Actually, I think you're being unconstitutional.

I just don't get it. What is their motivation? Do they just want to make him look bad because they don't like him? Or are they really so deluded they think that filing suit is going to help in any way? What do they hope to achieve? I just don't get it. Why is it that seven Republican state Attorney Generals have filed suit against the President of the United States? I've been thinking about it since I saw an article in the paper yesterday on the topic. I still don't get it.

Ostensibly the suit is because the government had made it so that religious companies would be required to pay for health care coverage for contraceptives which is felt to be unconstitutional because 'it violates the first amendment'. However, that position was already rescinded and altered so that it would be not the religious affiliated companies themselves that had to pay for the contraceptive coverage but the insurance providers that would have to pay. Then there is the fact that it was not just the President that was responsible for the legal requirement. I know this without bothering to look it up for the simple fact that the President is not a soveriegn and the system of checks and balances that were designed into our government generally prevent him from doing anything without the approval of literally dozens if not hundreds of other people.

Ignoring the fact that if there is blame to be placed it doesn't belong to just one person there are still a lot of problems with their stated goal. Currently the legal requirement is that the insurance providers of religious companies have to pay for contraceptives for employees. It is not the company itself that has to pay it. A religious company might be indirectly paying for it in that they have to pay premiums in order to retain the insurance and some of their premium might go toward the contraceptives- but that is no different than it was before. Unless a religious company were to use a insurance provider that did not cover any sort of contraceptive device (of which there are none, to my knowledge) then their premiums might always have indirectly gone to cover contraceptives for a person covered by that insurance provider that worked at a non-religious company. The position currently is arguably no different than it was in that situation- as far as the company ought to be concerned, at least.

I would even go so far as to say that the original legal requirement (the one that was rescinded) ought to be considered constitutional. Because while it would force a religious company to pay for contraceptives for the employees that might want them it was neither forcing the employers (or employees) to use them nor saying that their ideology was invalid in any way. The employers and employees still retained the right to practice their religion in whatever manner they feel is morally fit. The employers could choose not to use contraceptives if that was their moral choice and the employees could use them if that was their moral choice.

I'll go farther still and say that allowing religious companies the right to deny their employees medical coverage for contraceptives is itself unconstitutional. You may feel morally outraged by the preceding statement and you may have just said or thought something along the lines of: "But freedom of religion is the first amendment." That is precisely it, in fact. A religious company that refused to provide coverage for contraceptives on the basis of 'freedom of religion' would be violating the right to freedom of religion for the person who wanted the contraceptives because the company would be imposing their own religious beliefs that contraceptives are bad on the employee. You may feel there is a inherent conflict there because you either protect the rights of the employee or you protect the rights of the company. I'm pretty sure, though, that there's something in the constitution about it being by and for the people and I don't recall anything about the rights of corporations. The people that own the company, of course, are still allowed to practice their religion as they choose but extending that right to a company would be tantamount to allowing that company to dictate the religious practices of its employees.

So, since the state Attorney Generals really don't have a foot to stand on or much of a chance to win anything from the President I can only assume they're (as Republicans) trying to make the President look bad. That in and of itself is not a bad political move. Given that in recent months the economy and unemployment rate has been improving and the lowering of public opinion about the strongest Republican Presidential cantidate along with the American public's propensity to reelect Presidents the Republicans may feel pressured to help their position. And what better way to help their position than make the President look bad? Unless their lack of forthought backfires, of course. I hope it does. But then I also think that WWIII might not be bad bad solution to our economic troubles (that's a whole other story, though). Regardless, the response I really want to give to the Attorney Generals filing suit against the President is this: "Actually, I think you're being unconstitutional."

Oxygen "Therapy"

If you had an interesting chemistry teacher or even an interesting general science teacher you may have heard the rhyme: "Little Billy is gone from earth, his face you'll see no more- because what he thought was H2O was H2SO4." H2SO4 being colorless and liquid at room temperature, it has no apparent smell and if still is indistinguishable from water by sight alone. The implication of the rhyme is that poor little Billy was thirsty and accidentally drank some sulfuric acid (H2SO4) instead of water. While it's unlikely you'll ever come across a glass of sulfuric acid and drink it thinking it's water there is another colorless, ordorless liquid you could potentially fall victim to- especially if the wool has been pulled over your eyes by a proponent of so-called "oxygen therapy". This third clear liquid I refer to is H2O2- otherwise known as hydrogen peroxide.

Now, I'm not exactly knocking hydrogen peroxide here. I use both tooth paste and mouth wash that contain hydrogen peroxide and I keep a bottle of it to use as a disinfectant or to clean clogged ears or an ear infection. In fact, hydrogen peroxide has many safe as well as beneficial uses. You can use it to disinfect your counter tops and cutting boards, remove tough organic stains from clothing (be cautioned that it may also remove the dye) or organic residue from other surfaces, sanitize your toothbrush, clean small cuts or abrasions, and many, many more things. However, keep in mind that the hydrogen peroxide you buy in a drug store in that brown bottle or what is used in products like mouthwash is actually an incredibly low concentration of hydrogen peroxide and the label on that brown bottle explicitly warns you that it is intended for external use only. Both my mouthwash and toothpaste also state that they should not be swallowed and if they are swallowed to contact the nearest poison control center.

What I do intend to knock is something called "oxygen therapy". Oxygen therapy does not recommend, as you might expect, heading out to the nearest California-style oxygen bar and inhaling green apple flavored concentrated oxygen for an hour while you facebook on your netbook and pay exorbitant amounts of money for the privilege. The oxygen therapy guidelines don't even recommend deep breathing or quitting smoking or, in fact, any activity that increases the amount of oxygen in your blood stream beyond a single mentioning in a disconnected statement with no follow-up, that deep breathing, fresh air, and exercise are also 'very important'. Instead the proponents of oxygen therapy tout the manifold and seemingly miraculous medicinal benefits of hydrogen peroxide. Not the kind of medical benefits I was referring to before such as disinfecting cuts or unclogging cerumen-filled ears but outrageous claims like killing cancer cells or preventing cancer from forming as well as helping people suffering from AIDs, flu, asthma, heart disease, and gangrene among a long list of medical maladies.

The "science" behind their theory is based on two main things. One, that every cell in your body can produce H2O2 in order to fight bacterial infection and viruses so obviously ingested or injected hydrogen peroxide absolutely must have wonderful medical benefits for your body. After all if a little hydrogen peroxide breaks down a single bacterium that wormed into a cell surely a lot of hydrogen peroxide ought to break down cancer, get rid of gangrene, help people with AIDs, Multiple Sclerosis and even people with Alzheimer's disease. Two, hydrogen peroxide is a fairly unstable molecule and will quickly break down into water and oxygen. 30 ml of 35% hydrogen peroxide breaks down into 3.5 liters of oxygen. Since we as human beings need oxygen to survive surely getting more of it must be good for us. Really? Then why is it that there's also the wildly-popular antioxidant health craze? Perhaps because oxygen is what breaks down our cells (indeed, just like ferric metals people rust or more truthfully oxidize, too) and causes us to age? Right? So, why would you want to flood your system with it when you're already getting enough to survive (after all if you weren't you'd be dead)?

I first learned about "oxygen therapy" from a regular customer at the store I work in who comes in each day to buy a newspaper. This man is eighty years old (something that I wouldn't believe if I hadn't seen his birth certificate once the day he was renewing his driver's license) but I'd say he looks more like he could be in his sixties. He still works, seems to have energy and rarely seems to get sick. He talks up the "oxygen therapy" he's been doing every chance he gets. He claims that his original hair color is coming back in in his hair because of it and while to me it still looks totally gray he does have a lot of hair for a eighty-year-old man. He talks about the power of oxygen fighting cancer and just the other day was telling me a new one about how the arthritis in his hands the last couple of months has felt so much improved because of it.

Despite the fact that he's been doing this thing for a while I never thought much about it because the way he described ingesting it seemed bizarre. Basically, according to him and the website he told me I should check out (drinkh2o2.com) you have so many drops each day of "food grade" hydrogen peroxide. I, at first, assumed he was crazy because you can't have "grades" of a molecule. You can have solutions of a chemical but what they actually mean is that this hydrogen peroxide does not contain the normal stabilizing agents in typical drug store style hydrogen peroxide that are known to be harmful if ingested. And if he is doing so many drops in so much water that means he's drinking the kind that comes in a molarity that is 35% hydrogen peroxide. Not the few drops of the 3% kind I have in my cupboard that probably wouldn't cause too many problems but a concentration more than ten times higher? Even in relatively small amounts that can kill you. Hell, even in "relatively small" amounts 3% hydrogen peroxide can kill you. And proponents of "oxygen therapy" don't just recommend that you drink it they also suggest shooting up the stuff as a method of delivery.

When you use 3% hydrogen peroxide in a normal way and you get it on your skin it's recommended that you flush the area thoroughly with water. When you ingest it you can cause chemical burns and ulcers in your gastrointestinal tract as well as a dangerous build-up of gas in the stomach among other symptoms. If injected hydrogen peroxide will create bubbles in your blood stream and much like the clots and plaque they recommend you use it to destroy those bubbles can cause cardiac arrest with equal effectiveness. But that's not all you can win by ingesting or injecting hydrogen peroxide! All those claims about getting rid of gangrene and helping asthma and AIDs patients? All based on the fact that your cells produce hydrogen peroxide in order to help destroy bacteria and things like that. And that is a fact but the theory that ingesting or injecting it will have the same or greater effect inside your body is shaky at best. After all, hydrogen peroxide is produced in the cells in response to bacterium or viruses but hydrogen peroxide introduced into the body all the time does not have a specific purpose and can destroy your tissue as well as viruses and bacteria. Oh, and lest we not forget that claim about curing and preventing cancer it is completely and totally unsubstantiated. It even says that on the website (as per FDA regulations).

So if the bottom line is that it doesn't actually do what it claims and it can seriously harm or even kill you then why in the world would you do it? Aside from typical human irrationality there's the fact that their website trails into related and unrelated biological technical jargon mixed with complete bullshit and outright lies. Most of it sounds more or less legitimate because it's couched in scientific language but it only takes a little knowledge of highschool-level biology (if that) to start unraveling the supposedly scientific basis for believing their loads of crap. The rest you can easily turn up as lies through a few quick google searches that reveal actual scientific definitions and the context for facts and real data on the subject.

So if you've been considering (or encouraged to use) so called "oxygen therapy" I strongly recommend you do not do it. A good diet and exercising will be far more beneficial (and certainly not detrimental) to your health than hydrogen peroxide. And if you still don't believe me just read the FDA required disclaimer, the list of lovely potential side-effects, or google something like "poison control ingestion of h2o2". Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to run up and down the stairs a few times to get some actual health benefits from increased oxygen.

So... what you're saying is that you think I'm fat?

Here's a punchline I hope someday to use. When someone, someday, asks me how I get ideas for my blog I'll say: "Oh, well, you know, sometimes they just come to me or I'll be reading and I'll get an idea or sometimes someone will walk up to me and hand me an idea. Literally."

The other day I was at work in the evening and there was this guy who had been shopping and he walked up to the counter. He looked like he wanted to ask a question so I asked if I could help him. And the first thing he says to me is something like: "Are there a lot of overweight people in {city I live in}? I mean, the demographic. It's related to a business opportunity." I think I must have stared at him for several seconds. The wheels were turning in my head. At first I wondered if this was in any way related to the store that I work for and us selling things. "Uhm. I'm not sure I really know..." I temporized. "Do you have a piece of paper and a pen?" He asked me next. We do. I gave them to him in the hopes that this will cause him to buy his magazine and go away sooner rather than later.

While he wrote on the paper he spoke, making the writing go much more slowly. He sounded vaguely excited about whatever it is that he's talking about but I find it difficult to understand people who are talking in the direction of their own hands (unless their hands are between my face and the person talking). Phrases that I remember him say during the entire conversation include: "It's a meal-replacement shake. 170 calories. I did it. I'm a biker. I race bicycles. But I couldn't get rid of that fat around my belly but this did it. I know people that make 30,000 dollars a month. I make 15,000 dollars a month and I'm a pilot. It's real easy. You just have to do it and you lose weight and if you can get three other people to do it it pays for yours. After that you make money from it. And you don't have to talk to family or anything. You can tell anyone. You'll be helping them to lose weight." I also remember something about a BMW and protesting that I could not drive. I think he also invited me to call him.

I realized that he might never go away if I did not agree with him so I told him I would visit the website he had written down and check it out. Apparently satisfied he bought his magazine and finally left. Once he was gone I had time to actually digest what he said. Especially as I briefly told my coworker about him when she came back to the front of the store. And basically it boiled down to: There's a multi-level marketing opportunity to sell meal-replacement shakes. First you take the "ninety-day challenge" and then you can sell it to other people and make money from it.

I did look up the website he gave me. It's vernonSHOPS.myvi.net/challenge. This is obviously not the website for the real product but instead a generic and individualized shop just to convince you to enter your contact information so this guy can contact you and try to sell you this and probably you'll also go on a bunch of mailing lists you'll never be able to get off and telemarketers will call you and that kind of thing. Just by poking around his website it looks as though, if he is indeed making 15,000 dollars a month, he is not doing it through the website. There's extremely little traffic at all, never mind from other people. I decide to move on and from the logo I can tell that the company is called ViSalus so I punch that into Google. I don't even have to bother putting in "scam" along with it because half the websites that pop up along with the actual one contain the word scam in the title. I look at their website and the stuff that they've given away and the things they've done for people.

It appears as though ViSalus is not actually a scam but it is a multi-level marketing scheme. (About which you ought to already know my opinion and if not check out my previous post Pyramid Schemes, Multilevel Marketing, & Paying it Forward.) I wouldn't expect to make money from it and it's not a product I would use. Despite the fact that the name is "ViSalus Sciences" and they have this "scientific" information on their website about the products I also wouldn't think it would be the safest way to lose weight and I'd advise consulting with your physician if you are considering trying it. Their website makes it seem very exciting and like a sure bet kind of thing but as with all of these companies: They aren't trying to make you money; they're trying to make themselves money and if you make some for yourself while you're at it then good for you.

Having checked out the website and knowing what I now know about it I wish I could go back and have that conversation with that guy again. I have some very pressing questions for him. But the one I really want to ask and sort of wish I had (to see if it would have stopped the conversation dead in its tracks) is: "So... what you're saying is that you think I'm fat?"

My Idea of Dieting

I do not claim to be a doctor, dietitian, nutritionist, or anyone who ought to have any knowledge of dieting. I do not recommend following following this. If you chose to do so you do so at your own risk.

I have dieted exactly twice in my life. The first time I lost forty pounds in six months, became incredibly ill for a month, discovered I had precipitous gallstones, and thusly had to have one of my organs removed. As a result of the illness I lost even more weight and was at the thinnest I've been since reaching, roughly, my current height. Over the past seven or so years I gained back all the weight I lost and more and hadn't tried to diet again because I had this strange aversion to it though I cannot possibly imagine what that might be exactly- organ removal, perhaps? However my weight recently reached a particular round number that I definitely did not like. I had also recently seen a documentary about this guy who eats a certain way for thirty days (hint: I do not mean Super Size Me). So I decided to start losing weight again with the second diet I have ever undertaken.

Now, both times I have dieted I have not particularly followed a doctor-prescribed diet. I took all the dieting information I knew about and I did what I always do with a lot of information. I drew my own conclusions about what I should or should not do to lose weight. Quicktrim, Slim-Fast, Weight Watchers, and Jenny Craig are all flawed. So many diets are completely flawed. Dieting is about loosing weight but so many people gain that weight back because of the diet. Loosing weight shouldn't be about loosing weight it should be about changing your lifestyle to be healthier and as a result loosing weight. So my idea of dieting is not so much a diet as an... interesting course of action.

Each phase is to be added to the preceded phases, not done separately.

Phase 0: Be an unhealthy, overweight person. I had that one covered. If you are healthy (and aren't lying to yourself) but are overweight you should see a doctor and ask if you are pregnant and/or have some kind of thyroid problem.

Phase I: Lower your carbohydrate intake, increase your protein intake, and lower you overall calorie intake. That means eat eggs for breakfast instead of cereal, drinking diet soda, staying away from pasta, eating your burger without the bun and skipping the french fries.
Avoid snacking in between meals. Do not starve yourself. Do not count calories, count carbs obsessively, or exercise. Do not worry about the amount of fat or cholesterol you consume. Weigh yourself once per week (preferably on the same day each week.) Track your weight on the calendar.
When you weight has not gone down for at least two weeks in a row or it has gone down an insignificant amount in that time you should move on to the next phase. If this happens within the first two weeks you were either too healthy to begin with or you cheated. Cheating is strictly against the rules.

Phase II: Give up all non-diet soda, juice, and other beverages such as lattes which contain excessive carbohydrates. You may want to invest in a pitcher, a  Bobble, and a bunch of Crystal Light (I would not suggest putting Crystal Light in the Bobble, if you want portable Crystal Light get the individual packets and a water bottle if you don't have one already). Coffee, brewed in the traditional way (sorry, no instant, no cappuccino) and prepared to taste with Splenda or another zero calorie sweetener and creamer (or coffee whitening powder if you prefer) that does not contain a sweetener is acceptable. Tea (not tea in a can or bottle but made out of plants and not flavoring) prepared in this manner is also acceptable. You can even make your caffeinated beverage iced. I say that caffeinated beverages are okay because not only is caffeine the most addictive substance in the world and giving it up is miserable but also because caffeine is a diuretic which will cause you to- let's say expel waste more often than you might usually and, of course, how is the weight that you're supposed to be loosing get out of your body if you don't? Exactly.
Once again wait for your weight to plateau before moving on to the next phase.

Phase III: Add zero-calorie or negative calorie fruits and vegetables into your diet, as part of at least one daily meal and/or in between meals as snacks. Zero calorie foods are foods which are high in fiber and require a lot of chewing. Eating these foods raw is the nest method of consuming them at it required the most effort for your body to break them down and thus more calories are consumed to consume them. Got that? So celery, apples, pickles, that kind of thing. Or, you are welcome to look it up yourself. You should also begin to chew sugarless gum at this phase after meals or generally whenever you can or want to. Gum is not only sweet and can be used to help curb a sweet-tooth but also burns calories without you having to get up from your desk.
Wait a couple of weeks when your weight has plateaued before moving on. Since this is such an implausibly useful phase I intend to completely blame your inability to follow the plan if you don't make it past a couple of weeks losing weight at this phase.

Phase IV: Begin to accurately track the number of calories you consume and also the amount of carbohydrates you intake. Compare this to a healthy diet. Ignore this information. Actually write down how much you eat for every meal but do not be concerned about the numbers. Writing it down is the most important part.
Wait a couple weeks and proceed to the next phase.

Phase V: Begin to exercise ninety minutes a week. That is one half hour three times a week or fifteen minutes every day save one. You should never exercise less than fifteen minutes at a time. Exercise is anything that physically challenges you more than you usually do. A brisk walk, a run, using a push mower (unless you are already a professional landscaper already), walk up and down the stairs to your apartment (or wherever you use the stairs to go) like you have developed some kind of OCD and need to do it multiple times to be satisfied.
Continue doing this until your weight plateaus again then move on to phase VI.

Phase VI:  Add one half hour or exercise or alternately increase the vigor of your exercise sessions as your progressively plateau.
Continue until acceptable weight is attained then move on to the next phase.

Phase VII: Continue to monitor your weight closely and consider what you eat. Exercise regularly and don't go to excesses in eating. If you start to gain think about what you have been eating, exercise more and cut carbohydrates for a while.
Revel in your successfully healthy lifestyle. You're welcome.