Here we go again!

It never ceases to amaze me how stupid people are. Did I say stupid? Maybe I should just call them Scum of the Earth. I am now refering to another story that just popped up on the Fox News website. Apparently some idiot lady from MI is sueing Mars Candy because a Starburts chew caused her jaw to lock up! That's right. And she thinks she is owed $25,000.00 for her pain and suffering.

Once again quoting from the article. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,286855,00.html

one Boston-area woman says the candies are so chewy, they should come with a warning label.

Yeah whatever lady! As if a warning label would have stopped you from stuffing your face with Starbursts.

Muawad says McArthur offered to negotiate a settlement with Starburst's insurer to pay for her rehabilitation, but the company said no way. A spokesman for Mars refused to comment.

Go Mars! Stand up! I hope Mars drains every last drop of its corporate finances to legally bury this moron.

McArthur says she just wants to make sure nobody else meets the same end she did when she decided to indulge her sweetooth.

"I don't want to see anybody else have to go through what I have gone through from eating a piece of candy that was supposed to be soft chew," she said.

Oh my hero! I'm so glad there are people out there like Victoria McArthur. Champions of liberty and fairness to watch over the rest of us....willing to take on the big, evil, nameless corporations all out of care and concern for her fellow shipmates here on spaceship Earth. Gee I wonder which charity she plans on donating her $25k to if she wins. Maybe she can help children of the Ozarks get dental care or something.

Give me a break people! We've got Thousands, maybe millions of radical islamists in the world plotting our extinction, and here we are sueing candy companies for being too chewy! No wonder they think we're weak and have the confindence to attack us! Look at us!!

The United Communist States of America?

Is this what it's coming to anymore in this country? I am specifically writing about the story I read about Kellog bowing to the will of advocacy groups to reformulate their LEGALLY distributed products like Frosted Flakes, Froot Loops, and Pop Tarts to meet more "nutritional" guidelines. To read the whole article go to Fox News:


I will be quoting here from the article.

The Battle Creek, Mich., company avoided a lawsuit threatened by parents and nutrition advocacy groups worried about increasing child obesity. Kellogg intends to formally announce its decision Thursday.

The company said it won't promote foods in TV, radio, print or Web site ads that reach audiences at least half of whom are under age 12 unless a single serving of the product meets these standards:

Remember this is AMERICA! When did minority advocacy groups in this country get this kind of power? American companies are becoming slaves bent to the whims of these lunatic groups who can use the court system to destroy companies and people who don't conduct legal business in a manner that these groups deem acceptable!! Twenty years ago if this happened, Kellogg would have laughed it off knowing that any judge in the country would toss a case like this out.

"By committing to these nutrition standards and marketing reforms, Kellogg has vaulted over the rest of the food industry," said Michael F. Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest. "This commitment means that parents will find it a little easier to steer their children toward healthy food choices — especially if other food manufacturers and broadcasters follow Kellogg's lead."

Unbelievable! Parents will find it easier to STEER their children toward healthy food choices!? This is ridiculous. This Mr. Jacobson is assuming that we as parents in America have no control over what our kids eat and do not eat? Especially the younger than twelves? COME ON! I don't wake up on Saturday morning and see my kids eating Frosted Flakes and think to myself, "Gee...I sure wish my kids wouldn't eat that crap...sigh...but what can I do?" WRONG! My kids eat what I give them to eat. I do the shopping. I make the choices of what cereal goes in the cart, not the kids! There's no "steering" going on at my home.

I love to reward them once in a while with a sweetened cereal. It's been a family tradition that on your birthday as a kid you get to choose a cereal. You know...Cookie Crisp, Frosted Flakes, Fruity Pebbles, Lucky Charms etc. But on a regular day you see my kids eating oatmeal or Cheerios, or Grape Nuts, or Shredded Wheat. I'm not such a moron to feed my kids straight sugar all day long and then wonder why they are fat, and neither is the rest of America's parents.

Sueing companies like Kellog, KFC and McDonald's is not going to do one bit of a dent in this country's obesity problem. This country needs nutritional education! It's 2007 and we are still going by the USDA's food pyramid that's been around since the 1940s. Despite a few modifications over the years it's the same dang pyramid. Maybe it's time for a revaluation on our nutritional approach as a country. Forcing companys through litigation is not the answer here! What's next, Nintendo, Playstation, and XBOX? How about that for contributing to obesity? Let's sue the gamer industry next to put microchips in consoles that force them to shut off after a certain ammount of play time every day. Yeah, parents don't know what's best for their kids. Let's introduce a robomom and robodad while we're at it.

Back To The Drawing Board

Well, today is day four of my new Atkins diet. I have spent two years trying to do the Body For Life program and have not made much progress. Sure, I have had good weeks with BFL, I even lost 12 pounds in 5 weeks on BFL once. Unfortunately, I can't seem to stay with it consistently enough to keep the weight off, and have spent the last two years gaining back twenty five pounds. I can say that in my experience with BFL I only lost weight if I was working out every day as the diet prescribes. The plus was if I stuck to the diet part but missed the workouts I did not gain weight. So, it's a great way for me to maintain my weight, but I just don't think I can use it to lose signifigant body fat.

I am not blaming the diet or program itself, but more my personal life and schedule. I work fourteen hour shifts four times a week and overtimes on top of that. I have a wife and three kids plus two dogs. Getting to the gym consitently is not easy. I believe if you have the time and schedule to get into the gym than BFL will work for anyone. But, at least on Atkins you lose weight whether you are working out or not. If I miss a workout on Atkins it isn't a big deal. I still lose weight.

Why back to Atkins? My first experience with Atkins I lost around thirty five pounds. I read alot of negatives about Atkins on the internet that made me wary to do it. I found these negatives to be false in my own case. Here's what I found to be untrue for me.

1- Atkins will make your cholesterol go up
2- Atkins will cause your blood pressure to rise
3- Atkins will make you grumpy and irritable
4- Atkins will make you tired and non-energetic
5- The weight you lose on Atkins is mostly water and lean muscle, not fat.
6- You will gain all the weight back that you lose.

These were the major things I was hearing about Atkins when I started it. I found every single one of those to be wrong in my case. In my job I have to get a complete medical physical every year. My first physical after eight months of Atkins was A+ My blood pressure was down from the year before. My resting heart rate was down. My HDLs were up and my LDLs were down. I was not irritable or non-energetic. My blood sugar stayed nice and level all the time so I never felt that mid-afternoon "crash" that alot of people feel every day. And as far as gaining the weight back....well what diet out there can you go off and NOT gain back the weight. My mistake was going off in the first place.

I also have to mention a recent study out of Stanford, the longest of its kind to date, where the Atkins diet came out on top by a significant amount. The study shows that people on Atkins lost 40% more fat than people on the next best diet. The article I read didn't mention what the "next best" diet is.

So, here's to another try at weight loss, one that I know from personal experience works. From this last study I can do it without fear or doubts to the benefits. I'm thinking that I can probably slowly transition to more of a BFL lifestyle once I lose the weight I want. I will probably count the carbs still. If I start gaining weight, I will cut back the carbs until I find the magic number. So, I guess in the end I will be doing kind of a blend of Atkins and BFL. Atkins For Life? I would do this just because I find the food choices and diet of BFL preferable to Atkins. So, if I can use Atkins to lose the weight first, then BFL to maintain, that would be ideal.

I will keep my progress posted here.