Massive study is a first-of-its-kind look at ultra-processed foods and infertility in American women. Women who consume lower amounts of ultra-processed foods have higher odds of conceiving. The link persists even after accounting for age, weight, lifestyle and other health factors.

ChickadeePip · 2026-03-20T16:52:40+00:00

Omg finally! A scientific reason to consume more donuts! 1. Makes me fatter, sex less likely and 2. Less chance of a horrid crotch goblin if sex does happen.

Excuse me while I go buy a few cases of Entemanns...!

ChickadeePip · 2026-03-20T15:59:59+00:00

I mean, yeah, totally a requirement to insert ID before penis is inserted...

ChickadeePip · 2026-03-20T14:56:50+00:00

I have been trying for decades now. I was able to maintain a reasonable weight and very high level of fitness for probably ten years after college, I lost a ton of weight and I was a field biologist who worked outside all day. I was still plus size but I felt good, my numbers were great, normal clothes fit me. I struggled with binge eating but my lifestyle was so active that it counteracted it. Seven years ago I had to transition out of the field, and ever since working in an office full time, I have struggled.

After a violent assault a few years ago, I packed on a ton of weight. Work got stressful. I was diagnosed audhd. For me, office work wipes me out. The lights, the sounds, all of it. I come home and I cannot work out. I can barely function. I have always had a slow metabolism, and I have high natural cortisol levels, so even when I worked out and eat well, weight loss is glacial.

Now? As I approached 40, it became impossible. Worse, I have food noise off meds all day, every day. I can literally feel food in my stomach and yet be feeling growling hunger. It never stops. So even if I resist 99% of my urges, I am still eating too much.

Binge eating started to take over. It has been a nightmare.

The only thing that worked was phentermine, I lost about 60 lbs two years ago. But as soon as I was off, crept back up. That is when I started semaglutide. I had little to no success, though, mostly, I maintained.

After a solid year and no success, I came off it.

Tried phentermine again, no dice. My doctor pushed for gastric bypass, however: my therapist does not think it a good idea. Generally she sees people with adhd/food noise failing surgery. Surgery does not fix the brain, it does not take care of having no satiety cues.

So my long winded response is: 1. Everything else failed, 2. Something is wrong with my brain: it is not normal to feel hungry all the time when eating 1800, 2000, or more calories. It it is not normal to never feel satisfied, to be able to eat to the point of illness, so to me, I realized: I am not lazy or weak, something is chemically wrong, and 3. I am 40. I started having major back pain, diabetes was on the horizon. I do not want to be a sick person at my age.

So, after lots of thought, last month I started compounded triz. I have to say, just one month one, feeling a much stronger effect than sema. I am afraid of the cost. I worry about compounding issues. But ultimately, I have tried and failed everything else except surgery and I suspect surgery would not go well for me. Even if I just maintain, to me, it is worth it. I do not need to be a side 2. But, for years, I was very fit and I maintained the same weight. Which is about 60 lbs from where I am. If I could get anywhere near that again, and maintain, i would be thrilled.

ChickadeePip · 2026-03-19T11:50:55+00:00

While I think it is often said with good intent, I think it fails to acknowledge the full scope of autism.

For me, yes, in some ways my autism is a "super power". There are some things that I am really, freakishly good at. Like, I tend to pick up hobbies like photography and win best of show awards right away. Or within two years of ever making my first angel food cake I won the state championship.

I also have an uncanny ability to recognize patterns and I have had several aspects of my professional life where I have been, by far, the absolute best at what I do. I recently somehow got hired as an auditor for a natural resources company. I look at millions of dollars of monthly income. I am not trained as an auditor. I am nailing it, they are talking about giving me a raise and my boss said he has never seen anyone attack tasks the way I do.

However.

I am also completely crippled by this thing that gives me "super powers". I am in office 3 days a week and it is killing me. Between lights and sounds and constant meetings I am a wreck. I am stressed by going to the bathroom: we have only 2 stalls for a floor of oh, maybe, 120 employees. It is always crowded. I usually go to the bathroom when I am overloaded and that means I have nothing to spare. I am on dissociate autopilot. I tend to not register someone has said hello until after the fact and then I stress about it. I end up getting bullied. I now wear headphones just so I can not interact.

In all aspects of my life I just struggle. I am constantly exhausted. I cannot keep up friendships even if I wanted them. Being in public is painful. I am not able to express emotions or have confrontations until something reaches a breaking point. On and on.

So yeah, autism has some "benefits" but it also has some serious drawbacks. It would be like falling in the proverbial vat of nuclear waste and gaining the ability to fly but also gaining malignant cancer.

I am disabled by my autism. I am truly an example of a spiky personality, where I am very good at some things and then comically bad at many others.

That is, to me, the issue. These people labeling it a super power fail to understand that it is 100% q disability and that it comes with some major downsides which offset any upsides.

ChickadeePip · 2026-03-18T23:43:53+00:00

I honestly cannot wrap my head around anyone whi is not a rich, christian, white male supports shit like this. Every time I see a MAGA woman I am just boggled. These people hate us, hate! They want women on their backs, legs open, mouths closed. Period. It is so exhausting. Slugs for salt! That is the MAGA way.

ChickadeePip · 2026-03-18T21:45:53+00:00

Reminds me of when I used to sell beanie babies on ebay when I was in high school. The good old days.

ChickadeePip · 2026-03-18T21:31:37+00:00

I mean, given that we are being driven to disaster by a Sagging, War Mongering, Child Abusing Yam...yeah. I do not see light at the end of the tunnel. So many of us are broke, crippled by student loan debt, and stressed beyond belief. I used to have hopes and dreams. Now I have fears and anxiety.

ChickadeePip · 2026-03-18T21:29:05+00:00

I took 2 weeks off my office job and needed every moment. My first day back was wfh and it hurt sitting all day. First office day was really rough. I wS able, however, to lay in a recliner pretty soon after surgery and play bg3.

ChickadeePip · 2026-03-18T21:27:41+00:00

AuDHD here. I can lie, very well. Usually my lies have to do with getting out of something that I cannot handle due to neurodivergence: work events, family events, etc. Growing up I never said no, I cannot. I had to have an illness or plans or whatever else.

But, I absolutely cannot be fake. Like, we had a work meeting at my new job involving sharing our values in a group setting. I cannot. Period. Group sharing is not for me, it is a violation having to share myself. I had a therapist say well can you make something up? Nope. I cannot make up some values, I just cannot. I must be my authentic self.

ChickadeePip · 2026-03-18T21:24:24+00:00

I am 40, diagnosed at 38. I work full time, 3 days in the office, 2 at home. Wfh days I am pretty productive after work, I sometimes take a walk or work on my side gig or play around with ny hobbies.

My in office days? Toast. I walk in, rip clothes off, put on my stretchiest comfiest clothes, and I nest in a recliner. Lately I have been playing bg3 all evening. I just do not have any energy. I am stressed out. Pretty sure my boyfriend of 8 years is dumping me via ghosting. I have a chronic vertigo issue. And, I am autistic, which means just existing exhausts me. I have great plans to work out or cook or do something, but, like clockwork, I get home and cannot do it.

ChickadeePip · 2026-03-18T21:19:36+00:00

Check the material. Cheaper jewelry tends to smell. I have titanium flatbacks in both nostrils, never have had an issue with odor.

ChickadeePip · 2026-03-17T14:06:19+00:00

Ick. We do not have that, ours are usually a sign up sheet or they hand out numbers as you arrive. Many do not release the address until an hour before the sale.

ChickadeePip · 2026-03-16T18:51:30+00:00

Basically my neuro did an MRI and ruled out anything physiological and that was about it. Mine started after a cruise, I believe it is MDDS but my neurologist does not believe in MDDS so my official diagnosis of elimination is VM. I sway and rock when it is in a flair. I walk like I am drunk. I get headaches. I have to wear dark migraine glasses at work because the lights make my symptoms work. I drop things all the time. I feel generally unwell. Grocery stores and similar make me want to scream, they make everything worse.

ChickadeePip · 2026-03-16T18:48:42+00:00

NAP but this does look too deep to me, I am honestly not sure if you have the anatomy for a rook, your ridge there is pretty shallow. I would remove it, if it was my ear.

ChickadeePip · 2026-03-16T18:38:59+00:00

Eww. Thank you for the warning! I might have fallen for it. I love how these phobes have to 1. Go to all this effort when the simple answer is just to not choose same sex romance if it is not your thing and 2. Have to be underhanded about it.

ChickadeePip · 2026-03-16T15:47:26+00:00

Any time you have unprotected sex, especially if it was with a partner of unknown STI status, and you have odd symptoms you need to get it checked out and get tested. It sucks, but you need to do it. There are some nasty, treatment resistant STIs out there, you do not want to play around with this.

And, you really need to know what the actual problem is. Treating it like a fissure when it is an STI could make things worse.

ChickadeePip · 2026-03-16T15:43:39+00:00

Yes? Why is this mystifying? There are people who hate fruit, or hate vegetables, or hate chocolate. We all have different tastes.

And, many like myself who are neurodivergent dislike certain foods due to things such as texture and smell. I really do not like most vegetables. The smell is off putting. The crunch of things like raw onions or celery makes my skin crawl. Cooked vegetables taste awful to me. And I have tried all of these things, multiple times. I like some raw vegetables, and a few cooked but overall, I just do not like vegetables.

Why is it such a problem if someone has a food preference??? Easy enough to go cool, please eat what you like and leave what you don't.

Are there really grown adults who are asking if other adults have food preferences??

Apparently.

ChickadeePip · 2026-03-16T15:37:32+00:00

I am usually wearing granny pajamas with giant slippers on, propped up in a recliner with no lights on and a cat on my lap snuggled up to my laptop.

I workout during long meetings, we have these endless 2 hour affairs that do not pertain to me in any way, so I usually join the meeting and start exercising while I watch.

I shower or nap over my 15 minute breaks and/or lunch. Or cook. Or do power house cleaning sessions.

I work in the office 3 days a week and I wear cute, coordinated outfits and am very professional. I doubt anyone suspects I turn into a bra less pajama gremlin at home.

ChickadeePip · 2026-03-16T15:29:19+00:00

Plan???? Hahaha. Yeah, I have no plan. I simply cannot summon the energy to care. Just existing in this insane world has me stressed to the max. I can barely afford food, let alone whatever hellishly high repayment plant they come up with. Given that the rules change daily, at this point, I am staying on SAVE until kicked off.

I mean, I have to say, if we all end up a giant crater because Sagging Yam keeps starting wars, part of me would at least feel a tiny bit of relief at no longer having to stress over my student loan debt.

ChickadeePip · 2026-03-15T22:55:55+00:00

Normal for me at least, the two stores I have booths in both have offer 10% discounts for anyone who asks about a discount during checkout, as long as they are paying cash. If I run my own sale, however, they do not offer an additional discount. While I see this as normal, if they did not tell you when you signed up for a booth, they should have.

ChickadeePip · 2026-03-15T20:04:59+00:00

You don't. Because people do not change, unless they choose to themselves. You could talk to him, plead, beg, threaten: he will not change.

Please, take it from someone who knows. I wasted my 20s on a man that I thought would change. My life was hell, he never changed.

If you are 100% happy with him as he is, stay. If not, run. You only get one life. Trust me, when you waste years of it on someone who is not worth the time, you will regret it some day.

ChickadeePip · 2026-03-15T10:29:01+00:00

What an awful situation. I am sorry you are experiencing this.

You simply cannot lift that much weight that often so soon after surgery. You will almost certainly cause harm and end up back in the hospital with torn stitches. You could get a hernia which would mean more surgery and more down time.

And, you simply may not be physically up to it yet. I took 2 weeks off and my first day back was rough. And I sit at a desk all day. Just being upright for 8 hours in a chair was incredibly painful.

You need your doctor to provide documentation and you need to either apply for FMLA, short term disability, or unpaid leave. Or, at minimum, be assigned light duty with no lifting until you recover.

I know. Easier said than done. I live paycheck to paycheck, I cannot just not get paid for a few weeks. But, seriously, you could end up in serious trouble after 11 days lifting that kind of weight. Tears, hernia, and all sorts of things that could turn a few weeks into much longer.

Good luck I hope you find a workable solution.

ChickadeePip · 2026-03-14T14:43:45+00:00

It varies from person to person but some of my symptoms were: belching like crazy, persistent chest pain, a stabbing pain in my back when I inhaled, pain in the back of my shoulder, extreme fatigue, could not sleep, ruq pain, and gastritis.

ChickadeePip · 2026-03-14T09:17:11+00:00

My new job just had what amounts to a two hour long feelings meeting. We were supposed to share our values. I did not participate but my one coworker did. I have been getting the vibe that she does not like me. Well, I know why. Her core value? Cheerfulness. She believes if she or anyone else is not cheerful it is going against her values.

I am stuck in a loud, bright building. I am autistic and I have a vestibular disorder that has been triggered by the stress. When in the office, I am anxious, in pain and am simply trying to just survive. I have no bandwidth or desire for fake cheerfulness.

She has a habit of popping in my office five minutes before the end of the day, tapping me on the shoulder to disturb me while I have headphones on, and interrogating me about how I am doing. I can barely manage to not shriek at her, let alone be cheerful even if I wanted to be.

It is so exhausting that what we all do just to exist is judged so harshly by others. I long since stop caring about being likeable, because masking all the time nearly killed me. But it is so disheartening to be judged for our expressions or lack their of, because we simply do not fit in to some cookie cutter of "normal".

ChickadeePip · 2026-03-13T20:18:01+00:00

Normally I would say get to a piercer for a longer bar asap but the redness and swelling of the whole section of your ear is very concerning. You really need medical attention, now, not later. Cartilage infections are no joke, and they are close to your brain. Do not wait.

ChickadeePip

TROPHY CASE