Lane Bryant's Newest Campaign Sends A Powerful Message To All The Trolls

Bye, haters.

 

Quest Peanut Butter Protein Powder Pre-review, because I hesistate

Quest Nutrition Protein Powder, Peanut Butter, 23g Protein, Soy Free, 2lb Tub

This is my husband's favorite protein powder.   He literally just dumps it into almond milk and stirs it until just emulsified and sips it while still a bit lumpy.  And he loves it.

Tell me why I should like it.

I have been anti-Quest for so. very. long - I know I have to try it for review because it is in my kitchen calling me. 

Do you like this product?  Do you use it?  Do you hate it?  What other flavor of Quest powder do you enjoy?  What do you mix into it?

 

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One month.

If everything goes as it should, the movers arrive in one month. 

One 53 foot long truck.  One day.  Five men.  All mine. 

Shut up. 

I asked for movers.  Mr. MM works often seven days a week (he is working right now, it's a seven day week - fourteen day week - 28 day?  I don't know?) and just, no.  We don't have that much stuff, but moving from a house with three flights of stairs to another with the same - is a lot of painful lifting and, no.  I don't have local friends.  Call me lazy if you'd like.  I've had enough head injury in the last year to say, HELL NAH I AIN'T DOING IT.

"Good luck getting help, too."  It's easier just to put the crazy cost of moving on a credit card, paying it off with the next bonus, and skipping the potential vacation next summer. (Yeah, we skipped it this year too, because Elliott.)

If you have not bought or sold a house before, it can get quite expensive on either side.  Stuff pops up (either expected, like inspections, known problems....) or unexpectedly like things that you simply must have done for a buyer's mortgage to go through. (There's many rules and regulations based on the kind of buyer.)  We did not live here long enough or earn that much equity to really make out on the deal.  We put a lot of money into the house, and you don't usually get it back. 

In funner news!  Cleaning up!  Packing, a little?  And...

We have to eat up all the remaining fresh food and the kids are like, this is all that is left:

Except I got the off-brand kind, and it's not EVEN THE SAME.

We have some serious problems over here.  I'll be blogging real quick because I need to make grocery money.

 

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At least someone's eating right

Cows eat grass.  Babies eat grass.  It's good for, fiber, right?  Fiber in, uh, this form, hurts my old cranky gastric bypass belly.  I get (excuses) bezoars (/excuses) and I eat toast instead.  I'm not suggesting that one goes and eats grass, but some things I see Dieters Eat isn't much different than what this baby got in during his outside play yesterday.  :x  You don't have to tell me to worry about "your baby eating gross that's so gross do you know what might be in there?!"  Yes.  He's baby number five.  A lot worse will be eaten.  Salad, anyone?

Before You Spend $26,000 on Weight-Loss Surgery, Do This - What?

Agreed.

It was the first thing we all did BEFORE weight loss surgery 13 - 15 years ago ANYWAY. Because, it works.

The problem *is* the flipping ________ is addictive and NOBODY GETS THAT PART OF THE EQUATION, and until THAT is figured out?

THE ANSWER IS WEIGHT LOSS SURGERY.

New York Times Op -

Before You Spend $26,000 on Weight-Loss Surgery, Do This

Download Before You Spend $26,000 on Weight-Loss Surgery, Do This - The New York Times

Earlier this year, the Food and Drug Administration approved a new weight-loss procedure in which a thin tube, implanted in the stomach, ejects food from the body before all the calories can be absorbed.

Some have called it “medically sanctioned bulimia,” and it is the latest in a desperate search for new ways to stem the rising tides of obesity and Type 2 diabetes. Roughly one-third of adult Americans are now obese; two-thirds are overweight; and diabetes afflicts some 29 million. Another 86 million Americans have a condition called pre-diabetes. None of the proposed solutions have made a dent in these epidemics.

Recently, 45 international medical and scientific societies, including the American Diabetes Association, called for bariatric surgery to become a standard option for diabetes treatment. The procedure, until now seen as a last resort, involves stapling, binding or removing part of the stomach to help people shed weight. It costs $11,500 to $26,000, which many insurance plans won’t pay and which doesn’t include the costs of office visits for maintenance or postoperative complications. And up to 17 percent of patients will have complications, which can include nutrient deficiencies, infections and intestinal blockages.

It is nonsensical that we’re expected to prescribe these techniques to our patients while the medical guidelines don’t include another better, safer and far cheaper method: a diet low in carbohydrates.

Once a fad diet, the safety and efficacy of the low-carb diet have now been verified in more than 40 clinical trials on thousands of subjects. Given that the government projects that one in three Americans (and one in two of those of Hispanic origin) will be given a diagnosis of diabetes by 2050, it’s time to give this diet a closer look.

When someone has diabetes, he can no longer produce sufficient insulin to process glucose (sugar) in the blood. To lower glucose levels, diabetics need to increase insulin, either by taking medication that increases their own endogenous production or by injecting insulin directly. A patient with diabetes can be on four or five different medications to control blood glucose, with an annual price tag of thousands of dollars.

Yet there’s another, more effective way to lower glucose levels: Eat less of it.

Glucose is the breakdown product of carbohydrates, which are found principally in wheat, rice, corn, potatoes, fruit and sugars. Restricting these foods keeps blood glucose low. Moreover, replacing those carbohydrates with healthy protein and fats, the most naturally satiating of foods, often eliminates hunger. People can lose weight without starving themselves, or even counting calories.

Most doctors — and the diabetes associations — portray diabetes as an incurable disease, presaging a steady decline that may include kidney failure, amputations and blindness, as well as life-threatening heart attacks and stroke. Yet the literature on low-carbohydrate intervention for diabetes tells another story. For instance, a two-week study of 10 obese patients with Type 2 diabetes found that their glucose levels normalized and insulin sensitivity was improved by 75 percent after they went on a low-carb diet.

At our obesity clinics, we’ve seen hundreds of patients who, after cutting down on carbohydrates, lose weight and get off their medications. One patient in his 50s was a brick worker so impaired by diabetes that he had retired from his job. He came to see one of us last winter, 100 pounds overweight and panicking. He’d been taking insulin prescribed by a doctor who said he would need to take it for the rest of his life. Yet even with insurance coverage, his drugs cost hundreds of dollars a month, which he knew he couldn’t afford, any more than he could bariatric surgery.

Instead, we advised him to stop eating most of his meals out of boxes packed with processed flour and grains, replacing them with meat, eggs, nuts and even butter. Within five months, his blood-sugar levels had normalized, and he was back to working part-time. Today, he no longer needs to take insulin.

Another patient, in her 60s, had been suffering from Type 2 diabetes for 12 years. She lost 35 pounds in a year on a low-carb diet, and was able to stop taking her three medications, which included more than 100 units of insulin daily.

One small trial found that 44 percent of low-carb dieters were able to stop taking one or more diabetes medications after only a few months, compared with 11 percent of a control group following a moderate-carb, lower-fat, calorie-restricted diet. A similarly small trial reported those numbers as 31 percent versus 0 percent. And in these as well as another, larger, trial, hemoglobin A1C, which is the primary marker for a diabetes diagnosis, improved significantly more on the low-carb diet than on a low-fat or low-calorie diet. Of course, the results are dependent on patients’ ability to adhere to low-carb diets, which is why some studies have shown that the positive effects weaken over time.

A low-carbohydrate diet was in fact standard treatment for diabetes throughout most of the 20th century, when the condition was recognized as one in which “the normal utilization of carbohydrate is impaired,” according to a 1923 medical text. When pharmaceutical insulin became available in 1922, the advice changed, allowing moderate amounts of carbohydrates in the diet.

Yet in the late 1970s, several organizations, including the Department of Agriculture and the diabetes association, began recommending a high-carb, low-fat diet, in line with the then growing (yet now refuted) concern that dietary fat causes coronary artery disease. That advice has continued for people with diabetes despite more than a dozen peer-reviewed clinical trials over the past 15 years showing that a diet low in carbohydrates is more effective than one low in fat for reducing both blood sugar and most cardiovascular risk factors.

The diabetes association has yet to acknowledge this sizable body of scientific evidence. Its current guidelines find “no conclusive evidence” to recommend a specific carbohydrate limit. The organization even tells people with diabetes to maintain carbohydrate consumption, so that patients on insulin don’t see their blood sugar fall too low. That condition, known as hypoglycemia, is indeed dangerous, yet it can better be avoided by restricting carbs and eliminating the need for excess insulin in the first place. Encouraging patients with diabetes to eat a high-carb diet is effectively a prescription for ensuring a lifelong dependence on medication.

At the annual diabetes association convention in New Orleans this summer, there wasn’t a single prominent reference to low-carb treatment among the hundreds of lectures and posters publicizing cutting-edge research. Instead, we saw scores of presentations on expensive medications for blood sugar, obesity and liver problems, as well as new medical procedures, including that stomach-draining system, temptingly named AspireAssist, and another involving “mucosal resurfacing” of the digestive tract by burning the inside of the duodenum with a hot balloon.

We owe our patients with diabetes more than a lifetime of insulin injections and risky surgical procedures. To combat diabetes and spare a great deal of suffering, as well as the $322 billion in diabetes-related costs incurred by the nation each year, doctors should follow a version of that timeworn advice against doing unnecessary harm — and counsel their patients to first, do low carbs. Sarah Hallberg is medical director of the weight loss program at Indiana University Health Arnett, adjunct professor at the school of medicine, director of the Nutrition Coalition and medical director of a start-up developing nutrition-based medical interventions. Osama Hamdy is the medical director of the obesity and inpatient diabetes programs at the Joslin Diabetes Center at Harvard Medical School. A version of this op-ed appears in print on September 11, 2016, on page SR1 of the New York edition with the headline: The Old-Fashioned Way to Treat Diabetes.

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Lots to catch up on, so I'll start backwards.

We are buying a new-to-us house.

Which means we are selling our house. 

We were able to successfully find a buyer on the first day of showings and that meant that we had the Find A House Immediately.  Why are we doing this?!  Because, my parents sold their house (my childhood home) and moved in.  Our house isn't large enough to fit myself, the husband, the five kids AND my parents.   We discussed doing just this a year or two ago -- but then Elliott arrived (... which I still haven't really discussed here on the blog?) and life has just been warp speed.

We had tossed around the idea of building an in-law apartment, or addition, but it just was not going to work out on this property.  So, sell the house - find another!  Easy enough! 

For me:  A House Is Just A Shell.  You move shells as your life changes.  You - your family gets bigger, you get smaller. I see other people who get very attached to the material part of their homes, and want to drag it around with them - but?  Shake that shit off. 

I do not get that attached to my shell.  I like moving.  I see it as a fresh start, a new beginning.  Putting aside all the monetary costs involved,  $1000 deposit, $1000 home inspection, etc etc etc. moving can be really f - u - n. 

Right at the moment, we are nine people living in a house with one bath on the main floor and one kitchen and too many teenagers and a mobile baby and it can be A Bit Intense. 

Everyone in this house likes their own space.  My kids don't want to share bedrooms.  They have been sharing here, there, everywhere, just to make it work -- and the baby hasn't had a room anywhere, yet.  He still won't in the new house.  He has been in my bed since day one. 

I really can't worry about that, I mean, there's a garage?  (KIDDING.)  All I had asked for was a bedroom and a bathroom I could have access to without a queue at any given time.   SCORE.   And maybe a kitchen to roller skate in where I could line up 12 pizzas at a time for too many teenagers and guests.

We found one close to our current location, so that the kids can remain in college, 12th, 9th, 4th grade in their current schools.  It is quite nice - and with the basement in-law, it's larger than ours.  If all goes well with inspections, we should be moved in by November 1.

-Send Xanax, groceries, cleaning ladies, moving men and anti-seizure vibes!  Also seeking product to review.

 

In which I procrastinate about...

I officially announced on Facebook that I am blogging again. Does that make this an official blog, post?  Am I procrastinating?  Am I asking too many questions?  Am I avoiding the real issues?

May-be.  May-be not.

All I know right. now. is that it has taken me until 2pm to start this post because BABIES ARE A BIG HUGE FAT PAIN IN THE ASS AND I MEAN NO DISRESPECT TO BIG HUGE FAT ASSES BECAUSE I HAVE ONE AND I LOVE FATNESS, mmkay?  If you ever need a reason not to get things done?  Babies. Babies who are mobile and big trouble and right at the very moment seeking things to hurt themselves as if driven by a baby-seeking motor of "WHAT CAN HURT ME IN THIS ROOM" are what you need to stop everything from being accomplished.  Baby who is now standing on my chair.  Baby who is now crying. 

saves draft 

 

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Like a weed, as they say.

For reference, the top photo is baby, day one at home with Dad at just under five pounds.

The second photo is baby, this week, with me, but you can't see my head, because he's grown a bit. 

Babies have a tendency to do this.  Mine, usually grow right off the growth chart. 

He has a check-up next week and we'll see if he's finally on the chart -- because -- he wasn't for a while.  Both of my post weight loss surgery babies started out smaller than my pre weight loss surgery babies.  Elliott, above here, is also the first baby I gestated while on a huge amount of anti epileptic medications, and I often wondered if he would be effected by marinating in toxins like my brain did (and still does... )

I will always wonder.

 

I am logged in, guys. Where I go from here, I do not know. But, I am logged. in. *realizing my last post was in the SPRING?!*