Newsflash: You’re Fat Because…

…you’ve made certain choices in your life.

Now, before I go on here, I’m going to exclude all those of you out there who have legitimate medical reasons for being overweight from the following discussion – there’s no reason to feel bad about your body if there’s nothing you could/can do to stop your [insert malfunctioning body part here] from making you extra-large.

Everyone else… well, you’re exactly who I’m talking to.

When you wake up every morning and look yourself in the mirror, do you loathe what you see because your body is statistically extra-large?

Guess what got you there?

You don’t know? Or, do you think you do know?

As a blogger that is always trying to be helpful, I will explain to you why you’re fat in terms that I hope you understand – but it’s going to take a very healthy dose of reality checking and honesty with yourself.

Also, this blog is somewhat aimed also at the Sally DoGooders who live in the proverbial land of milk and honey – the United States Of America – who are taking it upon themselves to sue every purveyor of delicious food in the public retail spaces of malls, plazas, and corner shops all across the land.

First, let me get straight to the facts of the matter… the complete and total truth, no matter who might want to argue:

1. McDonald’s hasn’t made one single human on this planet fat.

2. Burger King isn’t responsible for making your neighbor chubby.

3. Wendy’s had no part making that guy at work rotund around his middle section.

4. Hostess – the maker of the venerable Twinkie – can not be held accountable for shut-in video gamers being so big that they have to wear a muumuu around the house.

5. Little Debbie is not at fault for your Type II diabetes.

6. Neither Coca-Cola or Pepsi (and their Frito Lay snacks division) is on the hook for your massive stored energy deposits.

7. Hershey’s is not answerable for your pudgy fingers.

8. And finally, the local movie theater is not to blame for your adding a melted stick of butter to your popcorn.

Wait… how can that be?

You hear every day on the news that So And So is suing these companies for making people fat… so surely there is some merit to what they’re paying public interest law firms to make a case for… right?

No.

Not a single claim by these people can be born out in a court of law without the court itself being corrupted by social shortsightedness.

See this guy here?

Not a single corporate employee or company policy is responsible for him being a fat tub of lard – and let’s be honest: he most likely doesn’t have a thyroid issue.

Nope… he’s fat because of what he’s doing in the photo i.e. stuffing his face with food that has very little (or completely zero) nutritional benefit.

As much as society would seek an easy scapegoat for it’s rising number of obesity cases, there is not a single person to blame but himself.

Look at that photo very carefully.

Do you see anybody forcing him to chow down on that massive burger? Is there a representative from The Burger Shack holding his family at gunpoint, promising him that they’ll be released without harm as soon as he consumes all those fats and carbs?

No.

Chubby McFatass there is using his own, God-given free will to consume that sandwich.

So tell me – please – why The Burger Shack, McDonald’s, or Little Debbie should be held accountable for the choices that YOU make?

Yes… the retailers make products that you feel compelled to eat – either for their taste or their affordability or both – whenever hunger strikes you, but in no way are you mandated by law to consume their wares.

You, the consumer, have every bit as much power to consume a bowl of fruit salad as you do eat a box of Chicken McNuggets and a side of delicious McDonald’s french fries.

The fact that you opt for the Mickey’s fare is completely on you.

Television advertising makes you eat it? Hmmm…. okay – let’s look at that.

Pundits would say that the commercials you see on TV up to 100x a day have brainwashed you into being constantly wanting fast food or the kind of junk offerings you find at the neighborhood convenience store.

I suppose this could be held out to be true… if there wasn’t a whole lot of other crap on TV that’s being marketed directly to you that you blissfully ignore: how many of you out there order everything you see in infomercials?

Raise your hand if you’ve compulsively ordered the Snuggie For Pets? C’mon… it’s only $9.99! Who can resist that kind of deal?

Or… how many of you ran out and bought that Head On headache reliever? You know… the stuff you apply directly to the forehead?

I’m going to wager not a lot of you did either of those things because you were smart enough to realize the products were pure crap – choosing not to waste money and hurt your pocketbook by being stupid.

Yet… you CHOOSE to eat vast amounts of fast food that you know are pure crap and are going to hurt your body in the long run.

Why is there such a disconnect between choice and result?

There is nothing simpler than what’s going on here: it’s cause and effect – one of the most basic scientific concepts.

You do one thing and you get the predicted effect – in this case, you stuff an entire 12-inch pizza in your face in a single sitting which causes the effect of you gaining a few pounds.

Of course, this is assuming you’re not a professional athlete like Michael Phelps that consumes massive amounts of calories to fuel their workout routine.

Which is the backside to this issue: your buttocks take up two seats on the airplane because you refuse to do to the physical exercise required to burn off all of those calories you consume.

You’re choosing in your life to eat a Double Big Mac, large fries, large Coke, and two apple pies – without also choosing to engage in the physical exertion necessary to scrub all of those calories and saturated fats out of your system… which leaves your body no choice at all but to store those things as fat around your middle/butt/legs/arms/neck/chin.

Sure, there are pharmaceutical alternatives to exercise… substances that will make your body burn calories at an accelerated rate, but they are no substitute for using your own muscles to naturally do what that pill does nowhere as efficiently.

And yes… there are radical surgical procedures to physically limit how much food you can eat.

But why?

Why take these pills? Why go under the surgeon’s knife?

When you can simply CHOOSE to not eat these things in such great amounts that you become the size of a small Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon?

Society needs to give it’s collective head a shake and stop trying to blame others for our choices in life.

You can not sue Burger King for your own laziness.

The fat guy you see mowing his lawn – wearing shorts and a wife beater tank top – can’t seek damages from Dairy Queen because he can’t be bothered to get on an exercise bike.

In closing, let me make this abundantly clear, in case you are still confused:

Nobody other than you can blamed.

So stop trying to take kid’s Happy Meal toys away because you think they’re what cause childhood obesity – it’s the parent’s choice to buy them the little box of fats and carbs and then let the child sit around the house all day playing video games instead of running around outside for 20 minutes.

Take some fucking responsibility for your actions in life, and leave people alone who are trying to make an honest buck.

Life Blog: Getting Old Is For Chumps…

… And the chump is me.

We’re all doing that slow and eventual march to the grave – no matter what we prefer to think, or regardless of what ridiculous lengths we go to for the sake of being healthy

As time goes on, I’m ever more aware that this is true for me.

When I was 15, I used to unequivocally state – and was only half-kidding – that I was going to drop dead at 25 from eating the largest steak dinner ever and having the resulting heart attack while consorting with a beautiful woman.

I must report that at 25, only the beautiful woman showed up.

So now I’m circling 34 years of age… and honestly, I sometimes forget how old I am – mainly due to the fact that my age really doesn’t matter to anyone.

I’ve stopped relating age to the things that happen in my life, which is a development that was a long time overdue: I started getting gray hair when I was 13 years old – that one sure sign that The Reaper has started writing down your name.

My knees have been wearing down since I was 12 via both ‘natural’ and athletic processes – in that exact order.

Knees that grind are very unpleasant to hear internally, unpleasant to feel physically, and can really suck when it comes to endurance.

In fact, the only upside to knees that grind like a bad transmission is how easy it is to give a girl you’re dating the willies: ‘Hey… wanna feel something weird? Put your hand on my knee while I bend it.’

Works every time.

My back kills me some days after a lifetime of stress: a genetically exaggerated curvature of the spinal column, multiple athletics derived fractures (horse back riding, motorcycle riding, wrestling).

The most frequent symptom (other than overt stiffness when getting up from certain positions) is a burning pain through my left erector spinae (lumbar region back muscle) which can really suck sometimes: imagine someone trying to perform surgery on your back with a thin-edged wooden spoon and you might be able to visualize the pain.

I’ve fractured and right-out broken both legs… my left one in three places to the point where I now have a titanium rod holding it together for the rest of my life – which makes me happy that I don’t do a whole lot of flying.

My teeth are slowly chipping and crumbling away after a hard decade of drinking nothing but coffee, tea, and cola – which also gave my horrible kidney stones towards the end.

The 2nd most recent issue facing me is one that’s incredibly distracting at times: myodesopsia… or in plain terms, eye floaters.

Those of you out there who have this affliction know how insidious it is – especially if you work with computers or other high-contrast visual work. You constantly have things moving through your line of sight – you even think you see bugs on the walls if the floater is going through your peripheral vision.

For those who haven’t experienced floaters as a frequent plague, check this video and then try to imagine it happening to you.

Finally, the most recent issue for me requires an OTC treatment that is somewhat embarassing: Preparation H.

That’s kind of the sure sign that you’re aging.

I can no longer delude myself into thinking that I’m still amongst the young when there are days where I wish I had one of those funny rubber cushions you see at the drug store – you know… the O-shaped ones that look like they’re made at the same factory that issues whoopee cushions.

Add that to a litany of pre-existing gastro intestinal issues, and you don’t really have a fun time on certain days.

Not even 34 and I have a body that feels at least 43.

Yup…

The chump is definitely me.

Some Proof That Stormcastle Walks His Talk…

No muss, no fuss.

No walking backwards, no brain malfunctions.

Just a sore shoulder… much better than dying or spreading the virus to someone else.

H1N1: The Absolute Truth

I hate you.

No, not YOU.

You, over there… the idiot who’s choosing not to get the H1N1 flu shot.

The potential murderer.

Did I just call you a potential murderer?

Let me check… *scrolls up*… yes I did.

Just because you’re too stupid and selfish to take time out of your precious little life and get a needle (o noes! 0_o), you’re going to risk not only YOUR life, but possibly the life of someone else.

I mean… seriously: how freakin’ selfish is that?

You’re going to freely condemn someone else – whom chances are you don’t even know – to a possibly miserable death at the hands of a merciless virus that can’t tell good people from bad people, white people from Asian people, or intelligent people from dumbasses like yourself.

Here’s how it goes:

You get the H1N1 flu and you get sick, but not deathly ill, and you shrug it off and pat yourself on the back for knowing better than the supposed ‘scientists’.

Bravo, Oh Great And Knowledgeable One. Good for you!

You don’t feel like ass anymore, so you decide it’s okay to go out shopping for groceries and maybe hit up Blockbuster for a movie rental.

Being environmentally conscious, you don’t drive a vehicle – so you hop on the nearest city bus, passing through a small crowd of passengers until you find a seat next to some young skater kids who are making a lot of noise.

One of the kids stinks of marijuana smoke and you cough and breathe heavily trying to get the stench out of your sinuses and throat.

Once the bus rolls up to your shopping destination, you stand up and thread your way through the throng of passengers, holding on to the hand grips as you go.

You step off the bus, passing some elderly women who just finished the grocery trip.

Inside the store, you head for the produce section since you think it’s good to feed yourself lots of veggies and fruit to help your body kick the remaining effects of H1N1, picking up and examining the assorted farmed goods so you get the best specimens of Mother Earth’s bounty.

As you stroll along the aisles, you realize that you’re out of Reese Puffs!

Lucky for you, there’s a clearance sale due to a pallet of slightly squished cereal boxes. Score!

Triumphantly finding a box that’s in near perfect condition after sorting through the display pile, you head to the check out realizing your total will be less than $10 and that you have enough large coinage in your pocket to cover it.

You wait in line behind an immigrant family who is taking FOREVER to get through, and in your impatient mood, bounce the coins around in your hand while cursing Canada’s immigration policies and sighing heavily in their direction in hopes they’ll get the idea that you’re not someone who enjoys delays.

Finally, you get to the cashier and hand her your hot and sweaty toonies, loonies, and quarters and breath out deeply at the thought of freedom from this retched store!

You go outside into a gaggle of people waiting for the bus and realize it won’t be there for another half-hour at the least, which bums you out large since you just want to get your movie, go home, and veg out on the sofa while your body recuperates.

Whipping out your cell phone, you call for a taxi while an extraordinarily thin guy watches you with some disdain.

‘Hippie‘ you think to yourself as your bark at the hard of hearing cab dispatcher.

“Say it, don’t spray it” mutters the thin guy.

The nerve of some people!

Your cab arrives and you slide in the back seat after the driver takes your grocery bag and stows it in the trunk while making small talk, remarking you look like you were hit by a rhinoceros – to which you make a weak smile and say it’s allergies (no need to alarm people).

As the city streets roll by, you relax and rest your hand on the door’s armrest.

Yay! You’ve reached Blockbuster!

You pay the cabbie with a $20 bill that you’ve been holding on to since he drove into the plaza, and hop out as the driver pops the trunk.

With your grocery bag in hand, you head into the video store – but realize you have no idea what kind of movie you’re in the mood for – and spend the next twenty minutes strolling through the aisles as you pick up random movie cases and read the back of them in hopes of finding an inspiration.

Finally, you leave the store with Paul Blart: Mall Cop and walk to the nearest bus stop, happy that the bus will be there within minutes.

As you wait, a couple of youngish girls walk up to the stop, wearing Girl Guide uniforms and carrying a satchel of cookie boxes.

“Mint chocolate cookies? Wow… those do look good,” you hear yourself saying as you scrounge inside your wallet for a $5 bill.

The blond girl cheerily hands you the cookies as you spot the city bus droning along the street towards you.

As you get on the bus, you thank your lucky stars that it’s now time to head home and relax with the movie and cookies after a good meal.

-

Good story, huh? Sounds like an average day in the average life of an average person.

How many people came into contact with the H1N1 virus that you were carrying around the town while you blissfully got your errands done?

The 13-year-old skater punks? The African immigrants who aren’t normally exposed to the flu in the middle of the desert?

How about that thin guy at the bus stop who had just gone through some intense chemotherapy for his lymphoma?

Or maybe the pregnant woman who you thought was sort of stalking you at Blockbuster as she picked up movies you already looked at.

That asthmatic cabbie handled your groceries and your money before resuming his diet of coffee and donuts?

Just after you left the produce section, and HIV-positive ex-hooker handled the cantaloupes you were squeezing.

So tell me, Oh Great And Knowledgeable One: which of those people is going to pick up the bits of H1N1 you left out there in the city?

Which one of those people who are very prone to getting sick from other people’s cast-offs will have  nearly-even odds of dying?

Let’s say it’s the thin cancer patient.

He ends up in the emergency room three days later, his lungs full of fluid and his heart struggling hard to keep up – which kills him within the following 16 hours.

In the meantime, you’ve gotten right as rain and have returned to work and are still congratulating yourself on how you beat the H1N1 virus without any vaccination harshing your buzz.

See… you know better than all of the world’s scientists, immunologists, doctors, nurses, and public officials who have spent decades practicing in their respective fields.

You have the inside track on what’s REALLY going on in the medical world.

It’s all about money, right?

The GlaxoSmithKlines of the world are always on the lookout for new ways to make money – and will slyly create a massive panic around the world so they can come to the rescue with a shoddy, untested treatment based on strange technologies that probably will cause autism in children or brain damage in 20% of the adult population.

Yeah, thank god you have the internet and are subscribed to World Of Warcraft forums.

How else would you have gotten the actual facts of the H1N1 scare? I mean… all those social shut-ins living in their mother’s basements are the absolute best knowledge keepers humanity has to offer!

Oh, that’s right. You also watch Fox News on cable… and everything they report is 100% solid factual reporting.

You, your internet friends, and the talking heads on Fox News don’t need university or medical school degrees to know about the biosystems of the human organism and all  threats that the natural world presents to it.

All of you are 100% smarter!

You, sir/madame, are an idiot.

Not just any old idiot either.

You are a fucking idiot.

A total, self-righteous whack job  – who truly doesn’t give a rat’s ass about anyone other than themselves – that is erroneously convinced by illiterate and unknowledged sources that the H1N1 vaccine is nothing more than ill-advised voodoo.

You have been indoctrinated by one of the largest cadre of fools on the face of this planet – people akin to those who believe the world is flat and that the Apollo moon landings were a hoax.

The absolute facts about the H1N1 vaccine are these:

- the vaccine will help your body’s immune system recognize and attack the H1N1 virus

- the vaccine will help control the spread of the virus by removing your body as a potential vector (pathway) to another human

- the technology behind the vaccine is exactly the same as the yearly flu vaccine that many of you hold-outs normally get each year

- there is ABSOLUTELY NO SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE that vaccines are responsible for autism in children i.e. all supposed ‘evidence’ is   anecdotal…  the scientific equivalent of hearsay

- vaccines work! many of the world’s pathogens have been eradicated through the use of vaccines. How many people do you know that have polio or small pox?

- adjuvants added to the vaccine are nothing to be alarmed about: these additives increase your body’s awareness of the virus and boost it’s ability to create the proper antibodies

Facts about the H1N1 virus:

- people who have not received the vaccination are dying

- like many viruses, you may have the H1N1 virus in your system and not show any symptoms beyond a runny nose

- you can not contract H1N1 from eating pork products

- the virus is highly durable and can live in a dormant state on hard surfaces before accessing the human body via an orifice such as the mouth or nose

- the H1N1 virus is NOT similar to the seasonal flu viruses that people in developed countries are exposed to on a yearly basis, and therefore you are NOT vaccinated against H1N1 variants

- people born between 1917 and 1950 are more resilient against the virus (having been previously exposed) as its make-up is very similar to the 1918 Influenza that killed up to 100,000,000 people  worldwide – but are not 100% H1N1 proof.

- H1N1 is not SARS (bird flu) and you are not immune to it if you were exposed to SARS

- no geographical area is safe from H1N1 as it can survive in any climate that a human can, and it can access any environment that a human can travel to

- washing your hands is NOT a fool-proof way of protecting yourself from H1N1 – only full biohazard gear can guarantee safety from the virus

- eating healthy foods is good for the immune system and may help fight the virus, but it will NOT prevent virus infection

.

All of the above facts are completely backed by empirical scientific data and can NOT be argued by anyone who does not have a degree in medicine or the applied science of immunology.

The average person with average learning is unsuited to advising you on this very important matter.

Would you consult an architect about whether you should have a heart transplant?

Is the opinion from a stockboy who works at the Mac’s Milk on the corner relevant when you’re considering radiation therapy?

Why the hell would you listen to some jackass on the internet who doesn’t have any formal medical or scientific training?

WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?

Why are you jeopardizing other people with your own absolute stupidity?

What on Earth gives you the right to do that?

I don’t care about the rights you so callously speak about when you discuss your body.

What about the rights of the people you could infect?

Don’t they have a right to be protected from your lunacy?

People get thrown in jail for idiocy like drinking and driving because the odds state there is a good chance that they will hurt someone while operating their car under the influence of alcohol.

Why can’t we jail asinine persons such as yourself who are playing with the exact type of odds?

Some of you are so completely messed up in your head that I wish I could shake you by the shoulders, push you to the ground, and kick you until you see the error of your ways – until you admit that you’re not 25% as smart as you claim to  be.

But, man… if I had to do that to everyone of the idiots like you out there, my arms and legs would probably fall off from the strain.

.

No.

All I can do is stand here on my soapbox and scream at you to absolutely no effect.

You’re perfectly happy in your ignorant bliss.

People drop dead in your community from H1N1 and you don’t get it.

So all I have to say is this:

If by some act of fate you contract H1N1 and it kills you, I will not waste ONE SINGLE SOLITARY SECOND of my life mourning for you.

I will thank whatever powers run this universe that your stupid ass will be removed from society, and that you will have been stopped from endangering the rest of the human species.

.

As with those who got the vaccine, one less vector is great news.

———————————————————————————-

This rant has been aimed purely at those who have refused the H1N1 vaccine and not those who haven’t had the choice made available to them due to restriction of supply. If you or someone you know has been sick with H1N1 before the vaccine was available to you, and you would have chosen to receive the vaccine, I feel great sympathy for you.