**Places Middle Finger Up To The Treadmill**

Really though. What do you think you are? You piece of plastic monkey poo…

Okay. Now that my little tantrum is done *kicks treadmill*, I might as well explain my little outburst.

I’ve been going to the gym the past week everyday and getting my stretching, cardio, lifting, and oh my god very much needed tanning done every other. I’ve been making it there pretty early in the morning while Mike and Zakai have been having dad n’ lad time, but tonight was a little bit later for me.

I don’t know what it was but I was feeling super awesome tonight. Even after sharing a portion of some super awesome nasty B-Dubs. Hey, I’ve got two-ish more days until I adopt the vegan lifestyle again and we had to use the gift-card we got from my brother for Christmas. Maybe it was the fact that I’ve been actually keeping up with a routine.

            Still… I stepped onto the treadmill, typed in my usual walk speed for warm up, walked a mile and a half, then after my body seemed to want a little more spike in the workout I clicked on the little button that said fat burn, typed in my weight because for some reason it wanted it (which by the way is a horrible post baby 230), put in a slight incline and then a mid speed between jogging and running.

            DO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MACHINE PROCEDDED TO TELL ME AFTER I FILLED IN ALL ITS LITTLE REQUIREMENTS???

“RUNNING IS NOT HIGHLY RECOMMENDED FOR YOUR CURRENT WEIGHT”

HMM… WHAT? COME AGAIN?

Okay. I’m breathing normal now. So 2.3 miles later after I noticed it was just past 9 PM and I should probably high tail it home to get Zakai to bed, I oh so elegantly got of the treadmill, and stuck my middle finger and tongue out at it. Fat girl just ran 2.3 miles with a “NOT HIGHLY RECOMMENED” speed… Bit*h.

What point can we take from this? An obvious - weight does not define you. And don’t let it. Not a bit. Not your beauty. Not your ability. Not your intelligence and definitely not your ego.  

Damn treadmill. I’ll see you again tomorrow.

My god I have to be honest with you people, I swear (and write) like a sailor and this was a really hard blog to not use any of my favorite language. Trying to keep it somewhat PG, ya know?

A Human Experiment: BPA

       

        The other night Mike and I were scrolling through Netflix taking our usual ten minutes to dispute over what looks good or not and who is going to choose this time. Being our oh so curious selves that prefer documentaries over the last sci-fi movie that got 4 stars, we stumbled upon a documentary called The Human Experiment. Although this film doesn’t go into intense detail of the thousands and thousands of chemicals that leech into our unsuspecting bodies every day, it is definitely a starting point for those of you who’d like to begin your journey of knowledge of the evil and corrupt of big pharmaceutical, plastic, and any other big money corporations only out to increase profit without the humanity to care about what damage is being done by their products. This film lifts the curtain to the many known secrets of the rich and ‘I don’t care if it causes cancer, sell it’s. You’ll be taken into some individuals lives from different walks of life and how the everyday products we use affect them in so many unnatural and unwelcoming ways; products that maybe even you use or are around every single day.

               

        I’d like to start this hopefully multiple part essay with more information on one of the chemicals that that have been found in more products than you can imagine and the effects having it in your life. BPA (Bisphenol-A) is one of the main components found today in a variety of everyday lives. An insert from the article Use of Polycarbonate Plastic Products and Human Health by R. K. Srivastava and Sushila Godara gives an upfront statement about the dangers of BPA:

       “Researchers found links between abnormal liver enzymes in the people and Bisphenol-A (BPA). Changes in insulin resistance, reproduction system, cardiovascular and brain function are also reported. BPA is used in the production of epoxy resins, polycarbonate resins, and polyester resins. BPA can leach out of certain plastic products including variety of modern goods, reusable food storage containers, eyeglass lenses, white dental fillings, sealants, medical equipment’s etc. In the body, BPA behaves as an estrogen receptor agonist and mimics estrogen hormone. Bisphenol-A (BPA) is a widespread endocrine-disrupting chemical (EDC) used as the base compound in the manufacture of polycarbonate plastics. Children and unborn and new born babies are at high risk of unwanted effects of BPA. Children suffer from chronic exposure to bisphenol A with manifestation of gastrointestinal problems, adrenal stress, immune dysfunction, toxic over load and neurological disorders. (1)”

   

         So from the gist of this small excerpt, I hope you still don’t get the feeling that consuming anything laced with BPA is a safe bet over time, for you, your children, and even your unborn child.  Did I say consume? Yes, I did. On top of BPA leaching into your beverages and water from the plastic bottles, canned foods being lined with it, and almost every other new plastic made that mankind uses or holds on to at any point; it’s also in some of our foods. The products and produce that we as humans hope would be safe on the shelves just because other humans placed them there is a very sad statement to find false. And if some of you won’t take this serious personally, and to be frank I tend to not when it only comes to me (I still gorge on Pizza and drink too much pop sometimes), lets place this devastation and danger on your children instead. Let’s start with your babies that haven’t even left the womb yet.

        According to the Environmental Working Group, “In the month leading up to a baby's birth, the umbilical cord pulses with the equivalent of at least 300 quarts of blood each day, pumped back and forth from the nutrient- and oxygen-rich placenta to the rapidly growing child cradled in a sack of amniotic fluid. (2)” This is the life source that leads from mother to unborn infant; the infant that depends on us for everything to be perfectly safe, secure, and healthy. Once thought to be a safety net for all things harmful that went through the mother to not be passed to the child, has been proven to be a falsity. Everything, EVERYTHING, that the mother ingests, skin leeches in, and air that she breathes takes effect on the fetus. From the variety of tests done from other sources and here in, the Environmental Working Group also found that “In a study … in collaboration with Commonweal, researchers at two major laboratories found an average of 200 industrial chemicals and pollutants in umbilical cord blood from 10 babies born in August and September of 2004 in U.S. hospitals. Tests revealed a total of 287 chemicals in the group (2)”.  

Here is the basic overview of the chemicals they found in the umbilical cords:

http://www.ewg.org/research/body-burden-pollution-newborns (2)

Gross, right? The majority of these things we almost simply cannot get away from as a common blue collar worker unless the stress and utmost desire is there.One statement made in the movie went along the lines of:

          If I were to give you a glass of water to drink and told you that there was only a 4% chance that the poison I placed in it would kill you, would you drink it? I most definitely would not. But what if I told you that I was 94% sure that it wouldn’t kill you, high chances right? Would you still drink it? I would still say no. How about if there was a 1% chance that you would die, would you drink it?

  

        Now when we eat and drink the nasty things we do in our quick pace quick food lives aside from all the extra chemical crap placed in it, we know that it’s bad for us already, yet we alas do it anyways. Does that mean we should just say whatever to these facts and carry on with our lives that we hope will be full, healthy, and long? I suppose that is your decision, but to not fight for the health of the common human and the generations to come is actually a very selfish act.

          1 in 88 kids now are born with autism compared just over a decade ago when it was 1 in 500. Do you really think things are going to get better just with that statistic alone? Not to blame autism on BPA just yet without the proper research, but with the multitude of other chemicals piled up on the 4% that may provide a sarcastically wonderful dose of disease, cancer, and premature death, wouldn’t you think there is something wrong with this industrialized life and want to do something about it? If not for you, then for your children, niblings, and younger cousins?

        The wee man in the right amount of numbers can be heard over the dollar of every disgusting paying lobbyist from the corps. Not that this has to do much with bill writing at the moment, but even because of it some are being put in motion, but I’m sure you have heard of the Cecil the Lion situation and the Dentist that killed him. Lions have been killed and shipped to the US forever now, but because the people roared loud enough, Mahita Gajanan, a reporter for The Guardian, stated that “New Jersey senator Bob Menendez announced on Friday that he will be introducing an act to disincentive trophy killings, named for the internationally mourned lion. The Conserving Ecosystems by Ceasing the Importation of Large (Cecil) Animal Trophies Act will extend import and export protections for species proposed to be listed under the Endangered Species Act (3)”. Now the leads being involved in the hunt are in trial and the man that paid for the hunt is being voted to be extradited.

        The power of numbers when we care about something is very strong. So if we should care so much about one lion, why shouldn’t we care about our own well-being and fight for that? Find something to care about. Do your research. Then fight for it.

1) Srivastava, R.K., and Sushila Godara. "Use of Polycarbonate Plastic Products and Human Health." Http://www.scopemed.org. IJBCP, Jan. 2013. Web. 05 Aug. 2015. <http://www.scopemed.org/fulltextpdf.php?mno=32059>.

2) Environmental Working Group. "Body Burden: The Pollution in Newborns." EWG. EWG, 14 July 2005. Web. 05 Aug. 2015. <http://www.ewg.org/research/body-burden-pollution-newborns>.

3) Gajanan, Mahita. "Cecil the Lion Spurs US Lawmakers to Draft Bills to Discourage Trophy Hunting." The Guardian. The Guardian, 31 July 2015. Web. 05 Aug. 2015. <http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jul/31/cecil-the-lion-legislation-trophy-hunting-bob-menendez>.

Perks Of Being Poor

      

      After reading this definition the word that flies out at me the most is ‘normal’. So what do people that are ’normal’ think about someone one that is less ‘privileged’ then themselves in the same community? Are they thinking simply that they are ‘un-normal’? Or does the thought go deeper? Do they think that that person is dirty, or lazy, or naturally misfortunate? What if they have simply decided to go the inexpensive route in life and the other individual is just being one of many to place an opinion without consideration or research behind it? Somehow it comes with complete abashment from your fellow Americans.

       Let me inform you what I’ve learned thus far in life, the inexpensive road is the one to drive down if you’re not naturally born into money or end up being a hefty butted, big lipped, blonde with a tiny waist that knows how to do her make up perfect and walk in heels like a goddess. I’ll tell you another thing; I can’t do heels so I’m already automatically out of the rat races at the Mansion.

       What are the common stresses of trying to keep up in these first world countries? You have to keep up your GPA in high school in order to get into a good college. That was easy in my opinion; then again I didn’t have much of a social life in HS so that helped tremendously. Before getting into a good college, again - only if your daddy isn’t a Hilton or doctor, you’ll have to figure out funds to cover your college years if your parents could only afford the basics in life and your college savings went to pay the mortgage which wasn’t much to begin with. So then there’s grants, a multitude of scholarships, and then finally most will always have to fall into loans; which who in the heck even thinks about paying that back the first four years of college? It’s just free money then, right? Also! In order to keep half of that and keep your college years a’rolling don’t forget that GPA, which will be easy if you’re naturally brilliant, are going for a simple degree because you really don’t care about your future, or you have absolutely no social life. Ahh, the good ole days are coming, a few more days until graduation, if of coarse you didn’t get knocked or knock someone up (if you made it either way then go you!). Really though, it’s only six more months until you have to find the perfect career equivalent to the studies you went through, some of it not even pertaining to you degree of coarse, and then start paying off that $100k or so loans for the majority or more than half the rest of your known life. Plus all the stresses in-between; I won’t get into the rest of life, this kind of rolls over through out. Only 30 years later you’re now married with 2 ½ kids, a mortgage, 3 maxed credit cards, a lawn mower that works every other time you want to use it, and a hemorrhoid your doctor has prescribed about 15 different medications for.

       Now don’t you dare go thinking I’m saying don’t go to college. Just be absolutely ready for it before going in, sadly the people around me weren’t much help and I’m a debt statistic now.

       Back to the line, this is normal right? Follow the guidelines made by people that put themselves in power at a certain sense, break the bank, and work your whole life to build the bank back up, and then live a few more years in the sun just to be buried and give the rest away. Which is nice if you were a grandkid that stuck around in the hard years, but alas.

       So the perks of being poor… For those of you in the dumps never thinking your going to get out of it. So what. For those of you with the right to drinking water, a meal when you need it, shoes on your feet, and a roof over your head even though it may be from place to place weekly; so what. You’re damn lucky to be living the life you are.

1.  Things cannot possibly get any worse when you’re already at the bottom and you’re sleeping in your car with a couple cans of tuna you have to split with your dog. Especially if you have a needed work ethic and you live in a first world country, be proud of that at least that there’s a chance, and since you’ve already hit your bottom, you know you can be a titan in the future hardships to come.
2. When you live on a ‘poor’ budget you learn things that the wealthy simply don’t have time for. We learn to cook, clean, fix or own cars, take care of our own homes, and pay more personal attention to our own bodies with out leaving it all up to the ‘professional’ book keepers that they have following them for a buck.
3.  It helps you appreciate not being broke. If you have $30 extra to spend then you jumping with a click in your heels. McDonald’s is finally not an option for a fancy dinner this month. 
4. Your creativity is running on the walls. While the majority of the above poverty line thinking they need everything a salesman tell them they need to have a more comfortable life, you’re in your garage building water ran engines or learning a new use for a strainer.
5. A lighter work load, hey, you might as well embrace not having much of a job while the rest of the white collars live their job and don’t even think about spending time with their family.
6.   If you’re poor on purpose you have more of a choice in what to spend your little bit of money on. (i.e., us)
7.  A full blown depression could run by you wearing a siren, flashing lights, screaming your name and you wouldn’t even notice.
8. Get into heaven easier? Mark 10:15 - “It’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven”. My take on this is by coming from a wealthy family many people (not all of coarse) become more envious, greedy, and money becomes what real love is supposed to be to them.
9. Less money means less junk, which means less we are putting on our carbon footprints. We’re the green society and we’re not even trying on purpose ;)

        Who you are depends on your values, the lessons you have honestly learned from your past mistakes and have applied them to your life, and the way you act towards your fellow man. Which means you don’t need stuff clogging up your life. I love a few trinkets the closest of my family has given me, but that’s it. That’s all I hold close to my heart ‘thing’ wise. So we are, in a sense, intentionally poor. We are below the poverty level, but living comfortably. Living small. So shove it Dictionary.com.

Vegan - Whaaat?

Once upon a time in a not so distant past I tried to go vegan. It went as well as the Gimli Glider of 1983 - it wasn't too painful but it was definitely a nosedive into the ground. For one I did not plan it out. I just sat there contemplating one day and looked at Mike and said, “So, yeah, I’m going to go vegan”. He looked up and said, “Okay, I’ll do it with you”. We had/have our negative views on the treatment animals on large farms and the way they’re ultimately treated with it comes to the slaughter house, good word for it. If an animal is going to give up their life to sustain yours, then it should be treated with a little more love and dignity through out its life and even when it comes time to take its life.

Seeing as we don’t quite have our own farm to treat the animals as we please and what not, vegan seemed like the way to go. Not only for that but health reasons. Anything dairy makes Mike want to sleep in the other room due to my doom farts and red meat upsets his already penetrable stomach issues. As for Zakai, we really just don’t want to introduce too much meat to him at all. He does love farm fresh eggs though!

As for our crash landing with the diet, it lasted a solid 2ish weeks to which then we transitioned to a more vegetarian diet. Not even a month later we were at Apple Bees splitting a boneless wing appetizer. It tasted amazing, but I felt awful later.

So here it goes. I’m going to do it again, Mike says he’s going to go along with it, but we’ll see how long he can last without his beer and bacon nights. Zakai will stay on his norm diet; I’m not going to subject my 10 month old to my experiments, obviously.

Call it my new years resolution or not, but I’m tired. I’m tired of my post pregnancy body, I’m tired of my go to anything diet that I pay for later in the day, and I’m just literally tired. I fully believe that if I keep to this change then all that will change. In the few weeks that I kept with the vegan diet…. Hold it…

You know. The more I think about it the more I realize that I’m wrong here. I hear from so many other vegans that it’s not a diet, and they are so right. It’s a life style. It’s a belief in what you’re doing as something right.

So… In the few weeks that I kept with the vegan stuff I treated it like a diet and not a lifestyle.  That will be my change this time around along with planning more thoroughly. And yes, I’ve done my research in the past. I know all the proteins, vitamins, and minerals I need. I also know what to get them from vegan wise. I know I can’t live super healthy on bananas like Freelee the Banana girl.

Here's to a 'new' change. I'll be starting it fully this Saturday when I get my next pay check, ha. Also, for those of you interested, I'll be posting on here my weekly meal plan and shopping list for the week since I'll be shopping for my meals weekly instead of biweekly like I used to. I just said "week" in that paragraph so much it actually made me uncomfortable....

I do plan on just kind of winging it after my first month tho; hopefully I'll be comfortable enough by then to do so because I tell you what - I've been planning my meal plan for an hour now with the needed ingredients and everything and its kind of a pain in the rump. 

Ta ta for now my lovelies!