One of the great tragedies that resulted from the Protestant revolution in the 16th century was the splitting of Christianity not just between Protetstant and Catholic, but into two cultures. today all Christians share certain key cultural aspects, such as the celebration of Easter, and vary on others, such as the celebration of Lent (which is actually becoming more popular among Protestants). We share teh same moral code devoted to family service and charity, but there are some disagreements on certain details.
Another sad result of the culture clash is that we no longer share a history. I recently came across an astounding bit of history so recent that some witnesses may still be alive, taken as a matter of fact, not faith, by most Catholics but never even heard of by most Protestants - the visions of "Our Lady of Fatima."
Of course, therein lies the silence. One of the biggest cultural differences between Catholics and Protestants is the treatment of Mary. Most Protestants see reports of Mary sightings as laughable hogwash, but so does the Catholic Church. In general, all reports of "miracles" are investigated with a skepticism bordering cynicism. And it is this very cynicism that makes "approved" sightings of Mary that much more spectacular. Rather than encouraging mass hysteria, the Catholic Church has only approved 15 of 265 supposed Mary sightings as being considered legitimate, and many of these approved only after years or centuries of investigation.
In 1916 and 1917, three Portuguese children claimed to see visions of angel and Mary on a hillside. The angel taught them to pray. When Mary appeared, she toled them she would return on the 13th of the month for six months. When word of the visions (spread by the excitable youngest child) got out, the children were told to be silent by their parents, their priest, and by the local authorities (the Portuguese government severely restricted the role of the church at the time). But even upon threat of torture or death, the children would not recant.
Each month they returned to the hillside where they saw "the Lady." A large crowd began to gather. Some claimed to see lights when the lady was present. Many said the sun dimmed or a cloud appeared.
The lady told the children that she would bring them all to heaven - the youngest two very soon. She also showed them three visions, called secrets: a vision of Hell, a prophesy that World War I would end and be followed by an even more terrible war, and a vision of persecutions of Christians. In addition, she predicted that Russia would soon become a threat to the entire world.
So far I am sure most people are not impressed. Visions may be imaginations. Prophecy may be lucky or only as authentic as any other non-religious prophecy (like Nostradamus). But what happened nexte is what makes me consider these events remarkable. It made many people believe the children who had not before. Now, remember the year was 1917 - a far cry from ancient Israel or the Dark Ages where superstition was compounded by a lack of scientific knowledge. Nor was the story passed down orally for years before finally being recorded.
On October 13, 1917, the children reported that there would be a miracle, so that those who could not see "the Lady" would believe. The hillside was crowded with somewhere between 30,000 and 100,000 people. As they looked on, the sun dimmed so they could see it without hurting their eyes. Then it began to spin and change colors - all colors of the rainbow. Most astonishing of all, it turned bright red and rushed towards the earth. After the display, the clothes of the people which had been soaked with rain, were left completely dry. Of all the thousands there that day, no one has ever contracdicted this story, and hundreds or thousands were personally interviewed about what they saw.
Scientists have offered explanations, but are mostly baffled. Some say the crowd's eyes were playing tricks on them from staring at the sun. Others compare it to events in China, but the conditions and location would not fit a mirage of sorts. All explanations lack something. Further, a miracle can easily have a scientific explanation, but it may be the timing or results that make it miraculous (an environmental phenomenon that just happened to occur that day).
Personally, I see power displayed on a scale only God could pull off - commanding the sun or, perhaps, giving each of the thousands of attendees the same vision. Either way, the scale is grand. Imagine if instead, all the attendees had died of...something. That would be in our history books it would be so huge. And yet, for a large group of people, these events are unknown. Most Protestants can't decide what to make of the events becuase they don't even know they happened.
One final note. Even to Protestants the Pope is an important figure who can't be ignored. Many Protestants sneer at the concept of a pope. And yet, especially under John Paul II, the pope is as important as any world leader. Although I cannot speak for all Protestants, I think we all applaud him when he stands up for the Christian faith and morals. The issues he addresses are those we all face to some extent. We judge him if he says something we consider preposterous.
And so now I see that Catholics and Protestants are united on the subject. While Protestants decided which papal declarations and actions are legitimate, Catholics try to influence the pope. For over 50 years, Catholics around the globe have been begging the popes to perform an act of consecration of Russia which was requested by the Lady of Fatima. This simple request went mostly unheeded until 1984. Subsequently, Communism fell in 1989. Am I saying the pope miraculously cused this - not necessarily.
I guess what I'm stunned by is the deeper meaning and pain that the Cold War must have had to devout Catholics, who have been praying for Russia for decades. A large piece of our history was, for some, a spiritual battle that Protestants don't even know about.
Call it what you will, the spiritual culture of Catholics, with their stories of saints and miracles, their devotions and holy dyas, is rich and deept and connected to all Christians' heritage. It is a shame that Protestants have to miss out on it.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Thursday, November 12, 2009
The Bill of Not-Rights
When our forefathers founded this country, they did so on the foundation that all of us are endowed with certain inalienable rights such as the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. These rights they codified into the Consitution as the Bill of Rights - ten rights they believed everyone had. Rights that had been trampled on under Britain.
Some of those rights are under attack today. For instance, the right to bear arms. While we have a right to bear arms, we do not have a right to use those weapons to attack anyone at will. People have a right to not be murdered which outweighs any mis-use of weapons. Still, even though their issue is with those who would take advantage of a right, there are people who want to take that right away from everyone.
In the same manner, there are rights that it seems today people think they have when, in fact, they have no such thing. I am going to outline the Bill of Not-Rights - things that people feel they are entitled to, perhaps under the real Bill of Rights, when in fact they are not.
1. You do not have the right to a TV. Earlier this year our congressmen and even our President wasted precious time debating if the switch to High Definition TV should carry on as planned, although many Americans weren't ready for it. It seemed they were preparing for some sort of Apocalypse, should the switch be made too early. Convert boxes were given away to those who could not afford to buy one. Taxpayer money was used to buy devices so people could rot their minds and bodies in front of the tube. (In his defense, President Obaman needed everyone to have TV access so he could interrupt their regularly scheduled programs for his never ending string of speeches).
Another place we see people believing in a "right" to telivision is prison. Prisons have become notorious for changing the word "privilege" into the word "right" all in the name of avoiding "cruel and unusual punishment" (missing Oprah). In fact, the changing of privileges to rights in prison may have impacted the expectations of society to what they are today. "If someone in prison has accrss to free TV, internet, and college courses, so should I!"
2. We do not have a right not to be offended or feel uncomfortable. In protecting freedom of speech means protecting free speech for the very people who offend us the most, knowing that when we speak out, our rights will also be preserved. Free speech is a government protected right. It does necessarily apply to private institutions. You can't insult your boss and not get fired. You can't cuss in front of your mom and not get your mouth washed out with soap. You can't call Jimmy "fatso" on the playground and not get in trouble. What it means is that the government can't arrest you for any of these things. Businesses and institutions have rules for professionalism and how things are to be done.
However, today it seems that the nonexistent "right" to not be insulted or not feel uncomfortable has gone too far. When people are offended they try to claim outlandish reasons for involving the government in silencing the offender. Verbal assault! It seemed they were trying to incite a riot! I didn't feel safe around them!
3. You do not have a right to government money. Frankly, entitlement programs have gone a bit too far in this country, but that's not what I'm talking about right now. I'm talking about the hundreds of not-for-profit organizations that are sponsored by the government. When President Obama took office earlier this year, he reversed a standing policy whereby federal money would not go to fetal stem cell research. Upon signing the new law, he described the former policy as dangerous and said something to the effect that morals shouldn't get in the way of progress. No matter what your view on stem cell research, the President was fundamentally wrong. Before he reserved it, no federal moeny coult go towards this particular research. Private money was available to fund it.
The government has no obligation to fund any non-profit endeavor, whether scientific, social, environmental, or academic. These organizations, many who do good things, do not have a right to taxpayer money. Obama was wrong to assume that witholding federal funds from a cause would automatically force it to deteriorate and end progress as we know it.
First of all, the money is neither the President's nor congress's. It is ours. Ultimately, everyone will have an opinion on the programs that the money goes to, with at least 50% against any one particular program. Second, these entities are subject to the same free market rules as for-profit agencies. Look at the space program - as private investors see a financial interest in getting to space, they have funded private reasearch programs and made considerable progress. Most organizations that the government helps to fund also have their own sources of revenue. The final problem with the perceived "right" to funding is that when private institutions accept government money, they also accept government oversight, which often deteriorates and muddles the whole process.
However, you often hear of the perceived "right" to government funding in academia and art. For instance, I recently heard of a school that refused to stop showing pornographic films because of "freedom of speech." While freedom of speech is a right, what the school didn't seem to understand is that they didn't have a "right" to use state funding for something that offensive to most people. As I said before, we don't have a right not to be offended. But neither do schools, or any government institutions, have a fundamental right to spend our money on projects that are morally wrong or just plain silly.
4. You do not have a right to an easy life. But you do have the right to declare bankruptcy. No one seems to remember that right before the 2008 election, Obama publicly declared that there was no need for a comprehensive overhaul of healthcare that would provide healthcare to all Americans. Don't you remember? It took a few days for it to sink in for me, too. In the last debate, Obama explained that he voted against a bill in Illinois that would require doctors to provide medical treatment to babies that were born as a result of failed abortions. His resonse, "I voted against it because I knew the doctors were going to treat the babies anyway." He was so right.
Doctors are bound by a system of rights that is older than our Bill of Rights. They are bound to treat anyone who comes to them in need of their help, especially if their life is in danger. So, you see, we do have a right to healthcare.
But that's not really what's at issue here. What people perceive is that they have a right to "affordable health care." While this would be nice, it is not a fundamental right. Remember life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? Right to healthcare, which we have, is a right to life. The problem is that when good people get sick they may end up with six figure hospital bills that can only be paid in a form such as a second mortgage. If they have no insurance, or sometimes even if they do, a hospital stay can literally bankrupt them. People perceive that they should have a right to healthcare without having to run up such huge debts, but as nice as that would be (and yes, things can be done with the current system to help lower costs) it is not a right. We have the right to pursue happiness. There is no guarantee that we will obtain it!
In ancient days, those who could not repay their debts were sent to prison or sold into slavery to repay them. In America we have a wonderful system that allows us to declare bankruptcy when debt becomes impossible to repay. It is not an "easy out." It makes it very hard to live life following a bankruptcy. And it is not ethical to run up debts just to declare bankruptcy and get out of them. However, we do have that option, instead of being sent to Australia.
Another option is to work hard, to not spend as much money on luxuries, and to pay off a little of the hospital debt each month. Because that is another right that we do have - a right to dignity.
5. The final right we perceive is a touchy subject, but all of the perceived "rights" above culminated in one big mistake. In the case of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court ruled that a woman had a right to an abortion.
Now, my views on abortion have evolved as I've grown up, but I have always been disturbed by the logic of the court. The ruling was based on a right to privacy. As far as I know, I don't see how pregnancy and privacy are related - unless the plaintiff didn't want anyone to know she was pregnant.
However, I would attempt to take this from a logical viewpoint - let's try to ignore morals for just a moment. We have a right to health. In a situation that threatens the life of a woman or the life of a baby, she should have a right to decide if she is willing to give up her life for that child. That is a right.
But there is no "fundamental" right that says a woman has a right to not have a kid if she gets pregnant. Taking morals out of it, the ruling of the court should have been that the abortion was legal if it was legal and illegal if illegal. The decision effectively legalized abortion for everyone in America, but by creating a "right" that did not actually exist.
Legalizing abortion is one thing, but the perception of many is that by making abortion a "right," then women had a right to a cheap or free abortion, an abortion without barriers - this goes back to the perceived "right" to be financially safe. It gave women the perception that they had a "right" to an easy life - such as the perceived "right" of having TV access all the time. And it gave women the idea that they had the "right" not to be offended - by people judging them for becoming pregnant, by abortion protesters, etc. It means people think that the government has a resonsibility to fund abortion clinics, which have a "right" to run.
I am not trying to throw an emotional and sensitive argument into an otherwise logical debate. I am just trying to show an example of what happens when people confuse "rights" with privileges. Life is hard. We are so lucky to be in a country that allows us to reach our potential. We also have a lot of laws and programs that help to make life easier for us, in whatever way is best for us. Not all these laws or programs are fundamentally bad or wrong. Nor are ideas of loving people and getting along.
However, none of these things should be confused with rights - inalienable rights that no one can, or should, take away. What we can do is use the rights we do have - the Bill of Rights and combine them with rights that were not canonized - such as the right to dignity, the right to hope, the right to a positive outlook, the right to dream. Because if our "rights" ever infringe upon the rights of others, then they cannot be rights at all.
Some of those rights are under attack today. For instance, the right to bear arms. While we have a right to bear arms, we do not have a right to use those weapons to attack anyone at will. People have a right to not be murdered which outweighs any mis-use of weapons. Still, even though their issue is with those who would take advantage of a right, there are people who want to take that right away from everyone.
In the same manner, there are rights that it seems today people think they have when, in fact, they have no such thing. I am going to outline the Bill of Not-Rights - things that people feel they are entitled to, perhaps under the real Bill of Rights, when in fact they are not.
1. You do not have the right to a TV. Earlier this year our congressmen and even our President wasted precious time debating if the switch to High Definition TV should carry on as planned, although many Americans weren't ready for it. It seemed they were preparing for some sort of Apocalypse, should the switch be made too early. Convert boxes were given away to those who could not afford to buy one. Taxpayer money was used to buy devices so people could rot their minds and bodies in front of the tube. (In his defense, President Obaman needed everyone to have TV access so he could interrupt their regularly scheduled programs for his never ending string of speeches).
Another place we see people believing in a "right" to telivision is prison. Prisons have become notorious for changing the word "privilege" into the word "right" all in the name of avoiding "cruel and unusual punishment" (missing Oprah). In fact, the changing of privileges to rights in prison may have impacted the expectations of society to what they are today. "If someone in prison has accrss to free TV, internet, and college courses, so should I!"
2. We do not have a right not to be offended or feel uncomfortable. In protecting freedom of speech means protecting free speech for the very people who offend us the most, knowing that when we speak out, our rights will also be preserved. Free speech is a government protected right. It does necessarily apply to private institutions. You can't insult your boss and not get fired. You can't cuss in front of your mom and not get your mouth washed out with soap. You can't call Jimmy "fatso" on the playground and not get in trouble. What it means is that the government can't arrest you for any of these things. Businesses and institutions have rules for professionalism and how things are to be done.
However, today it seems that the nonexistent "right" to not be insulted or not feel uncomfortable has gone too far. When people are offended they try to claim outlandish reasons for involving the government in silencing the offender. Verbal assault! It seemed they were trying to incite a riot! I didn't feel safe around them!
3. You do not have a right to government money. Frankly, entitlement programs have gone a bit too far in this country, but that's not what I'm talking about right now. I'm talking about the hundreds of not-for-profit organizations that are sponsored by the government. When President Obama took office earlier this year, he reversed a standing policy whereby federal money would not go to fetal stem cell research. Upon signing the new law, he described the former policy as dangerous and said something to the effect that morals shouldn't get in the way of progress. No matter what your view on stem cell research, the President was fundamentally wrong. Before he reserved it, no federal moeny coult go towards this particular research. Private money was available to fund it.
The government has no obligation to fund any non-profit endeavor, whether scientific, social, environmental, or academic. These organizations, many who do good things, do not have a right to taxpayer money. Obama was wrong to assume that witholding federal funds from a cause would automatically force it to deteriorate and end progress as we know it.
First of all, the money is neither the President's nor congress's. It is ours. Ultimately, everyone will have an opinion on the programs that the money goes to, with at least 50% against any one particular program. Second, these entities are subject to the same free market rules as for-profit agencies. Look at the space program - as private investors see a financial interest in getting to space, they have funded private reasearch programs and made considerable progress. Most organizations that the government helps to fund also have their own sources of revenue. The final problem with the perceived "right" to funding is that when private institutions accept government money, they also accept government oversight, which often deteriorates and muddles the whole process.
However, you often hear of the perceived "right" to government funding in academia and art. For instance, I recently heard of a school that refused to stop showing pornographic films because of "freedom of speech." While freedom of speech is a right, what the school didn't seem to understand is that they didn't have a "right" to use state funding for something that offensive to most people. As I said before, we don't have a right not to be offended. But neither do schools, or any government institutions, have a fundamental right to spend our money on projects that are morally wrong or just plain silly.
4. You do not have a right to an easy life. But you do have the right to declare bankruptcy. No one seems to remember that right before the 2008 election, Obama publicly declared that there was no need for a comprehensive overhaul of healthcare that would provide healthcare to all Americans. Don't you remember? It took a few days for it to sink in for me, too. In the last debate, Obama explained that he voted against a bill in Illinois that would require doctors to provide medical treatment to babies that were born as a result of failed abortions. His resonse, "I voted against it because I knew the doctors were going to treat the babies anyway." He was so right.
Doctors are bound by a system of rights that is older than our Bill of Rights. They are bound to treat anyone who comes to them in need of their help, especially if their life is in danger. So, you see, we do have a right to healthcare.
But that's not really what's at issue here. What people perceive is that they have a right to "affordable health care." While this would be nice, it is not a fundamental right. Remember life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? Right to healthcare, which we have, is a right to life. The problem is that when good people get sick they may end up with six figure hospital bills that can only be paid in a form such as a second mortgage. If they have no insurance, or sometimes even if they do, a hospital stay can literally bankrupt them. People perceive that they should have a right to healthcare without having to run up such huge debts, but as nice as that would be (and yes, things can be done with the current system to help lower costs) it is not a right. We have the right to pursue happiness. There is no guarantee that we will obtain it!
In ancient days, those who could not repay their debts were sent to prison or sold into slavery to repay them. In America we have a wonderful system that allows us to declare bankruptcy when debt becomes impossible to repay. It is not an "easy out." It makes it very hard to live life following a bankruptcy. And it is not ethical to run up debts just to declare bankruptcy and get out of them. However, we do have that option, instead of being sent to Australia.
Another option is to work hard, to not spend as much money on luxuries, and to pay off a little of the hospital debt each month. Because that is another right that we do have - a right to dignity.
5. The final right we perceive is a touchy subject, but all of the perceived "rights" above culminated in one big mistake. In the case of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court ruled that a woman had a right to an abortion.
Now, my views on abortion have evolved as I've grown up, but I have always been disturbed by the logic of the court. The ruling was based on a right to privacy. As far as I know, I don't see how pregnancy and privacy are related - unless the plaintiff didn't want anyone to know she was pregnant.
However, I would attempt to take this from a logical viewpoint - let's try to ignore morals for just a moment. We have a right to health. In a situation that threatens the life of a woman or the life of a baby, she should have a right to decide if she is willing to give up her life for that child. That is a right.
But there is no "fundamental" right that says a woman has a right to not have a kid if she gets pregnant. Taking morals out of it, the ruling of the court should have been that the abortion was legal if it was legal and illegal if illegal. The decision effectively legalized abortion for everyone in America, but by creating a "right" that did not actually exist.
Legalizing abortion is one thing, but the perception of many is that by making abortion a "right," then women had a right to a cheap or free abortion, an abortion without barriers - this goes back to the perceived "right" to be financially safe. It gave women the perception that they had a "right" to an easy life - such as the perceived "right" of having TV access all the time. And it gave women the idea that they had the "right" not to be offended - by people judging them for becoming pregnant, by abortion protesters, etc. It means people think that the government has a resonsibility to fund abortion clinics, which have a "right" to run.
I am not trying to throw an emotional and sensitive argument into an otherwise logical debate. I am just trying to show an example of what happens when people confuse "rights" with privileges. Life is hard. We are so lucky to be in a country that allows us to reach our potential. We also have a lot of laws and programs that help to make life easier for us, in whatever way is best for us. Not all these laws or programs are fundamentally bad or wrong. Nor are ideas of loving people and getting along.
However, none of these things should be confused with rights - inalienable rights that no one can, or should, take away. What we can do is use the rights we do have - the Bill of Rights and combine them with rights that were not canonized - such as the right to dignity, the right to hope, the right to a positive outlook, the right to dream. Because if our "rights" ever infringe upon the rights of others, then they cannot be rights at all.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
The Diet
When I came back from Minneapolis at the end of April and jumped on my Wii, I realized something had to change. My general philosophy for maintaining a healthy weight of “be careful” wasn’t working. Since busy season had started, I had gained 8%, and 13% since I had started my new job a year and a half before. While not overweight, I hovered dangerously close to the top of the healthy BMI category. My other general philosophy of, “I’ll walk it off in the summer when I have more time,” was also obviously not going to work. I had jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire – they made it clear that I would be in busy season throughout the summer (until mid-October, to be exact).
Knowing that I no longer had the luxury of exercising to stay in shape, I decided to resort to something I had never done before – dieting. Ugh.
My sister is a dietician, so I immediately enlisted her help. I already knew that her belief system centered around calorie counting (in addition to a healthy lifestyle). She told me to “exercise” however I could – like parking far away from the building, and to not go below 1200 calories a day. I also went onto MSN health, which told me that to maintain the weight I want I should eat 1500 calories. Essentially, if I continued my current lack of exercise but ate only 1500 calories per day, then over time I would naturally fall back down to my college weight level.
This was much harder than it appeared. My first day I mistakenly believed I could have 1800 calories, so I counted and counted, and by the time I went to bed, I had used them all up. It was painful. I wanted to cry. And then I found out the real number I had to reach – somewhere between 1200 and 1600 calories. Yuck. However, after the first week, I had changed my tune. Part of calorie counting was combating portion distortion. We were ordering all our meals, which made healthy choices hard to come by. So when they ordered Chipotle, I gasped at my 700 calorie burrito. But when I considered that I could fill myself on half of it, I now had two meals. Likewise, I had always dreaded and feared vegetables. But when we ordered sandwiches from Subway, I realized that I could add bulk without changing the calorie count of my sandwich. I drank much more water. The pounds melted off, and I felt better.
Unfortunately, the summer ended relatively flat for total weight loss for me. One reason was that I didn’t count calories on weekends. Self-denial can lead down a slippery road to binging, and my theory was to neither binge nor deny myself on the weekends. Another problem was balancing my diet. I would play with the food pyramid online to find a way to get my full servings of nutrients in my allotted calories. But once I squeezed in my daily pop (reduced to only 12 ounces), I had tipped over the line. Some nutrient was going to have to go, because I could never give up pop. Asking friends to challenge me to stay healthy didn’t work either – they didn’t want to work at it. The last problem was dipping down into the 1200 calorie range. I knew better than to do this. However, during each day I was so cautious about my calories. I dreaded getting up to 1600 by lunchtime – then what? So I overcompensated to some extent. I ate incredibly light throughout the day, and if, at the end of the day, I still had calories, I would indulge in a yummy treat. However, I began to wonder if 1200 was more of an arbitrary number. What if it was actually 1300 calories for me? I had always had a better metabolism than my family. Was I busting mine? Would I permanently damage it so that weight loss in the future would be that much harder?
By August, stress, long hours at work, and anger at not being able to eat yummy goodies set in. I gave up the whole idea, thinking, “I have maintained a healthy weight all my life without paying attention, so who cares?” In addition, I was working long hours and didn’t want to check my weight on my Wii daily. Bad idea.The next time I stepped on, I was over the “healthy weight” BMI and rising. It was only a 4% increase from May, but a 17% increase from college and a 13% increase from a year ago. Add to that my dietician sister telling me that “overweight is overweight” and “healthy is healthy.” Could a few pounds really have thrown me from the healthy to heart disease and cholesterol problems category? Unlikely. However, I renewed my weight-loss goals. This time, due to increased free time, I combined diet with exercise. I made it a goal to meet my 1600 calories a day, at least for the time being, and to adjust down only if I felt like I was leveling off. Things started to look better.
I write this today because I have been told that keeping a food journal and writing about your diet experience helps. It keeps you accountable, for one. It keeps you motivated also – it reminds me how when I just make small lifestyle changes my overall wellness can be improved.
Knowing that I no longer had the luxury of exercising to stay in shape, I decided to resort to something I had never done before – dieting. Ugh.
My sister is a dietician, so I immediately enlisted her help. I already knew that her belief system centered around calorie counting (in addition to a healthy lifestyle). She told me to “exercise” however I could – like parking far away from the building, and to not go below 1200 calories a day. I also went onto MSN health, which told me that to maintain the weight I want I should eat 1500 calories. Essentially, if I continued my current lack of exercise but ate only 1500 calories per day, then over time I would naturally fall back down to my college weight level.
This was much harder than it appeared. My first day I mistakenly believed I could have 1800 calories, so I counted and counted, and by the time I went to bed, I had used them all up. It was painful. I wanted to cry. And then I found out the real number I had to reach – somewhere between 1200 and 1600 calories. Yuck. However, after the first week, I had changed my tune. Part of calorie counting was combating portion distortion. We were ordering all our meals, which made healthy choices hard to come by. So when they ordered Chipotle, I gasped at my 700 calorie burrito. But when I considered that I could fill myself on half of it, I now had two meals. Likewise, I had always dreaded and feared vegetables. But when we ordered sandwiches from Subway, I realized that I could add bulk without changing the calorie count of my sandwich. I drank much more water. The pounds melted off, and I felt better.
Unfortunately, the summer ended relatively flat for total weight loss for me. One reason was that I didn’t count calories on weekends. Self-denial can lead down a slippery road to binging, and my theory was to neither binge nor deny myself on the weekends. Another problem was balancing my diet. I would play with the food pyramid online to find a way to get my full servings of nutrients in my allotted calories. But once I squeezed in my daily pop (reduced to only 12 ounces), I had tipped over the line. Some nutrient was going to have to go, because I could never give up pop. Asking friends to challenge me to stay healthy didn’t work either – they didn’t want to work at it. The last problem was dipping down into the 1200 calorie range. I knew better than to do this. However, during each day I was so cautious about my calories. I dreaded getting up to 1600 by lunchtime – then what? So I overcompensated to some extent. I ate incredibly light throughout the day, and if, at the end of the day, I still had calories, I would indulge in a yummy treat. However, I began to wonder if 1200 was more of an arbitrary number. What if it was actually 1300 calories for me? I had always had a better metabolism than my family. Was I busting mine? Would I permanently damage it so that weight loss in the future would be that much harder?
By August, stress, long hours at work, and anger at not being able to eat yummy goodies set in. I gave up the whole idea, thinking, “I have maintained a healthy weight all my life without paying attention, so who cares?” In addition, I was working long hours and didn’t want to check my weight on my Wii daily. Bad idea.The next time I stepped on, I was over the “healthy weight” BMI and rising. It was only a 4% increase from May, but a 17% increase from college and a 13% increase from a year ago. Add to that my dietician sister telling me that “overweight is overweight” and “healthy is healthy.” Could a few pounds really have thrown me from the healthy to heart disease and cholesterol problems category? Unlikely. However, I renewed my weight-loss goals. This time, due to increased free time, I combined diet with exercise. I made it a goal to meet my 1600 calories a day, at least for the time being, and to adjust down only if I felt like I was leveling off. Things started to look better.
I write this today because I have been told that keeping a food journal and writing about your diet experience helps. It keeps you accountable, for one. It keeps you motivated also – it reminds me how when I just make small lifestyle changes my overall wellness can be improved.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Silver Bells
On my way home from work on November 2nd, I heard the bells. Silver Bells. Apparently it’s Christmas time in the city. The Christmas season seems to start a little earlier every year, but November 2nd seemed a little overboard. Pre-Thanksgiving? Really?
However, the music didn’t really bother me all that much. When it gets dark out at 4:30, and when it’s generally too cold to do anything outside, this time of year, which is beautiful during the day, can become gloomy and strange at night. Hearing Christmas songs as I drove home in the dark didn’t upset me. It cheered me.
I’ve always thought that Christmas was an ill-timed holiday. While the winter solstice means that days will start getting longer again, we spend a month of celebrating only to head in to the coldest dreariest time of the year. I’ve always wanted to move the Holiday back so that we have something to celebrate in the awfully cold months, rather than the nice fall months.
But I can take moving it earlier, too.
People talk about a danger of too much Christmas. That if we start it too early, it will take the magic away. I suppose that’s true. We can only be charitable and cheery for so long. Christmas stresses people out and can be challenging to our finances.
However, there is something I like about hearing Christmas music on the radio. An all-Christmas radio station simply cannot avoid throwing a few religious songs into a normally secular mix. No matter if it’s music, movies, or people shouting, “Merry Christmas!” the season has stood strong in an otherwise secular atheist world. (By the way, the commercialization of Christmas is not a bad thing when combined with the knowledge of the purpose for why we celebrate. Commercialization is a way to make it fun. Gift giving is an extension of other acts of charity performed throughout the season. Showing love to people and giving gifts can never inherently be bad – it is only bad when it loses it’s meaning. Whether you are an atheist or Christian, the gift-giving of Christmas is a great tradition).
No wonder people want to tear Christmas apart. Even a non-religious Christmas song still talks about Christmas (Christ) and “good cheer.” And if you listen to the religious or semi-religious carols, you will be amazed at how much more than just the nativity they tell. Some provide a biography of Jesus, others talk about how he came down to save us all, and others talk about the love of God to do all this for us. Quite different from just “Silent Night, Holy Night.”
For this reason alone, I think that playing Christmas music early is just fine! Maybe the music can remind us all about our heritage and our faith. It may bring others closer to Christ. For others, it may just make them feel warm and fuzzy in the dark nights. (By the way, I still find it inappropriate to play in the day time – when the sun is out, it is still just fall…It could be early October for all I know, so I try to avoid those Christmas stations until after sundown).
Finally, I'd like to address the argument that we can ruin the Christmas spirit by extending the Holiday. This is too true, based on history. There was a time when the Christmas spirit abounded. It was Christmas every day. Back in the days of the early church, people got excited about Jesus all year long. Early Christians shared all they had – which we don’t even do at Christmas. They were experts in turning the other cheek, and they followed their beliefs to the death. We tear down our nativity scenes when someone complains. Does our apathy to our great Christian heritage come from too much exposure? While I don’t think that’s the main reason at all, it could be a factor.
Yes, we should celebrate Christmas all year round. Maybe not in the secular sense, or even in the sense of being giving in the material sense. But we should be making a big deal, a big fuss, and a big party out of the fact that our Lord would come down to earth to save us all. Now that is something worth celebrating early.
However, the music didn’t really bother me all that much. When it gets dark out at 4:30, and when it’s generally too cold to do anything outside, this time of year, which is beautiful during the day, can become gloomy and strange at night. Hearing Christmas songs as I drove home in the dark didn’t upset me. It cheered me.
I’ve always thought that Christmas was an ill-timed holiday. While the winter solstice means that days will start getting longer again, we spend a month of celebrating only to head in to the coldest dreariest time of the year. I’ve always wanted to move the Holiday back so that we have something to celebrate in the awfully cold months, rather than the nice fall months.
But I can take moving it earlier, too.
People talk about a danger of too much Christmas. That if we start it too early, it will take the magic away. I suppose that’s true. We can only be charitable and cheery for so long. Christmas stresses people out and can be challenging to our finances.
However, there is something I like about hearing Christmas music on the radio. An all-Christmas radio station simply cannot avoid throwing a few religious songs into a normally secular mix. No matter if it’s music, movies, or people shouting, “Merry Christmas!” the season has stood strong in an otherwise secular atheist world. (By the way, the commercialization of Christmas is not a bad thing when combined with the knowledge of the purpose for why we celebrate. Commercialization is a way to make it fun. Gift giving is an extension of other acts of charity performed throughout the season. Showing love to people and giving gifts can never inherently be bad – it is only bad when it loses it’s meaning. Whether you are an atheist or Christian, the gift-giving of Christmas is a great tradition).
No wonder people want to tear Christmas apart. Even a non-religious Christmas song still talks about Christmas (Christ) and “good cheer.” And if you listen to the religious or semi-religious carols, you will be amazed at how much more than just the nativity they tell. Some provide a biography of Jesus, others talk about how he came down to save us all, and others talk about the love of God to do all this for us. Quite different from just “Silent Night, Holy Night.”
For this reason alone, I think that playing Christmas music early is just fine! Maybe the music can remind us all about our heritage and our faith. It may bring others closer to Christ. For others, it may just make them feel warm and fuzzy in the dark nights. (By the way, I still find it inappropriate to play in the day time – when the sun is out, it is still just fall…It could be early October for all I know, so I try to avoid those Christmas stations until after sundown).
Finally, I'd like to address the argument that we can ruin the Christmas spirit by extending the Holiday. This is too true, based on history. There was a time when the Christmas spirit abounded. It was Christmas every day. Back in the days of the early church, people got excited about Jesus all year long. Early Christians shared all they had – which we don’t even do at Christmas. They were experts in turning the other cheek, and they followed their beliefs to the death. We tear down our nativity scenes when someone complains. Does our apathy to our great Christian heritage come from too much exposure? While I don’t think that’s the main reason at all, it could be a factor.
Yes, we should celebrate Christmas all year round. Maybe not in the secular sense, or even in the sense of being giving in the material sense. But we should be making a big deal, a big fuss, and a big party out of the fact that our Lord would come down to earth to save us all. Now that is something worth celebrating early.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Lunchtime
I want to try to be more positive. That’s why I gave a shout out to Quik Trip in my last post, and that’s why I plan to honor another establishment for their business model today: Quizno’s.
Quizno’s. Yuck. My traditional response to the deli has been, “Their bread cuts your mouth!” Somewhere between gourmet and stale, their food has just never appealed to me. But I’m not here to talk about the past. I’m here to talk about the present. And the future.
In using a time honored marketing scheme, Quiznos has won me over, and I do not forsee myself turning up my nose to them in the near future. The change came in the form of a coupon sitting in the break room at work. Two coupons actually. Buy a soft drink get a free sub (drink and meal for $2!) and buy a soft drink and get half off the Pick Two selections (which turned out to be about $5 for the meal). My accountant’s brain buzzed with these offers…you can get a hamburger at most fast food restaurants for $1. If you pack lunch, the ingredients probably run you somewhere from $0.50 to $2.
So…technically the offer was still more expensive than packing my own lunch. But still, the brightly colored coupons stared up at me from my desk, begging me to dig deeper. So I did. I read what they offered. It had been a long time since I had been to Quizno’s.
They have a cheesesteak sandwich – something I never used to order but order habitually now at other establishments. They also have an au jus sandwich! Both have basically the same components, beef and cheese. How could anyone go wrong with that?
They also have new types of sandwiches. Something called a torpedo which sounds intriguing. And they have sandwiches called “sammies” which are on pita. YUM! Not to mention chili, tomato soup, and broccoli cheddar soup, all of which I love!
By the time I had finished looking over the coupons and the online menu, I had decided to eat lunch at Quizno’s for the rest of the week! There was certainly enough variety to draw me back over and over – I couldn’t choose! (Besides, it offered me a chance to go outside and warm up and take a nice walk and ask my dad what he thought about the latest news of the day).
So today I toddled on down to Quizno’s (the “beautiful walk” took me by a building being demolished that cracked ominously with each step I took). When I reached the restaurant, I was not disappointed. In fact, I felt frustrated at having to limit my selection and had already formulated my next order in my head before I left.
Honestly, the food wasn’t extraordinary. The deal wasn’t saving me any money. The service was on the slow side. And the Dr. Pepper tasted funny. But yet, somehow I left more than satisfied. I think it was the satisfaction of knowing that a restaurant that had been dead to me before was now open for business. That not only could I eat something off the Quizno’s menu, I would have fun picking it! And knowing that I could look forward to trying a new and interesting creation the next day.
Yes, Quizno’s, your coupon marketing campaign has succeeded. You have made a friend!
Quizno’s. Yuck. My traditional response to the deli has been, “Their bread cuts your mouth!” Somewhere between gourmet and stale, their food has just never appealed to me. But I’m not here to talk about the past. I’m here to talk about the present. And the future.
In using a time honored marketing scheme, Quiznos has won me over, and I do not forsee myself turning up my nose to them in the near future. The change came in the form of a coupon sitting in the break room at work. Two coupons actually. Buy a soft drink get a free sub (drink and meal for $2!) and buy a soft drink and get half off the Pick Two selections (which turned out to be about $5 for the meal). My accountant’s brain buzzed with these offers…you can get a hamburger at most fast food restaurants for $1. If you pack lunch, the ingredients probably run you somewhere from $0.50 to $2.
So…technically the offer was still more expensive than packing my own lunch. But still, the brightly colored coupons stared up at me from my desk, begging me to dig deeper. So I did. I read what they offered. It had been a long time since I had been to Quizno’s.
They have a cheesesteak sandwich – something I never used to order but order habitually now at other establishments. They also have an au jus sandwich! Both have basically the same components, beef and cheese. How could anyone go wrong with that?
They also have new types of sandwiches. Something called a torpedo which sounds intriguing. And they have sandwiches called “sammies” which are on pita. YUM! Not to mention chili, tomato soup, and broccoli cheddar soup, all of which I love!
By the time I had finished looking over the coupons and the online menu, I had decided to eat lunch at Quizno’s for the rest of the week! There was certainly enough variety to draw me back over and over – I couldn’t choose! (Besides, it offered me a chance to go outside and warm up and take a nice walk and ask my dad what he thought about the latest news of the day).
So today I toddled on down to Quizno’s (the “beautiful walk” took me by a building being demolished that cracked ominously with each step I took). When I reached the restaurant, I was not disappointed. In fact, I felt frustrated at having to limit my selection and had already formulated my next order in my head before I left.
Honestly, the food wasn’t extraordinary. The deal wasn’t saving me any money. The service was on the slow side. And the Dr. Pepper tasted funny. But yet, somehow I left more than satisfied. I think it was the satisfaction of knowing that a restaurant that had been dead to me before was now open for business. That not only could I eat something off the Quizno’s menu, I would have fun picking it! And knowing that I could look forward to trying a new and interesting creation the next day.
Yes, Quizno’s, your coupon marketing campaign has succeeded. You have made a friend!
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