It's "The Climb"

So, I am not a huge Miley Cyrus fan, however the lyrics to her song "The Climb" really hit home about my journey. Just thought I would share them...

The Climb lyrics
Songwriters: Alexander, J; Mabe, J;

I can almost see it
That dream I am dreaming
But there's a voice inside my head saying
"You'll never reach it"

Every step I'm taking
Every move I make feels
Lost with no direction
My faith is shaking

But I gotta keep trying
Gotta keep my head held high

There's always gonna be another mountain
I'm always gonna wanna make it move
Always gonna be a uphill battle
Sometimes I'm gonna have to lose

Ain't about how fast I get there
Ain't about what's waiting on the other side
It's the climb

The struggles I'm facing
The chances I'm taking
Sometimes might knock me down
But no, I'm not breaking

I may not know it
But these are the moments that
I'm gonna remember most, yeah
Just gotta keep going

And I, I got to be strong
Just keep pushing on

'Cause there's always gonna be another mountain
I'm always gonna wanna make it move
Always gonna be a uphill battle
Sometimes I'm gonna have to lose

Ain't about how fast I get there
Ain't about what's waiting on the other side
It's the climb, yeah!

There's always gonna be another mountain
I'm always gonna wanna make it move
Always gonna be an uphill battle
Somebody's gonna have to lose

Ain't about how fast I get there
Ain't about what's waiting on the other side
It's the climb, yeah!

Keep on moving, keep climbing
Keep the faith, baby
It's all about, it's all about the climb
Keep the faith, keep your faith, whoa

Food Inc.

So, since I finished season 4 of Biggest Loser, I didn't have anything to watch, so I downloaded Food Inc. to the iPad. The netflix app is pretty sweet! The movie is definitely one sided. It presents all the negative impacts of the way our food is mass produced today but it sure does open your eyes to things you didn't know. I was going to try and be Siskel and Ebert and do a movie review but I am too tired . I read a pretty good synopsis on NPR though. Here it is...

Food, Inc. is a documentary, but the film it reminds me of most is The Matrix — the movie where humans find out they're living in a simulacrum, a virtual world they mistake for reality. It's the stuff of the most paranoid science fiction.

Author and co-producer Eric Schlosser strolls through a supermarket and explains that most of these colorful foodstuffs, this so-called variety, comes from five corporations that now control 80 percent of the market.

Those company names like Farmland, and the little pictures of family farms? They're fantasy. That red tomato? It is, says Schlosser, a "notional" tomato, flavorless, gassed to be red, ready to be consumed year-round.

That plump chicken? Grown in a factory, never saw daylight, bred to be almost all breast meat so its feet couldn't carry it and its organs barely worked.

And us? The way we eat, says Schlosser, has changed more in the last 50 years than in the previous 10,000. And the reality has been deliberately hidden from view.

The material of Food, Inc. will be familiar if you've read Schlosser's Fast Food Nation or Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma — and Pollan's in the film, too.

But hearing family farmers sued into bankruptcy by giant corporations and seeing chicken factories and hidden-camera slaughterhouse footage — that's gut-wrenching, literally.

Director Robert Kenner lucidly lays out the reasoning of Schlosser, Pollan, scientists and nutritionists; he moves from facts about how we eat now to unintended consequences and hidden costs.

Every line, every frame makes you choke on your popcorn, if for no other reason than that popcorn is a big part of the problem. Thanks to government subsidies, corn is 30 percent of our national crop. It goes into everything, from the high-fructose corn syrup in that soda you're drinking to unlodge the popcorn to the Midol you take for the headache the movie gives you to the e. coli-ridden bellies of factory-farmed cows.

Kenner introduces us to a low-income family buying burgers from a fast-food drive-up, which makes perfect economic sense. Thanks to subsidized corn, it's cheaper to go for the double burger and soda instead of the nonsubsidized head of broccoli. But there is that hidden cost: childhood obesity and mushrooming incidences of diabetes.

The sheer scale of Food, Inc. is mind-blowing: It touches on every aspect of modern life — and death, as in the case of Barbara Kowalcyk's 2-year-old son Kevin, who died from e. coli. She's now an activist, and she carries a picture of Kevin with her as she lobbies on Capitol Hill.

"He went from that," she says, passing the photo of her smiling son to a legislator, "to being dead in 12 days."

Here's one of my favorite bits in Food, Inc., because it's about an insane philosophy. Pollan says you could reduce the e. coli in the guts of cows by 80 percent just by putting them on grass for five days, which sounds like a good deal all around — nature working its magic!

But no, the industry wants a high-tech solution. So supplier Eldon Roth demonstrates his new e. coli-killing meat mix-in, a tasty blend of ammonia and ammonia hydroxide. Bon appetit! (Points to Roth for talking on camera. Perdue, Smithfield, Monsanto and the others declined to give their side.)

The film makes Monsanto out as the scariest. The former manufacturer of DDT and Agent Orange patented a gene that's in 90 percent of the nation's soybean seeds. You'll be driven out of business if you re-use them, as farmers have for thousands of years. You'll even be sued if some of the seed blows onto your land and you wind up with Monsanto-patented soy.

Food, Inc. doesn't end on a down note, though: The music goes from minor to major key. Gary Hirshberg of Stonyfield Farms makes the case that every food purchase we make is a political act. Wal-Mart sells his organic products because people want to buy them, not because it's morally enlightened.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=105152916

Sleepy

I have been so tired lately and it has been hard to get motivated to workout. I know that working out gives me so much energy and I need to do it but after doing chores all day on my days off or working all day, teaching CPR, going to meetings, playing with two kids, yard work, etc...I am pooped. I think that getting the 6 hours of sleep I get, just isn't enough any more.

How do you stay motivated? I considering getting a jogging stroller. I have a neighbor selling one in her garage sale. Not sure if it would help, as I could take the kids or if it would just be another gadget to collect dust.

This week has been extremely stressful. My boss resigned and it came as a total shock to me. I am heading to Chicago for two days on Sunday and trying to get prepared to leave my family. Just trying to play catch up on household and yard chores so we wont have so much to do on the weekends. We would really like to have some weekends that we can just go on some "close to home" trips and not be held as a slave to our house and yard. I am trying to get a schedule so most of the chores can be done before the weekend. I have my two days off...but it is still hard to get things done because on those days I am enjoying my kids and wanting to play with them and do activities, not clean!

Thats all for now. So to workout? or to sleep?

For a little laugh

My friend sent me a funny email the other day so I thought I would share.

With time, women gain weight because we accumulate so much information and wisdom in our heads that when there is no more room, it distributes out to the rest of our bodies.

So we aren't heavy, we are enormously cultured,educated and happy.

Beginning today, when I look at my butt in the mirror I will think, Good grief, look how smart I am!

Must be where 'Smart Ass' came from!

Weight Watcher Results: Week 21

Looks like a good week! I did more cardio than I had in weeks past. I did the treadmill twice and went for a neighborhood walk, I also did weekend warrior on Monday and then a difficult workout on Thursday. I added 15 minutes of cardio on Thursday too as a warm up. I had some challenges too. There is a bakery here that makes these wonderful lemon cookies. They are probably my favorite cookie. Well, one of my girlfriends said that she had a recipe for those cookies. I love to bake so it is hard to give up one of my hobbies in exchange for this diet. Yet, I have little self control when it comes to not eating the baked goods. To make a long story short, I indulged in too many cookies; and yesterday I put the last six cookies on a plate and took them to our next door neighbors.

Another rough week ahead. Must stay on track! I finished season 4 Biggest Loser. The new season starts in 10 days. It will stink only getting to watch once a week though. I will need another show to watch on the other days. I am thinking of 24. I have only seen season one and because it leaves you with a cliff hanger each week I think I would be motivated to watch.