WaveHunter

I agree with that. ALl of the items I sent were dried spices that were commercially prepared and in hermetically sealed pouches. I think that what really caused my problems this time is that my Thai shipping company poorly worded the shipping manifest leading FedEx to believe that the lemongrass and kaffir lime leaves were "live" so FedEx (not Customs) made the assumption that my package would be returned.

I don't think that's really true if the "food items" are dried spices since the official regulations specifically say they are OK without any special requirements.

Actually my shipment was not commercial. I used a Thai shipping company called Fast Ship. They do commercial shipments but they also handle consumer shipping as well. I have to say I'm not too pleased with them. Although they were very friendly, they totally screwed up in their inspection of my package prior to shipping since they should have been aware that lemongrass and kaffir leaves were "officially" prohibited. Instead, they told me that my Chinese New Year Cookies were prohibited because egg yolk was an ingredient, and when I mentioned this to the US Customs officer on the phone, he just chuckled and said, "maybe they were just hungry and wanted a snack... (at my expense)"

Just an update; I actually spoke on the phone with the US Customs officer charged with inspecting my package at the entry point in Anchorage Alaska earlier today. He told me that he had no idea where FedEx got the idea that my package had been refused by Customs, claiming that they were seriously backlogged with holiday packages and had not even gotten to packages with my arrival date yet, and that HE was the officer that would be inspecting my package once they got to it This officer was kind enough to look over shipping manifest which listed all the items in my shipment (including both the DRIED lemongrass and the kaffir lime leaves) and he told me he saw no reason that my shipment would not pass inspection. Even though the regulations, as pointed out by @sirineou in his previous post exist, this officer said not to be concerned since he was the one who would be inspecting the package and making the decision, and if the items contained in my shipment matched the list, it would pass. So, I'm still concerned since the regulations do specifically mention lemongrass and kaffir lime leaves as not being allowed. I guess I'll find out soon enough though so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I had the same thing happen to me a couple of years ago importing something into Thailand; one low-value prohibited item in a shipment containing over 20 items, and Thai Customs informed me that I would not only NOT receive shipment, but the entire shipment would be destroyed (not even returned to sender). About a month later I received the entire shipment including the prohibited item! Bottom line, Customs seems to work in strange and mysterious ways ????

I appreciate all the feedback and I suppose it makes sense BUT: 1) All the food items were in separate airtight vacuum packed packages so contamination with anything else in the box was impossible. The shipping agent even mentioned that. 2) The shipping company opened my box before turning it over to Fedex for inspection and refused to ship one item (Chinese New Years Cookie in hermetically sealed packaging) claiming it violated US Customs because one f the ingredients was egg yolk, bu then assured me that everything else in my shipment met US Customs standards. Oh well...that's life I suppose ????

I sent a shipment of Xmas gifts to family worth about 8000 THB and because one bag of lemongrass worth about 100 THB was not allowed (even though shipping company cleared it as acceptable), Customs is saying that the ENTIRE shipment will be returned to Thailand. Is there anything I can do to prevent this? I have checked import regulations and see that lemongrass is often imported into the US by commercial importers so I really don't understand this, and the shipping company that arranged the shipment went through my package thoroughly, removing 1 tems that they said was not allowed, but said that all other items were OK ! Any advice would be appreciated.

OMAD has nothing to do with calorie restricted dieting. OMAD modifies your metabolic response to food in a way that makes your body more able to access stored body fat for fuel when it's needed, and more importantly, far less susceptible to metabolic syndromes related to insulin insensitivity. It is not a weight loss diet, it is a lifestyle for optimizing your metabolic health. In fact OMAD is a quite sustainable and healthy lifestyle that provides all the energy and nutrition you need to pursue an active lifestyle. I have been doing OMAD for over ten years now as an athlete (long-distance running and mountain biking), and am in excellent health as a result of it. From an evolutionary perspective, your body is designed to fuel itself equally by eating and also by accessing stored body fat. The idea of "3 square meals a day" just does not make sense from a metabolic standpoint because if you are always in a fed state, your body loses the ability to efficiently use stored fat as fuel. Your body was never intended to alway be in a fed state! Eating multiple meals throughout the day serves no useful purpose, and in fact can cause a lot of health issues for many people as they age. The reason is because it results in abnormally high insulin levels which can eventually lead to insulin insensitivity, thereby leading to metabolic diseases such as Diabetes type 2. By eating only once a day, you are essentially keeping insulin levels at a low and healthy state throughout the day which encouraging the body to tap into stored fat when glycogen levels fall. It is referred to as "fat adaptation" in which your body has optimized the metabolic pathways that promote efficient use of stored fats when needed. On the contrary, for those who are always in a fed state, when glycogen levels fall in between meals, they will only get hungry and lethargic until they eat again, which leads to snacking in between meals and additional spikes in their insulin levels. Over time those high insulin levels will result in desentizing insulin receptors in the liver, and that is actually the first stage of Diabetes type 2! One of the main reasons that people gain weight (body fat) as they age is because habitually high insulin levels do not allow the body to access stored fat, so instead of naturally tapping into fat stores throughout the day, if your insulin levels are always high, you can only add to your fat stores, not deplete them. OMAD and Keto are simply a way to keep your body adapted to utilizing stored fat as a ready energy source. It's quite easy to become acclimated to OMAD and Keto. Your body adapts to it in a matter of a week or so. As for caloric restriction being the answer to excess body fat loss, nothing could be further from the truth, based on a lot of research that's been done over the last several years. Caloric restriction only leads to a slow down in your basal metabolic rate, so even though you are restricting calories, your body has ramped down to require less calories. You not only do not lose body fat over the long run, but caloric restriction is unsustainable due to lowered energy, and when you do start to eat at your normal rate again, you will put on even more weight then when you started the diet, due to your lowered BMR! The fact is, there is not one single diet based on caloric restriction that has stood the test of science based investigation. They ALL fail in the long run. Losing excess body fat is NOT about caloric restriction, it is about carbohydrate restriction and keeping your insulin levels low. All of the recent scientific research supports this. OMAD (or if you are very active, two meals per day while keeping carbohydrates low (especially those in highly processed foods) is the answer. It works well and your body will thank you in the form of long-term good health. ????

Spreading one meal a day into three separate meals defeats the main benefit of OMAD, which is to control insulin levels. OMAD is NOT about caloric restriction; it all about insulin restriction. The whole idea behind OMAD is to allow your body to use up glycogen stores to the point that insulin levels stabilize at low levels, and there is only one spike in insulin per day (just shy of when glycogen is about depleted. 3 meals per day will not allow that to happen. Also to note: OMAD is a very natural and healthy way to eat (unless of course you are cramming the equivalent of 3 meals into your one meal per day. Most people easily adapt to OMAD in a week or two, and unless you are an extreme athlete, your body can derive all the energy it needs in terms of stored glycogen for at least 18 hours, and this can be a healthy long-term nutrition strategy (i.e.: not just as a weight loss diet). The other reason OMAD is great is because if you actually deplete glycogen totally (i.e.: active athlete who limits OMAD to a 2 hour window), you force your metabolism into gluconeogenesis where the body starts to scavenge protein to convert into glucose, that is actually a good thing, not a bad thing! Contrary to what most people intuitively believe, entering into gluconeogenesis does NOT mean you are "burning" muscle when this happens. Essential proteins associated with the primary mover muscles and the heart are spared in favor of "junky" dysfunctional, or misfolded intracellular proteins that naturally accumulate within the cell as we age, and that is a very good thing to have happen! Google "autophagy" to understand this process. Of course, it goes without saying, that any major nutritional change you make should be preceded by a consultation with a physician and a basic metabolic panel of blood tests.

I am NOT giving medical advice. This is just my learned opinion. Everybody should really have a blood test and speak with a physician before embarking on any big change in nutrition. IMHO, unless you are water fasting for more than 72 hours (totally abstaining from food), you really do not need to supplement with electrolytes. Of course if you are an "extreme" athlete and sweat a lot during workouts, you may need to supplement. A simple blood / urine test will give you the answer to that. If you do supplement, all you really need is: sodium (regular table salt...forget the nonsense about Himalayan salt LOL) 05-1.0 tbs) Potassium 1.0-1.5 tbs (sold in stores as "salt substitute", or order potassium citrate) Magnesium maximum 350mg All can be found in most pharmacies or on Lazada. Be careful about using electrolyte sports drinks since they usually contain sugar. If you are only doing OMAD, you really do not need to supplement at all. If your nutrition is good, even supplementing with a multivitamin is probably a waste of money. Most of the "need" for supplements is pure marketing hype, though when it comes to protecting against Covid, there is a lot of evidence that supplementing with Vitamin D3 and Zinc (Picolinate) may be a good idea. And, if you are a strict Vegan (no animal proteins), you should definitely supplement with B-12, even to the point of periodic injections.

Just saw this post so not sure if you are still looking but an excellent source is Facebook Marketplace. After frustration with repeated gym closings due to Covid last year I decided to set up my own home gym and found everything I needed over a one week period of searching Facebook Marketplace. Some things were brand new but most of the heavier stuff like barbells & plates, bench, rack were found at 20-30% of retail price as used. Items were shipped from as far away as Chiang Mai at incredibly cheap shipping prices for such heavy items. All in all, it was a pretty good deal IMO! The complete set up was nothing fancy or elaborate but it met my needs, and altogether I only spent under $200 for this set-up:

You certainly have a point. There's much about just how Google manipulates their search engine results that is definitely cause for concern. It even has a name; search engine manipulation effect (SEME). I do the majority of my searches using Google, but I also use a "TOR" browser and certain "deep web" search engines to see if Google search results are biasing my searches, or even censoring my search results. Anyone who's worried about biased or even censored search engine results should look into using a TOR browser and doing searches via the "deep web". You can read a wiki about TOR to become familiar with it if you don't already know what it is at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tor_(network). Though the deep web has a somewhat notorious reputation (i.e.: the Silk Road), the fact is that 99% of internet traffic occurs on the deep web, so when you only search Google, you are really only searching 1% of what is actually on the internet. And BTW, here in Thailand, search results are heavily manipulated and censored by the government which makes using a TOR browser all the more useful, since one of the main features of a TOR browser is that it routes your IP address through its' network of international servers, so your perceived IP is from another country, and you can select any country you wish.

Billions of dollars of damage nationwide was NOT the result of just a few isolated individuals. It clearly was orchestrated on a nationwide basis. Authorities were obviously not effective at containing the violence which went on for a number of days, or the BILLIONS of dollars in damage would not have occured. As for mainstream media accurately reporting the events as they unfolded, which is really what this thread is supposed to be all about...are you kidding me? I was dumbfounded watching a an-site CNN reporter claiming that the protests he was witnessing were "mostly peaceful" while you saw entire blocks of building ablaze in the background, or innocent bystanders and reporters themselves being attacked and injured. The news coverage of these protests was about as far off the mark as it could have been, and this is a recurring situation for news coverage over the last year with all sorts of politically charged events, and that's why the public has finally had enough, as evidenced by the collapsing ratings of the mainstream "news" networks: According to the latest Nielsen ratings in the key demographic of adults 25-54, compared to last year at this time:: Fox is down by 34% MS-NBC is down by 59% CNN is down by 77% If you doubt these numbers, you can read this report from Forbes (based on Nielsen statistics), or google search for yourself. https://www.forbes.com/sites/markjoyella/2021/12/01/fox-news-easily-wins-november-cable-news-ratings-as-all-networks-see-steep-declines/?sh=717fd1002f14

LOL! I have no idea what you are trying to say, but I enjoyed your entertaining brain-freeze ????

First of all, don't profess to tell me what I am thinking! That's just another tactic that a biased bully often uses to attack someone who's viewpoint differs from theirs. I link when I think it is necessary, but only to well vetted fact-based studies or statistics, never from sources that are commentary based. Personally I am always suspicious when someone provides links to substantiate their claim since it is very easy to cherry pick a link that supports any viewpoint! Anyone seriously interested in truth, will want to do their own Google Search for themselves if they question something that another person claims. In this specific case, I really did not think any sort of vetting was necessary. ANY well-informed person is well aware of the catastrophic costs directly associated with the arson, looting, and other property damages caused by these rioters! Again, I am cognisant that many BLM protesters acted responsibly, but many of the rioters did not, and were simply taking advantage of the protests for their own gain! If you really contest this is so, you are either VERY poorly informed, or you are deliberately ignoring the facts since they do not support your narrative. Either way, here are some links to help you out. "How 2020 protests changed insurance forever" appearing in the World Economic Forum (data provided by PCS). Facts + Statistics: Civil Disorders Insured Losses from Riots Reach ‘Catastrophe’ Levels, May Rival Record Vandalism, looting following Floyd death sparks at least $1B in damages nationwide: report

You have not provided links to facts. You have only provided links to commentary; commentary voiced by human beings who can and usually do have personal biases. Such links are totally meaningless, especially when they are cherry picked to support your personal narrative. I gave you insurance statistics, not links. If I gave you links, you would attack them as being biased, so I gave you the numbers so that YOU can verify whether what I say is true or not. It seems pretty obvious that you have a pre-existing narrative and only seek out information that supports it while ignoring information that does not. That is not how truth is discovered.

DId I say anything about Republicans or Democrats? This has nothing to do with Republican vs Democrat. It has to do with recognizing that the truth is not black & white. If all you do is push one side of the argument without considering the other, then you are being biased. Therefore you are not being "anti-liar", you are simply being disingenuous. Truth requires respecting BOTH sides of an issue and a willingness to debate others with different opinions than yours. Attacking others who disagree with you (calling them trolls) only makes you a bully.

Classic response (attack) from someone who's pushing a biased narrative. Well, at least you are true to your colors ????

Don't ask me to do your homework! The FACTS are out there for anyone with an open mind and a genuine desire to seek the FULL truth. I repeat...arson, vandalism, and looting between May 26 and June 8 were tabulated to have caused $1–2 billion in insured damages nationally—the highest recorded damage from civil disorder in U.S. history, surpassing the record set during the 1992 Los Angeles riots. That is a hard, cold statistical fact, not an opinion. Sorry to say this but you seem to be incredibly biased, completely ignore facts that do not fit your narrative, and only cherry pick the ones that do, and then attacking anyone who disagrees with your views, calling them "trolls". Seriously, such polarized views as you express are the problem, both on the Left and the Right.

You would do well to stop being so biased and one-sided. Nothing is "black & white". How can you possibly say that many of the events associated with BLM protests were benign and peaceful events? While many of the protests were peaceful, demonstrations in some cities escalated to full blown riots, extreme violence and looting! You might not be aware of that if you only follow US mainstream media coverage on CNN or MSNBC but when viewed from international sources it is more than obvious! See "Widespread unrest as curfews defied across US". BBC News. May 31, 2020". Many of these riots were incredibly violent, and directed towards innocent bystanders and news reporters. Many innocent small business owners had their livelihood irreparably destroyed! The fact is, arson, vandalism, and looting between May 26 and June 8 were tabulated to have caused $1–2 billion in insured damages nationally—the highest recorded damage from civil disorder in U.S. history, surpassing the record set during the 1992 Los Angeles riots. You totally blow your credibility when you only voice your obvious left-leaning bias in all of your posts, and blatantly attack anyone who disagrees with your point of view.

The thread topic was about children so that's why I made the assumption you were talking about the child not his mother. After re-reading your posts I recognized my mistake. So, my apologies for the misunderstanding.

As i said before, I am no fan of Fox, or any of the other networks. My point is that THEY ARE ALL GUILTY of not reporting the news but rather only making commentary disguised as the news. In the last year, the public has began to react to being continually lied to by these commentators disguised as journalist. ALL of the networks have become mistrusted over the last year as evidenced by ratings. CNN experienced the most dramatic decline, dropping 77 percent from one year ago in prime, followed by MSNBC (down 59 percent). Fox did not fare much better with a 35 percent drop. Those numbers are HUGE and they are very telling of public sentiment! Ratings are not biased left or right. They are proof that the public has had enough of the Bullsh*t.

I disagree with you about CNN and MSNBC. In my opinion they are two of the worst offenders for intentionally misinforming the public of the truth, and I can't count the number of times they have been proven to have done this, and I can not recall a single time they have ever retracted a report that has been proven to be wrong. In my opinion, they are two of the worst, and their ratings are now starting to prove how mistrusted they have become. All the networks have become mistrusted over the last year as evidenced by ratings. CNN experienced the most dramatic decline, dropping 77 percent from one year ago in prime, followed by MSNBC (down 59 percent). Fox did not fare much better with a 35 percent drop. Those numbers are HUGE and they are very telling of public sentiment! Ratings are not biased left or right. They are proof that the public is fast losing trust in mainstream media for telling the truth.

Mainstream media is no longer about "journalism" the way it used be be in the days of TRUE journalists like Walter Cronkite. Instead, today main stream media is really nothing but politically biased commentary. Either it is strongly left-leaning in the case of CNN, or strongly right leaning in the case of Fox. Neither are really a source for unbiased "news". Much of what is "reported" on mainstream media these days is unsubstantiated or out-of-context cherry-picked facts, and often deliberate misinformation designed to support a biased narrative. It pretty much has become the classic definition of propaganda. Today, you really have to do your own research, and then make up your own mind, instead of simply relying on a biased third party to tell you what to think. It's certainly not an easy task but if you really want the truth, that what you must do IMHO.

Your assumption about obese children is both harsh and unfair since their lives are often made miserable as a result of their obesity, and the reason for their obesity is that they were not taught about proper nutrition by their parents in most cases. I know because I fell into that group as a pre-teen. Luckily for me I overcame it through sports and a coach who took an active interest in teaching me about proper nutrition. I'm grateful he was not one of those people who merely assumed I have no respect for my own body and, as you put it, "avoided" me.

Did you bother to read the research paper this article was based on? First of all it was written over 8 years ago so it is outdated in the face of all the recent research that has proven the underlying cause to be metabolic. Further, if you read the very first sentence of the research paper: "...Inflammation-induced inhibition of the insulin signalling pathway may lead to insulin resistance and contribute to the development of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM)..." That research paper is a hypothesis, not a clinically proven fact. The real question should be "What causes the inflammation?" Again, as I said before, the inflammation is a SYMPTOM, not the cause. Modern research has clearly proven that desensitized insulin receptors caused by excessive insulin that is brought on by habitual and long standing overconsumption of carbohydrates is the CAUSE. That therefore is a metabolic response, not an autoimmune response. I'm not criticizing you. Even the American Diabetes Association still clings to the false belief that D Type 2 is an incurable disease despite all of the recent research findings and the fact that many patients with a pre-diabetic condition or even full-blown D type 2 are now reversing the condition in many cases, or at least controlling the condition WITHOUT insulin injections by simply changing their nutritional habits.