When People Are Awesome

I complain about people a lot. I dislike a lot of people, so that's probably why. People are mean to each other, they do stupid things and are tedious to deal with. Except when they're not. When I take the time to notice, some people are really awesome and do really awesome things. Generally this happens when things are going really poorly for me and someone does something that reminds me that people do not always suck and I have some really awesome friends.

I was lamenting the fact that my poor choices in life have put me in a position that prevents me from doing something that should be simple, and how upset with myself I am about that. Some friends offered to help me make it happen. People are awesome!

Then remember that friend I mentioned who made me feel like I suck the other day? Well, he really is one of my best friends and I knew he didn't mean to make me feel as bad as I did. And of course, I went the passive-aggressive route and posted it on here instead of telling him. But I was upset and didn't want to make things worse. Well he did something beyond awesome for me tonight and I keep crying every time I think about it. Something I can never repay it's so awesome. Of course, now I feel like a jerk for saying he upset me but...

So sometimes people are really amazing. In fact, more often than not people are pretty good and I need to remember that. I especially need to remember it when thinking about my friends because they're some of the best people in the world!

Control Freak

I'm a control freak. Admitting it is half the battle right? I've always know this about myself though. I don't function very well when I'm not in control of the things in my life. I know a lot of this is due to my anxiety. When I can control what is going on, then I feel a lot less anxious. The problem is, there are a lot of other control freaks in my life as well. You can imagine how well things go when a bunch of control freaks get together. It isn't pretty.

I've been feeling mostly out of control lately. Nothing seems to be going the way it should and it's making my anxiety skyrocket. After spending most of the day feeling depressed and lost I made a decision that I hope I can stick with because I really think it will help. I have to stop trying to control every situation in my life. I have to focus on the most important things and leave some things open to turning out how they will turn out. I also need to take one thing at a time. Quite often I get bogged down by all of the things that aren't going well or need to be done, and forget that I can really only do one thing at a time.

I'm going to start with the one thing I have the most immediate control of...my weight. I've not been doing very well since before Christmas and have gained some of the weight I lost back. I don't feel good and I'm not happy with myself for losing my focus. I should have been at my goal weight a long time ago now and it makes me a little mad at myself for being even farther away than I was. Getting to my goal will accomplish several other things that I've been stressing about lately and feeling unable to control. So I need to do this...for my sanity. Hopefully the rest of things will fall into place on their own or I'll find some way of making peace with them. I've just got to let go a little though.

Yeah, I Suck

I normally have my boys for most of the day on Saturday, but today they left in the morning to go with their dad for the whole weekend. I prefer having them of course, but it gave me the opportunity to get a lot of stuff done. I was able to clean the house, find a more permanent place for our new critters in the house, go for a run and catch up on the TV shows I'd fallen behind on. I also did all of the laundry in the house, made a really awesome dinner for myself and baked some WW friendly cookies.

Overall it was a good day don't you think? On the outside it was a good day. But, I also wrote an uncomfortable e-mail which made me feel a little down. I didn't get any homework done like I'd hoped, ate a little too much of my awesome dinner and cookies, and failed to write any of the thank you notes I've been putting of writing in my little thankfulness project.

I guess the things I didn't get done aren't something I should beat myself up for considering all I did do. But in a brief exchange with a friend I was told I had an "unattractive quality". My opinion of the exchange we were having and his opinion were totally different based on what he said this quality was (I'm not going to tell you or else you'll be looking for it all the time) but I decided to leave it alone. I knew it was just an observation and resisted my instinct to see if he'd like to hear about his more "unattractive qualities". Most people have trouble with criticism, even if they say they don't, and I'm no exception. It's especially unpleasant when someone uses the word "unattractive" even if they're not talking about your looks. Say that word to a former fat girl who has had issues with her appearance her whole life and all she thinks about is her looks. Doesn't matter what your real goal was anymore.

So of course I got to thinking about all of my bad qualities and what I didn't get done today that I should have because of these qualities. So, yeah, I suck. Big deal. My kids are safe and healthy. Hopefully I'll see another day tomorrow where I will have another chance...oh and I wrote a bunch of thank you cards after all.

New Family!

I should never ever walk into our SPCA...EVER! But, my mom works there and from time to time I just have to stop by and look. I can't have a cat or dog in my apartment, but caged animals are OK and my landlord loves me and knows I'm responsible. We had lizard for a while and he died. After that I said only fuzzy pets. So we bought a guinea pig whose name is Max and he's awesome!

Then two years ago, just days before Christmas, we went to visit and they had a lovebird. I have always been a bird lover, but could never really afford the larger birds. She had been there a while and the employees were tired of hearing her squawk so they were very happy when I took her home. Her name is Tweety and we thought she was a boy when we got her...but then she laid an egg. She is loud and obnoxious, but I love her and as soon as she sees me, she tries to get as close to me as she can. I can't hold her yet, but I'm working on it.

And today the boys and I went in and they still had almost all of the gerbils that they'd had the last time I visited. They mom was brought in because she had been bought with another gerbil who was supposed to have been a girl, but turns out, it was a boy and she got pregnant. So, a bunch of gerbil babies were born at the shelter. We took the mom home with us and named her Mum and one of her daughters who we named Coal. Aren't they beautiful!

The Biggest Loser

I've been a fan of The Biggest Loser since it first went on the air. When the show began I could have been one of the early contestants. I was obese, and though I was smaller than a good many of the contestants, I still may have qualified...for the early shows.

Over the past few seasons the show has gotten longer and it's harder for me to find the time to watch it, but I usually catch the first few episodes of a season and then the finale. Say whatever you want to about this show, but it's a look into our lives. Yes, we could all lose weight if we went to a ranch and had personal trainers, worked out twelve hours a day, and had a well stocked kitchen at our disposal. Is it totally healthy...well I'm not a doctor so I'm not going to say yes or no. But what I do know is that without this show, some of these people would be dead already.

It's not secret that Americans are really fat. Go outside and look around and you're going to see it. One in three children born after the year 2000 (which both of my children were) will develop diabetes. One in four young people are too heavy to join the army. If you've kept up with The Biggest Loser then every season after the first you have heard Bob Harper say "he/she is the heaviest contestant in the history of the show". Every season! That means with each successive season they are finding heavier and heavier people. We're not catching on! The current "winner" of this label is a 5'8" man who weighs over 500 pounds and had already lost over 100 pounds before coming to the show. He came on with his father who weighs nearly 300 pounds. He needs to lose his father's current weight to be healthy. The heaviest woman had already lost over 100 pounds before coming to the show.

I cannot imagine how daunting that is. I was approximately 70 pounds overweight when I began this journey in October 2009 and I'm not yet at my goal weight. Losing 300 pounds seems impossible to me so I can only imagine what it feels like to him! It's no wonder that we are turning to bariatric surgery more and more, because the task seems insurmountable. Even though the risks are very high, I understand that the risk of staying morbidly obese is dangerous as well.

But anyone who has struggled with their weight knows that there is a reason lurking behind our inability to stop overdoing it with food. No one who is honest can look at you and say that there isn't something deep down that's causing them to hurt themselves in this way. It's no different on the show. Some of these people have horrible stories of loss, humiliation and pain. They've medicated with food which is no different than someone medicating with cigarettes, drugs or alcohol.

The thing that The Biggest Loser seems to do besides help people shed weight, is help people find that issue and tackle it. Once it's been dealt with these contestants are unstoppable. I know that the scenario presented on the show is next to impossible for anyone who doesn't go on the show themselves or isn't loaded. But, I think aspects of it can be duplicated. You can find a reasonable and healthy lifestyle with a program like Weight Watchers, you can begin to move your body, and you can begin to evaluate what it is that caused you to gain in the first place.

I try very hard not to judge people who choose surgery because everyone's situation is so different. I have friends who are nurses and have seen the horrible complications from these procedures so I know that this is not a "quick fix" option for those who go through it. It's like suggesting that a c-section is the easy way out in childbirth. Everyone has to choose their own path and when your life is literally on the line you have to do what you think is best. I only hope that those who choose this route have dealt with their daemons so they aren't right back in the same spot a few years down the road. Some contestants on the show (even a former winner) have gained most of all of the weight back. I could gain most or all of my weight back if I'm not careful.

This process is damn hard! It's hard no matter how much or little you have to lose. So while I wouldn't say that I advocate the extreme solutions like going on The Biggest Loser or having surgery, I understand why they're chosen. And even if you hate this show I suggest taking a long hard look at it. See if you identify with it yourself, or if you see it in those around you. We cannot continue to ignore the size we are as a country and we have to find ways to lift us all out of this and support each other to something healthier.

Arizona

Unless you've been living in a cave you have no doubt heard about the horrible shooting in Arizona. Within minutes the news media was diving into the possible reasons for the shooting and if it was planned or random. This is pretty normal; people want answers and we rely on the media to report those answers to us. But within hours the situation had devolved into a horrible blame game.

Are the things we say important? Of course they are! Words can hurt people worse than weapons in some cases. We have entirely too many hateful people on TV these days from both sides of the political aisle and it's time to stop it. Not just because it's hurtful, but because it isn't doing us any good!

But the words coming out of the mouths of our political leaders and the news media have nothing to do with why the shooter in Arizona did what he did. From all evidence he is a mentally ill young man. These people could have said the exact opposite of what they said and it's very likely he would have done the same thing.

People are afraid of mental illness. They don't understand it, don't know how to help, and fear what it can do. All of those fears are very rational. Severe mental illness is hard to treat, unpredictable and often something that cannot be fixed. It's not easy to live in a world where we could be killed at random because someone has had a mental break. But placing blame on people who had nothing to do with this mans mental illness doesn't help anyone and it certainly doesn't bring any of those people back.

It's normal to be upset and scared and wanting answers. But the blame needs to be on the shooter and his illness. Not the right or the left or any spot in between. We can't do a lot to keep this from happening again. But what we can do is try to watch out for those around us. Be aware of mental illness and try to help those in your life who suffer from it. As someone who has experienced this first hand, I know there is a limit to that, but if you can help, give it a try. We can also try to make it harder for people with mental illness to own weapons. Aside from that, we should mourn those whose lives were lost, hope that the ones who survive recover and hope that nothing like this happens again.

Let's Clear Something Up

I became a vegetarian because of my concerns over food safety. These concerns do spill over into how the animals were raised and how they were killed. I know that there are people in the world who raise their animals in wonderfully humane ways and who ensure they are killed properly. That's fantastic and I applaud them for that. Those who do that must charge a reasonable amount for their meant because it is not being factory farmed and it takes more time and effort. I have no problem with that either. People often ask why I don't eat that type of meat. Well, the main reason is that I'm a broke college student. I can't afford that meat. But, I'm also an animal lover and don't really feel like meat is that important in my life, and it's certainly not important enough to lower my standards for food safety and eat what I can afford.

This is a big issue for me. It's something I feel strongly about so I talk about it a lot. We have to eat to live and our food should be safe. I feel strongly about a lot of things, but this just happens to take center stage for me. We all have some cause that we research more than others, are more curious about, or talk about more than the rest and that's fine. It's because of that that things get changed in the world. But the insinuation has been made to me several times that I care more about animals than I do about people. That's totally absurd and highly offensive.

A person who makes the choice not to eat meat doesn't care less about people just because they happen to care about animals too. I don't suggest that people who care about other people don't care about animals too, so why would the reverse make sense? I've made a lifestyle choice and I'm not asking you to make the same one if you really don't want to. Sure, I'd be happy if everyone I know went veg, but I'll be just as happy if by sharing what I find people cut meat out of their diet for only one day a week, or consider buying their meat and eggs from someone who takes better care of the animals.

So yes, I love animals. I don't eat animals. But that has nothing to do with how I feel about people or suggest that I value animals life over human life.