"The Danger of Apathy" by my awesome friend Melissa Wedel

Apathy:
1. Lack of interest or concern, especially regarding matters of general importance or appeal; indifference.
2. Lack of emotion or feeling; impassiveness.

"Science may have found a cure for most evils: but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all--the apathy of human beings." Helen Keller

What is the cause of apathy? It is often frustration and a sense of powerlessness that causes people to withdraw from life.

"The world is a dangerous place to live;" said Albert Einstein, "not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it."


From the movie Seven:
William Somerset: I just don't think I can continue to live in a place that embraces and nurtures apathy as if it was virtue.

David Mills: You're no different. You're no better.
William Somerset: I didn't say I was different or better. I'm not. Hell, I sympathize; I sympathize completely. Apathy is the solution. I mean, it's easier to lose yourself in drugs than it is to cope with life. It's easier to steal what you want than it is to earn it. It's easier to beat a child than it is to raise it. Hell, love costs: it takes effort and work.


This topic has been on my mind in one way or another all year.

We are all guilty of apathy at one time or another in our own lives. We are all human and sometimes we each feel as though we can't do something any more or simply don't care anymore for whatever reason.

While most of us don't use drugs, beat children nor sponge of the system or steal, there are other areas where we are apathetic and should evaluate those situations in our own lives and make changes for our own futures and the futures of those we love.

People who succeed in life are not apathetic on serious life changing topics.

When you face a problem in your own personal life, be honest with yourself about the cause, don't lie or make excuses. That will never make the problem go away, it will only make it bigger.

As parents we are apathetic to the garbage the feed our children in the public school. Have you gone to your child's school to see what they are feeding your children?? I highly recommend you watch Food Inc and start reading about processed foods.

We're apathetic to the idea that our kids are full of useless knowledge that they can recite word for word about movies, gossip column talk and so on while many cannot even label a US map correctly. Have you limited their TV, video game and social time to unsure they are learning the things they need to?

I know someone who knows more about new cars coming out on the market next year than I could remember but he cannot spend any time learning new skills or reading to improve his poor job situation and provide for his family. He has decided that for whatever reason his job situation will never change and he has given up, he doesn't care anymore.

I know cat breeders who know other breeders who are abusing and mistreating the cats in their care and they say and do nothing about it. One in particular has been involved with animal control and is running from a rescue and animal control while still adding cats to her hoarding situation, and guess what, other breeders want the sale so badly and the money in their pockets that they are apathetic to the plight of the helpless cats that land in her care! Our major cat registries are more worried about politics than the abuse and neglect of the cats whom they register. They have developed a tolerance for the abuse, neglect and exploitation of breeding and show cats.

I know people who tell me they can't buy things their children need nor things that will change their health and life but yet they can buy cigarettes and alcohol.

Many hospitals are full of mobidly obese people who cannot even get out of bed and are dependant on a ventilator to breath. These people began the problem themselves but I can tell you that a 500 lb. bedridden person isn't walking to the kitchen nor going to the store to continue to eat and support their problem, apathetic family member and friends are! If you love someone you'll get them help, do not give them what is killling them!

How many of us know people on social security disability who are not disabled? How many of us know people on food stamps and welfare that have cable TV, internet and video games?


This list could go on and on but my point is simple:
As 2010 draws to a close, take some time to look at your life, really evaluate 2010. Ask yourself if you're where you want to be and will you have the determination, character and strength to change your direction in 2011?

We are all responsible for what we do in response to what life deals you. We all suffer and we've all heard many a great speaker say not to wish for less problems, rather wish you were better! Really ponder that statement.

Think for a moment about people you know who seem to have it all and who are happy and then ask yourself if it's because of their mindset, character and determination or because they don't have any problems in life. If you think that it's because they don't have problems in life, you're wrong. They may not have your problems but believe that they do indeed have problems. They lose people they love also, they have set backs and disappointments. They get knocked down but instead of giving up they get back up and try again and move forward!

Apathy will always be part of our society and people we know but as individuals we cannot afford this dangerous practice in our own lives. Stopping apathy in your own life and situation is the beginning of stopping it on a larger scale!

We are each responsible to help ourselves and not give up, make excuses or worst of all just not caring anymore.

Lastly, a public service announcement: The Apathy Anonymous meeting was canceled due to lack of interest.

Face the Facts - 8 Misleading Fitness "Facts"

8 Misleading Fitness "Facts"
By Steve Edwards
When it comes to our well-being, not much pricks up our ears like the word miracle. But when referring to health and fitness, the word miracle is generally synonymous with the word scam. That is unless finding yourself suddenly motivated to exercise and eat better is something you would consider a miracle. Other than that, miracles don't exist.

At Beachbody®, we're always on the lookout for the next great thing. We analyze every diet, every workout, and every medical breakthrough that promises to reverse the obesity epidemic and make the real world look like, well, the set of The Real World. What we find, without fail, is that the only "miracle" breakthroughs are those that expand on what we already know—that only through exercise and diet will you effectively change your body and your health for good. Let's take a look at eight marketing miracles that fail to do much more considered miraculous than make their creators rich. We'll interpret each one and then let you know how each claim may have a positive effect on your life.

1. You can get thin with a supplement. One of the most common questions we get is whether or not our programs will work without the supplements. Given how many claims there are about miracle cures involving a pill, this question makes sense. What doesn't make sense is that when we tell people that diet and exercise are the major components of our programs, they often become skeptical. We've been led to believe by advertisers that the reason we're overweight or out of shape is because there's a secret ingredient in some supplement that we've been missing. This, to put it a noninflammatory way, is not how it works. The obesity epidemic is the result of two rather simple numbers: we eat about 5 percent more calories than we once did, and we exercise about 20 percent less.
   This in no way means that supplements are worthless. While there are many shady supplement manufacturers in the marketplace, the reason that we have supplements at all is because they can be effective in keeping us healthy. The use of supplements goes back thousands of years. Traditional medicines were the original supplements. There have been many advancements in the modern world, but basically, those same herbs and nutrients that aided people's health once upon a time have the same effects today. But they weren't miracle cures in the old days, and they still aren't. This is the reason we refer to our programs as being supplement-assisted exercises.
2. Medicine can make you healthy. Medicine can make you not sick, but it can't make you healthy. Along with curing us from diseases and injuries, doctors now inject, alter, and prescribe us into becoming healthier-appearing beings. Cosmetic medical advancements are indeed impressive, but let's not lose sight of the facts. The human body needs exercise and nutrients to run smoothly. There is no way to chemically change this. There are certainly medical alterations that can be done to change our bodies once they've been misused and started to fall apart. And there are drugs and other chemical alterations that can reverse certain conditions. But try as they might, scientists have still yet to come up with a way for us not to need to exercise and eat properly so that we can perform to the best of our abilities. We may be able to increase our natural abilities using medicine, but without the fundamental groundwork that is exercise and what we eat, no amount of medical help will allow us to live long and vibrant lives.
3. You can get ripped with the right diet. With the "Flat Belly Diet" on the bestseller list and the "Abs Diet" on the cover of Men's Health, it may be hard to believe that no diet alone is going to land you on the cover of a Joe Weider publication. Dieting can help you lose weight and greatly improve your health. But since that isn't what marketers like to spin, it's generally not what they pitch. The only diet that will give you ripped abs is a starvation diet. And that one comes with a lot of undesirable side effects.
   Many of these diets, including the two referenced above, are basically very healthy. But if you want your body to look ripped, you need to exercise and diet in combination. A healthy body can look lean but rarely ripped. A muscular body with too much fat won't look ripped, either. Only a healthy and muscular body can allow you to both look ripped and perform well. A starved body will be both lean and ripped in appearance, but this is not due to your body being healthy—rather, it's due to the catabolic state you enter as your body feeds on its muscle for survival.
4. You can have a six-pack by only working out your abs. Ab work will make your abdominal muscles strong, but you won't be able to see them unless your diet is in line with your exercise expenditure. The easiest and quickest way to see your abs is to work your entire body intensely and eat well. The more muscle you add to your frame—your entire frame—the more your metabolism will increase, the more fat your body will burn at rest, and the sooner your ab muscles will appear. And, of course, the cleaner you eat, the faster you will make this happen.
   Six-pack abs—like most things used to gauge fitness—are a function of one's overall health and condition. They won't pop up on their own.¹ But you're also not wasting your time working on them. Your core, which is in part your abs, is the foundation that all of your movements are based on. Having a strong core is the single most important aspect to being physically fit.
5. One supplement can make up for a bad diet. We love miracles, especially when they don't require much work on our part. That's why we're always looking for a pill we can take that will make up for our bad habits. Supposed muscle-enhancing supplements have been available since Jack LaLanne invented the Universal Gym, but in the last decade, we've also been bombarded with things promising the opposite. Fat blockers, carb blockers, diet pills, cleansing pills, and so on all promise to rid us of something we wished we hadn't eaten in the first place. This, unfortunately, can't be done.
   There are many good dietary supplements, but heed the word "dietary." Supplements work along with the other factors of your diet. Nothing can even hint at offsetting a poor diet. In fact, one of the main advantages of supplements is exactly the opposite: they make the biggest difference when you're dieting already. Supplements are, basically, condensed nutrients. When you're exercising and also attempting to lose weight, it becomes difficult to get all of the nutrients that your body requires to recover from exercise. This is the realm of the highly effective supplement. Proper supplementation can allow you to eat fewer calories than you normally could and still allow you to recover from hard workouts, which greatly enhances your results. Beachbody's ActiVit® Multivitamin is a great way to make sure you get the nutrients you need each day to get the most out of your fitness program.
6. Cardio is the only exercise you need. Cardio isn't even a scientific term for a type of exercise, yet it's still often trumpeted as the be-all and end-all for exercise effectiveness. This, in my experience, is often a cop-out by medical practitioners who feel the need to recommend exercise but don't want to risk being specific. Cardio as a general term means anything affecting the heart. The problem with interpreting the term is that everything you do has an effect on your heart. And although intense exercise works the heart much more than easy aerobic exercise does, it seems that most people define cardio as aerobic, meaning low-level movement. And low-level movement is not the only exercise you need, unless your physical state inhibits you from doing something more intense.
   The key to changing your body composition, staying young, and remaining healthy is to do short bouts of high-intensity exercise. If done correctly, this is all the "cardio" you need. It also promotes muscle breakdown and hormonal releases that have a pronounced effect on your health. All "cardio" training is good, including low-level aerobic training. It just should, however, not be the only exercise you do.
7. You can plug in and get ripped. Remember the old exercise machine that had a strap you placed around your butt that would vibrate like a washing machine? Back in the 60s, this odd contraption filled fitness centers worldwide and, undoubtedly, made someone a lot of money. It also never shed a pound off of anyone. And even though it's used in many gimmick jokes, we just can't stop trying to replicate it. If you ever see an advertisement for something that does all the work for you and claims you'll look better because of it, start searching for the remote. The calories you burn looking for it will exceed any amount you'll burn using the device.
   As is the case with most gimmicks, there is a scientific example at their root somewhere. Most of these modern contraptions are some type of electronic muscle stimulation (EMS) device. These machines use electrodes to contract your muscles while you do nothing. They were designed for physical therapy and work well within this application of keeping your muscle tissue from atrophying when you can't work your muscles naturally. So, yes, these machines do build muscle. But they lack the ability to stimulate anything near what you would do naturally. To keep the type of physique you would acquire in a round of P90X® would require you to be plugged in for most of any given 24-hour period. And if you're going to go to this much trouble, you'll save yourself a lot of effort by doing any 30-minute exercise video—shoot, one 10-Minute Trainer® workout will do a lot more for you than a full night on an EMS machine!
8. A single type of workout will make you fit. Beware of exercise that promises to be "the only workout you'll ever need." Even if one workout did cover all of your energy systems using each workout modality, it still would not be all you need. The reasons are many, but, primarily, it's because your body adapts over time to any exercise regimen. To achieve continued progress, you need to alter what you do from time to time. The more planned out this is the better.
   There is a reason that Beachbody designs fitness programs. For best results, you should train your body progressively and periodizationally. That is to say that you need to progressively overload your system as it becomes used to any one thing. Then, you should change the focus of your program to target various energy systems. By doing this, you keep your body stimulated and your progress curve will continually ascend.

There is, actually, a medical procedure that removes the fat from your abdominals to make them visible. It does nothing for the rest of your body, does not help your fitness, and has potentially damaging effects over time.

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Tom