means they are a gateway to actions or vices that lead to very threatening, even deadly consequences; Hence the reason we should do our best to avoid them.

I hear a lot about how people have a particular disdain for homosexuals. I've heard railings against homosexuals from people all of my life. Today in the news I read about a gay man who was stalked as he went into a grocery store and then when he exited, a group of hate mongers lay in wait for him. Two of them had cameras and filmed the other men beating this man nearly to death. Because he is gay! And I need to know why people think that being a homosexual is more repugnant to our creator than say, being morbidly obese or being a drug addict or a busy body? Why don't people try to stop alcoholics from getting married? Why don't churches try to keep really overweight people from becoming preachers? I point to these two specifically because they're sins that are often much more visible to the casual observer but don't seem to draw nearly the hatred or criticism that homosexuality does. I have a lot of gay friends and some of them are much nicer people than I am. Some of them were far less promiscuous than myself when they were younger and some are much less quick to anger as well.

I just don't see it. I don't see where the fear and hatred come from. I don't understand blatant bigotry, which is also a sin... None of us are perfect. And most of us would make a sailor blush if we had to confess what we were REALLY like on the inside. If we had to say out loud, everything that was sinful and true about ourselves, most of us would crumple in shame before we could sputter the words. So why then are we so quick to crucify the people who have little chance of being as secretive as we? Aren't we all forgiven?