T-Buck’s Blog

So my mom just got back from her dental hygiene meeting in Omaha, and they had a doctor that spoke to them about health in general.  This lady spoke a lot about water consumption.  Apparently we are suppose to take how much we weigh and divide it by 2.  This in ounces is how much water we should be drinking per day.  Now if you exercise, you need to drink more than that.  My Men’s Health said that I need to be drinking a gallon of water a day.  So pretty much what they are saying is, you don’t have time to drink anything else but water.  So drink up.

So I’m a big advocate of getting away from individual water bottles, and buying a reusable bottle to drink your water from. Its just better for the environment, and everybody involved. Recently the Biggest Loser has been pushing the Brita Filter and getting a Nalgene bottle. Awesome, right?

Well today news broke the BPA, which is the chemical that Nalgene uses to make their bottles is hazardous to your health. So bad, that Canada is actually banning the chemical. If this isn’t a kick in the face, I don’t know what is. Here you try to do something good, and Nalgene is using a chemical that is known to cause a lot of health issues. In their defense, they say they are stopping production using BPA, and will create their bottles out of a different plastic. So we’ll see how long it takes for these new bottles to be put on the market. If you don’t want to get rid of your Nalgene bottle, I found on a “green” site that BPA is linked, but not necessarily the only cause of these health factors. They say that you should only keep your bottle for 6 months, never put hot liquids in it and only hand wash them. Doing these small things will keep the BPA from breaking down and getting in your water.

I did just buy a new camelbak water bottle, which is BPA free, and works pretty handy. I recommend it, for all you cancer free, water drinking Camelbak Tritan Better Bottle

A friend of mine talked me into signing up for the KC full marathon yesterday.  I’ve thought about doing a marathon, but just haven’t taken the plunge.  I did the Lincoln half almost a year ago in May.  Should be interesting.

Oh and apparently it is a trend in the world of Marathons to ban headphones.  WTF.  To me, that’s like telling me I have to run a 7:30 pace.  Don’t tell me how to run, if I run with headphones that’s how it is.  They are citing safety issues, but just because I run with music in, doesn’t mean I’m going to run into traffic without looking.  And if I do, well that’s my own fault not theirs.

The Lincoln Marathon just announced their ban, but they also acknowledged in the article that there would be no way to enforce it.  So I think its basically insurance to cover their asses in case somebody gets hurt.

I have acquired a lot of knowledge on diet and exercise from reading and reading and more reading of magazines, books, websites, etc.  So I thought I’d pass along some tips.

When you need a snack during the day, grab a protein bar.  They have come a long way from back when they tasted like crap, and didn’t really come in any flavors.  Now you can get protein bars in many different flavors and they taste great.

My favorite is the South Beach Diet High Protein Cereal Bar.  It has 140 calories, 10g of protein, and 3g of fiber.  That’s a pretty healthy snack.  So next time instead of reaching for chips, grab one of these.  Protein is essential to building muscle, which in turns burns calories.

As always, drink lots of water.

As Obama is facing his worst set back in his presidential bid over his pastor’s comments, I began to wonder, What does it mean to be Anti-American?

If you read the news at all you can’t miss the millions of articles that have been printed with quotes by Obama’s pastor in Chicago. I began searching online for these heinous anti-American quotes, and found this one “We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians, and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back into our own front yards.”

What is so Anti-American about that? I mean its true, not in so many words. But we, as Americans, have a tendency to have the out of sight out, out of mind mentality. Every day around the world we have troops stationed, or fighting, or preparing to fight who we consider “bad people”. Nobody pays a lot of attention to the innocent people that suffer because of the things we are doing. Now, don’t get me wrong, the people we are fighting, probably need it, but you can’t be so blind not to see that a lot of the people killed in wars are the innocent people just going to work every day, that got caught in a cross fire. So as a result, we have a lot of people that dislike us.

This Obama things, sounds an awful lot like a little controversy started by the Dixie Chicks when they stated they were ashamed President Bush was from Texas, right before we entered into the Iraq War. What is so wrong with somebody having an opinion, and stating it? How does that make anyone anti-American? If nobody questioned things, or spoke up, nothing would change. When Martin Luther King spoke up about the racial division in America, did that make him Anti-American? The media has an amazing way of twisting things, especially about things like this, with a possible presidential candidate. There is a great possibility that people’s worst nightmares are about to come true, and we could have an African American or woman president. Time to start building bomb shelters again, because I’m pretty sure the world is coming to an end.

Bill O’Reilly’s article

Why is it that Health Insurance companies have such a strong hold on the American system? I came across an article about a woman in California who had paid her premiums to her insurance company for years, but after she was diagnosed with breast cancer, they retroactively canceled her policy. This happened in the middle of her treatment, and she was left to die.

Somewhere along the line, the health care system has turned into an elitist system. You are only allowed to live if you make over so much $$$ a year. Doesn’t anybody see a problem with this? People have been railing on Hillary Clinton about her socialized health care proposal, but have you looked at our current system, it’s not working. Period.

There are no easy answers to this problem, but we need to do something. As a human, I feel we have three rights that should be granted to us: food, health, and shelter. I won’t get into the other two, but why are we allowing health insurance companies the decision on whether we live or die. Everybody should have health insurance. Nobody should go into a hospital and be diagnosed with cancer, and then have to deal with their insurance retroactively canceling her policy. WTF. That’s the point of health insurance.

One major argument over a socialized health system is that you wouldn’t be able to choose what doctor you went to, and there would be lines at the doctors office. You mean like the lines at the DMV. Who cares, I mean, it sucks, but waiting in line for an hour is a small price to pay for people that are less fortunate than you to get treatment. Suck it up.

In summary, our health care system sucks. We have some of the best doctors and hospitals in the world, but insurance companies make it very difficult to receive the treatment people need. Isn’t it about time we took the power of whether we live or die out of the insurance companies hands?

So my first post on my cool new blog, is my first entry in a long list of things I called “Things that are Fu%&ed Up”. Plenty of more insights to come later on…

Yesterday Greenpeace, The Center for Biological Diversity and the Natural Resources Defense Council sued the Department of the Interior on the delayed ruling of whether Polar Bears should be listed as endangered. Pretty interesting course of action, but this decision has been delayed for over 3 years now. 3 years, are you kidding me, how long does it take to decide if there is enough scientific evidence to declare whether these animals are dying off.

Well that brings me to one possibility of why the delayed decision, because if polar bears are declared endangered, the US can not do anything to harm them or their environment. So that could potentially mean 29 million acres that would be leased to oil drilling companies would have to be untouched. Wouldn’t that suck for them? Now, I’m not an expert in this field, but it seems highly suspicious that a ruling on an endangered species has taken 3 years to discuss, but if they are listed as endangered, it could mean major changes in the US, going as far as laws to reduce Global Warming which is hurting the polar bears environment.

This ruling is not just a simple endangered species ruling, it could be a major turning point for Americas stance on global warming and the environment. Because lets face it, for the last 7 years, the environment hasn’t had it easy with the current administration.

So in summary, somebody ball up and do what should be done.