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Boy Scouts of America: From Immorality to Bankruptcy
One of my favorite books growing up and one I keep on the open shelf in my library is Lord Baden Powell’s Rovering to Success. This book used to spark my imagination and inspire many of my long distance forest hikes as a teenager. Now my son enjoys browsing the pages on wintry nights.
Rovering to Success With sections on religion, women and of course the overriding theme of the book being about how to be a quality male, LBP was clearly leading men and Scouts in both a wholesome and morally upright direction.
Then came the pedo’s and sodomites. The Woke Scouts of America with their turning a blind eye to the accusations of abuse, promoting homosexuality and then finally bringing girls into the ‘boy’scouts were clearly on a path. Now we see where that path was leading. The whole organization in complete shambles, no longer the bastion of moral wholesome behaviour and now finally in bankruptcy; LBP must be rolling over in his grave.
Anything good … anything wholesome … the beautiful = all must fall before the march of ‘progress’. Chalk another one up for Satan and his minions.
I’m sure everything is good now:
The organization said Tuesday that Scouting is safer than it’s ever been, saying “approximately 90% of pending and asserted abuse claims against the BSA relate to abuse that occurred more than 30 years ago.”
If you believe this, you shouldn’t be allowed to raise children.
Teach your children yourself. Don’t hand them off to some nameless, faceless organization who openly promotes immoral behavour. You have the responsibility to protect your kids from predatory people. Raise your children well!
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How Social Media Tries to Influence You
Being on Twitter or Facebook, or using Google search for anything is dangerous.
You need to understand that they are not there to serve you. They are serving their own people and their own ideology. You must be constantly on alert if you are hoping to avoid the subtle way they try to influence you.
Here are is Rule #1 for social media giants: If it is good, or beautiful, traditional or contains Godly morality – they will try to undermine it. Look for those things and you’ll find social media presenting the ‘alternative’ point of view as if it were normal and mainstream.
For instance.
This is the day after the #marchforlife which is a celebration of life and demonstration of solidarity with those who oppose the killing of children.
Yet my ‘For You’ Twitter feed was 95% full of ‘pro-choice’ posts this morning. Totally manipulated. I don’t follow many ‘pro-killers’ in my Twitter feed … in fact, about 90% of the people I follow are pro-life people. So why is Twitter feeding me ‘pro-choice’ tweets?
It’s manipulated. They are doing this to try to move the conversation away from the #marchforlife and toward the evil of child murder. Remember, if it is good, or moral … it must be attacked.
How to deal with this?
The best option is probably to leave Twitter and Facebook … Google, etc. However, in doing so, you lose your voice. Even if it just a single voice ‘crying in the wilderness’, it has value. We must oppose evil where we find it. Running from it does not oppose it.
So we stay.
I find that if I keep in mind the above Rule in mind (they will attack all things good,) that it becomes easier to see the manipulation and understand it for what it is. Use that feeling in the back of your mind that you get when you see something not quite right … tune into it because it is usually correct. Your mind is trying to tell you that something is just not right. Don’t be mindless on these sites. They are trying to influence you.
And speak up. Oppose the evil where it is.
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Making Money from Diabetes
This morning I read an article that described how Frederick Banting (the man who discovoured Insulin and how to produce it safely) sold his patents for insulin to the University of Toronto for $1 back in 1923. The U of T then gave drug companies permission to produce the product royalty free. Apparently this was to prevent drug companies from rushing an inferiour product to market in an effort to gain the patents. Banting said, ‘When the details of the method of preparation are published, anyone would be free to prepare the extract, but no one could secure a profitable monopoly.’
Yet a mere 18 years later, on April 1st, 1941, the 3 main producers of Insulin in the US pleaded no contest to charges of price-fixing to ‘bring about arbitrary, uniform, and non-competitive prices for insulin and to prevent normal competition in the sale of the drug.’ See newspaper articles here. (A curious side note, is that this charge was brought against the drug companies a mere month after the death of Sir Frederick Banting. There maybe no connection, but it is certainly an interesting fact.)It is reported that those companies were eventually fined $5000.00 each and corporate officers were charge $1500.00 each for their part in the corruption.
Suspicion continued to surround the companies producing Insulin, especially Eli Lilly and Company which was accused of attempting to control the international supply of pig and cow pancreases which were the source of insulin before the advent of artificial insulin.
Flash forward to 2016 and the accusations of massive price fixing continue with calls for an investigation into the exorbitant price of Insulin. Reports show that even though the patents on Insulin have long expired, the price of the drug have continued to rise artificially by what appears to be collusion among the drug companies.
Electronics manufacturers have jumped on the ‘lets make a pile of money from this disease’ bandwagon with their production of small portable blood glucose measuring devices. While these devices are a true lifesaver for those who take control of their diabetes, the price of the essential ‘strips’ are prohibitive for many. The electronics and plastics bits of these meters cannot cost more than a dollar or two to mass produce in China (which is why manufacturers often give the devices away for free,) yet the price of the ‘strips’ that accept the blood sample have stayed what appears to be artificially high. While the strips are marvels of ingenuity, they are still mass produced from inexpensive materials – so why do they cost so much? ‘Generic’ and ‘store brand’ strip prices have come down providing evidence that the prices being charged by the leading medical device manufacturers is inflated. I’m a capitalist at heart, but if there was true competition between the device manufacturers, the price would naturally come down … not consistently rise. This all has the stench of collusion and corruption.
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Winter is Coming
Can’t say I’ve seen more powerful indicators of the coming collapse than what we’ve seen in the USA and Canada over the past couple of weeks.
In Canada: The ruling party (Liberals) got caught trying to influence the judicial system to go easy on a Canadian Corporation for corporate crimes that they’ve committed. Then in an act of vengeful doubling-down, the PM, Justin Trudeau kicked the 2 Liberals who stood up to the corruption out of caucus. Our government is completely corrupt and immoral right up to the head of our state.
The Canadian State media, completely supports the Liberals and promote their corruption as honourable and good. The sheeple who absorb the mainstream media pap are soaking it up and are parroting everything they hear from the CBC. Critical thinking, nay basic morality is done.
How much further down can we slide?
In the US: The Mueller investigation wrapped up after 2 years and found there was exactly zero collusion between President Trump and the big bad Russians. From what I can see, this is the biggest hoax ever perpetrated on the US people. This was an attempted coup from within, which failed. Will this stop immoral power hungry people from attempting this again? No. Will they fail next time? Likely not. Lessons were learned. Strategy will be adjusted. The outcome, next time, will be more sure.
Again, the mainstream media pumped this hoax day and night for two years. Virtually in unison, the various media conglomerates pushed the agenda of regime change calling for impeachment using words like treason and foreign agent. And the sheeple lapped it up.
Again in the US: Jussie Smollett, a black Sodomite, got completely let off 16 felony accounts for perpetrating a fake hate crime attack which he blamed on white Trump supporters. His Black Privilege and Sodomite Privilege appears to have played a huge part in his escape from the justice system. There are rules for them … and there are rules for the rest of Americans. He immediately got his job back and is back to rubbing shoulders with the rich and powerful people of the American Elite. That tells you more than anything else about who controlled his release and quite possibly who perpetuated the crimes to begin with. Pedo Hollywood and Sodomy are nearly always seen together. They are two sides of the same immoral, sick coin.
Again the media fluffed up this case. First in promoting his faux hate crime, then in shrugging their collective shoulders when he mysteriously got let off. Nothing to see here folks. As Eunuch, Brian Stelter so perfectly said, CNN does not investigate, they just report. Which is, of course, completely laughable when you look at their ‘reporting’ of the Mueller investigation and refusal to accept its findings.
CNN prez Jeff Zucker: "We are not investigators. We are journalists, and our role is to report the facts as we know them, which is exactly what we did." https://t.co/DiUjr7Nkbg
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) March 26, 2019And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. Gen 6:5
This increase in corruption at the highest levels and its support by the media will only lead to failure. Good (Christianity) is portrayed as evil. Evil (corruption, Sodomy, etc) is portrayed as good. Everything that God created is being changed and morphed into a caricature of the original creation. This will fail.
Winter is coming.
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Maple Syrup – Feed Your Own
This is the 1st post in what I plan to do as a series of posts about creating your own food supply.
This is how I harvest Maple sap and make my own Maple syrup.
Equipment
- I use food grade buckets that I picked up from a local grocery store bakery. I think I paid a buck a piece.
- For taps I’m using 3/8″ brass unions from my local hardware store. I notched the ends to create more flow but I have no clue if that really made a difference or not. Just made sense to me.
- I use 3/8″ hose to move the sap into the buckets.
Method
I use a hand drill (just because its easy) to drill a hole into my Maple at a slight upward angle and a little deeper than the half the union. The angle is to make the sap flow by gravity and slightly deeper than half the union so the union does not get plugged with wood when tapping in.
I use a hammer to tap the union into the tree till the center ridge tight against the bark which stops most sap from leaking out around the edge of the hole. Hose to bucket and let her run.
Boiling
For boiling I use an old ‘Pots and Pans’ drawer from a stove. Its porcelain so is smooth and nice and clean. It holds gallons and is wide so it has a lot of surface area for boiling.
I do this outdoors over an open fire with the pan between two cinder blocks. Feeding it hardwood slowly while watching the sap boil is very relaxing and cathartic … especially after dark with the moon in the background.
Finishing Syrup
I boil the sap down till it begins to thicken but not yet streaming from the spoon and then I transfer it to a pot and finish on the stove where I have more control over the temps. I don’t use a thermometer or hydrometer although I probably should. I use the old ‘sheeting off the spoon’ method which can be hit or miss – but the end product is just as good, just not exactly the same consistency. Basically, the the syrup ‘drips’ off the spoon in a stream, its done. I usually go for another minute or two just to make sure it’s thick, but that’s it. I’ll try to get a video or pictures of what it looks like at this stage. Going thicker is nice too – makes a kind of caramel which tastes amazing on ice cream or as drizzle on coffee cake. So thicker is not a bad thing.
Storage:
We usually keep our syrup in the back of the fridge, but if you bottle it hot, the lids will often seal and you can store it on any shelf. We picked up a couple of sealing bottles from Ikea to store ours in. (I’m not an Ikea fan by any stretch, but these worked great!)
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The Potato Hack – My Experiment
I’ve been reading bits and pieces about potato hacking over the past several months … well, now one of the leading proponents, Tim Steele, has finally published his book The Potato Hack. Picked it up Friday on Kindle = it’s a quick, easy and entertaining read. Highly recommended. The other sources of information are Tim’s Blog at Vegetable Pharm. Lots of good current info there. Also Richard Nikoley’s blog, Free The Animal is a great source of info … just hit this search to see copious amounts of info on the hack, potato starch and the potato hack specifically.Anyway – if you want to see what I’m doing and why, pick up the book … Tim does a lot better job explaining it all than I ever could.
I’m planning to do a 5 day run of spuds only. I’m gonna record my starting weight, how many calories I burn according to my Fitbit and how my sleep quality is affected. I’ll also note any feelings of hunger, cravings and maybe stress levels just to have a more complete record … although I feel that stress, general feelings of well being and health are so interwoven that it is hard to ‘fix’ or even assess by looking at a few random thoughts and feelings throughout the day. (Big topic there = maybe another day.)
I’m starting out as a big guy … I have a good solid 60 lbs to lose. Plus I’ve been carb loading (read: eating everything in sight) for a couple of weeks now, so I’ve definitely gained some ‘water weight.’ I expect to see a fairly substantial drop in the 1st couple of days … hoping that I don’t gain it all back in the 24 hours after this experiment is over. To find answers is why we experiment…
I’m mid 40’s and my health is generally good with slightly elevated blood pressure. I play sports 2x a week pretty hard with the young bloods for 2 hours at a time and I can hold my own = so I’m I’m not couch fodder … yet. lol. So lets see where this all ends up …
Spuds – ready for Monday! Day 1:
Thats a wrap. Here is the breakdown of my calories vs expenditure as recorded by my FitBit.
Calories Burned 
Calories Consumed Here are my Notes for the day … could be boring, but it is a complete record of how I felt and when.
- 8:40pm Another feed to help with hunger pangs. 241g.
- 8:15pm Played ball with the young bloods tonight. Initially I found it very hard and my legs really did not want to move but about 40 mins in I seemed to get my 2nd wind and could run and move freely again. After I am plesently tired and slightly sore. I ate more potatoes to fill me up and that really helped how I feel too. Looking forward to bed. Would not be surprised if I see a one day drop of 7 or 8 lbs. Lots of water dumped today.
- 6:10pm. Quick supper of 183g.
- 5:25pm. Indigestion again. Quite hungry now.
- 4:55pm. Definitely hungry again. Also have to urinate something fierce again. Won’t be home for an hour yet. Sigh.
- 3:50pm. Hungry again. Getting a bit irritable. Probably low blood sugar hitting is my guess.
- 3:01pm. Urine very light coloured which usually means body dumping water. I have had 3 or 4 coffees today which usually pushes through the system pretty fast but urine is usually much darker. Should have taken a picture … or maybe not. Lol.
- 2:38pm. Hungry now … seems to change from ’empty’ to hungry quickly. Stomach growling slightly. Will have rest of my lunch potatoes – 287g. Still have to pee like mad – have to find a public restroom soon. Feeling very calm and controlled. Not jittery. My brain is working well – no afternoon letdown (yet.)
- 2:22pm. Body beginning to dump water. Have to piss like a racehorse … and I urinated less than an hour ago. Slight feeling of emptiness again – not true hunger – just empty.
- 1:01pm. Some indigestion again. Not super bad but burping sour. Might be a result of drinks last night?
- 12:10pm. Definitely hungry now. Having half of the potatoes I brought with me on the road today. Not feeling weak or anything though. About 350g potatoes.
- 11:20am. Driving now. Don’t really feel hungry. Sort of empty.
- 10:30am Some slight indigestion. Treated with baking soda in water.
- 9:40am. Feeling some sort of slight hunger from stomach. Not grinding stomach growling hunger … not even hunger pangs – just more of a not full feeling. Gonna work through it and see if it disappears. I did eat a good amount of spuds, so my stomach does have something to work on.
- 8:30am. Breakfast 237g plain potatoes – Lunch of 637g packed
Day 1 Final thoughts. Need to bring more potatoes for on the road. Definitely felt hungry today … don’t want to feel too much of that or I’ll break. Baked potatoes are WAY better tasting than boiled. Amazing difference actually. Will plan on baking more spuds instead of boiling.
Day 2:
Down 4.5 lbs since weigh in yesterday morning. Less of a drop than I thought it would be … I really did urinate a LOT more than normal yesterday. Sleep was OK – I did feel like I woke up a number of times due to aching legs. Sports did a number on them yesterday as I didn’t play at all last week due to Spring Break here. So sports plus dropping water = soreness.
Here is my sleep as measured by my Fitbit.
1st night of Potato Hack Hoping to see more sleep and fewer awake periods in the next couple of days.
OK. This is just a little bit frustrating …
Note to Self – Make sure potatoes are pierced well before putting in oven. When baking potatoes, you really have to pierce them well! I wacked all these with a fork before putting them in the oven. Apparently I did not dig in deep enough. lol. Potatoes for the day are baked, salted and in my lunch bag for the day. Oh, and the oven is clean.
OK – Day 2 is done. Here are the Fitbit numbers:
Calories Burned 
Day 2 Calories Consumed And my notes from the day:
- 9:20 pm. Feeling great this evening. Got lots done. Was focused and not dwelling on food. I’m in bed now. Slightly hungry but not so it is bothering me. Tough day during the day today but a good evening.
- 4:50 pm. Suddenly feeling better. Stronger and more focused. Still empty but not lightheaded or weak. Maybe I overdid it with sport last night? Too this long for me to recover? Don’t know.
- 2:23pm. Hungry again and obsessing about food. This is not good. Still wonder if I should be eating more instead of allowing myself to get to the point of hunger.
- 1:53pm. Been eating often … just a couple of spoonfuls at at time. Today has not been great. Feeling weak and blurry … and sometimes slightly lightheaded. Gonna coffee up in a little while and see if that helps. Some hunger but not crazy.
- 11:07am. Stopped to eat some potatoes … feeling hungry and weak.
- 10:36am. Arrrr … low energy, almost light headed. Not really hungry but empty – maybe slightly queasy. No drive to get going here. Need energy levels to PU soon if I’m gonna get anything done today.
- 9:03am 245g for breakfast. Hungry this morning. Just blew up some of my baked potatoes that I was making for lunch … and I poked those things with a fork. George is not happy.
- 7:45 Not a great sleep – feeling dopey this morning. Really need coffee to wake up! Good thing I’m not planning on cutting out coffee at the same time as this hack … lol.
Summary of Day 2. Consumed less than a thousand calories again, but burned a LOT less than Day 1. Really knocked myself out today – possibly due to playing ball on Monday really depleting my energy stores. Felt crappy most of the day, but seemed to snap out of it at the end of the day. Ended up feeling good and focused again. Hopefully this continues.
Day 3:
Down a full 8 lbs this morning. Lots of water … urinated forever when I got up this morning. But exciting to see this much down.
Wild dreams! Seemed to sleep ‘dead to the world’ last night although I definitely did not get enough sleep. But the dreams … oh my. So vivid and I can remember large portions of them this morning. Nothing raunchy, just super vivid and spectacular. I remember reading somewhere that this is a side effect of potato starch. Don’t mind if this continues.
Here is my sleep as recorded by my Fitbit:
Day 2 sleep … not enough! I was reading well past midnight and lost track of time. Definitely need to get to bed earlier tonight.
I have baked potatoes ready for the day today. Wrapped them in tin foil before baking, so no mess to clean up. lol. Ready to do this day!
Day 3 is in the books. Here are the numbers:
Day 3 Calories Burned 
Day 3 Calories Consumed Notes and comments:
- 11:00 pm. Bedtime. Not hungry.
- 9:20 pm. Not a bad evening. No drive … but I did have a big day at work, so that did wear me out. Feeling somewhat empty now but not hungry.
- 6:20 pm. Shredded and dry fried spuds with dill powder, salt, pepper and a splash of Malt Vinegar for supper. 383g.
- 5:36 pm. Slight headache now. Mildly hungry. Feel strong. Tired though. Not enough sleep. Gout is prickling my left toe … will need to use baking soda when I get home to prevent flare-up.
- 3:49 pm. Had another spud to ward off the hunger. Lunch total was 355g today.
- 3:12 pm. Definitely hungry now. Will need to have some spuds soon. Will power and energy are both good at this point.
- 2:20 pm. Not hungry. Just empty. Feeling a bit weak so going to have a coffee to perk me up. Still feel well though. No headache or lightheaded. Could eat another potato I guess. All in all I think my body is adjusting to the low calorie intake.
- 250g for breakfast.
- 10:43 am. Did not eat until now. Was hungry but not crazy hungry. So filling my belly now before I hit the road. So far, so good today – no lightheaded feelings, not craving anything … focus is OK.
Summary for Day 3. Overall, all good day. Did not really have the lightheaded feeling that I had on Day 2 … still some hunger, but not crazy, chew on walls hunger. Focus was not bad … not laser … just not bad. Mood: generally OK. This is somewhat surprising to me as when I have used calorie deficit in the past, I’ve had some thunderously bad moods. Angry and irritated, etc. Not feeling that so much = easier on the family and pets. lol.
Day 4:
Now down a full 10 lbs. Nice!
What a sleep. No dreams that I remember last night, but totally dead to the world. One of the best sleeps I’ve had in a while. This is what it looked like:
Day 3 Sleep I feel energized today … not powerful but energized. I want to get stuff done! The shredded potato patties that I had for supper last night were great. Gonna make those again today for my lunch. They are a bit of work, but the taste and mouth feel is worth it. At this point, I’m glad I only committed to 5 days. I’m looking forward to a steak. lol.
Numbers for Day 4:
Day 4 Calories Burned 
Day 4 Calories Consumed Notes from Day 4:
- 9:50pm Hungry now. Not in Ketosis … I was wondering if burning this much fat would do it, but nope, not even a hint of colour. Going to goto bed hungry and see where we are weight wise in the morning. Hoping for another 2 lbs today … but will be happy with any weightloss as I know any loss will be fat at this point.
- 6:20pm Finally having supper. Had to estimate the amount of spuds tonight due to the way they were cooked by my wife. Guessing about 240g.
- 4:27 pm. Hungry now. But feeling great. Working hard with lots of energy. Pretty good considering how little I’ve had today.
- 2:32 pm. Feeling a bit hungry now. Eating another potato patty to fill the hole. Otherwise feeling good.
- 1:36 pm. Coffee time. Feeling good. Steady as she goes. Some hunger today but very mild. More empty than hunger still.
- 12:12 pm. Hungry now. Gonna eat a couple of potato patties. Still feel good though.
- 10:41am. Ready to hit the road. I made shredded, dry fried cakes for lunch. Feeling good. Not hungry at all. Feeling … warm I guess is the best way to explain it. Calm.
- 9:45am. 290g for breakfast.
- 8:10am. Feeling pretty good this morning. Great sleep.
Summary Day 4. Again – not a bad day. Felt good most of the day. Beginning to think about food a bit more … planning what I’m going to eat on the weekend. No crazy cravings though. 1 day to go!
Day 5:
Down a total of 12.6 lbs this morning. Another nice drop yesterday!
Sleep – another ‘dead to the world’ sleep … just not long enough! Woke up at 6:30 to discover that I slept through my 2:00 am alarm which is really unusual. (2 am is when my wife or I check our son’s BG level – he has Type 1 Diabetes.)
Day 4 Sleep OK – a couple of baked potatoes cooling on the stove. Ready to hit the road. Feel good … strong … lots of willpower today! This is the last day – hope to lose another couple of lbs today. Then the big test – see how much it comes back when I eat normally again tomorrow!
Final day numbers:
Day 5 Calories Burned 
Day 5 Calories Consumed Notes for Day 5:
- 10:25 pm. Bed time. Been a good evening. No hunger … feel sort of empty now. Tomorrow AM is the big weigh in. Curious to see where we end up. Night!
- 6:10 pm. Supper! 3 shredded and dry fried patties (about 4 medium potatoes worth) … with salt, pepper, dill and a splash of malt vinegar. Very good – and very filling. Feeling full now. About 380 g of spuds.
- 5:45 pm. Having cravings for food now. Might be because I’m hungry. Already planning what I’m gonna eat tomorrow. Lol.
- 3:49 pm. Not sure if it is hunger or just the feeling of being empty. Lots of energy but very aware of the feeling in my gut.
- 1:15 pm. Full but empty. Feeling tired this afternoon. Wish I could take a nap. Still a lot of work to do though – so no rest.
- 1:00pm. Lunch time. Super hungry but feeling fine otherwise. Hard to believe I can go strong with this little food in me. Amazing. 457g.
- 11:39am. Hungry. Stomach growling.
- 10:44 am. Ready to hit the road. 457g packed for lunch. Feelin’ good!
- 9:20 am. Breakfast. Some reheated baked spuds. 173g.
- 8:10 am. Up and atom … hungry.
Summary. Day 5 went well. No major drops in energy … some hunger but nothing that I couldn’t deal with. Still glad these 5 days are almost over. Can’t wait to eat a bunch of stuff I’ve missed the past 5 days. Disappointed that my focus on food and hunger has not diminished …
Final Day – Weigh in – Notes – Thoughts – Summary
… and he steps on the scale … 15 lbs lost!!! Nice. Was expecting at least 10 going by past low calorie efforts, so 15 is pretty wild.
A comment from yesterday asked me to give my specs, so here they are:
- 6’1″ male
- mid 40’s
- No major health issues past or present
- Resonably fit
- Starting weight 308.5 lbs
- Finishing weight 293.5 lbs
Here are my daily totals from my Aria Fitbit Linked Scale:
5 Day Weight Loss Wish I had taken some body measurements. My pants are definitely looser and my face has visibly narrowed. I feel like I am more flexible … probably from dumping water which makes cells and muscles less turgid. I notice my joints are looser, some popping and movement which I’m not used to … probably from reduced inflammation?
Heart Rate:
Here is something I’ve not seen mentioned much in the Paleo or Potato Hack literature. My resting heart rate dropped like a rock over the past 5 days. I measured this with my Fitbit again, and they use an algorithm instead of the waking pulse rate that your Dr uses when he/she says ‘resting pulse rate’ but it is still a measure of change. Check this out:
Resting Heart Rate Drop 
30 Day Resting Pulse This is a substantial change and below 60 is pretty good for a guy my size and shape. I suspect this is due to the lower body inflammation. Pulse rate is greatly influenced by heart efficiency but also by what the body is dealing with at any given time. A night of drinking will increase your resting pulse for up to 12 hours the next day … exercise increases resting pulse for a good couple to 3 hours … illness definitely increases resting pulse. Pretty much anything that stresses the body will increase the resting heart rate. So this kind of drop can only indicate that my body is no longer fighting … something. It certainly is an interesting finding.
Wish I had been keeping track of Blood Pressure. Suspect it dropped appreciably as well.
Cold:
I noticed that I was cold at night especially the last 2 days. Others have talked a fair amount how they are often cold while following Low Carb or Keto style diets. I too had noticed this. I was not expecting to feel cold at night while sucking on potatoes … but I was. Not sure what the mechanism is behind this feeling and supposedly potato starch solves this issue for Low Carbers but it did not solve it for me.
Mental Issues:
There definitely were parts of days that I felt foggy mentally. I was unable to focus, unable to think clearly … and I made mistakes in my work. This was primarily in the 1st couple of days. Coffee helped but did not ‘solve’ the problem. I think that this was probably due to time it takes for the body to switch from a food intake burning machine into a body fat burning mode. I’ve noticed this in the past when switching between Low Carb and Mid to High Carb eating. The funny thing is = the switch back (from fat burning to food burning) does not produce this fogginess. I guess that energy being readily available to burn from food is something the body is ready for. Famine = not so much. My advise is to just work through it knowing that the feeling will pass. In the last couple of days I did not feel this fog and even had periods of hyper focus and flow. Just press on.
Food Obsession:
This probably should fall under ‘mental issues’ but this has always been a big one for me … and it did show up on day 5 again. When I say ‘food obsession’ I’m talking about periods of time where you can’t think about anything other than food … or if your mind wanders, it always goes to food. I’ve always had issues with this when eating a restricted diet, and it drives me nuts. This time I was not obsessing about junk food or alcohol, it was meat. lol. Mostly steak actually. Thinking about cooking it, smelling it … chewing it … ahhhhhhhh! This my mind can focus on, but not my work? What is wrong with me?? lol. Anyway, my two post Potato Hack days were mostly planned out foodwise by the end of Day 5. I don’t know any solutions to this one – just roll with it is what I do = it was a substantial irritation though.
Irritability:
Probably another ‘mental issue’ but I’ll talk about it separately here. I did have some periods of minor irritability where I had no patience for anyone or anything while Potato Hacking. It was minor though. Again, in the past while losing weight using other methods I had long periods where I was totally impossible to get along with. I hate this part of losing weight … and so does my family. This time the irritability was usually around meal time and really only lasted a couple of minutes till I got focused on other things. I could see it being an issue if this was a long term weight loss method though. Find something to focus on to get past this.
Sleep:
I was expecting that my sleep would be better/deeper. That did not really happen. I did sleep well but I don’t think that the quality of sleep was all that much better. I usually sleep pretty good anyway, so maybe this is a non-problem for me. My biggest issue with sleep is getting to bed early enough to get a full 8 hours. My body and brain work way better on 8 hours compared to 7 and it accumulates. So I can have one night of 7 hours and it not affect me much, but 2 or 3 nights in a row of 7 hours really hurts me. I’ve messed with straight potato starch in the past and had some substantial changes in my sleep patterns – that did not happen this week. Others may notice changes depending on how they were sleeping before starting this experiment.
Final Thoughts and Advice:
This Hack really is a good way to blow off some weight quickly. It is basically a Very Low Calorie Diet with the added benefits of Potato Starch and bulk. It is very simple, cheap and easy to follow. While there are still the normal issues that come with low calorie intake, I found those things mostly manageable. I suspect that a 3 day would have been easier than the full 5 days and I may do this in 3 day bursts in the future. I did add Dill and Malt Vinegar to a couple of my meals so I guess I did do one of the Variations listed in the book … I suspect that the other variations would make this easier. However I suspect the weight loss would be less. I smell another experiment! Definitely going to continue cycling the Potato Hack to continue losing weight.
Thanks for the book Tim and good luck everyone trying this. Would love to hear from you in the comments.
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What is a Refugee?
I grew up in the 80’s, so my internal picture of what a refugee looks like is painted by the famines in Uganda and Ethiopia when we saw primarily women and children dying of malnourishment and disease. Time and National Geographic produced image after image of humans in the most desperate straights – literally dying on the page. These were those that caught the worlds attention. These were truly helpless. These were true victims of circumstance.
These are the images that formed the description of what a refugee looks like in my mind. These people needed our help! They were in such dire need that they literally could not help themselves.
Then in the 90’s we had the Rwandan genocide. Thousands upon thousands of humans desperate to escape sure death – again the majority being women and children – the innocents. Many escaping extermination ended up dying of disease brought on by undernourishment and unsanitary conditions found in refugee camps. Upwards of 1 million people died in the Rwandan conflict.
Contrast those images with the images we have of today’s ‘refugees’.
Only men? All seem well dressed. None appear to be malnourished. 
Again … only men? After ‘reaching safety’ – well dressed. Well fed. With smart phones?? So we’ve gone from the dead and dying refugees of the 80’s and 90’s to packs of young, well dressed men … with smart phones. I know some will say I’m cherry picking photos, and I am, but one thing you will not find in the 80’s refugee photos is young men. Most estimates I’ve read is that the ‘refugees’ from Syria are 80% men. 80%!!! Where are the true refugees? Where are the innocent children? Why only men?
Finally, these ‘refugees’ are now turning into this:
So, not only do we have healthy young men being called ‘refugees’, but these young men are so healthy that they can riot and wage war with the police of the countries they’ve ‘escaped’ to. If they were truly refugees of war, why not fight the oppressors in their own countries instead running riot in landed countries?
The ‘refugee’ of today is NOT the refugee of yesterday … to call these rioting young men ‘refugees’ is an insult to the memory of true refugees everywhere.
EDIT
Almost to prove my point, Canada’s John McCallum (Immigration minister) posts a picture on Twitter yesterday showing him meeting ‘newly arrived Syrian refugees’ … all males! (I couldn’t make this stuff up … lol.)
This little piece of Liberal propaganda just shows how unlike any past refugees the current crop of ‘refugees’ really are.
Why? Why are we calling these people refugees? Why are we bringing them into our countries by the 10’s of thousands? Why are we giving them more health care, housing and food than our own poor? Something is going on here, and it’s not about refugees because I know what a refugee looks like … and these aren’t it.
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Rethinking the Ketogenic Diet Principles
I was pretty sold on the principles behind ketones and using them for fuel. It all seemed to make sense and was wrapped up in a nice bundle … and was presented in a way that I could understand and work with: low/no carbs, lots of fat, body begins producing ketones, body begins to burn ketones for fuel = all is well with the world. Except it was hard for me. Yes I loved fat, and it was VERY satiating for me, and I felt OK from about week 2 till about week 6 at which point I began to feel dragged out again. Why? What was I missing? I thought back to Paleo days, and I realized that I was missing a piece of watermelon, and honey and the crunch of an apple. Not all the time and certainly not in ‘stuff my face’ amounts, but mildly missing them just the same.
So I went back to a couple of the bloggers that had got me on the path to the Keto Diet to see what they were currently doing and saying. (I tend to read and take all I can from what people write and then move on … maybe I should have stuck with following some of these guys = hindsight is 20/20.) Specifically I went back to Jimmy Moore (Twitter @livinlowcarbman), AKA: Mr Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb man. The 1st post on his blog several days ago was: I Will No Longer… . I was shocked to read the excuses and the giving up and all the other feeling-sorry-for-myself nonsense in that post. Basically he was saying, ‘this is THE way to eat to be healthy … just don’t criticize me because it’s not working for me.’ This was the guy who was ‘advising’ me about the Keto Diet?!? And then today he posted this horroriffic picture on Instagram. ‘Houston, we have a problem.’ ‘Dammit Jim!’ ‘What the tarnation?’ (and any other movie exclamations one can think of.) This was what I was trying to look like?? I looked like that once … a LONG time ago and I’m not interested in looking like that again! Now, before all the haters come out, I’m sure Jimmy is a nice guy. He certainly plays one on the interwebs. I think he is honest, or at the very least still believes in what he is doing. But F ME …. it’s not working buddy! When you gain weight on a Keto diet (and you honestly have been eating true to the Keto diet,) then we all need to rethink this thing. So I’m rethinking this …
Richard Nikoley over at FreeTheAnimal.com has apparently been moving in a different direction as well. I don’t think he ever really got into the Keto crowd, but he certainly was an avid Paleo guy back in the day when I was trying to figure out how to change my life. His recent posts including A Rare Picture of Richard really pointed out that he was no longer following Paleo principles either especially since he is eating grains again. It’s hard to figure out what exactly the direction is that he has gone, but it all seems to stem around moderation and enjoying food again. And THAT strikes a chord with me! I just want to enjoy good food again! I do want that piece of watermelon (but not the whole melon!) and I do want a spoonful of honey now and then to enjoy melting in my mouth (but not the whole container at one time) and I want to pull an apple from one of my apple trees and crunch into it (but not 10 at a time) … you get the point.
Anyway. Not sure where this is all going to take me. I still need to lose between 40 and 50 lbs and I still need to get my BP under better control … and who knows what my lipid profile looks like, but I also want to live a little again. All this seems to be bringing me back to real food and Paleo (I don’t think I’ll ever really get comfortable with grains again.) I’m really looking forward to my huge garden again this year, and if the snow ever disappears from this frozen wasteland, I’ll be getting out there preparing the soil. In the mean time, I have some thinking and reading to do …
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2000 Hour Flashlight
Inspired by this little Kindle book I picked up the parts and assembled a couple of these flashlights today.
This is the stuff ready to assemble.
Prepped and ready for soldering. I chose to solder instead of glue as instructed by the book but only because I’m comfortable soldering and had the stuff on hand.
Resistor added and soldered in.
This is the difference between a moded light on the right and an original unmodified flashlight on the left. There is a substantial difference but the moded light is certainly usable. It is not what one would call a ‘thrower’ but still has plenty of light to work with.
I modified both lights I had and I’m leaving one on continuously to get a feel for really how long this light will go. The other I will use around the house and yard here. I’ll post an update when this little experiment is done.
All in all this is a very easy project and costs very little. If it ends up giving me a true 2000 hour light, I’ll be very pleased.
UPDATE – March 15, 2015.
I’ve left one of the modified flashlights on all the time since I made them back on Jan 12, 2015. I mean on as in, it’s never been shut off … just sitting there on my shelf in the kitchen burning away. That’s 63 days which equals 1512 hours and counting. The light had dimmed quite a bit but is still thowing out useable light. Pictures below show a comparison to the other modified light that has only been used a couple of times since I made it and also showing that it is producing usable light although the picture is not great. Will update again around the 2000 hour mark.
Here are the two lights side by side.
And … usable light!
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Tim Ferriss: Master Marketer or Just Another Spammer
Tim, Tim, Tim …
I’ve been following Tim Ferriss since the early days of the ‘yellow background‘ blog. Back then he wrote to the common people; cool topics that fed dreams and encouraged people to break out of the rut they were in. Stuff like travel planning, gaining muscle while losing fat, to-do lists, language learning … cool stuff … the stuff of dreams! Back then, it was not about selling kitchy garbage, carrying on about angel investing as if it is curing cancer or titillating tales of practicing sex. Even back then he showed shades of the Internet Marketer he’s become (name dropping, crosslinking, etc.,) but it was muted and mostly hidden which is the way internet marketing should be done.
Then came his 1st book: The 4-Hour Workweek. Brilliant!! It was the right book at the right time. It gave hope to people and provided a tangible step-by-step plan that people with balls (and no family) could follow to maybe get lucky and break away from the drudging path they were on. I loved that book and still dig it out and reread parts of it about once a year. To promote the book, Tim put himself out there … and that is where he began to fall (or show his true colors.) Book promoting is one thing = most authors do it, but self promotion = that was a Tim thing. It was not about the book anymore, or about helping people; it was about him and what he thought and what he was doing and what junky bauble he was using in his kitchen (with an Amazon link of course.) Everyone wanted to be like Tim. … and Tim got rich. Yep, the book was/is a best seller, but the Internet Marketing money was the goal and continues to be the driving force behind most of what Tim does. And the thing is: we were all sucked in by it! We shopped at those virtual shops and bought that junk ’cause we thought it would make us Tim. I wonder how many ‘fans’ out there are trudging off to work right now to trying to cover the minimum payments on their debt, some of which they accumulated buying the crap that Tim promoted at them. I’ll bet there are a lotta desk drawers or boxes in basements that contain the hopes and dreams they were sold by Tim = the Internet Marketer. Before I go on, don’t get me wrong. I believe that we all are responsible for the place we find ourselves. Your debt is your debt (and it’s your fault, not Tim’s.) You made the choices you did … nobody forced you. So even though I see what Tim is doing as slimy Internet Marketing, you are responsible for the bag of magic beans you’ve bought.
Which brings us to Tim’s fans. I suppose I was once like this (it’s hard to look back and be objective about what I did back then), but I’ve never seen such a bunch of sycophantic, fawning, brain dead sheeple in all my life! (Except maybe Obama supporters in the early days … lol.) The ‘hipsters’ of today are SOOO blind to the bill of goods they are being sold! Maybe it’s a product of being brought up in the information age with everything available at the keyboard and flitting from one 140 character pearl of wisdom to the next … always searching and never finding. I feel sorry for them – they are going to be the next generation of unfulfilled, debt ridden schlubs, slowly unwinding their lives toward death. … but sheeple have always been sheeple. From the early days of playing pass the apples (in the garden) to ‘come, let us kill him’, people have allowed themselves to be mindless followers. Some follow their own greed while others blindly follow the herd … like sheep. And this herd of followers seems to be the worst of all. Get this. They are following a guy whose original message was … do your own thing … be who you want to be – and they follow him by trying to do what he does and trying to be him. If it wasn’t so sad it would be laughable.
Back to Tim. His last two books are crap: at best coffee table books to show visitors how hip and cool you are = full of pretty pictures and big ideas, but short on real life … book candy, not meat and potatoes books.
And now we come to Tim the spammer.
A couple of months ago, Tim decided to tap the barrel of his blog and set up a mailing list asking people to opt in. In return he’s been sending out posts full of fluffy nonsense and affiliate links. And people are sucking this crap up! Oh my, the Facebook Fans are the most unbearable! Not a brain to be found in the bunch (and if somebody dares walk upstream they are quickly ridiculed and shot down by Tim fanatics.) So sad. So sad to see soooo many lovely people, sons and daughters, young fathers and mothers, sucking on the teet of an Internet Marketing spammer. Do you really think you are going to get sustenance from that teet? Is it going to put food on your table, or provide for your future or even satisfy your craving for a new life? It’s a dry tit people – no matter how hard you suck, nothing of any substance is going to come out! Spit it out, get real and build your own way!
Then, last week Tim started with the Internet Marketing spammers trick of ‘ooops, I forgot the link’ or in Tim’s case, ‘Damnation! So sorry about email dupes! Thank you for your patience this week + next. If I fuck it up again, I’ll give away more prizes.’ Sheeple … this is classic Internet Marketing! He’s doing this on purpose! This is list building 101 and is used (and taught) by every internet marketing spamming guru out there! Open yer eyes and see for real the slug that is feeding you this nonsense! The funny part is, the people he’s spamming are sucking it up:
“No worries. You may be superhuman, but you are still human.”
“No worries. it is makes me feel better to know that you also fuck things up occasionally”
“You are being to hard on yourself, it’s okay, really.
Fawning fans. It’s a sickness and one that is spreading like a virus … affecting the minds of good folks everywhere. People: pull the wool out of yer eyes … pull away the facade that Tim is hiding behind and see slimy slug that you are feeding on! Alas, I don’t have much confidence that many will break free. Hope is the driving force behind the hopeless and ‘broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many travel it.’
Tim Ferriss is both a marketing master and an internet spammer … but he’s the worst kind of both in that he does not care who he hurts as he leads the people down the proverbial garden path …
Want hope? Get real! Do something tangible! Grab an axe and build a woodpile (so to speak.)
NOTE: After writing this post (my 1st real post here …) I Googled to see if anybody else was seeing Tim for what he really is and found this absolute gem by Penelope Trunk called 5 Time management tricks I learned from years of hating Tim Ferriss. The comments are the fun stuff … lol. Plus seeing Tim comment on Penelope’s Blog and then mention her on his blog two days later … makes this post even more priceless.
Oooo … another one: Are You Riding The Tim Ferriss Wheel? Nice!
