This is What Retired People Feel Like

School is out, and it feels weird.

No papers, no textbooks, no case studies, no emails, no anything.

I have free time for the first time since before kindergarten. Literally.

I've spent it making this.

It cracked pretty badly (stupid oak), but it's coming along pretty nicely, I think. It was a nice way to just kind of relax and be productive at the same time. Here's some of the other things that I've been up to the past few weeks (during school).

I've gotten the chance to hike some pretty awesome mountains over the past couple of weekends...

I've tested my balance when my hiking trips led me to the wrong side of the stream...

I rediscovered the bench where I dropped the "L" word (love) on Yellowhed...

Annnnnd, I've learned how to make some pretty awesome homemade granola bars, if I do say so myself. 

Two More to Go

And so ends another semester. I've spent the past 4 months in journal articles and exams up to my eyeballs, consistently staying up late to finish yet another paper due by midnight. It's been a blast learning what I'm learning, I like studying exercise physiology and all that, but it's definitely time for a break. And thankfully, this is the first real break I've had yet with the whole grad school experience. No winter intensives, no prepping for next semester's biostatistics class, none of that.

It's my temporary mental vacation.

And so, I've spent the past two days sleeping in, going on walks downtown with Yellowhed, and working on turning an oak stump into a chess board.

I'm starting to like this whole semester break thing.

Time for Bed

Grad school. Where your 'reference' section of your paper is just about as long as the paper itself.

Holy smokes. My "let-me-just-spit-that-out-tonight" eezy peezy paper ended up being 7 pages of case studies on an 56 year old hypertensive woman.

Why do my evenings keep ending up like this?

Random Happenings

A lot's been going on the past few weeks. Aside from trying to not completely destroy my bank account with grad school, I've been working a lot of 10-12 hour days training people. Holy smokes. Talk about living for the weekend.

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love training, and it's fantastic, but when you barely have time to lift for yourself, are spending your evenings studying healthcare insurance, and are living out of a lunchbox, you really reeeeeeeally look forward to Saturday.

In the meantime though, I've also learned how to make a pretty schweet loaf of cinnamon raisin bread...

Have been praying the frost doesn't kill my green pepper...

I've learned that you have to wear shoes inside a Yellowhed house...

"Oops."

"I thought I picked all of those up!"

I've had the opportunity to read some awesome books in between shifts...

Annnnd, I've been spied on by the neighborhood's crazy cat...

So, life's been good. I'm working my tail off, but I honestly love what I'm doing, and still think that I've got the most awesome job in the world. I'm looking forward to tomorrow evening though. Jes' sayin'.

Tailgate Me. I Dare You.

I Can COOK!

One of the things I've realized over the past few months is that it's finally time for me to learn how to cook.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. I'm pathetic. The summer before I married Yellowhed I lost 10 pounds just trying to live off of my own cooking.

Seriously. I can't even seem to learn how to microwave a microwave burrito.

And now, with Yellowhed working past dinner time as she goes through nursing school, I've finally decided that it's time for me to cook.

I've been making progress. I started with learning how to microwave eggs.

It's ok, but nothing spectacular.  Plus the mug gets heated to close to the temperature of Hades in the process. I've since learned that Walmart sells rotisserie chickens. I combined this new knowledge with Youtube's videos of how to cook rice and beans, and voila!

My very first REAL meal! Was it good? Nope! It was super dry, but I made it, and that's good enough for me! 

Recent Geocaching Adventures

I love geocaching. Nobody I talk to seems to understand what it really is, but I think it's a blast. A worldwide treasure hunt? Complete with riddles, puzzles, and crazy adventures? How could you not like that?

I've been doing it quite a bit lately. Fall is here, and that tends to be the best time to go caching, in my opinion.

Here's a little photo journal for ya.

Find the geocache!

A little turtle hiding in the grass.

A cache shoved up a tree's butt.

Why I Love My Job

I started off my day this morning with helping post-MI patients get back to their normal selves again. I got the opportunity to teach them that they can trust their bodies, that they don't need to be in constant fear, that they can do this, and that we will get them back to doing what they love.

From there I got the chance to eat lunch with my wife, and spend a little time working out for myself, continuing to work on my Turkish get-up.

My evening was spent helping morbidly obese patients to lose weight.

To "lose weight" is a loaded term. It means to finally be able to climb to the top of that waterfall everybody's been telling you about. It means to finally alleviate the chronic knee pain that's plagued you for years and affected your relationships. It means to perhaps have a shot at watching your grandchildren walk down the aisle with their spouse. To finally be a happier, healthier version of yourself. To get to where you've dreamed of being for years.

And I got the opportunity to help people do that today.

And that is why I love my job.

Like!

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Redistribution stinks. Read the article.

About that CEO/Employee Pay Gap

Holy Smokes.

Woah. I don't even know where to begin.

It's a beautiful day here today, so I decided to spend a little time out geocaching.

I'm driving down the highway on my way to the last cache of the day, a sneaky little hide that a few friends and I failed to find the other day.

All of a sudden, the black SUV about 30 yards ahead of me in the left lane veers off into the median, and over-corrects, causing their car to skid sideways into the right lane.

The gold sedan in front of me slams on their brakes.

I slam on mine, and realizing I'm going to hit the sedan, I quickly get into the left lane with only a couple of feet to spare.

I look into my rear view mirrors as I pull over into the median, and notice that the black SUV somehow ended up in the median facing traffic.

I ran up to their car, as the lady inside screams, "IT WAS A SPIDER!!"

The two little girls in car seats in the back seat are crying.

Their car didn't flip.
Gold sedan didn't hit them.
I didn't hit gold sedan.
Nobody was in my left lane.
Black car didn't hit any cars in the right lane.
Nobody behind us hit anybody
Did I thread the needle as the black SUV made a loop?

Holy smokes.

Somebody had their hand on that scene.
Thank You, Lord.

When the Professor Posts a 1-Hour Long Lecture as "Required"

What I Imagined Studying Nutrition Would Be Like

What it actually is.

Rain Wins, and Your Hobby Loses

So, we went to an art festival this past weekend.

What they can do. 

What we can do. 

Hiking in the Rain

How to Know if the Gym is Busy

Mushroom Farming

I recently looked up some stuff on how to grow mushrooms. The good kind.

It's a pretty easy system. You cut down a bunch of logs about a foot and a half long, and drill 2" holes all through them. You insert a little bit of mushroom spore into each hole, and then seal the deal with beeswax. The spore inoculates the entire log in the space of about a year, and exactly one year later, you're harvesting 2 pounds of mushrooms per log per year.

Anyways, it somehow got brought up at work, and my client told me that mushroom farming can be great, as long as you keep it outside.

It seems a friend of his had gotten into mushroom farming too. He had a basement full of these mushroom logs. All was going fine and dandy. He'd harvest a couple of mushrooms every morning, and take them down to the farmer's market to sell.

Eventually though, he went on a 2 week vacation.

When he came back, mushrooms had infested his entire house. They were everywhere. Doors, walls, wood flooring, the ceiling; he came back to a mushroom forest.

And he spent the next 40 days living in a hotel as his house was fumigated.

He moved his logs outside after that.

Where is Ebola Currently?

So, ebola has proven much more difficult to contain than we originally thought. At the moment, here are the countries with ebola patients:

1. Liberia
2. Guinea
3. Senegal
4. Nigeria
5. Democratic Republic of Congo

These are the ebola hotspots, where patient zero originated. Due to inadequate state infrastructure, a lack of access to sound healthcare, and really stupid thought processes (Liberian senators are arguing whether or not ebola is a real threat, or just a ploy to increase foreign monetary aide)

Below are the nations outside of Africa which have suspected ebola patients. 

1. Spain - A CNA has recently been diagnosed with ebola, and as of Thursday, her husband and 5 other medical workers on her case have been quarantined. Only the CNA is showing symptoms at the moment, but she seems to be doing well.
2. United States - All Americans that have contracted ebola so far, have done so via contact with African hotspots. The first American to die from ebola had just gotten back from a trip to Liberia. His family is currently being quarantined under armed guard after an escape attempt. 
3. Czech Republic? - A Czech business man has been quarantined at the moment, exhibiting ebola-like symptoms. Symptoms can often be very similar between different conditions though, so this could be something else entirely. 
4. Macedonia? - A British man died here from symptoms similar to those exhibited by patients with ebola. Lab results have yet to come in, however, to tell whether this was the case, or something else. 

You can check out a time chart of the spread here.

This is kind of interesting as well.

A Rough Look at Who's Fighting Ebola.

Ebola has continued to spread since the first outbreak was spotted, and my first post on it right here, complete with bloody eyeball video.

There were 518 confirmed deaths at that time, this past July. As of now, it's around 4000 deaths. And this particular strain isn't a 90% fatality rate as was initially spectated. It's closer to 48%. Here's some more facts on ebola.

That being said, here's a very rough look at who's doing what in the largest fight against ebola in human history.

United States

• $750 million pledged
• 4000 troops pledged, most of which come from the 101st Airborne Division
• 65 U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corp
• Around 2600 volunteers with government aid services

China

• 170 medical workers

India 

• $12.5 million pledged
• No personnel going to be sent

Russia

• 8 virologists, and protective equipment

South Africa

• A mobile ebola lab

African Union

• 75 medical workers

Uganda

• 15 medical workers

Japan

• $40 million pledged
• No personnel going to be sent

France 

• 15 French medics

United Kingdom

• 750 personnel to build clinics (1)

Doctors Without Borders, Samaritan's Purse, the Red Cross, and a host of other non-profit relief organizations are currently present as well. 

This is a major war going on over there at the moment. As mentioned before, pray!

The Cure for Cancer?

Now this is cool, so get ready.

Researchers from Juno Therapeutics as well as Novartis, both biotech companies, have found a way that they believe may be a potential cure for cancer. Close to 90% of patients with leukemia were healed after receiving experimental samples of CAR T-cell therapies.

What is this? Well, basically, blood is withdrawn from a cancer patient and the white blood cells are isolated. These white blood cells are then infected with an inactive virus that contains the genes that recognize specific cancer cells. These new and improved white blood cells are then grown in a lab for about ten days before they are put back into the original patient. The white blood cells multiply once they are within the body, and seek have a new thirst for cancer cell blood, resulting in the omission of cancer within the patient.

In short, the patient is healed.

The drawbacks? Well, there's a few.

For starters, at an estimated $500,000/treatment, this isn't going to be something that everybody can afford. Cancer treatments are incredibly expensive already between chemotherapy, radiation treatment, surgery, hospital stays, biopsies, etc. Adding an additional 500 grand to the tab isn't going to be a very practical solution.

Second, patients utilizing CAR therapies are at risk for cytokine-release syndrome, a situation in which blood pressure drops while the heart rate spikes. Two patients died in an initial trial due to this, so it is something to think about. Researchers claim that if the patient is healthy, CAR therapies should be relatively safe. The only question that then comes to mind is how is it possible to have cancer and be healthy?

Every treatment has side effects, however, as anybody who's ever watched a Zyrtec commercial can attest to. And if it really came down to it, I think that most people would agree that the risks are worth taking in this case.

Nevertheless, this is incredibly exciting. To see how God-gifted scientists have been able to find a very effective cure to certain types of cancers, is awesome to see. The therapy is currently under review by the FDA.

You can read more here.

New Insulin Pump Can Potentially Better Treat Diabetics

I'm always on the lookout for potential new cures to turn the tide against disease (it must be part of the whole grad school/public health thing), and when I found this the other day in the Wall Street Journal, I was pretty pumped.

A matchstick sized pump that gets inserted into the patient. With a year's worth of insulin, that's constantly being released into the patient in micro amounts to better regulate blood glucose levels. Now that's cool.

The little guy gets inserted right under the skin of the abdomen, and gives the patient 100% of the benefit of using the drug. No needles, no finger pricking, no anything. Just the little matchstick.

I work with a LOT of people with diabetes on a daily basis, and have seen how that disease completely transforms one's life. When a 15 year old kid comes in to see me with Type 2 diabetes, I know what lays in store for them if we can't radically change their life around for them (or they can't get their blood sugars under control). I've seen the diabetics in the nursing home. I've worked there. I've seen how they end up. Missing limbs, practically blind, or unable to talk due to the stroke that they had. It's a miserable state to be in.

Diabetes is nasty when uncontrolled.

And that's one of the reasons I love doing what I do. I get the chance to help people who are pre-diabetic be so no longer, help people be able to get off their meds, and help them to better live their lives.

Unfortunately though, exercise can't solve everything, and medications are often needed. But when you can find a way to still give somebody their meds without all the finger pricking and needle inserting, allowing them to better live their life and to have a happier, healthier one, I think that's pretty stinkin' awesome.

Random Thoughts

I've been tending to just collect clips of what I want to write about instead of just writing them due to a lack of time. So, I decided to just squish up a whole bunch of longer posts into shorter ones. Here's what I'm thinking about (be prepared for some politics).

Dengue fever stinks.

 There's no cure, it's potentially fatal, and its region grows larger day by day. But science is cool! Scientists have recently discovered a way to infect mosquitoes with a bacteria that renders them unable to carry the dengue virus, and have released hosts of these mosquitoes into the wild. The idea is that these mosquitoes will breed with wild mosquitoes (is that the right term?), resulting in offspring that can no longer carry the virus as well. Theoretically, this could eventually halt dengue virus altogether.

Eating processed red meats has been linked to heart failure and early death. Click here.

 In a recent study in Sweden, men who ate processed red meats (the meat that comes in that little plastic tub) had an 8% increased chance of death, and a 38% increased chance of heart failure compared to men that don't eat processed red meat. Scary. An earlier study showed that those who ate plastic tub meat had a 23% increased risk of stroke, and a 18% increased risk of cerebral infarction. Lesson learned. Avoid processed red meat.

Medical tourism from China is booming (bad for China, good for us)

China, a country known for its nationalized healthcare, is losing patients to overseas doctors. Why? Because nationalized health care is a stupid idea. Chinese civilians are realizing that their current healthcare situation stinks, that their doctors provide lackluster care, that corruption is present, and that they will suffer the consequences personally. As a result they're traveling abroad for important surgeries and procedures.

Many U.S. states are contemplating minimal wage increases

Resulting in employees who were previously above minimum-wage want a raise as well, resulting in everything you could ever want to buy increasing in price as well, resulting in people getting placed right back where they were at in the first place. Plus, there's inflation (the American dollar isn't worth as much). If you want to make above minimum wage, make something of yourself. The disgusting thing here isn't that people want to make more money, but that they want to be rewarded for their poor life decisions. If you want to make more money, work harder, earn a promotion, or go to school. Life isn't a Sam's Club on Sunday afternoon (ooo, free samples).

Ebola is spreading

Which is kind of spooky. Scientists are working like crazy on vaccines at the moment though.

Calling insurance companies is my new hobby

I got into a car wreck about two weeks ago (their fault, not mine), and ever since then I've spent about an hour on the phone every day trying to get the insurance stuff straightened out.

AND...We're looking for a new apartment

That's my other new hobby. Why can't my new hobbies be fun?

Johnny Cash Got Me in Trouble

Forget talking about politics or religion.

If you really want to make a room full of 80-year-olds mad, tell them that you think Johnny Cash just moans into the microphone and wasn't that good of a singer.

Holy smokes, you'd have thought I'd just insulted their spouse. You've never seen an 80 something year old hop off a treadmill so fast.

"Johnny was a... GENIUS!"

80 is Young?

I work in local gym personal training. What's that mean? It means that typically I'm working with older people all day (or people with life experience, as they like to say). I'm helping a client through their workout today, as they're telling me about their neck problems

Client: "Yes, as you get older, your body can't do what it used to do when you were young."

Me: "Yeah. People keep saying that around here."

Client: "I have to keep telling myself, 'You're not 80 years old anymore! You can't do those things!'"

CVS Stockholders Beware (But Maybe Not?)

I think we can all agree that smoking can have pretty devastating outcomes on your health. Odds are you know of somebody that's been destroyed by their choices with tobacco.

I see it all the time. I work in a cardiopulmonary rehab center. Patients come in every day hooked up to oxygen tanks, barely able to walk across the room without stopping to catch their breath.

Tobacco kills. 

But nevertheless, it's here to stay. Why? Well, first, because it's addictive. And second, there's good money to be made off of tobacco. I know of people with engineering degrees who went into tobacco farming. Why? Because you can pull in somewhere around $1500/acre (1).  And if you own a 50 (pretty average) acre farm that's nothing but tobacco planted throughout, you can net somewhere in the neighborhood of $75,000/year.

That's pretty stinkin' good.

Farming tobacco brings in big money because tobacco products bring in big money. The tobacco industry is somewhere around $35 billion (2). You can make good money selling this stuff.

And that's why I find CVS's decision so surprising. 

CVS, your local drugstore, has decided to pull all tobacco products from its shelves, forgoing around $2 billion dollars in annual sales. That's amazing. I don't even know what to make of this.

The hope is that by getting rid of all tobacco products, other corner drugstores will follow suit leading to a much healthier America. Conscious driven customers will hopefully respect CVS's decision and shop their more as well.

What's going to happen is completely up in the air, but I personally applaud CVS for taking such a huge step to forgo the sales of a product not in line with its mission. We'll see what happens.

Christians Have Lower Mortality Than Atheists

Here's some exciting research for ya:

Religious people tend to have lower mortality rates than non-religious people.

Yep, it's true. And from pretty much all causes too. Those who regularly attend church services, and practice private religion have:

• a decreased risk of suicide
• lower rates of cancer
• lower rates of circulatory diseases
• less digestive diseases
• less respiratory diseases
• and pretty much just a decreased risk of death all over (1, 2)

Pretty cool, huh? But why is this the case? Well, that's pretty easy when you get to thinking about it. 

Let's focus on Christians. 

 Christians believe the Bible is God's Word, that Jesus was real, and that He's the boss. They also believe in a lot of other things as well. Like how drunkenness, sexual immorality/homosexuality/pre-marital sex, and a host of other factors are a sin. 

Christians are also much less likely to get into fights, use drugs/alcohol/tobacco, engage in violent behavior, have less depression, have higher rates of self-esteem, and have a more positive outlook on life than atheists.

Now if you take a look at the root causes of different diseases and death, a lot of these go hand in hand. Don't want AIDS? Don't emulate anybody from 'How I Met Your Mother' or 'The Big Bang Theory'. Don't want liver cirrhosis? Don't drink. Don't want to die from lung or mouth cancer? Avoid tobacco. 

It's all pretty common sense, really. And if you'll notice, pretty much all of it's in the Bible. 

I don't think that God put all of those rules in the Bible just to suck the fun out of our lives. I think He did it for a reason. He knows the consequences of sinful choices, and He cares about us. Just like a good parent will never let his child play out in the street, God doesn't want us to play with sin. 

And that's something we should be able to live with. 

Why I Don't Think Milk Causes Diabetes

So, I just finished up one of my summer classes called 'Diabetes'. It was an excellent class, and one of the required textbooks for it was an ebook called 'Diabetes Rising' (note: ebooks make excellent textbooks for essays. "Where's that reference again? Oh, look! A search bar!").

Anyway, the book goes over 5 theories as to why diabetes is on the rise in America, which I previously  blogged about here.

Basically, the milk theory says that humans, specifically babies, aren't designed to be able to digest milk. The cells of the pancreas have a hard time with this, and the beta cells that produce insulin are destroyed as a result.

That's a giant container of barbeque sauce, by the way. Yellowhed's idea. We've had it over a year.

Sounds scary, right?

Well, it's certainly a theory, but I don't know how much stock I would put into it. Why? Because of my own little pet theory, which involves the Bible.

Now first of all, the Bible is not a medical textbook. You're not going to find surgical techniques in it, or specific instructions as to how to treat the flu. But it does cover a lot of public health issues. The book of Leviticus is considered the first recorded public health law. Personal hygiene, food safety, community sanitation issues, and a whole host of other potential problems are discussed within the Bible.

1 Timothy 4:4-5 - "For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer."

Now before you go out saying, "Alrighhhht!!! Bring out the marijuana!!!", let me say that I think you have to exercise a bit of discretion here. Obviously God created tobacco, but that doesn't mean He intended for us to fill our lungs with its smoke. God cares about our being responsible, and making wise and God-honoring decisions, and I think we need to be mindful of that.

But when I saw this verse, it got me thinking about the Israelites.

In Exodus 3:17, God told Moses that He was going to lead the Israelites to the Promised Land. "A land flowing with milk and honey."

The Promised Land was supposed to be pretty sweet. God had everything planned out for them there. Why on earth would He lead His people to a land filled with something that causes diabetes? That doesn't make any sense to me.

This isn't the only example either. Over and over again in the Bible, milk is referenced in a positive manner. Jeremiah 11:5, Proverbs 27:27, 1 Corinthians 9:7, Exodus 13:5, Jeremiah 32:22, and Numbers 13:27 are but a few of the many verses that talk about the presence of milk as a positive factor.

 I've heard the arguments before about how if the earlier doctors had just read their Bible, they would have seen Deuteronomy 12:23 which mentions blood being the source of life, and as a result would have never bled their patients, which often resulted in death. George Washington, and a host of other important figures would have probably lived and done other good things as a result, all if doctors had just read their Bibles.

Is that possible? I don't know. And I'm not saying that my theory is absolutely, positively sound either. There may be some truth to the fact that newborns should probably stay away from cow milk and formula.

All I know is that it wouldn't make sense for God to seem to advocate something that would lead to a very devastating disease.

And that's why I don't think that milk causes diabetes.

Dear Doctors

Dear doctors,

Please don't tell my clients that they need to eat a WHOLE chocolate bar both BEFORE and AFTER their workout.

It makes me upset/my job a lot harder.

The Website That Could Change American Healthcare

If you've opened up a newspaper within the last decade or so, you know that there's been a lot of fuss about the American healthcare system lately.

There's been facts published about how many people don't have access to proper healthcare because they can't afford it. And if you've ever had a procedure done at the hospital, you know that this could be the case.

Hospitals are expensive.

My appendectomy a couple of years back cost well over 20 grand, and that's going to be a pretty tough bill for some people. Granted the surgery did save my life, and without it I would have been dead (me > $20,000).

I'm not gonna get into all of the reasoning hospitals bills are so large, and all that though. Instead, let's just acknowledge that hospitals are expensive.

I bet you didn't know that hospital bills vary WIDELY from one hospital to the next. If you go to the hospital the next town over for your cortisone shot, knee replacement, cath, or whatever, you could potentially save thousands of dollars.

Enter http://www.opscost.com/

This website, and others like it have the potential to change healthcare as we know it. Why? Two words. Competitive pricing.

Let's say more people find out about opscost.com. They find out that they can get dialysis for 15 grand less a year if they just drive an extra 20 minutes to such and such a clinic. The original clinic starts to lose patients/money, and begins to panic. They make a few phone calls to find out that all of their old patients are going the next town over. A few more phone calls and they find out that that clinic's prices are significantly lower.

The original clinic doesn't want to go out of business, and so, it lowers its prices. Original business had to utilize competitive pricing in order to stay in business. This is the essence of the American free market system.

Competitive pricing is a win-win. The customer (you) get lower prices. The business gets to keep its doors open. Win-win.

So, BEFORE you make your next office visit to the doctor, I highly recommend you check out opscost.com. It could potentially save you a LOT of  money.

Seriously. A lot.

And the Drink Came Out My Nose

Two new clients are filling out paperwork, as I drink green tea while working on some computer stuff behind them...

Ms. Laughalot: "Let's see...question 14, "Do you own a bathroom scale?"

Daughter: "Yeah, we have one of those."

Ms. Laughalot: "Yeah, but I never use it. I don't know how."

Daughter: "Mom. You stand on it."

The Desire for Greatness

"Yeah, I thought about going into the exercise field, but I just didn't know how I'd be able to use that for Christ."

When I heard those words, it instantly hit a chord in my mind regarding something that I've been thinking a lot about lately: our desire for greatness.

Humans have an innate desire to see that their life has meaning. We all want to be worthwhile, to be a somebody, to know that our life and what we are doing matters.  If you ask me, this is the main cause of every 20-something-year-old's existential crisis. Attempting to answer the question, "What will I do with my life that will actually matter, and be something that I actually enjoy?"

And in order to live a life full of meaning, we come to the conclusion that we have to do great things. And that makes sense, right? To be great, you must do great things. But this is the point that I think that we tend to misconstrue.

Great things, according to many, are to be like Billy Graham and lead hundreds of thousands of people to Christ. Great things are to be like Jerry Falwell, and to start up the largest evangelical Christian university in the world. Great things are to be like Hudson Taylor, who brought the Bible to the Chinese people.

In our minds, being like these people becomes the true definition of being great.

We set these extremely lofty standards for ourselves as to what doing great, and being great really is. And when we fail to meet these expectations we view ourselves as failures. We are no longer a missionary in the jungles of Africa, but are now just an insurance salesman. We failed. Guilt sets in over a matter that it should not even be involved in, and we let ourselves become miserable because we are now worthless. We are no longer doing something that matters, we're not doing anything of eternal significance.

This undeserved guilt is a powerful tool of Satan. If you can convince a man that he is guilty of something, and he accepts it, you can have enormous influence over his life. Happiness is no longer an option for the guilty man, because he will have a sense that he does not deserve it. This lack of joy, this unyielding guilt will then creep its way in towards other areas of this man's life until both he, and others find him to be a miserable person, and as a result, someone who is not as effective of a Christian as they could be.

I had a teacher in high school once who would constantly say that you can glorify God even if you're just a ditch digger. I never really thought too deeply about it at the time. It was just another teacher's sayings. But I think that he said that because he knew what kind of thoughts we were going to wrestle with in the future when our livelihoods occupied a much larger portion of our minds than before.

Sometimes I wonder if this is not a form of spiritual pride, if you will. "Well, having a normal job is ok for other people, but not for me. I need to do something better. I need to do something that will actually reach people."

And this is a superficial way of thinking that has predominated over many of our minds. We get the sense that there are the higher 'spiritual' occupations, and then there is everything else. I think this is the thinking behind why almost every other person I met at college wanted to go into the mission field, myself included. We all wanted to do something meaningful with our lives, and that was the only way that we thought we could do it. (I sometimes wonder if overtly-mission sending churches cultivate these ideas within their youth groups without even realizing it. Whether that's true or not, I don't know. It's just something I think about sometimes.)

If you're not working for a non-profit, if you're not serving in the middle of a jungle somewhere, or the like, is what you're doing worthwhile? I say yes. With the exception of prostitution, drug dealing, and other similar vocations, every job can be used to not only bring glory to God, but to show people Christ as well.

Is this to say that some people are not called to other countries? Absolutely not. Some people are undoubtedly called to the mission field. But at the same time, I think that it is a dangerous mistake to assume that if that is not your calling, what you are doing is not of any eternal significance, and that you should feel guilty.

This world could not exist if everybody had the exact same job. If everybody was a pastor, who would collect the garbage? If everybody was a missionary, who would grow our food? If everybody was a worship pastor, who would manage the hospitals? Does this sound eerily similar to 1 Corinthians 12:12-31 to anybody?

Is being a missionary applaudable? Absolutely. But the public school teacher who teaches her class to the utmost of her ability, the football coach who leads his young men to become more responsible, and the businessman who constantly do their best to create innovative solutions to problems and provide people with the products they need also hold applaudable positions.

As to going to a 'mission field', I would point out that even America in itself is a mission field. Have you read a local newspaper lately? Have you seen the moral crises that this country is going through? Abortion, homosexuality, wicked government, lies, and sexual immorality are rampant. We NEED strong Christians within our workforce. We need Christian politicians, Christian business owners, Christian teachers, writers, lawyers, legislators and so on. Why? Because if Christians do not seek out these positions, who will? It will be the people without any sense of morality, the people who do not know the difference between right and wrong, and the like. America needs Christians.

So, to wrap it all up, yes, being a missionary is awesome. But so are being a hotel manager, a pilot, a movie director, or even a personal trainer. You can serve God and do great things for Him no matter where you are. When we get down to the very root of the matter, I don't think that God is concerned as much with our specific vocation as He is with our hearts.

Are you loving God with all your heart, mind, and soul, and showing love for other people with the same intensity that God does for us? Because if you are, I would argue that even if you are just digging ditches, what you do, does matter to God.

And that would be pretty great.

Love God, and do what you want. -St. Augustine

Oh. Good to Know.

It's 9 in the morning as I walk into work for a personal training session with a new haircut. Before I can even put my stuff down, one of my regular clients sees me.

"Wow. I just want you to know your hair looks much better longer."

Sigh.

Old people. Sheesh. 

Did it bug me? Nope. Seriously, I've become pretty immune to patient comments. Why? Because they literally say stuff like this EVERY DAY (I grew pretty accustomed to this stuff in the nursing home), and usually when it happens I'm pretty excited that I'll have another story to tell my friends about work. 

Like the time I went to the barber shop. The lady finishes cutting my hair, whirls me around in the spinny chair, and proclaims, "Now WHAT are we going to do about those eyebrows?"

Uh, I need stuff done to my eyebrows? Do guys do that? My eyebrows are bad? What do you do to eyebrows?

I've been compared to a worm, told my clothes look ridiculous, etc. etc. 

I swear. I'm lucky I don't need counseling already. 

On the other side, for some reason I tend to remind just about every old white person on the planet about their grandson. This results in all kinds of compliments (at least I think).

"Hey, you look just like my grandson!"

"I do?"

"Yeah! He has dark hair too!"

"You remind me of my grandson! You're both really tall!"

"Hey! My grandson likes the exercise field too!"

I've literally had clients bring in their grandsons before, just so we could meet. 

THAT'S an awkward situation.

Both of us clearly know why the other is there, and the conversation typically goes like this.

"Hey man."

"Hey, how's it going?"

"So...I see you've met my grandpa."

[grandparents whisper loudly in the background, "See!? I told you they'd get along!"]

I think that's one of the things I like about working with people. You never know what you're going to come across next. One day I'll get the opportunity to work with a man who actually stormed the beaches on D-Day, and the next I'll listen to a retired farmer's collection of the corniest jokes known to man. 

(What's Bruce Lee's favorite drink? WAAAATAAAAHH!!)

But for the moment, I guess I'll be content with the unfiltered comments about my haircut. 

You're Young, You Can Fix It

I spent a little bit of time just going through some of my old pictures on my laptop tonight.

I found these two beaut's.

When my grandparents bought a wildlife camera that they couldn't figure out how to get working.

All Kindsa Happenins

So Yellowhed's and my first anniversary was this past weekend! Woohoo!

We went away to the coast for the weekend to check out some pretty cool historical sites/go shopping. Well, she did most of the shopping. I just hung around the front of each store reading "Investing for Dummies". (Seriously, if you know anything about mutual funds, let me know.)

I recently accepted a new position at work as well! The receptionist ended up leaving for another clinic here in town, and as a result, we had nobody to schedule new patients/deal with the insurance companies/etc. It's been pretty good so far. I completely overbooked us for this coming week so that we're going to be at the clinic all night, and still have a pretty steep learning curve ahead of me with the insurance stuff, but it's still fun.

In other news, our house is infested with tiny ants...

They like Italian food. They must be Italian ants.

I finally got my stuff from home to make a little gym in the basement...

And Yellowhed tried to fix our "noisy" fan by punching it at 2 in the morning...

"I was trying to fix it!"

So, things have been good. I'm completely exhausted from working late into the nights, and my biggest load of classes yet is coming up this fall, but I can honestly say that I absolutely love what I'm doing. 

What You Didn't Know About Ebola

I recently harped about this issue right here, but seriously, this is getting to be a much bigger problem than any of us anticipated. And in case you didn't realize why, take a look at some of these facts.

• there currently is no cure for Ebola
• Ebola has a 90% fatality rate. That means 9 out of 10 people who are infected die. 
• it can take up to 21 days before symptoms develop, plenty of time for an infected person to travel abroad and come into contact with thousands of people (1)
• it's extremely difficult to diagnose the disease in the initial stages of it
• people contract it through contact with other peoples' blood or secretions
• there's a chance that it could be spread through respiratory droplets (2)
• the first American to die due to ebola flew on two international flights after he was infected (3)
• Around 1200 people that we know of have been infected so far
• 3 Americans have been infected in Africa
• There are several strains of ebola. One of them is named after Reston, VA, where it was discovered. It only kills monkeys.(4)
• 600+ people have died due to infection so far

Pray!

References

1. http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/symptoms/index.html

2. http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-20341423

3. http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/ebola-doctors-told-prepare-global-3933249

4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reston_virus

Reasons to Punch an MPH Student in the Head

I keep seeing this over and over again, and it's starting to scare me.

One of the things that somebody with an MPH is qualified to do is be a public health official. You'll have taken all of the courses in administration, environmental health, policy and legislation, and grant writing that you'll ever need.

Unfortunately, what our schools are producing don't seem to be capable leaders who have can effectively improve America's health without trampling all over the Constitution.

Let's take the worldwide battle on obesity, for example.

Over and over again, when I read other student's papers, when I read textbooks, or actual public health official's statements (I'm looking at you Michael Jacobson), the only solution that they can come up with in order to trim down our waistline involves creating new taxes and laws, which instead only result in trimming down our wallets as well as our freedoms.

The 4 most common ways I see people thinking that they can fight obesity are these:

• portion control laws
• unhealthy food taxes
• ingredient control laws
• mandate that grocery stores lower the cost of healthy foods

Let's look at the first one, portion control laws. 

New York recently instituted something like this when they said people can no longer buy a certain size of soda. It was supposedly brave. Where does this end though? When does buying large pizzas become illegal, or super sized Snickers? I can see the day when trick-or-treaters are rounded up into the back of cop cars. 

These are absolutely ridiculous. 

I can remember discussing this in one of my undergrad nutrition classes when the law first came out. The entire class was in agreement with the law. I couldn't believe my ears! I sat there thinking to myself, "What are we preparing for ourselves? If these people get into office, we're doomed."

The second type of law is unhealthy food taxes.

This seems to work with cigarettes, and alcohol, so why not try Oreos? Once again though, who is to mandate what is unhealthy and what is not? What about foods such as eggs? I can easily cook an egg in a way where it is going to be full of artery clogging fats that are even more dangerous that whatever could be in a Pop-Tart. 

And how are food companies such as Nabisco, General Mills, and Post going to respond to these potential taxes? By upping their prices, and increasing their advertising, resulting in a much larger grocery bill for you when your wife NEEDS her Chips Ahoy.

The third type of law involves ingredient control.

This means that the government gets to mandate what you can put into your food, and what you cannot. Obviously we have the FDA to make sure that people aren't putting lead into your cereal, but do you really want the government telling people how much sugar they can put into their soda? 

Not only would your Pepsi taste funny, but the government would once again be reaching its fingers into peoples' lives.

The last, possibly strangest public health 'solution' to obesity is to mandate that grocery stores lower the cost of fresh produce.

That's right. The government comes into a grocery store and says, "Hey, you're selling apples for $1.50/pound. People will never be able to afford that. They're going to buy unhealthy food now instead. You need to lower the prices, or we're going to fine you and throw you in jail."

First off, if you want people to have money to buy food, how about you don't take >25% of their paycheck every week. Second, what gives the government the authority to come in and tell you how much you can charge for a product? The grocery industry already battles razor-thin margins. Why do you want to further harm them? Seriously, my grocery store already only has 2 lanes open as it is. Don't make it worse.

In conclusion...

So, be on the lookout for this stuff. These trains of thought are becoming a lot more common than you think.

Look! An MPH student!

What's Changed with Diabetes?

Diabetes is on the rise, and is now reaching epidemic proportions worldwide.

But why?

What has changed over the past century?

Well, we've increased:

• our weights - we're now heavier than ever, overtaxing our pancreas
• caloric intake - closely tied to excess weight, but a separate factor nonetheless
• protein intake - we now eat more protein than ever before (Eskimos have always eaten a largely meat diet though)
• how much we sit - sitting does increase blood sugar and cause some other metabolic changes in the body, maybe this effects things?
• how clean we are - killing the microbes that may condition our immune system at a young age
• environmental toxins - these things cause all kinds of problems

While we've decreased:

• activity - we're more sedentary than ever
• vitamin D - less activity means less sun, which means less of this vital vitamin
• intestinal parasites - some tapeworms actually cause our immune system not to attack our own cells as much

An unknown virus could be another cause too. 

Odds are that the cause behind the rise is a myriad of these factors put together. The cause behind disease can often be complex, but like in the case of mono, Ebola, or TB, it can often be pretty simple as well. Avoid this virus, avoid this problem. Figuring out what the root cause behind the increase is going to take a lot more research.

My bets are on environmental toxins, but hey, what do I know? I'm just a student. 

5 Theories As to Why Type 1 Diabetes is on the Rise

So, I just finished reading an excellent book for my Diabetes and Obesity class called 'Diabetes Rising'. It's the first book that I've found on the subject of diabetes that actually spends its time addressing the why behind why diabetes is on the rise (aka, I liked it).

Obviously, Type 2 diabetes is associated with excess weight gain, and our world is getting fatter than ever. But does this explain the rise in Type 1 diabetes, otherwise known as juvenile diabetes, that has been occurring as well?

Here are 5 of the top current theories behind this rise.

The Accelerator Hypothesis - kids weigh more now, and at a younger age, than they ever have throughout the course of history. Excess weight is known to overly tax the pancreas, and any life-form is extremely vulnerable during the early stages of growth and development. This excess weight at such an early age allows the pancreas to be forced to work too hard for a longer time-frame than it would have to if say somebody in there 40's gained 50 pounds. Kids have longer to live.

Cons: Though obesity may play a part, what's the baseline cause? If a skinny kid gets diagnosed with Type 1, isn't this theory blown out of the water?

The Cow's Milk Hypothesis - we drink a lot of milk nowadays. However, is the human body designed to be able to digest it? The average person in China drinks 2.3 gallons of milk annually, while the average person in Finland drinks 48 gallons of milk per year. Finland has one of the highest rates of Type 1 diagnosis in the world, whereas China has one of the lowest. Doesn't this show a correlation?

Also, more women are feeding their women formula instead of breastfeeding than ever before. Formula contains cow's milk as a common ingredient. This milk is composed of complex proteins that babies bodies are not prepared to digest, and so the pancreas goes haywire and ends up getting damaged in the process. So, formula = diabetes.

Cons: Asides from potentially being assassinated by the milk industry if you're a proponent, experts argue that you could get the same exact results as some of these studies as you could get with any other protein. Many scientists cannot match the study results that proponents of the Cow's Milk Theory came up with either.

The POP Hypothesis - we live in a polluted environment, and persistent organic pollutants (POP's) are everywhere. These environmental toxins do unknown damage, accumulate in fatty tissue, and have been proven to be building up to very large levels within the human body within the past few decades. Studies have shown that those with the highest levels of POP's in there blood have 37.7 times the risk of developing diabetes than those with the lowest levels as well.

Cons: I actually think that this is the real cause, so I don't have many cons for this one. My only question is this: if POP's build up in fatty tissue, and the only way to make fat cells disappear is through liposuction, wouldn't that procedure significantly lower peoples' risk?

The Sunshine Hypothesis - Vitamin D has been proven to have a lot of important roles in the body, particularly helping the cell junctions to remain tight. The farther away a country is from the equator, the higher the diabetes prevalence as well. Perhaps it is the lack of sunlight/vitamin D in these regions that is leading to the diabetes epidemic.

Cons: Doesn't this mean that all Eskimos/Vikings/Russians throughout history would have been doomed?

The Hygiene Hypothesis - we are cleaner than ever before, but some microbes are helpful. Perhaps our cleanliness is depriving us of microbes that condition our immune system to not attack ourselves. Ingestion of certain types of tapeworms has been shown to lessen diabetes symptoms, so maybe there's something to this.

Cons: I think there may be something here as well, and don't really have too much negative to say.

The cause behind diseases is often a bunch of risk factors combined, so I wouldn't go off and say that milk is the sole reason for the increase in diabetes cases (if one at all). So, stay tuned to the research, and if you want to know more, google it!

Just Another Day at the Office

It's pretty late in the evening, and I'm wrapping things up with my last client of the evening. I'm the only personal trainer on site at the moment that I know of, and so the personal training studio should be completely empty. Nobody's allowed in there without a trainer, so we should have the place to ourselves to finish our last exercise: 3 sets of bicep curls.

We walk up to the door, I open it, and there directly in front of me stands a half-naked lady in a bikini and high heels, with a 600 pound slab of muscle who I assume was her husband sitting on a bench nearby.

Me: "Uhhh, are ya'll ok if we come in here real quick?"

Husband: "Yeah man, come on in. We're just working our way through some poses real quick."

My client and I quickly grab the dumbbells we need, and silently perform our first set with our faces towards the corner. We must've looked like rabbis at the Wailing Wall.

That's when the lady started to practice walking down a catwalk.

Yep. We left.

I left my phone in there by accident while they were still 'practicing' though. So, I asked one of the female staff to go in there and get it for me. Apparently, this kind of thing must happen pretty often while I'm not there, because she didn't even seemed shocked.

She grabbed my phone, and the guy told her he didn't know why we left, as he told us it was okay for us to be in there (even though THEY WEREN'T SUPPOSED TO BE THERE).

Most awkward session ever.

Do these kinds of things happen at a normal gym?

Eating Disorder Complications

In case you wanted to know exactly WHY eating disorders are dangerous, here's a few reasons:

• cardiac arrhytmias
• chronic renal failure intense enough to require dialysis
• low blood pressure (you'll feel dizzy, lightheaded, and weak)
• sudden death
• mitral valve prolapse
• electrolyte abnormalities
• intestinal dysmotility (say goodbye to pooping)
• esophagitis
• esophageal rupture (that's your throat)
• Barrett's esophagus
• gastric dialatation requiring stomach pumping
• dehydration 
• GI bleeding
• GI cramping
• cathartic colon necessitating colonic resection (surgery to remove part of your intestines)
• high cortisol levels
• partial neurogenic diabetes insipidus
• hypoglycemia (you'll feel like crap)
• increased bone fracture risk
• osteopenia
• infertility
• babies born with mothers with eating disorders are at increased risk of low APGAR scores, poor weight gain, and at an increased risk of low birth weight
• higher rates of miscarriage
• higher rates of postpartum depression
• potential obstetric complications (your baby could die)
• balding (this can be permanent)
• dry skin
• brittle nails
• developing peach fuzz over your entire body
• calluses, abrasions, and bruising of the hand
• facial purpura
• subconjunctival hemorrhages
• dental damage
• bone marrow necrosis
• increased risk of bacterial infections

Eating disorders are dangerous!

Why People Develop Eating Disorders

Let's start with some statistics.

• 1 in 4 out of every girl on college campuses has an eating disorder
• 85% of eating disorders develop during adolesence
• An eating disorder WILL kill you (if left unchecked)

When it comes to essentially every eating disorder out there, with the exception of binge-eating disorder, which I think is something entirely different, I think that you can really narrow down the root cause to one simple reason: a desire to be viewed as worthwhile. 

Think about it. This is something that all of us have programmed within us. We all want to be somebody. We all want to know that our existence is not meaningless, that people like us, that we're fun to be around. And when we don't feel these things, then we become willing to turn to drastic measures. We all want to measure up. 

However, sometimes people get their idea of self-worth from things that have no shred of truth in them whatsoever. If I'm beautiful, then people will like me. If people think I'm attractive, then I'll be worth their while. I'll be a somebody. 

Where do these ideas stem from though?

Here's an interesting fact for you. Industrialized nations have a much higher rate of eating disorders than less-developed nations. What does this mean? This means that the United States, Italy, France, the U.K. etc, are going to have a much higher rate of eating disorders than nations such as Nepal, Sudan, or Afghanistan ever will. 

But wait a minute, you say. Isn't that a false analogy? I mean some of those people don't even have enough food to eat. Of course they won't be able to develop an eating disorder.

Here's a study for you. 

On the island of Fiji, a nation that you could consider underdeveloped, but where people still have plenty of food, a study was performed.

Western media, mainly in the form of TV shows, which were previously unheard of to the country were introduced. Unfortunately, after a period of time, eating disorders, which were also previously unheard of to the country, began to spread like wildfire. Here's a cool summary of the study.

We are influenced by our environment more than we like to give it credit for. The media is a perfect example of this. We are way more influenced by the media than we would ever think, and a strong media presence has been tied to the development of eating disorders. A history of sexual/physical abuse, critical parents, or harsh comments being made by people in regards to weight are also risk factors for developing an eating disorder, but overall, I think that the media can be traced back to a lot of the cases that we are seeing in the States today.

I think that this is why more industrialized nations have a higher rate of eating disorders than under-developed nations. We have a stronger media presence. We have more free time, greater access to media, and people are actually able to find jobs within media that don't exist in developing countries. 

Society elevates people that it deems as attractive, and the media is full of these people. When these 'role models' (I use the term loosely) are constantly infiltrating peoples' lives, they become something that people aspire to be. And when people cannot attain these lofty standards, depression sets in, and they become susceptible to doing something drastic. Adolescents in particular are extremely susceptible to this influence. 

Now am I saying that ESPN, the radio, and just TV in general are evil? Absolutely not. I love TV. I watch it all the time. What I am saying though is that we do need to monitor our thought processes, as well as what we are filling our minds with. 

So, how can you avoid watching somebody you love end up suffering from this debilitating condition? 

First, watch your mouth. Don't say something stupidly hateful. It's okay to be concerned about somebody's weight, and to let them know that. Doctors do it all the time, and I sincerely think that sometimes saying something about this can be an act of love. Obesity kills too. 

However, be sensitive. Offer support. Don't just tell them that they're getting 'kind of chunky', or something flammable like that. Sometimes words aren't even necessary. Set a positive example for health, and your friends/kids will follow. Good health habits are contagious. 

Second, sound parenting. Don't put your child down. Ever. Be the biggest source of encouragement that they have in their lives. 

And lastly, make sure your kids know that their worth is not dependent on their looks. 

Eating disorders often develop when these factors are missing from peoples' lives. Be a source of encouragement. Be a leader. Exercise wisdom, love, and truth. It's only when we do these things that we will see a decline in the number of cases nationwide.