Boog

Boog

Friday, September 23, 2016

Quick Tips

I've recently lost a pretty good amount of weight and I feel soooo much better. Several people have asked me how I lost the weight and the "I go to the gym, don't over eat and make better food choices" answer seems to be unsatisfying to people. I can't really give any magic secret because it's just simple mathematics 

Calories you need each day (ex. 1800)
-calories spent by normal activity and/or exercise (400)
-calories ingested that day from food/drinks (1200)

1800 - 400 - 1200= 1600

You want to meet or be below your needed calories. No other part to it. No secret. If you eat a high calorie breakfast, eat a lighter lunch. I can't say if the following advise/tips will work for you, but it helped me a lot. 

*** Do not begin an exercise program or diet change without speaking to a physician.
***These are descriptive tips I use. I am not encouraging any of the information below.

At first, I needed to learn how to gauge calories and how many calories certain exercise burned.

1. I downloaded the MyFitnessPal app (it's free) and entered what I ate into the food journal. It really made me see how many pointless calories I had each day: drinks, that one donut, cream for my coffee. After logging my food I realized I'd rather skip the donut and use those calories for a veggie pizza. I logged my food daily until I got used to being aware of calories automatically throughout the day.

2. I bought a Fitbit. Fitbit actually can connect to your MyFitnessPal app and subtract the calories you spend during the day. This makes it so much easier! You enter your food, Fitbit subtracts all the movement you've done and you can see if you're in the right range. Yes, the Fitbit is about $80 for the most basic one, but would you rather spend $80 and fit into those old jeans, or spend it on fast food and feel like crap. Totally your choice. I chose to spend the $80.

The Fitbit and MyFitnessPal apps.


The basic $79 Fitbit at Walmart.


3. I joined a gym once the weather got too hot to exercise outside. There are gyms like Planet Fitness that cost $15 a month. No excuses there.

4. I made some better snack options.

Tea! Tea is great. Sometimes you feel hungry when in reality you're thirsty. A cup of hot tea is good for you, it adds to the water you need each day and it curbs snacking-hunger (for me).



It says rice crisps, but they're so much more. They have sweet and salty flavors and you can eat around 15 for under 200 calories. Love these.



I have cashew milk. Not soy or almond. If I want something creamier than water in my coffee or oatmeal, this is my thing. The unsweetened vanilla has only 25 calories in a cup. So awesome.




When I'm on the go and want that donut, I eat a couple of these. You'd be surprised how much it helps curb the sweet tooth. They cost less than a dollar and have only 5 calories each.




I also take a good multivitamin for a ton of health benefits. The Ultra NourishHair is optional. I take it for healthy hair skin and nails. 


That's about it! It's just about commitment. I worked out more in the beginning because it was hard to change my eating quickly. My diet changed, so I don't have to work out as much. 

After 6 months I found out the clothes I bought 2 years ago didn't fit, but this time it's because they fell off me, not because they were too tight 😊

Good luck!




Thursday, September 22, 2016

Sometimes I just want to shake humanity and scream WAKE UP.

However, I don't do this due to legal ramifications.



Let me give you some advise. Real advise. 


If there was ONE thing, be it chemical, natural herb, essential oil, something in pill form, extract, or whatever that could POSSIBLY give non-verbal children with autism the ability to speak...Do you reeeeeeally think no one would have capitalized on it yet?

Seriously?

1 in 65 boys. That's a lot of kids. A lot of parents. Parents that would somehow find a way to buy whatever it was in order to help their child even if it meant selling their house and cars.

You don't think pharmaceutical companies don't know that? You really think Pfizer is sitting on the ability to sell this? Seriously? Dude, if you believe that I got something to sell you. Great property. Oceanfront. Located in sunny Arizona.

I have **no** issue with maijuana. It's ridiculous it's not legal everywhere. 

But if you think for one second there was something out there that could be marketed to even potentially help these kids you may be the definition of future Social Darwinism. If so, good luck with that.


Examples of horse crap:

1. Vaccines cause Autism! I know it! It's the Mercury! It's a conspiracy!

2. One sort of Mary Jane extract giving speech to non-verbal kids
"Boy gains ability to speak after just two days of cannabis oil treatment!"


3. Essential oils (do you guys really not know what a pyramid scheme is? Why don't you google it (and also how the FDA has never approved that crap to be digested).



Homework: Read these responses to the above:


1. 

A. The doctor that "discovers" vaccines cause autism:


"On 28 January 2010, a five-member statutory tribunal of the GMC found three dozen charges proved, including four counts of dishonesty and 12 counts involving the abuse of developmentally challenged children.[12] The panel ruled that Wakefield had "failed in his duties as a responsible consultant", acted both against the interests of his patients, and "dishonestly and irresponsibly" in his published research."

B. Jenny McCarthy may have been a playboy bunny, but she's right!!


"In the panic created by the Wakefield article, England saw MMR vaccination rates fall to 80 percent in 2004 and Wales to 78 percent. In 2012, England and Wales had the highest number of measles cases in 18 years.

These are dangerous illnesses, and the victims of an outbreak are often infants too small to have yet received vaccinations. Jenny McCarthy styles herself a “mother warrior.” If so, the kids sickened in the fallout from reduced vaccinations are the victims of friendly fire. Nothing good can come from undoing one of the miracles of medical progress."



2. Mary Jane for kids is a miracle!!

https://www.babble.com/mom/medical-marijuana-for-autistic-kids-um-no/  ***Please read this article

"The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is opposed to the use of medical marijuana for children, regardless of diagnosis, and research into its use on either adults or children with autism is nonexistent. Anecdotal evidence abounds, however, with Autism Daily Newscast citing the heartbreaking case of Alex Echols, an 11-year-old boy from Oregon whose story is chronicled in the blog Alex Needs Help."

Sounds great…except if you look at the most recent blog post of Alex Needs Help, his family is no longer finding success with treating their son with marijuana. I’m not judging Alex’s parents at all here. I understand the desperation and the need to go beyond the standard medical offerings when things are just not helping your kid."

What’s missing from the coverage of Alex’s story, and other stories like his, is the explanation that his parents aren’t actually trying to treat autism, they’re trying to deal with a behavior. It may not seem like a big difference, but I think it is."



3. Essential oils can help kids with autism! Or cure it!

http://deadstate.org/report-gullible-parents-are-poisoning-their-children-with-essential-oils/

"Along with the rise in people using “essential oils” as an alternative remedy for what ails them, incidences of children being exposed to toxins in these oils has risen as well.

A Tennessee poison center reports that between 2011 and 2015, 4 out of 5 harmful exposures to these oils involved children."



Wake up. Take a step back and really think. Could this help, or is someone taking advantage of our guilt/fear/pain for monetary gain?

When you figure that out, you'll stop passing around this crap over and over year after year. 

If the above evidence isn't enough for you:  Just send your kid to me. I'm not mother of the year, but I at least try not to administer toxic chemicals into my kid.


#WAKEUP








Wednesday, September 21, 2016

Pinky and Brain

Okay fine. 

Bad dream? Yeah. 
It sucked? Yeah. 
Was the dream about any of the new awesome things Boog is doing? No.


This kid is using sign language to answer my questions about his day when I pick him up. 
He's reading at a higher level than anyone thought. 
He's kicking @ss at typing. Soon he'll be typing sentences, no doubt.
He's also the best kid ever.
Happiest kid ever.

I'm thankful for my son. Proud of him. 

If I could give my subconscious the bird right now I might. Or at least roll my eyes. Here this will work: 🙄

Haha!


-Boog's Mommy

Pure Unintentional Heartbreak I Give Myself

I had the dream again last night.

He said a word. Then another. I remember feeling scared he would stop. Then he said three words together. He was smiling. I ran to get my husband. He said a whole paragraph. I can't remember what he said, just the feeling of elation. 

I know it's my subconscious trying to help, but I wish it would work on something else. 

It hurts. So badly. There is no word. He has no words. 

Sunday, September 18, 2016

FALLing in Love

This is a post about fall, the season. See what I did up there 😉


I saw this great list on Pinterest and tracked down the creator (who deserved some credit). Check her out over at http://www.theclassicbrunette.com/ for more great posts and ideas.

So let's try to de-stress and get ready for a welcomed seasonal change!






- Boog's ready-for-cardigan-weather Mommy

Sunday, September 11, 2016

Not on the Road Rage

I was watching DVR Dr. Phil (don't judge). It was an episode about a 26 year old woman who grew up wealthy, but now has horrible problems. She's living in a hotel room with mold, drinks every day (up to a gallon of vodka a day sometimes), and has an abusive boyfriend. Why am I rambling about a Dr. Phil episode on my blog? Because she's pregnant.

Dr. Phil tried to get her to understand what alcohol can do to a child. He put the description and possible outcomes of fetal alcohol syndrome on a big screen for her to see. He started reading each disability a child with fetal alcohol syndrome could have.

I turned off the tv.

Not because the woman was a horrible, terrible person. I turned it off because it reminded me of doing nursing clinicals in the NICU. I heard the stories of the little ones from some of the nurses. A sweet little healthy girl. Beautiful baby. She just happened to have a severe addict as a mother who did drugs and drank through the whole pregnancy.

When I was pregnant I didn't even fall down one time. I'm serious. Every step I took I was careful. Never missed a vitamin. Did everything the doctor told me to and then some.


My son has Autism. It didn't matter what I did while I was pregnant. He has Autism.


I wish I could find that Dr. Phil guest after she has her baby and beat the snot out of her. 

Yes, I blog about progress and cute stories and helpful things we've tried. This is a blog about anger. I would almost call it rage. It's because a piece of crap woman can somehow have a child without Autism and I did everything right and my son does.

I'm trying to deal with my anger in a better way. Hence, this blog post. Yeah, writing it down does help. I'm a lot less angry than I was when I started writing this. 

But I'd still kick that chick's ass.


-Boog's Mommy

Saturday, September 10, 2016

We're Two for Two with Target!

Bragging again on Target! First they have Caroline's Carts and now a "Kind is Cool" kids line with "Come sit with us" and other clothing with positive messages! 


Let's all support this because we know most of all that kind is cool 😎



*This is not a sponsored post, but if Target ever wants to - feel free! 😉




Monday, September 5, 2016

Mathematical Meanings Meant for the Mind(games)

It bothers me that there is video footage and more than one photograph of John Lennon making fun of the handicapped. Well, I should say it bothered me, past tense.

No, I'm not letting it go because he is my favorite musician, or because Boog gets more peace from "Imagine" than anything else I've seen.

Here is a true admission of guilt: I made fun of the handicapped. When I was a kid, then old enough to know better. I remember it well. Me and my friends goofing off, making faces at each other, saying things like "Why are you doing that, it's so retarded". I think back a bit and I'm not embarrassed, I'm ashamed. 

What does that mean, actually? Well, I like to look at things like math problems sometimes. Bear with me a moment here:

A) Me, being rude and horribly insensitive is a negative (-)

B) Me, becoming educated, admitting my flaws, changing and educating myself. That's a positive (+)

C) Me, after educating myself, reaching out to educate others. Another positive (+)

So we have -1 +1 +1 = 1

Still in the positive. You've done more good than bad. Makes sense.


Back to Mr. Lennon. Okay, he:

A) Made fun of the handicapped very often in his younger years, producing a negative (-)

B) Later in life, he admitted regrets. Some of them about being immature, rude, insensitive, cruel to women. He was aware, admitted it, and made changes. A positive (+)

C) This ones a bit long, sorry for that:

"Early in August 1972, John Lennon had the idea to perform a live benefit for the pupils of Willowbrook School in New York City, a state-run institute for children with mental disabilities. Following three days of rehearsals, two concerts took place at Madison Square Garden. They were the last full-scale performances given by Lennon in public".

"Prior to the concerts, Lennon bought $59,000 worth of tickets and gave them away to fundraising volunteers, as he worried that not enough money was being generated. Both shows were sell-outs, however, and the day raised more than $1.5 million for Willowbrook. Proceeds from the tickets, which cost $5, $7.50 and $10, were intended to establish smaller residential facilities in the community for mentally-disabled people".

He was such a public figure, his positive needed to be pretty big. I'd say that was pretty big for 1972, when benefit concerts weren't even a thing yet (George got that going with Bangledesh!). So, that's a positive (+)

Again, we have:  -1 +1 +1 = 1


What's all this really mean?
You get what you give. 
Every day is a new day. 
Today is the first day of the rest of your life. 
Be the change you want to see in the world. 
It's never too late.

We all make so many mistakes. I did. You did. John Lennon did. That's not the important part. What's important is what you do when you realize those things were mistakes. If you truly learn from it and make positive changes, well, it will be just like...



Peace and Love,
Boog's Mathmatical Mommy





Sunday, September 4, 2016

Adulting! Almost as fun as laundry.

So we went to Target today. When I walked in I immediately noticed two girls (not little, like 12ish) laughing and sitting in one of the  "Caroline's Carts" Target now has. These carts have a forward facing seat so you can shop and have your older special-needs child with you safely. I blogged about them a while back. It was the only one I saw, so the others must have been in use. They've become pretty popular at our Target and I'm so thankful for them when I shop and Boog is with me.

It annoyed me, but I kept walking.

 I stopped after about ten steps and thought.

Then, I made a decision. 

I walked back, approached the girls and with a very polite voice said something like this:

"Hi there. 🙂 Those carts are actually for special needs children. I don't see any more of them, so if someone comes in and needs one they won't be able to use it if you're riding around in it."

They sneared, grumbled something and immediately got up and went to go disrupt some other area (no parents in sight... Shocking!).


So some snotty kids made me adult today 🙄 

Anyway, my point is: Parenting a special needs child is hard enough. If you see something and it bothers you, speak up. You don't have to be rude. The person may have no idea. I doubt those girls had a clue what that cart was for.... but they do now 😉

-Boog's sometimes adult, sometimes irritable Mom