Tourism and our trip to Thailand

The Thai people are amazing. The land is breath taking. As I take in the wonders of the land as a visitor in their country I cannot help but look around and see the impact. I am always shocked at the damage we as humans have on a land. We have damage in our native land but look at what tourism does. Tourism good or bad?
Do people leave their manners at home? Does common sense leave people as they walk around a new and wonderful land? Is it due to the fact that people visit therefore they are not responsible for their foot print? My foot print does not get to take a vacation does yours?
We have had great fun working with the locals to get water in a way that produces less waste. It is way too easy for tourists to get water at a store. Litterally there are stores or people selling water every 200 feet or so. It is so easy that people do not stop to think about the impact. They only worry about having 'clean' water to drink and not what happens to the vessel after it is empty.
In our travels so far we have hooked up with the local water delivery people to get the LARGE water containers that they use in their homes and in the restaurants. These are the containers that they use and then return to the water company to be refilled. In the store we CAN get a large water container that is 6L large BUT it is not reusable by anyone other than ourselves. We might pay 100BH to get that 6L of trash or we can get the Big Nam that is 3x the size for 20BH and produce zero trash (ok a bit of trash due to the saftey seal around the cap). Finding ways to decrease our foot print makes us feel better. However, better than that are the exchanges between the locals as we work to decrease our footprint. We have to work on our Thai and have them understand new thoughts. On PhiPhi island the woman who runs the WaterHill does not understand the concept of deposit for the container to get people to return the container. So by using their best Tinglish my travel companions work to get her to understand that we promise to return it. However, deposit WAS used on Tonsai, a much smaller community than PhiPhi, where we could get this container for 160BH of which 100BH was a deposit.
The other thing that we LOVED seeing was a water refill station located just off the beach in PhiPhi. It was only about 5BH to fill a 1.5liter container. Just think of how many water bottles that will keep out of the landfill assuming that there is one.
In the areas we have traveled so far there is NO recycling and for the most part not even an organized place to hold trash. This is depressing to see the trash littered about the places of beauty.
My travels hold such a bitter sweat taste for me so far. When tourism impact is not in my mind the lingering tsunami impact is all present.

A mind vacation

The mind is here but it is on vacation enjoying the land of the Thais where the slower the daily life the slower the internet. Keeping this blog up to date will have to wait due to the things to do in life right now are plentiful. I will have to update this when life returns to the slow pace and work is plentiful.

I will hunt out internet in PHI PHI or Phuket to update pictures and posts. Don't get sad little blog, not even my journal is getting a workout and I am having a hard time finding time to even listen to my book on tape. You will have to entertain yourself with thoughts generated and stroked by your mind all on your own.

Health, Resolutions and weight loss

As my stomach pushes into its new found territory, letting my cookies roam my mind races on to New Years Resolutions. This IS the season isn’t it? The time of year where people decide to latch on to the fleeting thought that they have had for the previous months. They now vow that it is the time to do IT. IT, varying from personal growth, numerous health challenges, financial responsibility and maybe even blogging.

Earlier this week I stumbled upon this article and it caught my eye. Just even the title made me giggle and then quickly changing to my minds eye being intrigued. The title is Resolutions ‘bad for your health’. It is bad when our striving to be better or different can be dangerous or work opposite of the goal.

This is the time of year that the majority of people take on a weight loss plan and it is not surprising since the average American can gain between 5-10lbs during the holidays. So it is not shocking that weight loss would be on people’s mind. Now even thought that has been proven you have other weight loss companies that like to say that gain is not true. They do so to keep their clients hopes up. Just tell them it is not true so they will keep working toward their goal.

Weight loss can be broken down to a few simple things:

• Increase NOT decrease your frequency of meals – that seems easy enough doesn’t it? Well try it on for size for two weeks and see what hurdles you run across. For most people it is counter intuitive to eat more when trying to lose weight (oups that sentence could send me down a deep rabbit hole which I choose to avoid right now)
• Eat Protein – ask yourself ‘Got Protein’. This also seems easy as well but start looking at your meals and ask yourself how much protein am I actually consuming. Then come the questions of how much protein do I really need. Well that depends and here we have tripped on another rabbit hole. Eating protein that equals between 13-18% of your total calories.
• Decrease your portion size – once again something so simple but not always so easy. It depends on where you live but look at the standard American portion size. It is TOO large. How do you expect to increase your frequency if your portions are out of whack? Try filling your plate with your veggies/salad first before you go for anything else.
• Cut out wasteful calories – or empty calories. Here we go again an idea that seems so easy to do. However, first you have to be aware of what are those calories and what do I actually consume. Most of us are on auto pilot. For a lot just cutting out their favorite drinks will cut back 100-200 calories a day. It only takes eating about 500 calories less than your expenditure to produce safe consistent weight loss. Now don’t get me going here just yet. It is NOT as simple as calories in calories out BUT it is a good place to start. Just start out small and cut out simple things and then get present to what you actually consume. There are many tools out there on the internet to assist you like Fitday which provides a free membership.
  

Take these four not so simple tips into your daily life for the next few weeks and see just what results you can produce and I will, if another rant does not pull me off track, cover more tips and techniques or support later.

Currently my mind is on work AND at the same time it is spinning and planning. In a few weeks I leave for a climbing trip to Thailand and Cambodia. You could imagine with that lingering so close in my future it can be a challenge to stay focused.

Thought for the night: If it IS that easy why do we have a hard time sculpting the body we all want?

Great Blog or link for you: Interested in getting a good deal on a camera. Check out www.buydig.com Canon is running specials and you can find the Rebel XS with an extra lens for under 530.00. That is cheaper than local stores and is a savings of almost 200.00. Good deals on other kits as well till the 17th.

2009 and the first post

I have posted many times before today. Frankly in the past month I have posted so many times I forgot all that I wanted to talk about in my first post. So here we have it. I am staring at my first post and all that is present is the frustration of trying to upload a new template instead of downloading my posts from my tattered mind. Tonight I find myself dealing with the fact that I wanted the look and feel to be done perfect before my first post.

My searching and time consuming attempts to find a template I like AND get it loaded have resulted in no template and the topic for my first post. Wow my brain says, 'way to take the blogging world by storm'.

I WILL fix my template but not now. The template and perfection was keeping me from putting my mind on loudspeaker. The reason for my blog is just that, a place to put my mind on loudspeaker not only for me but for others. Isn't that what all blogs are doing?

My blog will have rants, can't you tell or are you going to be shocked by that one. It will also wind down a road speaking about health, exercise, my journey, making a difference, writing and sometimes even dip a toe into pure indulgence. My belief is having it all or at least trying things so you know weather you want them or not. It will also contain poor grammar and bad spelling when it is written as spoken word that trails out of my loudspeaker routing around the censorship division of my brain (I was going to leave grammar miss spelled just for a theatrical point).

Life has the purpose of creating your own wish list that then, I suppose, turn into our bucket list. Well join me as I journey, learn, rant, and share my life with the world. I can't guarantee I will always stay on topic because it is not like I launched a blog about updating your blog site or how to make money on the internet. This is my journey, my gift to myself and then to you. I must first take care of myself so that I may give bact to the world. Feel free to follow me as a walk through life leading transformational seminars, attempt to be a bike racer, dabble in writing, stay healthy and share what I learn on my journey and what I am taught as I work with others.

Thought for the night: why is blog and blogging not in MS office spell check by now?

Great Blog I found while dealing with my 'issue' from tonight:
http://bloggerbuster.com You go girl!