Posts Tagged ‘Facebook’
Cleansing Mind and Body
Posted on: November 14, 2015
Banishng Facebook from my daily life on November 2nd has made me mentally more contented and relaxed and has changed my thoughts to be more positive and creative. It was hard at first but each day has been easier. I have broken the addiction. I have cleansed my mind.
Up next, my body. History: obese entire adult life, pre-diabetic, hypertension, lupus (in remission but working insidiously behind the scenes), fibromyalgia, osteoarthritis in knees, hips, lower back and right ankle, neuropathy in feet and legs, and cancer twice, resulting in radical hysterectomy and removal of thyroid. Imagine what I am costing the health system!
Four days ago, I began a Reboot, made famous by Joe Cross, who juiced his way across the US for 60 days in 2010, losing 80 lbs and ending up off all medications for a serious autoimune illness. His documentary about his journey is called “Fat, Sick and Almost Dead”. His website talks about juice fasting for periods of 3, 5, 15, 30 and 60 days.
For a few weeks now I have been juicing one meal per day, usually breakfast, and eating mostly fresh foods, not processed. Last week I upgrated to a more efficient juicing machine which increased liquid output by almost 100%. Much research has gone into juicing, types of juicers, Joe Cross and his website RebootWithJoeCross. It is the teacher in me. I needed to know all the facts.
I was finally ready to do an actual reboot where nothing is comsumed except fresh juices, water, coconut water and herbal tea. I chose 3 days because that seemed doable. (Note: purchased bottled juices are not good as they have added sugar and preservatives.)
I have never purchased an IPad app, but have downloaded many free ones. For this reboot, I purchased Joe’s Reboot app and it was awesome! For $6.99, I was able to input daily weight, nutrition, exercise, how I was feeling, etc. and any negatives were met with instant tips to counter the issue. It also contained juice recipes, progress charts and shopping lists. I just finished my first 3 day Reboot and lost 8 lbs! All info is kept in the app and I can easily add many more reboots.
This is not a fad diet. It is a quick way to fill your body with micronutrients and cleanse your internal systems. Doctors and nutritionists agree. I could quickly gain back that weight in no time by eating processed foods and going back to bad habits.
The hardest part is after a reboot, which Joe discovered as well. North America is fat and sick because of processed foods found in grocery stores and drive-thru ‘quick and dirties’. Meals that heat in a few minutes contain very few nutrients and a whole lot of chemicals. People on the hamster wheel of life like these convenience foods because time is limited in their busy lives, BUT: there are more chronic illnesses like diabetes and hypertension, autoimmune illnesses and cancers since how and what we eat has changed over the last 50+ years. These conditions are being found in children as well in the last few years. Also, food producers are using ever-increasing amounts of chemicals, antibotics, plastics, preservatives, and poisons in the raising of animals and crops for consumption. It truly is scary.
The documentation is available that proves all this, but people generally dismiss all the facts. Joe Cross and others have proven by example that the healthiest foods are fresh, not processed and that a diet of mostly vegetables and fruits with minimal dairy and meat meals (fish, chicken, beef, preferablly organic) per week can change lives by improving health and extending life expectancy.
Studies of eating habits around the world show very little disease and obesity where plants are the main diet. Industrialization has been our downfall!
So, here are my facts. Since I began to eat healthier, plant-based, fresh and not processed foods, I have lost 35 lbs in 4.5 months. My blood pressure meds have been cut in half, my AC1 test for blood sugar is below the pre-diabetic range now and my energy level has increased 100%.
I have found a local farm that grows vegetables and brings in BC fruits that were not grown with chemicals and pesticides. I try to buy organic in stores where available. Also, no more caffeine (coffee), diet pop and artificial sweeteners for me. If it does not contain nutrients, my body doesn’t need or want it.
My final BUT: I am not on a diet; I have changed my eating habits. I still eat in restaurants once in a while, choosing the healthiest items on the menu, I still enjoy a piece of homemade apple pie when I make one for a family dinner, and a visit to Dairy Queen a couple of times in the summer will still happen, just not every hot day. I wont indulge in pop or chips because they have no nutrition whatever in them, and that seems like a waste to me. And when I fail, as people do, I will get right back up, dust myself off and do a Reboot. It is called eating to live, and I want to live long enough to dance at my grandchildren’s weddings.
In summary, I am finished with Facebook and fast foods. I call that Freedom.
Facebook has done more than reconnect out of touch people and create a cyber world, that for some, has become more important than their real world. It is a place to put it all out there, good and bad – talk about how rotten or perfect your spouse is, and how awesome your children are. It is a place to show with photos the over-the-top spending at Christmas time and trips to warm places. It is the ‘look at me, I have more than you do and I can prove it with a bazillion photos’ place.
We also share when our houses will be empty because we are going away. We tell where we live and where we work to total strangers.
Some people feel the need to announce how many lattes they have consumed today, how they are yet again surviving until Friday, what they ate for lunch and how lucky they are to have what others have not. Some days it is exhausting. Why do we feel this need to share our lives so deeply with people who we do not spend time with and never see and probably forgot about until they found us or we found them on FB?
We certainly learn a lot about each other though. The intimate sharing shows us the person who never has anything positive to say, the one who thinks the world is conspiring against him/her and those who live on soap boxes for causes 24 hours a day when their own lives are less than stellar.
It is a place to shout your beliefs, run down politicians and your boss/workplace, dislike your neighbor and those you work with. I wonder about all that ‘stuff’ we put out there now that is going to bite us in the butt in the future. Jobs can be lost and relationships destroyed because of Facebook. Really. No, really.
But there is an eery new thing happening lately. People are talking to the dead on Facebook. They put lengthy comments on FB pages of the deceased, talking to them as if they are still here. I read one the other day wishing the person who had passed away two months ago a happy birthday! What? What do you mean, ‘Have a great day’? Are you thinking these people have passed but are still connected to their Facebook pages? You don’t continue having birthdays after you die! You would have had another birthday if you had lived! Reading “Have a great birthday”on a deceased person’s site is so weird!
In memorium pages are different. They eulogize the person and those left behind share memories and photos. That makes sense. It is the talking to the deceased as if they are checking their email daily after death that is kind of freaky. It is becoming more and more common. Talking to them as if their lives continue, but in another dimension that is connected to FB.
Can you picture all these souls milling around in the afterlife, the unknown zone out there, still reading their FB pages? Strange and a bit weird. No. A whole lot weird.
I like the new timelines because we are able to look back at our FB histories, all the way back to when we first signed on. We can see all the comments, photos, and shared items. Our past posts are spread out before us, like in an album or scrapbook. Ever think you might have changed your mind about something you expressed 3 years ago? Oops. It remains out there. Forever.
Nothing is off-limits on FB. Nothing. That is scary. If you can think it, you can put it on Facebook.
More importantly, Facebook, the organization, will have so much intimate information on millions of people, neatly organized! The implications of that should make us stop and think before we put another thing on our pages.
When I downloaded my timeline, I went through everything, deleting information and photos. I decided to do this after thoughts about a total stranger who became a follower on my blog a few months ago. When I checked him/her out at the time, I had an uneasy feeling about their character and integrity. I realized I was sharing some intimate thoughts with a stranger who was giving me bad vibes. Yikes.
We are all doing that with our FB pages. It is not just a couple of friends flipping thru your photo album and laughing over high school escapades or enjoying cute stories about the kids. We are laying it all out there for total strangers to see and learn about us and those near and dear to us.
Do you not find that a little unnerving? Almost as unnerving as messaging those who have passed away as if they are still sitting at their computers?
Facing an addiction . . .
Posted on: September 18, 2011
If I have more than one alcoholic drink, I am asleep in the corner. Many years ago, I was married to an alcoholic who could party all night, won the at-party award for funniest stand-up comedian when drinking and who asked what was wrong with me because I did not have the same stamina. He was funny, but he was drunk and often.
I do have an addictive personality however, and it has come to the surface in many forms other than alcohol. The latest is Facebook. This world of connecting with people you’d lost track of and then following their posts of what they ate for breakfast and who they are ticked off at today had become my world.
It started innocently enough. I signed up, found people from my past and delighted in catching up with their lives. Then I was spending long evenings just hanging on-line, commenting here and there and even checking for updates as soon as I got up in the morning. After each day in the work world, I would unlock that front door at home and head straight for the computer. Between cooking, cleaning, watching a tv show, I would gravitate back to the computer, checking my email, then FB.
It all seemed innocent enough because it was a gradual slide into this obsession. One day I realized how ridiculous it was. Ninety of those ninety-eight people are not part of my real life. I am not going to make the effort to visit them, nor will they likely ever visit me. I really don’t give a rat’s tail that “R” had a busy day and wishes it was the weekend, or that another “R” is sitting in a cafe having a ‘Mucho Grando Poopo, extra-large’, or that “M”‘s daughter is beyond awesome in the school operetta.
So, what have I been doing on there? Standing on my own soapbox, in front of a sea of faceless computer screens, I have been sharing MY anecdotes about life and family. Do those ninety-eight people care that my grandkids are beyond cute and smart or that I have a new drama of the week in my life? A few people, my A list, take time to comment, as I do on their updates.
But Facebook should be like that one drink, occasional and just a brief encounter. As an addiction for me, it had gone too far.
Since the beginning of my FB journey, I have suffered the massive sharing of materialistic opulence at Christmas, the constant wishing it was Friday, the complaints against lazy husbands, bad hockey and more snow. I witnessed a one-day event that continued on FB for well over a year and an emotionally charged group who began in-fighting over a local news event.
I saw people at their worst and people at their best. I presented myself at my worst and maybe at my best (debatable), but I am finally finished. I have de-activated my account.
The first few days were difficult. I wanted to constantly ‘check’ what was happening on FB. I held back, saying I would stay off for a week, and what a week it was! I got so many other things accomplished! I read an awesome book, did household purging and thought about other things besides FB and its ‘peeps’.
I finally did check in on day 7. I had missed a few hundred posts. My mouse scurried through them. Same old, same old. I was let down and elated at the same time. Then I deactivated my account again and will attempt a 2 week hiatus this time. My goal – to either close my page for good or only drop in once a month.
In all fairness, I do miss the ‘friends’ who wrote with wit and gave me a daily laugh. I miss “P” and “S” whose anecdotal stories about their children were delightful, and “L” who is a born writer and expecting her first child with so much joy and gratitude after a long struggle to get pregnant. I miss “S” who tells stories of his escapades teaching in Asia.
In two weeks, I will go back to FB and find out what these few are up to, but I will not go back full-time. I have things to do and important decisions to make about my own life, and I want my free time to be exactly that, free, not attached to my FB page.
BTW – I found a FB addiction site on-line. People were expressing similar sentiments as mine, but I decided not to join. Everyone there had transferred their addiction from FB to this new site.
Facebook Etiquette
Posted on: September 3, 2010
What is it? I googled Facebook Etiquette and did not find much, after I was told by a friend that I had breached it. I think they felt uncomfortable about my personal sharing on this blog, but isn’t that an individual preference? What I share is up to me. It did not affect another person; it was about me.
After reading what was out there about etiquette however, I chose to trim my friend list a lot and to change my focus on Facebook. I probably should trim my friends right down to a handful if I am going to be upfront and personal, but I will leave it up to the rest to dump me or keep me as they see fit. My feelings wont be hurt if I am dumped. I am a big girl! (Actually, according to 4-year-old Michael, I am a princess who wears Crocs.)
Seems to me the rule is, there are no rules. As long as you do not put up embarrassing photos of others, tag people who don’t want to be tagged, change your relationship status without consulting the other person, fight with others openly out in FB land, say anything hateful or derogatory about others, what else is there in the way of rules?
Two people I know say that FB is “evil” and say they want no part of it, yet they seem to know what I write on it. Interesting and humorous. If you don’t like it then get off it. I have freedom of speech and I use it, as those who read this have noticed, ha! ha!
I especially like my friends on FB who have this same philosophy. They vent with passion and pleasure and we all comment on each other’s rants. It is especially nice in the middle of the night, like right now, when I have insomnia so badly.
Part of hyperthyroidism is this insomnia and I cannot do anything about it. I also cannot do anything about the right-eye twitch that has recently developed from this condition and is very irritating and embarrassing in the middle of a staff meeting. I have to sit there with my finger pressed into the corner of my eye to stop the twitching. Then I have to switch fingers. Nice.
I wait with eager anticipation for a surgery date to cut out this little organ that is covered with ‘C’ lumpies and causing distress in my life. I read up on thyroid cancer and thyroid surgery tonight to get out of the fear zone and into the knowledge zone.
Years ago when I was diagnosed with lupus and very little was known about it, I went to the Calgary Lupus organization and the Foothills Hospital medical library and photocopied everything they had available as well as purchased books written by doctors on the topic. (One interesting one was called “The Sun is My Enemy”, written by a doctor who was diagnosed with lupus.)
Within weeks I had a large binder full of info, divided into categories of how lupus affects different organs in the body. The health unit in my home town actually asked to borrow my binder at one point and photocopied (again) all the info I had so as to help others who were being diagnosed.
With knowledge comes power and hands-on involvement in treatment. I need the expertise of doctors but want to be involved in my treatment. Nothing worse than blindly trusting a physician and worrying about what he/she is doing or deciding to do. The only doctor I blindly trust is my GP in Bellevue because I went to high school with him! Yet I have been known to argue with him too. I do bow to his expertise most of the time.
I have to shower, go to work and function like a normal human being in a few hours, even though I am sleep-deprived. Sheesh! I will just point towards the end of the day when I drive into the city to see all three of my gorgeous grandkids together for a few hours. Because they live in different cities, it does not happen that often and when it does, it gives me the highest of pleasure. I truly love to see them all together.
I am reading “Eat, Pray, Love” at the moment and not liking it much. In my opinion, which means very little, the author is totally self-centred and so wrapped up in self-gratification that she seems to care little about others. Of course I am still in the early stages of the story, so should not form such a strong opinion so soon . . . I guess if I end up disliking the book by the end, I will go to the movie and live the story of finding the perfect life through Julia Roberts and her hunky Italian.
Oh if life was like the movies! Here I am, on Facebook, all wrapped up in myself, but with no Italian hunk waiting in the wings. What I do have is fascinating, funny and feisty friends, an awesome, supportive family and a job that is Fun! Okay. I win!
