Chick fil A and freedom of speech...a guest post

I have been pondering this story from it's inception....Since it doesn't really affect me directly I went to my friend M. To discuss this...and we found ourselves in agreement. She agreed to write a post for my blog regarding the issue....So here goes....


Citizens in Mountain View, California have filed a zoning challenge to keep Chick-Fil-A from building a restaurant in their town because the head honcho of the company does not support gay marriage. While the zoning challenge is not likely to be upheld, the people responsible for said challenge claim they did so to make a point; they wanted to protect their town from a "bunch of bigots."

Really?

This company does not discriminate from hiring gay workers, they don't refuse to serve gay customers. The head of the company simply believes that marriage should be defined as being between a man and a woman. This is his personal opinion, it's not some kind of official decree. Yes, it's a family-owned company and the majority of his family agrees with his stance on this issue. The company did put out the following statement:

Going forward, our intent is to leave the policy debate over same-sex marriage to the government and political arena...[we] treat every person with honor, dignity and respect -- regardless of their belief, race, creed, sexual orientation or gender.

As a lesbian, I do not understand why the LGBT community is so up-in-arms over this. He said nothing derogatory or hateful about us. He's not preaching our eternal damnation or suggesting that we are in some way detracting from the morality of the world. He defined a single word based on his belief system. To be honest, I actually applaud him for having the integrity to give his honest answer to a direct question.

Frankly, this also felt very much like a set up to grab headlines. Why just ask Mr. Cathy for his opinion? Why not Wendy Thomas, the head of McDonald's, Burger King, Subway, etc.? I'm pretty sure I can guess what Colonel Sander's position would've been back in the day, yet there's no call to boycott KFC. I'll bet that none of these other executives will give an honest answer one way or the other to this question after this fiasco. This was an unfair, underhanded ploy, I think, to garner attention to this issue.


The thing is, I believe we still have free speech in this country. We are all for having this right when we agree with what people say. However, when someone presents an opinion that dissents from our own, we suddenly want them to shut up and drop off the face of the earth. We berate them and name-call and unfriend them on Facebook or whatever. What ever happened to listening to someone's opinion, stating your own, and being able to agree to disagree? Why is everything suddenly an all or nothing proposition?

This boycotting of Chick-Fil-A reminds me of when I was a kid and playing football on the playground. Of course, as kids do, there'd be a disagreement of some sort amongst the kids playing, so the kid who brought the ball would have a fit, grab the ball, and go home. This boycott screams the same immature, knee-jerk reaction to me. Moreover, I think it hurt our position more than it helped. The LGBT boycott has led to a backlash among conservative politicians (Mike Huckabee, for one) who are calling for conservatives to rush off and eat at Chick-Fil-A in support of the president's position. We had a chance to take the high road and we blew it.

Don't get me wrong, I do not agree with Dan Cathy's position on this issue. I am a firm believer that all Americans should have the same rights and privileges under the law—that there should not be special rules that give or remove rights for different segments of the population. I simply believe that condemning a man and raising an uproar to boycott a company because someone voiced a rather benign opinion under suspicious circumstances is ridiculous.

Top 5 MOST ANNOYING COMMERCIALS watched while working out...

5.) Alli:



) The poop it out pill....eat all the fat you want...POOP IT OUT.  lololololol....At least this blocks something.....however, they are not guaranteeing you will make it to the toilet on time. Use at your own risk...and at 60 bucks a bottle....wouldn't you be better off simply not eating all that fat? 


4.) The fullbar:


  Eat a fullbar...you'll be full.   That's the theory....at 160 calories you are supposed to eat this thing and then you'll eat less...otherwise known as the 'drink a cup of water' theory. Fat people didn't get fat because they didn't feel full...they get fat because they ignore full signals and overeat.  So your full bar is full of crap

3.) The Total Gym:
 
The total gym....IN JUST A FEW MINUTES A DAY...Now I love chuck. He's a great guy...but if I hear..one more time...that I can get fit in a few minutes a day while slogging through my 5 zillionth 60 minute workout..knowing all the info there is about formerly obese people needing at least 1 hour a day, 6 days a week to maintain their loss...my head will explode. Nuff said.

2.) Sensa
Besides the obnoxious flailing and the ridiculous assertion that you shake it on any available piece of shit and inhale it and you'll lose weight....when are they going to stop selling magical dieting fairy dust! This product nearly was number 1 but was beaten by a nose by....



1.) The 'smart for life' cookie diet.
 

What complete and utter shit. That's all. This one made me the angriest. After 3 years of trying to eat healthy and exercise...watching these people sell non food to obese people by implying that they can eat all the cookies (for life!?)  they want and lose weight is disgusting. It is condescending.

  How about an amalgam of all of these products...whaduya say?! So Grab a fullbar, then 20 minutes later you can pull out a cookie..sprinkle sensa on it, eat as many as you want and then hop on the total gym for a vigorous 20 minute workout...then sit back and watch those pounds fall off.

Chris out.

The end of struggle, the beginning of victory

So.
I had a very interesting thought a few days ago..
(and since I am not blathering on daily....I had time to let this thought sit and simmer...making it boil down to it's essential ingredients...always a good thing.)
Anywhoozle.
My thought was this:
Once I hit goal weight, then what?
I know it seems I have answered this question many times before.
And I have.
But never to my satisfaction.
Then I'll be healthy.
Then I'll look good in jeans.
Then I will have proved I won't be fat forever.
etc.

I don't know if any of you have watched Chariots of Fire.
Good movie.
Good points were made in that movie.
The best point made was when one man achieved his life dream and then uttered the words "Now what."
And I kind of answered this question a few months back when I alluded to minimum standards.
That health was not an ending...it was a beginning.
But I didn't answer the beginning of what...
Because I didn't really know what.
For so long...my fight with my weight consumed all my energy.
It was, in and of itself, the only thing I could see.
because the battle seemed to be insurmountable..I  had to surmount it to see that it wasn't insurmountable.
Some people expect good things.
I am not one of those people.

And when I got within sight of a goal line...I realized it wasn't a goal line..but more a brick wall of nothing.
Then what.
All my life I have known how to fight.
Because I have had to fight just to survive....not win...
I don't know what it means to win.
To me it meant..pick another struggle because till now, that is all it has been.
First my childhood...then the military...then the first years of my marriage...then my weight and all sorts of crap...
Maybe this is what people do who have been abused.
They can never accept good things.
They can't seem to accept that it may be a starting point to something wonderful.
What happens when you get control of your weight, your body and your mind.
What happens when you heal yourself mentally at the age of 38?
What happens when your marriage is happy and you are financially stable?
When your kids are happy and healthy and you have free time.
You have assets.
You have ability.
This is it.
This is my chance to figure out what I would have done at 18 if I had been 'normal'.

I realized my battle is no longer my weight.
I have realized it is no longer really even a battle..
now it's  a journey.
And I am capable of doing what I want to do.
I want to do my art.
I have no impediments but my own mind.
My mind is the only obstacle to further success in life.
What or who I should be as was shown to me can  be taken right off my interior mental map and replaced by
WHO I WANT TO BE NOW.
I am going to allow myself to win.

I lost another pound this week.
165.
I wasn't even that on point...which I will be this week.
Each day is a new day.
Have a great night guys.

Making today THE day everything changed.....

I had quite a realization today.
It has come at some expense...mostly of time and energy.
My house is clean.
This seems a small thing..
But for years..YEARS...I have struggled to clean my house.
I wafted around on a never ending tide of clutter.
I would get one room clean..
then another would fall apart.
well...a while back I decided I couldn't live like this anymore.
And I got it clean.
I won't go into all the details, but my house is entirely organized and clean from baseboards to cupboards...from closets to bookshelves.
What changed?
I have the same number of kids, and a husband, and a dog.
I changed.
I decided.
And I did it.
I have talked many times about how something flipped or switched or snapped inside of me On May 4th, 2009.
For the first two years, I went on the supposition that it was the sudden realization that I was fat that caused the big change. That my brain snapped to and from then on out I just knew what I had to do...
That it was some mystical outside force that propelled me...and that kept me going UNTIL...

Until I went back to Michigan.
I had a crappy childhood.  I had a growing fear inside of me...a fear of being vulnerable.
A Fear I allowed to derail me till a few months ago.
BUT  During that year following that trip back home, Whenever I tried to get on track..(mostly by hanging on for dear life by continuuing to exercise and trying to count calories or fighting the urge to binge away the knot in my stomach)...I kept losing. I got down to 148 lbs.  Then my fear began to make me lose sleep.  Then I began to have more bad days than good days.
And then I got to the point where I thought..."hey, I don't look bad...I'll just keep exercising till I feel like climbing back on that losing weight wagon'.....

But here's the thing.
I didn't feel like climbing back on...
Whatever impetus I had...being morbidly obese, being unable to breathe...Well, those were gone.
I was no longer ashamed of myself.
I no longer hate myself.
I continued to eat a little too much and exercise...
I allowed my fear and my apathy to keep me away from the person I truly want to be.
Which brings me to where I am now...currently 166 lbs.
(Down one pound so far since I began DOING again...remember one pound at a time...)
Now.
I had run away from the scale for over a year...last year about this time I was 156.
It's been a slow steady creep
(I noticed by the way I looked and the way my clothing fit, but did nothing to stop it...as I was still waiting for that magical moment to happen).
But In the last two weeks I have discovered something very, very, very important.
There is no magical moment.
And this is not about the weight.
It's about deciding who you want to be.
The day I put down that latte and started walking...
That wasn't an outside switch.
I pulled that puppy.
At the time, I was too disempowered to realize it was ME.
It was MY decision.
I thought some other, mystical force propelled me.
When in reality....
DOING BEGETS BEING.
I began doing what would get me better...
and by DOING I BECAME.
I became healthy.
I became empowered.
I became the person who tries  new things.
Not because I was not afraid.
But because I felt the uncertainty.
I felt the fear.
I felt the crushing reality of all my past failures.
and I
DID IT ANYWAYS.
So last week I began DOING again.
Not perfectly.
imperfectly.
But counting my calories.
Exercising.
Because I know WHO I WANT TO BE.
You can make TODAY the day you changed everything.
You can be who you want to be.
By flipping the switch inside you..
from wisher to doer.
from failure to winner.
simply by choosing to.
Chris out.