My Substitute Reality -You're just jealous cause the little voices only talk to me-

The big question is, is it a wonder drug or the work of the devil? I don’t know but I do know it works.

I’ve had diabetes since I originally gained a lot of weight back around 2007. That’s when I quit smoking and it’s certainly true that you gain weight after you quit. It happened to me (although I can hear some people saying I got lazy or I have no willpower). I’m pretty sure it takes willpower to stop smoking so, proud of myself for doing that.

With the weight gain, I also developed sleep apnea. That’s quite common from what I understand. I started using a CPAP machine and it allowed me to get a good night’s rest. I started with a regular CPAP (same pressure all the time) and moved to APAP several years ago. Autopap machines will increase and decrease pressure to keep you just below the threshold of having events.

Several years ago I went on Trulicity, a once-a-week injection for managing Type 2 diabetes. It did bring down my A1C but I didn’t notice any weight loss although I might have been less hungry, but probably not. My insurance paid all but $40/month for it so it was quite manageable. In July 2021 I retired and went on Medicare. They do not pay much for it so I stopped taking it. I also stopped taking Janumet, another diabetes drug that is quite expensive and went to Metformin which is very cheap. We also moved to Arizona.

Near the end of last year (2023) I restarted the Janumet and also a drug called Victoza, a once-a-day injection. I started noticing I was less hungry and was dropping a few lbs. Sometime in March I decided I should add a daily walk to my regimen so started walking around the block which is around .8 miles. I’ve continued that at least 5 days a week but now it’s really warm in the morning so may need to move inside to the treadmill.

That was around March and in April my drug company said they would prefer I move to Ozempic which is a once-a-week injection. You start at 0.25 mg per week and after 1 month you go to 0.5 mg and the next month you go to 1 mg if you tolerate the increases. You can also move to a 2 mg dose but I’m currently at 1 mg and plan to stay there as long as my blood sugar stays down and I keep a steady process in my weight loss.

Ozempic’s generic name is Semaglutide and it’s also the ingredient in Wegovy which is marketed and approved for weight loss. Wegovy is typically done in a higher dose. Lots of celebrities are taking one or the other and some (like Chelsea Handler) suggest they didn’t know that’s what they were taking. I’m not sure how you could inject something into your body and not know what it was. I’m inclined to believe they don’t want the stigma of using something to help but who knows.

It’s been about 6-7 months since I’ve started taking either Victoza or Ozempic and I am now officially down 65 lbs. Just a few days ago I realized I don’t have to struggle to put on socks and shoes anymore. There are other benefits like having more energy and not being out of breath a lot. My goal originally was 200 lbs but I’ve moved it to 180. It may take me another 6 months but I can see making it there. I think I will need to stay on this the rest of my life or at least until someone else starts caring for me. I’m not sure what the long-term studies are showing but I understand the benefits far outweigh the issues.

A final thought before I wrap this up. How is my appetite? In-check is the only way to describe this. Semaglutide slows digestion and makes you feel like you’re full for much longer. So you don’t really have hunger pangs. Sometimes I do have a craving for something I shouldn’t eat, and sometimes I do eat it but I try to stay below 1200 calories a day. With Ozempic it’s not that hard.

https://external-preview.redd.it/oX4SjAcuqIKpqjf1zTH6M57nPmFPocGrvapInSZQciY.png?auto=webp&s=94562a8a4d25e0e0c39fc42af97c7d29eb902f46

My last post said the only votes the Dems would get are from brainwashed people. I have bad news. Everywhere except Florida is full of brainwashed people.

How people can have 2 terrible years like we’ve experienced since Joe took over and want at least 2 more like that I will never understand.

MORONS. Plain and simple.

There’s an old saying, “pissing down my back and telling me it’s raining”. Apparently, a LOT of people got wet and didn’t understand quite why.

I want to move to Florida now. That seems to be the only state that has leaders that understand how to govern.

For the last almost 2 years we’ve been told how it’s un-American to suggest the election of 2020 was stolen. The Republican governor candidate (Kari Lake) in Arizona can’t get the Democrat candidate (Katie Holmes) to debate her because Kari is an “election denier”. Notice if you happen to disagree with the left you’re a “denier” no matter what it is. Climate denier, election denier, you name it.

So imagine my surprise when today I heard that Hillary Clinton is already saying if the Democrats lose the 2024 Presidential election it’s because it was stolen. I kid you not, she’s actually saying that. Of course, she said that about the 2016 election, and 2000 and 2004 elections but that’s because Republicans won those too.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1584726498681896961

The new playbook is to say your opponent stole the election regardless of what actually happened. Facts don’t matter anymore. Just like they didn’t matter to Stacy Abrams when she had the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial election “stolen” from her.

I swear if the Dems had an actual platform that could help the country this would be a real race for the midterms but the only votes they are going to get are people too brainwashed to understand what a crock they are being fed.

The last time I voted in either a Presidential or mid-term election I lived in a state that was completely controlled by Democrats. I knew my vote for anyone this side of Genghis Khan wouldn’t matter so I voted my conscience. Now I live in a swing state and my vote might matter. Even though I believe in many of the principles of the left when it comes to social issues I’m afraid their affinity for Socialism is going to make me vote for Republicans. I see very little difference between them but with the mess the left is making of this country now I can’t see how anyone thinks it should continue. Vote them out of office and if we are lucky they can at least slow down the damage.

Oh look at this— here’s 10 minutes of Democrats denying election results: pic.twitter.com/I0oUumk68d

— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) August 21, 2022

Larry Kudlow who knows a lot about the economy wrote this article on Fox News. There is a LOT of sense here if you aren’t hopelessly biased.

https://www.foxbusiness.com/media/larry-kudlow-under-progressive-government-nothing-gone-right

I have long thought one of the most important midterm election themes for the Republicans is to remind voters of the need for checks and balances to stop a far-left Democratic Party from literally running away with the country.

We’ve seen what Democrat control of both houses of Congress and the White House has done. We’ve seen how the far-left socialists such as AOC and her squad, Senator Bernie Sanders and Senator Elizabeth Warren have become the big tail wagging the Democratic dog.

Joe Biden ran as a moderate (sort of), but he and his staff kowtow to the radical progressive left. Senator Chuck Schumer has always been freaked out about being primaried by AOC. He was always a liberal, but now he’s a much worse liberal. Ditto for Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

With great interest, we’ve all watched this internal Democratic Party debate between the left and the far left. The far left is winning and that is why the electorate needs to restore some sanity by electing Republican majorities in the Senate and the House. It’s a key argument. Republicans should use it more in the closing weeks.

We watched this big-government socialist crowd take a non-inflationary boom and turn it into a high-inflation bust. We watched interest rates shoot up and stock prices go down.

We watched them open the border with catastrophic consequences—lawlessness, fentanyl drug trafficking, sex trafficking and the destruction of border towns throughout the southwest. We watched them attempt to cancel our culture, deny parents power in schooling and deny the Declaration of Independence and Constitution as they rewrite history. We watched them support soft-on-crime prosecutors who favor criminals over victims.

We’ve seen them go hat in hand begging to our enemies as they attempt to destroy our best-in-the-world fossil fuel system, ban gasoline-powered cars, jack up electricity prices, hire communist-educated bank regulators and catastrophically embarrass American global standing by fleeing from Afghanistan.

Essentially, under this progressive government, nothing has gone right. Almost everything has gone wrong. That’s what we’ve gotten from three-house governance by the Democrats in Washington. I would think common-sense voters of all political stripes would want to put a stop to this. Create legislative checks and balances. The Wall Street Journal editorial today correctly points out that this gang that can’t shoot straight still wants to end the filibuster, deny right to worker choice and spend even more (spend much more), tax more (tax much more) and regulate more, much more.

If they haven’t completely buried the economy over the past 20 months, two more years of this will do it. This will be an inflation election and a recession election. This will be a crime election. This will be a border election. This will be a parenting election, but, in some sense above all, this must be a “stop the bad stuff” election, a “check on the left” election.

Ultimately, conservative capture of the White House will be necessary to straighten this country out and make it great again, but a “checks and balances” GOP message in the midterms would be a very good head start. The cavalry is coming.