#but like. i went in and did analysis of my diet and its pretty good all things considered

[local-magpie]

additional considerations: drink them (in juice, smoothies, or blended soups) and then eat fruit for fiber

i mean this in the gentlest way possible: you need to eat vegetables. you need to become comfortable with doing so. i do not care if you are a picky eater because of autism (hi, i used to be this person!), you need to find at least some vegetables you can eat. find a different way to prepare them. chances are you would like a vegetable you hate if you prepared it in a stew or roasted it with seasoning or included it as an ingredient in a recipe. just. please start eating better. potatoes and corn are not sufficient vegetables for a healthy diet.

[borisbubbles]

25. PORTUGAL

Elisa - “Medo de sentir”

We’ve finally crossed over into the “I like this” territory :-) Let’s celebrate by booting another ballad ^_^

Song Analysis

This will be short and sweet though, since there isn’t much to say. “Medo de sentir” basically the Marie Myriam of its national final: It is a cromulent ballad that did nothing wrong and is solidly good, but not great in all the relevant areas (vocals, composition, staging). 

I mean,

Even so, Elisa gave me a few small nuggets that warmed me to her, serving DRAMAFACE in the FdC Semi

and LOOKS in the Finale: 

Peach puffy sleeves that rival Leonor Andrade’s legendary shoulder pads as a fashion statement <3 (honestly, this is pretty subdued for FdC fashion even? Hold on until I get talk about Felipe in the NF Corner) 

Honestly, you may wonder why I like this more than “Répondez-moi”, but I don’t really have a reason  - unless you’re willing to accept “Medo de sentir is underrated, is performed by a Weird Indie Girl and is from a criminally overlooked Eurovision country” as valid argumentations. Oh and while I only *very* mildly like Elisa, it is a decision I made myself, completely free of the social pressure I feel whenever Gjon, or heaven forbid, Roxen or Diodato, pop up. 

Furthermore, the fact that I still like Elisa even after she won her NF also speaks greatly in her favour. I’m not sure if you were aware of how good FdC was this year? Well, sit down because you are about to witness it!

NF Corner

Remember how old Eesti Laul’s neck was snapped and its corpse was urinated on by the shit Estonians? Remember how the quirky indie weirdo entries had to find a safe haven elsewhere in Europe? The Portugese hallmark traits of “Not Giving A Fuck”, “Doing Our Own Thing No Matter What” and “What Do You Mean This Isn’t A Vimeo Showreel?” allowed for Festival da Canção to absorb Eesti Laul’s broken spirit and channel it from every (Ley-La-)Ley-Line.

and since this is the first *GREAT* 2020 NF I am covering, I will do HONORABLE MENTIONS before I actually review my four choices :o

Dubio - “Ceguiera”: Hamburglar-looking goddess <3333

MEERA - “Copo de gin”: Pure EL-style EDM *and* it’s about drinking gin, needless to say this song is basically *my anthem*.  Jimmy P - “Abensonhado”: Rap rarely is my thing, let alone three minutes of it non-stop. Having said that, this is genuine and dramatic and Jimmy is flanked by a GOSPEL CHOIR (dressed in chasubles!!!) who support him in ENGLISH... I am not made of stone.  JJaZZ - “Agora”: Totally slept on this weird indie anthem, but then they showed up looking like this:

and yes, it was even funnier in motion (sadly gif’ing rights are reserved to the Elite 4 soz) Elisa Rodrigues - “Não voltes mais”: a jolly tropical ballad in a genre I recognize but cannot name (some sort of pimba fado jazz? Does this work?) and was incomprehensibly hated by the Portuguese? Will I ever understand how this country operates? Probably never. Kady - “Diz so”: another pimba fado jazz sort of thing? My friend André (who is from Brazil) tells me it’s actively parodying Brazillian counterculture and leftist stereotypes which is such a random quirk to put in a Portuguese music comp <3

And before we move on, I’ll chuck in a very speclal DISHONORABLE mention for our good friends Blasted Mechanism.😈 I actually forgot to do my jury duties for ESCUnited here, so I’ll just let James (the person with the best taste on our team, including yours truly) do it for me: 

Fucking *TRUTH*. “Rebellion’”s problem  has always been a lack of motherfucking balls. Sure, these middle-aged steampunkers attempt to implement a genre shift between indie rock and fucking ORCHESTRAL METAL/HIP HOP and make it so underwhelming and pathetic? People blame the live, and yes it was *bad* (forever cackling at “REBELGIUM” tho), but it was the studio that failed to deliver on the promises it made.  It always surprises me when people (Sean and Roy I AM coming for you) slam "Verona” for being a “fanwank” and then fall for a Rebellion which is basically a fanwank for heterosexual snobs. #ShotsFired. 

Now, as for the actual Boris faves, LET US START WITH A LIBERAL DOSE OF ASKEW CUBISM

Judas - “Cubismo Enviesado” 

VÊS OU NÃO?  VÊS OU NÃO?  VÊS OU NÃO?  VÊS OU NÃO?  VÊS OU NÃO?   

VÊS OU NÃO?  VÊS OU NÃO?  VÊS OU NÃO?  VÊS OU NÃO?  VÊS OU NÃO?  

VÊS OU NÃO?  VÊS OU NÃO?  VÊS OU NÃO?  VÊS OU NÃO?  VÊS OU NÃO?   

VÊS OU NÃO?  VÊS OU NÃO?  VÊS OU NÃO?  VÊS OU NÃO?  VÊS OU NÃO?  

 WHAT A FUCKING SPANDEX CATASTROPHE. “Cubismo enviesado” is a horrible song, the choreography looks like it had been conjured up during a particularly drunk night of bedroom karaoke and Judas can’t hold a tune for the life of him. The lyrics don’t even make sense in Portuguese <33333 It is an art school project gone disastrously wrong. NEEDLESS TO SAY, I AM OBSESSED.😍

Filipe Sambado - “Gerbera Amarelo do Sul”

That look

The regal panache

Those... leather shorts?

IT IS SO QUEER I LOVES IT. As with Cubismo, I am fucking OBSESSED. However, unlike Cubismo, “Gerbera amarela do sul” is *legitimately* great, lol. In addition to having a KICK-ASS fado rhythm and the off-the-charts visual components (the jewellery! the hats! the throne! the hand choreography!), the lyrics are highly intelligent poetry geared at dismantling upper class snobism.😍 Rare to find an entry that kicks ass on SO MANY levels. Even harder to see it lose to Elisa Myriam - but I’m not sad it lost because, you know, it would have befallen the same fate as a “Telemóveis”. At least his existence makes the memory-holing of Achille Lauro’s ICONIC Virgin Queen Cosplay so much easier to stomach. 

Throes & The Shine - “Movimiento”

I mean, entries that open like THIS: 

are instantly iconic, ngl. The best FdC entries offer a great triple of great looks, unplugged stubborn artistry and fun quirky rhythmes. Throes + The Shine pass this with flying colours and I mean, THOSE sunglasses alone yank up the laugh-out-laugh factor to astronomical levels. add in a hilarious choreography, sound effects that seemingly imitate duck mating noises and three very attractive men (in 2020! the concept!) and it’s an instant fave right there. 

AND THEN MADE THEIR ENTRY EVEN BETTER BY ADDING MIDNIGHT GOLD/JOWST EFFECTS TO THEIR STAGING. 😍😍😍😍

MANCHAS DE LAMA NA SUA PELE  

HEROES. 😍😍😍

and of course, this wouldn’t be a 2020 NF without an obvious runaway fave losing at the last minute: 

Bárbara Tinoco - “Passe-partout”

SHE IS TINY <3333:

She’s like a human bonsai... or a personal attack chincilla.

Okay, so Portugal were *THIS close* to out-France’ing the French with this sassy Zazballad, served with a generous dollop of parisian accordion and stank reaction shots.

Yet another entry that shamelessly uses an attractive man as a boytoy prop <333 For a brief moment, Bàrbara and Tiago establish themselves as a pair of lovestruck La La Land idiots, gearing themselves towards the EPIC moment where she will dump him... and then this happens before the first chorus:

Barbara opens up a can of dancer carbs and it completely fucks up her no-bullshit keto diet. 

Those dancers man. They aren’t a *bad* addition in itself, but if your thing is “romance ballad but *plot twist* it’s actually an end of romance ballad get lost loser” do not burn the clou within the first minute of the performance to a group of dancers who don’t even dance *along with the beat of your song*. UGH.

(and also, more devastatingly, the reduce tiaGOD’s airtime how dare they grrr)

Fortunately though, I have learned to appreciate the wrecktitude of it all because it caused one of the funniest downfall narratives in recent ESC history. The Portuguese were, of course, foaming at the mouth with all the decisions Bárbara had made (not even for the points I raised, necessarily?) and Bárbara was having none of it. It went kinda like this

Juries: EWWW DANCERS AND CHOREOGRAPHY YOU ARE RAPING YOUR OWN SONG YOU PHILISTINE WHORE. Bárbara: 

Juries: WOW WHAT *ARROGANCE*!! YOU THINK YOU CAN WIN BUT BOY DO WE HAVE NEWS FOR YOU :-) 

and lo hand behold, the finale rolls on and Tinoco’s dancers are still there, and are even *MORE* present than they were in the semi (but also in sync with the beat) and Bárbara gets promptly jurydunked into third place. 😍 Even though she has the *ONLY* song in FdC that could have qualified in its semifinal. 😍  A woman who stands three apples tall trolling an entire nation and juries because she knew she had gold in her hands and then getting rigged out of the easiest nf victory out of pure SPITE 😍  WHAT AN ARC. 😍

Portugal 2020 vs Portugal 2021

Elisa probably would not have qualified. I’m not sure how popular of an opinion this is, but I prefer the semifinal performance of “Medo de sentir” and that wasn’t the staging they were going for. Not many people seemed to care either way, and that’s usually the death sentence for Portugal. 

Elisa won’t be back for 2021 or whenever Eurovision is rebooted. :sigh: Fuck you, Coronavirus. 

Freaky! Friday! Factor!

See: NF Corner:

Score: 4 Senhits out of 5. 

[woodswolf]

Let's go buck wild. Even numbers

i did this........ on mobile........ for You............

also im not bolding all of these its absolutely painful on mobile

2. How old did you turn this year?

21

4. Did your appearance change in anyway?

uhhh not really, been that kinda "lowkey dumpster fire" look for like the entire decade tbh

6. If you traveled, where did you go?

went to las vegas with family for three days over thanksgiving

8. Which fashion trends did you hate?

i dont even know what fashion is i just wear business casual for work and dont get dressed at all on the weekends unless i need to buy food.

10. What song sums up this year for you?

home by cavetown and/or strawberry blond by mitski

12. What was your favorite movie of the year?

i cant even remember if ive SEEN any movies this year tbh but uhh did good blood's oot analysis video essay come out this year? because if so ill go with that

14. Favorite new TV show?

i dont watch SHIT because i am uncultured and have no time!!!!!! but i guess steven universe future has been entertaining to watch from the sidelines

16. What food did you try for the first time?

uhhhhhh i guess i had shepard's pie. i know very new and original but considering my usual diet is "pre-portioned shit that can be thrown in a microwave and consumed" its something

18. What was one nice thing you did for someone else?

i dont remember things that happen more than like 3 days ago at any given time so idk

20. Did you develop a new obsession?

not particularly? just a few old hyperfixations came on stronger

22. Did you move?

yea for work, im in the civilization now

24. Did you get a pet?

sorta? my parents adopted a puppy but shes not mine n im not up there to see her most of the time so

26. Do you regret doing something?

sorta but its hard to explain

28. Did anyone/thing make you so mad it stayed with you for days?

sorta yea? but idk how to explain it in short form

34. Did you have to cut ties to someone?

not really? i dont remember

36. Who wasn’t as important to you this year as they were last year?

i dont remember. this whole list is just kinda reminding me of how fucking long this year has dragged on tbh

38. What was the best moment of the year for you?

not really any one specific moment? idk, just goofing off with friends

40. Did anything happen that you were sure would change you as a person but it really didn’t?

this question makes me feel Things in a way thats hard to describe. same with the companion question thats an odd number. how the fuck are you supposed to determine if something should change you as a person? how do you quantify that? and then how do you make a comparison at the end? i have megabig identity issues that im not really public with on this blog and pretty much never have been! it's just a huge series of cop-outs and shit! and like this isnt even getting into the idea of how im supposed to anticipate a change ahead of time? like whats up with neurotypicals n their future vision shit i want that?

42. What are you most proud of accomplishing?

uhhhhhh i got a job n i finished my first big project on that job. i am still working at that job and i hope that i can continue to work there because if i cant im beyond fucked.

44. Did your opinion of anyone change for the better?

uhhhhhh i dont really know? i mean sorta but can an opinion really qualify as having changed for the better if it previously just didnt exist? like oh, i now know more about this person other than their name and the fact that they exist and turns out they are cool and nice. like that doesnt really count as an opinion change imo

46. If you make resolutions, did you complete them this year?

if i made resolutions i sure as fuck dont remember them. but i got a job in my field at least so thats something

48. If you could go on an adventure during the remaining days of the year, where would you go and what would you do?  Who would you go this?

kinjago reunion party in fuckin uh. some big cabin in the woods where we can subsist and have sleepovers. n we never leave we just stay there forever.

50. What do you wish for yourself?

really need to keep my job hhhh. really need to fix my pc hhhhhhhhh.

[drferox]

What are some differences between cheap wet cat food and more expensive wet cat food?

Well, make yourself a cup of tea and prepare for a long read, because there are lots of myths about nutrition. I should start first and foremost by saying that I am not going to tell anyone what to feed their cat, or dog, unless that animal is a patient of mine. I’m only going to tell you what to consider.

The first one is that lots and lots of laypeople sites will say ‘meat should be the first ingredient’ often followed by ‘no nasty byproducts’ and this is not strictly the case. Cat food must have meat in it, but it doesn’t strictly have to be the first ingredient, especially if it uses multiple meat sources.

What I want to know about any given wet cat food is this:

Is it a ‘guaranteed analysis’ or a ‘typical analysis’. A guaranteed analysis is superior.

How much of it is water, indicated by ‘Moisture percentage’

How much is protein, and is that figure ‘as fed’ or ‘as dry matter’.

How much is fat, and is that figure ‘as fed’ or ‘as dry matter’.

Macro and micronutrients are also important, especially taurine and in growing cats, but that information is often unreasonably difficult to find outside of the premium diets.

This is a large part of the reason, incidentally, that vets and a profession often recommend a couple of brands over other. Getting all the information I require to confidently recommend a diet is easy for Hills, Royal Canin, Advance, etc but nearly impossible without phoning and begging any of the supermarket brands. Honestly, if a brand of food wants me to be able to honestly recommend it, it needs to provide its nutritional information in an easily accessible manner. Otherwise you have to go to the store to start getting any nutritional info, as I did.

Yeah, I went to the supermarket and started snapping pics of all the nutritional information available on the labels of various wet food brands and looked like a crazy lady doing so. Here are the unedited label photos, on another post for neatness.

Some points to note:

Some brands have a guaranteed analysis, which is more reliable and suggests better quality than a typical analysis

Some packets will clearly state they are compliant with AAFCO (The Association of American Feed Control) recommendations, even here in Australia.

Then others, like Smitten, will subtly say ‘Complementary food only’, which means you cannot guarantee or expect a cat fed that food alone to remain healthy for a year. It’s not well marked.

Only one of them offered any indication of the Moisture Content, which is what you need to make sure you’re comparing apples with apples.

The moisture content is important, because if you look at those labels as-is you will see all of these diets only offer 9% to 13% protein. For a species that requires a high protein diet, that doesn’t sound like a whole lot, but that’s because you’re not taking the water into account.

To simplify, it’s not unreasonable to consider food as being made up of only four things: protein, fat, carbohydrates or water.

All of these diets list their fat and protein, but only Fancy Feast Originals listed its moisture percentage, and once you know the percentage of three components, you can use simple maths to figure out the fourth. Fancy Feast isn’t the most expensive, nor is it the cheapest, it’s middle of the range.

But why are there always carbohydrates in my cat food? Because there’s always carbohydrates in meat. Glycogen is the most common, it’s the energy storage molecule in muscle and liver that makes it taste good, and incidentally the cat uses the same enzymes to digest it as they do starch. This is probably why they often like starchy things. Cats can and do digest carbohydrates, beware of any source that claims they do not.

So out of the canned foods at my supermarket, you’d think they all sound pretty similar with their protein ranging from 9-13% and their fat from 1.5-5.5%. But you have no way to compare them without knowing the moisture content.

If one diet is 9% protein, 2% fat and 80% moisture, then it’s 9% carbohydrate. If it’s 9% protein, 2% fat and 70% moisture, then it’s 19% carbohydrate.

Unfortunately, finding the moisture content of many of these diets is difficult. However, it’s not unreasonable to assume that cheap wet food contains a higher moisture content, as it’s usually the case. Water is cheap.

If you can get the moisture content, you can calculate the percentage of fat/protein or carbohydrate as a Dry Matter Percentage (what’s left after removing the water). It’s simply the nutrient % / (100- moisture %)

For a normal cat, we’re looking for a protein level that’s at least 25-35% of the dry matter, and fat that’s 10-30% of the dry matter, depending on its digestibility.

For reference, the Fancy Feast Originals can in this sample had 55% protein and 10% fat by dry matter, which is more than the minimum amount of protein, but that’s perfectly alright for a normal cat.

If you compare that to the ‘Gourmet Delight’ Natural Grain Free diet, you have to guess the moisture percentage. If you guess moisture at 80%, then by dry matter you have 45% protein  7.5% fat and more carbohydrates than the Fancy Feast had. If you guess only 70% moisture, and most canned foods are between 70-80%, then those numbers start to look even worse.

The fancy ‘Natural’ and ‘Grain free’ means absolutely nothing for the cats.

(The ‘natural, grain free’ dies even specifies ‘no nasty byproducts’ on the tin and the website is full of dumbed-down myths to sell you your food. Also check out the people listed as answering their FAQs, I can’t even tell whether they’re vets or not. No ‘Dr’ or qualification, and not easy to Google.)

You would think cheap cat food is going to be poorer quality than expensive cat food, but especially in the case of the Grain Free trend, it’s not always the case. This is because if something is more expensive, it is often perceived as better by consumers, even if it is really not, so the manufacturer can hike the price up a bit freely

So after you’ve decided whether the diet has enough protein, enough fat, and meets suitable nutritional guidelines like AAFCO, then you look at what the ingredients actually are. Most meats are going to be around 90% digestible and usable by the cats, while vegetable proteins are only 40-50% useful at all. So if the diet has a lot of high protein vegetables, that protein percentage may be artificially elevated and not utilized well by the cat’s metabolism.

I’m not going to talk about grain free versus not, because the vast majority of the time it makes no difference to the cat and is simply a personal choice on the part of the human feeding it.

Lastly, look at how much you need to feed to maintain a body weight. If the food doesn’t tell you the moisture percentage, and doesn’t tell you the calorie content, it should at the very least have a feeding guide. If you need to feed twice as many packets of one food to maintain weight as another, then it’s probably either lower quality, higher fiber or higher moisture than another.

That said, you might want a lower calorie food or a higher moisture food to help a cat feel full while losing weight, or to improve stool quality. That’s ok, pick something that suits your purpose.

With me all the way to the end? Well done. Crack out a biscuit to have with your tea.

TL:DR:

You wont find all the nutritional info you need on the packet

Check the protein and fat levels

Check whether it’s a complete diet, (eg AAFCO standard) or a ‘Complementary food’

Make sure it’s got meat/fish

And this rather long post is the simplest I can make cat wet food for you.

(Oh, and if you have something to add to the conversation, please do so in a reply or reblog. Random anecdotes sent to the ask box will not be published to keep the topic all in one place)

[badnewtattoo]

the gang makes paddy’s great again- thoughts.

i wrote this whole thing and then tumblr refreshed and i lost it.. this is why i use mobile. these are basically my overall thoughts and feelings on the episode with as much intelligence as i am capable of. i’ve never been one of those people who writes long analysis of iasip or anything, this is as close as we’re getting. also if you can’t tell already, i absolutely love meellisday.

-i can’t believe they all had sex with the doll... especially my boy charlie kelly i mean i expected it from mac (duh) and frank is kinda gross but... my boy, pls

-i don’t remember what i already wrote here because this is my second time doing this becauseeeee it got deleted

-there was more positive content i swear

-i liked cindy and the fact that she radiates pure evil. she was really weird, man. she was strange, i am a fan. i hope she comes up in the future here and there suggesting that they do more freaky shit and acting like a groupie for success.

-ok my biggest problem was the dialogue of this episode. there were a lot of cases of things just being straight up repeated? there was a line that dee said out loud at the dinner table and then repeated under her voice as a kind of ad-libbed chatter type thing and that was rough for a show so strong historically with its talking over each other scenes, improv, and fast dialogue. the jokes about mac banging the sex doll were ok to be repeated, i guess, but they kept making the same jokes about him with the exact same words and tone. in fact i don’t really get why they made the “mac is having sex with the doll” joke so often. since they all ended up having an orgy with it i rlly think there was a missed opportunity, they should’ve made fun of him for having sex with it after it was confirmed they all did because there could’ve been a moment of “..... wait but yall arent any better.... the” does that make sense? it does to me? like i know they did make a comment about it when dennis got back but it was a missed opportunity to not point out the irony.

-the storyline was not good. or the whole liberal tears thing was just very strange. it felt like they abandoned the show’s usual character driven aspects for the sake of driving the plot. they went with a humorous plot i guess but no jokes were made about the liberal/conservative thing from the gang so therefore it wasn’t funny? the gas scheme and the garbage schemes, for example, wouldn’t have strictly been funny on their own or excecuted by different people but they were good episodes and were funny to me because of the gang. the door to door song, the misspelled sign, the entire ridiculousness of the limo. maybe the plan was meant to be very run of the mill and unimportant because cindy was running it, like schmitty, but it was weeeeiiird and i think could have been done differently in a way that would have more positively impacted the story and overall episode quality. the labels, for example, could’ve been much better. my favourite part was the strip club and their interactions there, i wish there had been more of that vibe. also i think there was more to be done with charlie fighting the sex doll.

-dee didn’t have sex with the doll so                ha, go 2 hell incest supporters

-dee was pretty great in this episode actually. the only thing i disliked was her reason for wanting cindy gone being that she felt that she wasn’t special anymore because there was another girl. that was kinda dumb and i would’ve easily accepted had she just decided to go back with the gang without any reasoning. it doesn’t seem like dee to hate on another woman like that without reasoning, sorry if i’m wrong i really don’t know shit. it just didn’t sit well.

-the waitress!!!!!!!!!! i love her!

-ok so i think mary elizabeth is a great person and is also a very good comedic actress. she’s on santa clarita diet (i literally went through the show just to watch her) and i’m not even being biased when i say she is really good on that show. she’s so talented and funny on that show and shines in a way over there that i never really felt she did on sunny. not by any fault of her own but i don’t think the writing for the waitress has ever been all that interesting or with potential to stand out. i like the waitress because although she thinks she’s better than the gang and then charlie she is so obviously just as garbage as them but also has that quality of being just about the most mundane person on the planet. what i’m getting at here is she deserves better writing and could be as iconic and funny as all the other side characters and i think finally bringing her down to living with charlie could be a really good change for her character. you still have the potential for delusions of superiority, similar to how mac thinks people like him and thought he was straight or how dennis thinks he’s a lady’s man, the waitress similarly thinks she’s better than these people while being a garbage person who uses charlie and is now literally living with him. she’s always been pretty similar to charlie (more so as it’s gone on) but tells herself that he’s worse and again.. now that they really are in the same living space and are more clearly placed beside each other in the eyes of the viewer, i hope she can have more coooool and exciting story lines. hope that wasn’t too repetitive. i just want everyone to know how funny and awesome she has the potential to be and she deserves shining moments that characters like cricket, maureen, and the mcpoyles get. etc.

-hearing charlie kelly call the waitress “honey” and “sweetie” is so, so weird and again, that’s a testament to how good they are at acting

-also i wish they’d addressed the pregnancy thing they were going for (she could’ve at least been annoyed at him that it didn’t work out or whatever) and it didn’t make sense to me that the season 12 finale saw charlie as being uncomfortable with the waitress expecting a relationship with him and this episode didn’t see him as really annoyed or uncomfortable, or at least it seemed to be at a different degree and from a different angle. how charlie treated her was a bit similar to how he treated dee in rules the world but i wish the waitress hadn’t been at all submissive? like she slept with the sex doll and was being funny/rude about it?? i wish she had been that way the whole time or at least more significantly? i get that the joke was that she now was desperate like charlie had been but i can’t say it was done all that well or consistently, from my perspective? i wish they had more fighting and banter and whatever. idk man. 

-they said it was their apartment so i kind of wonder if frank is still living with them?

-also i felt like there wasn’t enough frank!!!!!!!!!!!! he was hardly there. i also missed the charlie/frank dynamic. if you can tell by this point,,,, i am a big charlie fan. 

-but yeah the first thing i noticed was a lack of frank. my deal is that it felt as though the gang hardly really interacted within themselves? everything felt pretty impersonal. usually there’s scheming and yelling and really fast/smart dialogue but it felt more plot based and focused on getting across a specific set of events as opposed to thoroughly being true to the characters. the sex doll orgy felt out of place and these stranger elements of the episode reminded me of the ski episode and flowers for charlie in the way that they were detached from how i recognize the gang’s personalities. yes. 

-dude!! i missed dennis! i didn’t realize how much i would want dennis back until he showed up and started doing that thing where he makes black and white judgements based entirely on personal preference. like in charlie rules the world at the end, i love that stuff. 

-i actually think dennis was the most true to form in his character, my only things i’d change would: i’d add in a “move past it” in his explanation of his return, i’d make the bird thing more natural, and i’d have him be more protective of the 80s (that was the insult, right? she said he dresses like the 80s? anyways we know den loves that shit pls)

-mac was cool too! as i said earlier i wish they’d repeated that joke a wee bit less but aside from that i absolutely loved the mac content because he doesn’t always get the best stuff to work with. rob, as i’ve said before, is truly underrated for his performance as mac because the character is so easy to read. mac is very easy to understand as someone who craves validation and easily speaks his feelings while also have distorted versions of self, though that seems to be going away (with the coming out, the obvious truth of him being ripped, and him straight up asking if they like him) which is really funny because instead of him being wrong about who he is and being oblivious, everyone else is oblivious about him because he used to be?? yes, her. though he’s still a denial ridden dumbass in many ways, now the gang is in denial about his apperance. anyways rob killed this episode and i hope people come to see that is equally as distinctive as charlie and dennis.

-i really did like dee here, as i said earlier. she was also rather true to form. no complaints, and i like how she seemed more integrated into the gang. i love when they all work together, or at least work with dee, and everyone is equal and none of them continually put down dee. that’s way more fun. 

-alright i think this is all i have to say for this episode? it seemed pretty foreign to sunny’s usual formula and reminded me the most of “flowers for charlie” in how it definitely strays from how what i view as a normal episode for the gang. there were good enough moments but it isn’t going to be one of my favourite episodes of the season. i really hope they don’t fall into the same hole arrested development did where they once would reach a conclusion every episode and stick to a format which changed in the 4th season for sure. i am ok with change but i hope not much is sacrificed. anyways, i am still a fan and am anticipating the rest of the season still! yes i’m aware that this is overwhelmingly negative but every negative i have for any sunny episode is usually leaps and bounds better than episodes of pretty much any other show.

[la-knight]

Books I Read in 2016_::_The Sinister Sweetness of Splendid Academy by Nikki Loftin

“When my mom was alive, she read me stories every night.

‘Use your imagination, Lorelei,’ she’d say, ‘and your whole life can be a fairy tale.”

I wanted that to be true. But I should have paid more attention to the fairy tales.”

When Lorelei’s old school mysteriously burns down, a new one appears practically overnight: Splendid Academy. Rock-climbing walls on the playground and golden bowls of candy on every desk? Gourmet meals in the cafeteria, served by waiters? Optional homework and two recess periods a day? It’s every kids’s dream.

But Lorelei and her new friend Andrew are pretty sure it’s too good to be true. Together they uncover a sinister mystery, one with their teacher, the beautiful Ms. Morrigan, at the very center. Then Andrew disappears. Lorelei has to save him, even if that means facing a past she’d like to forget – and taking on a teacher who’s a real witch.

What Lorelei and Andrew discover chills their bones – and might even pick them clean!

1.85/5 stars

So I read this book a while ago, and the first time I read it, I really liked it. Not love, but I enjoyed it just fine. I’m not snobby about the target age of my reading material: I love Dragons Love Tacos as much as I love Red Queen as much as I love The Night Circus as much as I love Aru Shah and the End of Time. And I read The Sinister Sweetness of Splendid Academy at a dark time in my life (I have many) when my depression went undiagnosed and therefore untreated and I couldn’t handle much in the way of length or high-high stakes or grimdark or anything like that. So this book was perfect because it had stakes but it’s easier to care about one kid’s life than about, say, the war for the Iron Throne on top of all your faves possibly getting killed by ice demons or zombies. And I enjoyed this book.

More recently, I’ve reread it, and…well, I didn’t love it or like it as much as I had the first time. I didn’t hate it, but I definitely didn’t love it.

People talk about purity culture, which is hecka toxic, and I’m not here for that (I don’t judge people’s reading material unless it’s something drastic, like shouting from the rooftops how much they enjoyed Mein Kampf because, um, yikes). If there’s a book that I’ve heard is problematic, I may or may not read it for myself, depending on the nature of the issues and whatever. No media is perfect, it’s a balancing act. If I’m titchy about the person getting my money, I’ll buy that book secondhand so they don’t get any of my money (this is what I did with Stephenie Meyer, Suzanne Collins, Cassandra Clare, Anne Rice, James Dashner, & JK Rowling, for example). Not difficult to do. The obsession with consuming so-called “pure media” can be super bad and result in things like anon harassment or even death threats. I’ve seen this happen. On the flip side, the push against both problematic content and purity culture, when dealt with rationally, has led to some really great discussions regarding media analysis and critical thinking with regard to story consumption, and that’s great.

Why is this relevant?

So I reread Splendid Academy after some exposure to articles, essays, blog posts, and tumblr posts about several topics - including the pervasiveness and lethality of fat-shaming (among other things, like the silencing and condemnation by society of justified female anger). I did not go looking for these posts, they just trickled into the fringe of my social awareness as a result of using social media. I’d read them, reblogged and retweeted them, but I didn’t consciously try to apply those posts to Splendid Academy when I reread it. But this time through, the book made me super uncomfortable, although at first I didn’t quite understand why. I had to sit and, as they say, “think muh thoughts” all the way through a few times before I figured out what was bothering me.

The very basic dual premises of this book are sexist and fat-phobic. Now, I’m fat. There’s a lot of stigma around being fat. I mean, people have died of treatable, not-fat-related medical ailments because their doctor refused to look for those things, falling back on “just lose some weight and you’ll be fine” instead - and then boom, it’s something like cancer (which is not exacerbated by being fat) and the person dies.

(I am not Google. You can Google this information if you really want to. It’s all over Tumblr, Twitter, and Google. Don’t bother me about it)

The sinister nature of Splendid Academy is that its run by three witches fattening up all the kids to be eaten. Typical “Hansel and Gretel” motif, right? Except! In “Hansel and Gretel,” the kids are literally starving when they come upon a food source, an adult tells them to eat and eat and eat (it’s not their idea), and Hansel ends up locked in a cage by the witch and force-fed because the witch* threatens to kill his sister if he doesn’t. A lot of fairy tales (original ones in Grimms collections and by Andersen and whatnot, I mean) have morals of various types. The moral of “Hansel & Gretel” is not “gluttony should be punishable by death” or “being fat makes you a worthless human and it’s why bad things happen to you.”

(*By the way, the stereotypical long-nosed warty witch who eats Christian children is an anti-Semitic caricature of Jewish women and it’s gross; luckily the author doesn’t do that)

But in this book, the kids almost seem to bring their imminent demise on themselves by eating too much junk food. Sort of like how the narration says Augustus Gloop ended up turned into semi-sentient fudge in Charlie & the Chocolate Factory because he was a greedy glutton and not because Willy Wonka is a colonizing* sociopath who should never be in charge of minors.

(*Three words: Fucking. Oompa. Loompas.)

All but one of the kids attending Splendid Academy are snackers. These twelve- and thirteen-year-olds will snack on Skittles or sunflower seeds or whatever while they do homework or school work. They’re fed gourmet breakfasts and lunches in the school cafeteria every day. The food is enchanted, of course, to be highly addictive and also enchanted so that it transforms immediately into fat, apparently? Bypassing the stomach entirely, I guess, because the kids never get full and literally just eat all day every day that they’re in school.

Wait, you say. If the food is enchanted, it’s not the kids’ fault they’re eating it. That’s not fat-phobic at all. What?

I said all but one kid has fallen for these magical machinations. One boy (not our protagonist Lorelei, but her friend Andrew) is basically immune to the call of the candy. If the One Ring of Power was candy, he’d be movie!Faramir and Lorelei would be Frodo. And why is he immune? Because he’s got a fairy godmother? He’s magical himself? He’s a total nerd and studied mythology and knows how to spot ensorcelled edibles a mile away?

Nah. It’s cuz he went to fat camp.

Y’all can’t see my face right now.

Now, to be fair, apparently Andrew was a compulsive eater and needed some kind of intervention because he was out of control (which, also being fair, is a ridiculous and tired trope about how fat people can’t control themselves around food and we need to kill that with fire and not spoon-feed the idea to tweens, thanks). But even with the blegh back story of compulsive eater, YOU DON’T SEND A TWELVE-YEAR-OLD TO FAT CAMP, OHMIGAWD. Unless he’s got PICA (that mental illness where you compulsively eat dangerous or non-food shit like glass or soap or carpet lint) or whatever, he’s not compulsively eating because he’s the next Augustus Gloop and he’s a spoiled brat who hates the word “no.” I used to be a compulsive eater as a kid (which is oddly not how I got fat). I developed the habit if “eating my feelings” because I WAS SUICIDAL AND FOOD WAS THE ONLY THING THAT EVEN HELPED A LITTLE BIT.

And you know what helped me curb my compulsive eating when my depression got really bad? It wasn’t the taunting about being fat or my mom telling me I needed to go on a diet or my dad asking me constantly if I really shouldn’t put back that second cheese stick or applesauce cup. What really helped me stop compulsively eating WAS TREATING MY FREAKING DEPRESSION.

Ahem. However, the book does do one thing sort of right with this kid - because he HAS UNTREATED DEPRESSION went to actual therapy (for the compulsive eating specifically and not anything else that might be wrong) while shipped off to fat-person exile because his parents are horrible people, he can recognize “trigger foods”* - the foods that he would compulsively eat and would make him overeat when he was upset, foods he now avoids. They got that part right. But it also means he’s more selective about what he eats (which is fine) and has more self-control than the other kids (um…), self-control he learned thanks to an entire summer at fat camp (UM…), and his sheer determination alone to not “stuff his face” helps him shake off the herion-addictive magic laid on the school food.

ExCUSE me???

(*Side note, I’m on meds now for non-food stuff that screw with my appetite and also I’m a broke bitch but as a kid/teen, my trigger foods were bread, apple pie, cake, waffles, and fruit bagels. I can still, if I had money, eat an entire angel food cake but that’s not a trigger, it’s just super fluffy and delicious)

So our sidekick is a former fat kid with untreated mental health issues who got sent to fat camp and thanks to the miracle of fat camp has now overcome his unhealthy dependence on food AND has the will power (forged from denying his inner fatty) to throw off three witches’ worth of addictive magic. Something Lorelei only manages to do after she eats magical dead-kid bone chips. Because she and the other kids have no self-control and so just eat and eat...apparently.

Alrighty then…

But Andrew’s not our lead. Lorelei is. And Lorelei interesting as a middle grade protagonist. Her mom recently died of cancer and Lorelei blames herself (because that’s what kids do) and she’s filled with even more confusion, fear, self-hate, and anger than a typical tween girl as a result both of her mother’s lingering illness and ugly death as well as the fact that Lorelei at one point jerked away from her mom during an argument and, due to chemo-induced weakness, her mom lost her balance, fell, and broke a bone.

Lorelei is lost and angry. She makes friends with Andrew and finds out about the witches and their cannibal plot while still struggling not only with her mom’s death and her own guilt, but the screwed-up situation with her family. What situation? Her dad and older brother are 100% emotionally abusive and treat her like she’s some kind of bratty little monster because she’s feeling sad and guilty and scared and angry all the time.

HER MOM JUST DIED YOU BUTTHOLES, SHE’S GOING THROUGH PUBERTY WHICH IS A HORMONAL HURRICANE OF DEATH THAT RUINS EVERYTHING, AND YOU POOP-WAFFLES ARE HELPING NOT AT ALL AND YOU SUCK.

This is a MAJOR pet peeve for me because too often emotional abuse is normalized in middle grade fiction, especially when it comes from parents (this book, The Night Parade by Kathryn Tanquary, All Four Stars by Tara Dairman, Young Wizards by Diane Duane, and even in Harry Potter, perpetuated by some of the so-called heroes) and it drives me bat-crap.

This is a middle-grade review, so I’m trying to keep it PG13.

The head witch, Ms. Morrigan, is drawn to Lorelei because of her anger and how lost she feels, and instead of eating her, wants to adopt her and make her into a baby cannibal-witch. This would be kind of a cool angle except once again, it reinforces that Lorelei being angry about her mom being dead is a flaw iin her character and not a completely understandable psychological response to a tween’s universe being ripped in half by the concept of her mother being gone forever.

Her dad and brother are “good guys” and disturbed/horrified by and condemning of her anger, grief, guilt, and fear, and they punish her for it. Ergo, according to the narrative, her anger is bad. The evil witches who literally eat children admire her anger and say it proves she should be one of them, too. Ergo, her anger is double bad. She only stops being tempted to join with the witches once she realizes being angry about her mom dying is “immature” and “bad.” Ergo, blah blah blah, girls should never be angry, it’s unladylike and turns you into a flesh-eating witch.

My parents spoon-fed me “demonstrating anger in any way for any reason is bad” along with a HUGE helping of “being angry about feeling powerless makes you a bad person” for six years of my adolescence, then wondered why I started self-harming, developed depression, and attempted suicide on multiple occasions before I was twelve. The message that a child’s anger in the face of powerlessness, death, or sudden and unpredictable changes to their homeostasis is an inherently bad thing that should be punished and makes them bad or evil can be incredibly damaging. Her mom died. A twelve-year-old girl is allowed to be confused and sad and hurt and angry about that.

Like I said, I didn’t hate the book (although these two things I ranted about made me suuuper uncomfortable while reading and the more I thought about them later, the angrier I got). But I didn’t love it, and I didn’t like it as much as I did during my first read-through. The fat-shaming was annoying and gross, and I’m suuuper tired of angry girls being shamed for their feelings, especially teens and kids. Young people feel things so intensely. And they don’t always have the experience or the vocabulary to parse out how certain aspects of a story make them feel or why, or resist internalizing toxic messages about how feeling intensely or feeling a particular way at all is bad. Thre’s a big differene between asking an eight-year-old to consume their media critically and someone twice or thrice that age. And yeah, parents have a responsibility, family discussions, if they rely solely on books society has failed them, blah blah. Unfortunately, a lot of parents suck and a lot of parents shame their kids for having feelings the parets don’t think they should. Especially young girls. The normalizing of emotional abuse by parents in middle grade books proves how “normal” many adults think such things are.

Did I Enjoy This Book: yeah, for the most part, I guess. But I won’t be reading it again anytime soon.

Would I Recommend It: No, I wouldn’t. I can’t think of anyone I would feel comfortable recommending it to, who would actually enjoy it.

Plot: .35 star

Word Choice: .5 star

World Building: .5 star

Characters: .5 star

Realism: .75 star

-¼ star for fat-shaming

-¼ star for normalizing emotional abuse

-¼ star for shaming female anger

Total Score: 1.85/5 stars

________________________________________________________

Nicole Kidman as Principal Trapp Michelle Pfeiffer as Ms. Morrigan Bryce Dallas Howard as Ms. Threnoddy

[strmyweather]

Third Time’s the Charm

For just a four-week (and relatively gentle) cut, this most recent adventure was definitely more of a roller coaster than anticipated! It started and ended on relatively high notes, but with a great big dip in the middle. This was my third time through the Renaissance Periodization gauntlet, and the logistics feel pretty familiar by now, yet I still somehow manage to come away from each of these with progressively deeper insight into my own physiology. I feel like one of the official RP hashtags should be #alwayslearning! I've definitely posted a lot more in the Facebook groups than anywhere else lately, so this post is going to be long, even by my standards — apologies in advance! :) Quick background recap. I finished my second cut in late January 2018 with an all-time low scale weight of 133.7# — and also with a lot of metabolic and hormonal issues. I couldn't sleep, was freezing all the time, had a nagging back injury, my hair was falling out, I had through-the-roof anxiety, and I lost my period for nearly four months straight. The goals had been to (1) get my first ring muscle-up, and (2) get below 20% body fat (read: lean enough to eventually do a massing cycle), and while I did meet both those goals, it was clear to me in hindsight that I should have stopped that cut about 3-4 weeks sooner than I did. It was also clear that I subsequently needed a LONG maintenance period, both to let my body heal and to regain some of the barbell strength I'd lost over the previous year (while focusing on gymnastics and fat loss). The immediate post-cut period was a mixed bag. Physically, I certainly started feeling better in every respect. My back pain completely disappeared within a week, and I also ultimately got my muscle-up about two weeks AFTER the cut was over (a testament to the magic of a smaller body that is ALSO properly fueled!). Furthermore, I finally listened to my coach and began rating my workouts appropriately (generally 'Moderate', not 'Light') in terms of my carbohydrate consumption, which helped performance and recovery tremendously. However, despite a fairly slow and careful reverse-diet progression, the scale definitely climbed higher than I'd hoped — my Cut Week 12 average had been 135.8#, and I finally plateaued at 140-141#. Objectively, I'm 5'5" with an athletic build (and literally haven't been in the 130s since puberty), so this wasn't unreasonable on the part of my biology by any means, but after 12 weeks of such close analysis of scale data, it took a while for my brain to settle down about it. However, in mid-April, performance finally started to hit its stride — I was still feeling pretty light and efficient on gymnastics, and when we tested a few barbell maxes, I shocked myself by easily recapturing almost all of my old numbers (most of which had been attained more than a year earlier, when I was 30-35# heavier) and even exceeding a couple (crushed my overhead squat PR by 15 lb!). After that, I finally accepted that the 140-142# range seemed to be a good all-around functional spot for me. And then I went to Cuba, on the same wonderful health professionals' trip that I took last year. Leaving aside the mojitos, beaches, and classic cars, one unfortunate wrinkle to this year's trip is that almost every single one of us developed some degree of GI issues. Apart from being rather irked that my famously iron gut had let me down, what this meant in a practical sense was that I could barely eat for almost a week (while still doing a ton of standing, walking, and other low-level activity). I had rolled my eyes at myself while obsessively packing a cache of nonperishable RP-friendly snacks, but I was ultimately grateful that I had done so, because I knew I needed to at least force myself to gag down a casein shake every night no matter how nauseated I was! I came home having dropped back to 138-139# territory — and, in hindsight, I think this served as a 'mini-cut' in the true sense of the word, in that it predisposed me to gain weight. I wasn't fully recovered from the metabolic aftereffects of my previous cut (had literally just gotten my period back for the first time while we were in Cuba... because of course that would happen), and so that week of unintentional severe restriction, combined with (undoubtedly) a major shift in gut flora, PLUS my coach putting me on a strength cycle... well, it was the perfect storm to lead to a bit of a rebound weight gain. I had stopped checking the scale daily or even weekly at this point, but throughout late May and early June, most of the numbers I saw on my spot checks were in the 143-146 range. Beyond just the scale, my clothes were also starting to fit differently (my hard-won 34C bras were getting a bit tight), gymnastics were feeling tougher than they had in months, and I was suddenly feeling self-conscious in my gym clothes. Something had to be done — but with the aftereffects of January still fresh in my mind, and with heavy barbells now the focus of my training, I had more than a little PTSD about the idea of embarking on yet another cut. The quirk of fate that provided my 'accidental' acceptance to the 2018 New York City Marathon (which is a whole other story) is what ultimately nudged me into pulling the trigger. I’ve run marathons before, but not since starting 1:1 CrossFit programming or since following RP. Knowing that a shift in my training would be coming soon, I posted a question in the RP Endurance group about my situation. I had the vague idea of combining a cut with the early or middle phase of the marathon training plan, when a calorie deficit would be easier to hit. One of the endurance coaches promptly replied — with exactly the opposite of what I'd expected to hear. "Cut now. Start today. Finish as far out from the marathon as possible." I blinked for a second, and then it clicked. For some reason, it took someone ELSE saying it to trigger the light bulb. Of course. For goals like mine — maintenance of strength and muscle mass — heavy barbells are actually the perfect time to cut. Marathon training, by comparison, would be the WORST time for someone like me to cut, because although the scale would certainly drop, I'd also be a lot more likely to lose precious muscle along with fat. I started back on strict Base the very next day. If nothing else, this made me very aware of all the tiny luxuries I'd managed to work in — no more extra glasses of milk, sneaky spoonfuls of PBfit, or "tastes" of Reddi Whip squirted directly into the mouth! :) However, because I was still fearful of pushing the limits too far and knew that I objectively didn't have very much weight to lose, I also set myself some parameters. My three 'hard stops' were that I wasn't going to go below 138#, wasn't going to extend the cut beyond 8 weeks, and wasn't going to utilize the third/harshest phase of the cutting plan (since slashing carbohydrates would be counterintuitive to my performance goals). Week 1 Starting weight: 147.2 lb Week 1 Average: 144.2 lb The first thing I noticed was that my mental state calmed down tremendously. I hadn't fully acknowledged how much this situation had been worrying me, and I had also forgotten how lovely the 'control' of a cut can feel. From day one, I was no longer afraid of the number on the scale, because now — rather than being passive (and therefore frightening) information — it was a tool that I could use to make changes. Further, I knew I got to look forward to watching it go DOWN! :)

I also knew I had a peak week programmed in (what would have been) Week 5 of this cut, so every time the scale showed a number that was higher than I'd hoped, I felt an odd mix of disappointment AND reassurance that "at least that's more mass with which to move the barbell!" Oddly, I think the fact that I had a rationale for not entirely WANTING to see a massive scale plunge helped me to approach this whole thing with a bit of a healthier mental state. The second thing I realized during this first week is that I had drifted further from my templates than I'd thought. In many instances, I was habitually shorting my fats and (not always consciously) exceeding my prescribed carbs. I made sure to write this down, so I could correct it when I started to work my way back up towards Base; however, I also didn't re-add all the fats I had dropped, because that seemed like a silly thing to do in the first stage of a *cut*. As such, my first week of this adventure was spent on an imaginary 'gray zone' tab that I named 'Cut 0.5'. :) This first week was, honestly, pretty smooth sailing. My parents had been in town for a visit, and we'd eaten at a couple of restaurants, so my starting weight of 147.2# was a bit artificially inflated; however, this meant that I had a very gratifying water weight drop across the first week (five pounds!). This made my clothes start to fit better AND my gymnastics feel instantaneously better, both of which were big morale boosts. I started to wonder if maybe, just maybe, I might be able to knock this out in six weeks instead of eight. Week 2 Average: 143.8 lb This was where the plateau started to hit; that lovely five-pound drop was (naturally) followed by a RISE of 4# across 4 days. This was partly being driven by hormones (PMS week), but in a shorter cut like this, you don't wait around if you don't have to. Midweek, I could tell that my average was going to stagnate, so I went ahead and moved onto the first fat loss tab. This impacted my sleep almost immediately (hello darkness my old friend...), and also led to that annoying, familiar feeling of weakness and shakiness on non-training days when carbs were low. However, in general, I continued to feel pretty good — handstand push-ups in particular were suddenly feeling awesome, and although barbells FELT noticeably heavier, my hard numbers hadn't actually backslid. I had two notable non-scale victories in week two. First, I had two unavoidable restaurant meals in the span of 4 days (a dinner and a post-workout breakfast), wherein I managed to (1) stay compliant and (2) calmly enjoy myself and my company in the process, feeling neither deprived NOR the usual overwhelming creeping dread about the unpredictability of the food in front of me (green salad with grilled shrimp/veggies for the dinner, an egg white omelet with salsa, veggies, and toast for the breakfast). It sounds so simple, but I just never learned how to do that very well on my first couple of cuts — how to simultaneously make good nutrition choices in a social setting AND truly FEEL okay mentally about those choices, rather than anxious or apologetic or defensive or self-conscious. This set of coping skills would have been a worthy takeaway no matter where the scale ended up. Second, this week made me recognize and appreciate the value of cycle tracking. Losing my period for so long after my last cut was admittedly nice on one level, but was also incredibly annoying, because I had no hormonal context in which to confidently interpret my day-to-day physical and mental fluctuations. That experience prompted me to start paying MUCH closer attention to such things during maintenance, and now that I have a couple months' worth of notes, I absolutely see a very strong correlation between where I am in the month and how I feel (both gym-wise and mood-wise). It's pretty neat to write a description that says (for example) that I woke up roasting hot overnight, or the scale went up, or my mood was calmer than I expected, or my skin started breaking out — and then flip back to the previous month and realize I'd written the exact same thing on the exact same cycle day then, too. In addition to being just plain cool information (female bodies are weird and frustrating and also kind of incredible!), this is also extremely comforting, because it reminds me that I often have additional reasons to feel 'off' that aren't necessarily directly correlated to cutting. 

Week 3 Average: 142.1 lb This third week was where I really started hurting. Training started to feel like utter garbage — I could still hit my expected/prescribed numbers on MOST things, but it was taking significantly more physical and mental effort to do so, and every so often I'd run headlong into an unexpected wall. Despite ZMAs and melatonin and even the occasional Flexeril, I couldn't sleep through the night at all anymore. My right shoulder got 'tweaked' and refused to calm down (much the same as my low back had done, during my second cut). And non-training days felt absolutely horrible — I wasn't "hungry" per se, but I felt persistently weak, and would get lightheaded every time I stood up. I checked my BP at work on one such occasion, and it was way down at 86/63.

Part of me was sufficiently freaked out that I almost wanted to go ahead and call it right here — not because I was struggling with hunger or cravings, but because I was extremely leery of (potentially) losing muscle or impacting performance without (by this point) any particularly good reason for continuing to do so. However, I also knew that the wise RPer overshoots slightly, when feasible. I was also able to recognize the fact that, since I'd already made the mistake once of not stopping a cut when I should have, I was probably a bit hypersensitive to discomfort this time around, from the perspective of not wanting to make the same error twice. I decided I had at least one more week in me. And this third week wasn't all bad: I practically danced a jig when I started my period (on time!), because I knew it would be sending the scale on another nice downward trend. This was also the week when I started to feel really good about my physical appearance — which I guess shouldn't have surprised me, but did, probably just because my first two cuts had felt like such long slow slogs. But the very reason that this one was shorter was because I didn't NEED to lose very much — and it was definitely gratifying to feel this degree of satisfaction so early in the process, comparatively speaking. I also measured myself this week and compared the numbers to my old log, which made me realize that — though I was (fortunately!) not as tiny as I was at the very end of my second cut, I was generally matching up with where I'd been about three weeks from its end — at a point when I had weighed (wait for it) 138#, a.k.a. the weight I had picked as my 'hard stop'! Given this — essentially the same measurements as before, while also 4# heavier — I realized I'd probably increased my lean body mass significantly during maintenance (hooray!), and therefore should probably adjust my boundary lines accordingly.  After some thought, I decided the cutoffs should be: — an average of 140# (rather than 138#) — since, along with performance, my other highest priority was (and is) muscle preservation. If I was measuring the same at 142# as I had been at 138#, then willfully cutting all the way to 138# this time might have been flirting with the edge of diminishing returns. — a maximum of SIX weeks rather than eight — because, the shorter the cut, the less it would spill over into marathon training (which was *definitely* the setting where I'd be more likely to lose muscle). — a plateau on the FIRST cutting tab, or possibly a 'gray zone' of tab 1.5, rather than going fully onto the second tab... a decision that was also related to my impending marathon training. I have a prior history of metatarsal stress fractures as it is, and hence am highly motivated to NOT screw up my hormones again at the moment, which made me reconsider the wisdom of dropping my fats all the way down to 7g/day (as I'd have done on the second tab). All of the above is perfectly reasonable from every angle. However — although I didn't quite say so out loud — in my mind, by the end of this third week, I had already made the decision to call it at the end of week 4. That certainly wasn't how I'd initially planned for this adventure to go, but I was feeling rotten, I had a peak week coming up, and it was seeming pretty obvious that the cutting process was serving neither my body nor my priorities very well. Privately, as this week drew to an end, I was feeling like a bit of a failure, knowing that I was going to ‘quit’ sooner than I had planned. I'm accustomed to thinking of myself as 'strong' on all levels, more than capable of pushing through discomfort — and the cutting process is pretty familiar to me at this point, not particularly difficult or intimidating anymore — so I truly did not expect to be experiencing the physical effects quite so strongly at this stage of the game. Even though it wasn't a terribly logical thing to feel, I was definitely more than a little disappointed in my body for 'letting me down'.  However, this is one arena where my loquaciousness served me well; I started writing a blog post about the negative things I was feeling — and by the end of it, I had convinced myself that (1) it's also a victory to recognize the point of diminishing returns and know what the responsible decision is, and (2) the fact that I was 'feeling' the cut this strongly this time could, in fact, be viewed as a direct reflection of the tremendous progress I've made in my training over the past year, how very hard I'm working every day, and how well my current baseline nutrition habits are serving me. In other words, the major impact I feel when I mess with my homeostasis is itself a testament to the healthy habits I've developed in SUPPORT of that homeostasis. Looking at it that way made me feel better.

Week 4 Average: 140.2 lb Nadir: 138.3 lb ...So then, of course, things immediately improved. :) The gym started feeling closer to normal, AND the scale took a nosedive (both of which always happen in cycle week 2 — note to self: structure ALL future cuts this same way! :)). I also saw a new sports massage guru for my shoulder, who did some cupping (which I'd never had before — interesting experience) and was able to help the discomfort pretty significantly. It's not gone, but it's better, and I bet a few days of higher calories will be the tipping point. As per my mental wrestling match last week, I was always going to choose to stop today, regardless of the numbers. HOWEVER... my average for this week has ultimately ended up being 140.2#, with this morning's weight being the lowest I've seen so far, 138.3#. Meaning, based on my parameters above... it's officially time to stop ANYWAY! ...Which just makes me laugh and shake my head at the workings of the universe. :)

Numbers: This Cut: — Starting weight (Day 1): 147.2# — Ending weight (Day 28): 138.3# — Highest to lowest: down 8.9# — Weekly averages: down exactly 4# across 4 weeks — Inches: down 6" total (1" off bust, under-bust, and hips; 1.5" off waist and belly) DEXA, January 2018 vs July 2018: — Weight (on their scale): up exactly six pounds since January, from 134.8 to 140.8 — BUT, get this — LEAN mass has INCREASED by SEVEN pounds since January (!), AND — body fat is also DOWN another 1.5% since January (from 18.6% to 17.1%)... which is probably primarily from the efforts of these past four weeks. I mean... I'm just saying... it basically doesn't get better than that! Takeaways:  — As I mentioned, the process of strictly dialing in my macros again has definitely helped me identify some places where I'd drifted further from template on maintenance than I should have (often shorting fats and exceeding carbs). Since I haven't left FL1 on this go-round, I'm now in a very good position for a 'controlled reentry' over the next couple of weeks, which will be a chance to correct this and hopefully end up with EVEN MORE FOOD/calories on my new base. As of today, I could technically jump to New Base all in one go — but in the interest of optimizing the final macro result (and rebounding as little as possible, weight-wise), I'm going to split it into two jumps of about 150-200 calories apiece. I'm sure I'll end up adjusting as I go, but my tentative plan for right now is to add 1.5 servings fat to NTD, and 0.5 serving fat plus 20-25g carbs to training days (to bring me back to ‘Light-Plus’ territory); the second jump (in probably 1-2 weeks, depending on what the scale does) will be adding back the rest of the fats. — Related: this experience also confirmed for me that, on maintenance, I was definitely rating my workouts correctly as (for the most part) Light-Plus or Moderate. I don't discount the RP approach of resistance training being the primary driver of ratings; however, my personal experience (yet again) is that INTENSITY matters also. I'm on the 2.0 version of the templates, meaning my first tab has only cut my fats, not carbs — but I've rated almost every single day as Light for these past four weeks, and in terms of how beat up and under-recovered I've felt, I do think the carb deficit has likely played just as much of a role as the overall calorie deficit. — We all know this already, but I think my degree of success here really speaks to the power of a long maintenance in terms of repairing our metabolism. Last time, I saw zero change on Base, then plateaued on FL1 in the middle of Week 4 and had to move to FL2 for the remaining 8+ weeks of the cut. This time, after five months of maintenance, I actually LOST a bit of weight on Base (!), and then Week 4 was where I saw the overall BIGGEST scale drop... without ever leaving FL1. — Going forward, I'll be very interested to see how well this all 'sticks' — how the degree of rebound compares to previous cuts. For obvious reasons, mentally and logistically, I found this cut DRAMATICALLY easier than either of my first two, so it'll be useful information to know whether a commitment this short in duration actually has any lasting effect to make it worthwhile as a potential future approach. (Based on this experience, if I keep training at this level, I also may need to give a bit more consideration to trying 1:1 for future cuts.) — Overall, I definitely 'got what I needed' out of this, which is: back to feeling proud of my body in all respects — happy with the fit of my clothes, with my visual appearance, and with my performance. I mean, we always want to push the envelope just a bit further — the hints of actual abs that I've been able to see this week are admittedly tantalizing! — and I certainly COULD push further if that were the priority, but right now, it isn't. And after all the ups and downs of the past few years, it's comforting on some level to know that "this is all I had to do" in order to get back to a place where I'm at peace with my body. Although this won't be my first marathon, the training for it is going to be a brand-new learning curve now that I'm on individualized CrossFit programming as well as following RP, and it'll be a huge help to know that I'm starting from the best possible place, physically speaking. — Also, although it may sound a bit silly, it's oddly mentally reassuring to know that I seized this opportunity to 'dial it in' and shave off just a couple pounds during an (admittedly brief!) window when it logistically made sense to do so. The scale is fickle and the amount of actual fat loss was certainly small — but I won't have the opportunity to cut again for another few months, and knowing I did everything I reasonably could during THIS phase — not to mention, everything I learned from that stellar DEXA result! — lets me feel a bit more emotionally okay about fueling my body purely for training and performance over the challenges to come. It's gratifying to watch the swing of this pendulum get progressively narrower as I hone in on the ideal spot in terms of both appearance and performance. Honestly, in so many ways, I barely recognize myself compared to a year ago. I'm happy right here, and this is a great spot to sit and breathe for the moment, but I'm also already curious — and optimistic — about whatever may come next. #massing? ;)

[blazehedgehog]

I hope you are recovering from the kidney stones well, and sorry to hear about the pain you suffered! What lead up to it?

Kidney stones just happen to some people. There are a variety of causes. Some of them are dietary, some of them are just kind of random. I’m pretty sure in my case, it was a combination of both diet and side effects of a home remedy.

Bad teeth kind of run in the family a little bit. My mom had her first dentures when she was 19. I will probably need dentures at some point in my life (and maybe soon, the way things in there feel sometimes). Because of the history of bad teeth, my Mom let me know of an old home remedy for toothaches: Vitamin C. Most toothaches are some form of an infection, and Vitamin C boosts your immune system, so if you bulk up on it, you can let your body’s natural defenses take care of the toothache without having to see a dentist for antibiotics.

This comes from a dentist my Mom visited in the 70′s or 80′s, who prescribed her 22,000mg of Vitamin C per day for a tooth infection. Over my years of having occasional toothaches, I’d usually take maybe a quarter of that, but a few years ago I ended up hitting the 22,000mg number because I had a particularly bad toothache that just wouldn’t go away, and at the time, we just couldn’t afford to go to a dentist.

The toothache eventually subsided but I didn’t like taking so much Vitamin C (for one thing, that much started giving me an upset tummy). My Mom assured me there were no side effects, and that it was impossible to overdose on it. I was skeptical.

So I looked in to it. Turns out, there was ONE side effect of taking excessive amounts of Vitamin C: an increased risk of kidney stones, as I guess the excess minerals in the vitamin tablets can coalesce in to a stone. So for years, I always had that hanging over my head, knowing that probably some day, that would be a problem I’d have to deal with.

As for what it felt like, well, I’ll hide that behind a “read more” tag for people who are squeamish.

To be perfectly honest with you, this is actually the second kidney stone I’ve passed – the first one was right after New Years 2017. I didn’t tell anyone on the internet about this (that I can remember), it was something I largely kept to myself because I was embarrassed.

I think it was around January 3rd that I woke up, went to the bathroom, and as I was going it kind of burned a little bit. Nothing outrageously painful, but definitely uncomfortable. Obviously I started to panic, but I figured I’d give it 24 hours, see if it kept happening, and then decide where to go from there. By the end of the 24 hours (morning #2), I’d made a realization: the pain was moving, slowly, down my urinary tract. Every time I’d go to the bathroom, it would move a little closer to the, uh, “tip.”

Something was in there, and it was going to come out. I knew it had to be a kidney stone. I’d known from looking up kidney stones from Vitamin C that there’s not really a way to “treat” stones. Most doctors prescribe painkillers to manage the pain and you just have to pass it on your own. Only in extreme cases with urinary tract blockages (read: you can’t pee) are more invasive treatment options considered, like ultrasound to blast the stone in to dust, or surgery to physically remove it.

So I started guzzling water in an effort to push the thing out. By the morning of the third day, it felt like it was right there, like I should be able to physically see it if I looked. Were kidney stones big enough to see with the naked eye? To be honest, I didn’t know. But I kept guzzling water and sure enough, right before bed that night, I got a split second of VERY intense pain, and then it vanished. I didn’t see anything drop in to the toilet bowl, so I figured that, no, I guess maybe kidney stones were just too small to see with the naked eye. I flushed, went to bed, and that would have been the end of it.

About a week later, I stood up off the toilet from having a “bowel movement” and noticed in the toilet bowl a little strip of pink where my urine had been splashing. Blood, in other words. Welp, there was no avoiding it now, I needed to go see a doctor. Doctor confirmed what I already knew: it was probably a kidney stone, and it probably just tore some stuff up on its way out and that’s what was bleeding. The bleeding should stop within a couple weeks. And it did.

And then it came back. Every 4-8 weeks, I’d stand up from sitting on the toilet to another pink stripe of blood on the bowl. Since the doctor told me that was normal, I tried not to worry about it. The further away from January I got, the less frequent finding blood in the toilet became. I was healing, just slowly. Everything was fine. Probably.

Nine months later, we’ll say around September 2nd (a Saturday), I woke up with an INTENSE burning pain in my back on the left side. It made me feel sick. I didn’t even want to move. The day before, me and my Mom had been going through a storage unit out here in Nevada looking for a specific item that we’d packed that we needed now. I figured I’d thrown my back out. That’s happened to me before. As I sat up, over the next 20-30 minutes, the pain faded away and vanished. Fair enough, maybe it was just a cramp or something. But for the next two days, I felt incredibly nauseous. And, by the end of the second day, not only did I notice another pink strip of blood in the toilet bowl, but something about my urine just did not smell right (in the sense that it did not smell like pee normally smells).

I tried not to think about it, even though I knew what the symptoms meant. It got to be harder to ignore when, every single time I had to sit down for a bathroom visit, I’d stand up to a little bit of blood in the toilet bowl. Every. Single. Time.

Uh oh.

Thursday the 7th rolls around and I’m up late as usual, when, around 3 or 4am, the pain in my back comes back. It grows, slowly, in waves. The pain would peak, and then fall off over a period of 20-30 minutes, only to come back even stronger on the next go around. “This is it.” I thought. I filled a big glass of water and chugged it down, then filled it up again, and made it about halfway through the second glass.

Nothing happened. I mean, literally, nothing happened. I was sloshing around with something like a liter of water in me and nothing was coming back out. It felt like I had to go, but I’d push and I’d push to a couple of droplets. Instead, the pain was getting more intense more quickly. I couldn’t stand up anymore. I rolled around on the floor of my bedroom, and later the floor of the bathroom, as I began sweating bullets from the pain, which was now beginning to move across my side to my bladder. I was in so much pain it was becoming difficult to think clearly. A good example is that it was like the feeling a man gets when they’re kicked in the groin, except it not only never goes away, it just keeps getting more intense over time. I have never in my life felt pain like this.

Finally, 7am rolled around, and I couldn’t take it any longer. I was dying. At the very least, I feared a blockage. I hobbled my way down the hall to where my Mom was staying, and I woke her up. “We’ve got a big problem.”

“Why? What now?” she asked, barely awake.

“I think I need to go to the hospital.”

We hadn’t gotten any of our medical insurance transferred to Nevada yet, so going to the doctor was going to be expensive. But I couldn’t stand it anymore. I explained to her that I hadn’t been able to go to the bathroom for a few hours despite drinking a huge amount of water, and just like that, she began looking up hospitals for me.

The emergency room visit took about six hours. They put me on an IV, gave me some painkillers, did a CAT scan of my abdomen, drew blood and had me pee in a cup (which, perhaps because of the painkillers, had upgraded from a few droplets to a tiny trickle). The doc came in and confirmed: Yep! It’s a kidney stone. Fortunately, not big enough to require surgery �� stones up to 5 or 6mm typically pass on their own, and mine was in the 3mm range, and according to the doc, it was “almost out.”

I received a prescription for Percocet (for the pain) and Zofran (for the nausea) and was sent packing, but not without some advice from the nurse:

I was advised to “stay on top” of the pain. I didn’t want to be trapped waiting for my Percocet to take hold with pain that intense. So basically, take regular dosages until the stone passes.

Both Percocet and Zofran would make me tremendously sleepy, so there was a good chance I was going to sleep through a lot of the pain.

The last items they gave me was a funnel with a filter inside of it – I was instructed to pee in to the funnel and catch the stone when it comes out, which I was then meant to take to a urologist for analysis. The other item was the container I was meant to put the stone in (a little plastic jar with a locking lid).

So I went home and I slept. And slept. And slept. Over the next two days, I slept so much that it was starting to get scary. I’d sleep 18 hours a day. I tried to go without my Percocet, but I still couldn’t stay awake. I had no energy. It took me 20 minutes to unfold a camping chair in my bedroom for me to sit in because I kept needing to rest after exerting the smallest amount of movement. And when I’d take a deep breath, there was this kind of aching pain around the periphery of my lungs. After practically falling a sleep mid-sentence telling my Mom about all this (I was nearly in tears, I only remember weakly saying “Something feels wrong and I don’t know what”), she decided it would be a good idea to talk to the hospital. They advised her I should be brought in immediately.

And thinking about it now, if it wasn’t for my Mom in this situation, I might be dead by now.

They diagnosed me with pneumonia. At some point in my drugged up stupor, they figure I must have aspirated (read: almost barfed and then some of that fluid went down the wrong pipe in to my lungs, and since I was so out of it, I never coughed it up). I was put on oxygen, given more CAT scans, more blood drawn, more study. One doctor used the term “septic” to describe what my lungs looked like. They were starting to collapse. So, I spent the weekend in a hospital bed, hooked up to an IV, hooked up to a heart rate monitor, with even more medication. More pain killers, plus now antibiotics, and something called “Flomax” – medication normally reserved for men with prostate problems, it helps open the pipes and increase urine flow strength. In other words, they wanted that kidney stone out of me now.

By Tuesday the 12th, I was allowed to come back home. My pneumonia had cleared up quite a bit, I no longer needed an oxygen mask, and I was clawing at the walls to get out. I still had occasional back pain, but it was subsiding. Still hadn’t passed the stone, but that was irrelevant. I didn’t want to be there anymore.

As I got dressed and prepared to leave, the Doc made one final check in with me to say: “Don’t come back.” When I smiled at him, he smiled back. “I’m serious. I never want to see you in this hospital again.”

Now the prescriptions I was sent home with included more Percocet (for extreme pain), triple strength Ibuprofin (for mild pain, with the instructions that it should be taken with antacid pills), two types of antibiotics (for the pneumonia) and more Flomax (to push the stone out).

By September 14th, I started to notice this red-ish, ashy gravel in the urine filter they gave me. Was that the stone? Had it broken in to a thousand tiny pieces? Over the next few days, as I kept going, I kept peeing out more and more of this ashy stuff. It didn’t hurt, and there was getting to be a lot of it, in big chunks.

I later learned that this is normal in the symptoms of a kidney stone. This ashy stuff was coagulated blood and tissue from the kidney when the stone tore its way out.

Finally, on the afternoon of September 22nd, a BUNCH of the red ashy stuff came out, WAY more than ever before, and right as I felt like I was done peeing, I got a surprise little extra burst of urine at the end and a jolt of pain. Wait? Was that it? Nothing seemed to fall in to the filter, but… maybe that was it?

I dumped the ashy stuff in to the container and thought maybe it was over.

As I sat down, I noticed something felt different. For guys (at least some guys) when you shift around in your seat, your uh, “business” obviously moves around, too. And when that happened to me, I could… physically feel something. Something was in there. In the “final stretch” so to speak. It hadn’t come out yet. It was waiting for one last stream to make the last step of its journey. But every time I moved, I knew it was in there, because I could feel it move around in the “pipe.”

Finally, long about midnight, after a lot of holding it in and being worried about the pain and how much it might hurt to finally get this thing out of me, I just… went.

Plonk!

In to the filter drops what looks sort of like a big, hard, crusty booger. Bigger than a grain of rice, a little bit smaller than a pea. About a quarter of an inch, we’ll say. Compared to what I expected, it looks titanic. Monstrous, even. That was in me? That came out of there? It’s huge! A lot bigger than 3 milometers! (Wait. How big is a milometer?)

And… it didn’t hurt. At all. The jolt of pain I felt earlier in the afternoon must’ve been all there was. The stone finishing its journey, that last little bit of distance, didn’t hurt even a little bit. It basically just fell out right in to the filter.

Depending on how you look at it, this stone either took two weeks or nine and a half months to come out. And who knows! Maybe there’s more hiding in there. I’m also, at least for the next month, probably at an increased risk of kidney infections.

And for all the “oh it didn’t hurt” of that last leg, it really cannot be understated how much “flank” (back) pain I was in for almost a full week. It was literally unbearable.

But it’s over! For now! Hooray!

(Well, except for the pinched nerve the hospital bed gave me that has yet to clear up...)

[why-not-you]

Ups and downs of a graduate student

It has been quite an emotional ride for me the past month. Entering my final year of graduate school, I guess I have some dreams and expectations for myself - I wish to go to overseas conferences, I wish to be exposed to more things outside of research, I expect myself to manage projects better, I expect myself to have better technical skills, I expect myself to be cruising along in the final year, focusing on more advanced research, publishing papers and writing my thesis.

But guess the Universe has other plans for me.

Honestly, it has been causing quite a bit of anxiety, but when I reflect, there are ups and downs in each area. Let me list them (making lists - one of the important skill acquired in grad school...)

1. Research projects

:) I will be working with 2 students! :( One of them will not be working on my research topic. :) The projects are sponsored by a company. :( Company wants to sign non-disclosure agreement so I cannot publish any papers from this research. :( Because of this, I will still need to work on additional projects in order to publish a few more papers before I graduate...

Overall: I guess it very depends on the nature of the students. If they are obedient and eager to learn, I do admit that I enjoy guiding and interacting with students - opening their minds to the intricacies of science and lab work. 

Workload-wise, there is certainly more work to be completed, but I’ve been trying to manage it well. The past week has been just work work work work work. I’ve been staying in lab for long hours. This is the perfect segue for me to evaluate my work.

2. Working on my research on my own

:( There is no one to help me. (Things get done 100X faster when there is someone opening all the bottle caps for you while you pipette...it’s true!) :) I learn to be even more efficient in my research, and can arrange my work around my time (instead of having to coordinate with students) :( I have to stay in lab for longer hours, and often have to commute to school to prepare reagents. :) Because I have to work on a few things at the same time, time is more well-spent in the lab. There is almost no down time at all - I spend the waiting time in between working on another experiment. :( It gets quite exhausting, really.

Overall: I’m still learning to cope. It is exhausting, not kidding. Physically, as I move between labs, and mentally too, as my brain never stop thinking “What other thing can I do right now?” or “What more has to be done?” But each night as I lie on bed in semi-coma, I feel really, really productive. I still have my own challenges, and there has been days when all the work done goes to waste due to experimental oversight/errors, but I can feel myself scaling up the steep learning curve much faster these days.

3. Going on conference

Well, the story goes like this...

:) I found a conference super relevant to my research topic earlier this year, and it’s in the UK (I’ve not been there before!). As I still have not used my travel grant, I decided to go for this, and my supervisor also approved. I submitted my abstract in end May. :( No notification was given, even well past the stipulated notification deadline. :( I fear that the conference will be cancelled. :( I emailed the organisers, and was told that there would be a delay. :(( Another friend emailed the organisers, and he was informed that his abstract has been accepted, but official notification will be given later. Note that the organisers did not mention anything about my abstract being accepted (or not) at all.

:( With the stress of experiments, I started thinking that my abstract will be rejected. :( This means I cannot use up my travel grant before graduation. :( Ok, maybe I will be able to go elsewhere, but the topic will not be as relevant, the venue as exotic. :( And I won’t be able to meet my friend at the conference. He has been a very good advisor to me, and we haven’t seen each other for like 2 years. :( And he was talking about me possibly doing postdoc with his institute, which is pretty renowned in my field.

And then..

:) Notification came yesterday - my abstract was accepted! :( Due to the late notification, cheaper air tickets were sold out. :) My supervisor agreed to sponsor a bit more of the expenses. :) I would be giving a 15 min oral presentation. Easy peasy! (Ok, relatively...) :-O I just realised there is a poster prize presentation segment, which means that there is a poster prize competition! This was not stated at the point of my registration!! >:-( This means I cannot win the poster prize! No prize money for me! :-| Oh well, at least no stress for the presentation part...

Overall: I’m happy with the outcome, haha. Well, at least I get to go there - I do look forward to an international conference, and it’s my first time visiting that area too. And I just researched on what the weather is like there...

:-/ Oh, great.

4. Working out and diet-wise

:( Due to my busy schedule, I haven’t been able to work out as much as usual. :) This also means less time to laze around and eat junk food. :( Then again, more stress = more craving = more junk food. In fact, yesterday my sister and I bought a tub of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, and we opened it once we exited from the supermarket and started digging in haha. :) It was yummy! :( And probably quite fattening :) I went for a run in the park today! Finally - it’s been about 2 - 3 months since I last went running due to the travelling. I was kind of scared after the hiatus. Today’s run was not very long nor challenging, but I’m just happy enough to get back into things! :) My quest bars will probably come any day soon!

Overall: Well, I’ll manage. Although I am often very disappointed when my work schedule gets in the way of my workouts, I have to accept that this may be the way for the next few months. Moreover, this actually motivates me to workout whenever I can, and to nourish my body well to tide over this period. Over the course of grad school, I truly realise how much further a healthy body and mind can bring you.

The good news for now is that I’ve finished the first part of my experiments, so it is mainly data analysis the next few days. I could work from home, and the time will be more flexible. I also have to arrange my conference travel, which is a bit daunting given how bad my sense of direction is hahaha.

But overall...I guess that life will always have its ups and downs. And sometimes, it is the downs that make the ups even better (:

[andrieh-vitimus]

Day 5: Enchantment +: The Thieves of Time...  Just say fuck it with me

Today was a fuck it kinda of day, but I made sure to do my Gigong before I said fuck it. I had a rough night sleeping after doing a rough divination with a client that just tapped my shit hard.  When your running a low calorie diet, and using analysis it freaking happens.  So today, I worked from home, and unfortunately... yep got little done on programming work.  It’s not for trying right.  Just cognitively, I was not in the game.  Now, there’s this cascade of events that happens, when you start thinking about it.  Those of you who work or even have a business kinda know this cascade.  Shit, this would happen alot more when I was actively doing magic to break ( let’s be honest, its physical manifestation or bust) reality.  Read on to see all that.

Shit now behind at work cause I was mentally fuckered for some reason and didn’t get much done ( outside of management, and even then.. eh).

Shit,  I was already behind on things I promised people for my author publicity stuff, I really wanted to get shit done.  I have a book on Sante Muerte, I really want to write  a blurb, blogs, other shit, but shit gets complicated over the weekend ( which we covered).

Shit, 5 hours into fixing Deeper down, shits still not working .

Shit I had plans for the week on the social side of things, and that would create problems if I cancel things.

Shit, now I have extra pressure and stress to get shit done the whole week at work, because well I was fuckered for a day.

Shit now all those social obligations and publicity obligations really hurt, cause theres work stress.

Hahaha... House chores don’t do themselves motherfucker.

Shit theres no coffee in the house to feed the spirits, do I go out.

Shit I am too fucking tired to even drive.

Come to the weekend, try to catch up on everything and start off the next week behind.. repeat suckle.

I know this cycle with many people.

So at 11 after getting to the Chiropractor, I did the Gigong first.  I got to about 6 pm or so, meditated my worries away, thought about shit,  and I went to sleep, cause I was not feeling optimal.  I should be able to do that.  I got up at 10, to write this.  Focusing purely on mental energy health, this was the right decision.

Now, there some people reading this will say.  No shit man, this is pointless self-analysis.  That’s what you should do, nor do I think it was right.  There is no right answer and I think its not at all simple.  I think many people are faced with decisions all the time, that are even harsher.  It was not to long ago that I was asking the questions of, do I hustle and pay rent or get sick?  But its all just a temporary lot of shit... spirituality of many faiths say, this is bullshit pursuits.  I am not so sure right, worldly achievements are valuable if they have meaning.

But theres alot of costs to what I did.  I didn’t get the Blurb done for Santa Muerta book meaning I probably will not be asked again ( I did tell the person I was coming off being sick, but that matters not).  It does actually look like a fucking good book.  That’s a publicity hit, and I keep having those.  Less attention = less money.    Keeping deeper down running, and more so not getting the bookings for the show done = another hit.  Let’s not even start about me taking care of the family, and not getting any publicity done for a while.  Even then, I know I did the right things, but lets ask?  

Do you think the public as an egregore cares why I am not feeding the spectacle? A person gives a fuck, the pubic does not. Of course not, and to paraphrase Mr. Wednesday, its hard when you know you’re being forgotten.  Facebook quantifies even that attention focus for us to make it even more toxic and even more destructive.  Now we are cursed with mortality AND the fact that people will create any image they want for you.  Now, like you I have family things to do, and other things.   Really, the continual stealing of time is exactly that, but its more then that, its energy.

“The world is a Vampire set to drain”... yep ... that’s so emo shit, but in this case the song fits.

Remember, now words and writing can be meditation, if you do not censor yourself. The writing is clarifying my thoughts, the stream of consciousness shakes down ideas.  Spending the time on Tumblr to write this is a type of meditation, to think about the patterns is meditation.  Even the hour to write this on Tumblr is done in a context of “others”, but not so much.  That affects the meditation and the analysis. When you start marshaling personal energy in units, or deep diving into self-analysis and doing the Qigong, in the way I am, you start becoming very aware of minutia patterns.  Where the drains are happening, how the drains are happening, and those issues.   Now, you can get all TCM about this and start applying this to specific Gigong excercises, but I am still rolling on that C-7 point, trying to prevent overworking myself and embracing some “dont give a fucks”.

Once you get on that spiral of expectations, it starts to hit you like a freight train. I am not whining about this all.  How about a nice cup of fuck off, if you think that, but I am analyzing it.   Before, I would tend to be more of a helping sort of magician, often in the circles I was running with that might even mean pretty serious “fuck off death” magic aka real shit, with little or no repayment from he people receiving that sort of boon.  Where does that get you?  No where in the modern world, and I have never had strong self-reward systems for being altruistic.  Really, that self-reward, we know thats why people do “selfless shit”, right ( some people would call this self-reward system, “being a good person”, or “faith”).

I like achievement in the world.  The World is the game.  I got to be honest.

Sometimes, it even the best of us, have to take a step back.  Yeah, many people selling shit will shift back the blame of the achievement gap back on you and say, you do not want it enough.  That sells because we are all addicted to self fucking punishment that comes from a sick and diseased society that tells us work harder, and get more achievement.  But it doesn’t hold up, and really the expectation train sucks us down and myth of hard work = success is vampiric of the highest order.

So this all goes back to the image started with,  a thief.  We need to be thieves for ourselves.  Yes, I know, some of you might not like that metaphor cause “thieving is bad”, but think about it.   

We all have expectations on us and around us.  Some of these we can blow off, at a cost. Can we afford the cost, sometimes. Sometimes the cost is too hight to actually blow off.   I mean it is hardly a choice to blow off your job, and not have a roof over your head.  It is a choice, but its not really a reasonable one. 

The hype and callousness of a whole industry will tell you so, but say no to that shit.  Instead, steal the time to make little changes. Most people cannot just transition to a different “career”, or follow the insane advise to do what you want and the positive thinking cult ( when there are real responsibilities that really are not easily discharged), but we can change our mindsets around that. Even simple things like television and now the internet are purposefully addictive.   Thieves of our time and energy.   In a world of thieves, learn to be a better thief and steal it back, with conscious deliberate intent.  One piece at a time.  Theirs a whole lot of “anti-nominal” engagement with the thief archetype, and that is purposefully why I am engaging it like this.  A thief is outside of “society”, and thus purposeful deviates from the expectation train.  See what I did there?  Just think on that for a moment.

Detach from the emotions of the expectations.  You will let people down, and thats their problem.   Realize it is what it is, steal the time from the other sources and then use that coveted jewel for expressly meaningful to you shit. We can steal that time back, because from the perspective of others, they believe they own it.   If you want take a self perspective, you could say you revolting and taking the time back.  I prefer to “thief” metaphor because it lets you build up on small tasks to get to that personal “revolt”.  I am working on that revolt components too, but this is antinomial.  People expect shit from you, when you do not comply they will punish you via social means.  Some part of you has to embrace that anti-nomial, outside of society attitude, lest society tear you apart.

Say it with me, “I am out of fucks to give”.. It helps.  Steal that time.  Detach the emotions, and covet your own jewels.

15-20 minute a day for Gigong, not alot, but lots of benefits.  Thats stealing the time back.   Its the same with the Calories on my health plan, they are measured and weighed.  If you are starting to quantify time and energy, like a thief... well then you can start seeing where the waste is going.  Aka engaging like a thief, a particularly antinomial and anti-social archetype in a capitalist society, allows you to start weighing the impact and reward of the choices versus the time commitment.

Besides, saying it like this is way more fun then telling you to be “Mindful” right?

Want to see a different type of Thief, well how about Pirate? A little more romatic now isn’t it :)  What’s a post with out Captain Jack.

[babybluebanshee]

On Stormer and Curvy Barbie

So I read the Jem: the Misfits comics. And the second issue got me thinking about growing up as a fat kid.

Long post. Strap in, kiddos. Auntie has a lot on her ample chest.

I’ve always been fat. I’ll admit it. I haven’t been under 100 lbs. since I was twelve. I have flabby tits. My upper arms are all jiggly. I have love handles. My thick thighs save lives.

From the ages of twelve to about eighteen, I fucking hated myself.

My favorite heroines weren’t fat. Wonder Woman was buff as fuck. Nancy Drew had always been described as pretty, strawberry blond, and, above all, thin. Sailor Moon could eat whatever she wanted and never lose her figure. Fat girls weren’t heroes.

I struggled in gym class, especially when we had to change in the seventh grade. The boys laughed from the other side of the gym when I did jumping jacks because my boobs bounced, and not in a sexy way. Once, when we played wiffle ball, I panicked when a ball came toward me and kicked it instead of catching it. An older, more athletic girl - who had the coach wrapped around her finger because she was the star volleyball player - screamed at me and called me a fat idiot. The coach didn’t do anything.

I didn’t care what she thought. It wasn’t any worse than what I already told myself.

My family knew I struggled with my weight and my self-image. My mom actually gave into my demand to buy exercise equipment at yard sales so I could try to lose weight. My aunt thought “oh honey you’ve lost weight” was the highest compliment she could pay me, all with a snide glance over at her own thin, beautiful daughter who could have been a dead-ringer for the previously mentioned Nancy Drew.

The only person who never seemed to care was my grandma. She died last week, and I still remember her defending me when my sister said something snotty about me having another cookie or an extra helping of mashed potatoes and pork loin. “She’s a growing girl,” she’d say. “How’s she supposed to grow into a beautiful woman if she starves herself?” Grandma Doris was pretty much the only thing that kept me from too much self-loathing. I’d rail against myself on really bad days, tell myself I was lazy and worthless and ugly, but she grounded me. “This is the body you were given,” she told me. “And I wouldn’t want you any other way.” It’s really funny, because as shitty as I’ve mentioned my eating habits were and pretty much always have been, I don’t think I ever ate healthier than when I was at her house. Fresh veggies from her garden, perfect cuts of meat with no fat, lots of juice - I never felt like I was being pressured to eat better with her. I just did because I wanted to.

I think I finally started overcoming my disgust with my body when I graduated high school, maybe a little sooner. I’m not really sure what happened to bring about the change in my attitude. I wish I could tell you, so other kids who grew up the same way could have something to look forward to, that inspirational epiphany that lets you blossom like the earth goddess you are. But I don’t think it was one thing. Anticlimactic, I know.

A lot of it, I think, had to do with me just getting fucking sick of fast food. My sister was working the night shift at the hospital while working on her nursing degree, so she was getting a lot of McDonald’s and Burger King. This is where those dreadful teenage eating habits came from. Thanks for nothing, Lacey. I love you, but you suck, you wonderful she-devil. Though I can’t really blame her entirely. My mindset was, at the time, that that was just what fat girls did. We are shittons of grease. Besides, it felt good. I was doing something when I ate, instead of just feeling bored and angry. Then one day I looked down at my cheeseburger and thought, “I don’t feel good doing this anymore.”

So I started searching for other ways to feel good. What I found was helpful.

I went to Europe, and met the future love of my life, though that would take a while to fully come to be. Community college happened, and I started finding other stuff to concentrate on. My love of literary analysis started rearing its ugly head. I discovered Skulduggery Pleasant. I read books like Size 12 Is Not Fat and Artichoke’s Heart (both amazing reads by the way). I changed my major three times. I went to a liberal arts college full of gays and hippies. I joined a feminist collective. The woman who started out as my best friend became the woman I love, who is also my best friend.

I started getting comfortable.

Throughout all this, I never really changed my eating or exercising habits. I mean, more salads and fresh fruit and treadmills and long walks happened, but that’s about it. No gym memberships or dieting. The last time I weighed myself (sometime last year), I was at 215 lbs. And I’ve started wearing tights and sleeveless dresses and tank tops and shorts. Things I haven’t worn since I was very small. Things I never thought I’d have the courage to wear ever again.

I still hear the mean comments. There are people who “worry” for my physical health. People who sneer whether they see me wear a pretty sundress that exposes my meringue arms or my nastiest, oldest sweats. You can’t please everyone. But that’s the beauty of this life. A wise man once said, “Those who mind, don’t matter, and those who matter, don’t mind.”

Which brings me to the two things that got me to write this long winded thing. When I first saw the curvy Barbie, I was in a Target with Shae. I nearly started crying. I had never seen a Barbie that looked like me. After all those years of feeling so ugly, my body was a Barbie.

And then I read the Jem comics. With Stormer being pressured to diet for “character development”. Watching her endure the same things I’d endured all my young life. Seeing her so plainly say that she wasn’t going to do any of this just to please a viewing public. It resonates with me, down to the very core of my being.

I don’t give a fuck what other people think of me, but nowadays, it’s not because I’m busy tearing myself down. It’s because I know I’m beautiful in whatever way I choose to present myself. I worked too hard for too long to get here for some dipshit that thinks rolls are gross to tell me otherwise.

It’s the same for everyone. If you grew up fat and want to change, that’s fine. Fat isn’t for everyone. If you want to change, though, do it for yourself. Do it because you have the power to be whoever you want, in whatever way you want.

And, to all my girls struggling with any of this now, never, for even one second, think that you are not a fabulous earth goddess that deserves fresh roses and gourmet chocolates every day. Your hips are mighty hips. You’re soft as the sea. You are as strong as a mountain. You are as beautiful as life itself.

[newsnigeria]

Check out New Post published on Ọmọ Oòduà

New Post has been published on http://ooduarere.com/news-from-nigeria/world-news/the-anglozionist-empire/

The AngloZionist Empire: a hyperpower with microbrains and no cred left

[This analysis was written for the Unz Review]

Last week saw what was supposed to be a hyperpower point fingers for its embarrassing defeat not only at Venezuela, which successfully defeated Uncle Shmuel’s coup plans, but also at a list of other countries including Cuba, Russia, China and Iran.  It’s is rather pathetic and, frankly, bordering on the comically ridiculous.

Uncle Shmuel clearly did not appreciate being the laughingstock of the planet.

Eviction notice of the USSS

And as Uncle Shmuel always does, he decided to flex some muscle and show the world “who is boss” by…

… blockading the Venezuelan Embassy in Washington, DC.

But even that was too much for the MAGA Admin, so they also denied doing so (how lame is that!?)

Which did not prevent US activists of entering the embassy (legally, they were invited in and confirm it all).

Now the US Secret Service wants to evict the people inside the building.

So much for the CIA’s beloved “plausible deniability” which now has morphed into “comical deniability”.

If you think that all this sounds incredibly amateurish and stupid – you are 100% correct.

In the wonderful words of Sergei Lavrov, the US diplomats have “lost the taste for diplomacy“.

But that was not all.

In an act of incredible courage the USA, which was told (by the Israelis, of course!), that the Iranians were about to attack “somewhere”, so Uncle Shmuel sent two aircraft carrier strike groups to the Middle-East.  In a “daring” operation, the brilliant USAF pilots B-52 bombers over the Persian Gulf to “send a message” to the “Mollahs”: don’t f*ck with us or else…

The “Mollahs” apparently were unimpressed as they simply declared that “the US carriers were not a threat, only a target“.

The AngloZionists apparently have also executed a false flag operation to get a pretext to strike Iran, but so far this seems to have gotten rather little traction in the region (so far – this might change).

Lavrov reacting to the latest US threats

Now let’s leave this “Kindergarten level of operations” and try to make some sense from this nonsense.

First, while the American can pour scorn on the Iranians, call them ragheads, terrorists, Mollahs, sand-niggers or confuse them with Iraqis or even think that Iranian are Arabs (as, apparently, are the Turks, at least by the US common standard of ignorance), but the truth is that the Iranians are world-class and most sophisticated players, especially their superbanalytical community.  They fully understand that a  B-52 anywhere near the Iranian airspace is a sitting duck and that if the Americans were planning to strike Iran, they would pull their aircraft carrier far away from any possible Iranian strikes. As for the B-52, they have long range cruise missiles and they don’t need to get near Iran to deliver their payloads.

In fact, I think that the proper way to really make the Iranians believe that Uncle Shmuel means business would be to flush any and all US ships out of the Persian Gulf, to position the B-52s in Diego Garcia and to place the carriers as far away as possible to still be able to support a missile/bomb attack on Iranian targets.  And you can bet that the Iranians keep very close tabs on exactly what CENTCOM aircraft are deployed and where.  To attack Iran the US would need to achieve a specific concentration of forces and support elements which are all trackable by the Iranians.  My guess is that the Iranians already have a full list of all CENTCOM officers down to the colonel level (and possibly even lower for airmen) and that they already know exactly which individual USAF/USN aircraft are ready to strike.  One could be excused to think that this is difficult to do, but in reality it is not.  I have personally seen it done.

Second, the Americans know that the Iranians know that (well, maybe not Mr MAGA, but folks at the DIA, ONI, NSA, etc. do know that).  So all this sabre-rattling is designed to show that Mr MAGA has tons of hair on his chest, it’s all for internal US consumption.  As for the Iranians, they have already heard any and all imaginable US threats, they have been attacked many times by both the USA and Israel (directly or by proxy), and they have been preparing for a US attack ever since the glorious days of Operation Eagle Claw: they are as ready as they can be, you can take that to the bank.  Finally, the terrorist attack by the USN on a civilian Iranian airliner certainly convinced the Iranians that the leaders of the AngloZionist Empire lack even basic decency, nevermind honor.  Nevermind the use of chemical warfare by Iraq against Iran with chemicals helpfully provided by various US and EU companies (with the full blessing of their governments).  No – the Iranians truly have no illusions whatsoever about what the Shaytân-e Bozorg is capable of in his rage.

Third, “attacking embassies” is a glaring admission of terminal weakness.  That was true for the seizure of Russian consular buildings, and this is true for the Venezuelan embassy.  In the real (supra-Kindergarten) world when country A has a beef with country B, it does not vent its frustration against its embassy.  Such actions are not only an admission of weakness, but also a sign of a fundamental lack of civilization.

[Sidebar: this issue is crucial to the understanding of the United States.  The US is an extremely developed country, but not a civilized one.  Oscar Wilde (and George Clemanceau) had it right: “America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between“.  There are signs of that everywhere in the USA: from the feudal labor laws, to the lack of universal healthcare, to absolutely ridiculous mandatory criminal sentences (the Soviet Penal Code under Stalin was MUCH more reasonable and civilized than the current US laws!), to the death penalty, to the socially accepted torture in GITMO and elsewhere, to racial tensions, the disgusting “food” constituting the typical “SAD” diet, to the completely barbaric “war on drugs”, to the world record of incarcerations, to an immense epidemic of sexual assaults and rapes (1/5 of all women in the USA!), homosexuality accepted as a “normal and positive variation of human sexuality“, 98 percent of men reported internet porn use in the last six months, … – you can continue that list ad nauseam.  Please don’t misunderstand me – there are as many kind, intelligent, decent, honorable, educated, compassionate people in the USA as anywhere else.  This is not about the people living in the USA: it is about the kind of society these people are living in.  In fact, I would argue the truism that US Americans are the first victims of the lack of civilization of their own society!  Finally, a lack of civilization is not always a bad thing, and sometimes it can make a society much more dynamic, more flexible, more innovative too.  But yeah, mostly it sucks…]

By the way, the USA is hardly unique in having had degenerate imbeciles in power.  Does anybody remember what Chernenko looked like when he became the Secretary General of the CPSU?  What about folks like Jean-Bédel Bokassa or Mikheil Saakashvili (this latter case is especially distressing since it happened in a country with a truly ancient and extremely rich culture!).  And while we can dislike folks like George Bush Senior or James Baker – these were superbly educated and extremely intelligent people.  Compare them to such psychopathic ignoramuses like Pompeo, Bolton or Trump himself!

So this latest US “attack” on the Venezuela is truly a most telling symptom of the wholesale collapse of US power and of the moral and intellectual bankruptcy and lack of civilization of the Neocon ruling elites.

The big question is obvious: will they attack Venezuela or Iran next?

NYT’s so-called “anti-Semitic” cartoon. Pretty accurate if you ask me!

In the very first article I ever wrote for my blog, as far back as 2007, I predicted that the US would attack Iran.  I still believe that the Israelis will never cease to try to get the US to do their dirty work for them (and let the goyim pay the price!).  What I am not sure about is whether the Israelis truly will have the power to push the USA into such a suicidal war (remember, if Iran cannot “win” against the USA, neither can the USA “win” against Iran – thus Iran will win simply by surviving and not caving in – which they will and they won’t).  The good news is that US power has been in sharp (and accelerating!) decline at least since Clinton and his gang.  I would even add that the last two idi*ts (Obama and Trump) did more damage to the US power than all their predecessors combined.  The bad news is that the collective IQ of US leaders has been falling even faster than US power.  We can hope that the first will hit zero long before the second, but there is no guarantee.

Truly, nobody knows if the US will or will not attack Iran and/or Venezuela next.  The Neocons sure want that, but whether they will make it happen this time around or not depends on so many variables that even the folks in the White House and the Pentagon probably don’t really know what will happen next.

What is certain is that the US reputation worldwide is basically roadkill.  The fact that most folks inside the USA are never told about that does not make it less real.  The Obama-Trump tag team has truly inflicted irreparable damage on the reputation of the USA (in both cases because they were hopelessly infected and corrupted by the Neocons).  The current US leaders appear to understand that, at least to some degree, this is why they are mostly lashing out at “easy” targets like free speech (on the Internet and elsewhere), Assange, the Venezuelan Embassy, etc.  The real danger comes from either one of two factors:

The Neocons will feel humiliated by the fact that all their threats are only met with indifference, disgust or laughter

The Neocons will feel buoyed by the fact that nothing terrible happened (so far) when they attacked a defenseless target

Either way, in both cases the outcome is the same: each “click!” brings us closer to the inevitable “bang!”.

By the way, I think I should also mention here that the current state of advanced paranoia in which the likes of Pompeo point their fingers left and right are also signs of terminal weakness: these are not so much ways to credibly explain the constant and systematic failures of the Israelis and the Americans to get anything actually done as they are a way to distract away from the real reasons for the current extreme weakness of the AngloZionists.

2006 The people of Lebanon celebrate the victory which turned the tide of AngloZionist imperialism

I concluded my last article by speaking of the terrified Venezuelans who refused to be afraid.  I will conclude this one by pointing at the first instance when a (comparatively) small adversary completely refused to be frightened even while it was the object of a truly terrifying attack: Hezbollah in 2006.  Even though they were outnumbered, outgunned and surrounded by the Israelis, the members of the Resistance in Lebanon simply refused to be afraid and, having lost the fear too which so many Arabs did succumb to before 2006, they proceeded to give the Israelis (fully backed by the USA) the worst and most humiliating thrashing in their country’s (admittedly short) history.

I urge you to read al-Sayyid Hassan’s famous “Divine Victory” speech (you can still find the English language transcript hereand here) – it is one of the most important speeches of the 20th century! – and pay attention to these words (emphasis added):

We feel that we won; Lebanon won; Palestine won; the Arab nation won, and every oppressed, aggrieved person in this world also won.  Our victory is not the victory of a party. I repeat what I said in Bint Jubayl on 25 May 2000: It is not the victory of a party or a community; rather it is a victory for true Lebanon, the true Lebanese people, and every free person in the world.  Don’t distort this big historic victory. Do not contain it in party, sectarian, communal, or regional cans. This victory is too big to be comprehended by us. The next weeks, months, and years will confirm this.

And, indeed, the next weeks, months and years have very much confirmed that!

Any US attack on Iran will have pretty similar results, but on a much, much bigger scale.

And the Iranians know that.  As do many in the Pentagon (the CIA and the White House are probably beyond hopeless by now).

Conclusion: good news and bad news

Finally some meaningful discussions between the two nuclear superpowers!

The good news first: Pompeo and Lavrov had what seems to be a meaningful dialog.  That is very, very good, even if totally insufficient.  They have also announced that they want to create study groups to improve the (currently dismal) relations between the two countries.  That is even better news (if that really happens).  Listening to Pompeo and Lavrov, I got a feeling that the Americans are slowly coming to the realization that they have an overwhelming need to re-establish a meaningful dialog with the other nuclear superpower.  Good.  But there is also bad news.

The rumor that the strategic geniuses surrounding Trump are now considering sending 120,000 troops to the Middle-East is really very bad news.  If this just stays a rumor, then it will be the usual hot air out of DC, along the lines of Trump’s “very powerful armada” sent to scare the DPRK (it failed).  The difference here is simple: sending carriers to the Middle-East is pure PR.  But sending carriers AND 120,000 troops completely changes that and now this threat, if executed, will become very real.  No, I don’t think that the US will attempt to invade Iran, but 120,000 is pretty close to what would be needed to try to re-open the Strait of Hormuz (assuming the Iranians close it) while protecting all the (pretty much defenseless) CENTCOM facilities and forces in the region.  Under this scenario, the trip of Pompeo to Russia might have a much more ominous reason: to explain to the Russians what the US is up to and to provide security guarantees that this entire operation is not aimed at Russian forces.  IF the US really plans to attack Iran, then it would make perfect sense for Pompeo to talk to Lavrov and open channels of communications between the two militaries to agree on “deconfliction” procedures.  Regardless of whether the Russians accept such deconfliction measures or not (my guess is that they definitely would), such a trip is a “must” when deploying large forces so near to Russian military forces.

So far Trump has denied this report – but we all know that he suffers from the “John Kerry syndrome”: he wants better relations with Russia only until the Neocons tell him not to. Then he makes a 180 and declares the polar opposite of what he just said.

Still, there are now rumors that Trump is getting fed up with Bolton (who, truth be told, totally FUBARed the Venezuelan situation!).

As for the Iraqis, they have already told the US to forget using Iraqi territory for any attack.  This reminds me of how the Brazilians told the US that Brazil would not allow its territory to be used for any attacks.  This is becoming a pattern.  Good.

Frankly, while an AngloZionist attack on Iran is always and by definition possible, I can’t imagine the folks at the Pentagon having the stomach for that.  In a recent article Eric Margolis outlined what the rationale for such an attack might be (check out his full article here).  Notice this sentence: “The Pentagon’s original plan to punish Iran called for some 2,300 air strikes on Day 1 alone“.  Can they really do that?  Yes, absolutely.  But imagine the consequences!  Margolis speaks of “punishing” Iran. 2,300 Air strikes in one day is not something I would call a “punishment”.  That is a full scale attack on Iran which, in turns, means that the Iranians will have exactly *ZERO* reasons to hold back in any way.  If the AngloZionists attack Iran with 2,300 air strikes on Day 1, then you can be sure that on Day2 all hell will break loose all over the Middle-East and the AngloZionists will have absolutely *NO* means of stopping it.

This will be a real bloodbath and nobody will have any idea as to how to stop it.

And you can be darn sure that the Iranians will show much more staying power than the imperialists, if only because they will be fighting in defense of their country, their faith, their liberty, their friends and their families. To expect the Iranians to cave in or surrender in any way would be the most stupid notion anybody could entertain.

Could they really be THAT stupid in Washington DC?

I don’t know.

But what I do know is this: any such attack will be extremely costly and very, very dangerous.  Obviously, the Neocons don’t give a rats ass about costs, financial or human.  They just want war, war, war and more war (remember McCain’s “bomb, bomb, bomb – bomb, bomb Iran“?).  But the Neocons are only a tiny fraction of the US ruling elites (even if the most powerful one) and my hope is that the sane elements will prevail (which, indeed, they have so far).

As for right now, we are still okay.  But if the US actually start sending large forces to the Middle-East, then all bets are off.

The Saker

Sponsored by Naija gist

…

[bogject]

Post Ireland Trip + Project Reflections

Like most great discoveries the ability to preserve butter in bogs was discovered by mistake and, similarly, I accidentally stumbled into a project about it by making a trifle using water from the river Thames.

How do objects tell stories? A question I’d been screaming from the rooftops of the design studios but in lack of a reply I decided to start trying out some more constructive things. I had been reading Michael Polanyi’s ‘The Tacit Dimension’ and despite a lot of it going over my head it got me keen to start doing physical things and had won my support for the thinking through making movement.

I was particularly excited by the idea of creating a mythical object, which essentially means an object crafted to have a narrative and a history linked to a place rather than one developing as a byproduct of the objects use. I had been inspired by an artist called Hilda Hellström who had created a set of mythical objects.  She made food storage pots out of radioactive Japanese soil. I built a boat.

Not a real boat. I made it out of cardboard and gaffer tape. I modelled it on the coracle, a simple-ish ancient round boat, the details of which I had found in a book called ‘The Forgotten Arts,’ But why did I build a (fake) boat? Well, in an attempt to tackle my former question I had focused in on a site in the local area. I probably wouldn’t have usually done this but we were set a brief called Rowdyism which was popular with some and not so popular with others that meant we had to intervene in the local area (New Cross or thereabouts) I decided to plonk myself on Deptford Docks.

I looked into the history of the docks. A lot of warships were built there and it has pretty blatant links to slavery. Not good stuff. I wanted to highlight this side of the docks in my intervention as the more easily accessible material generally glorifies the docks as a historic place of industry.

So I built a boat and launched it into the Thames in an attempt to utilise the historic forms of labour that had once been a key component to the site. I performed a ship launching ceremony in which I read out a passage from the book ‘Citizen.’ The boat took surprisingly well to the water, maybe I should have done a BA in Boat building. At least we’d all be in the same boat!!!!!

Despite the seaworthiness of my boat I very quickly decided to sink it. I’d been talking to someone about ship building at the pub (a classic pub conversation) and they told me about the extensive restoration process that the Mary Rose had undergone. I looked further into this and into older ship restoration methods and found that most vessels would have been sprayed with salt water over and over again, gradually decreasing the humidity until the ship could bear its own weight above water. I thought this process, and the materials involved, was a lot like pickling. I decided to pickle my ship but in order to do this I first had to sink it.

I made a copy of my boat and sunk this in a mixture of cornflour and water. I recovered the remains and pickled them in a glass container using Saxa sea salt and Sainsbury’s basics vinegar

By preserving these remains I was bringing stasis to them, playing around with the permanence of the stories conveyed by the materials. Fluctuations in temporality. The impermanence of food and the stasis of preservation were tools that I could use to explore this.

I decided to branch out into other methods of food preservation and started to play around with gelatine. Still filtering the docks through these objects I ended up with a Thames Water Trifle that I then double whammied with a second food preservation technique, burying. Many instances of burying food can be found across the world. The one that stuck out most for me in my research was bog butter.

I’ve had the same conversation about bog butter with about 700 people. Someone will say Kevin’s doing a project on bog butter! And they’ll be like who? And I’ll be like yeah and they’ll be like what’s that and how is that design and I’ll be like I’m not sure but listen to this. The most common explanation I give people is that it’s butter found in bogs. More specifically, really old butter found in bogs. The oldest sample dates back about 3500 years and the weirdest part is that technically these samples are still edible. The bog is a master preserver. Low oxygen, highly acidic, stagnant environments that preserve biological matter (look up bog bodies if you’re into that kind of thing. I wanted to create mythical objects, here’s an object perfectly preserved and still roughly in it’s initial form. It’s not quite a mythical object but it’s not not a mythical object. No-one can be 100% certain as to why it was buried, at least in the case of the earlier samples because we only really started properly writing things down come medieval times (don’t quote me on that.)

Bogs are interesting as sites of history to explore as you can’t build on them, so they’re generally quite easy to access and the level of objects preservation is unusually high. In a report commissioned by The IUCN UK Peatland Programme it was found that ‘An archaeologist working in “dry land‟ conditions may be fortunate to find 10% of what was once there, whereas an archaeologist working in peatlands may find 90% of the material culture of ancient communities.’

I did a lot of research into bogs and bog butter and the explanations for bog butter vary depending on time period. The commonly accepted reasoning is that it was initially a sacrificial offering, not meant to be rediscovered, but then it was, maybe a thousand years later and this gave people the idea to use bogs as ancient fridges so then more butter was buried, people forgot about the odd batch and this is why we’re finding them today. Loads of them. All over Ireland. And some in Scotland. I’d recommended reading Caroline Earwood’s report: Bog Butter: A Two Thousand year History.

I went to some London bogs, which are actually pretty hard to find unless you know what you’re looking for. (Sphagnum moss). I tried my hand at making my own bog butter. I buried a brick of Kerry Gold, left it for five days ad came back to retrieve it.

I used this butter to make ice cream. Bog butterscotch ice cream. I used a recipe created by an Ice cream shop in Kerry, a county in Ireland that have a high number of bog butter findings. This is most likely the result of a tradition called booleying or transhumance, which refers to the practice of seasonally moving livestock from lowland villages to summer pastures in the mountains where they would make a lot of butter and bring it back for Winter. Dairy is historically a big part of the Irish diet so it makes sense that a lot was buried.

I saw ice cream as a contemporary version of butter, maybe not a version but holding similar importance. Butter was valuable and enjoyed on special occasions, ice cream does the same job today.

I read further into temporality, place and time and decided that instead of just thinking about Ireland I’d actually go there. I booked a plane ticket and went on a three day excursion.

In my dissertation I talked about situating the mythical object and crafting the mythical object as two distinct elements. A journey and a location. At a push I likened the act of getting on a plane to the transhumance of dairying, seasonally moving myself to Ireland to make butter. I wondered if the carbon footprint of getting on a plane was ok if I was visiting a bog, seeing as they’re carbon sinks.

I tried to record and collect as much ephemera from this trip as I could, I kept a step by step diary, kept receipts, took co-ordinates and filmed everything that I could in an attempt to preserve this time.

I got in touch with a environmental scientist who gave me the lowdown on the wetlands in the local vicinity and buried two sticks of butter in different locations. It felt important to be doing this but I hadn’t quite worked out why yet. I made sure to record everything I did and tried to apply what i had been reading to the physical tasks I was carrying out over there.

I’d been toying with grand notions of temporality and stasis. So I started to map things out with the use of timelines. By doing this I was trying to simplify what I was doing by making sense of it pictorially and detailing the intersections of different timelines in relation to my project.

TIMELINES DIAGRAMS

‘Just as the landscape is an array of related features, the taskscape is an array of related activities.’ This is how Tim Ingold, an anthropologist defines the ‘taskscape,’ a term coined in his report, ‘Temporality of the landscape.’ I liked the analysis of the continually evolving relationship between people and the environment through generative tasks, which is essentially what I was trying to emulate in my work, generating objects from the sites I had chosen by working with and on the land as a tool. An alternative methodology for how we view sites of history.

In all the butter burying and food making I hadn’t at this stage actually made any butter so I did. All you need to make butter is cream and a vessel to shake it in. It’s that easy. By shaking the cream for a period of time you agitate the fat molecules in the cream which separates the liquid into butter and butter milk, you drain the butter milk and hey presto you have butter.

In my research I had narrowed down bog butter into two distinct time periods, iron age and medieval times. The practice first dates from the iron age in which the samples would have been votive offerings to the gods and then it shifts in medieval times where people were practically using bogs to store butter for winter.

These periods are roughly a thousand years apart and our current time period is a thousand years from the medieval period, three millennia of bog butter. I decided that I would attempt to create a ritual for the contemporary burying of bog butter.

I got in touch with, Caroline, an experimental archaeologist who filled me in on the specifics of Iron Age culture in the context of making butter. She taught me how butter would have been made and went into very specific details around dress within that period. I wanted to pull through aspects of each period in the contemporary ritual so decided to focus in on dress, bringing forward the use of light blue fabric that would have been prevalent during this time.

Then I visited the Weald and Downland living history museum and met with the resident dairying expert. He went over the history of dairying with me as well as demo-ing what I would need and how I would make butter in a medieval way. I made a tool modelled on the equipment used at the museum, hoping to bring through elements of this in the contemporary ritual.

Then I went about setting up the means to filter Dingle through the ritual. I got in touch with Murphys, the ice cream shop, to secure cream, Dingle Woollen Company to secure some light blue clothing and Penny’s Pottery to secure a ceramic vessel to make the butter in.

I also got back in touch with the environmental scientist to work out where would be best to bury the butter in the hopes of future proofing it for another thousand years. It was decided that a fen would be the best place to bury it, which is essentially a baby bog, and in a thousand years time the fen that I had once buried butter in would have developed into a fully fledged bog.

I went to Ireland, I managed to get the cream, a pot and a pair of woolly blue socks.  I brought the butter plunge that I had made to carry out the butter making and a table made from bits of wood I found in a shed where I was staying.

I built a table, now a permanent feature in the house I was staying in.

On the 25th of April I hiked to Ventry Dunes and Marshes, a fen in Ventry near Dingle. I made butter and buried it in the vessel. I read out ‘Bogland’ a poem by Seamus Heaney on bog butter, collected my things and left.

On reflection, the process of putting together a ritual and stringing together the knowledge of the different people I had developed relationships with was helping to inform a generative framework and a multi modal approach that I had been steadily trialling throughout the year. The cream, the clothing, the vessel and the tool were all categories of objects that came together to generate a new taskscape based on those before it. The specificity helping to develop a method for living in and experiencing the landscape by tapping into its rich history.

I’ve been using bog butter as a tool to generate interaction with sites but this method of engagement could be applied to any site of interest. It’s easy to read up about a place or a site but to feel connected to it you need to engage and meet with it. To mix yourself up in it and stamp your feet on it.

Bog butter came to me as a result of attempting to interrogate what it means to preserve an object created to tell a story. It’s comedic and interesting as a thing and although I’ve focused in on it it’s not a project ON bog butter but a project generated BY bog butter. To apply this to another site you would need to interrogate the elements that make up the landscape and replicate the conditions for new objects and iterations to manifest, in this case it was the the objects that I used to perform the ritual.

You could do what I’ve done with an old watering can found on an allotment or a brick found in a drain. By investigating the different forms of labour that went into an object and extrapolating them you’re able to unlock new ways of experiencing the landscape and the ever present melding of history and matter.

The concept of transhumance is a key part to the project. A journey that is made in order to make something inherently tied to the land.

In Edward Casey’s ‘Between Geography and Philosophy. What Does It Mean to Be in the

Place-World?”’ the point is made that ‘The lived body encounters the place world by going out to meet it.’ This project is an invitation for you to do the same.

My outcome is an educational film about bog butter that expands on how I’ve used it to engage differently with the land. I’ve also designed a supporting pamphlet that expands on the different elements of the ritual that I put together. I figured that in order to present someone with a methodology for engaging with the land it needed to be accessible and interesting. I had been trialling a ten minute film composed of static scenic shots, following my journey to the fen and documenting the ritual that I had put together, this film would have then been justified via a longer publication. Having made and reviewed this it didn’t sit quite right with the work I had been creating throughout the year which were essentially humorous how to videos, demonstrating a way of doing something or a method of experimentation. I also began to deliberate over the effectiveness of making a film demonstrating engaging with the land as it felt somewhat un-genuine. I was setting up shots and getting my sister and dad to film me doing it and there was a level of staged-ness in framing me solitarily carrying out this ritual very seriously.

I then showed a short film at an exhibition that I helped to put on (I say helped to put on but what I mean is I drove a van of stuff there) at Asylum Chapel called Prelon Musk: Acts Of Kleinness, the general theme being focused around method and process. I screened a clip of me setting up a shot and directing my dad and sister so that I could get the proportions right. The people that saw this engaged with the work much more than anyone I had shown the previous edited film to and, although ambiguous, the humorous aspect of the film, which was me getting frustrated with how I was going to shoot the film, paired with a short rationale that I had put together generated much more of a genuine conversation about the wider aspects of the project with people at the event. This prompted me to create a more accessible version of the film.

In terms of a primary and secondary audience, I think the work it has something to offer history enthusiasts as well as the general population. I would love to trial this film on school children in a more formal educational context.

I’m really interested in how an area of bogland can suddenly become very significant within a timeline and how layers of history can be experienced on a seemingly desolate, un-useful piece of land in today’s context, you can’t build on wetlands and you aren’t allowed to dig peat from them for fuel anymore and so the space is there to make of it what you will, in my case offer people a methodology for engaging with sites like this differently.

I’ve always wanted to make accessible work and I think previously I’ve let myself get tied up in theory which results in the work becoming convoluted. Within this project I think I’ve been able to weave theory and practice together in a way that can be understood through the style of film I have made. It’s become extremely apparent how the formatting and broadcasting of work is important.

I’ve come to realise that writing is a significant part of my practice, I’m able to work out what I’m doing with a mixture of making and writing about it and I find great satisfaction in being able to explain concepts to someone in a way that can be enjoyable. Much like the greatest tv programme of all time, Horrible histories.

Humour plays a big role in my work and I’ve always wanted to make funny things but I think I’ve only just worked out how to do that well. By following through with research and becoming knowledgeable on a very specific thing I’m able to present a body of complex work by presenting it in a humorous way rather than setting out before having a subject in mind to make something funny, even if it does mean getting the occasional weird look from a dog walker watching me churn butter on a fen.

In my favourite short film, Death To The Tin Man, the protagonist Bill, distraught after losing the affection of his sweetheart Jane after suffering from a series of unfortunate incidents that leaves him with only a heart and eyes in a new tin man body, he asks his best friend Paul Murmelsteen how to win her back. Paul replies Steal from the rich to give to the poor - Bill agrees and Paul says he was joking but Bill follows through with this plan and topples capitalism in the quiet town of ‘TOWN NAME’ and eventually sort of wins her back. Similarly, I’ve learnt this year to commit to doing things even if they seem ridiculous and impossible.

My practice lies between humour and education, an area I’ve taken an interest in over the past two years through various essays on alternative methods of education. I hope for the methods I’ve developed within this project to feed into that going forward.

Humour —— Me ——Education —— Similar to this Venn diagram I’m asking education to humour me as I have humoured my education.

Examples of similar-ish work

Politics of shoes - dash and dem

Bell foundry Whitechapel gallery thing - Rachel Pimm

Hilda Hellstrom - Japanese food storage containers

Bethan Llloyd Worthington - Shelfie: Manifold selects from the V&A collection

[tayloocook-blog]

Challenges in Anorexia Recovery and Overcoming Them: Tips and Guidance for Long-Term Anorexia Nervosa Recovery – Part 3

With eating disorders, there comes a tendency for black-and-white thinking and a need for perfectionism. This thinking can also, sometimes, flow over to how we view recovery, wanting to exhibit perfection in recovery, and creating challenges in anorexia recovery

This can lead to a lot of negative self-talk and blame on ourselves if we don't feel like we're perfectly living recovered every single day or that, if there is a challenge or you hear the eating disordered voice, that you have completely failed in recovery.

First of all, that's absolutely not true. Second of all, we should always expect challenges.

A clinician can provide a very clinical diagnosis but what is considered to be relapse is often very subjective. Some may feel as if being tempted alone is considered a relapse while others may not.

Whether you consider it a relapse or a challenge, expect that there will be trying times in your recovery. This is especially true when a new season of life comes up.

For example, I struggled when I was 12 to 15 years old and spent those two years in outpatient treatment. When I became Miss America, that was a great blessing but also a huge life challenge.

When my time as Miss America was up, I had to transition to going back to school, and being 22 years old, I was older than all of my classmates – another big challenge.

I got married at 23 and moved to New York and began working in television news and media – a big challenge.

Just recently, I ended a five-year, very difficult, marriage and I'm recently divorced – yet another huge challenge.

Life does not stop for any of us. All of us are busy and have triumphs, successes, and joys in our lives as well as bitter failures.

I may get married again, and I may have children one day. I'm traveling right now and want to learn a new language. There are so many things and seasons of life that I have yet to go through such as middle-age, menopause, etc.

You never know what challenges and changes life will bring you. We sometimes wear blinders to the fact that we think life is going to be easy, and it isn't, even if we are healthy.

We have to consider what we will do and how we can be proactive to make sure that those challenges do not derail us into a severe relapse so that we can continue the work we did in recovery.

I recommend three daily practices to help prepare for challenges. These are the first two.

Reject Rigidity

This has been hugely helpful in my life and was one of the biggest things that my therapist worked with me on in my initial round of treatment. Rigidity, at that time, ruled my life and not just in relation to my eating disorder. It ruled my schoolwork, my schedule, my routine, and my ritualism.

Rules ruled everything. Rules are not always a bad thing, but the rigidity that having too many rules can create and be a source of anxiety.

I have tried to combat this by putting in place people or things in my life that challenge me to be more spontaneous and to go with the flow.

For example, I have learned to have a healthy and positive relationship to exercise in my recovery, and a few days ago, I was with a friend bike riding around the area I live in Switzerland.

We went up into the mountains, which was my first time doing so, and enjoyed the trails and the beauty. We went up a big hill, and it was a good challenge, then we went up another and then a third and I started to get frustrated.

I'm in pretty good shape heart-wise, but my brain started to get nervous, “okay, what's the plan, how long is this route, when are we going to go back, how many more hills, how long have we been going, how much longer will we be out here?”

My brain was going on its own ride, and it was removing me from enjoying the scenery and the ride. “How many more hills are there?” “I'm going to have to reserve my energy.”

A friend, who knows me very well said, “it doesn't matter, just enjoy,” but that is not what my brain wanted to do. Eventually, I just had to laugh at myself and focus on being grateful and chilling out.

My friend said, “maybe 30 more minutes” and that gave me just enough not to have to worry anymore how many more hills there were and to be in the present.

This is just one small example of how we are so addicted to schedules and routines and a needing to know all the answers or what the plan is going to be. But we aren't going to know everything in life, and that is okay.

So, try to put yourself in relationships and situations where you are challenged to be spontaneous and go with the flow.

Cultivate a Practice of Gratitude

This is also much easier said than done.

We live in a very capitalistic society and are constantly bombarded with marketing messages that tell us we're not thin enough, pretty enough, don't have enough, don't make enough money, don't have enough status, etc.

We are force-fed the idea that there is always something better, something more to achieve, more places to go, more person to be. That you aren't okay the way, you are.

If you just had this experience or this body, then you would be happy. We are very discontent as a culture. After all, that is how our economy runs.

Gratitude isn't good for the economy because then people wouldn't buy all of the self-help books, the diet plans, the cosmetics and creams, the luxury cars, an extra home, there is just no end.

I cultivate gratitude by, first, minimizing my time on-line and two, not turning on the television as much.

I haven't watched TV in two or three weeks, instead embracing quiet and stillness, taking time in nature, practicing mindfulness. All of these things can be helpful in cultivating gratitude.

Take a second to look around and say, 'I've got breath in my lungs, the sun is shining, I have two legs that I am able to walk on, I have eyesight, I can hear.”

Be grateful for the most basic things.

PLEASE SEE

Tips and Guidance for Long-Term Anorexia Nervosa Recovery: Is Recovery from an Eating Disorder Possible? – Part 1 Crucial Aspects for Long-Lasting Recovery from Anorexia: Tips and Guidance for Long-Term Anorexia Nervosa Recovery – Part 2

Source:

Virtual Presentation by Kirsten Haglund in the Dec. 7, 2017 Eating Disorder Hope Inaugural Online Conference: “Virtual Hope for Eating Disorder Recovery”

About the Author: Kirsten Haglund is an international speaker, mental health advocate, and digital media strategist. Through her media and communications company, En Pointe, she works with a diverse group of clients in both the profit and non-profit sectors increasing social engagement and scalability, social listening, communications training, spokesperson work increasing brand awareness.

Kirsten serves as a media spokesperson, speaker, and Director of Global Business Development and Digital Media for Eating Disorder Hope & Addiction Hope. She is also Community Relations Specialist for Timberline Knolls Residential Treatment Center and is Founder and President of the Kirsten Haglund Foundation.

She also does political analysis across television news networks and radio, including on MSNBC, CNN International, Fox Business Network, and Fox News Channel. Her Op-Eds on politics, culture and non-profit advocacy have appeared in the New York Daily News, Forbes.com, Huff Post and in industry journals.

She served as Miss America 2008 and Goodwill Ambassador for Children's Miracle Network Hospitals. Kirsten graduated from Emory University with a B.A. in Political Science and is currently based in Zürich, Switzerland.

About the Transcript Editor: Margot Rittenhouse is a therapist who is passionate about providing mental health support to all in need and has worked with clients with substance abuse issues, eating disorders, domestic violence victims, and offenders, and severely mentally ill youth.

As a freelance writer for Eating Disorder and Addiction Hope and a mentor with MentorConnect, Margot is a passionate eating disorder advocate, committed to de-stigmatizing these illnesses while showing support for those struggling through mentoring, writing, and volunteering. Margot has a Master's of Science in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from Johns Hopkins University.

The opinions and views of our guest contributors are shared to provide a broad perspective on eating disorders. These are not necessarily the views of Eating Disorder Hope, but an effort to offer a discussion of various issues by different concerned individuals.

We at Eating Disorder Hope understand that eating disorders result from a combination of environmental and genetic factors. If you or a loved one are suffering from an eating disorder, please know that there is hope for you, and seek immediate professional help.

Published on November 9, 2018. Reviewed & Approved on November 9, 2018 by Jacquelyn Ekern MS, LPC

Published on EatingDisorderHope.com

The post Challenges in Anorexia Recovery and Overcoming Them: Tips and Guidance for Long-Term Anorexia Nervosa Recovery – Part 3 appeared first on Eating Disorder Hope.

[barreratyson68-blog]

The Perfect Creamy Whole 30 Tomato Sauce Recipe.

Among my viewers asked if I might chat more about exactly how Health at Every Dimension ® helps individuals dealing with certain medical ailments, exclusively ones for which dietary modifications are actually suggested. Thus indeed, the the main thing our company could say for certain is actually these type of foods items I am actually discussing, fine-tuned carbohydrates, glucose, flour, beer and the really starched quickly edible vegetables like potatoes failed to exist in our diet plan for pair of thousand years. a fantastic read developed this diet regimen to help girls with boob cancer to slim down and maintain it off forever. Research study seems to be to show that genetically matched diet regimens enhance outcomes, in relations to effective weight loss and also fidelity - revealing that a one-size fits all technique to our nutrition is actually possibly flawed. Sure, if you deny on your own for long enough you will certainly loose body weight - yet you will not be experiencing very good (most likely incredibly hungry) & won't automatically be well-balanced either. Thus now I have confined my salad to environment-friendlies simply and am in ketosis yet certainly not burning fat. Analysis shows that we can reduce the grocery costs through manies bucks a month as well as waste far less food by planning our every week meals. I oscillated, after that obtained stayed as well as inevitably found the body weight starting to return on. The Flexitarian Diet plan outruned most of its competitions, along with especially higher credit ratings in nutritional efficiency, ease to comply with and also long-lasting weight management. Prior to I would certainly find myself visiting the 2 PointsPlus bars from Weight Watchers or other points like that. Its gradual however I know when I need to have to perform a quickly if I skip a full week I do not fret and also body weight does not pour back on. No matter the hiddening explanation, low-carb diets most certainly are quite reliable in numerous people. Joe Cross, whose documentary Fat Sick & Almost Dead demonstrate how he went off being ONE HUNDRED pounds over weight to well-balanced by juicing reveals just how that could not just assist you shed excess weight but be tremendously helpful for your wellness. He points out some factors that are actually simply simple inappropriate, like 1) everybody could be skinny, 2) there are actually only eight necessary amino acids, 3) physical exercise is actually relatively handy along with weight loss, and 4) weight training simply when every 10 days is adequate. Most of the metabolic improvements observed listed here might be reproduced along with loss from 30 pounds (13.6 kg) over 12 full weeks making use of any type of affordable diet. Should admit after a thyroid disorder induced a 30 pound body weight increase in six full weeks, I complied with the Dukan diet with great excellence however locate it a bit uninteresting given that I do not have the moment to plan effectively now. When performed, weight all those unopened manages as well as drinks in to your vehicle and also contribute them to the nearby meals cupboard. To observe the effect from a particular meals or dish on sugar amount, check it a couple of hrs after consuming. This is actually a pretty affordable diet regimen program as well as the only expense may be actually that your grocery store expense is actually slightly enhanced as a result of the must obtain added new vegetables and healthy healthy proteins. As well as our company found that individuals that performed have that believing style, which were actually really black and white, or all-or-nothing thinkers, were actually a lot more probably to regain body weight. In this recipe book, Nicole as well as Lisa show our company how you can comply with a whole food vegan diet plan and also produce amazing substitutes like vegetarian butter, frozen yogurt, cheese and also dairies from scratch. Amy Reichelt: Rats have just the same chemistry as our team. They have dopamine in their human brains, as well as they are also extremely food driven. They randomized 46 adoloscents (grow older 12-18) to either a high-protein, low-carb diet (HPLC diet plan) or a calorie-restricted low-fat diet to be adhered to for 13 full weeks. I'm finding the diet edge of this fine actually, have actually been actually staying with really good stuff most of the time so I'm pleased keeping that, and also I've found I've been obtaining fuller quicker. The Mayo diet regimen's theory is actually that you may eat means extra yet take in far fewer fats because of your main food groups being fruit, veggies as well as grains. The Revelation: Another web site co-founded through a hubby-and-wife group, Paleo Adult porn is actually the home of manies drool-worthy pictures and recipes, alongside a listing of Paleo-friendly dining establishments and a handy 'Is that Paleo?' food overview.http://prisonnierdebeaute.info ='display: block;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;' src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_B1LlYh6iKqs/SvNzXnFfqbI/AAAAAAAABH4/LARGq2wJfaA/s400/Before%2BAnd%2BAfter%2BWeight%2BLoss.jpg" width="277" alt="food city"/> As an alternative, consume a handful of additional glasses of water and also put additional sodium on your meals. That aside, I can easily tell you that now that I am actually incredibly rigorous reduced carb, I generally have less atmospheres (a feeling from deja vu that can easily in some cases be actually a forerunner to a confiscation) compared to I did on an average American diet. . I've encountered sufficient individuals now to recognize that my tale, while certainly not completely traditional, is actually additionally certainly not that one-of-a-kind one of people who have lost or even sought to reduce weight. The importance from emotional factors in weight reduction was actually disclosed to me in the 1970s when I go through Susie Orbach's intriguing manual Fat is actually a Feminist Problem". Lost a handful of pounds then gained this back the following full week, even though I was complying with strategy. A list from the highest possible rate weight reduction dietscreated through our review experts is available right here. The bottom line is actually that if you utilize the Dietary Standards as a Gold Standard, Atkins is going to inevitably position low due to the fact that that is a substitute method to weight management. Normal exercisers were excluded from engagement, as well as my sense is that exercise in the course of the diet regimen trial was actually prevented. Concerning Blog site - AltShift operates through certainly not merely asking just what our company ought to consume to be healthy and balanced and lean, yet likewise when our experts ought to eat those factors to halt adaptation to fat loss.

In addition to the star of the program-- pork or chicken-- Cauliflower Leek Puree, Dessert Potato-Pumpkin Puree and also Roasted Eco-friendly Beans are actually all delectable low-carb edge recipes that will accomplish my Thanksgiving holiday meal. Our portion measurements can be also big, and also that's hard to judge when enough's sufficient, when you have actually still obtained half a platter of glorious food looking back at you. Effective diet administration in the course of personal injury could cut times, also weeks off an injury and help you return to your best immediately. Take the idea of easy-to-digest foods items one measure even further by offering food items mixing a shot. Each dietary trends led to enhancements in the cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk profile page therefore of weight management. I make certain she'll possess a 'I want to tone up' or even 'I have to gain weight in a well-balanced way' publish down free throw line. Visiting the diet, with a handful of lapses now and then, I have actually kept my weight down for numerous years and gradually lost a handful of additional pounds. So in short, that is actually actually cycling back and forth in between mainly a low-carbohydrate diet along with some carbohydrate times intermixed where you are actually receiving an anabolic burst or even boost, so to speak. This remains in extra of the approximately 1/2 pound (0.2 kg) every day of fat loss viewed in more continuous starting a fast.

[nancygduarteus]

Your Body is a Teeming Battleground

I went to medical school, at least in part, to get to know death and perhaps to make my peace with it. So did many of my doctor friends, as I would find out. One day—usually when you’re young, though sometimes later—the thought hits you: You really are going to die. That moment is shocking, frightening, terrible. You try to pretend it hasn’t happened (it’s only a thought, after all), and you go about your business, worrying about this or that, until the day you put your hand to your neck—in the shower, say—and … What is that? Those hard lumps that you know, at first touch, should not be there? But there they are, and they mean death. Your death, and you can’t pretend anymore.

I never wanted to be surprised that way, and I thought that if I became a doctor and saw a lot of death, I might get used to it; it wouldn’t surprise me, and I could learn to live with it. My strategy worked pretty well. Over the decades, from all my patients, I learned that I would be well until I got sick and that although I could do some things to delay the inevitable a bit, whatever control I had was limited. I learned that I had to live as if I would die tomorrow and at the same time as if I would live forever. Meanwhile, I watched as what had been called “medical care”—that is, treating the sick—turned into “health care,” keeping people healthy, at an ever-rising cost.

In her new book, Barbara Ehrenreich ventures into the fast-growing literature on aging, disease, and death, tracing her own disaffection with a medical and social culture unable to face mortality. She argues that what “makes death such an intolerable prospect” is our belief in a reductionist science that promises something it cannot deliver—ultimate control over our bodies. The time has come to rethink our need for such mastery, she urges, and reconcile ourselves to the idea that it may not be possible.

Ehrenreich is well equipped for her mission; she has a doctorate in biology and years of social and political work behind her, as well as decades of writing. I first discovered her in medical school, when I read her early book Witches, Midwives, and Nurses: A History of Women Healers (1973). From it I learned that my small group of nine women in the otherwise male class of 77 belonged to a long, if forgotten, tradition. I also learned that social progress is not always an upward-trending line. The author of more than a dozen books, Ehrenreich has a reputation for chronicling cultural shifts before others notice them. She delights in confronting entrenched assumptions, popular delusions, grandiose ambitions—and in teasing out their unexpected consequences.

Often she incorporates firsthand experience into her analysis. For her best-known book, Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America (2001), she spent a year working at unskilled jobs. In Living With a Wild God (2014), she recounted her own spiritual epiphanies in adolescence and her struggle, as a determined atheist, to understand her “furious encounter with a living substance that was coming at me through all things at once.” Before all that, in 2000, she had been diagnosed with breast cancer and begun paying special attention to surprising new science about cancer, cells, and our immune system. Now 76, Ehrenreich explores that science in Natural Causes: An Epidemic of Wellness, the Certainty of Dying, and Killing Ourselves to Live Longer. Once again, she is swept up by big questions. Not least among them is “whether the natural world is dead or in some sense alive” and behaving in unpredicted and unpredictable ways that have much to tell us about our approach to mortality.

Twelve

She starts by looking at the many preventive medical procedures we are encouraged, even badgered, to undergo—those regular physical exams, colonoscopies, blood tests, mammograms. She had always pretty much done what doctors advised (she underwent chemotherapy), figuring that it made sense to treat disease before illness overwhelmed the body. But after watching many fitness-obsessed people die early, and realizing that she herself is now “old enough to die,” she questions that premise. Where is the evidence that all the effort at prevention saves lives or delays death?

It’s hard to find, she discovers. In people who have a strong family history of heart disease, treating high cholesterol does decrease mortality, on average. But for those who don’t have that predisposition, it doesn’t. Colonoscopies have not been proved more effective at reducing deaths from colon cancer than other, cheaper, less-invasive tests. Sometimes procedures cause more trouble than they prevent. Mammograms, for instance, detect tumors that might never be fatal, and can lead to over-treatment, which carries its own risks. The insight is counterintuitive—although finding diseases early on should prolong lives, the screenings we undergo don’t seem to lower mortality rates overall—and Ehrenreich decides that she will no longer get most preventive care.

She is just as clear-eyed about other approaches to delaying our decay—exercise, diet, meditation. Though she became a “fitness devotee” herself in middle age, she finds symptoms of cultural malaise rather than health benefits in the fitness and diet obsessions of the past 40 years. Wellness programs do little to reduce companies’ immediate health-care costs, and the pursuit of fitness, Ehrenreich argues, is often simply one more “class cue.” Workouts easily become just that—work, another demand for self-discipline, competition, and control. Ironically, when she reached her 70s, her knees began giving her trouble not from age-appropriate arthritis but from overexertion.

Turning from her critique of preventive medicine and fitness culture as death-postponement strategies, Ehrenreich is even more unsettled by research indicating that our immune system is not the magical “protective cloak” she learned about in graduate school. What really gets her rethinking her scientific beliefs is the evolving story of the macrophage—the specialized white blood cell that she always thought of as her good shepherd “through the valley of the shadow of death.”

Macrophages have traditionally been understood as one of our crucial first-line defenses against disease. They are found throughout our body—in our bones, brain, lymph nodes, lungs, and breasts—and circulate in our blood. They look like the amoebas we learned about in high school, those slippery, one-celled, independent creatures that move by stretching out and contracting, and eat by wrapping themselves around their prey, invaginating and absorbing it. The usual story went like this: Whenever macrophages find threats to our well-being in our midst—bacteria, viruses, fungi, or cancer cells—they kill them and eat them by engulfing and absorbing them. Ehrenreich assumed that keeping her immune system—and valiant macrophages—strong through exercise, diet, and positive thoughts was the key to not getting sick, not getting cancer, not getting old.

But research around the turn of the millennium suggested a different view. Macrophages do not always kill our cancer cells; sometimes they even help them grow and spread. They escort certain cancer cells through the tight walls of our blood vessels, and protect them as they circulate in our bloodstream, looking for a congenial new home. When such a site is found—in a bone or breast, liver or lung—macrophages then support those cancer cells as they mature into the metastases that will go on to kill us.

Scientists are now discovering that the macrophage is as much wolf as shepherd in other diseases as well. It may play a role in auto-immune disorders, and even in the usual afflictions of aging—heart attacks, strokes, arthritis. We thought we knew the causes of those (cholesterol, cigarettes, inactivity) and therefore the recourse (diet, abstinence, exercise); but now it appears that inflammation, caused in large part by our macrophages, may be a trigger. Ehrenreich ponders the heretical question: Can it be that instead of working to keep our immune system healthy, we should all along have been doing the opposite?

Ehrenreich is not, however, an apostle of unwellness, and Natural Causes is not a how-to book. Instead she focuses on the conceptual and “deep moral reverberations” of the discovery that our immune system can aid and abet a “cellular rebellion against the entire organism.” What if our convenient “holistic, utopian” view of the “mindbody” as a “well-ordered mechanism”—kept in harmony by positive thinking and solicitous tending—is wrong?

Ehrenreich proves a fascinating guide to the science suggesting that our cells, like the macrophages that sometimes destroy and sometimes defend, can act unpredictably and yet not randomly. It is almost as if our cells can choose when and how to behave—unregulated by any deterministic mechanism. But that would mean they have “agency, or the ability to initiate an action,” as she puts it. And what would that imply? If macrophages are actually deciding which cancer cells to destroy or to preserve, “maybe, crazy as it sounds, they are not following any kind of ‘instructions,’ but doing what they feel like doing.”

Researchers are now finding this same agency everywhere, Ehrenreich reports—in fruit flies; in viruses; in atoms, electrons, and photons. Such discoveries must mean that agency, the capacity for making decisions—electrons jumping up a quantum level or not, photons passing through this hole in a screen rather than another—is not the rare, and human, prerogative we once thought.

Ehrenreich detects a paradigm shift in the making, away from holism and toward “a biology based on conflict within the body and carried on by the body’s own cells as they compete for space and food and oxygen.” This vision of the body as an embattled “confederation of parts”—the opposite of a coherent whole, subject to command and control—is “dystopian,” she writes. And yet it has liberating, humbling implications. “If there is a lesson here,” she proposes, it’s that “we are not the sole authors of our destinies or of anything else.” Of course, the struggle to win the battles within our body may be one we’ll never be able to resist. Who knows? Perhaps we’ll devise high-tech ways to induce, or persuade, our traitorous immune cells to cooperate with our health. But whatever technological miracles appear in our future, Ehrenreich hopes we can come to accept that the ultimate outcome will be, as it has always been, out of our control.

I wonder, though. Does she truly hope for that? It is, after all, only natural to try to stay healthy as long as possible, and to fight to get well when we are sick. I think Ehrenreich is really talking about herself—about her own fight for control, and her own desire to be able to give up and accept the end when the time comes. Is it possible for her to relinquish control and make her peace? Yes and no. Or rather no and yes. No, she can’t, and yes, she will.

No, because I’ve noticed, in my life as a doctor, that the truism is true: People die the way they’ve lived—even the demented and even, somehow, the brain-dead. The brave die bravely; the curious, with curiosity; the optimistic, optimistically. Those who are by nature accepters, accept; those who by nature fight for control die fighting for control, and Ehrenreich is a fighter.

Yes, because I’ve also noticed that everyone I’ve seen die does come to accept the inevitable loss of control at his or her finally unevadable death. Usually that happens over weeks or months, sometimes over years; occasionally it happens over days, hours, or even minutes. This acceptance is perhaps as developmentally determined as childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and old age. At the end, something magical appears to occur—something beautiful, something Other—that seems to heal the spirit, allay all fear, and settle, finally, the struggle for control.

from Health News And Updates https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/05/barbara-ehrenreich-natural-causes/556859/?utm_source=feed