Welcome to the end of 2017 and Bring on 2018!

Welcome to the end of 2017 !

Well we've made it one more year. My plan for next year is to write once per month again and not every three months. We shall see what happens. I'd like to start off with a few smaller topics this entry and then move on to the huge topics on my mind at the end of this year.

1. My own health currently
2. Mental health and Bell's mental health day vs the reality of working in a call center
3. Holiday stresses and the effects the holiday has on people
4. A new podcast I've discovered
5. the concept of consent and the #metoo phenomenon.

I forewarn those that have issues with any of these topics that there could be triggers and if you wish not to read then that is ok. I understand that there are some out there that may be offended, may also be triggered into remembering their own experiences etc.

The “Me Too” Phenomenon

Today I start with the “#MeToo” campaign. It sparked a lot of controversy and outcry in early October 2017 , this year, because of accusations against a certain celebrity. There have been many celebrities that have been accused over the years, and in my lifetime I can name a few at least that I grew up to be household names such as Bill Cosby and Michael Jackson for instance. Some were false allegations, others were fined or locked up. Most celebrities however seem to have gotten away with quite a bit of these allegations and get off with a fine and a small stint in jail or house arrest or not at all because the victim was found to be not trustworthy etc. This being said it seems that this has encouraged the wealthy to encourage and endorse rape culture.

Health care providers , Outrage of treatment of mentally ill patients

I will start this off by some reports, again my own home city. These news reports were over the summer and I randomly encountered them one day while reading online through one of our main tv channel sites, CTV. The reports were of the hospitals and their mistreatment of mental patients. I may have made mention to it before but here I make mention to it again as I got into quite a heated debate about two items, one: how a human being should be treated and two: the concept of “free” health care.

Pill Pushing and Weight Loss Goals

This is an update on my own health. Diabetes wise I'd like to think I'm doing better. However here's where I have a problem. It's with the doctors you see. Medications are necessary and I agree that certain ones are required to cause balance in the brain and body because of certain illnesses and diseases such as mental stability and diabetes or cancer etc. Ok that's fine. My problem? Why push pills that don't need to be had for problems that you can fix other ways that are better for you.

Mental illness and homelessness

 As some of you know I'm a huge advocate to get rid of the stigma of mental illness and have family and friends who suffer from various mental illnesses ranging from anxiety to schizophrenia. I have had and met people who suffer from dementia etc. It's not always a pretty path to go down and the suffering that these things can bring is a long and dark road in most cases.

Women Rights, Education, Sexuality and Population

I've spoken about women's rights before in a previous entry. I've spoken about feminism. What is feminism – it's the advocacy of equal rights between men and women. The belief that both sexes should have equal rights and opportunity.

Part 2 – Diets and Media

As of late I've been reading media and watching social media in particular. Of course I've been looking up various recipes and diet items. My previous entry was touching on Fad and crash diets and GMOs. I continue with this and note that Holistic eating – such as outlined here– can be both beneficial and not. Some of it is good tips, like portion size and not eating a lot of preservatives and so on but when it comes to the freshly grown vs GMO, I have to disagree. This is highly promoted in media among other things and I am constantly being bombarded by ads of supplements and how to do things “naturally”. Some of which has is foundation in science but as Bill states, a lot of things have not been tested and this is why for the most part don't work let alone for example, he used an antacid example that a holistic or “natural” one is actually watered down and I have seen this. Most of the things that claim to be natural actually aren't or those that are saying less fat or less sugar actually have more in it that's bad for you like aspartame.

Diet, GMOs

I'd like to take a moment to say sorry to my readers for taking 3-4 months to write. I've had a lot going on as of late with appointments, flare ups and work. So here are a few longer entries to make up for it all. I also say again as a disclaimer that I am no scientist or medical professional and that what I state here in these entries are from personal research and my own personal opinion on various topics that affect our health as a whole.

Consent and Children, Negative response and Negative Promotion of Rape Culture

This next segment leads me to Children and consent and violence on screen. I admit I'm not a parent and yes you may ask, well then who are you to judge what I allow my child to do and watch and who are you to tell me that it is wrong? Well I'm not. I do have young nieces and nephews, I did help raise my siblings, I come from a line of elementary teachers and I do have a sense of what's right and wrong and when watching certain child content and teaching a child in any way I do know by seeing behaviors reflected what is affecting a child's mental growth by how the act and or shall I say reenact.

Media Influences in Crucial Decision Making – Let's talk Emotional Boundaries

The next few entries are a series of controversial topics, and though I've touched on a few of these items before these things have seemingly grown over the past months especially after the presidential election in the US.

I'm going to begin with right now the repercussions of books and film influences on both young and adult minds. I'm not against a good book, film or TV show, don't get me wrong, but there are times that it takes it too far. Two such books converted to film adaptions have caused quite a storm as of late. Those being 50 Shades of Grey and 13 Reasons Why. I will start in with 13 Reasons why because it's something that I strongly will not watch and have an emotional tie to. One of the reasons why is because though I have not watched, it glorifies suicide and I, being someone who has had those thoughts and being someone who has lost 2-3 friends due to suicide, am not inclined to have my emotions torn apart to lead to further thoughts. Not only does it literally show the girl slicing her wrists but it goes through a blaming process.

Yoga: An alternative

I have many topics to write about this year and as I said in January I'm going to make my best effort this year to write more frequently. Today I'd like to start with my own health and some of the research I've looked into regarding alternative healing methods towards things such as anxiety, depression and diabetes.

I've had anxiety for quite some time and I have recently been diagnosed with diabetes over the holidays. The pill I'm on , Metformin, is one that is commonly used to treat the disease. I have type 2 diabetes which means that my body over time has gotten used to high sugar levels and is not responding to the insulin that my body makes and therefore does not recognize that my body is even making it. This is caused by my eating habits, lack of exercise and basically stress and sitting at my job all day long. My job is something that I will touch on in later posts as working in a call center sitting all day has many disadvantages health wise and as I've touched on before, sitting is a silent killer and is now considered as bad as smoking/second hand smoke.

Welcome 2017

Welcome readers to a new year! 2017 is here!

I bring in the new year with news of my health and of course over this year I intend on doing a bunch of new topics along with still touching on and expanding upon old topics. I do have a goal to try, I emphasize try, to write more often and keep up with at least once a month. I've been slacking due to health and work.

I will start with that I recently have been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in which case I will be focusing some of my topics on this such as healthy eating to combat it and exercise. I am taking medication for it and hopefully with a change in diet and working on exercise I can change this around.  Other topics will include focus on my hobby and health benefits of such.

I was also recently looking back at some past entries, as far back as the beginning of this blog, and there are some things that have changed and some that haven't. The things that haven't are things like my own health and in fact it's like my own health has unfortunately gotten worse or I feel the same when it comes to body issues. I've lost some weight but not enough to please me or make it so that I'm not sick. I've done some dietary changes but again not enough to make a huge difference quite yet.

I still feel fat and over 2016 I've been quite lazy to be honest. I've been walking to and from work however I stopped doing some of the working out and movement I was enjoying before. I am not sure exactly why this happened. It could have something to do with my mind set and emotions when it comes to others and the passing of a good friend or it could be that I am stressed from work and hurt a whole lot more than I did before and therefore do not have the emotional, mental or physical energy to actually carry out further exercise.

Stress is a huge thing and I will be touching on topics about the workplace, my line of work and as I mentioned hobbies and benefits of unwinding and other ways to do so.

That is all I have for this entry right now. I will try to keep up and post more frequently and now that I am also part time at work I will be able to hopefully do so. I hope all of you had a safe and happy beginning to 2017!