MRE....Just Like Mom Use To Make

Well....not really....but not too far off the mark.

Meals ready to eat. The newest thing in military field rations and on every survivalists wish list. I ran across them a few days ago and, being interested in convenient ways to eat, decided to pick up one just for kicks. I got a beef enchilada thing and you just plop it in a bag, pour some salt water that's provided inside, seal it up, and wait for the little catalyst warmers to steam heat them for about 10 minutes. Rip open the pouch and gobble down the chow. I expected it to taste, at best, like nothing at all.

It was surprisingly good!

I mean...lip smacking good!

Light years better than any microwave dinner that I've ever had. I may start buying these things. The drawback is that they are rather high in calories, but I guess that's to be expected since they are designed to feed a combat soldier and not some flabby old couch potato. They are a damn sight tastier than the canned rations they gave us when I was in the military.




Of course...with enough hot sauce...you could manage to choke most of it down.

Monday Cat Blogging

Springtime in Kansas

Sometimes, I really miss living in Texas.

Monday Cat Blogging

It's Spring!

About bloody time too.

It's Gotta Be Rock N Roll Music

Just about the only place where I ever listen to the radio anymore is in my truck. Even then, it's only when I am driving alone these days because I have a tendency to turn up the volume...primarily because I'm old and deaf, but also because I like to rock out with good music. Sing along. Play air guitar and drums with the steering wheel. Things that make people believe I am having a seizure at stop lights and embarrass the hell out of my daughter when I drove her to school in the mornings.

It's getting harder to do that these days out here in Kansas. Spinning through the dial on the raid-ee-oh is increasingly becoming an exercise in annoying frustration. Country music dominates most of the selections and, while some of it is okay, I find most of the stuff sounds pretty much the same and get bored with it very quickly. Then there are the religious stations. They are actually kind of interesting, especially when they are preaching about the apocalypse and all that good stuff; but it's not what I need to put my groove on driving to work. There is one Spanish station that is kind of cool but I spend all my thoughts trying to translate the words to the songs rather than just enjoying the music, which sounds all the same to my ear anyway...kinda like rap. Oh, and then there is the classical music station...okay, but Mozart doesn't lend itself much to air drumming.

My one consistent oasis has been a rock station....a hard rock station. None of that namby pamby hip hop, or bee bop, pop, disco, or boy-band sludge. They played stuff that would get your adrenaline going and realize where the term 'heavy metal' came from.

No more.

That station switched its format to "alternative rock"....which, as near as I can figure out is a completely accurate label because it is definitely an alternative to anything I would call rock music.

Sigh. I use my Ipod now. It's just not the same. The damn earphone buds keep popping out.

Monday Cat Blogging

Athletic Supporter?

Fitness would be a lot easier for me if I had developed the habits of an athlete in my youth. Things like working out in a gym, running, sweating, being sore....would all be things that I am use to and probably even enjoy.

The problem is, I never got into the whole jock lifestyle. I sucked at sports. Even in Little League, I was stuck way out in right field with the hopes from my teammates and myself that a fly-ball would never be hit to me. P.E. in school was nothing more than an hour every day being humiliated in front of my peers by a fat sadistic coach. I had no interest at all in high school sports, preferring to play in the band as an escape from an activity of which I had no natural ability in favor of one I had a modicum of talent.

So I didn't like jocks. I didn't like exercise. I was an "in-too-lectual" and looked with contempt toward those who trained their bodies. I considered them vain and shallow. I even thought of those who enjoyed watching sports on television as fairly brain dead ex-jocks trying to live vicariously through steroid enhanced actors in fantasy contests. To me, watching athletes perform was akin to watching porn...I couldn't understand the attraction of other people playing while you sat passively and observed.

And here I am, after all this time, trying to become an athlete. I go to a gym. I talk about reps and sets and refer to parts of my body by muscle groups. Unless I'm drenched with sweat and have a bit of pain, I don't feel as if I have accomplished anything during the day. Still, it's a chore. To push every day when it would be oh so easy just to let things slide. I'm trying to make the transition from exercise being an unpleasant task, to a habitual one, to being a fun activity that I look forward to each morning.

Athletes are made... not born. I'm a work in progress.

Monday Cat Blogging

Tempus Fuggit

Daylight savings time really messes with my head. That's because my head takes a few days to get use to the concept that it is dark longer in the morning and lighter longer in the evening. It takes a while to train my brain to ignore visual cues and convince my body that...no...it is not being forced to wake up an hour earlier than usual. Then there is also the problem of going to bed at my usual time (according to the clock) when I'm not sleepy.

Plus, it is going to take about a month before I get around to setting all my clocks and watches up one hour.

Except for the one in my pickup. I never can remember how to set the time on that so screw it, I'll just wait for November and it will be showing the right time once again.

Time for a New Computer

I really didn't start out wanting to get a whole new computer. Originally, my thoughts were to get a nicer monitor...maybe spend a couple of hundred bucks at the most. So off I mosey to Best Buy after I eyeballed their ad both on paper and online.

I walk in to the store that was blasting out some crappy music through their speakers and I'm asked by an annoying blue shirt every couple of minutes if "I need any help".

No...I'm just looking and comparing a few monitors right now so I send them away, but they just stand right there beside me making me nervous, like they expect me to slip a monitor in my pants and walk out the store or something. Eventually, they do go off to pester some other customer and I have time to think and decide what I wish to buy. After a while, I come to a decision.

Nobody in sight. I wave my credit card in the air in the hopes of attracting the attention of somebody who wishes to take my money. Nothing. There is even a lull of silence while somebody is switching out one CD of incomprehensible rap crap for another.

I break up a gang of clerks trying to hit on some young girl and point to what I've decided to purchase.

"Oh...we're out of that"

"It was in your ad that came out today."

"Yeah, but we don't have anymore of them."

"Hookay how about this one", I said, pointing to what was my second choice...a bit more in price but one I was willing to settle for.

"Uhhhhh.....no more of those either."

I kind of rolled my eyes and said "just which of all these monitors you have displayed here do you actually have for sale?".

He then proceeded to show me a fine selection of 3 crappy monitors that I had no interest in buying. He did offer to sell me the display models....no discount....no warranty. No thanks.

Long story short; I went elsewhere to look for a monitor. I discovered that I could just get a whole new computer for not much more than I would pay for a high quality monitor. I started considering that my old computer was beginning to show signs of breaking down and decided to just take the plunge.

I wouldn't go back to Best Buy if they were giving out cookies and back rubs. I have a nice new computer to play with and didn't have to wade through all the bullshit to get it.

Though....I am stuck with Vista now.

Male Dysmorphic Disorder

The disadvantage of working in the mental health field is that all my colleagues like to diagnose each other....to label whatever minor or major weirdness in an effort to hone one's clinical skills and alleviate boredom during slow periods at work. One such co-worker suggested that I may be suffering from a dysmorphic disorder; more commonly known as an eating disorder due to a false self image of one's own body.

Well hell........as if I don't have enough to worry about.

I really don't think I have an eating disorder. Sure, I like food but the tendency to overeat and eat the wrong foods don't come from any deep seated psychological trauma, just bad habits. Though I often feel guilty if I've overindulged, I've certainly never contemplated purging as a means of canceling out a big pig out. I hate vomiting. Thinking about it makes me want to..well..vomit.

I also don't believe I have a faulty self image of myself. I think I'm fat but I know that I'm not near the gut dragging size of many men my age. I spent some time in the courthouse yesterday doing what I do most times when I'm summoned to testify about a case; sit in the hallway and wait, and wait, and wait. While waiting I was noticing all the lawyers scurrying to and fro with enormous bellies protruding like cowcatchers on locomotives. Even cops, who I assumed must keep some level of fitness for their jobs, looked like they were about to give birth to twins. I loved it because it made the self image I had of my body soar.

So what do I want? To be like the photo above?

Not really. I just want to have a flattened stomach. A defined chest and arms. Legs too would be nice. I want to wear clothing because I like them rather to hide my body. I want to be slimmer so that I can be more active. I want to be healthier so that I can live longer. As my role model and hero Terry says, "I want to extend my best if used by date".

I'm pretty sure that the guy at work is wrong about his diagnosis of my mental disorder. At least that's what the voices are telling me.

I Wasn't Always Fat

Lately I've been thinking about being fat and how that transformation happened while I wasn't paying any attention. Being fat is still a relatively unexplored country for me. I use to be thin. Scrawny, as a matter of fact.

I was the stereotypical 98-pound weakling for a good deal of my puberty. Right about the time of 17, I hit 120 pounds and stayed at that weight for over a decade. It was frustrating. No matter what I ate or what I did....my weight stayed a rock solid 120.

So I quit worrying about it. I ate whatever I wanted with the confidence that it would have no effect. I slowed down and pursued more sedentary activities with the thought that exercise would do nothing but make me sore. Then....little by little...year after year....calories and gravity started to do it's magic around my body's mid-section. Being nuevo fat as opposed to being a big guy in the first place, my fat is not distributed evenly. I'm not portly. I'm not chubby. I'm certainly not jolly about my body. I have a hanging gut that my frame is having difficulty supporting. The type of fat that I am actually hurts....and that pain holds me back in efforts to get back the body I dimly remember.

It truly sucks.

Sweet Dreams Are Made of This

Imagine that you sit down for breakfast one fine morning to a heaping bowl of about 46 sugar cubes. It would probably make even the least health conscious among us gag with that much sweetness all at once. Yet, this is about how much sugar a lot of us will eat during the day.

Now, imagine two 1 lb bags of sugar plopped on your table and being told that it's part of your diet for the week. Think you would start to get an idea of why it's difficult to lose weight and stave off diabetes?

Imagine up to 150 of those one pound bags each and every year.

It's easy to let sugar slip into our diet. There is sugar in everything. Lots of foods have sugars in them naturally..but food manufacturers aren't content to leave well enough alone and dump more in the form of syrups to make it more tasty, therefore attractive, so as to make money. You can't even get away with foods that declare "low sugar or no sugar added" since the alternative is artificial sweeteners that either have the same effect on your body or may do far worse damage in the long run.

It even appears that the more "healthy" a particular food product is touted as being, the more sugar it has. I was looking around in the grocery yesterday for some breakfast bars that I could slip into my desk for a quick meal when needed. All the healthy and diet bars had a sugar content roughly twice as much as a Snickers candy bar....and I'm willing to bet a Snickers would taste better, it would certainly be cheaper. It is an ongoing struggle to find foods that are convenient and cheap without being loaded with sugar.

Or sodium....but don't get me started on that.

Monday Cat Blogging

Emotional Eating

A drug is typically defined as a substance that produces a metabolic change in the body. Sometimes those changes affect the chemistry in our brains and can alter our mood. That's why alcohol has been so popular since humans first stumbled across it; despite the fact that it really tastes downright nasty. Don't give me any of that connoisseur crap about fine wines and beers...it's all flavorings to mask the fact that you are drinking spoiled grapes and grains. People drink for the effect of alcohol, period, and that effect is that it makes you feel good. The trap many people find themselves in is using alcohol to feel good, then using it not to feel bad, then using it whenever they do feel bad because they seem to feel bad pretty much all the time.

It's very much the same with food. Our brains have been hardwired by evolution to respond in a positive manner when we eat. When we have stress or feel lousy, our brains send out signals to do something to fix the problem. The brain doesn't really know the difference between the discomfort of having your leg bitten off by a saber toothed lion or anxiety of a boss chewing out your ass at work. All the brain knows is that it is uncomfortable...and the brain is all about comfort.

Of course, what's more comforting than eating? Your mouth is engaged. Your stomach is getting filled. Your brain is happy....and when your brain is happy, so are you.

Yet we slip oh so easily into the same trap with all other drugs. Over the years, you find yourself eating as a response to any emotion. We no longer eat because we are hungry. We eat as a coping mechanism.

We get fat.

We feel depressed about being fat.

So we eat because we are depressed.

We get fatter.

One hell of a merry-go-round that some of us ride trying to figure how to get off. The only way I have come up with is to take a pause before I go after that donut, or bag of chips, or soda....and ask myself why I am eating. Usually, I come up the answer that I'm bored or stressed. Hardly ever is it because I am actually hungry.

The pisser is that one cannot quit eating like we would tell an alcoholic or crack addict to quit using their drug of abuse. Still, it is fairly accepted theory in addiction treatment that it's not the drug that causes our addiction but a developed mindset that links emotion to the use of a drug. Addicts are not treated by simply taking away their drug but by helping them change the way they think.

No easy task...whether it be heroin or nachos.

I Know How to Cook

strips of lean pork
greeen and red pepper
red cabbage
edamame
water chestnut
snow pea pod
daikon radish
...over a bed of rice

with a bit of hot sauce, of course

Monday Cat Blogging

Monday Cat Blogging

Super Duper Bowl

I've never been able to get worked up about Super Bowl Sundays. My friends think that I'm just kidding when they ask me "which team I'm rooting for" and I reply that I don't even know who is playing. I find watching football on TV to be rather boring. In fact, watching just about any sport on TV pretty much fails to hold my interest. There is something intrinsically weird about sitting on one's rear end and shoveling junk food down one's throat while watching athletes perform. Going to a game at a stadium is a bit different; it's more of an event and I can appreciate the entertainment value though it wears thin for me after an hour or so.

I actually wish I did like watching sports on TV. I would always have something to watch. My cable has about a dozen channels with some type of football game going on 24/7.

But maybe that would be a bad thing. Can I afford to spend every evening and day-off plopped in front of the tube watching athletes rather than trying to become one?