lose weight

just a few quick tips. this time of year everyone has a super easy, quick plan to make you look like the stud or babe on the package cover of whatever diet or machine their promoting.

drink water. lots of water. when you have had as much water as you can stand....drink more.
always drink a big glass right before you eat. sure you'll pee more often but it feels good any way.

eat 6 times a day. small portions. 3 meals with 3 snacks in between.

whole grain carbs in the morning. protein in the afternoon. funny, God provided the Israelites manna for breakfast and quail for dinner.

raw veggies. cooking them removes the good stuff.

no white. bread, potatoes... yes, that includes ranch dressing.

colors. green, red, orange. romaine lettuce...iceberg has no nutritional value.

lift weights. muscle burns fat a lot faster than jogging or running.

set realistic goals in steps...but push yourself. a partner really helps.

be patient. the model posing with that treadmill didn't get that buff on that particular piece of equipment in 90 days. also...he/she is a model. they work out twice daily and have trainers. don't expect the unrealistic.

know your body. it take me 1 month to even begin to see any results. also, don't injure yourself...which means you ....

rest. allow your self time off for your body to recover. weight lose is a marathon, not a sprint.

reward yourself. have a cheat meal schedule. we crave what we can't have.

if you slip on your health schedule...get back on it. don't quit.

if you want a six pack...it's made in the kitchen. 2000 crunches a day will give you a ripped stomach but no one will see it if it's covered with fat.

exercise however you want to. you won't continue if you don't like it.

it take one month for every years you've neglected yourself to get back.

switch it up. your body adapts to your routine so surprise it.

cable networks have free workout routine shows.

just a few tips I've learned over the years. hope i can get back to work.

new years resolutions

it's that time of year. i'll change this or stop that. weight or health is always a big one...no pun intended. one of my resolutions is my health and weight. i'm not fat but i'm not in the shape i was two years ago. my goal is to get back to 175lb and start a consistent work out plan. check out my blog for tips on losing weight and feeling better. so my top ten resolution list ...

1. start lifting again consistently. i feel better when i'm exercising.

2. relax more. i am always too busy to just hang out with friends and enjoy life. my therapist
says i'm afraid to slow down.

3. eat right. 10 years ago a dr. told me i had reflux disease and would always need medicine...
when i eat correct i feel great and have no heart burn.

4. do more for others. i want to get on a consistent schedule of doing for others.

5. smoke fewer cigars. maybe less but higher quality.

6. save money. i suck at this. i'm going coupon crazy.

7. take several advance firearm classes.

8. take a trip with just sheree...no schedule, kids or agenda.

9. take the time to take jacob fishing...guntersville, 2 days.

10. make an honest attempt to find a church to attend. no, i'm serious. if i can find one that
does not expect perfection, has real relationships, doesn't try to work you to death, keeps
their services under 2 hrs, spends more money on helping others than on themselves....well,
i'll try.
11. i'll add this. i'm going to try to fast. whether from food, media or anything consuming me..
i want to cleanse myself periodically.

thats it. oh yeah.a big no 12.

12. i am going to stop debating religion. it's like peeing in a crowd. it feels so good when you're
doing it but really all you do is piss on or off yourself and everyone else.

have a happy new year.

scrooged

just a few thoughts for my xmas scrooge season.

stop posting the damn youTube video of the "impromptu" hallelujah chorus. everyone with a pulse has been bombarded with this video. the chorus is one of my favorite songs but enough is enough.

your probably not reading this if the term "xmas" really knots your drawers. i really prefer christmas but i'm not gonna have a cow if someone uses xmas instead. you know that the letter x in ancient......oh, never mind.

if your overly religous and feel like santa claus and rudolph are of the devil....please keep this to yourself. my wife overheard a church staff member's wife walking down the preschool wing ranting about how "santa wasn't real" and "they didn't put up a tree" and so on....that's fine if you want to be a zealot but keep that shit to yourself. i"ll let my kids know about santa when i'm ready.

being the twofer* that i am i attended a christmas play this past sunday. they kinda lost me in the end when the cool looking guy in the beard came out in a white satin gown with the spot light glowing down on him. why does the guy playing jesus always have the cool beard and is unbelievably good looking and so suave? as soon as the play was over the preacher began to blast george bailey and miracle on 34th....that these "fantasies" were not what christmas was about. i understand that christmas is founded about the birth of christ. i know that george bailey is a fictional character. it's called a movie! most of the xmas movies i enjoy are about giving, putting others first, turning your life from being selfish to selfless....damn, sounds like christianity.

if the church spent more time leading people to love others rather than living a mandated code or spending their money on robes, steeples and such that guy wouldn't have to ring the bell in front of wal-mart and target.

i like getting presents. big, expensive presents. cool stuff like wide screens and ipods. i'd like a kindle this year btw. i also like giving big presents. what do you want this year?

it's not a christmas party unless you have to send apology letters for the things you said or did...at least the stuff they tell you that you said or did.

that is it. have a merry christmas

*twofer: a person that goes to church twice a year. i go fer easter and i go fer christmas.

i'm forcing myself to take the morning off. venti komodo, cain habano and on the back porch listening to the wind rustle the turning leaves. i've wanted to write for a while...so here goes.

i recently read "churched" by matthew paul turner.(thanks lisa) it's a story or a recounting of a small boy growing up in a fundlementalist, independent baptist church/school. it seems to me those that went through this upbringing eventually land on different sides of the fence. one group remains attached to the beliefs of the fibc and the other not only disagrees but loathes the very thought of their religious past. there never seems to be anyone on the fence so to speak. please don't take offence but here's my thoughts. it's not meant to be hateful, disrespectful or antagonistic. i don't arbor any ill will towards anyone. i actually have peace about my time in the hole. i still love ya....

my time in God's boot camp wasn't all bad. i had some great friendships in my years at frcs. my times with doug, chris, star, marilyn, sherry, david and linda, hughie, the vinsants, the sherburnes...the list is too long. from sports to camps to just hanging out i have unbelievably great memories. so many good times in and around frcs and away from it.

my problems with my time there is the religious teachings that were embeded in my head. for some folks, they enjoyed all of it. the friends, the preaching, the lifestyle. i struggled with it then but as i got older i learned to hate it. most the things i hated were not out right spoken but always underneath the surface. it took me a long time to decompress and view God as i do now. some will identify with these things and some will deny that they existed but each person has the right to believe as they choose

there was a brazen, open racism towards anyone not white. blacks were not welcome and discouraged from coming to church or school. like most churches, we loved to send missionaries to preach to these people but over there....not here. we also enjoyed the yearly visit from the missionaries showing us the heathens they were living among.

women were treated as second class citizens. you would have thought we were living in a taliban camp. on a side note, culottes will do very little to curb a young man's sex drive. put 5 guys in a room with a nun and at least one of the guys will be thinking..."i'd hit that". i remember one mother wearing pants, being asked to wait in her car to pick up her child after school. did they think all the boys were going to run outside and start humping her leg like miniature chihuahua?
well, not all.

divorced couples, blended families and single moms. the children of these families were somehow marked as less than those of say...a deacon's kid or the child of an executive of a religious company. we were of a sinful descent and would pay "3 generations for the sins of the father". never mind i has no control over my parents actions or chioces but i learned to think less of myself.

separation from the world. i recently saw a t shirt stating something along the lines of "where was God at columbine...and God replies "you wouldn't let me in". maybe God's present wasn't there because fibc'ers believe we should not be around "sinners". the church pulled God out of schools when they pulled out the "christian" kids. what happened to IN the world but not of it??? one of the things i will say about the starbucks baptist church is at least they get out in the "world".

judgement day. fibc spent a bunch of time talking and looking forward to the day that Christ came back and slaughtered the "sinners". i found in reading the bible that God is patient and doesn't want anyone to perish. they love to judge the world and preach against drinking and gays and... but Christ said He didn't come to judge but to save. are we not supposed to be like Christ? they preached the bible like it was written to the world but it was written to the church or to the believers.

the kjv. i recently saw a post from a fibc that was having a book burning. no, not the koran but the niv, the message, and even the nkjv. i saw a post one sunday morning from bro bs asking people to pray for "bible believing churches everywhere". what about the other churches? i always get a laugh how churches state they "stand on the word of God". they stand on their interpretation of the bible. are you telling me that the fibc has everything 100% correct? Please....

list of don'ts. drink alcohol, use tobacco, dance, mixed swimming, etc....if anyone participated in these fibc teaches that your not right with God. according to the bible, eating sacrificed meat, drinking, etc..is left up to each believer. we are not under the law. we are supposed to keep these things to ourselves. by setting these rules are you not judging the ones that do them. is that done in love .

oh yeah. God is judgemental and can't wait to bring down the hammer. never mind that all of our sins are forgiven, that God sees us through Christ's eyes. and don't forget....during the judgement your life is going to be shown like a movie. mine will be rated r so the fibc won't get to see it.

i could go on. anti rock music seminars ending with a record/cassette tape burning. damn, they took my ronnie milsap and alabama tapes! i remember the staff wigging out at the state music contest when one of the groups sang southern gospel. evidently God only likes fanny crosby. people suspended from school for listeneing to rock music. not only on school grounds but during a personal birthday party. getting sent home for your hair touching your collar or your knees showing...we all loved to see those knees.

politics. jerry falwell and the moral majority. keep Christ of of your politics...He never ran for office or got involved in the roman gov't....you shouldn't either. doesn't history teach us that religion and politics do not go together.

we're right and your wrong. southern baptist, church of christ, assembly of god, ...all these folks are going to burn.

there are so many things i disagree with but that's ok. i will not deny you the right to believe as you will. i will not condemn you to the everlasting flames. i just would like the same right. actually, i'm taking the right. i couldn't care less if you grant that or not.

i'm done. please don't delete me from your friends list as bro bs has done. i really do love ya and enjoying seeing your post.

big butter Jesus

outside of cincinnati ohio there is a church which displays a huge statue of Jesus. arms outstretched, His arms lifted up as if to signal that ohio state has just pushed the football across the goal line for six points. thus the nickname, "touchdown Jesus". this molding made out of a fiberglass shell colored a light yellow has also brought the nickname "big butter Jesus" from a song by comedian haywood banks.

i investigated a lot about this statue. it cost around $250,000. it's 6 stories tall. it is lit up at night overlooking a baptismal lake connected to an amphitheatre. it is located right of interstate 75.

my most interesting find was that to a person, feelings about bbj were split along party lines. christians love bbj. it gives them warmth and a feeling that they are closer to God by looking at this representation. unbelievers or unsaved folks seemed to all say the same thing. "what a waste of money". they expressed the belief that the money spent on bbj, the lake and the lighting could have gone to help some unfortunate people.

i personally find it hard to believe that God really cares about statues of His son that are really just our idea of what we think Christ should look like. i won't even begin to list the ways this money could have helped people and shown Christ's love.

a few thoughts:

is making a statue like this idolatry?
what message does it send to seekers or those in need?
should we be concerned about christian's feelings?
is our relationship with God dictated by a feeling?

early in june of 2010 bbj was struck by lightning and burnt to the ground. all that remains is the skeleton holding the statue. after studying the book of job i will not even ask why, who or where. that's not for me to ponder. two days after bbj burnt to the ground the church had a sign stating "he'll be back". yes He will....and bbj might not be the only thing on fire.

maybe that's just me.....

updates of a grumpy man...

i was told the other day that it seems i have been grumpy over the past few months. i'll admit that i am. i have worked 80 hr weeks so long that i almost wish i was in a union...but then i'd be laid off like all the workers in detroit so scratch that idea. i am tired. i am going to destin next week and i hope that helps but i doubt it. destin though, brings up some of the things that are rubbing me the wrong way. let's start with the oil spill. keep in mind that i'm not a democrat or republican...just a blue collar worker.

number 1

if george bush was in office we would have:

people saying he was letting the oil flow to drive up his stock options...
people crying on tv about a fish or bird and blaming bush
picketing outside his home in texas
people on tv screaming for the gov't to help them financially...

in this case i think the gov't should have stepped in. this spill will in one way or another affect us all. we have a foreign owned oil company dumping fuel in our gulf. payback for the tea we dumped? i don't blame obama. i just wish we could get a fair deal from the media. i hate katie, keith oberman but i also detest shaun hannity. our country is so divided that eventually it will bring about our downfall. all politicians are crooked as far as i'm concerned but some are crooked and retarded. i will say this for the gulf folks. the interviews i have seen have local politicians begging the federal gov't to stay out of the way and let the locals deal with it. but then what would we do with all that red tape. (we could use it for christmas but the gov't can't be involved with a celebration of the birth of Jesus. we could use it to map the way to the nearest abortion clinic though!)


numero dos

soccer. for crying out loud please quit trying to shove that s&%t down our throats. if it were that enjoyable to watch...we'd watch it. unlike the democrats i couldn't care less what the third world and eastern block thinks or what sport the rest of the world plays. in our country soccer usually ends around the 6th grade. i know, i know. there are soccer fans here and that's great but the majority of americans don't care. goooooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalllllllllllllllllllllll

number 3

evangelicals. i am not going to go into this now except to say i am learning to hat....i mean dislike evangelicals. my only complaint is that: (1) i should be allowed to ask questions and travel my own journey wether or not it coincides with yours. (2) you're not right about everything. i know you think you are...but if you are, then why are there 22,000 different baptist denominations. i hate to break it to you but somebody has to be wrong and yes, it's probably you!

number 4

reality tv. damn, i long for the cheesy sitcom actors i grew up with. reality tv is indicitive of our society...where everybody is a star or important. just like facebook. we have to let everybody know what we're doing or what we are thinking. kind of like this blog....who really frickin cares

that's it for now....i will continue to be grumpy until i have a vacation or these items listed above are addressed.

God in Control?

God is in control. I got stuck in traffic behind a car with a bumper sticker proclaiming this message. It makes sense. The author of life, the creator of the universe is in control. It makes us feel safe and fuzzy to rely on someone or something else having the reigns of our world.

I respectfully disagree. I started thinking about the world as we know it and God’s control over our destiny. A few thoughts:

If God is in control why do we have poverty, sickness and disease? Why is there racial hatred and genocide? Why is there war and famine? Why is there child pornography and child prostitution? Why didn’t the colts win the super bowl? There is so much evil in the world that if God is in control He must not be a very loving God to allow such harm, such evil to exist.

The Bible speaks several times about Satan’s authority. In chapter 4 of Matthew Jesus doesn’t argue with the devil about his right to give him authority over the kingdoms. Christ, in the Lord’s prayer ask God to deliver us from the evil one.

On the flip side of that coin the Bible mentions often time about Jesus authority. That it came from God and He also gave authority to the disciples over demon. It also talks about Pilate’s authority over Jesus coming directly from God.

So I find that God may be in control. But not in the sense that makes me feel warm and fuzzy. God gave control to Pharaoh so that He Himself would be glorified in leading the Jewish people out of Egypt. He gave Pilate authority to crucify His son so that Jesus would be glorified. I’m not sure if the Israelites or Jesus had warm and fuzzy feelings about the things they went through.

In the garden of Eden authority of all the earth was given to Adam and Eve who then turned this authority over to Satan. We constantly fight to do what is right. God has given us free will so in a large part we are in control. I can love my neighbor or kill my neighbor. I make that decision. I may be influenced by outside forces but ultimately it is my decision.

So it seems to me, at least for now that God has control, the devil has some control and we do as well. I know, I know...maybe all that control cam e from God but nevertheless we do have it.. We control a lot of the evil here on earth. We could stop famine. We could stop genocide. We could stop a lot of the travesties that plaque our world. Is God in control? Seems like there is a certain amount of control for everybody. Maybe that’s just me.