Posts by future214

Original Post by jblarghp:

 

I was explaining how I feel that guys could get away with carrying extra pounds more so than women. It seems like guys are judged less harshly than women when it comes to being overweight.

Am I completely in the wrong? He seems to think I am...

Nope you are right. He's a 'Big guy' is a compliment or badge of honor.  Guys can get away with being overweight. And it is easier for them to lose it.

Original Post by octo-luv:

Original Post by dnrothx:

Urge to find "the one" is silly, since there are definitely more than one person out there with which you could be equally and perfectly compatible in my book.  Billions of people out there and there's only one per person?  Baloney.

There's a reason why there's more women than men in the world, you know.  It's called comparison shopping.

I don't know about that, while I didn't mind going down on other guys, there has only been one that I've actually LOVED doing it to.

 *scurries in and furtively looks around*

(me too)

*sneaks out the back door*

There is an incredible documentary on HBO right now by Ted Kennedy. In it he gives the most impassioned plea for healthcare reform I have ever heard and he makes it clear he felt it was a moral issue and as a right.

I was thinking this am that the program when passed should be named for him.

I have always been priveleged to have decent health care. When my divorce became final last year and my career as an "independent contractor' in Real Estate was all I had I was forced to either pay about 5000 per year for a rudimentary "just in case" kind of coverage or decide to find some sort of employment that would give me a decent plan.

So now I work two jobs and one is essentially just for health care. Go Obama-if anyone can get it done-he can.

My son is the exact same way! Very sweet and respectful but a total absent minded boy. He has lost 5 pairs of glasses for ex. He is 15 now and it is not much better.

The way to handle it is to definitely have him work for anything he loses. My son has a job now so it is easier but you can still do smething along the lines of what GI Jane said.

It is very hard not to give in to the pleadings-because he is so sweet. Now it is a cellphone that he wants replaced. Nope-he has to wait or work for it. They also start to learn that they can pull at your heartstrings and use it to their advantage!

Ha ha ha. This is interesting.

 I bet the people who don't want to have sex or have low drives won't post.

Damn. I am trying to get an accurate picture!

Chris Noth

Original Post by redraven9:

 

I'm not holding out sex. Far from it.

I make it very obvious that I'm aroused, I dress up, I even tell him I'm horny and want him. It never gets beyond forplay. He just kind of stops before it goes any further.

Then this is not "perfect" in any case and now you have some pretty strong eveidence that there is definitely something up -whether it be cheating or some sort of other major issue.

Trust me-if it (sex) is a problem now-It isn't likely to get better. Take some time away and think about things.

Original Post by puh8suwrux:

My crises have nothing to do with my age.  Maturity level, maybe...

 Sometimes its hormones for me.

I propagate dust bunnies. Not for fun though.

Thanks acretin. I won't spend the money right now for a heart rate monitor and I think my problem is I (and this site) overestimate my burn. My food is pretty good and I am pretty careful measuring.

Its hard to know what you are burning from a new rules workout and I recently did try adding in extra cardio-I am going to the gym with a friend 3x a week and we do stairmaster and the tread mill for an hour. But we talk so its super easy for me -she is panting (just trying to get into shape)-even though I have it cranked up pretty high. ( I am estimating this as only 300 cals-when the site says 550 for the hour)

That was something I was not doing so I expected to see a bit more change on the scale. Plus I am spinning a bit-it will be consistent 3x a week when school starts.

Anyhoo. Think I am just tired of trying for so long. Ughhhh

Where do you get this stuff? Learn something new on CC everyday.

 Guess I haven't been to one of those home parties in a while....

Original Post by fitnessgirll:

 Make sure your deficit is based on your desirable weight, not the weight you are at now. And, be patient, the last 5 lbs are the hardest to melt away.

 Thanks fg-do you mean that if I my goal is to be 135 and my burn at 135 would be between 1700-1900 cals that I should subtract my deficit from those #s rather than what I am burning at 143lbs?

The interesting thing for me was that this was a guy that was very different than my usual type. Rugged, manly, working class.

I actually zeroed in on him to get another guy's attention (I had been interested in him for a while). I was 21 or 22 so a bit immature I know....We now joke about how I  'used him'...

So I interpret it as you may not always be your best judge of who is the right type for you-sometimes it is good to think outside the box! We have our share of problems, but he has been the only guy I have ever been nuts about. fwiw

Original Post by trhawley:

 OK to clarify for kathygator, has anyone every gone out without a date, met someone, had sex with them before the night was over, and had it turn into a dating relationship or even a marriage?

 Yep. Had a relationship with him for 6 months years ago and now he's back and its been 3 years.

Technically we had sex in the morning though

Received this via email and I thought it was quite a picture of where we are at - found myself wishing there was a way I could get more people to see it-so here it is. Its LONG!

You Do Not Have Health Insurance

Wednesday 05 August 2009

by: James Kwak  |  article original @ The Baseline Scenario

Homeless wait for care.
At a free clinic in Denver, Colorado, Timothy Taylor - who is
unemployed and without health insurance - speaks to his son. (Photo:
Getty Images)

    Right now, it appears that the biggest barrier to health care
reform is people who think that it will hurt them. According to a New
York Times poll, "69 percent of respondents in the poll said they were
concerned that the quality of their own care would decline if the
government created a program that covers everyone." Since most
Americans currently have health insurance, they see reform as a
poverty program - something that helps poor people and hurts them. If
that's what you think, then this post is for you.
 You do not have health insurance. Let me repeat that. You do not
have health insurance. (Unless you are over 65, in which case you do
have health insurance. I'll come back to that later.)
The point of insurance is to protect you against unlikely but damaging
events. You are generally happy to pay premiums in all the years that
nothing goes wrong (your house doesn't burn down), because in exchange
your insurer promises to be there in the one year that things do go
wrong (your house burns down). That's why, when shopping for
insurance, you are supposed to look for a company that is financially
sound - so they will be there when you need them.
 If, like most people, your health coverage is through your employer
or your spouse's employer, that is not what you have. At some point in
the future, you will get sick and need expensive health care. What are
some of the things that could happen between now and then?
  # Your company could drop its health plan. According to the U.S.
Census Bureau (see Table HIA-1), the percentage of the population
covered by employer-based health insurance has fallen every year since
2000, from 64.2% to 59.3%. *
  # You could lose your job. I don't think I need to tell anyone what
the unemployment rate is these days.**
  # You could voluntarily leave your job, for example because you
have to move to take care of an elderly relative.
  # You could get divorced from the spouse you depend on for health
coverage.

For all of these reasons, you can't count on your health insurer being
there when you need it. That's not insurance; that's employer-
subsidized health care for the duration of your employment.
Once you lose your employer-based coverage, for whatever reason,
you're in the individual market, where, you may be surprised to find,
you have no right to affordable health insurance. An insurer can
refuse to insure you or can charge you a premium you can't afford
because of your medical history. That's the way a free market works:
an insurer would be crazy to charge you less than the expected cost of
your medical care (unless they can make it up on their healthy
customers, which they can't in the individual market).
In honor of the financial crisis, let's also point out that all of
these risks are correlated: being sick increases your chances of
losing your job (and, probably, getting divorced); losing your job
reduces your ability to afford health insurance, either through COBRA
or in the individual market; if your employer drops its health plan,
that's either because health care is getting more expensive (meaning
harder for you to afford individually) or the economy is in bad shape
(making it harder for you to get a job that does offer health coverage).
 In addition, there is the problem that even if you are nominally
covered when you do get sick, your insurer could rescind your policy,
or you may find out, as Karen Tumulty's brother did, that your
insurance doesn't cover the treatment you need. But while important,
this is a second-order problem. The first-order problem is that as
long as your health insurance depends on your job, your health is only
insured insofar as your job is insured - and your job isn't insured.
 The basic solution is very simple. In Paul Krugman's words:
"regulation of insurers, so that they can't cherry-pick only the
healthy, and subsidies, so that all Americans can afford insurance." I
know that there are lots of details that consume people who know
health care better than I do, and I know those details are important.
But as an individual who is worried about his or her own health
insurance (and that is the point of this post), that's what you want.
You want to know that if you lose your job, you won't be shut out
because you're too sick,*** and you won't be shut out because you're
too poor.
  But we won't get there as long as people remain convinced that
health care reform is for poor people. It's for everyone - everyone,
that is, who isn't independently wealthy or over the age of 65.
Because all of us could lose our jobs. (Have I repeated that point
enough?)
 Now, I admit that if you are over 65, health care reform is not for
you, because you are in the one group in our society that enjoys true
health insurance - insurance that you cannot lose, that is paid for by
taxes, and that is effectively guaranteed by the government. So maybe
there's nothing in it for you, except perhaps an improvement to the
prescription drug component of Medicare. But I cannot believe that, as
the only people who have reliable health insurance, you would oppose
health care reform that would provide reliable insurance for the rest
of us.
    * This doesn't necessarily mean that all those people lost
employer-based health coverage because their employers dropped their
plans; some of it could be that the employee contributions were
increased to the point where they couldn't afford it anymore. 1.1
percentage points of the shift is due to people becoming eligible for
Medicare or military health plans.
    ** If you lose your job, or you get divorced from a spouse
through whom you get health coverage, you are eligible for continued
coverage under COBRA. However: (a) this only necessarily applies if
your employer has 20 or more employees; (b) you have to pay the full,
unsubsidized cost of your health plan, which can be particularly
difficult after losing your job; and (c) it only lasts for eighteen
months.
    *** I said earlier that insurers can't charge premiums that are
less than the expected cost of your care unless they can make it up on
the healthy customers, and they can't in the individual market. But if
all insurers are prohibited from doing medical underwriting (pricing
based on healthiness), then they will all have to overcharge the
healthy customers, and the system could work. This is still a tricky
issue - and single-payer (like Medicare) would be much simpler - but
it can be made to work even in a competitive market.

    Update: A couple of small things. and one big thing:
    First, I called rescission a "second-order" problem, which was
probably surprising, given that my post on it got over 100,000 page
views (thanks to the Huffington Post). I meant "second-order" not to
mean that it isn't important, but that it is logically subsequent to
the question of whether you have health insurance in the first place,
and this post is about whether you can count on having health
insurance in the first place.
    Second, J.D. points out in the comments that there is a problem
with COBRA I didn't mention: If you relocate to an area where your
employer doesn't have a plan, then you can't count on it at all.
    Third, a few people said that it was the fault of the
administration (or the Democrats generally) that health care reform is
framed as a "poverty program." There's something to that point, but I
don't think it's quite right (and I didn't put it right in the first
paragraph above). I think it is a poverty program - but the vast
majority of us are, actually, poor. The combination of job loss and
serious illness could wipe out almost anyone (under the age of 65 -
actually, anyone over 65 as well, since Medicare doesn't cover
extended nursing home care), and we all suffer serious economic
insecurity because of it. The political problem is that the median
American doesn't identify as poor (although he probably thinks he
needs more money) and thinks that poverty programs are for "other
people." I think that middle-class and upper-class people should
support poverty programs for other people, but that's an unnecessary
discussion. My point here is that the vast majority of us are poor,
when it comes to health care, and therefore we should get behind
reform out of self-interest.
 >>>>>>>>>> ;>