Evil Avocados

This is part II of my Trouble Losing Weight? Lose Weight – Series




Yesterday in the mail I got my follow-up paperwork from my farce of a doctor visit this week. Included with my test results was the ubiquitous DIETARY MANAGEMENT PAGE.

The notation at the bottom of the page tells me this list was printed up in 2001 – or maybe 1901. I can’t really tell.

Below the GOALS, which include the specific and intelligently worded: Reduce weight to ideal body weight [because everyone must be IDEAL at all times], is an exhaustive list of BAD FOODS to be avoided.

As expected, I’m to stay away from things like Whole Milk [how’s 40 years away from it, good enough?], Butter, Lard [cause I love a could scoop of lard now and then], Organ meats, [brains anyone?], Fish Roe [cause I can afford caviar], Honey, Candy, Chocolate [never giving that up!] and of course, the dreaded, evil Avocado!

Yes, to lower our fat intake we need to cut out that nasty avocados, which we find scandalously slipped inside dozens of different health food sandwiches. It’s heartening to realize the horrifying obesity epidemic could be solved if only we lowered our intake of avocados, those high fat fruits! I think I may go to the food store today and slap the avocados out of everyone’s hand and tell them how bad, bad, bad avocados are for us. We’re a nation of guacamole guzzlers, and it’s starting to show. We need to stop this frightening dependence on fatty fruits and get out there and start drinking more diet soda!

Stay tuned for Part II of Trouble Losing Weight? Lose Weight, where I plan to document my visit to dietician. Let’s see if she can tell me something I don’t already know about ‘healthy lifestyle changes’.

And Gays can't marry?

My husband told me this morning, there’s been a new measure of time established. It’s called the Kardash. Definition: a period of 72 days.


All the jokes at the expense of celebutante Kim Kardashian and her apparently unemployed basketball star soon-to-be-ex husband Kris Humphries are well-deserved, but I think there’s a darker side to this celebrity-marriage-go-round.

There’s so much debate and animosity about the issue of same-sex marriage. States that allow it are applauded, states that don’t are trying to say the people don’t want it. Religious groups want to convince us that same-sex unions somehow undermine the institution of marriage and family – and yet when celebrities spend millions on highly publicized nuptials, then months, weeks or even hours later decide they made the wrong decision and want out [or decide they haven’t gotten enough publicity miles on the wedding and need more attention] we’re supposed to just laugh it off.

I have to be honest. It’s not funny. If we’re supposed to care about the integrity of marriage so much that we need to stop any given set of two people who are in love and committed to one another from getting married just because they have matching chromosomes, why should we just blithely accept the uber-rich and dubiously famous will marry for fun and profit and divorce for the same reason even before the magazines bearing their wedding photos have been taken off newsstand shelves?

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten canned mechanical phone calls polling me about my stance on same-sex marriage. Should marriage be between one man and one woman?

No, I always say, but they never leave me space to add: Marriage should be between one grown up and one grown up [or two or three even – we can discuss plural marriage another time], but the operative words should be ‘mature individual’ and ‘mature individual’ – and not ‘Botox glory hound’ or ‘talentless publicity seeker’.

Maybe all those activists out there campaigning to deny same sex marriage should focus their efforts on something that does need to be stopped instead – ‘same celebrity marriage’. Two famous people shouldn’t be allowed to get married in any state of the union. Clearly they can’t handle it, and the effect on the institution of marriage is too devastating for us all to have to witness. Over and over and over again.

They should put that to a vote – in a Kardash and every Kardash from now on until we can change the laws and make marriage a safe and sanctimonious haven for people who are truly committed to more than having their airbrushed images plastered underneath the headlines.

Oh well...

Since the world, so surpisingly, didn't end on Friday, I thought this bill board, borrowed from the Freedom from Religion Foundation, might be appropro.

Maybe next time...

Big dose of reality on the horizon

According to three-strikes-you're-out televangelist Harold Camping, today is the absolutely official without a doubt painstakingly calculated and researched day the world will, in fact, end.

This article [complete with scary photo of Mr. Camping] details some of his wild ass predictions, which have become decidedly less wild since his May 21, 2011 debacle during which he had a bunch of his loyal followers so convinced they'd made it to Rapture day that they gave up all their worldly goods to drive cross country and sit at his compound to await the beginning of world-pocalypse.

They were disappointed.

The rest of us went about our lives, apparently effortlessly living through the Rapture which occurred invisibly on that predicted day. Now, with a bunch of months to churn around and really gear up for a good kaboom, the world is now fully cooked and ready to pop like a dried out corn kernel in hot oil, so pull up a slab of butter and get ready for the show.

Unfortunately, you may have to watch really closely, because not only does Mr. Camping feel  "Probably there will be no pain suffered by anyone because of their rebellion against God", it's highly likely all this world-ending business will be largely invisible as well.

On the really off chance he's finally right this time [excuse me while I LMAO], I'll see you all in heaven or hell or wherever all us fun people end up. I suspect wherever it is, we'll be having a hell of a better time than Mr. Camping.

I am, therefore I think...

...or, let's put the cart before the horse.

It seems a group of esteemed researchers have made the fantastic intuitive leap that taking birth control pills leads women to choose boring men as mates. [Read the simplified version here.]

That’s sort of like saying … hmm, I can’t even come up with a similarly dumb analogy for that one.

Apparently, a study of 2500 women bore out the conclusion that those who take birth control pills tend to look for more stable, less exciting men to date, marry and have children with. They also report a higher satisfaction with their relationships.

So, ladies, if the exciting bad boys you’ve been dating just aren’t cutting it in the husband department, for heaven’s sake, go on the pill! You’ll be better able to, and apparently more interested in, a regular, down to earth, not so pretty, less macho, well employed provider type. It all has to do with hormones.

Apparently it never occurred to these researchers that perhaps, just perhaps, women who tend to be attracted to stable, intelligent, hard working, dependable men may also have the innate desire to better control their own reproductive lives, and be smart enough to choose men who will provide them with longer lasting, durable relationships. Or, let’s turn that around, women who give a crap about how many children they have and when, are more likely to choose men who are good husband material.

Duh.

Sure we’ve all drooled over the hot, macho guy who can bench press a semi, or wrangle a shark or put out fires with his bare hands, but is it really a little pastel pill that suddenly gives women who would otherwise be dating cowboys and daredevils the desire to settle down with a guy who has a steady paycheck and no dueling scars? Please. Give the female race a little credit, shall we?

I’d make a bet these researchers also think it was the chicken that came first.

The take or leave it century

You hear a lot of speculation about how the world can recover from this global recession, and I have a bunch of my own theories but I’m starting to think we may never pull out of this if we don’t bring back some good old fashioned accountability all across the board.


How can anyone make money or forge a lasting business if they just don’t care?

I ask this because I’m so tired of seeing the laissez-faire attitude from businesses, banks, doctors, etc. No one has the gumption to put their best foot forward anymore. Is it any wonder no one’s making money?

A case in point, I hired a supposed professional several weeks ago to fix a leaky gutter on my house. After the work was done, for a reasonable $30.00, I was told if there were any problems to call the company and someone would come back to fix it. Well, the next rain storm produced a waterfall from the gutter which had previously only been dripping. I called. It took several phone calls to finally get someone to return, repair the leak a second time and leave. The next time it rained the gutter went back to dripping, so I was right back where I started. Several more phone calls only served to irritate the company manager who ended up telling my husband never to call again.

Naturally I did what I do best. I left reviews of the company wherever I could. We contacted the Better Business Bureau and put in a complaint. The manager called to complain to us about this because he couldn’t understand why we were making such a big deal over a $30 job.

Seriously?

Clearly the man has no business sense. No one ever told him that the $30.00 customer should be treated the same way the $30,000 customer is treated because you never know when one can turn into the other. His feeling was, we were supposed to excuse poor service, rudeness over the phone and a reluctance to fix the problem because, after all, we’d only paid $30, the price quoted to us by his own technician. Now the company is annoyed because the Internet reviews are out there tarnishing their reputation. Boo hoo.

Do a good job and you won’t have to worry about your reputation.

As a writer, I have to put my work out there and take the chance someone will give a trashy review. A bad review will hurt my business, it will impact my book sales. I know this because I’ve changed my mind about buying books after reading poor reviews. I don’t whine about those bad reviews. I don’t moan and say, what did they expect for a $0.99 book or a $4.99 book? If they’d been willing to pay $29.99 for it, I might have done a better job. That’s BS of the highest magnitude. My book sales are driven by the good reviews, the ones I get because I care about what I produce. In the information age, if you do crappy work, the world will know about it in a heartbeat. Welcome to the 21st Century, put on your big girl panties and deal with it.

Yet this attitude seems to prevail. I see it among writers who do whine about their bad reviews and engage reviewers in arguments. I see it in businesses that relegate small, inexpensive jobs to lesser skilled workers and provide less customer service to the ‘little guy’. I see it in banks that charge fees for low balance accounts and not for higher balances, in doctors and medical practices that give better service to patients who pay their own way as opposed to those relying on insurance [or sometimes vice versa depending on where they think they’ll get the most money]. I see it in government where budget cuts lead to lack of service which punishes the communities rather than the higher government that imposes the budget cuts to begin with. There seems to be a resentment of the everyday working person, the person who doesn’t just want to save money but HAS to in order to survive. We’re not supposed to complain about higher taxes, increased fees, lower compensation for health insurance, cuts in our salaries, higher gas prices, higher food prices, less service everywhere. We’re just supposed to shut up and accept that no one can go the extra mile anymore because we can no longer pay for it.

I guess the old adage is true: Money talks and bull shit is the new gold standard.

Shed your kids – for weight loss?

Here’s a clunker of an article by Emily Leamon at Be Well Philly, which provides us with the snippet of wisdom that having kids makes us fat. Ye Gods! So the only way to stop the dreaded obesity epidemic may be to simply stop the human race. If we can avoid having kids, maybe we can avoid packing on the pounds later in life.


The tragedy of this article isn’t that it quotes useless BMI statistics, [which is does], or this ridiculous quote:

Fathers gain more weight than mothers, on average, likely because their lifestyle choices—smoking, drinking—are impacted most. As fathers give up those habits, they turn to food, researchers suggest, which leads to more pounds over time.

slyly suggesting if those dads just kept on drinking and smoking they would stay thin, but that Ms. Leamon’s only solution to the ‘problem’ is to “try, oh try to stay in shape before you dive into parenthood.” Such sage advice! Especially when the article itself touts the magical age for childbearing to be 26 – pick a different age in either direction and you’re doomed to pork up apparently.

I could have saved the researchers a lot of time and effort and told them why parents gain more weight than childless people. The answers are simple and clear to anyone with kids. Stress! When you can spend all your time smoking, drinking and doing recreational drugs as the source article mentions prominently as being the reason why fathers especially gain more weight, and you don’t have to be responsible for the life of another human being, it’s a lot easier to stay thin. Having less time to cook and shop and less money to spend on those suspiciously more expensive “healthy foods” is also a contributing factor.

Let’s face it, kids are expensive and time consuming and they impact a person’s ability to stay focused on the all important weight of their bodies. The takeaway from both of these articles is – if you want to stay thin, forget kids, stick to the smoking and drinking and substance abuse ‘cause lord knows it won’t help you after you have them.

Got side effects?

I was leafing through the September 19th issue of People magazine, and halfway through I had to ask myself if I was looking at an entertainment magazine or a medical journal. Every few pages, I was bombarded with another drug ad, and not just little blurbs, but three-page spreads designed to entice readers to ‘talk to their doctors’ about medicines that ‘could be right for them.’


What shocked me even more than the size of the ads were the lists of side effects they all included. Once again, I have to ask myself, is the cure [or the treatment] worse than the disease?

Here’s what I found:

A three-page ad for Focalin XR – for ADHD –this drug is for children over age 6 – and the side effects include sudden death, stroke and heart attacks, increased blood pressure and heart rate, slowing of growth in children and [among many others] nervousness.

A three page ad for NuvaRing – for birth control – one of the side effects is weight gain and in addition you should worry about blood clots, stroke, heart attack, breast cancer, gallbladder disease, liver tumors and inflammation of the pancreas

A three page ad for BOTOX ® - nothing like injecting yourself with botulism which can cause life threatening side effects

A three page ad for Enbrel – for plaque psoriasis – a host of side effects include: tuberculosis, fatal blood problems, heart problems and new or worsening psoriasis

A three page ad for Seroquel XR – for depression – side effects include weight gain, seizures, neuroleptic malignant syndrome and cataracts

A two-page ad for Boniva – for osteoporosis – the ad includes a correction about misleading information in previous ads – side effects include severe jawbone problems, osteonecrosis [that means bone death], spasms, numbness and thigh bone fractures



Is it any wonder Americans are so sick? We’re being bombarded with drugs to fix our problems, all of which can cause serious other problems, not to mention the same problems we’re trying to get rid of.

Draw your own conclusions

That’s what this article by Sarah Klein at Health.com basically expects of readers.

The title presents one hypothesis – that the Super-Moms [or women striving to be] can become miserable. That’s a no-brainer. We’ve all known for a long time that society’s expectation that a woman can be a perfect employee and a perfect mother at the same time is damaging to everyone involved. The article, of course, presents this like it’s news.

What’s interesting is, as you read the article you find that the first line:

Working mothers are less likely to be depressed than stay-at-home moms, a new study suggests.

Which sounds like the antithesis of the title, is contradicted by the results of the study.

The women who supported combining motherhood with a career had a greater risk of depression later in life than those who thought women should stay at home to raise kids.

In fact, the young women who were the least likely to support the idea of blending home and work life had the fewest depression symptoms when they were actually working moms at age 40.

[Emphasis mine]

So, to follow so far – Super-Mom wanna bes are not happy, but working mothers are happier, except for those who think being a working mom is a good idea. Ultimately women who don’t think mothers should work are less depressed later in life when they DO work.

Say what?

This is why the results of studies conducted by graduate students don’t really need to be published. Or then again, maybe the study draws some amazingly pertinent conclusions which Ms. Klein simply couldn’t communicate effectively in her article.

Either way, I’m confused. The article concludes that it’s best to accept the fact that you can’t do it all and not to feel guilty if you’re a working mom.

Thanks for that, because all those guilty-feeling working moms out there can now rest easily. We all know the best way to make someone feel better is to tell them to feel better.

I really don’t mean to attack the author here, but it stuns me how often these health articles contradict themselves and draw conclusions that anyone with a modicum of common sense has known for years. While a study that reinforces the conclusions of other studies may be helpful, presenting it with contradictory conclusions based on the same study is not.

My overall conclusion: Reading health articles on the Internet is bad for your health.