A Nation of Violins?
photo credit: photographer padawan
I've been thinking a lot more lately about how emotionalism seems to trump logic and reason in this country, and perhaps in the world at large. There was the recent NY Times article about anti-intellectualism, which I found fascinating. Then the other day, my fellow Cincinnatian Bill Cunningham obnoxiously teed off on Obama, later justifying it by saying that he'd been instructed to toss the crowd some "red meat" in preparation for McCain's speech.
Red meat? Those two words were a not-so-subtle suggestion of how the voters in this country are viewed by the elite. Quite simply, the candidates and their advisers view their supporters as mindless sheeple who are easily worked into a frenzy by empty and juvenile diatribes. We're viewed as emotional, irrational dimwits.
Don't get me wrong. Emotion has its place, and is important to our ability to empathize with and connect to others, but when it is allowed to outweigh reason, scary things can happen. I think we always need to be on the defensive against those who seek to convince us of their assertions by appealing to our prejudices and biases instead of our minds. The yelling and the screaming should, in fact, alarm us to the often uncomfortable reality that their position couldn't pass muster if viewed intelligently. It takes an honest person to pull back the curtain of noise and pulpit-pounding so that the truth can be seen.
I've noticed in myself an occasional tendency to be easily swayed by demagogues, and it's something I'm trying to improve on. First you must see it in yourself, and then you can address it.
My Goal is to Lose 42 Pounds in 21 Weeks
photo credit: eye of einstein
I thought I'd kick this blog off by issuing a challenge to myself, specifically that I'd like to lose 42 pounds during the next 21 weeks. A friend of mine up in Cleveland is a personal trainer and advises that I not try to lose weight at a greater clip than two pounds per week. You might wonder why I don't shoot for a more even number like trying to lose 30 pounds, but that just isn't enough and doesn't get me where I want to be.
Currently I'm 6'1" and weigh 232 pounds, and my target weight is 190, which I'd like to hit by July 13 or sooner. My current resting heart rate is 82 BPM and I'd like to get that down as well by knocking the rust off my legs and actually doing some exercise for a change. My blood pressure currently registers at 127/80, which is higher than it should be (120/80 or lower is normal), so that's another concern.
I probably haven't had a jog in a few years, which is rather pathetic now that I think about it, and I'm not quite sure how my body will react. First I'll start off with some walking and then gradually work my way up to running.
As far as my diet goes, well it's pretty much a nightmare of sugar and fat. I eat a lot of fast food (whoppers are my favorite) and I rarely, if ever, eat things like raw vegetables and fruit. With my daily caloric intake its a wonder I'm not even bigger. I'll be using slim fast shakes (one in the morning and one for lunch) in addition to a "reasonable" dinner every evening to begin the process, with the idea that at some point I can scale back to one shake a day as my exercise routine becomes more intense.
Why am I doing this? Put simply, I just don't feel very good most of the time. I feel sluggish, tired, and cranky more than I used to, and it seems to me that my thinking is not as clear as it once was, either, which I suspect has been compromised by my sedentary lifestyle. In addition, my knees have started to ache a little bit these last few weeks, and I've just decided that enough is enough. 232 pounds may not sound like a lot to some people, but for a guy like me that was very slim most of his life (I was 150 pounds soaking wet in my senior year of high school), that's quite a lot of excess "baggage". I think that getting down around 190 is a good, healthy weight for me, and at that point I'll probably try to mix some strength training in to tone up a bit more.
I'll keep everyone posted as I progress.