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This posting has been rated PG-13 by the National Blogging Association Rating System (NBARS)

This posting is long and possibly boring which might result in sleepiness or dizziness do not read this and operate heavy machinery or dangerous appliances or weapons.  It may also contain possible math requirements on your part.  However the violence, nudity, cursing and all around ranting and raving has been cut to a minimum.  The opinions expressed here are those of the individual poster and does not represent the views of Spark people or any of its subsidiary’s.
(I was thinking I might have to rerate it PG as I didn't use the customary one F word were allowed in a PG-13 rating, hmm what to do what to do, a f*** it I’ll let it stand)
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www.pressherald.com/news/Fast-food-eateries-to-offer-more-healthful-kids-options-.html

Well it’s a start.   I would like to see a law that REQUIRED all restaurants big and small to post ALL calories for everything on their menu.

I know it’s on alot of websites and blah blah blah but it should be there right below the meal listing, break it down simple  Calories:  Carbs: Fat: Sodium:

You can put those in pretty small letters so it doesn’t take up alot of room.  The last time I was in an Arbys, which was years ago but I was in there with someone and all the calories were listed right on the menu board I thought this was FANTASTIC!!

I think should happen everywhere food is sold, the numbers should be right on the menu.  I am not talking about fast food places either I am talking about EVERYWHERE.   I know most of these places have a wall poster somewhere, ok I give them points for that and I further know you can research this stuff on the internet before we go but let’s be honest most of us wont.  Will having said calories on the menu help? Maybe, maybe not.  It sure as hell will make people stop and think for a minute and if they choose to power on ahead and plow through 2000-4000 calories in a meal so be it


Let’s take Chili's for instance.  I LOVE CHILIS!!!! This place is great, the one I go to here in Maine is downstate (thankfully) but when I used to go the service was top notch and the food was excellent  I will post a link to the nutrition menu so you can poke around and look at that and  I even post some meals and calorie totals.

www.chilis.com/EN/Nutritional%20Information/Chilis_Nutrition_Menu_Generic.pdf

Let’s say you ate the
Texas Cheese Fries w/ Chili & Ranch As Served
Calories  Fat    Sat Fat  Calories  Protein  Fiber  Sodium
2120      144    69       117       97       14     5920
Classic Bacon Burger As Served
Calories Fat  sat Fat Carbs  Protein  Fiber  Sodium
1570     91   28      125    61       9      3690
===============================================================
= 3690 calories
And lets further assume you split the appetizer with someone so subtract 1060 calories
 you are still at 2690 for one meal, not taking into account soda and or dessert or alcohol ===============================================================
Triple Dipper™ Chicken Crispers® No Dressing As Served
Calories  Fat  Sat Fat   Carbs   Protein   Fiber  Sodium
340       15     4       21        30        1    1130
Southern Smokehouse Burger w/ Ancho Chile BBQ As Served
calorie  Fat    Sat Far Carbs  Protein  Fiber   Sodium
2290     139    46      163    93       11      6500
===============================================================
=2630 calories and we will subtract for splitting the chicken crispers =2460

Now I am not even taking into account the amount of carbs which is quite a bit plus the amount of sodium which is off the friggin charts on most of this stuff.

Now let’s say you are a healthier eater and plan to eat smarter, below is my salad chart and as you can see None of those salads are below 500 c alories save the house salad with no dressing .  Now those calorie amounts don't even take into account you putting dressing on, so let’s add another 100 calories for dressing.  Now most of the salads are 700+ calories and in 1 case over 1000 calories and in another case 1500 calories, for a salad.
Boneless Buffalo Chicken Salad As Served
Cal   Fat   SF   Carbs   Prot   Fiber   Sod
990   68    14    48      46     8     4310

Caribbean Salad w/ Grilled Chicken As Served
Cal   Fat   SF   Carbs   Prot   Fiber   Sod
610    25    4    65      33     6      800

Caribbean Salad w/ Grilled Shrimp As Served
Cal   Fat   SF   Carbs   Prot   Fiber   Sod
620    31    6    66      19     6     1060

Chicken Caesar Salad As Served
Cal   Fat   SF   Carbs   Prot   Fiber   Sod
650   44     8    26     40      5     1130

Cobb Salad As Served
Cal   Fat   SF   Carbs   Prot   Fiber   Sod
710   52    15    22     46      11     1050



House Salad No Dressing As Served
Cal   Fat   SF   Carbs   Prot   Fiber   Sod
180   11    6     15      10     2      290

Quesadilla Explosion Salad As Served
Cal   Fat   SF   Carbs   Prot   Fiber   Sod
1400  89    28    90     65      9      236

Hungry for dessert?
Brownie Sundae As Served
Cal   Fat   SF   Carbs   Prot   Fiber   Sod
1290   61   30    195     14     8      930

Now let’s move on the kids menu.
The kid’s meals pretty everyone one of them 500 calories or less except one
There are 23 kids’ meal choices
2 of those choices are grilled chicken
they have 3 fruit choices and they have 4 veggie choices although 2 of them were corn and kind of high in calories 150 or better
Everything else was fried or things that were just not the healthiest choices for kids and they didn't come with side orders so you have to figure most of the "meals" or main dish's for kids average 200-500 calories, plus if they want French fries that’s another 190 and if they want any sort of dessert which they do have fruit options.  So let’s break it down like this and granted it’s not typical and parents make choices and I really don't want to get into a debate about splitting hairs and who doesn't allow their kids to do this, I don't really care I'm simply illustrating a point I don't need or require anything to say  "well I don't allow my kids to eat this stuff"  Good we will pass out gold stars later


Average Kids meal
Grill Cheese sandwich:        530 calories
French Fries:                  190 calories
Soda:                          200 calories (give or take)
Side of pineapple for dessert 35 calories
----------------------------------------------
=955 calories

Now this is assuming they order off the kids menu and not the adult menu 955 calories is alot for anyone but especially a child under say 12.
There is a place here in northern Maine called Grammys Country Inn.  They are known for good food, and GIANT portion sizes.
Ill post links below off their Facebook page


This is some sort of cream filled dessert next to a coke can.  Might be cookies on the outside

 www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=319652247096&set=a.319650617096.156668.318021972096&type=1&theater

This my friends is called a WHOOPIE PIE

www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1732308274079&set=o.318021972096&type=1&theater 


For those of you who really don't know what this is here you go:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whoopie_pie

This would be a seafood platter and the seafood is sitting on top of a mountain of French fries

www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=345931796382&set=o.318021972096&type=1&theater

These are just some examples of the size of the food they put out there.

I usually have a cheeseburger club with fries and something to drink.  I SHUDDER to think of how many calories are in the meal.  It’s not your average club sandwich, it’s an evil twin brother that is on steroids and its huge.

I don't really go there anymore and when I do its usually for breakfast but having calories on the menu is almost needed there because the amount of food they put out its almost impossible to figure out how much you’re eating calories wise.

Yes its going to cost money to do this, who gives a sh*t? I mean really it NEEDS to be done.  Raise the prices a little bit to recoup the cost, suck it up and accept it as a cost of doing business.  Be a friggin responsible business owner and care about your community and the health and well-being of your patrons, is this too much to as? I think not.  Outside of my own personal views do you think it’s too much to ask? HELL YES.  I bet it would be a battle of epic proportions to get this passed and restaurants would fight tooth and nail to avoid it because it’s going to cut into the bottom line.  Well one way or another it’s going to cut into the bottom line when people can no longer fit in the booths and stop coming or they die of obesity related illness and no longer come.

With the countries obesity level at over 50% (somewhere around 60% I think) how can can we afford NOT to do something like this?

Talk to your local restaurants; see if they will do it.  I bet a few will, should be interesting to see what the others have to say.  See how much they really value your business.  I shall start a campaign in my small town to see how many restaurants will adopt this, I want to say I don't think many will but I am trying not to be negative.  It should prove and interesting experiment.

Turning "someday" into today

www.sparkpeople.com/resource/motivation_articles.asp?id=388


I sometimes read the spark articles they send me *chuckles* most of the time I store them for "later" reading.  There are times I start systematically going through them and banging out the ones I want and delete the ones I do not.  I am glad I read this one.

It talks about the freedom of realizing that everything you want, everything you want to do, all the stuff you want to collect, read, paint, buy, fix or anything else you wish to do, and it’s just not going to happen.

Now this is not a negative thing its simply saying we cannot have everything we want most of the time and we simply have to come to grips with the fact that every single thing we wish to do is not always realistic and just a statement of freedom, as the article says.  It frees us from a train of thinking that never stops and the places we want to get off on keep flashing by us, it’s time to stop the train

"This is not a critique of any lack of organizational skills on your part, or a reason to give up altogether. Rather, it’s a statement of freedom."

To me this is very freeing.  I have literally a hundred books I want to read, maybe more, very possibly 150-200.  All self-help books, all books on exercise and lifestyle changes, proper diet in the sense of what we eat not a "diet"

I have art projects that have sat in the boxes for years now.  I have stuff packed in boxes I always mean to get to and organize.  I have hundreds of pieces of paper about various topics I wish to organize and put into the binders which I bought for just such a task.]

I am not a reader so most probably I will never read all those books, there is a chance I might but most probably not.  I don't make the time to sit down and read every day.  I do have something’s I read every day but it’s usually daily readers from my programs which are great and hold some pearls of wisdom but it takes only about 5 minutes to read from all 3 books.  I have the time to sit down and read at some point most days I simply do not budget my time accordingly.

So I must go through and choose the books that will most benefit my life and create a time to read them, create a plan to read them.  X amount of pages per day in order to finish the book by X.  Figure out how many books I can read a week/month/year and plan accordingly.
My papers actually have some importance as they deal with eating disorders and obesity and mindfulness, all things that are beneficial to my wellbeing and journey to a better life.

I once started to learn guitar but I lacked the ambition, drive and motivation to really learn it.  I wasn't passionate about it.

I have many things I wish to do, learn a language with Rosetta Stone, learn to computer program, create games, write fiction, start a non-profit, help create programs to offer solutions to people with eating disorders and obesity, go into schools and talk to kids about the dangers of not taking care of one’s self.

I have many things I wish to do but I have not done any of them for any consistent period of time.

I have to choose the projects that will most enrich my life and help me reach my goals.
Some of them maybe therapeutic and help me to relax and de-stress.  Some of them might be about changes my town, state, and this country needs in the battle for obesity.  Some might just be fun like publishing a book of my short stories.

Yet I work on none of these, and I keep adding more and more to the pile all the time.
So I have to decide what are just passing whims that won't enrich my life and what are things that will bring something to my life that I am lacking.

It’s a very good article and I enjoyed it, will I put it to good use? It’s hard to say really.  I must come up with a good workable plan and focus on executing it.  Time will tell
What do you want to do in your life that you are not?

**knowledge is power**

Musings of a mad mind

I find it very interesting as I travel through the halls of Spark People and the pages I come across.  People often have pictures of their goals or what they wish to look like but very rarely do they ever post what they actually look like.  I think it’s very therapeutic to post a pic and say this is who I am take me or leave me but it’s me.  I also feel it’s important for us to accept ourselves as we are, not hide.  We might not like what we look like currently but hiding it will never accomplish anything.

  I have pictures posted on SP and Facebook which I absolutely HATE with a passion.  I could delete them or untag myself from them but I do not.  I cannot sit here and pretend I am anything but a very large man who weights quite a bit and is in very serious trouble health wise.

Now the other thing I find fascinating is the pictures of what people wish to be, or their goal "body” The pictures are hot and being male, well I take my time to poke and look around soaking in the surroundings.  Yet I often wonder if these people will be truly happy once they get the waistline they want or their abs are so hard you can wash clothes on them, will it bring happiness? Will it bring wholeness?

I myself have a picture of WWE Superstar Batista who they call the animal for a reason he is a BEAST and huge, he is also built like a brick s*** house, suffice to say he is pretty solid.

If I woke up tomorrow and looked like that would I be happy? I like to think I would be, women would swoon over me and men would want to be me, but would that truly make me happy.

I used to think without a doubt the answer was yes, that big muscles and rock hard abs and looking like a Greek god would fulfill my life, and everything would be perfect, but it won’t.

That’s not going to fix the turmoil and darkness that rolls around inside me.  It’s not going to fix what’s broken inside me that makes me eat and binge, the force that drive my food addiction as well as my other addictions, it will still be there waiting, watching, just itching for that chance to come back out and pick up where it left off trying to kill me.

For those of us who think of a rock hard body is going to fix everything wrong in our life let us turn our gaze to Hollywood and the gods and goddess's who live there, how many of those beautiful people are happy? allot? Probably, but how many are totally f***ed up? hoooo boy ALOT.  They have banging bodies, money, fame, power, yet they are just as miserable as the rest of us "normal" people

They have alot of the same problems and all their money and fame and good looks cannot seem to fix it.  It gives me pause and makes me ponder my own healthy journey.  When I am done 250-300 pounds from now will I look good? HELL YA I WILL *chuckles* I'm already an ego maniac, I am just an ego maniac with low self-esteem.    Losing that much weight will leave me saggy and wrinkled and probably not the Greek god body that I imagine in my mind.  Sure I can have surgery and get it removed so that I will look good on the surface but will that complete me? I know people get all bent out of shape at the thought of saggy skin left over from losing a large amount of weight, I am one of those people.
but perhaps I should just say who cares and be happy to be healthy and have a good long life ahead of me (God willing)  I have no idea how I am going to feel when I get to that point.

I hope by then to have learned some humility and that my ego is put into check and I do not run around like a mad man doing things I should not be doing.  Really all i can do is take life one day at a time and do the best that I can.  One day in the not to distant future I will open my eyes one morning and I will find I have arrived at the goal weight I have been shooting for, how will I feel? what will I do? will it be enough? I hope by the time that day arrives I will have the answer to all those questions.

I have been told countless times, gastric bypass your only option is gastric bypass, we cannot help you anymore gastric bypass.  I am so sick to death of hearing those words I want to vomit anytime it comes up in conversation.  Does it work? I have no doubt it will work, is it a good solution to battle obesity?  Maybe for some but not for me.  I REFUSE to have gastric bypass, I will go to my grave before I go under the knife.  What changes? I lose 300 pounds and look good but all the crap still inside of me thats broke is still there.  The success rate of bypass surgery is very low less than 25% of people who have the surgery lose the weight and still maintain that weight loss after 5 years, less than 25% that means about 75% of the people it does not work for, why? Because they go back to their old habits and undo the surgery and gain some or most or even all the weight back and more.

If I can combat the demons inside of me and change how I am living and change my lifestyle then the weight will come off in its own good time and I don't need to have any surgery to accomplish this.  I need to work hard, set goals, comes to terms with the things in me that are killing me and find a way to make myself whole again.  Between spark people, the 12 step programs I have found, the help of my Higher Power and the love and support of my friends both virtual and here I can kick the  sh*t out of my disease.  I won't ever be cured.

  The rest of my life I will be a binge eater, food addict and all around addict.  I will find a life of recovery where I do not binge and I do the things I need to do in order to be healthy and live my life.  The minute I start thinking I am in control and I can do whatever I want then I am screwed again. I will never be able to eat like "normal" people because I have a disease, like the alcoholic who cannot take even one drink or he will spiral out of control again, I cannot even think for one minute I can eat like everyone else can because I cannot, and that’s fine I am at peace with that.


I know the path I must walk to get to where I need to be and I pray that when I reach the end of this path that I will be ready to start the new path because the journey is never ending, losing the weight is the easy part, keeping it off and maintaining a healthy lifestyle is going to be the real b**** of it!  But at that point I will have the tools I need to fight the good fight.

If you are one of those people who think a perfect body is the answer to all your life’s problems then I certainly cannot begrudge you your goals nor do I wish to tarnish them, I just caution you to be careful what you wish for you might just get it, and when you get it will it be everything you thought it would be?  Don't forget to take care of the inside as well as the outside.  The demons that drive us now simply won't disappear the day we fit into the jeans we want to our the day our bodies look fantastic at the beach, if we do not deal with them the will still be there, watching, waiting, biding their time till they can take control again and if we drop our guard for a minute they will, just be cautious my friends that’s all

**Knowledge is Power**

Top 10 Scariest Food Additives

**WARNING** This blog has been Rated R by the Blogging Association of America.
it may contain adult language, graphic violence against grammar and hate crimes again punctuation. Brief nudity and the rantings and ravings of a lunatic
It is not recommended to be viewed by anyone
**WARNING**

health.yahoo.net/experts/eatthis/top-10-scariest-food-additives

I often wonder why I click on these articles sometimes I think ignorance is bliss, but then again I just cannot help myself.

I’ll be honest I didn’t even really read the article I just skimmed it.  I almost don’t really want to know all it has to say.  Just looking at the pictures alone without reading much of it you know you are probably pretty much screwed *chuckles* although it’s not funny the s*** we ingest daily that we have no idea about would probably make us sick. (well IS making us sick we just don't realize it)

 I know I was watching a show one time where they were saying how in order to get all the disease out of burger they are going to make fast good patties out of they run it through and ammonia gas.  I might not be 100% accurate on that I know they run it through something that you DON’T want to be eating, it’s a gas and its nasty and you wouldn’t think about putting it into your mouth in a 1000 years if you had a choice, yet we do it every day IF we eat fast food.

 And yes you goody two shoes who don’t eat fast food can pat yourself on the back and get your gold star at the door.  Me personally I don’t eat fast food so I don’t have to worry *snickers* Well I try not to eat it anyways I have not been in the drive thru in a good long while now.  That doesn’t mean I am not ingesting who knows what through the rest of my food though.

 I wonder the amount of work it would take to investigate every piece of food I put in my mouth for an entire month, no that’s too long I don’t think I can stick with that, I think I’ll use my tried and true 12step ideal of just worrying about the next 24 hours.  I can keep track of all that stuff for 24 hours and see what really I am putting into my body.  Now I am not saying I am going to do it tomorrow or anything but soon,  I’ll put it on my to do list, I said soon, HEY GET OFF MY BACK ILL DO IT.. got dammit your pushy.

  I’m still not doing it tomorrow :P  I’ll pick a day here right off to track every piece of food I eat and see if I can determine everything that’s in it and break it all down into a list and then further track what each individual ingredient is and how it affects us or what potential side effect it may or may not have.  My brain is starting to hurt just thinking about it.


I have thought about going totally organic insane.  Eat nothing that contains any preservatives of any kind, eat as close to how nature produces it as possible, articles like this make me think I should do this sooner or later but can I really do it?

 First off living in a small town in northern Maine and having the
gardening skills of Freddy Krueger (it’s a pop culture reference and for those of you lazy b****** who won’t Google it, suffice to say I’m no gardener)

Can I afford to eat organic?

Can I even find enough food to sustain myself without having to eat something with preservatives and additives in it?

Again living in a small town makes some of these difficult, those of you who live in large cities and can do this easily you should know I have nothing but nasty names for you out of jealousy and I hope you realize how good you have it.
One 24 hour period to try and eat truly “healthy” can it be done? I would like to think so but I am not going out to kill my own food, I don’t hunt, I don’t fish, I am not really into killing much of anything, well except slow drivers and hippies.  I respect what you hippies are trying to do I love the message but something in me wants to gun you down with the car, I’m sorry I can’t help it.  If you see me coming you better drop your pot and your tambourine and run.


In case you haven’t figured it out yet my goal is to for 24 hours simply eat as nature intended me too.  How I can do this?  I really have no clue as of yet.  I’ll track everything I put in my mouth if I do eat things with additives I will list them and try to research them.  If I cannot figure out what’s in something I won’t eat it, which should be interesting seeing as how I like salad and how am I really going to know if it was treated with something or not when I am in the veggie section?

Should prove for a very interesting Mr. Wizard experiment for me, granted no one else might think it’s interesting and that’s fine (obscene gesture) I was just pointing out how pretty the sky looks right now.
Well as usual I have taken the focus off the article and put it on myself.  I am starting to turn into one of those shameless attention wh***s like the Real Housewives or some of the Jersey Shore cast.  I’d like to tell you I am ashamed of myself but that would be a lie.

In all seriousness I doubt the article really tells us anything we don’t already know.  What the article DOES do it put it right out in our face and make us admit what we don’t want to that were probably shoving stuff into our bodies every day that is slowly poisoning us and that we should be doing a better job of watching what goes into us, which we really don’t want to do.  We SAY we want to do that but when it comes down to it and you have to read every freaking label and figure out what ever freaking ingredient is that’s when our conviction starts to waver, and again for you A+ students who do this already you are gods among men and us mere mortals bow before you, now take your snotty better than thou attitude and scram.

Yes I’m cranky, the got d**n food companies have me p****d off now, because you KNOW they count on our ignorance and our laziness to not pay attention to what they are really doing.  Alright I am getting all riled up and into rant mode and its past my bed time, read the article, don’t read the article.  We can learn to read labels and know what we are looking at or we can keep sticking our heads in the sand.  We can try and live healthy and eat healthy, IF we can afford it and IF we can find the food we need to sustain us.

This rant has been sponsored by The Real Housewives of New York; watch them fight and attention wh*re themselves all over town Sunday nights on Bravo.
And it was also sponsored in part by McDonald’s:  McDonald’s let our crack dealing clown get your kids hooked on our food like we already have you.  You know the golden arches has made you its b****