Keep Your Hands Off of My Stack

What's worse than somebody breaking into your house and stealing some of your stuff? When it's one of your neighbors doing the stealing.

I foolishly left my garage door open for a period of time and when I went to close it, discovered that my bicycle and several tools were missing. Several things scattered on the floor as if I might have interupted the scumbags work. I peek outside and see my neighbor trotting across the street into his house....then I see him peering out the window.

I know he did it. Nothing I can really do about it. The police in this city are no help at all when it comes to stuff like this. I can't even get them to come over which would at least shake my neighbor a bit and maybe keep him away from my house in the future. I'm not going over to his house to confront him and risk getting a bullet just for a bicycle.

I'm just going to take the loss..which pisses me off. Not because some stuff was stolen, but the idea of other people stealing stuff. I work hard for what I have. It angers me that there are people who don't want to do the same.

Priorities of Living

Imagine that you lived tens of thousands of years ago. You're strolling along the savanna and you find yourself face to face with the little kitty pictured above. Would you be concerned about what you might have for dinner...or would you be more concerned what the tiger is wanting for dinner?

Would you care about your weight? Your looks? If you had money? What your friends think about you?

Would you be depressed? Would you mope about your rotten luck? Would you tell yourself that you don't want to live anymore and moan to everybody you know to see if they would rescue you..to show that they care?

The human instinct would be an overpowering urge to survive and to run like hell. Would you wait for somebody to make the cat go away, or would you do something about the situation yourself?

In a society that provides for all of our needs...whining is a luxury.

But like most luxuries...it's not very practical or useful.

Gas Shortage?

Protein shakes are wonderful. I find them a great way to have a quick meal without a lot of muss and fuss, they're relatively cheap, and good for me. This is all opposed to my old habit of grabbing some greasy burger or enjoying fine dining at Taco Hell. I use Myoplex vanilla flavor, throw in some fruit, blend it together and I've got myself a satisfying meal with all the needed nutrients for around 300 calories.

The only drawback is that the protein powder tends to produce a bit of gas. Combine that with the chicken, refried bean, and jalapeno burritos I had with another meal that day and.....





I'll be needing to re-tile the bathroom.

and my cat is still in hiding.

Round and Round and Getting Rounder

There is a vicious little cycle that I go through that I'm sure a lot of people experience. I decide "this is it...I'm going to do something about my weight...I'm going to hit the gym and get fit".

And I do. I go all out. Push my body to the limits and beyond.

And pay for it the next day. And the day after. And the next.

And wind up back where I started.... waiting for the next decision to do something about my weight.

On Leaving the World a Better Place

"Let me win. But if I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt." ~ Eunice Kennedy Shriver

Quit Day

Monday Cat Blogging

I Finally Got Wood

The biggest obstacle in my quest for attaining health and fitness is not my age....it's this 35+ year smoking habit. Habit doesn't really describe it, it's an addiction. I have a habit of waking up early. It is my habit to check my emails and phone messages when I enter my office in the morning. I cultivate the habit of eating with my mouth closed and not belching when I dine around other people. My wife is trying to get me to break the habit of leaving my underwear on the floor.

An addiction is the continuation of an action that causes you harm in spite (and this is the important part) of the knowledge that it is causing harm and the desire not to engage in the behavior. That fits my experience with smoking to a tee. I know it's bad for me. I know it will kill me...and not in a pleasant way either. I continue to smoke. I quit for awhile. I relapse. I quit. I relapse. Over and over and over again.

A problem that I have is that I can't really go cold turkey off of nicotine. That would be the best way to lick this addiction. I mean, that's what works with alcohol, heroin, or meth addictions....you stop taking the drug...period. That's all fine and dandy if you are in a closed and controlled environment for 28 days or so. I have to continue with my life. I have to go to work. I also have to function. So I put on nicotine patches that give me just enough of the drug to be able to concentrate on my job and not bite some random person's head off during the day. The bonus of the patch is that it keeps me from lighting up a cigarette while I have the thing on. If I smoke anytime within eight hours or so from taking off the patch...I get sick as a dog. So, even when I get intense cravings, I'm pretty much stuck with not smoking for several hours. Unfortunately, this usually leads me to stop putting on a new patch in the morning just in case I may want a cigarette during the day. I know..it's crazy...but this is how addiction screws with your thinking process. Once I don't put on the patch, it's all over and I'm back to two packs a day like I never quit.

I need something for those brief yet intense urges to light up a cigarette. Food works great, but I can't eat all day and it's mostly impractical to carry around munchies everywhere I go. I need something intense to counteract the oral need to stick a burning weed into my mouth.

That's when I thought of cinnamon toothpicks. I searched high and low for some but they seem to be a fairly rare item these days. I looked for cinnamon oil but it seems like it's some kind of controlled substance and is harder to find than crack at an Amish barn raising party. I was about to give up and resign myself to chewing gum or something when I found the beauties pictured above in my local health food store. At $4 a pack they are pricey but still less than a pack of cigarettes.

I'll see if they will work and I can at long last leave this nasty habit behind me.

Grace Under Pressure

I feel good today. I feel good because I've come to the startling realization that, while I may not be physically in the best shape, I'm pretty strong with my mental health.

I recently changed duties at my job. The position that I had before for several years went to another....who left. Then to another who is desperately wanting to leave it because of the stress involved. It is a stressful job. Continuous crisis events, dealing with a wide range of people most of which are experiencing significant life crisis of their own. A thousand details. Countless decisions every day all day...some of which can be disastrous if the wrong choice is made.

It's a meat grinder; and I did it for several years. It was a difficult job but I made it look easy. I thrived on the pressure. I flourished being in charge. I walked showing grace under the type of pressure that appears to make most people crumble. I learned to let the turmoils of the job flow around me rather than batter me down to the ground. Like the trees that grew in my childhood home in West Texas...constantly blown by the wind and sand without giving into it's unrelenting force.

Now; however, I'm in a much calmer environment.

Yet I often feel like a misshapen tree in a sheltered forest. I miss the windstorms.

Safe Sex

Most of us know all about the birds and the bees. For the bee's part, going from flower to flower and collecting nectar is an integral part of reproduction for many plants. The bee gets a little dab of nectar and the flower gobs on some pollen to the bees knees. The bee flies to another flower for another sip of nectar, the pollen lands on the other flower and violins play.

The bees don't do this for the flowers sex lives. They do it for the nectar, so they can bring it back to their hive, throw it up, and make honey. Bees have a reputation of being busy because they have to spend all day going from flower to flower, hundreds of them, to collect enough nectar for their honey production. Given a choice, bees will be just as lazy as any creature and what creature doesn't love an all-you-can-eat buffet.

I put up a feeder right after I spotted a hummingbird in my yard. My hopes were that I might attract a few but the only things feeding on my feeder are these dang bees. I estimate that they are going through about a pint a week. I'm a little afraid to stop re-filling it. You know how sugar junkies can be went you cut them off.

It's okay, I guess. I like bees too. It would be interesting to find out what the honey they are making will taste like. The syrup smells somewhat like maple syrup and tastes like grape kool-aid. I wonder if the honey will be bright red?

The down side is that I have a yard full of frustrated flowers.

Long Week

Monday Cat Blogging

Viva la Vida

This is a difficult post. Difficult for me, that is, because I've a great many emotions churning and I'm not sure that I can make much sense out of them with words.

but here goes....

Last month, my father suffered a heart attack. It was pretty bad and he ended up getting a triple by-pass. He is still in intensive care but appears to be heading for a good recovery. He was lucky; he received excellent medical care and my father is also pretty tough for a man his age.

Still...wow....seeing him laying in a hospital bed...I believe it was the first time in my life that I've ever seen him vulnerable. He had tubes going into every orifice in his body and they even made a few new ones to accommodate more. Heavily sedated with only brief flashes of confused consciousness mixed with pain. Nothing to do but watch and wait. The thought banging against my rapidly dwindling sense of denial....he could die.

Of course, everybody dies. I know that. It's a given expectation that I would outlive my parents just as I assume that my children will long outlive me. Yet, I didn't expect my father to come so near to death. Not yet. I talked with him just a few days prior. He would always be there. Though he is in his seventies...surely his body would keep on plugging away for many more years.

And that is when I had another thought as I sit here several hundreds of miles away waiting daily for news of any progress.

I am my father's son.

This may be a preview of me if I don't change some aspects of my lifestyle. Certainly my body will age and parts will break down. Eventually there will come a time when nothing more is able to be fixed and I will die. The scary thing to think about is - do I want it to happen in twenty or thirty years, or next year?

I may yet have a choice.

My Dad....he still teaches me stuff.

Life Happens

Okay...I know it's been awhile since I've written, or updated on my weight loss, or even posted a cat photo. Among the usual little daily things that shift one's focus there comes along truly major incidents that quickly become much higher priorities. I'm fine. Somebody very important in my life isn't though, and most of my emotional energy is taken up with thoughts and feelings about him.

I thought of writing about it and I probably will, someday...but not today.

Moving Man

So....I have this friend who gets himself a new refrigerator and he asks me if I might want his old one. It's a bit larger than mine and several years newer so I sez "sure, why not?" My fridge is starting to see it's last days and when it kicks on, sounds like it's about to launch into space or something. The thing actually wakes me up in the middle of the night thinking that somebody is trying to break into my house.

Almost new refrigerator for nothing to replace my clunker? A no-brainer!

So....I went to the local U-haul it yerself place and rented a dolly. Then I went home and unloaded all the food from my fridge and crammed it into every ice chest and lunch cooler I could find. Strapped up the fridge and tried to find a door it would fit though.

Door to the garage...nope. Back door...not a chance. That left me with no choice but to push the thing through my living room and out the front door; after moving the sofa, then the TV, then the chairs, then the sofa again, then the TV, then the shelves of books, and the damn sofa again. I must also mention that when you unplug a fridge, it starts to leak really gross looking water that I managed to spread all over my living room carpet.

But that's okay because I finally have the fridge at the door with the delightful discovery that the frame is about 1/4 inch too small.

"Well shucks", I thought to myself (not really but my mom reads this blog), "it had to come into the house somehow". So I fiddled around and managed to take the door handles off the fridge, push it through the front door, drag it across my lawn, and put it in my garage for the time being. Hopped in my trusty pickup and drove across town to my friend's house, picked up his old fridge, loaded on my pickup, drove back home and wrestled it into my kitchen. My friend helped me with this last part and it was much easier. He also helped me load up my old fridge so that I could drive it over to a local charity to donate for somebody that may get some more use out of it. Driving slow because it was a bit wobbly in the pickup bed and the last thing I wanted to do was lose a Frigidaire on the freeway. Arrived at the charity warehouse and unloaded....five minutes before they were about to close.

This took ALL day. It was also a nice summer day of about 100 degrees with a humidity percentage not much less. The heat index was 107.

I definitely got my exercise in today.

Monday Cat Blogging

Father's Day

"Father! - to God himself we cannot give a holier name." ~William Wordsworth

One Year Anniversary

I really don't know how I deserve to be so blessed....but I'm grateful nonetheless. I think I fell in love with Vicki the moment I met her. After our first serious date I knew it for sure, and this was the song playing on the radio as I was driving home later that night.

Drive to Work

Monday Cat Blogging

You're Not Helping!

There's a controversy with several people I know that are dedicating a significant amount of time and energy into making changes in their lifestyles. If you have people around you that are not helpful in your goals or outright trying to sabotage your progress for whatever reason....are you better to rid these people from your life? Even family members? Even a spouse?

My view is that real friends really want other friends to succeed and be happy. I think that holds true with family members as well. It should with a spouse and...if not...then there is much more problems with that relationship than a lack of support for a diet plan.

What I really think is going on is that we sometimes use the attitudes and behaviors of other people as an excuse for our own. I'm very much guilty of that and have rationalized giving up on many things because I didn't feel as if I was being helped and encouraged by friends and family.

Support is nice....but if we depend upon outside forces to do the real work that needs to be done on the inside, it will fail. We can then blame that failure on the outside forces; but we really know who is at fault, don't we?

Can't Find a Cat Monday

I seem to have a lot more time in the morning when I don't sit around and smoke. Plenty of time to pack the three meals that I will need while I am at work today.

Plus a big thermos of coffee.

Ah....Springtime in Kansas

Right. I've spent most of the day clearing tree limbs and buying replacement appliances that were blown out when lightning hit my house last night. I finally settle down to salvage what is left of my weekend when the notice comes over the TV that we are under a tornado watch for the night.

Anyway, on the bright side....I feel really good! My sick bug is gone. I'm still not smoking. And I'm ready to hit the gym early tomorrow morning and finally get this BFL challenge on the road.

Last Smoke

Sitting here watching the ticker up top count down the last seconds while I finish what I hope is the last cigarette I ever put in my mouth for the rest of my life.

Such a simple thing to give up. After all, I know full well how bad it is for my health. I know that nothing...not one thing...I do toward my fitness goal will make any difference at all as long as I puff on cigarettes. I know. I know.

I counsel people about addictions, fer pete's sake....so I know!

Last seconds. One more puff. There it is....zero hour. Into the trash go the cigs.

No more.

Friday At Last!

I had doubts that Friday would ever arrive. What a loooooong week this has been.

I'll be gearing up to begin with Body for Life again on Monday. I feel good. My bout with being sick is mostly over. Lots of planning and shopping to do over the weekend. Plus, if you notice the little ticker at the top of this blog....I'll be doing another attempt at giving up the cigs at midnight tonight.

A great deal of changes in my professional life this week. Now it's time to do something about my personal life.

Workplace Snacking

I re-discovered a big disadvantage of working in my new location. The place where I use to have my office was a bit isolated. The only food available was whatever I brought myself. I tried to pack a bit of fruit for whenever I got the munchies and it was very easy to avoid sweets and chips....they just were not around.

However; the building that I now work in is full of people that love to eat. Donuts. Cakes. Cookies. Pot-luck lunches. Vending machines galore. You can't walk anywhere without unhealthy food popping up in front of your face. I tried to do my part to help mitigate this trend of shoveling sugar and fat in our mouths all day by leaving out a bunch of grapes and a container of strawberries for my fellow workers in our break room.

Two days later, I took them back to my office and ate it myself. Nobody had touched them. Surrounding the fruit were three empty boxes of donuts.

Will This Week Ever End?

Okay...it's Wednesday, which use to be my Monday. I was always pretty rested and ready to start my week on Wednesdays but now it's more like my Fridays; which I guess will feel pretty good now but seems an awful long time in the future.

Dang. This is worse than switching to daylight savings time.

Scheduling

With my new work hours comes a re-arrangement of my life. Though I worked long hours before the change, I only worked four days a week...and I had become use to having those three day week-ends to take care of everything.

Now, I have to plot out my weeks a bit differently. I can't go shopping for a week's worth of food on a Monday morning anymore. I can't hold off on going to the gym until afternoon on Tuesdays anymore. I'm going to have to get back to a set schedule of going to the gym every morning at 4 or 5 and shopping on the weekends.

I know this is piddly stuff....but these are the type of things that give us excuses to give up. Scheduling is all about the details.

And, of course, that's where the devil lies.

Monday Cat Blogging

Moving On Up

After a couple of weeks dealing with being sick, I think (knock on wood) that I'm finally back to feeling more or less normal. Just in time too. I'm starting a new position at work Monday. I'm also starting a new work schedule, meaning no more 10-12 hour days and I will actually have weekends off. Who knows...I might be able to have a life now.

So what am I going to do on this first free Saturday that I've had in years?

Move my crap from my old office to my new one in another building. It's really going to be a pain because, though my agency is technically computerized and paperless, the reality is that there is a shit-load of paperwork, documents, folders, binders, files, and various other pieces of crap I have to clean out from one place and transport to the other.

On the other hand....shredders are marvelous inventions.

Almost Human Again

This is the first morning in over a week in which I'm not hacking and sneezing and feeling as if I could just lay down and die. I don't get sick often....but it seems that when I do, I go all out.

How did this effect my Body for Life challenge plans?

Pretty much trashed them for now but there is no law preventing me from trying again.

Gay Marriage

I've generally held off on talking about politics in this blog. I had another place where I dabbled in political opinion and eventually tired of all the idiots from the right and the left. After several death threats from Obama followers during the last election circus, I decided to just stick with things more personal...like trying to lose weight and displaying cats.

Yet, I'm making an exception today. The California court upheld a ban on gay marriages in that state. They had the odd decision that all prior marriages between gay couples were valid, but any future ones are forbidden. I normally view topics such as this as non-relevant things used to divert our attention from the really important (and scary) stuff that is going on; but this is something that really chaps my hide. Curtailing the civil rights of people because of their biology. In my own life, there was a time when people were prohibited from marrying because of different skin color. Saying that two people cannot marry because they are the same gender is equally stupid and has no place in the 21st century.

I'm trying to understand the arguments against gay people marrying. One is that marriage is a religious institution, and we're talking Christian specifically. The other that marriage is for the production and rearing of children.

If that is the case, then my own marriage is not valid. I did not have a particularly religious marriage ceremony and it certainly wasn't a Christian event. I also have no children from this marriage and never intend to have any.

So why did I get married?

Because I found somebody that I loved and wanted to share my life. It wasn't about sex. It wasn't about financial advantage. It was purely a personal decision of the two of us for the two of us. The only thing that was required of us is that we proved we were not related, pay for the license, and make sure there was enough cake for all the wedding guests. Nobody cared who I married or why. Nobody told me that I did not have the right to marry. Nobody told me that loving somebody was wrong...even against the law.

We all should have that right. If you expect to have that right while insisting others do not...then shame on you.

Monday Cat Blogging

BFL Day 13

Remember these things? There was a time that, if you telephoned somebody and they where not there to answer, the phone would ring until you decided to give up and end the call. Then they came out with these nifty devices that would answer your phone when you were not at home or in the office. Believe it or not, once upon a time, phones pretty much stayed at home even when you left. They were a bit pricey, bulky, difficult to set up, and had a distressing tendency to malfunction. You recorded some cute little greeting (or at least you thought it was cute, everybody else thought it was stupid) and the caller would leave a short message.

Real short.

The thing was, these answering machines had a little cassette tape in them that didn't have a great deal of recording time. Most machines let you get in about ten seconds before you were cut off. As a result, people were in the habit of speaking very rapidly before the beep which indicated you were now talking into to a dead line.

Well...technology advances...and now the answering machine is as extinct as an 8-track player. Phones now have chips in them with so much memory that you could probably dictate your autobiography and still have room for more. Certainly enough time to leave one's name, when you are calling, and what number to call back if you wish. Even more people just use cell phones in which you have a voice mail service that calls can go to if you are too busy doing something else, like driving (HA!) to answer a call. Still, with virtually unlimited time to leave a simple coherent message, many people continue to deliver a rapid-fire barrage of mumbled sounds like "Hi thisisFredKiddilehopperandit'srealurgentthatIgetwithyaASAP. Gimmeacallat5559oneohsixtyateextensiontwooh73assoonasyagitthis"

Forcing me to replay the message about a dozen times to pick out the name and the number.

My new rule at work. If I get a message and I cannot figure out who is calling in two tries...fuggit, it gets deleted. They will just have to call me again if it's so damn important.

Still dealing with a cold, though I can manage to get by without clutching a box of Kleenex to my chest all day. My tip is for everybody to buy stock in the makers of NyQuil. I'm sure I boosted their profits this quarter.

BFL Day 11

Jimminy Crickets.....how long is a cold suppose to last? Just when I think that the symptoms are going away, I get pounded again. I wound up taking time off from work yesterday because I was feeling lousy and really didn't want to interact with anybody on any level. Slept horrible last night with all the coughing and sinus draining. I've taken so much NyQuil that my pee is starting to turn green.

But off to work I go this morning ...cuz paperwork waits for no man. I guess I should be concerned that I may spread my germs to my co-workers; but I got this cold from them in the first place, so to hell with it. As far as exercise goes; I'm thinking this week will be a wash.

I never thought I would miss working out.

BFL Day 10

Well...I don't know what kind of an opportunity getting sick is, but I do know that I'm not going to let it be an excuse to quit.

It really sucks though. All the coughing, wheezing, and sneezing makes it impossible to do any type of significant exercise. Even if I could manage to haul my mucus laden head over to the gym, I wouldn't want to spread all those wonderful germs around for other members. I can't do much in the way of exercise at home before being racked by a coughing fit and feeling like my sinuses are going to detonate.

My normal pattern of behavior is to say "fuggit, I'm sick, I can't do this right now, I'll do it later". The usual result though is that "later" seems to take a long time to come around. I even thought briefly of re-starting the Body for Life Challenge; but that also seems to strangely take several weeks to happen, plus...I honestly think that I cannot bear to take before photos again.

So, I'm plowing ahead. Week two of my challenge is going to be pathetic as far as progress goes...but progress it will be. The next week will be better. The week after, better still. I won't have this cold forever.

It'll just seem like it.

BFL Day 9

BFL Day 8

BFL Day 5

I had a discussion the other day with a friend about machines vs free weights. He's into lifting iron and thinks that machines are useless. In fact, he comes pretty darn close to calling me a wuss for using weight machines at the gym.

He makes a few good points. There is the fact that machines provide stability and balance, thus making it unnecessary for your own muscles to grow and adapt for that purpose. But...that's kind of what I need right now. I need the frame around me to force proper form because I don't think that I can handle much free weight without dropping it or ripping out a tendon.

Maybe I am a wuss. I gaze toward the back of the gym at all the free weights and think "maybe next week I'll try some stuff over there".

Maybe I'll wait until there are other people in the gym.

Just in case.

BFL Day 4

One of the things I hate about starting a serious schedule of weightlifting, especially if I've only been doing it half-assed or not at all for several months, is the soreness. My arms, shoulders, and chest are killing me this morning. My legs seem to be okay, which I guess is not surprising since I use them quite a bit every day and there was no shock to them.

I have another upper body tomorrow. I hope the soreness eases up by then or, at least, I'm able to work through the pain. This is a point where a lot of people quit. It's where I have quit in the past.

BFL Day 3

One part of the Body for Life plan is the concept of eating six small meals during the day rather than gorging yourself three times a day. It's a pretty good idea and goes a long way in keeping you from feeling hungry between meals, thus helping to avoid the temptation to snack.

The problem is....there is not much, short of luggage, to stow all the meals when I go to the office. I work about 10 or more hours a day, which means I have to pack for around three to four meals. Even though the portions are small it's still a lot of food to lug around. My dinky little lunch pail just doesn't cut it, so I'm going to have to do a bit of shopping for something that will work.

I'm actually considering getting a small fridge for my office.

BFL Day 2

Monday Cat Blogging

Mother's Day

I've always thought I have the coolest Mother. Oh...she did the standard mothering stuff like kissing boo-boos, checking behind ears to make sure there was no fungus growing, ensuring that I would not go off to school dressed like a color blind rodeo clown, feeding me real food, and generally doing her best to make sure I didn't grow up to be a sociopath. That's all well and good, but the coolest thing about my Mother was that she always let me question...everything. My Mother values learning in all of its forms and nothing was taboo to my curiosity. One habit she passed on to me is a love of reading. Books were made my friends at an early age and, through books, I've explored entire universes. Because of her, I've forged my own life, my own beliefs, and my own sense of self. I did it through years of relentless questioning, reading, and thinking. I'm still evolving in that task.

My Father taught me how to be a man. My Mother taught me how to be a human.

Love you Mom!

Plans

Plan, planning, planned....strange word. To plan or not to plan, that is the question. Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the setbacks and frustrations of daily living, or to take arms against a sea of temptation, and by planning, end them.

Planning is important. The old saying "failure to plan is a plan for failure" may be hackneyed, but my experience has proven its validity. Now...I don't mean planning as in plotting out exactly what you are going to do each and every day. More like, planning for what happens when things don't go exactly as you expect...which is pretty much each and every day. It is a recipe for failure if one sort of hopes that the exercise will get done somehow before the day is over and that, maybe, the diet will be on target despite the lunch from the vending machine.

There are all types of plans. Boyd, as he says in the clip above, is going to use P90X as his plan. I looked into it and the folks who sell the plan were nice enough to tell me that, due to my present fitness level, it might kill me...though I guess I would get my money back in that case. So I'm going to use Body for Life as my plan.

I really need one. I need the structure. It's difficult, this losing weight stuff.

Free Slop

Have you heard the latest? KFC, with the blessings of Oprah, is giving out coupons for a free meal. Well...kind of a meal....two pieces of chicken and a biscuit. Oh, but the chicken is grilled, which I guess is suppose to mean it's healthy as compared to that greasy old fried stuff.

Except, the (ahem) meal is loaded to the brim with such nutritious ingredients as MSG, trans fats, and gobs of salt. Not to mention that the factory chickens that KFC cooks up by the millions are about the grossest animals on the planet. It may be finger-lickin good but crap like this is best left in the bucket. I honestly think that if most people took the time to read the ingredients they wouldn't eat it if somebody put a gun to their head. Why do you suppose that KFC calls this ad campaign "Unthink"?

No thanks, Colonel. I'll stick to home grilled free range chicken.

and you can keep the biscuit too

Yum!

Something that I noticed not often included in my diet is fruit. That's a bit surprising since I really love fruit...it just seems that I never bother to buy it or include it into my meals. I usually think of fruit in my yogurt or protein shake. I may get some bananas or apples, but they generally go bad before I eat them all. I like fruit salad but avoid buying cans of the stuff since it's usually pretty high in sugar, mushy, and generally not all that tasty.

Now...I could make it myself with a selection of fresh fruits.

Duh. I never even thought of that...not until a friend of mine, who happens to be a vegetarian, turned me on to a fruit salad that he makes for his lunches all the time. Really simple. Cut up whatever fruits you like. Sprinkle with a bit of sugar (my friend probably uses a lot more but I use just enough to keep the apples from turning brown), mix it up, chill it, and eat. I whipped up about a gallon for a cost of around five bucks.

Good stuff. I don't know how many calories a serving has and I don't really care. I know it is far, far less than just about anything else I may eat during the day. The sugar and the fructose satisfy my sweet tooth and turn off the "I'm hungry button" in my brain. I'm pretty sure there are no fats. Also, the fiber gives me a nice full feeling for just a tiny helping. Then, of course, there is all the good nutrients.

I'm incorporating this into my meal plan every day.

Goodbye Doritos.

Monday Cat Blogging