Glen Pendlay isn't the only one who is pissed (pissed2, or pissed3).I'm pissed too. Yesterday I was on a cross country flight from Charlotte, NC to Seattle, WA and I was completely surrounded by a sea of unhealthy people. About two hours into our flight we had a medical emergency. One of the passengers passed out in the bathroom. From my seat towards the rear of the plane, I looked back to see half of a large elderly woman laying on the floor, half in the bathroom and half in the rear of the plane. Frightening doesn't even begin to explain the situation.
The flight attendants had been busy pushing their cart and offering the customers on the flight their choice of a variety of sugar infused beverages and alcohol when this happened (this pisses me off too and it was a 7:45am take off, sadly people were already drinking alcohol) . They quickly put away the cart and tried to help the woman. Seconds later, they were on the intercom asking for doctors or nurses who could assist.
What happened next astonished me. They got back on the intercom and asked if any passengers had a blood glucose monitor that they would be willing to let the lady borrow and if so, "please push your flight attendant button located above your seat". NUMEROUS BUZZERS AND LIGHTS began going off as passengers offered up their diabetes paraphernalia to help the woman in need. Wow. I was shocked to see so many people having ties to this disease. As the glucose kit was returned to the generous passenger who loaned it, it was mentioned that the lady's blood glucose was "a little too high". It took a while to get her off the floor, stable, and laying down in the last row of seats in the very back of the plane.
I had hoped that this experience would help to force a change in many of these passengers. If seeing a woman passed out on the floor of an airplane bathroom (ewwwww) doesn't knock some sense into you, I'm not sure what will. I believe that Type 2 Diabetes is a disease of choice. If you continue to over-consume sugar and processed crap, you are well on your way to becoming a train wreck on the bathroom floor of an airplane. For all of those who claim that diabetes runs in your family and that your destiny is to become diabetic too, pick up a copy of "It Starts With Food" (ISWF) by Dallas and Melissa Hartwig. My FAVORITE quote in this book is their no-nonsense way of explaining epigenetics (p. 83 of ISWF)...
"Genetics loads the gun, but environment pulls the trigger." - Dallas and Melissa Hartwig
Meaning that the genes for disease (even diabetes) may be present but YOU actively decide to "pull the trigger" when you make poor nutrition choices. You control your decisions; you control your environment. No excuses, no bullshit. You do this.
So I'm pissed because I'm on a plane surrounded by people who continue to make poor nutrition and health choices. I'm pissed because numerous people on this plane are choosing to live with diabetes. I'm pissed because a lady would rather lay on the floor of an airplane bathroom than eat healthy food. And after all of this, once the plane had calmed, I got up and headed to the bathroom in the back of the plane... I stood there, waiting for a restroom to become available, and I'm beside this lady who now has an oxygen mask over her nose and mouth and is laying there trying to breathe and what do I see in the isle DIRECTLY beside her? An overweight couple chowing down on a gallon sized bag of M&M's. Obviously they missed the wake up call and that REALLY pisses me off.
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| PISSED ME OFF. Paleo-ninja skills used to discretely snap photo. |
And what was I doing before I got so pissed? I was reading ISWF on my five hour flight home. Now I'm pissed because I was the only person on the plane who was reading it.
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| Go get it, change your life. |
Go get 'em Caroline! Ironically, I find that those of us who actually make the solid effort to take care of ourselves are more and more becomming the minority. I say in 20 years there won't be enough healthy folks to bury the dead.
ReplyDeleteLove the post and your passion! I'm going to Amazon to purchase that book today.
Great article, Caroline! I just finished ISTW, and it was an awesome, super read. Because of my family medical history as well as my own, I've switched over to a "paleo" lifestyle (as in 2 weeks). I'm hoping that I'll not become a contributing factor to our nation's awful diabetes stat.
ReplyDeleteMichelle, I highly recommend the book. Good stuff broken down and direct.
ReplyDeleteAmy, AWESOME! If you're at the 2 week mark, you're over the hump. You should start gaining energy and feeling great. You'll still have cravings but the first 2 weeks is the hardest. Congrats!
I'm a Flight Attendant and what you just described happens more often than people realize. It sickens me to see how many people order soda, not only for themselves, but for their small children. The worst part is that during a relatively short fight, some of these people will consume multiple sodas. We serve more soda on most flights than any other beverage. The size of the average American on our flights is a telling tale about what happens when you don't watch your diet. If you think the soda is bad, you should see what most people are eating. A year or so ago as I stood in the back galley eating my avocado and carrot sticks, a very large lady who was sipping her diet coke and eating her Low Carb Protein Bar had the nerve to ask me if I was going to "eat all that" and then went on to tell me how horrible carrots were with all of their carbs and how fattening the avocado was. I politely told her that yes, I was going to eat it all and that I ate like this all the time and obviously it wasn't having a negative impact on my health or weight. I am 5'6 and 120 lbs. Unbelievable!! I don't eat or drink anything we serve onboard except for the water.
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