As a March baby, the charts are embarrassingly accurate for myself.
Kinda depressing.
Full story
Showing posts with label Articles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Articles. Show all posts
Birth Month Related to Ailments Later in Life
A new study suggests that the reason for the discrepancy in ailments amongst spring born babies and fall babies may be linked to the mother's prenatal exposure to vitamin D, the "sunshine vitamin". This study supports and elaborates on previous U.S. studies which found that those born in the autumn months live an average of 160 days longer than those born in the spring time.
As a March baby, the charts are embarrassingly accurate for myself.
Kinda depressing.
Full story
As a March baby, the charts are embarrassingly accurate for myself.
Kinda depressing.
Full story
Obesity Is So Complicated When You're Reading HuffPo
This is becoming extremely annoying watching people write article after article about how complicated weight loss is, and what our next excuse is for being fat. Some of the more recent, laughable pieces; Blame The Workplace For American Obesity, Obesity in America: Are Factory Farms, Big Pharma and Big Food to Blame?, Combating Obesity: How and How Come, Are Chefs To Blame For Obesity?, Why is our Food Making us Fat?, Obesity: Character Flaw, or Neurochemical Disease?, and finally; Why We Get Fat.
I am ready to begin arguing that its articles such as these that are contributing to obesity by obscuring the readers' understanding of obesity, while offering them excuses for their girth, blaming genetics and diseases. These articles forgive the overweight reader, suggesting that not being obese is very difficult and complicated. The last thing people who are overweight need is for the issue of weight loss to be translated into Greek. We need to educate people on the simple facts, which require no special diet book sold on Amazon for $18.75, with the option of the "Extreme Weight Loss Guide" for and additional $8.85 (plus separate shipping and handling).
Obesity is simple. It is the result of consuming more calories than you've used. Weight loss is simple. Use more calories than you consume. The average person only requires 1,500 to 2,500 calories per day. For every extra pound of body fat you have, that means that you consumed 3,500 calories more than what your body requires in order to function. You can easily lose 1 pound of body fat in just over 3 days, by simply creating a calorie deficit of 500 calories per day (there are many online tools that can be used to calculate your required caloric intake, so you know how many calories to be taking in in order to maintain the deficit).
For your 500 calorie per day deficit, you can either create the entire deficit by adding exercise, or by reducing calorie consumption. The best way, is to do a combination; 250 less calories consumed, and 250 calories burned with exercise. A twenty ounce soda contains around 250 calories, so simply replace your afternoon Coke with a Diet Coke, or better yet, water (also, you should get in the habit of always reading nutrition labels when they are available to you). Spend 30 minutes on an Elliptical Trainer to burn the other 250 calories.
Do this correctly, and you will lose two pounds of body fat per week. Actual weight may not decrease, as you may be building muscle. A good way to monitor your results is to take measurements around your waist, arms, and thighs. Be patient, and stick with it. If this is not effective, I suggest you see your doctor (who will most likely say that there is nothing wrong with you, you are simply cheating on your diet) because you may have a medical condition.
Its just that simple.
Do this correctly, and you will lose two pounds of body fat per week. Actual weight may not decrease, as you may be building muscle. A good way to monitor your results is to take measurements around your waist, arms, and thighs. Be patient, and stick with it. If this is not effective, I suggest you see your doctor (who will most likely say that there is nothing wrong with you, you are simply cheating on your diet) because you may have a medical condition.
Its just that simple.
Activism At It's Finest
Animal rights activists are easily the sexiest of all activist groups, and here's why;
That said, they are also one of the more pushy and judgmental groups of activists. Having been a vegan for four years, and still remaining a vegetarian (another four years), I've had my fair share of exposure to the types that propagate these sort of acts.
The vegan community, I have noticed, often have a strong feeling of superiority over those meat eaters (who they seem to think, lack self control and morale). This group is pushy, and bossy. As a vegetarian (and former vegan), I would like to take a moment to assure meat eaters and leather/fur wearers that I really don't give a shit what you do. I make my own lifestyle choices for my own reasons, and its none of my business whether or not you had bacon for breakfast.
Animal rights is a touchy subject, but those activists should be reminded that humans have been surviving off of the meat and hides of animals for thousands of years. It was actually the addition of meat to the human diet which allowed us the extra nutrients for our brains to evolve into the modern human brain.
The aspect of making animal farms and slaughter houses more humane is admirable, but don't tell people what they should and shouldn't eat based on your own moral values.
The vegan community, I have noticed, often have a strong feeling of superiority over those meat eaters (who they seem to think, lack self control and morale). This group is pushy, and bossy. As a vegetarian (and former vegan), I would like to take a moment to assure meat eaters and leather/fur wearers that I really don't give a shit what you do. I make my own lifestyle choices for my own reasons, and its none of my business whether or not you had bacon for breakfast.
Animal rights is a touchy subject, but those activists should be reminded that humans have been surviving off of the meat and hides of animals for thousands of years. It was actually the addition of meat to the human diet which allowed us the extra nutrients for our brains to evolve into the modern human brain.
The aspect of making animal farms and slaughter houses more humane is admirable, but don't tell people what they should and shouldn't eat based on your own moral values.
MTV Hits A New Moral And Entertainment Low
From the genius minds behind the scenes at MTV comes the newest craptastic reality show featuring soulless shells of human beings, Electric Barbarellas. The group has been described as "talentless", which is no surprise. And it goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway, they are far less aesthetically pleasing than their predecessors, the Pussycat Dolls and the Spice Girls.
The band features five members, one specially designed for each main demographic.
Missy Marie, the alternative white chick with ink and attitude to boot!
The atrocious music is, unfortunately, not the most offensive noise coming from these bimbos. Every time they open their mouths, I pray that something completely retarded doesn't come out, but I am consistently disappointed.
I can only assume that someone important at MTV is either doing a favor for a relative, or is making amends for sexual misconduct by agreeing to air this garbage. Wow, this is crap!
Episodes can be seen at mtv.com
Idiots Turn Harmless Advetisement Into A Big Effing Deal
In the last week or so, this Dove ad has taken a lot of heat. Its unclear who exactly it is that's apparently offended by this advertisement, but I imagine that the real reason this story is getting so much press is because of the absurdity that one would interpret this to be offensive or racist.
The claim is that the ad implies that the body wash will lighten your skin... Because the black woman is standing in front of the before picture, and the white woman is standing in front of the after picture, some doofus took this to mean that the black woman is "before", and the white woman is the "after" (rather than understanding that the images they are standing in front of, clearly labeled "Before" and "After", are depictions of the expected results). Some people have too much time on their hands. Damn conspiracy theorists...
SCSJR Update
In this installment of the Superiority Complex Sisterhood of Juvenile Rationale (SCSJR), I would like to talk a bit about emotional regulation. One of my favorite blogs, The Frisky, has recently become infiltrated by a hateful mob of insecure and angry commenters. One blogger has been the main target of this mass of unfounded rage, Jessica Wakeman. I feel a kinship towards her, because she is frequently (as of late) misunderstood, and attacked by those more feeble minded folk. The commenting became so nasty that the editor actually had to step in and post a plea for the commenters to keep their pants on, and act civil towards each other, and the bloggers. This is ridiculous. Adults who are unable to moderate their own behaviors without requiring intervention... Geez.
I would like to revisit the basic process of human interaction, as it relates to anger or differing of opinions:
*Stimulus* - a statement has been made that you disagree with Tolerance: Just because you disagree with someone, this does not invalidate their own opinion. Additionally, you are entitled to your own differing opinions.
*Reaction* - I am offended by a statement this person has madeEmotional intelligence: You are likely feeling offended because the statement was regarding something that you may feel insecure about. You may be feeling personally attacked or insulted, but the author likely did not intend to target you or shame you.
*Rationalizing* - I am not bad, you are badProjection: Feeling personally attacked, people then feel that they need to defend their own integrity. Compensating for your own perceived shortcoming, you rationalize that the perpetrator is a bad person. They must be very mean and angry. Their shortcomings are much worse than your own. This is a thought process known as projection, and it is very common. It is important to understand the difference between thought and emotion.
*Action* - destroy the enemy
Bullying vs Acceptance: In an attempt to validate your feelings of being wronged, you may attempt to insult the one who made you feel so insulted. This frequently involves hurling of expletives, personal attacks, and name calling. These actions only serve to diminish your claims of superior integrity. Instead, share your feelings. Its as simple as saying, "I disagree with you, and here's why".
Anger is inevitable. Rather than letting the anger control you, channel it towards something productive. If someone has made a statement that you disagree with, get some facts and present a rebuttal. Use the anger to your advantage, like me... Everything I do is fueled by anger; angry writing, angry talking, angry eating, angry masturbating, angry cat petting, angry drinking, angry sh*tting (OMG, you have no idea how much rage I endure while taking a dump).
I hope this was helpful. See ya later F*cktards.
The Superiority Complex Sisterhood of Juvenile Rationale
I’ve decided to start a support group for people who lack any reasonable sense of humor. These people go through life, often frustrated and offended by other peoples’ opinions. These people are insecure, and regard other peoples’ opinions as personal attacks toward themselves. Feeling safe behind their computer screens, they rant and rave about how some writers are just plain God-awful people while simultaneously implying that they, themselves, are good people (despite hurling personal attacks towards the authors and replacing adjectives and nouns with expletives). These people frequently lack the language skills and emotional intelligence to resolve their own feelings of insecurity and translate that understanding into a meaningful thought.
The most common defense mechanism amongst these insecure individuals; projection.
Projection involves misunderstanding thoughts and feelings that in reality come from inside one’s own psyche, as coming from outside from another person. Projection creates misunderstanding when the projected feelings and attitudes distort the person on whom they are being projected. The ‘victim’ [of the projections, not the projector who believes that they are the true victim] eventually resents being misperceived/accused as being angry, jealous, dishonest, when the person projecting is actually the angry, jealous, or dishonest person.
The projector may not even be able to discriminate between individuals who are actually angry, jealous, dishonest, from those who are his victims on whom he projects. Therefore the projector confuses his/her own feelings as originating from the ‘victim’. So this defense distorts not only the projector and victim, but disables the projector from ’seeing’ an actual perpetrator.
When the victim confronts/corrects the person projecting onto them, the projector often flies into a immediate rage, as if to bully the victim into accepting the projections. Another reaction of the projector is the cool calm self-assured exterior as well as accusations about the victims with no detailed examples or explanations as to why the accusations are true. This often indicates who is the projector and who is the victim.
The Superiority Complex Sisterhood of Juvenile Rationale (the SCSJR) is a safe place for the emotionally impaired to convene, and connect with others suffering from a crippling lack of perspective or sense of humor. This is a safe place, to piss and moan all you like, with no annoying interruptions or reality checks from those who poses the integrity that you so lack, causing you to be exposed as being completely asinine. You will be free to exercise your right to Freedom Of Speech while still deploring others for having the gonads to express opinions different from your own. Its kind of a win-win.
Hope to see you at the next meeting of the SCSJR!
http://www.quotegarden.com/humor.html
http://guiltedgirls.tripod.com/id9.html
Just A Friendly Reminder To Wear Sunblock
With summer just around the corner, many are looking forward to soaking up the rays, and baking their skin to the perfect shade of bronze. But it is important to remember the dangers of the sun.
On the superficial level, sunbathing is the most cosmetically damaging thing we can do to our skin, even beyond the effects of smoking (however, doing meth can also ruin your skin). "Up to 90 percent of the visible changes commonly attributed to aging are caused by the sun" according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. It causes premature wrinkling, age spots (also called sunspots, liver spots, lentigo simplex and senile lentigines), uneven skin tone, depletes collagen in the skin, causing it to appear loose and saggy.
Lets not overlook the greatest danger of sun exposure, cancer. Allow me to share a shocking and tragic story of a young man whose life was cut short by skin cancer. (WARNING: This story includes an image that may be troubling for some)
Marine Sgt. Carmelo Rodriguez served his country for almost ten years, also completing a tour of duty in Iraq. The country he loved so much to risk his life for, repaid him for his service with outright medical negligence, which resulted in his highly preventable death.
Upon enlisting in the U.S. Marine Corps, Rodriguez received a routine medical exam. His doctors diagnosed a blotch on his buttock as melanoma but never told him, and the military never followed up. Over the next eight years, the melanoma continued to grow until, while serving in Iraq, Rodriguez had it examined again. This time, he was told that it was just a wart and that he should have it examined upon returning to the U.S.
Tragically, by then, it was too late, and Rodriguez died 18 months later from skin cancer, holding the hand of his seven-year-old son. His once-buff physique had been whittled down to less than 80 pounds in 18 months by stage 4 melanoma.
Sgt. Carmelo Rodriguez was 19 years old when a military doctor first noticed the melanoma (but failed to take any action in order to treat the cancer or even to notify Rodriguez of his diagnosis) on his right buttock. At 29 years of age, Rodriguez succumbed to his illness.
People often associate skin cancer with the elderly, young Caucasian girls who abuse tanning beds, the fair skinned and freckled redheads. This was a young man of Hispanic dissent. He was, young, fit, healthy, and far from what is commonly associated with any risk factor for skin cancer. (I am choosing not to address at this time the horrifying negligence on the part of the U.S. military. That is a different topic, reserved for a separate article)
Some quick facts about skin cancer:
- Skin cancer is the most common form of cancer in the United states.
- Every year 1 million Americans are diagnosed with skin cancer.
- One in five Americans will develop skin cancer in the course of a lifetime.
- Melanoma is the most common form of cancer for young adults 25-29 years old.
Here are some signs to watch out for:
I hope I have changed some minds out there about sunbathing.
More Than Half A Million U.S. Teens Have Had Eating Disorders
"More Than Half A Million U.S. Teens Have Had Eating Disorders, Study Finds "
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/07/half-million-teens-eating-disorders_n_832680.html
This useless article is both alarming and a waste of time. We are frightened, and drawn in at the thought of a half million U.S. teens, starving themselves, and leaning over the toilet, vomiting up their dinners. Alas, the article indicates that "Binge eating disorder was the most common". To no one's surprise, the article serves only to remind us that Americans are nothing more than fat slobs, who stuff our faces to such severity that our eating habits warrant a medical diagnosis.
You want to know something frightening AND important??? Here are just a few facts that deserve alarming titles and won't be a complete waste of your time:
- More than 1 million cases of skin cancer are diagnosed in the United States every year
- There are more than 1 million people living with HIV in the United States
- Every year in the U.S. there are approximately a quarter of a million (250,000) victims of sexual assault.
- In 2009, 15.5 million U.S. children under the age of 18 were living in poverty
- Approximately 2.2 million American adults age 18 and older suffer from OCD
- According to the American Social Health Association, approximately 5.5 million new cases of sexually transmitted HPV infections are reported every year
- In 2009, 4,340 U.S. workers were killed on the job (an average of 12 workers a day)
- 56% of dogs and 71% of cats that enter animal shelters are euthanized
- 60 million Americans, 20 years and older are obese (Eight out of 10 U.S. adults over 25 are overweight)
Just a few valuable facts... Huffington Post, thanks for your useless article educating us about how fat Americans continue to remain fat.
No Sh*t Sherlock
Crappy articles wasting space and telling us things that we already know.
Black women's hair loss tied to braiding, weaving
Women with permanent balding also more likely to have bacterial scalp infections
"I won't tell you not to braid your hair, but I don't want you to braid it so tightly that you need to take pain medication," said Kyei, of the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio.Herpes lurks even without symptoms
Symptomless-virus can harbor active forms that can be spread to sexual partners
People infected with genital herpes but don't show any symptoms can still be contagious and spread the virus to sexual partners.http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42558476/ns/health-sexual_health/
Misery may really love company, study suggests
Adults who claim to have ADHD? 1 in 4 may be faking it
Patients embellish symptoms to gain access to stimulant drugs, study finds
Yasmin Birth Control Pill May Increase Blood Clot Risk
*$%#@! Cursing Can Soothe Pain, Research Shows
Recipe For Awesome Writing
Being a great writer is no accident. Simply having the ability to write is no indication of potential for excellence (however it is the first step). No. If only it were so simple. The recipe for success is much more complicated, and requires a large amount of salt, so beware if you suffer from hypertension.
Ingredient #1: Ham
No, I am not talking about pigs. I'm using the term "Ham" in reference to the desire to perform, or attract attention. Writing is an art, and notoriety comes with the territory. "Hamming it up" is a vital skill for drawing in readers and captivating an audience.
Ingredient #2: An appetite for vocabulary
No one wants to read a story in which the description of the main character is "tall" or "fat". They want to read about the man who "towers over his rivals", and "who's words echo through the vast, unforgiving mountain range". Words like "good" should never be used as adjectives.
Ingredient #3: Fruit Loops
Mild to moderate depression and anxiety are common symptoms of creative people. Embrace the mania for what it is. Accept the cynical thoughts, and even the pessimism. These symptoms can actually be utilized to add perspective to your work. Since you're stuck with it for the time being, you may as well put it to good use. (DISCLAIMER: I am in no way suggesting that one should not seek treatment for mental illnesses! Mental illnesses are very serious and debilitating! If you do not treat your illness, your work will also be likely to suffer! I am a much better writer when I am taking my meds!)
Ingredient #4: Booze
Writers' Block is a common ailment amongst the creative. Symptoms include, but are not limited to:
-Staring blankly out the window
-Starting a sentence with out a plan for how you will be ending it
-Repeating the same sentence over and over again, swapping out various words for others
-Snacking
-Re-reading past work, searching for any spark of leftover inspiration
-Constipation (literally and figuratively)
Anyways, that's the short list of symptoms. For the full list, email me. The perfect cure for a lil' bit of the ole Writers' Block is, you guessed it, Sweet Sister Smirnoff. A warning however, Sister Smirnoff may assist in liberating alternate regions of the creative mind, it may also exacerbate several of the above listed symptoms.
Ingredient #5: Salt
Don't be afraid to get "salty", sassy, cynical or crude. A general disregard for public opinion is a healthy way to get noticed. People love to hate, and it is a constant battle to keep them hating on you. There's always someone younger and someone meaner than you right around the corner, and if you're not careful, they may win over the public disapproval that you once basked in. No press is bad press. If you have one hater, you will likely have a small army of haters. They will comment up a storm. You may even get a new fan site as a result. (Someone actually took the time to set up a site for me called ihatecherylbirch.blogspot.com. Not sure if it still exists, but I consider this to be a victory.) Be prepared for personal attacks on your physical appearance, personal integrity, and technical writing skills. (Some personal attacks that have come my way include insults on my appearance such as; "five-head", "receding hairline", "troll", "look like an aborted fetus", etc. I've been called bitter, jealous, "jelly" (in reference to being jealous). I've even been accused of having "atrocious" spelling errors.) Don't take it personally. These people are insecure, and lack the language skills and emotional intelligence to reconcile their own personal issues within themselves.
Bake at 350 degrees F for as long as it takes to become crispy on the outside, and gooey on the inside
Choose your words wisely. Let them sit. Come back to them later, and elaborate further. Make sure to have plenty of napkins on hand to clean up the messes you've made. Enjoy a feeling of accomplishment, even if your work isn't praised or published, because someone noticed, and someone enjoyed it.
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