KartMan

B-Man, I’m sure your family would rather have a slightly obsessed gym rat dad/husband than a chronically ill or dead dad/husband. I too struggle with making time for everything, there are no easy answers but I do know it’s worth it. Keep it up.

I run 4-5 days a week, 4-11 miles each session. I work out in the gym one day a week with a trainer, at least one day on my own. I do a pool session with a masters swim group and an open water swim once a week. I ride my bike at least 30-50 miles one day a week. Ok, I'm a little obsessed:eek:. I am training to do Triathlons in the spring.

Don't get me wrong, I think she was great in getting thru all the things she did in the House, if Reid was half as good in Senate we would have had a lot more of our issues addressed. She seems to be a great legislator and tactician, but I'm not sure she is the best communicator or the best voice of the party. Heck, Boner didn’t even have a message and he communicated "it" to his base and a majority of the electorate. We need House (and party) leadership that effectively gets out the message to the American people that the Republican agenda is bad for America and Americans and that the Democrats have a legitimate plan to move us forward.

Ok, I’m over the election – we lost and we need to move on. What has me a little pissed right now is the infighting with the House Democratic Leadership. I respect what they did in getting the bills passed that they did in the last session, but they clearly were at the helm of one of the parties greatest defeats. I think Pelosi, Clyburn, and Hoyer should all step back gracefully and turn the reins of the party over to new faces and fresh ideas. With Pelosi as the Minority Leader, the Republicans are going to make her the boogy man in 2012 and dig us into a deeper hole than we are in right now. How is it that all of a sudden the “Young Guns” are in the Republican party? I love that we have diversity with a women, and a black man in those critical roles – but we need fresh faces with new ideas as well. They did some great work with passage of Healthcare, Climate Change, and many others but they were out messaged by the Right. I don’t see any of those three making the point to the American people in a way that resonates about why the Democratic vision is far superior to anything the Republicans can offer.

I was wondering today why so many people voted against their own interest in this election? Exit polls show that working class whites, women, Hispanics in Texas and even gay men voted in way larger than normal numbers for Republicans than in the recent past. WTF people? Don’t you realize that that the Republicans have never and never will have your interests on their platform? The only thing that some people have sited is that they voted their pocket books rather than their core values – give me a break. Besides that being totally preposterous (the Republicans will not improve your pocketbooks my friends), it is incredibly shortsighted and utterly selfish. To be honest, I didn’t vote in my own best interest either. I am a heterosexual, white male, veteran and upper income – yet I voted Democrat. Now don’t get me wrong, I am very upset that the Democrats have not gone far enough with issues that I care about (getting us out of these stupid wars, Public Option with Health Care, Gay rights, Global Warming, ending the Bush Tax Breaks, etc.) but at least they are heading somewhat in the right direction. The Republicans and their whacko friends in the Tea Party are a recipe for disaster for the groups listed above and frankly for the country. I can only hope that they shoot themselves in the foot before 2012 so they don’t set us back 100 more years (this election set us back at least 30). Sometimes I am not so proud to be an American…

I was always in the non-runner camp when I was heavy. After losing my weight and getting to goal I was still afraid to run and avoided it. One of my biking buddies has been trying to get me interested in Triathlons and has been trying to talk me down from my fears of running. I have to tell you, it’s a hell of a lot easier to run when you don't have an extra 100lbs of flab attached to your belly. I've made 3 solid runs so far and am working my way up to the 3 miles needed for the Sprint Triathlons I will be doing. Who knew getting in shape would be so fun?

It absolutely “can” work. For me, it worked beautifully. I am 6’ tall and went from 282lbs down to as low as 170lbs. I am back up to 185-190, but that has been a welcome weight gain as I have been working out and gaining lean muscle mass. My BMI went from over 38 to under 25, more importantly my Body Fat percentage is hovering between 13-15% (which is considered excellent). Was it easy? No, nothing that works is. You have to learn how to work the tool, you have to set goals, and you have to do some work. Before this, I wasn’t always to most dedicated dieter or workout person. With the band though, I saw that my work was paying off (while losing weight I was dropping 2-4 lbs per week). Now I am careful about what I eat (but not super anal about it) and am very motivated to maintain and improve my physical fitness. I do some sort of workout 5 days a week (usually a couple of days in the gym, and a few days on the bike).

Hey folks, I’ve been away for a while. It seems as if some of the same folks are still around (except patty). I got frustrated arguing with the same 1-2 people here about the same issues. I am still passionate about politics and am really concerned with the direction the Tea Party whackos and the Fox enablers are taking us in. I’m not happy with everything Obama has done (mostly because he didn’t go far enough) but I know it would have been much worse without him and will be disasterous if the Republicans take over the congress. While I have not been here arguing the issues, I am doing what I can elsewhere to get the word out. Aside from politics, I have been loving being the new me. I am hovering at my weight goal and don’t concern myself with calorie counting anymore. I have a new passion for bike riding (I am doing a 62.5 mile endurance ride this weekend) and am in training to participate in a Triathlon in the spring.

I couldn’t be happier!!! Before surgery I had set my goal to 184 lbs which would have put me just into the “Normal” range on the BMI scale. Honestly, at that time I would have been happy to get down to 200 because I had never been able to do that in my dieting life. I hit that first goal back in October (8 months post-op). I was still comfortably losing at that point so I shifted my goal from weight/BMI to Body Fat Percentage. At that time, my Body Fat was about 17% which is pretty good for a 43 male, but I wanted to do better. I set my new goal to get under 13% BF which is considered “Excellent” on most BF charts. Yesterday I had my most recent Hydrostatic Dunk Test (this is the most accurate way to measure BF) and I was shocked and amazed to see that I was at 9.7% BF!!! My weight is down to 170.6 lbs, which is almost 115 lbs from where I started. That is freaking unbelievable. If you were to see me now and not have known the fat me, you would never know that I was overweight. I look very thin, not sickly thin mind you, more like a runners body, somewhat muscular but not chiseled (yet). I actually care about looking good in clothes now. I love all the compliments I get. I am so motivated by my success and actually enjoy the food choices I make, I take pleasure in going to the gym now. I still have some mental issues to deal with. I occasionally still see that fat guy in the mirror. In reality he is not in the mirror, he is only in my head and his image is fading fast. For those of you that are early in the journey, take it from me – it CAN work. You have to follow some rules and it’s not always easy, but it CAN work.

Best of luck to you in your surgery this week. I'm sure all will go well and you will be on your way. As for failure, don't make it an option. Follow the rules, set reasonable goals, track your progress and make the adjustments you need to with food and lifestyle to be successful. It WILL work!

Heck, for $32M I might vote for Palin. Sadly, that test of my integrity is not likely to happen soon.

Have I ever said I hadn’t read it? I have read it (and the Quran). I don’t find either to be awe inspiring or particularly credible. I find them both to have a lot of common sense ways in which people should act, both have a lot of useless rules and restrictions, both of full of contradictions, and depending on how you read them both - justify a lot of hostility towards your fellow man.

I couldn’t disagree with you more. The bible is in itself “religion”. It is not God’s word, at best, it is man’s interpretations of what God would have said. I point you to the very fact that the bible we use today was assembled well after the death of Jesus and many parts of the oral sayings and teachings as well as whole written books were left out for the purposes of the people that were assembling the book. Politics and the art of persuasion were at play even in the early formation of Christianity. I’ll give he Moslems some credit on getting out of this dilemma. At least they had the sense to say that the Quran was not written by man, but that the illiterate Prophet Mohamed recited the words told to him by the Archangel Gabriel. Abu Bakr later had scribes transcribe the recitation word for word into the Quran.

You sure know a lot of dubious people. I have a lot of acquaintances, and I couldn’t say that I know of that many that are cheating in those ways. I wonder if my friends are just less deceitful, I am less nosey, or you are more judgmental? I’m sure the answer is in there somewhere...

What a wonderfully simplistic way to describe “afterlife”. See, besides all the hate and fear mongering from religion, it is the pure fantasy talk like this that turns me away time and again.

I am on the edge of my seat wondering who Obama will nominate for Supreme Court. Stevens is probably stepping before the next term. I'm thinking Hillary Clinton might be an interesting choice. I wasn't her biggest fan before the last election, but I could not be more impressed with how she has handled the transition and her job as Secretary of State.

Flaming teabaggers? I know there must be a pun there

Good points, I salute you.

This is why advocate for a draft (a fair draft, not the joke of a draft we had in the 60's). With a draft, the whole country would share the terrible cost of war. If we all had friends and family in harms way, I bet we could find away to end these sensless wars and would be less likely to enter into them in the future.

There are many things I do not see eye to eye on with "my" president, this is probably the chief amongst them. Whlile I do disgree him on some things, he is in my opinion, our best President in a very long time.

My goodness Patty. That is quite possibly those most ignorant one sided view of history I’ve ever heard. First let me clarify one thing from my perspective... I am not on the retributions bandwagon, what’s done is done – we can’t fix it now. I’m not advocating all non natives leave this land, nor do think we should be handing out 40 acres and a mule. I do however firmly believe we should recognize that the way we built this country was by destroying and forcefully removing the natives and on the backs of slave labor from Africa. Instead of trumpeting how wonderful our forefathers were, we should learn from the parts of history that are less heralded. Rather than paying retributions we should be striving for a more equal society for our non-white brothers and sisters.

You know, I don’t see the difference in you being morally opposed to your tax dollars funding abortion and me being morally opposed to my tax dollars going into these senseless wars. I’m not advocating that tax dollars be used for abortion mind you, the Hyde amendment is in effect and that is not my point anyway. The point is that we all have differences of opinion as to what we think should be paid for with our tax dollars. If I had a choice between funding legitimate family planning (even if it included abortion services) and continuing to kill our soldiers and innocent civilians half way around the world, I think I would choose the former.

Don’t you find it interesting that most in the media are not really calling these whack jobs terrorists? As far as I’m concerned, they are just as much terrorists as Al Qaeda.

I tend to think our success had less to do with the mercy and goodwill of God and more to do with the virgin lands we stole from the natives and the fact that we cultivated those lands with the blood and sweat of slaves.