- Logtar's Blog -

And Here We Go

And…here we go!

1. Apparently there’s some sort of _____.
Rain coming, Go away rain.

2. _____ sunny day.
Today was a beautiful

3. 2009 _____ so far.
has rocked

4. _____ that was it.
knob Creek

5. For too long I’ve been _____.
away today

6. I am not obsessed with _____; I am not!
WoW

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to _____, tomorrow my plans include _____ and Sunday, I want to _____!
Baseball, Gaming and Drinking, start a diet!

Lent is over! and well I did end up giving up something after some weight gain, Chinese food. I love fried chicken smothered on delicious sauce, but it just seems like combination of grease, sugar and soy sauce is my kryptonite. So along with my promise of drinking a healthy morning fruit and vegetable smoothie I did not each Chinese for almost 40 days. I am looking forward to eating some fried goodness again, but a lot more conscious about what it does to my system.

The WLC has been a challenge for me this time. After being excited that my weight was way lower (probably just a low dehydrated weight or something) than I expected, BAM I saw what my real weight really was, and I have been able to stay around 251 consistently for most of the challenge. I have lost inches which is great and clothes feel better which actually means a lot more. Nuke has actually lost a whooping 22 pounds and Jeff 16 as of last week! (Great job guys.)

I might do a little push on the last two weeks and see if I can jump start my system and maybe get bellow 240. The weather is getting nicer and outdoor activities will probably be more conducive to getting in shape. I know nutrition and exercise will be the key to getting in good shape again, and it seems like this time the changes however small will be long lasting.

Believe it or not, I grew up thinking I was.

In Colombia children learn that there are three main races: black, white and native. The combination of those creates races like “mulato” or “creole”. When identifying with a race back then, I looked at my family and my blond hair and light eyes, and thought of myself as white. However, the whole label thing was never important and it did not come into play every single day of my life. I would like to think that I was not a minority when I would not think of people as colors. I did not know one of my parents was somewhat racist until much later in life, and I lived here in the U.S.

My rude awakening to race issues came on the first day I was in the US. I was sitting down by some members of my family, and was told that I should not socialize with pretty much anyone. Do not trust anybody, not even people from your own race… I was like what? wait? what race? slow down? How do I know how a Puerto Rican is different from a Mexican? And what the heck is Latin? I thought that was a dead language.

In just hours from leaving a bunch of friends and family back at the airport, people that were bawling their eyes out because I was leaving–some even that I did not know then I would get to see again–my world view had to change. Not only did I have to very quickly learn that wearing the wrong color at school will mean I would get beat up, but also that someone speaking the same language as me was not trust worthy. The only positive thing that came out of all that was that I tried to learn English as quickly as possible.

In some instances my family was right. The school that I went to was full of gangs. Mexicans hated me without even knowing me. I quickly learned the difference between a “Chicano” and a “Chilango.” I quickly learned that half of my vocabulary was to lay dormant because the Spanish most people spoke was limited. Most of the Spanish speakers I know were told by their parents to learn English, and their mother language was pretty much lost.

I still have a hard time fitting with the concept of being part of a race. I am very proud of being Colombian, but as far as being Latino, it is an identity that is hard to fully embrace, let alone define. I made friends in high school based on personalities and not colors. Working at McD’s I made friends with co-workers regardless of race. I am not fluent in “Vato” anymore, but could probably still pick it up. But thanks to my high school experience I know the differences between the Mexican and Puerto Rican dialects very well.

There is a movie coming out soon that looks spectacular. It has action, violence, a love story. However, when my wife saw the trailer she pointed something out that I did not think about. “This is why people think of Latinos as all being a bunch of thugs.” In a way I have to agree, because so much of what people know about my “race” is because of movies. Some might think that not being able to identify myself with my race makes me lack identity… but I would disagree by saying this. The color of my skin is not something that defines who I am. While I do not ignore the baggage that comes with being a foreigner or from a different color, I try to live my life as a human being that interacts with others at that level and hopes that I am being judged by who I am and not by the label this particular society tries to put on me.

We always have salted crackers in the house. It is the default breakfast food when there is no bread. During a month I say we probably go through a box. For my surgery we bought extra since I could only really eat crackers for the first couple of days. Months ago we got a box of crackers that seemed to be missing a couple of crackers. At first I thought maybe someone had messed up the counter on their cracker filling machine because all four packages seemed to be at the same level.

The following couple of boxes seemed to have even less crackers and it has been consisten since. I calculate that the cracker packages now contain about 5 less crackers than they did six months ago, and unless we have been unlucky enough to get all the packages from a badge with less crackers, we are not getting our moneys worth. I seriously doubt that crackers just suddenly started to get heavier so they had to include less to keep up with thier packaging advertised weight.

What made me start to get really paranoid was our artificial swettener. My wife has diabetes and I really don’t enjoy overly sweet stuff, so artificial sweetener is always available. We used to buy the bag that will let you pull out spoon fulls, but then switched to packets.

It has been consisten in the last two boxes that about 15% of the little packets contain next to nothing inside of them. Most packets do have the correct amount to sweeten a cup of joe, but at times I have to open 2 or 3 packages just to get a good one.

We drink coffee every morning. We don’t go to coffee shops as much as we used to but still enjoy brewing our own at times even at night. Six months ago when I would open a coffee container I had to be careful not to end up wearing it because it was filled pretty much to the seal I was having trouble ripping. Now There is a good distance between the seal and the coffee.

If it was not for the crackers being something I eat so consistently, I probably would have never noticed the changes in content from other products. I don’t have a super precise scale to really compare the weight of the products, but I am seriously considering it. Has anyone else noticed any other examples where we are getting less than our moneys worth?

*Update*
I guess my powers of observation were correct and it was not just paranoia. Thanks Lucas and Meesha.