I am down 50+ pounds, and have another 20 to go. This is new to me, but I absolutely agree with everything you said.

I can’t believe it took me 45 years to try that but man am I happy I did. Well, I’m almost there. None of my clothes fit anymore though.

None of that is what you should be doing. I mean yes you should be exercising. But not the way you are going about it. For context, I just lost 50 pounds, and have another 20 to go. I got a scary liver diagnosis due to a lifetime of overeating.

Download a calorie tracker and be super honest with it. At first don’t be as concerned with staying within your calories as you are about building the habit to ALWAYS log everything. Seeing it laid out has more impact than anything else in changing your daily habits. Don’t be tempted to skip little tastes, licks, and bites.

Additionally, do not starve yourself! Slowly change your habits and your body will do the rest. Starving yourself will only trigger your body into gaining weight by holding onto everything it gets. It will also make just about everyone quit within a few weeks. If you are finding yourself constantly starving (as opposed to occasionally hungry) then you need to make adjustments to what you are eating. Swap foods for better options. I swapped my late night chips, which kept me awake while driving trains at 3 am with no sleep for two days, with baby carrots I bought at the gas station. I found potatoes helpful in keeping full in the past, but had to avoid them for the liver. Potatoes aren’t super high in calories, but sour cream, bacon, cheese, and/or deep frying them is.

Remember that your body adapts to the foods you regularly eat in about 4-6 weeks. So if you start eating healthy foods you hate, like a salad with tuna and sliced beets, you will start to crave it in about a month and a half. (Tuna has fish oils and beets are chock full of antioxidants). I have hated oatmeal for 40+ years, and now that is my preferred breakfast. I tried to make myself like it over and over but this time I stuck with it long enough to actually get my body hooked on that particular set of nutrients.

Oh, and if you set your home address to Europe in My Fitness Pal, it gives you some of the premium features, like the barcode scanner.

Absolutely quit soda and energy drinks. That one is just hard and there really isn’t an easy answer for it. Sparkling water helps a bit, but really just plain water is the best at satisfying those cravings. Oh, and you will develop a massive sweet tooth when you quit soda. But if you try to stay within calories and drink a Mt Dew you will be starving by the end of the day. Diet soda is NOT better just because it doesn’t have calories. It messes with the way your body processes and stores everything else it gets making it just as bad (worse) than the regular stuff. Stevia is ok for a lot of things, but getting your tastes used to less sugar is a huge step in losing weight and getting healthier.

I’m old enough to literally not care one bit what the youngins do or if I really understand them. I don’t need them to be my clone to live them. They got their thing just like I had mine. Circle of life.

And it was a dance move performed on bikes. Literally pumping the chest up and down with arms spread wide (like flying an airplane), while riding a bicycle, in a group.

Rose’s 1st taste…

*Rose’s first taste. If you look closer at the signs.

Maybe we don’t always need as many moderators as reddit would make you believe.

Excellent writeup. Thank you.

*Textbook economic collapse.

Literally exactly what all economic textbooks say would happen if you did what he did.

Which is why I think it was all on purpose. They are driving the market up and down predictably. Stocks keep surging every time there is a “leaked” rumor that he will pause tariffs.

Oh boy. You struck gold here.

The US Constitution is the highest form of trade pact. That is all the federal government exists for, is to facilitate trade. Catching murderers, building roads, investing in education, stopping infectious disease… All there to keep us working, buying, and trading goods and services because without that whole segments of society starve and start wars.

I love how dumb the anti-taxation argument is because they have zero idea that they wouldn’t have any money, or jobs, without the government doing what it does with all that tax money.

Also, never forget that when you work for a wage you are selling your time. Looking at it that way changes how you feel about your life and job. It is 100% a choice that you make because the trade is worth the pay. If not, make yourself more valuable and get out. (It would take too long to explain how that works with disabilities and government aid).

Or, they balance the benefits of corrupt practices with equally detrimental (to the corrupt entity) costs. Making them less profitable than fair trade.

That’s why an oligarchy is NOT the same thing as capitalism. You cannot have a free market if an oligarchy exists. Additionally, the four foundational principles of capitalism are:

1. The right to own property and work for your own well being.
2. The right to own the profits of your labors, after modest taxation.
3. Laws and regulations to prevent corruption.
4. The enforcement of those laws and regulations.

Edit: wow, the spelling errors sure make that seem crazy as hell. Fixed.

I’ve only had a couple of them not work. But I always ask for links to save on data. I think it has to do with what you are researching. Which is hard to predict.

…no matter what we do…

That’s the part that always blows my mind.

I absolutely love this.

My wife and I were in an argument while I was rushing out the door to work. I made two hot dogs for lunch for me to eat on the way to work. I work on call, and was going out of town for a couple of days so I was packing my bags at the same time, all while going through an argument. When I went to leave, I couldn’t figure out where the hot dogs were. I am always misplacing things, and eventually just had to leave without them. An hour later I called my wife and asked her if she threw them away because she was mad at me. Yep, petty as hell. I laughed so hard at that I cried. It’s been twenty years and we still laugh about it.

Unhealthy eating. I’m down 50 pounds and my liver and kidneys are doing much better.

Bleach, actually. A small amount of bleach added to spoiled milk makes it taste brand new. The government actually suggested this in a few countries for a while.

Plaster in flour was common enough that after the miller, the middle men, and then the baker all added a cut, there were loaves being sold with less than 20% flour in them. The result was mass malnutrition.

Also, and this is a spicy one but backed by basic economics, regulations are a required element to capitalism. The notion that deregulation is pro capitalism is a misinterpretation of the idea that markets are self regulating. A free market is one that is free of corruption and unfair business practices. Which cannot exist without regulations and the enforcement of those regulations. All our current economic woes are the result of straying away from proven economic theory (mostly deregulation) to the right allowing the corruption of the marketplace and emergence of a strong oligarchy.

I WORKED… TWELVE… HOURS…

ALL… I NEED… IS WINGSTOP!

ALL… I NEED… IS WINGSTOP!

F-ING DRIVE!