How Does Your Garden Grow?

A day of container gardening...


"Yook! A yittow tow-mato!"

"Here Mommy... you eat it."

"Der's a yittow green pepper, too!"

"It's smells yike... green beans!"

"Here mommy. You eat it!"

Skinny Bitch

On a normal day, my diet is composed of cereal, some fruit, and lots of "crap". I am, by no means, skinny. I have tried dieting, exercising, and dieting again, but I always fail because, other than wanting to be thinner, there is no motivation for giving up the yummy food I love to eat.

Ladies and Gentleman, the tables have turned. I. Hate. Food.

What? You ask. Is she crazy? Well, yes, but not for the reasons you think. And I don't hate all food. Just gross food. Over the weekend, I read the book Skinny Bitch. I thought it was a book about dieting with a snarky edge to it. Boy, was I wrong. And I'm glad I was.



Let me enlighten you with a few excerpts, and urge you to go buy the book. It has literally made me think about each and every piece of food I put in my mouth, and it has nothing to do with calories, fat, or carbs. Really.

"Aspartame (an ingredient commonly found in diet sodas and other sugar-free foods) has been blamed for a slew of scary maladies, like arthritis, birth defects, fibromyalgia, Alzheimer's, lupus, multiple sclerosis, and diabetes. When methyl alcohol, a component of aspartame, enters your body, it turns into formaldehyde. Formaldehyde is toxic and carcinogenic (cancer-causing). Laboratory scientists use formaldehyde as a disinfectant or preservative. They don't fucking drink it. Perhaps you have a lumpy ass because you are preserving your fat cells with diet soda. The FDA has received more complaints about Aspartame than any other ingredient to date."

Is that enough to make you stop drinking diet soda? It is for me. They go on to divulge that when aspartame was put before the FDA, it was denied eight times. Then, through changing of the guards and "hire him so he doesn't blow the lid off of aspartame" scandals, not only did aspartame get approved for dry foods in the 80's, but got pushed through without further testing for liquids in the 90's, despite Ninety-Two side effects. Guess what? Splenda is no better. It's called "98% pure". The other 2%? Heavy metals, methanol, and arsenic. Yum.

How 'bout this little excerpt?

"The Food and Drug Administration's own Total Diet Study found that bacon had 48 different pesticide residues, bologna and other luncheon meats had 102 different industrial pollutants and pesticides, fast food hamburgers had 113 residues, hot dogs had 123, and ground beef had 82 industrial chemical and pesticide residues, just to name a few."

Oh, my friends, the book is eye-opening. It is not for the faint of heart, or who those who wish to keep poisoning themselves. What the United States allows as "food" is appalling. Disgusting. And terrifying. And we eat it, multiple times a day.

Read it. Live it. I don't think I can be a vegan, but I started today out with an organic cereal with fresh blueberries and vanilla soy milk, and it was excellent. Not a bad start. Organic Peanut Butter on Organic Whole Wheat bread for lunch. No coffee, no soda, just water and organic tea.

And the thing is, I'm not doing it to lose weight. Not a single thought about it. I'm terrified I'm poisoning my family, inducing illness later in life, shortening our lives by eons. I'm not an alarmist, either. Read the book. Really. It will change your life for the better.

To Be or Not To Be...

Krissy Poopyhands poses a fine question about weight loss. Even if you lose weight, will you ever be happy with the weight you become? Will it ever be enough?

At the fittest part of my life, I was 18. I ran every day, I walked everywhere, I rode my horse a good 5 times a week, and over all was not a lazy ass. I made little time for eating, and it was usually a bowl of cereal or a bagel, and I was out the door again. I weighed 118 for my senior prom, and that is, to put it politely, impossible to reach again.

So why is it that when I don work out clothes, and go sweat my butt off, that my brain still expects to see a 118 staring back at me from the mirror? Why is it that I cannot look at myself and feel good about what I see?

I'll never be 118 again. But I could weigh 130. It would take some effort and some actual self-control, but I could do it. But what if I get there, and want more? Or worse, what if I get there and just slide back to where I'm at now? Is there a happy medium? 140?

I guess I should just get my butt in gear and see what happens. Something is better than nothing, right? And 5 pounds lighter is better than 5 pounds heavier, I guess. Oh, to be 18 again and able to eat Twix and Sunkist for lunch and not think twice! Gone are the days.