Innerds & Stuff on Mothers Day

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I've been contemplating, mulling over, considering, pondering, thinking about things lately. Inner things.  I've always had a fascination with what makes people tick. What they believe and why. But lately the journey has been inward.

"Know Thyself."

That's a phrase that has defined a key to what I've found to be the most powerful of all knowledge. Knowing your tendencies, your strengths and equally important, your weaknesses.

I had some issues going on inside me. Physically and mentally. The mental things were causing physical things. The physical things didn't all show, weren't readily apparent. I was likely on the cusp of developing permanent damage or at least on the road to an autoimmune disease.

I went on the offensive and lost weight. I eliminated practices that weren't complimentary and changed my eating to primarily plant based, adopting a low-carb diet. 

The changes were a success and I now weigh sixty three pounds less. I look and feel great.  But on the inside, mentally and physically, the improvement that don't necessarily show were just as drastic and beneficial. All these pluses without much exercise, never missing a meal and eating chocolate nearly every day.

After a decade on medications for blood pressure and cholesterol, I don't have to take either now. My organs are thriving rather than struggling to keep up with an unproductive lifestyle. My demeanor is calm. I feel more at peace. I sleep better and I get more done.  

My doctors are impressed and cheering me on. I just had an Ultrasound and a CT Scan. Both reports came up with similar results, "Grossly Unremarkable."  I can't say that I've ever felt such joy hearing those to words to describe anything about me.

Today someone told me I looked twenty years younger. Another said I should teach a class on weight loss.

(Before)                                        (After)

 I think there's a slender person inside each of us. I read two books this year that oddly had to do with weight, the mental battles and physical challenges one deals with surrounding that subject. 

I enjoyed both books very much and hope you might to.

The Elephant in the Room: One Fat Man's Questto Get Smaller in a Growing America by Tommy Tomlinson


Heavy: An American Memoir  by Kiese Layman



So much of life is a battlefield of the mind. It's all between the ears as I like to say.

Recently David Hayaward, aka the Naked Pastor tweeted this graphic, which resonated with me.

If you don't mind, it don't matter is a phrase I'd heard in the Marine Corps a bit here and there over the years.

Dr. Phil tells us that we talk to ourselves more than any other person, animal or thing. More than your parents, your kids, your co-workers, your pets, your spouse, yes, even your god(s).

So that inner talk should be positive.

My wife, since being diagnosed with Myasthenia Gravis, an incurable neuromuscular autoimmune disease, blogged about talking to an enlarged and printed on canvas portrait I placed on the wall of her. She was seeking to the previous her. Missing her old self. Struggling with finding a new normal.

My great friend and fellow Marine Joe, aka "Guido," whom I consider a brother recently had to have the most invasive surgery on his heart because of some inner stuff that seemed undetectable even with a battery of tests. Thankfully his wife is a cardiac nurse and knew he needed a CT Calcium Score, even though insurance won't pay for it. Without that test, he would likely have continued to push through any discomfort he may have experienced and dropped dead in the middle of a workout or even a mundane task such as taking out the trash. He was a ticking time bomb that outwardly showed little to no signs. (Please follow the link and get this test done. The cost is usually about $100.)

We live in a reactive rather than proactive world. Government, healthcare, our personal lives are all wrapped in this mindset of if it ain't broke, don't fix it and the stats show we're reaping from it.

Experiencing all of the above, I've learned a good bit about our guts. Not the brave type but our microbiome. The multitude of bacteria, good and bad that play a more significant role in our lives than we're informed about. Hippocrates, the father of medicine asserted that all disease starts in the gut. So, with the handful of things I was dealing with and the belief that my gut was the culprit, I set out to find and incorporate a remedy. I am a fixer after all, as my wife likes to point out. 

I was super fortunate to have another great friend who'd already started down this road and she, Jacqui has been an invaluable resource for guidance. She's a great cheerleader and is remarkably savvy at finding just the right buttons to press to get and keep you on track for any personality type. I happen to be a contrarian that will rebuff everything as hocus-pocus hogwash initially until I can wrestle with it and find sufficient evidence and get my mind wrapped around the idea I don't already know everything.

Today is Mothers Day. I started this post as soon as I got home from visiting my ninety year old mother. 

She's in a home and slipping away little by little due to dementia. We've always sang songs together and it's the one thing I can do to bring her to be present. She hears my voice, she recognizes the lyric and she joins in. Less and less so lately. I miss my mother's vibrancy. I miss her good singing voice. I miss the sparkle in her eyes. I miss the wisdom she'd share when I needed it most.

Anita once thanked me for not abandoning her when her world turned upside down. At the onset of her disease she couldn't bathe or dress herself. I was fully prepared to live like that for the rest of our lives. It hurt my feelings to think she could even imagine that I'd be capable of such a thing. Inside, from my perspective, she's no different from the woman in the photo. Her previous self as she calls it. But I understand her just being thankful. And we're both thankful that she's come a long way since then and is about to participate in her first Walk for MG, to raise funds for research and awareness. (If you'd like to donate or participate, please use the link) She is also about to start an MG support group in Columbia, SC. 

And I know, though Mama is slow to respond, 

inside, she's still the amazing woman I've had the privilege of calling Mama from my very first breath...

 Through the years

No matter her outward condition,

She's always...

Mama

Happy Productive New Year - Respect Beer

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2018 brought many trials and I feel as though I/we have weathered the storms and come through in better shape. On a personal note, I stopped drinking beer and went on a low carbohydrate diet and managed to lose 41 pounds in 60 days. #Bam

I went on a trash pick up walk down our residential lake front street on Christmas day, bagging four bags of mostly beer cans but found a variety of other stuff as well. Noting too that some of the residents, all of whom live on the same side of the street, blow their leaves and other yard debris across the street into the ditch. The same ditch that catches the trash that falls off of vehicles headed for the dump and the cans of beer from those who neither respect beer or property.

Today, wanting to start the New Years with being productive, I went on another trash pick up walk in the opposite direction this time managing to fill five trash bags in a one mile out and one mile back or other side of the street trip.

I got to taking note of what seemed to be the item I found along side the road the most. Among the many items were Bud Light, Miller Lite, Natural Lite and Michelob Ultra Lite beer cans. Bud light being the most numerous with Natural Light a close second.

Shitty people drink shitty beer.

Now I am fully aware that Bud Light is the biggest selling beer in the world. Very much so here in the Bible thumping South. Seems the local Bubba's toss their stash of empties on the way home so their wives or mommies or their wives whom they call mommy in a FOX NEWS watching Pence-onian way. They don't respect beer by drinking the crap they drink and they don't respect the community or other people's property by tossing it out of their vehicles.

Education in the South is notoriously lacking. The numbers don't lie. The average is below the rest of the nation. South Carolina has jumped on the band wagon fully with Trump and contributed to the country's demise with the likes of Nikki Haley, Mick Mulvaney and the current Gropenfurher-ass kissing governor McMaster. The state song should be, "Thank God for Mississippi." Often the only other state lower on the totem pole.

I found very few water bottles. Seems Gomer's are too wise to pay for bottle water. I mean you can get water for free from the lake that's full of coal ash heavy metals from upstream. But there were plenty of Gatorade bottles. The density reasons that sodium filled colored sugar water is worthy of their hard earned cash.

I found one sippy pouch thing. I would understand this. There's no helmet law in SC and these brainless wonders tote their younguns round in the back of the truck with the untethered dawg. Surely an unenvironmentally minded kid would toss a pouch or two.

I found a Modelo beer can. There have been a few Mexican crew's doing roofing and construction in the area.  Not bad, just one can from a a few crews.

I found a few Bud Light aluminum bottles. One of them unopened/full. To this person, you too get an F but with a gold star.

To the rest of the beer can tossers, you all get an F. You are lower than a feckless c*nt. You disrespect beer and environment. You're a lot like gropenfurher, unworthy, pathetic and juvenile.

Soda cans you say? Yup, there were some of those. Not many. Guess which brand was found the most.  Not CocaCola or Pepsi, the highest selling brands on the planet. Nope. Here's a hint, we're in the South. Think density..... Mountain Dew. Yup the teeth rotting, jaw clenching energy drink of rednecks from 2 to 92.

Note that there was not one single Craft beer can or bottle. NOT A SINGLE FREAKING ONE.

Because Craft Beer Drinkers, respect beer and they respect the environment, much like the craft beer brewers.

People who drink lite or light beers, don't like the taste of beer, they just like to pee a lot. And to litter and to otherwise be unhealthy for planet earth.

Oh and you Mike's Hard Lemonade and Hard Cider drinkers, you suck too. There was one little cutesy Seagrams fruity drink glass bottle. A teen girl likely had her first drink ever and had difficulty walking much less carrying the bottle to dispose of properly. You get a pass this time but don't make a habit of it.

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