I saw this on facebook, but needed to share. Especially since #18 poignant here!
Tag: MLrandom
HOLY EFF! I’ve seen the first picture before but the second one is too much. Haters gonna hate.
Is this creeping on the sidebar of anyone else’s dashboard?
HILARIOUS.
Today is actually my dog’s 4th birthday – so I’ve been blowing up my facebook with pics of my Freddie. I suppose I’ll blow up tumblr with a post of someone else’s dog.
Up device from Jawbone
Jawbone Releases UP, A Wristband For Tracking Your Wellness
Priced at $100, the device is a leap for Jawbone. And it’s aimed at nothing less than making its wearers happier and healthier.
“People know more about their iPhone than they do their own health,” points out Travis Bogard, Jawbone’s VP of product development. “So how do we make them consumers of their own wellness?” Today Jawbone is finally unwrapping their attempt to solve the problem: The UP, a $100 wristband, smartphone app, and web app trio that work together to monitor your exercise habits, sleep cycles, and eating decisions. It’s already on sale on Jawbone’s website; on November 6th, it’ll be available at Apple, Target, AT&T stores, and Best Buy.
The product represents a massive investment for the company, and a potential turning point for it as well: Armed with a whopping $120 million in venture capital raised in just the last year, UP is intended to put Jawbone squarely within the $52 billion weight loss market and the $24 billion sleep-aid market. Jawbone hopes the device will become as ubiquitous as its famed headsets. Can it catch on?
“Health isn’t about going to the gym three times a week.”
“You have to create a Facebook-like engagement that keeps people coming back,” points out Bogard. To that end, the UP wristband is meant to be worn 24 hours a day. When you’re awake, its accelerometer monitors your movement–whether you’re running, walking, or climbing stairs–and then sends that data to the app, which shows how many calories you’ve burned. When you’re asleep, the UP monitors your sleep stage, by tracking subtle fluttering wrist movements (a natural occurrence during REM sleep, which is similar to eyelid flutter). When its time to wake up, the wristband vibrates slightly, and times its alarm to the best phase of your sleep cycle. And finally, the UP smartphone app allows you to take pictures of your food and log your meals.
The cleverest features, however, are a bit more subtle. The UP isn’t meant to be a passive health-monitoring device–if so, it would be hard to see how people would keep using it, given how often, for example, diets fail. Instead, it’s meant to constantly nudge you into better behavior. For example, you can set the wristband to vibrate when you’ve been sedentary for too long–a reminder to keep moving around. There are also challenges you can take on, such as running or walking a certain distance each day, or biking to work three times a week. Users can track their progress as they go along, and they can choose challenges created by others (including professional trainers and public-health experts).
Jawbone also hopes that social-networking features built into the app will provide a missing layer of motivation. “The number one correlate with your weight is what your friends are doing,” points out Bogard. “It’s not your DNA or anything else.” So the app allows you to see the challenges that friends are doing, as well as their fitness progress and activities. As Bogard describes it, those features are meant to help push you into action on lazy Sundays when you’re deciding between going to the gym and watching football.
If UP works, it could augur a huge shift in the way we approach weight loss.
If UP works, it could augur a huge shift in the way we approach weight loss and staying healthy. It all hinges, of course, on that “Facebook-like engagement.” Jawbone argues that technology inherently engages people–so even though diets almost always fail, technologies such as Facebook can create subtle behavioral shifts in short order. (How many times do you check your Facebook page a day?) But it’s a tall order to create a device that is ever-present but also not annoying. It places a high demand on a well integrated app/wristband system, and also a seamless user experience in the apps. It’s worth noting that UP will work best if it reminds you about your wellness precisely when you’re notthinking about it.
“Health isn’t about going to the gym three times a week,” says Bogard. “It’s about the thousands of little decisions that you make during the day. It’s about what you do in between those ‘healthy times.’”
Source: http://www.fastcodesign.com/1665351/can-jawbone-really-made-people-healtheir-with-their-up-wristband
http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/.element/apps/cvp/3.0/swf/cnn_416x234_embed.swf?context=embed&videoId=health/2011/10/24/hf-gupta-miss-south-carolina.cnn
From 234 pounds to the Miss America pageant
(CNN) – Every Friday, Bree Boyce dreaded her high school gym class. Students had to run a mile under 11 minutes, and those who couldn’t finish in time would have to walk around the track for the rest of the period.
Weighing 234 pounds, Boyce never made it in time.
“There were a few times I tried to run because I was so embarrassed and afraid of what other kids might say. After many failed attempts, I gave up hope,” said Boyce.
Every day, Boyce wore a baggy T-shirt and a pair of faded, size 18 jeans to school. She ducked and dodged anytime someone tried to take her picture. She deflected attention from her weight by cracking jokes.
Five years later and 112 pounds lighter, Boyce is no longer the camera-shy girl hiding inside saggy, shapeless tees.
She struts onstage in body-hugging evening gowns and swimsuits. She embraces the spotlight as the reigning Miss South Carolina. And she has been a guest co-host on “The View,” chatting openly about her weight.
Bree Boyce: Applying weight-loss lessons to all of life
“I had struggled for so many years with my weight,” Boyce said. “So many girls look to beauty queens because they want to be like them and look like them. But my thing is that we’re all unique and we’re all different and not one person is going to look like the next. And somebody might be a healthy size 6, and an unhealthy size 0.”
When she makes public appearances, a tiara rests on her head and a sash drapes over her shoulder. She’ll compete for the Miss America crown in January in Las Vegas.
Her journey from obese teenager to beauty queen isn’t just about shedding excess weight, or going from one extreme to another.
“It’s more about setting a good example for the younger generation,” Boyce said. “If you have a dream, go for it. Don’t let others’ perceptions hold you back.”
Bree Boyce, here turning 16, began seriously trying to lose weight at 17, because of knee problems.
Growing up, Boyce was chubbier than her three older siblings. Although she ate about the same foods as they did, her metabolism seemed different. As the youngest of two girls and two boys, Boyce found support and acceptance in her family and community.
Bree Boyce, who is Miss South Carolina holds a pair of size 18 jeans she wore in high school.
“She was the funny kid,” said Tiffany Olson, Boyce’s older sister. “She had the best personality.”
Her personality carried over to school, where she won over friends with her enthusiasm (she was president of the pep club), and impersonations of celebrities from Cher to Britney Spears.
“I tried to be very outgoing and tried to compensate my weight with my personality,” Boyce said.
When people at school talked about her or teased her, she’d try to be their friend.
“Sometimes I made fun of myself with them,” Boyce said. “It was all trying to cover up and not try to expose myself too much that I was hurting inside about my weight.”
Diet tricks the pros tell their friends
Throughout her childhood, Boyce watched on the sidelines as her older sister competed in beauty pageants. She secretly hoped one day, she would compete.
As a teen, Boyce tried several weight-loss gimmicks, low-carb and starvation diets. But she’d always slip back into her old habits because the hunger returned with such intensity.
Boyce’s health battle is not rare in her home state. In South Carolina, about 31% of the population is considered obese.
“I figured that this was the body I was going to live in, and there was nothing I could do about it,” Boyce said. “I was just so unhappy about the way I looked, but I still continued to eat unhealthy.”
“I would come home from school, sit on the couch for hours, and snack all day long. I would drive to a fast food place, pick up any meal I wanted to, eat it and then go back an hour later, eat it again.”
At age 17, she went to the doctor’s office because of knee problems.
The doctor didn’t mince his words. “You know, this weight has to come off,” he told her. “And if it doesn’t, then your body is not going to take care of you in the long run. And you’re only 17 years old.”
Bree Boyce was crowned Miss South Carolina on July 2. The Miss America Pageant will be January 14, 2012.
Boyce realized that he was right.
“I’m 17 years old. I have the whole world in front of me. And it’s up to me and only me to change it. And that’s exactly what I did,” she said.
Surgery is no quick fix for obese teens
She tossed out junk food and set a goal to lose five pounds in one month. And she put one foot in front of the other. She walked around the block because “that’s all I could do. I was so overweight.”
Then the next week, she walked a little farther. After her first month, she lost seven pounds.
When you’re losing weight, where does the fat go?
After losing more pounds, she joined the gym, started dancing in Zumba classes. Then she started jogging.
During her senior year of high school, an adviser at the pep club suggested Boyce try for the title of Miss West Florence, the school’s equivalent of a beauty pageant. At first, Boyce laughed it off.
“I was not thin,” she said. “I was still chubby, losing weight gradually.”
But Boyce gave it a shot.
“I was myself and I won,” beating 38 other girls, she said. “That gave me another confidence boost knowing that I could do what I set my mind to.”
After graduating in 2007, she went to study theater at Francis Marion University. She competed for the local Miss Florence title and began a winning streak in local beauty pageants until she finally won the state crown in July.
Through the years, Boyce had to unlearn a lifetime of bad habits.
“It’s all about learning a process, learning a lifestyle, and so many people think it’s an overnight quick fix. And it absolutely is not. It takes time. It took me three years,” she said.
Boyce, who couldn’t finish a mile in under 11 minutes in high school, can now run that distance in seven minutes. She plans to train for her first marathon once she has time after the Miss America contest.
“You don’t have to be rail thin to think you’re beautiful and want to be Miss America,” she said. “You need to be happy and content with yourself, get your physical activity. That’s what counts the most – not starvation diets and being rail thin.”
Boyce meticulously schedules workouts and meals to prepare for Miss America. On a recent day, she cooked breakfast at home in Florence, scrambling eggs and slicing a grapefruit.
“I block out where am I going to eat, how am I going to eat that day,” she said.
In the pageant world, where a woman’s frame and figure are constantly analyzed, Boyce has heard the critiques: too muscular, too big, not petite enough, not a size 00.
“I love my body,” Boyce said. “I went from 234 pounds to being comfortable and happy and being content with the way I look. Someone says I’m not a 00 – that doesn’t mean I don’t continue to compete for Miss America. We need to give an idealistic role model.”
She said she’d rather be on stage looking the way she does now than looking “sick, frail and thin. That’s not the message that I’m promoting at all.”
(Source: http://i.cdn.turner.com/)
HALLOWEEN PLANS
I’m doing a dia de los muertos sugar skull this year. I was thisclose to doing it last year, but decided to be a drag queen instead. I love any excuse to play with make up. This year I will ONCE AGAIN be in New Orleans for Halloween and you need to go big in NOLA. So I plan on doing it up, but on a budget. Just need some basic Halloween makeup and a big ol’ flower(s) for my hair coupled with the make up I already have and I plan on giving myself big sexy curly hair.
Peanut Butter is about to get EXPENSIVE – CNN
It’s Time To Let Go
Another fabulous piece from Thought Catalog that can be related to a multitude of situations.
It’s time to Let Go. I know: it’s scary right? I’m about to Let Go too, so let’s just do it together and maybe the whole process will be easier on us both. No, no, you can’t stay, it really is time to walk away — you’ve been holding on for too long now, and so have I. I know it’s simpler this way — just, shhhh, OK, listen to me — great now I lost my train of thought…
What I’m trying to say is that whatever you’re holding on to is holding you back, and it’s come to the point where you can’t hold on any longer. You’re like the picture of that adorable kitten on the string saying “hang in there!” except that you’ve been hanging for so long your paws are bloodied and gravity has dislocated your arm sockets. You’re a rag doll, a limp and impotent version of what you need to be, so quit your bitching and release your claws. It’s time to fall, whether you’re ready or not.
It’s time to be a grown up (what an awful concept). It doesn’t mean all the stale things you think though, like wearing cravats and only having one glass of wine over dinner. It just means you have to Let Go of a few things. You have to Let Go of the baggage you’ve been carrying around since high school. Sure you have your insecurities, we all do, but it’s time to put them down in a place where they can’t hurt you anymore.
You have to Let Go of all the childish things you see in the world, and start understanding limitlessness for real. Let Go of your anger, and all the stored up rage inside you (just let it rip if you want, scream and break things, but be sure to let it all go). Let go of the detritus of all your failures and of all those who have failed you. Let Go of your adopted cynicism because maybe being a grown up is really just about accepting that the magic has been there all along, and you’ve just been too immature to let it happen to you.
It’s time to be less afraid, because all those broken hearts only amount to as much as you allow them to. If you don’t Let Go of them now, let them fall to the ground and actually shatter the way they were supposed to before you so greedily scooped them back up and held them to your chest, you might miss out on love. So drop it now — your mistrustfulness, your obsessive, unhealthy relationship with your wounds — yes, it really is time to Let Go.
It’s time to fall — yeah OK, when you Let Go, you’re going to fall. I’m not going to lie; it’s probably going to hurt like a mofo. If it makes you feel better I can go first, and I’ll wait at the bottom to catch you. Because we’re doing this together remember? We’re going to Let Go because holding on to this wire is cutting lines through our palms and if we hang here too long they’ll scar and every time we look down at our hands we’ll remember we’re just prisoners.
So, here we go. On the count of three… One… Two… Ready?… Three. LET GO. Now we’re falling, and all the things we kept wrapped around us, all the spikey, nasty, ugly things that we thought made us safe for so long are just specks in the sky, becoming smaller as we fly away.
By
Dan Savage video on accepting what you find attractive. It’s controversial, but it’s interesting.
He’s on my University’s campus this week for an MTV special – I may go to his discussion tomorrow night. We’ll see.
(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)
A Sweet Potato Muffin with black sesame seeds from a Japan Starbucks. A friend of mine is a military wife and they are stationed in Japan. She said the muffin was delicious! I bet it is.
In 1982, having sold his jazz bar to devote himself to writing, Murakami began running to keep fit. A year later, he’d completed a solo course from Athens to Marathon, and now, after dozens of such races, not to mention triathlons and a dozen critically acclaimed books, he reflects upon the influence the sport has had on his life andeven more importanton his writing. Equal parts training log, travelogue, and reminiscence, this revealing memoir covers his four-month preparation for the 2005 New York City Marathon and takes us to places ranging from Tokyo’s Jingu Gaien gardens, where he once shared the course with an Olympian, to the Charles River in Boston among young women who outpace him. Through this marvelous lens of sport emerges a panorama of memories and insights: the eureka moment when he decided to become a writer, his greatest triumphs and disappointments, his passion for vintage LPs, and the experience, after fifty, of seeing his race times improve and then fall back. By turns funny and sobering, playful and philosophical, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running is rich and revelatory, both for fans of this masterful yet guardedly private writer and for the exploding population of athletes who find similar satisfaction in running.
A former student of mine recommended this. has anyone read it?