Leaving from the campground, due south, it was about 90 minutes to the edge of Crater Lake. The hollowed out volcano in which the lake rises immediately from the horizon, quickly taking over your entire field of visions after you enter the park.
About a mile from the North gate, we crossed a wide empty section of barren land which had been decimated thousands of years before when the eruption that made way for the lake occurred. The Native Americans in the area have a long oral tradition which includes stories of the explosion which shook the earth and blackened the skies.
Since I was lazy about posting this right away, and many of the finer points have slipped away. I'll shut up know and leave you with some pictures.
For a number of reasons, I've taken a little while away from the intertubes (or at least blogging). The election got too scary after the first debate to be funny and some last days of sunshine took precedent over spewing incoherent non-sense into the void.
The election is over.
The sun is gone forever (or at least May, assuming the Mayans are wrong).
Please forgive me for being a bit extra self indulgent and intellectually light today.
In mid September, I started Crossfit with Meg out of a feeling that if I did not do something radical to change my habits that they were going to kill me. Not in a dramatic way mind you, but something slow and sad brought on through diabetes, emphysema and liver disease. I got winded on one flight of stairs. I was 214lbs. A six pack every night was an unnoticed part of my routine.
The last picture taken before I started class. Please take note of the beautiful man titties
Jump Start brought about immediate changes. For the first month, I adhered very strictly to Paleo to the frustration of many. I went to classes twice a week which I augmented with nightly runs and walks of 2-6 miles. By the third week, I had lost 24 lbs, and transitioned 6-10 additional lbs from fat to muscle. It was a revelation.
As the second month began, I started taking harder classes and going three times a week (MWF). The classes for these last 8 weeks have been block programming focused on building essential skills and strength. The experience is very different from my Jump Start class both in the level of difficulty and in the level of commitment from other students. There is a sense of shared motivation and suffering in these classes that builds a community. While my weight has stabilized, I am seeing significant changes in my body both in size and strength.
Where them titties go?
Where I am struggling is maintaining a commitment to Paleo. After the first month, I started letting myself have treats on Saturday. By the end of the 6th week, I was finding that my "cheating" had made an incursion into weekdays, and that I was only following strict Paleo about 3 days a week. Now will come the challenge of re-igniting my motivation to shop, prep, cook and eat foods that are better for me.
For three years I had built a "balanced life" where self-indulgence was on one side of the scale, and money was on the other. I told myself that as long a I had a good job, the rest would sort itself out. 12 weeks ago, I added crossfit to this balance, and changed the way that I think about almost everything.
With the long winter rains approaching, and a seemingly endless summer of house guests coming to an end, it was time to make a break from reality and head to the forest. While there was some effort to set an agenda and destination prior to departure, these lofty goals gave way to the realities of a long work week and time to recover from crossfit.
And so it was last Saturday morning when we departed Portland with a car packed full of camping gear, vegetables, liquor, potable water and a freshly purchased map of Oregon and started driving south toward Umpqua National Forest.
After looking at camping options, we settled on Toketee Lake Campground nestled along the shore of Toketee Lake. The campground is very basic, but has large campsites separated by trees. The two downsides of the area are the constant white noise from the nearby Pacificorp hydro power assets, and the lack of a water spigot.
Having eaten and set up camp, we set off for the Umpqua Hot Springs. The sign for the hot springs has been removed and replaced with this little gem.
After 90 minutes driving up and down the same 9 miles of forest road looking for the turn off, we finally went by slowly enough to notice the Sharpied sign above and pulled into the parking lot dusty and victorious.
The hike in from the road is about 1/4 miles and includes one steep incline. The hot springs are very unique! They are a series of pools made from clay and stone that are embedded in the side of a hill. There are 9 pools in total, and as you move down the hill the pools get cooler. The pool at the top is an estimated 110 F, with the lowest pool being a toasty 85 F.
The site is dog friendly for the most part, and Senna made some friends. The only concern for friends beasts (animal and otherwise) is the presence of a cliff which is undetectable once the sun goes down.
The pools themselves have a teal color from the minerals in the water. As the light conditions change, the color of the pools is quite striking.
We hiked out in the dark, and got back to the campsite. With the moon rising late, we got an amazing show from the stars.
The next morning, we set off looking for something fun to hike. On the horizon, we saw a volcano looming the landscape around it. It took two hours to find a forest road that would bring us in the right direction. The road itself was an unimproved rutted dirt job, and the Subaru was at it's limits. Finally, with 3 miles of road ahead of us, we reached a series of water bars that brought us to a halt and pulled the car off and loaded up our back packs.
We set off on a 4.5 mile hike with a 2300 ft elevation gain to 8376 ft at the summit of Mt. Bailey. The trail was dusty with a constant incline for 3 miles. 3 miles in, we reached tree line, and the trail quickly turned to steep scree with the roots of scrappy pines lining the path.
The summit was crisp, clear and beautiful with a 360 degree view spanning the national forest. There was some smoke on the far horizon noticeable.
The dog, who had until then been cruising along reached her limit at the top, and was clearly feeling the altitude. After a long drink of water she collapsed in a small tired heap.
She got up for the trip down, and right as we reached 7000 ft, her tail started wagging and her energy returned.
After the hike down, we headed back to camp and made a mega dinner and prepared to set off for Crater Lake the next morning...
Tonight was a tricky beast. I was watching the debate in a Portland Oregon bar which had a decidedly liberal bent to it. Obama got lots of applause, Romney got lots of boos. In some ways, it could have been like watching Independence Day from an alien bar.
In contrast, my friend was texting me from a bar in Tennessee, and sending messages to the effect of "Romney's cleaning up". These two very different settings cast two very different lights on the debate.
Now, with a couple hours behind the debate, and a couple of tequilas out of me, I am feeling nearly objective enough to make some kind of assessment of what really happened:
-Romney had a stronger debate, but gave up a lot of ground.
-Romney got in better points on the president's shortcomings
-Obama stayed on message and remained more composed
-Obama seemed muddle and reiterated lines on green energy and education that seemed hollow
-Romney genuinely lost control several times, showing cracks that made him seem like a sociopath and a wingnut
More analysis tomorrow. The key take away from tonight was that there was most certainly not a game changing moment and both candidates lived to fight another day. If Romney can string more of these together, we may yet see a real race. For all Romney has been criticized for not laying out specifics, Obama was equally evasive tonight - but he survived the economics debate, which was his biggest weakness. The question now is can Romney string some good days together, and can stand out clearly in the National Policy and Town Hall debates and bring forward his message clearly.
This morning, in my usual compulsive clicking and scanning of the New York Times, BBC, CNN, Fox News, The Daily Best, Slate, Politico and twitter I had a little revelation: Nobody is talking about Mitt Romney today. There were no headlines on anything coming from his camp, only some horse race stories and some grim statistics (for Romney) about the probability of him winning without Ohio (not good, for Romney).
I was about to close my laptop, end this blog and take up whittling, but mercifully I found this just in the nick of time I found this:
The fun starts about 30 seconds in where Chris Wallace asks Paul Ryan for specifics on the Romney Tax plan in order to counter claims that the math does not work. This is on Fox News, so the questions stay friendly and focused on proving doubter wrong. For the next three minutes Ryan beats around the bush while Wallace gently prods for some clarity on how revenue could go up when taxes are lowered 20 percent and Ryan gives up this gem: "It would take me too long long to go through all of the math". (Show's up at 2:25)
Through the whole series of questioning, Ryan squirms around giving any specifics at all. He doesn't name any loopholes that would be closed. He doesn't say who would benefit. He just wriggles invoking Reagan, bipartisanship and the old line that the plan is clear and well documented.
When Enron collapsed, Lewis Black observed (paraphrasing) If you can't explain what your business does in a sentence, then chances are it's not honest. While this might be a little reductive, I think here we see the same thing apply to political platforms.
Over the last month, I have gone to Crossfit Portland 8 times. I have also taken on a high vegetable and lean protein diet and ditched all carbs, sugar, dairy, legumes and gluten. I have list 28lbs of fat and generally feel much more energetic and much happier than I did a month ago. Having a regular, friendly and challenging work out routine and a better diet changed me.
Tonight it occurred to me - how has this changed me? How could this affect others?
And then I thought - what if we provided a Fitness Stimulus.
We would fight our Obesity epidemic, people would be happier, and medical costs could be reduced.
There more it than that. This is an emergency for ability to defend ourselves. Two former Generals of the Joint chiefs of Staff recent put out a paper imploring a reaction to what they describe as "Too fat to fight". They are correct, 75% of 17 to 25 yearolds are too obese to be eligible for military service.
And it gets worse. In 2010 Diabetes cost America $299 Billion. Fitness and better nutrition could fight this.
In many states, particularly in the deep south, obesity rates are above 30%. This creates many health problems other than diabetes and is correlated to everything from cancer to heart disease.
This clearly then is a problem that must be addressed to avert catastrophe. So how does it get done?
A $35 Billion stimulus aimed at encouraging and financing fitness and better nutrition at a rate of $1000 per American, and providing the USDA and Department of Health and Human services the ability to oversee a network gyms, leagues, nutritionists, child care, outdoor and sports stores, healthy restaurants and quality food purveyors who would be part of the program (let's call them Wellness Providers).
The WPs would compete in an ecosystem where each american could select the services which appealed to them and simply register their names upon payment to provide the WP with government dollars.
The accounts, which would be held by the government and kept in the individuals name in a payment database would be as a lump sum each year. Unspent dollars would not roll over to the next year to encourage full program utilization.
WPs would be under USDA and DHHS oversight, and would be required to provide an annual report on their activities
The program would be monitored with data available to the USDA, DHHS, FDA and CDC. The data could only be reviewed after a 1 year delay, and only then in a manner that protected all personal details of the participants. The data could be used to measure the impact of the policy and fine tune the way WPs were managed based on health outcomes.
If your thinking this is far fetched or a socialist plot, I suppose I can agree that certain parts might seem a little extreme, and there are definitely edges here that I think could be rounded down and still create an effective program, ideally run over a 10 year period. In considering this proposal, the risk of not doing anything must be considered. America is headed for a disaster on many levels if we do not solve this slow epidemic.
If we act now, the benefits are almost limitless:
-Greatly reduced health costs
-Improved national security
-Improved productivity
-Reduced non-renewable resource use
This program could create an American culture of wellness and fitness and change the outcome of the 21st century.
Turn your television or internets to pretty much any media outlet, and you will hear the following refrain over and over again from Republican talking heads:
"Mitt has a likability issue. If people could just get to know the real Mitt, he would really connect with voters."
It makes a lot of sense. George W. Bush was palatable to moderate voters, despite having ruinous policies, because he came across as likable and seemed genuine. Romney is not going to be that guy - but in theory that's OK. There are lots of American personalities that American's don't like but whom are well regarded. Michael Bloomberg certainly comes to mind and therein lies Mitt's problem. He cannot run as Dubya, because he is not a fun or warm person, but he could have run as an experienced businessman, family man and earnest politician. Heck - he did that for a long time both at Bain and as the Governor of Massachusetts and it worked!
Instead he decided that Mitt had to become a brand, and a very conservative one, in order to win the primary. If he had held his fucking horses he might just be winning this thing now.
Now, let's take a little trip back in time to last year when the Primaries were a total zoo. Bachmann was a presence. Perry was a favorite. Herman Cain was low profile, but intriguing. Santorum was on the periphery due to his "google problem". Ron Paul was Ron Paul. Newt Gingrich was having a late career comeback. There were more clowns in the car, but only Perry, Gingrich and Romney appeared to have any kind of credible shot at winning.
Sure, everybody got to be in front in the polls for a little while. Even this ^ guy, but nobody else really stood a chance over Romney. Let's remember who these people where!
-Cain was a serial groper who had to drop out on his own. Prior to that, "9-9-9" was his only message that made it through (for all of 72 hours).
-Perry shot himself in the foot when it turned out he couldn't get out a complete sentence at a debate. Remember the "oop" moment?
-Newt Gingrich had the terminal handicap of being an unlikable blow hard who had already proven at every turn to not be able to get out his own way. For fucks sake, he was cheating on his wife while impeaching Clinton.
Did Team Romney have the foresight and the balls to wait these idiots out? Did he have the patience watch them self destruct? Did he say, "hey, I have a $100 million cash advantage, let's wait for America to get sick of this."?
Nope.
He took the "safe" route out of all of this and beat a path clear to the right of all of them. He out Bachmanned Bachmann, he out anti-immigranted the Texan, he outcrazied Newt. He won and he won quickly. At what cost though?
Erik Fehrnstrom, a senior campaign adviser infamously said after the primary was won that the general election would provide an "Etch-a-Sketch" from the primaries hard line positions. Americans aren't that dumb though.
Point being: Team Mitt wants so badly for America to get to know there guy and how great he is, but they spent more than a year keeping that "real Mitt" buried deep underground for when he was needed. The problem is, that now that they do need the moderate friendly Massachusetts Republican so badly, the first impression has already been made.
Every election cycle since 1992 (when I was just a wee boy of six) I have been deeply addicted to knowing exactly what's going on at every moment in the race. At six, this was mostly facilitated by NPR and second hand information from adults. At 27 in the age of the internet it means a Smartphone and a laptop with 11 tabs open to different news sites and NPR piped into my headphones for as many hours a day as I can stand.
Think Clockwork Orange, but self inflicted.
Know why i do it? Because in a 24 hour news cycle, most of the really interesting stories get dropped before the most interesting things happen. Take for instance the case of Todd Akin. A month ago he was the guy who said that in cases of legitimate rape and resulting pregnancy the female body "shuts the whole thing down." To remind you of your initial umbrage, here's a clip of the full quote.
"But that was a whole month ago!" you might be thinking. "This story is dead". You are sadly mistaken. For you see, the well informed electorate of Missouri who selected this living breathing piece of human garbage in the GOP primary have not been particularly deterred. So now, with 40 days to the election, no other options to get in a new candidate and dimming hopes of retaking the Senate or White House, the GOP is rethinking their initial hard line.
In the last few days Jim DeMint, Rick Santorum, and Newt Gingrich have all provided vocal backing for this asshole. Now the RNC is even dipping their toes in - From the LA Times
"As with every Republican Senate candidate, we hope Todd Akin wins in November, and we will continue to monitor this race closely in the days ahead," said Rob Jesmer, executive director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
That's right. The GOP is back on board with Rape Guy. Hell, he might even win! Why this is a bad idea for the GOP (leaving out of course the ethical rot in a party that purports to champion family values) is that it reminds the world that they are still much more the party of Strom Thurmond than Lincoln.
To the best of my knowledge, Mitt seems to have made it through a whole news cycle without saying anything scathing or stupid, had any of his surrogates say anything scathing or stupid or been publicly bashed by a high profile personality from his own party.
Hell, if he could start stringing more than one or two of these days together at a time, there might even be a little bit of racing in this race. If he does that, perhaps we will begin having a different discussion.
But until then - I offer you this:
Yes - that is Fox News, mouth piece of the GOP displaying a poll which places Obama ahead of Romney 48.9 to 44.9. To poll in question was taken by Rasmussen, a polling house that exclusively works for conservative causes.
Scroll anywhere else on the site, and you will find stories about Obama being an unpopular, dishonest socialist who has taken America to the precipice of destruction and that's what makes this all the more revelatory. It means that despite all the whining, moaning and pontificating that the liberal media is manipulating the polls or that Obama v. Romney is just like Carter v. Reagan that the conservative political establishment has come to accept that Mitt's toast.
Today Mitt Romney said something stupid. The funny thing is, with all the stupid, stupid things he has said (or been caught saying later) in the last three weeks it barely seems to have registered.
What he said to Brian Williams at the Education Nation Summit:
"I believe that we simply can't have a setting where the teachers unions are able to contribute tens of millions of dollars to the campaigns of politician, and then those politicians, when elected, stand across from them at the bargaining table, supposedly to represent the interest of the kids," You have read the correctly. Mitt Romney, who things Citizens United should stand and has stated that Corporations are people has said that Teachers' Unions cannot give money to political campaigns because there is a conflict of interest. Here's the thing - If he wants to enact policy that would simply make it easier for Republicans to get elected, he might be on to something here. By in large, teachers are certainly considered to be a left leaning bunch. But that's not really how this all works. There is a longstanding tradition in American Presidential politics that you don't fuck with Cops, Firefighters, the Service Members or Teachers. Sure their expensive. Sure they have deep and long standing political affiliations; but you just aren't supposed to shit on public servants. I may be proven wrong here, but I cannot imagine a world in which this plays well with anyone who is not Rush Limbaugh or a Ron Paul fan really being down with this. In fact, I'd say there is pretty much a guarantee that this starts coming up in interviews and in the debates. Hey asshole, you're probably going to lose - think about doing it with dignity. http://www.startribune.com/politics/171269691.html?refer=y
For as long as there has been mass media of any kind in America the fiction and fictionalized accounts of life have followed a very basic arc.
Someone has it bad or only kind of good in the first act. We learn about some of the things that make them who they are and hopefully become somewhat immersed in their world. A conflict is introduced. Ships set sail, pies are fucked.
In the second act, the plot is moved forward. We learn a little more about our character and what makes them tick. If the main character is a good person, we see them prepare to due battle against the rival dance team, evil empire, romantic competitor or their own awkwardness. If they are a anti-hero, this is the part where they get the money and the women. The pieces move into place to face the whatever it is that's been bugging us since the beginning. If it is a shitty movie, this is where we find our montages.
Finally comes the third act! If it is a happy movie, the hero kills the dragon, gets the girl and perhaps learns a little something along the way. If it's a movie about anti-hero, we see their downfall as they learn a lesson about the error of their ways. If it is a Michael Bay movie, everything explodes.
This is the rhythm most of us have come to expect when experiencing any story. The details may change, Bruce Willis may be dead, but at the end of the day it's easy to tell what kind of a story your in for from the 20th minute or the 50th page.
Werner Herzog, one would assume, is aware of these conventions. For reasons only he can know, he has put his middle finger forward to all of them with a little movie called The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans.
Look at this man - Does it really look like Werner (you must always say this slowly in a German accent Verrrrnnnnurrrrr) gives a fuck about you and your fucking 3 act Michael Bay structure? I didn't think so.
The movie opens with Nicolas Cage and Val Kilmer (that's right, two of the main characters in this movie are played by Nicolas Cage and what is sadly not Val Kilmer in a fat suit) walking into a flooded police station (mid-Katrina) to retrieve some nudey pictures a colleague has left in their locker. Cage soon realizes there is a prisoner stuck in the flooding jail cells, and after some teasing, jumps in to rescue the prisoner.
Next thing, we see Cage severely injured in a doctors office getting a prescription for narcotics.
The next thing we see is a crazy fucking Nicolas Cage looking like a crazy asshole, carrying a 44 Magnum in his waist and acting like a crazy person. Intermittently he does bumps of coke. He is at a crime scene where a family has been murdered in cold blood.
Cage get's assigned as lead on the case, the movie begins in earnest. That's right - 6 minutes into the movie and we have a major character development, a pile of dead bodies and head spinning craziness. Suddenly things begin to happen, in theory they are driving the plot forward in solving the murder, but the caveat is that Cage must stay very, very high at all times in order to function remotely (I suppose it's like Crank in that way?).
Here are some of those things:
-Cage is Eva Mendes's (who is a high class call girl) lover slash pimp. At random intervals he has sex with her, intimidates her John's and does drugs with her.
-Whenever Cage is very high, the movie randomly will focus in on an animal, sometimes real, sometimes imagined. During these scenes the camera goes all wonky and the music changes. We get great dialogue like "Who put these fucking iguanas on my desk?"
-In the process of tracking down a witness, Cage intimidates an old women and her care taker. If you think this scene is funny, you will love the movie. If you find it unpalatable, then you will not make it through the first 10 minutes.
-Xzibit is in the movie. He is a drug dealer. He smokes crack with Nicholas Cage
-Cage robs a pair of clubbers by pretending to be a cop. He then has sex with the girl, on a car, while smoking crack and saying such things as "Did your daddy neglect you?"
-Cage falling asleep during sex.
Getting the picture?
Sounds pretty fucking random right? Like maybe as you bounce through this incoherent thread, you might start to think that it's not really going anywhere, and that it's a poorly thought out disaster? This is where Werner laughs in our face and says with his magical narrative powers "Vhat, did you tsink this vas fucking Transformers 2?" and as suddenly as it spiraled out of control, the movie begins to bind itself back together to become a satisfying, if ambiguous fully formed narrative.
Next week, we will see the debates start as we enter the home stretch of this 2 1/2 year election slog. Back in 2010, with the emergence of the Tea Party and Sarah Palin at her zenith (and when Mitt's campaign was starting to get going) Obama's chances of winning seemed slim. But oh, how far we've come.
Quick recap of why the GOP is screwed:
-GM and Chrysler stop hemorrhaging money, and start turning a profit
-OBL Killed
-9 GOP Primary contenders, all but one of which was ahead of Romney in the polls at one point turn the primaries into an ugly spectacle
-The Supreme Court upholds the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare)
-Obama backs gay marriage and stops deporting Dream Act kids
-The Mitt humiliation tour of Europe and Israel
Quick recap of why they shouldn't be:
-They have more money from Super PACs than there are add slots to buy
-A base that is deeply angry and afraid of Obama and willing to get him out at any cost
-A candidate who has been grooming for this run for 20 years
-High Unemployment
-High national debt
Which brings us to today. For all that has happened, and all his experience Mitt has proven that he is completely incapable of running a presidential campaign. While most of the media is depicting the race as close - the numbers certainly doing look it. In fact fivethirtyeight.com has Mitt with only a 22% chance of winning. As of this morning, the betting site intrade.com has Mitt with only a 29% chance of winning.
The campaign and much of the party faithful is still hanging on, but the infighting and voices of GOP criticism are starting to grow louder. Soon the facade will come down and we will see the GOP vanguard eat Romney's campaign like a hamster eating its young.
Here's a list of signs to look for:
-Paul Ryan promoting his own messages and opinions sometimes at odds with the campaign
-A spike in Obama fundraising as interest groups that need access ditch Mitt
-A switch of Super PACs and talking heads from the GOP to focus on the senate race
-Rush Limbaugh et al giving angry, outraged advice to the Romney campaign in a way that undercuts him
-Open rebellion from the religions right, Ron Paul fans and other special interest groups that usually vote republican
-Senate candidates distancing themselves from Mitt (already happening with Scott Brown)
-Defections from the campaign to more lucrative gigs (See Tim Pawlenty)
-A decrease in Mitt's on air presence
-Gaffes, confusion and exasperation by Mitt and surrogates (Ann's "This is hard"might be a start) during interviews, even at friendly events
-Increased media interested in Gary Johnson
-Fox News, Drudge and Breitbart running distracting pieces or simply focusing their attentions on things other than the race
-An increased presence of Donald Trump
So fill out your bingo card kids! Unless Obama gay marries a cub scout while dressed in a burka It looks like Mitt should probably start thinking about how he is going to retire with a shred of dignity and credibility.
In May, Meg and I adopted a dapper little beast named Senna from a shelter called dogs of the gorge. She is a little bit of a mystery mutt, but best guesses put her as a mix of Kelpie, German Shepherd, Australian Shepherd and Border Collies.
After a full year of denial and half-hearted action, I think I may in fact be beginning a road back to finding myself in better shape and better control of my life. When I left Boston, I weighed in at 175lbs. Within 2 months of moving to Portland, I found myself cracking the scale above 200lbs. with a winter high of 210lbs seen in January.
Needless to say this has caused some alarm on the part of friends and family which has taken any number of different forms. Meg, who has done her best to keep a sense of humor about it is somewhat put off by my new found girth and ample bosom. My mother has expressed genuine alarm. Friends who I ski and bike with have been dismayed to find me no longer in good enough shape to keep up on rides or hikes into the back country. Certain semi friends of mine have a disconcerting habit of grabbing at my ample man-breasts.
I feel like shit about it. Almost every other part of my life since moving here has gone well, and in most ways it is safe to say that I feel like I am back on the road to being who I want to be. That said, it's hard to feel good about any of that when looking in the mirror brings a sense of shame.
So what now?
For my 27th, Meg purchased us both a ramp up course at Crossfit Portland a few blocks away. After a year of being resistant to trying Crossfit and the associated Paleo diet, I have put down my skepticism and am trying to jump in with both feet and try it.
The first two classes have been tough, but interesting enough to keep me engaged and wanting to go back. I will not rattle on about squats and burpees - sufficed to say it's work.
As for the Paleo stuff... I'm having a harder time embracing it, but doing my best to adhere to it fully for a month. So far this has meant living of veggies, a little bit of fruit and a generous portion of organic meat for lunch and dinner. Gone is the hard booze, beer, bread, deli meat, hummus, beans, burritos, rice and cheese that have been my go-tos for deliciousness for so long. Having long thought vegans were a bit absurd for avoiding animal products religiously - I can tell you that I am currently feeling pretty foolish myself loading my plate with meat.
So far I have not lost weight, but at least my titties seem to be down a cup size.
Additionally, I have to say that so far I feel great. I'm not sure if it's what I've cut out, what I've started eating, the exercise itself or some combination there of; but I do know that (moobs aside) this feels like a stride in the right direction. So far I've found myself sleeping better, more alert at work and more energetic.
I can't say yet whether this is going to be a long term commitment for me yet, but it certainly feels like a big first step in the right direction.
