yurchan

So, on occasion I see people who have either done a kanji tattoo or have received a kanji tattoo here on deviant art where the tattoo is such a horrible bastardization of the letter, it's a wonder that they think it looks anything like the original component. In particular, the kanji symbol for "Love" is very popular.

This is how to write Kanji for Love:



Although this tattoo does display an obvious understanding of how to tattoo in general, the strokes are incorrect. This tattoo does not read correctly. (I'm not linking the deviant who did this tattoo because I don't want to bring attention to them, as an artist, because the execution of the tattoo is good. It's just the writing. I've already said something to them - chances are they'll just tell me I'm an asshole haha)

So why do you think people don't research how to write another language that they are putting on someone permanently? I can't seem to wrap my head around that one. If I was going to write something in Arabic, for example, I'd want to look into their alphabet and how they produce their characters. It's forever, more or less. Do it right or don't do it at all. Ignorance is not bliss in this case.

Hello! I'm here with some positive news, which I'm so happy to be talking about! My blood glucose levels have started to come down to the normal range recently. As some of you may know, I have recently adjusted my diet. Over the past six months, I kept my calorie intake between 1300 - 1600 daily calories and based my food choices around plant and whole food items. The only meat that I ingested was the occasional fish (tilapia most commonly, sometimes shrimp on rare occurrences) and I did not exercise.

Over the past six months, I went from a size twenty to a size fourteen. This happened in just changing my diet. I removed dairy, using coconut milk for morning cereal (at the correct portion size) and Best Life Spread instead of butter in cooking - and even then, it was used sparingly. I did not use a lot of salt, to cut down on sodium. As a result, I lost weight just from a diet change alone. And this is something I did with a nearly inactive thyroid.

My diabetes is classified as "brittle". I had stubborn insulin resistance, and I would inject myself twice a day with 50 units of Lantus (50 in the am, 50 in the pm) and a large sliding scale of Humalog, sometimes upwards of 25 units at each meal. My sugars were still ranging 250 - 600 through the day.

As time progressed, I started to feel a bit better. Choosing fruit (natural sugars) over candy (processed sugars) and abiding by serving sizes (which are much smaller than you think) helped me curb my eating behaviors. Food that I absolutely hated before, such as cantaloupe and artichokes, I now found that I enjoyed. The humerus system of the body can adapt and teach you to like just about anything, really. I now completely enjoy eating carrots over Pringles.

Before when people told me "you can reset your diabetes by going to a plant based diet" I used to tell them they were full of shit. I'd ask the, "where are you going to get your protein from?" Then I realized that some vegetables and grains (such as quinoa) are rich in protein. There are substitutes for meat that are pretty spot-on as far as taste (although I'm pretty sure that meat is mighty tasty haha) and the portion sizes are outlined so much easier.

Truth be told, I have more or less reset my diabetes on diet alone. My blood glucose levels don't go over 200 now. My weight is still fluctuating a bit, I still need insulin (since I am a type 1.5) but instead of being a slave to the disease, I'm able to hugely take control. Six months was all it took for my body to reset itself back to a more acceptable level of control. I believe in time, I can get off a lot of the drugs I'm on. I no longer take Metformin or Humalog. (I still take Lantus, but only 30 units at night, once a day)

I feel frustrated for all the years that a completely low carb approach was taken to the diabetic diet. No, I don't splurge on carbs and try to keep my intake under 100 grams a day, but if I go over a little I don't worry too much because my carbohydrate choices come from whole foods, not processed starch and shitty turds. Without meat, I've felt better than I have in years. All the doctors I spoke with told me to eat meat, but keep it to a 'deck of playing cards' size at each meal. Each meal? That's a lot. Recent studies, in fact, show that a serving size of red meat at ONE meal per day lowers life expectancy.

I'm not against an omnivorous diet at all. Dude, I'll be the first to say I fucking loved a good bacon cheeseburger. Pork country ribs and sausage were some of my favorite things to eat. But I don't miss it now, not like I used to. Dropping 40 pounds feels better than eating 10 pounds of animal carcass. Now that I haven't had meat, I find myself realizing not only is it easier to live without it, it's more difficult for me to go back to it. I'm sort of a sentimental idiot about animals. I personally feel better knowing I'm not eating them - but like I said, I condone omnivorous living.

TL;DR - Eating a vegetable based diet will help your diabetes so much, please don't snub it.

vimeo.com/37119711

Please, take 30 minutes to watch this video and raise awareness. In Uganda, children are stolen from their homes in the night. They are forced to be soldiers for the LAR, 'Lord's Resistance Army' under the hand of a man named Joseph Kony. He forces young girls to become sex slaves and boys to kill their parents. He murders children, tortures and mutilates them. This has been going on for years. TRI and Invisible Children has been working to raise awareness. Please, take a moment to educate yourself of the horrible things that are happening and then take that knowledge to the state level where you live. Let your country know that you are not going to let this man go unpunished. Help bring down Kony, make him as famous as celebrities are in the media.

Thank you for your time and support.

So, I was inspired by a poll to write this article: exillior.deviantart.com/journa… -- Exillior has posed a rather honest and simple question that made me think. The question was, do you like chubby people? My answer started me thinking (I voted yes) about my own personal experiences.

Growing up, I was a slender if not average girl. I wasn't very tall, only about 5'2" in school, reaching a total height of 5'4" at best currently. I wore a US size 8 through most of high school. As I got to my senior year, I started putting on weight until I was wearing a US size 14. I wasn't sure what was wrong at the time, but the pounds kept coming on. I'm now a 30 year old young adult (LOL) and reaching an average size again after a lot of trials and tribulations. Most of my weight complications were due to personal illness and disease, variables that I had little control over. I also ended up developing a compulsive eating disorder, which I still battle today with much better success. I guess the thing is, you never know why someone may be struggling with their weight or body shape. In America, I think it's automatically assumed that someone is lazy or ignorant. In some cases, that may be correct, but that is not all cases.

When I was my heaviest, I was near 360 lbs. I was wildly unhealthy in my diet (due in large part to poor education about nutrition, which is pretty common I think) as well as diabetes and thyroid diseases. The fact of the matter was, no matter what I did, to everyone else I was a monster. I was told by someone at American Eagle (when I was there shopping for a friend) that they don't carry plus sizes. They didn't ask me if I was shopping for myself, they simply assumed. I was told at a Torrid once when getting hair dye that they didn't carry extended sizes. I wasn't shopping for clothing. People would not sit next to me. When I smiled at people, they ignored me. I wasn't imagining things, people honestly were more repulsed by me at my heaviest. I didn't realize how badly heavy I had become, either, until I was in my cousin's wedding and realized my dress size was the biggest I'd ever been (a 28) and I looked like hell.

It's been rough losing weight, and to be honest the diabetes is mostly the reason that I've dropped almost 200 pounds now. But I notice that people smile back at me more, they make eye contact with me. They will ask me questions about my tattoos or my clothes, they don't assume that I'm eating 34 candy bars a day when I get one at the check out. They don't see this massive human who is lazy, they see a sick girl now. And that pisses me off in a way. I've always been myself, and I've always been sick. People just assumed that I was lazy. They assumed so much about me. I could never do that to another human being. I couldn't see someone with extra weight and scoff and say, "Obviously they need to lay off the fast food." Don't we all need to do that? Don't we all need to eat better and more health conscious?

I can't base my judgement on someone solely on their physical aspects. And it frustrates me that people do, a majority of people will see someone overweight or obese and automatically have pre-determined reservations about them. I was always a human being. And I've always treated others as human beings.