Weight Loss and Elimination Diet

So, I've lost about 17 lbs. since the beginning of summer. Well, actually, since the middle of the summer. I guess I was more active this summer than I thought I would be?

Ha. Anyway, I am currently doing an elimination diet. It's a specific diet, geared toward helping with autoimmune diseases. Since I have PCOS, I thought it would be a good idea. :) It seems to have helped-at least with weight loss. I am now on the phasing-in stage, where I add things in one at a time to see how my body reacts to them to see if I can start eating them again. Yesterday I tested lactose-free milk. My sister is doing the diet, too, and she has had problems with dairy in the past. She wanted to see if it was the lactose or the protein that she had issues with, so we tried splitting them up. Today was an off day, where we see if we had a reaction. I had a mild reaction to the milk, but nothing major. I had a runny nose and phlegm. Normally I wouldn't drink 3 glasses of milk in a day, though, so I feel like I wouldn't have that reaction under regular circumstances.

Tomorrow I try potatoes. I have SO missed potatoes. :)

4th of July Discomfort

Happy 4th of July/Independence Day!

Now, I am about to embark on a slightly touchy subject...

When did the 4th of July become synonymous with Veteran's Day and Memorial Day? I understand that we are celebrating the freedom and independence from English rule, but why do we become so outspoken about supporting our troops and thanking those who have served in the armed forces? They were not involved in the Revolutionary War (unless they had access to a tardis or something...forgive me Dr. Who fans if that's not how it works. I admit I haven't seen the show). Not one person alive who served in the armed forces had anything to do with our country's beginnings, nor gained us the initial freedom from England.

Why can't we celebrate those who have served on the already designated holidays SPECIFICALLY for them?! I am so amazed at our need to "hero-ize" people who have been in the armed forces. As a Quaker and pacifist, this really irritates me. I am not pro-war by any means. I am also not (entirely) anti-war, because I will admit that many of the freedoms we have in our country would not exist without them. But come on now...why do we as a country value war? Those in the armed forces that have fought in wars potentially killed other human beings. I would even go as far as to say that many of the human beings they killed in wars were innocent of any wrong doing. Many countries force young men into war, thereby insisting that they kill other young men for a cause they may not even truly understand. I am not saying all those killed are completely innocent, and I do understand the "kill or be killed" mindset. But this is where my deep, deep innermost being struggles. My pastor recently preached a sermon on "that of Jesus" being in everyone, and he challenged us to focus on how those we interacted with were made in God's image and had "that of Jesus" within them.

How can I sit back and allow people to claim that our military men are heroes after considering that they destroyed "that of Jesus" in someone that was made in God's image? It really churns my stomach and makes my heart ache. Can we PLEASE leave the heroism declarations to the holidays set aside for just that and spend today celebrating our freedoms instead?

I hope I have not offended anyone, but I won't apologize. This is my genuine belief, and I sincerely disagree with war and killing. I can't stop it, but I definitely won't approve of it or promote it.

What does it mean to be a patriotic Quaker?

This is blog post I have been pondering for some time. I don't have the time right this moment to type it out, but I wanted to start it so I wouldn't forget about it. I will edit this later. :)

Body Image

I can't say I don't struggle with body image, but I like to think I don't struggle with it as much as I could. I am not thrilled that I carry extra weight, and occasionally I get jealous when I see skinnier girls and hear compliments they get for the outfits they wear (that I feel my body type does not afford me the option to wear). I am more often self-conscious because of my fear of what others think about my body than I am about my own thoughts. I have days where I look down at myself and say, "Wow, these jeans fit well!" or "I look good in this dress/shirt," but all of those wonderful thoughts about myself can go away when I am around others and I start to worry about how THEY think I look.

I am overweight. I don't argue that. Most people I meet are aware that I am overweight, and the ones that aren't away are completely oblivious.

Here's the piece that many people around me don't know-I have PCOS. PCOS is "PolyCystic Ovarian Syndrome", which has many symptoms attached to it. When you read (or hear) that name, you might think it's scarier than it is. It's not really a major issue in my life. People with PCOS can live a normal, healthy life. However, some of the symptoms can be incredibly unhealthy and difficult to battle.

One symptom of PCOS is difficulty losing weight. My body chemistry makes it hard for me to lose weight, which means that when I gain weight, I have to work extra hard to get rid of it. I have struggled with weight most of my life, and I have been made fun of for it and "encouraged" to lose weight by family and friends who, despite having great intentions, misunderstood the problem. For many years, I felt like a failure because I could not lose the weight I was carrying around with me. My dad would tell me that I could be so much healthier if I lost weight. He would tell me that he worried about my future because I was heavy. His heart was in the right place, but his words hurt. You see, when I was 12, my dad had a heart attack. In fact, the nurses/doctors told him he had two separate heart attacks in one day. When I was 17, my dad had triple bypass heart surgery (and I was recently told by my sister that he had a heart attack leading up to his surgery-how she knows that and I don't is a mystery, but that's beside the point). When I was 21, my dad had another heart attack. His concern about my weight was valid. Heart disease runs in our family, and being overweight has been shown to be a contributing factor to heart disease. While he meant well and his intent was pure, his words still stung, because I was trying to lose weight. I have continued to try to lose the weight over the years, and while I have had some periods of success, there always seems to be a plateau of weight loss, where I just get stuck.

In addition to weight loss difficulty, another symptom of PCOS is "Pre-diabetes". Now, for those of you that know much about diabetes, this is more in the Type 2 realm of diabetes. I am not diabetic, but my body does not process sugars the way it "should". I put should in quotes, because everyone's body works differently, even though there are generalizations about how our bodies work. Anyway, my understanding of the pre-diabetes is that the cells in my body cannot take in the sugars to be used as fuel like they are supposed to, which means there is extra sugar running around in my bloodstream. When we have extra sugars, our body stores them as fat. So now, I struggle to lose weight, and my body has decided that it is going to add more fat. Talk about a double-whammy.

Why do I explain all of this? Well, lately I've been feeling a little down. Some of you may know that I've been on a couple different online dating sites over the last couple years. I have friends that have met their husbands on these sites, and I have heard many other success stories. I'm not much of a dater, nor do I really meet people easily, so I felt like online dating was worth a shot. Well, I've been feeling down lately, because I haven't been getting many messages/much communication on these sites. I know everyone's experience is different, and I shouldn't compare my experience with my friends', but it's hard not to do just that. I don't feel like many guys initiate conversation with me, and I feel like the ones I initiate conversation with rarely respond. I have begun to feel like I am picky, because I scroll through and find fewer and fewer to contact. However, I try to remind myself that sticking to a basic list of things I'm looking for is not being picky, especially since I had a conversation with a close friend just over a week ago about how picky I am. She told me I'm not as picky as I think. That's good, but I'm still not meeting any guys.

I have a hard time separating my weight from the reasons a guy might not want to communicate with me. I have read, reread, and reread my profile(s) to see how well I am portraying myself. I feel I am doing a pretty good job portraying myself, but I still get little/no communication. I find myself regularly blaming it on how I look and how heavy I am. I know I am beautiful, and I know that God created me just the way I am, but it's still hard to not focus on my weight as a negative thing from time to time.

A wise friend once told me to focus on myself and my relationship with God, and a guy will "join the mix" when I'm not even paying attention. That may be true, but it's hard to be patient and stop thinking about when/if a guy will "join the mix" long enough to focus on myself and God. I do my best, and I'll keep doing my best.

Summer

Hello, readers. I apologize again for my lack of blog posts. I've been busy, traveling, and not very motivated to write. I hope that changes soon, especially since I should have more time over the next couple of months. :)

Anyway, today's post is not long. Summertime is great. I love that I can stay up late, sleep with my window open, etc. However, what I don't like is that my neighbors do the same...especially on a Friday night.  I am in bed, watching a tv show on Netflix, with so many sounds in the background. Living in an apartment complex in the summer is so...weird. I can't say it's bad, because it's not ALL bad. But I'm really not a fan of hearing my upstairs neighbor stomp around, listening to loud music (that happens to be really awful, too), and neighbors in the complex that backs up to ours yelling/talking loudly. I realize that you CAN stay up late, and you enjoy being outdoors because it's summer. Please consider lowering the volume of your voice, your music, or stop stomping around so loudly.  Thanks.

:)

Letter to an Anonymous Parent

Dear Parent,
  I am sorry to hear that your child is overwhelmed by the spelling list I sent home on Monday. In class, your child does not seem discouraged or frustrated when we practice our spelling words. I know that students can react differently at home than they do at school, however I am completely astounded that his or her reaction is as drastically different as your led me to believe it was. It does not help me teach your child any better to hear that the frustrations at home exist. In fact, it tends to indicate to me that the method you are using may contribute to the frustration, but I digress.

In addition to the puzzling frustration, I am perplexed at your timing when you tell me about said frustration. What is your intent in telling me this on Thursday, the day before the spelling test? Do you think this will cause me to change the spelling words for the test? Is your plan to get me to "throw out" the spelling test altogether? If I trashed lesson plans based on one particular student every time a student was frustrated or discouraged (even for moment!), I would never teach anything I set out to teach.

Honestly, I believe you think I am a pushover. I'm not. I'm certain you've felt some push-back from me when you tried to sway me before. I would encourage you to get over this one time discouragement. I believe your child acts in a way that shows frustration, discouragement, or signs of being overwhelmed when he or she is working on this list at home. Those "symptoms" at home don't lead me to any "diagnosis" that will change what I am doing for tomorrow's test.

I am truly sorry that your child feels discouraged. Please don't bring it to me because you're upset. Call a friend and vent, or if you really feel you need more help than that, seek out a professional. I'm not here to make YOU feel better. I'm here to teach your child, and NO ONE learns by doing things they already know how to do. The spelling list is designed to be challenging, and to push your child to achieve more. Don't you think I am aware how your child does on spelling tests? I have a grade book full of numbers indicating how well or poorly your child has done on previous tests. I still chose to assign this spelling list.

In case you are under the impression that a spelling list is only about learning how to spell the words on the list, it isn't. There are other aspects that a spelling test assesses. Among many others are listening/dictation skills and practicing the spelling of certain SOUNDS. That's right-it's not just about "high frequency" words and how to know the letter combinations of words. It's also about helping students to understand the sounds within words. Phonemes, phonograms, etc....call them what you will, but these letter combinations are what will assist your child in both writing and reading for the rest of his or her life. I know some adults who might benefit from this sort of practice.

A few more points to add...mistakes are learning opportunities. I know that children can get discouraged by their mistakes, but I am trying to teach my students how to learn from their mistakes and use their past mistakes to help them succeed. If your child is discouraged or overwhelmed by something in class, I will adjust as needed to help them to succeed. Also, if they are discouraged or overwhelmed by something I assigned to them and demonstrate this discouragement at home, BY ALL MEANS mention it to me, but NOT one day prior to the test. That's silly. I can't help your child with only one day's notice. Lastly, teachers can make mistakes, too. Have I ever assigned something that was WAY too hard (or too easy)? Of course! Do I try to learn from those mistakes and avoid assigning things that aren't at the right level again? Absolutely! Thank you for calling the difficulty to my attention...however, it was a little late this time. If you had mentioned it to me on Tuesday, I might have been able to help your child, adjust the plan, or skip it altogether. Unfortunately, I can't this time. My other students have been planning and practicing these words all week, and it's not fair to them (or their parents) to change plans now.

Sincerely,
  Your Child's Teacher

Apologies-I Have NOT Fallen Off the Face of the Earth!

I have been MIA for a while now. I could blame it on any number of things, but I will keep the excuses to a minimum. I have been busy moving (including packing and unpacking), as well as it being a busy time of year at work, but that's no reason to completely neglect the blog. I genuinely have had little inspiration to write, and I am hoping that will change soon.

Tonight, I saw the movie Noah. Let me start with this-it is a movie based on a story in the Bible, but there is some poetic/artistic license taken. That being said, I thought it was very well done. It is a great portrayal of the story, and I believe it shows some dark things we always like to gloss over in the story of Noah. We typically look at all of the good things, but we forget the real reason for the flood-the darkness God saw in the world.

I rather liked much of how they chose to portray certain aspects of the movie. I felt it was true to the story, even though there were some changes made in the story. Huh?! How can it be true to the story AND have changes? Well, in my opinion, the changes that were made did not detract from the overall story. For example, (without spoiling anything), they show Methuselah dying in the flood. If you read closely in scripture, you can see that Methuselah died the year of the flood, but no where in scripture does it indicate that he died IN the flood. There are plenty of other things, but some of them are mild spoilers. They wouldn't ruin the story for you, because I am sure most of you know the general story anyway, and the pieces I thought would be worth mentioning aren't major "plot" points.

**spoilers below**

One that really deviated from the scripture is that Ham and Japheth did not have wives that came on the Ark with them. Scripture clearly states that Noah, his wife, his sons and his sons' wives came on the Ark. Um...Mr. Director/Screenplay writer, I think you missed a little bit. Actually, I think he did that on purpose, because it allowed him to write in an additional subplot.

**spoilers over**

I hope that doesn't ruin the movie for you if you read that and haven't seen it. :)

Another thing I have already noticed in looking at the scripture is that Noah's sons are always listed in this order: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. That's the birth order represented in the movie. However, upon reading into the story of Noah's nakedness/drunkenness, Ham is the one who discovers Noah naked, while Shem and Japheth are the ones who walk backward to cover their father up without seeing him naked. (Maybe a little prudish, but those were different times...?). Anyway, the scripture indicates that Ham is the youngest son. Genesis 9:18-25 says, "The sons of Noah who came out of the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. (Ham was the father of Canaan). These were the three sons of Noah, and from them came the people who were scattered over the whole earth. Noah, a man of the soil, proceeded to plant a vineyard. When he drank some of its wine, he became drunk and lay uncovered inside his tent. Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father naked and told his two brothers outside. But Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it across their shoulders; then they walked in backward and covered their father's naked body. Their faces were turned the other way so that they would not see their father naked. When Noah awoke from his wine and found out what his youngest son had done to him, he said, 'Cursed be Canaan! The lowest of slaves will he be to his brothers.'"

So...that indicates to me that Ham was the youngest. Not sure why he is mentioned before Japheth, then. Just a thought. The director/writer obviously felt Ham wasn't the youngest due to always being mentioned second, because he was portrayed as the middle child in the film.

Can I also just mention how amazing Emma Watson was in the movie? She is such a great actress! I didn't even think about Hermione the whole movie!! That's saying something, especially for an actress who I only know as Hermione! :)

So, whether you've heard good things or bad things about Noah, go see it and "judge" it for yourself. I think there are so many aspects of the story we don't know because scripture simply doesn't tell us that we can't say the writer/director was wrong in his portrayal. We just don't know. So, take it for what it is-one person's (or group's) opinion on the story. Sure, it's flawed. But my portrayal would be flawed, too. So would yours.

:)