Stupid Is As Stupid Does

Ah, mankind! The highest form of intelligence on planet Earth. The Alpha species if you will. Yup, top of the food chain we are. Well I've got news for ya. We ain't all that smart. Oh sure we've come up with some amazing things. The internal combustion engine, splitting the atom, and even space travel. But just take a look at your television and tell me the minds that came up with those life changing ideas are from the same gene pool as those featured on America's Funniest Home Videos, Ridiculousness, or any reality show. Hard to fathom, no? Not only are we stupid but we're treated stupidly apparently for our own good. This is notable  in the signs, labels and warnings we see every day. So some of you are saying "But Rich, you've mentioned this before". Yes, yes I have! This however is more of my master list of stupid, pointless signs, labels and warning I literally see almost every day. So...

1) The drinking fountain a the gym has a sign that reads "No spitting in drinking fountain" then amended to say "no spitting gum in drinking fountain". Either action is so obviously something a child shouldn't do let alone a gym full of "adults" that a sign should not be necessary. Last night at the gym there was a giant wad of green gum in the drinking fountain

2) Same gym at least 10 signs which state "No Cell Phone Use" while the machines, cardio equipment and locker rooms are chock full of people...you guessed it, on their phones

3) On the lawn of a church near my house the sign reads "Please Don't Curb Your Dog On Our Lawn". I'd think for most normal folk that would be obvious

4) Conversely the park I sometimes walk around has dozens and dozens of signs imploring dog owners to pick up their dogs feces. Since half the dogs are nowhere near their owners, and large piles of shit remain on the path, I'm sure it was someone else s dog's shit

5) The always busy on-ramp on my way to work with the sign that says "No Turns". Honestly, anyone stupid enough to try and take a 180 degree turn to drive the wrong way on that ramp deserves what they get. (on a side not that ramp also features a sign that reads "Yield" that as far as I can recall no one has ever heeded)

6) The plastic bags that nearly everything comes packed in has to read "This Is Not A Toy" for fear of a child suffocating. Fine except the fact the most likely victims of this would be children too young to read the warning. Any parent who encourages it as a toy should be suffocated

Our coffee cups tell us the liquid is hot, water bottles list water as an ingredient, drain cleaner warns us not to drink it,  we have signs on the highway telling us it's illegal to text and drive and we can't enter an establishment that serves food without being reminded that consuming undercooked meat is bad (and overcooked meat a crime) and to inform our server if we have any food allergies. It's a wonder we ever made it this far without this explicit set of instructions since man walked upright

My old boss prescribed to the theory you have to spell everything out to people explicitly or they are bound to not understand (or try and twist ambiguous language to their advantage). I feel the opposite. I still think people should be able to think things out for themselves but prefer not to think at all. Think about it...

Mama says, "Stupid is as stupid does." Forrest Gump

Rich O 2.0- Update 90 Days In

So after boring you all to tears with the why and how for my changes in taking care of myself I figured it's time for an update. As I write this I've more or less hit my initial goal of 200 lbs. More or less as I'm hovering right around that line. As I've been a slave to weighing in the same time and day every week for accuracy I know any given random night after a big meal etc I could be 201. Or 197. Or who knows. But I'm happy with where I'm at. The daily fasting glucose has been between 90 and 120 for almost 2 months (pretty good), blood pressure continues to drop, I've dropped a pant size and shirt size (and made a few trips to Goobwill will the fat, fat pants as you always hang onto the fat pants for a while) and have gone 90 straight days with at least 40 minutes of cardio exercise. So now the question is where do we I go next?

As I've said over and again I started this for health reasons, not to look good (lets face it, that's not an easy task given what I got to work with). I do look in the mirror and see a healthier looking person so that's a bonus. I'm not looking to get in triathlon shape, just be a healthier version of old me. I want to learn to maintain the good eating habits I've started for general health as well as diabetes, blood pressure and cholesterol. I want to stick with the better balance of proteins, fast carbs, slow carbs and veggies that I've established. I want to stay injury free and start packing some of the lost muscle back on my frame. What I'm not sure about is how much more actual weight I want to lose

I'm trying not to sound cocky but I feel that with the plan I set forth I could likely get down to 185 in a couple more months. But that's not what I want right now. I don't want to keep losing in big chunks but rather a 1/2 pound a week max right now. And it's not as easy as it sounds. I've been burning about
800-1,200 calories a day on average through exercise and being generally very active (Fitbit activity tracker is the best investment I ever made) while trying to hit a net of 2050 calories  which would mean eating around 3,000 calories a day of "good" food. Not as easy as it sounds. I'm eating about 1000% more veggies then ever before but, prepared healthily, you have to eats tons of them to get to a decent caloric intake. Fast carbs (breads, pasta, potatoes) are more or less treats now. They'll never be gone completely as while carbs have become seen as something evil they are necessary in a balanced diet. I've been experimenting more with fast carbs like sweet potato and quinoa but I'm still trying to avoid carbs period in my last meal of the day which, ironically enough, is the only meal I'd have time to preparing quinoa or sweet potato. Ughhhh!

Soooo...I've decided to keep on keeping on. I'm going to try and keep eating like I've been eating and not going to try too hard to add calories. I'll just let the chips fall where they may. While I'll keep checking my weight once a week I won't be obsessed with no loss or a slight gain as, assuming my elbow holds up, I plan to be back on weight training 3-4 times a week.  I'll continue to work on my diet and rely less on supplements (and hopefully meds soon) to remain healthy. I've been experimenting with green smoothies (spinach, apple, celery, cucumber, parsley and ginger) to supplement my diets as opposed to meal replacements (again, as a diabetic my meals need more balance then all veggies & fruit). I'll continue to vary and increase my cardio past weight loss level and onto aerobic level and higher. I still think my knees and feet won't ever withstand running but see more hiking in my near future. I still have a rather prodigious beer belly that needs some smoothing out. So I guess bottom line is just keep improving myself where I can, have fun when I want but always earning my cheat meals and Miller Lites. Sounds like a plan, right?

So, that's where we're at. I'm still going to lean heavily on Fitbit, Digifit, and MyFitnessPal so if anyone uses them and wants to be friends and share encouragement let me know. What I know about all this stuff I could fit in my pinkie nail so please continue with the sage advice. Well hopefully this is the last post about my
health crisis for a while. Party on!