SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, SPAM

To My Much Appreciated Readers:

My humble, little blog has been targeted by a spammer.  For those who may not know what this means, there is a person "out there" who is being paid to place comments on my blog that contain links to other websites that are selling things, like diets, jewelry, lawn furniture and perfume, just to name a few.  I was gone for the whole day recently, and when I returned home, I found more than fifty comments awaiting moderation that were all made by the same spammer.  It took me about twenty minutes to open them, identify them and delete them.  Yesterday, there were twenty of them waiting for me to deal with when I returned from work.  It's very disheartening!

Because my blog does not require that you register, people can leave comments under "Anonymous."  The problem is that spammers can also do this, and they can leave many, many, many comments that I then have to deal with.

So, from now on, I am going to ask that you register to leave a comment.  I don't get a ton of comments anyway, so I am hoping that those of you who want to comment will not mind this one little step - that you only have to do one time - to save me the hassle and frustration of dealing with the spammers.

The only other choice is to make you do that other thing - every time you comment - where you have to type in the squiggly letters/numbers in order to leave your comment.  I, personally, hate those things and have to go through a few of them every time because they are so hard to read.  I would rather not comment at all rather than have to do that!

So, sorry!  I just can't waste my time with the spammers anymore.  If you watched the video above, you will get just a hint of how I feel every time I open my email to find I've been spammed once again.  "I don't like Spam!"

I'M A MEAT EATER - MITCHELL AND WEBB

BACK ON THE RIGHT TRACK - AND IN A PRETTY DRESS

If you scroll up and look right, you will see a before and after comparison of me at my heaviest in February 2009 on vacation and me in June 2010 at a family wedding.  Underneath, you will see my body fat percentage when the photos were taken.  Lately, my body fat has been above 34.4%, but today - TA DA! - I hit that number again!  I was so happy that I put on that same dress and had my husband take a pic to celebrate.

So this is me, with a different 'do, no makeup and wearing my cheaters, and no, I am not referring to a push up bra!

I'm just happy today and feeling skinny...

(To hear the song, fast forward the video to 0:45.)

THE MEATRIX - DO YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT IT IS?

WHERE IN THE WORLD IS CARMEN SANDIEGO?

Okay, so I dropped off the face of the blogosphere about nine months ago.  I started this blog back in February of 2009, which was over three years ago.  I used the blog as a place to record my personal stats, which I was very into at the time, and as a storehouse for all the great articles I was finding in my main area of interest, which was, and still is, nutrition.  Low Carb High Fat nutrition, to be precise.  And then, without an explanation, I disappeared, and no one knew where I was, just like my old friend, You-Know-Who:

(I would watch that show just to hear them sing!  I'm really dating myself now!)

Everyone has had the following experience:  Someone says something snarky (or downright mean) to you out of the blue, and you are so taken aback that you can think of nothing clever to say.  Later, when it is much too late, you think of the perfectly scalding comeback that would have put that person in their place and elevated you to “most clever person ever”.  I had one of those experiences back in August 2011 when a random stumbler stumbled across my blog and called me and my blog, well, stupid.

The comment posted by this anonymous person went something like this, as best as I can remember:  “Your blog is so lame!  Who cares about all your stuff?  Why don’t you get a life?” and more along those lines.  I posted back something like:  “Oh, yeah?”  I know.  Not the height of cleverness.  After I posted that brilliant response, I deleted both his (I don’t know why, but I always assumed it was a guy) and my comments so that no one else but me and that guy would see them. He never returned and it was a good thing, because I spent the next three days coming up with the most scathing comebacks I could think of, and I’m glad I never got the chance to use them.  I did not want to go on record tearing some stranger a new one as if I cared about what he said.  But I did care, and shortly after that, I stopped blogging.  To you, Guy that Commented:  I assume you will never read this, but you got your way.  I realized that no one cared about all my stuff and I got a life.  Not that I didn’t already have one, but you know what I mean…

I’m not sure what motivates a person to make a comment like Guy did.  I tried to imagine myself visiting someone’s blog about, say, restoring classic cars, and leaving this comment:  “Your blog is stupid!  I don’t care about cars and neither should you!  It’s a stupid hobby and a waste of money!  You need to get out of the garage and get a life!”  Nope, I don’t see me doing that.  Because, at heart and on the surface, I’m a pretty nice guy.

Anyway, the stats I posted nine months ago were the last ones I recorded here, right before I stole away into the night like Carmen Sandiego.  Not only did I stop recording them here, but I stopped in the real world, too.  No more weighing and measuring of food, no more tracking of fat grams or any other kind of grams and no more weighing and measuring of my own body.  Oh, I would hop on the scale every now and then (every few weeks, if I was looking fat), but those times were few and far between.  My tape measure stayed in the drawer and my digital kitchen scale stayed in the cabinet.

I feel pretty confident that I am only talking to myself here, because any people who were following my blog have long since given up on me, I’ll bet.  But if anyone is reading, the answer to “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego (aka Rebecca Latham)?” is that I just hit the wall and could not stand having to micro-manage my food and activities for one more second!  Being the anal retentive, perfectionist, obsessive compulsive person that I am (that last one has never been diagnosed), it was a hard thing to give up.  My charts would be incomplete and I would not be able to look back to a certain date after August 24, 2011 and know what my thigh measured that morning or how many grams of carbs I had eaten that day and what percentage they had been of my total calories!!!  Oh, the agony! 

Long story short, I got over it, and I am much happier now.  I have been sticking, mostly, to the low carb lifestyle.  I have had times that I have gone completely off of it, like during the holidays, but it is now my default way of eating and I always come back to it.  Over the past few months, I realized that I was getting too far away from what I knew to be the best for me and my chubby body and my chubby hubby.  I was starting to do things like grabbing a bag of Peanut M&Ms when I was out and about and a little hungry, and ordering and eating a pizza (crust and all!) when I was too tired to cook.  Lately, I put on about five pounds, and decided to get really serious about low carbing it again.  Just to see where I was starting at, I dusted off the ol’ tape measure and measured neck, waist and hips, and found out that I was almost EXACTLY where I was, body-size-wise, back in August, within an eighth of an inch.

Here is what I learned (again, pretty sure I'm just talking to myself to solidify things in my mind and convictions) after my nine months off:  Whether I obsess over it or not, it looks like this is the weight my body wants to be.  All the many months and years I spent tracking everything and trying desperately to shed some more body fat were a waste of time and effort.  I mean, hey!  I did not track for the last nine months, and no harm done!

Having said that, I have made a new commitment to get really serious about low carbing and high fatting it again.  I have decided that I am not going to eat candy and chips (did I forget to mention the Doritos that I was having with more and more frequency?) and I am not going to grab cookies at the bank (yes, my bank has a cookie jar and there are bowls of candy on every flat surface accessible to customers).  For the past week or so, I am doing what I know is right and eating protein, fat and some veggies, no fruit save a few berries now and then, and drinking only water, tea and homemade lemonade sweetened with a little liquid Stevia.  I am not measuring my food.  I am eating what appears to be a reasonable amount.  After all the measuring all these years, I guess I should have a handle on what that means without having to get out the dusty digital scale!

If I never decrease my weight from here on out, I am resolving to be content with that.  In clothes, I look pretty good, and no one sees my secret love handles but me and my husband, and he’s not complaining.  I have dropped a couple of pounds in the past week or so, and that’s nice.

I have spent the last several days shoring myself up with reading great nutrition articles on the internet and catching up with all my favorite low carb bloggers that I have ignored for nine months and finding a few new ones, too.  I am rereading “The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Living” by Volek and Phinney (two of my faves, who chose me to be a success story in “The New Atkins For A New You”, for which I will always be grateful), which was a gift from Karen Norris, my ol’ Atkins pal.

I will post again when I feel like I want to write something down in font, or when I find a great bit of information that I don’t want to lose track of.

Onward and Downward, as I always say, but even Onward and Straight Ahead can be a good thing!

(By the way, I have gotten back into quilting as a business, so if you want to visit my other blog on that subject and see photographs of my quilts, you can click here.

THYROID PHYSIOLOGY

This video explains why normal thyroid testing is not enough.


Thyroid Physiology from Dr. Bryan Walsh on Vimeo.

THE HCG DIET EXPLAINED

Here is a short youtube video I found that explains the HCG diet in simple terms:

IS IT INHUMANE TO EAT EGGS?

A SOCIAL NETWORK CHRISTMAS

I'M TRAINING FOR AN IRONMAN

Okay, I'm not, because I'm not insane.  But this guy is (someone drops an F-bomb, so watch at your own risk):

WATCH "FAT HEAD" MOVIE IN ITS ENTIRETY RIGHT HERE!

BACON IS HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH!

JACKIE EVANCHO SINGS "PIE JESU" - BREATHTAKING!

NO HUMAN SOCIETY HAS EVER LIVED ON HIGH CARB. UNTIL NOW.

CAN YOU BE FAT AND HEALTHY?

The content of this video made my head tilt! What do you think?

WHY DO WE GET HUNGRY? TOM NAUGHTON & DRS. EADES

Here is a great video that explains the mechanisms at work in hunger, and how a low carb diet controls hunger.

TURBULENCE TRAINING INTRODUCTORY LEVEL WORKOUT B

TTFL INTRO WORKOUT B from Turbulence Training on Vimeo.

Warm-up Circuit

Go through 2 times with no rest between exercises.

Rest 30 seconds between circuits.

Lying Hip Extension – 5 repetitions

Kneeling Pushup – 5 repetitions

Stability Ball Leg Curl – 5 repetitions

Superset #1

1A) Step-ups – 8 repetitions per side

No rest.

1B) Stick-ups – 12 repetitions

Rest 1 minute & repeat 1 more time for a total of 2 supersets.

Superset #2

2A) Stability Ball Leg Curl – 8 repetitions

No rest.

2B) Kneeling Push-up – 8 repetitions

Rest 1 minute & repeat 1 more time for a total of 2 supersets.

Superset #3

3A) Prisoner Squat – 10 repetitions

No rest.

3B) Side Plank – 10 second hold per side

Rest 1 minute & repeat 1 more time for a total of 2 supersets.

FATS AND OILS - TELLING THE GOOD FROM THE BAD

More from Tom Naughton on the history of fats and oils, and how saturated fats have been vilified by the government.

THE MCGOVERN REPORT - HOW DID THIS ALL START? - TOM NAUGHTON

How did the government first start telling us how to eat? Let Tom Naughton explain this travesty in a most entertaining way!

TURBULENCE TRAINING INTRODUCTORY LEVEL WORKOUT A

TTFL INTRO WORKOUT A from Turbulence Training on Vimeo.

Warm-up Circuit Go through 2 times with no rest between exercises. Rest 30 seconds between circuits. Lying Hip Extension – 5 repetitions Kneeling Pushup – 5 repetitions Superset #1 1A) Lying Hip Extension – 8 repetitions No rest. 1B) Plank – 15 second hold Rest 1 minute & repeat 1 more time for a total of 2 supersets. Superset #2 2A) Bodyweight Squat – 10 repetitions No rest. 2B) Bird Dog – 5 repetitions per side Rest 1 minute & repeat 1 more time for a total of 2 supersets. Superset #3 3A) Kneeling Pushups – 8 repetitions No rest. 3B) Side Plank – 5 second hold per side Rest 1 minute & repeat 1 more time for a total of 2 supersets. Superset #4 4A) Stick-ups – 10 repetitions No rest. 4B) Ab Curl-up – 6 repetitions Rest 1 minute & repeat 1 more time for a total of 2 supersets. To find out more about Turbulence Training, right click here.