Looking at the World Blindly

This world is one of deceit. This world is unfortunately filled with fakeness. This world cannot be taken for face value.

When I think about growing up, I think of food. Food is a huge part of life that nobody can deny. Without food, life eventually stops. There are family foods that nobody can recreate. There are traditional foods associated with different ceremonies and celebrations. There are comfort foods that are there for you when life goes downhill. And there are “healthy” foods that we are all told we need.

I used to be a dairy-aholic. In my family, the more cheese the better. Take a block of cheese out of the fridge, tear a chunk off, put it back and be merrily on your way. That was my upbringing. A pound of bacon for breakfast? You bet! I was oblivious to the truth.

As I grew up and got to where I am now, I have realized how blind I really was.

When we listen to the things people have told us without investigating for ourselves, we are leaving our entire lives in their hands. When we watch dairy commercials that promote the goodness of dairy and yet never look into the fact that some of the biggest dairy drinkers have the worst arthritis, we may end up the same way. The way dairy is designed causes inflammation in our bodies. The extra calcium actually leaches calcium from our bones, not into it. Milk cows have drastically cut their lives down because of the constant pregnation, something we fight to stop in third world countries because of the deaths and complications it has caused human women. Baby bulls are sent to slaughter because they are worthless in the dairy industry and treated as such from the moment they are born. Calves are pulled from their mothers within 24 hours of birth so as not to drink all of the milk that can be sold to humans. The dairy industry is disgusting.

And yet it’s not just the dairy industry. So much of what we are told is a lie. The media skews what it wants us to see. The meat industry will not let you into their slaughterhouses to see the abuse. The scientific studies are often revokable and untrue. Industries pay off publishers to post results that they want people to see. Our world is treacherous and ruthless.

So my question to you is this: Are you going to keep believing everything that you see? Everything that people tell you to believe? Or are you going to find out for yourself?

Week 2 Day 1

Today was an incredibly busy day. My husband and I had to get ready, get our four dogs ready, and make a couple stops before driving the 45 minutes to make it to a softball tournament hosted as a fundraiser for my school. We spent most of the 2 hours we were there monitoring kids as they loved our dogs and wanted to walk them and play with them. Thankfully, our dogs love attention and love kids so for the most part this went well (except the kid that starting trying to empty his water bottle on my dog… I was not happy).

I managed to pack some already cooked rice that I had set aside and a package of beef jerky to take with me. Lesson learned: cold rice is awful! But do what you can to eat healthy.

We left the tournament and dropped by our house to leave three of them at home. We took the fourth (Jewel) to her grooming appointment.

While she was being groomed, we went to Home Depot looking at tools, and then to H&W Produce to pick up some veggies.

After we picked Jewel up, we brought her back home with the others.

We then headed to the other side of the city to go to Shoppers Drug Mart, then ate at the Mongolie Grill. We chose this restaurant because it is very macro friendly. It’s basically a salad bar but for stir fry. You pick and choose what you want for veggies, proteins, sauces, etc… and they grill it up for you. Easy way to get in good food while you’re out.

Our final stop after the Mongolie Grill was Wal-Mart for some groceries.

It was a hectic, busy day but I managed to eat on track and succeeded in accomplishing a lot today. By the time I was done my workout (hard workout, 7 exercises in circuit format, pushed really hard with a little Olympia motivation) I felt so sick. Sick enough that I didn’t know whether my body wanted to vomit/sleep or what it wanted; sick enough that my husband almost made me pull over and let him drive the 5 minutes home. I was in rough shape.

Even though I felt so awful, I got it done and to me that is what matters. Can’t be successful if you don’t do the work!