8 posts tagged “health”

I've recently started a new diet lifestyle. It's a nutrient dense diet based on the Eat To Live diet. Ultimately, it breaks down to a low-carb vegan diet with a few extra notes: little or no salt (gaaah!) and little or no refined fats. The idea is nothing new - something I learned over half a decade ago when studying animal nutrition: all foods are not created nutrient-equal. A pound of potatoes has about the same amount of calories as a large fast-food french fries, but a pound of potatoes has more nutrients readily available and the added bonus that a mere half-pound of potatoes will stuff most people to satiety, which a large fries would never do. The trick is to eat more nutrient dense foods in unlimited quantities, cooked or raw. Here's a typical menu in my day:

• Breakfast: fresh raspberries, blackberries and dates warmed & mashed in a 1/4 cup of almond milk
• Lunch: a massive Pho Salad (mixed greens, tomatoes, carrots, cucumber, etc. with a pho-inspired dressing)
• Dinner: vegan dinner loaf (green beans, okra, tomato, onion, carrot, broccoli, kale, 1/2 cup quinoa, 1/2 cup whole wheat flour, mixed and baked)

Mind you, I will never be able to go completely vegan, or even vegetarian for that matter, mostly because I would never want to. There are some foods I will never be able to (or want to try) make vegan, like my aunt's lamb curry, my grandmother's crab curry, pho, a rare In-'N-Out "protein-style, animal-style", etc. I plan to make the bulk of my diet low-carb vegan, and happily splurge on the foods I love most as a rare treat. Honestly, the hardest thing is trying to get taste and flavor out of daily meals while keeping the fat/salt low. I have to get really creative...

Faux "Pho Bo" Salad Dressing
1/2 cup half-to-full strength no-beef broth
4-5 basil leaves
1-2 lime wedges, rind cut off
few sprigs cilantro
Sambal Olek chili sauce and/or hoisin sauce to taste

Blend with hand blender and drizzle over salad. 

I went to the doctor today. Since last week, it feels like my right arm has been slowly going numb. It started with a pinching tingling feeling over my index and middle fingers and became slowly more noticeable up my arm towards my elbow. I can then feel it coming up the underside of my upper arm and ultimately coming from my shoulder. Gaah.

My mother had something like this when I was growing up. General stress and tension building up in her shoulders on either side of her neck, but often worse on one side. Sometimes, it would get so bad that she couldn't lift her arm higher than chest height. She would end up calling her doctor for a walk-in appointment and getting a shot straight into the muscle. Nothing else would relax it.

So I still have range-of-motion, but I can feel this nerve pain in my shoulder like a bad toothache, drowning out everything else. And this annoying, irritating nerve itch down my arm, like its going to sleep or something.

 I always hate these things, because it's not just going to the doctor and getting it fixed, it's going to a GP, then being referred to a specialist, then making another appointment with the specialist to run some tests, then waiting for the results of said tests, then finally getting some hokey, off-the-wall un-diagnosis. ("Well, we're not really sure what's wrong with your stomach, so we're going to say you have some kind of syndrome. Because then we don't have to really diagnose it.") Joy.

And maybe I just have bad luck with doctors. I went to one last spring because weeks after the flu, I still had a nasty cough and a rattling in my chest. She did the usual ear, nose, throat check, wrote me a prescription for overpriced cough syrup and told me I had some wax buildup and she would need to irrigate my ear. Well, she's the expert, so she irrigated it with cold water (which apparently you're not supposed to do) and asked me to come back in two days. We did this a couple of times that week, and the following Sunday, I woke up with an ear infection. If you've ever had an ear infection, I thank you for your groans of empathy. If you've never had one, I can only liken it to this: imagine someone shoving an icepick through your ear and into your brain. Remove. Repeat. Yup, that's exactly what it feels like.

I woke up at four a.m.  with a pounding in my head that had never existed before. I took some ibuprofen and tried to go back to sleep, but couldn't. It was so early, I didn't want to wake the spouse-unit for nothing, so I lay there trying to get over it until I started crying. I called up my sister, just bawling, who told me it was probably an infection, at worst a ruptured eardrum, and I needed to get to the ER.

Maybe I lucked out this time. The doctor wrote a rX for a chest x-ray to rule out cervical compression, where the vertebrae in your neck press down awkwardly, putting pressure on your nerves. If I'm lucky, nothing will show up and I can go see a chiropractor and go back to yoga. Yay.

In the mean time, I'm swamped with work that I just can't do. Sitting at the computer is painful for anything more than twenty minute segments. Gaaah. So frustrating.

With the joy of winter comes decreased humidity for most of us, which is dehydrating to our bodies. The common symptoms are dry, itchy skin; cracked or brittle nails; frizzy, static hair. Here are some tips for the season.

Eat a balanced diet. Vitamin E is believed to promote healing in a number of skin-related disorders, from burns to eczema and can help reduce skin irritation. Fish oils, which are high in healthy omega-3 fatty acids, are also beneficial for skin health. Eat heart- and skin-healthy foods, like avocados, whole grains, flaxseed, oatmeal, and fish instead of red meat. Stock up on teas and drink plenty of water. Check out the Healing Kitchen for more dietary skin-savers.

Get rid of products with unnatural ingredients. Rule of thumb: if you don't know what's in it, should you really be dousing yourself liberally in it every day?

Face:

• Try using diluted lemon juice and water as a natural astringent. 
  
• Grind oatmeal (dry/sensitive skin) or adzuki beans (normal/oily skin) in a coffee-grinder or blender and use as a natural exfolient.
  
• Make your own facial mask: try variations of banana and honey, or avocado.
  
• Moisturize everyday. If you have dry skin, look for an oil-based moisturizer. If your skin is on the oily side, look for an oil-free one, but be aware that sometimes dry combination skin in need of exfoliation can be the main cause of breakouts.
  

Skin & nails:

• Be wary of creams or lotions that contain alcohol, which can dry your skin instead of moisturizing.
  
• Consider using a natural oil, like sweet almond or jojoba.
  
• Rethink your anti-perspirant use - if your body was meant to release toxins, should you really be clogging those pores daily? There are great natural deodorants on the market for daily use; save the anti-perspirants for workouts.
• Rub a little olive/sweet almond/jojoba oil into your nails and cuticles every day. If you want to splurge a little, pick up a tin of Burt's Bees Hand Salve. It's a bit pricey, but it lasts forever! (Nurse recommended!)
• Save the manicures and nail polish for special occasions. Nail polish and other nail products often contain reproductive toxins.
  
• Try this at-home cellulite buster: use your leftover coffee grounds as a natural butt-and-thigh exfoliant. It's been proven recently that caffiene has celluloid-busting powers. (Compost your decaf grounds - you need caffiene for this.)
  

Hair:

• Minimize blowdrying as much as possible. Try to air-dry your hair as often as possible, or use your blowdryer on the cool setting, even though it may take longer. Heat is damaging to all hair types.
  
• Wash with a natural shampoo and conditioner whenever possible. Or skip the frequently-alcohol-laden conditioner and use a sparing amount of natural oil as a leave-in conditioner. Be adventurous and make your own shampoo.
  
• If your scalp tends towards oily, avoid using conditioner or oil directly on it. Wash and dry, and brush with a wooden-bristled brush to massage the scalp and evenly distribute the natural oils.
  
• Make your own oil treatment. Rinse hair, add generous amounts of oil, wrap in towel and go read a book or watch a movie. Shampoo, condition and air-dry. This a great weekly treatment for your hair.
  
• Never brush your hair wet - wet hair will stretch and snap, causing split ends. If you need de-tangling, try this: brush out as much as you can before washing you hair. After conditioning, used a wide-toothed comb or pick to gently detangle hair. Alternate rinsing and detangling. Wrap in a towel and gently twist / squeeze to remove excess water. The method of ruffling the towel all over your hair haphazardly will only tangle it again.
  
• Toss out old plastic or bristle brushes. Invest in a good quality wooden paddle brush (straight hair) or wooden pick (curly hair). My two wooden brushes have held up great for 5+ years.

Exercise regularly. Sad, but true - nothing clears out your pores better than a good sweat. Plus, your whole body benefits from the extra circulation. For low-impact sweats, consider budokon, hoop-dancing or an active style of yoga.

I've been going for acupuncture for the past two weeks now. It's interesting, really. I don't know just if I'm just supersensitive, or what, but I feel a sting as the needle is pricked in, then my acupuncturist taps it twice and then I can REALLY feel him "needling" (ie., twisting) it into the right spot.

I'm being treated for chronic back pain and for poor circulation. It doesn't really hurt, unless I try to move around too much while the needles are in. Because of this, I tend to panic after about five minutes: what would I do if there was a fire or an earthquake? More than ever, I find myself calling on just about every relaxation technique in the book to try and keep my mind occupied.

Today, I was electrocuted. Or rather, there was electrical stimulation added to the needles in my back. It was a little uncomfortable at first, but it eventually felt like waves rolling over my back. And after finishing my fourth treatment for circulation, he lightly touched my feet and I realized that, for the first time, they were actually warmer than his hands. 

Last night, I went for my first ever budokon class. It was unbelievable. For the visual learners in the room, I dug up some YouTube goodness:

The instructor was young, and in incredible shape. He could move in transitions between the yoga-esque poses like a cat. The point of budokon is a sort of absolute control over your body and within an hour of slow-moving, low-impact yoga moves, I was drenched in sweat. Today, I'm reasonably sore, but the class was so much fun I'm going back for more tomorrow. :o)

You know your house is a soda-free environment when you open a rare
can lying around from the 4th of July and the cats come running to
sit and listen to the fizzing.

I've been slowly and steadily gaining weight over the past year, up from a decent 112lbs two years ago to the chubbier, flabbier new 125lbs. I've lost most of my muscle to fat, I think partly because I eat overall healthier, if not always low-fat, foods and that I quit smoking three years ago. Ahh, cigarettes: the misguided weight loss diet. I also joined CalorieKing, for tracking what I eat. (It amazed me how much I was eating without thinking.) So when I looked up Curves, it was because I am just too self-conscious about my measly 125lbs to go to a regular gym, aka. the Barbie and Skipper Sweat-A-Long Club. I am just not a gym rat. So on Monday, I joined a local Curves.

Curves isn't like any other gym. First, it's women-only, so there's none of that 'what if a cute guy sees my chub' stuff. This leads to point number two, which is that there are women of all ages there. Half of my 10:30 a.m. session was geriatric, and I hear there are handful of teens that come in, too. At its core, it's circuit training on hydraulic machines, with 'recovery' spots between machines, where you jog/march/hop in place to keep your heart rate level. The circuit training part means the machines are in a circle, and you go around the circle with about 30-60 seconds on each machine/recovery spot. Hydraulic machines mean no weights to optimize the machine for each person, for better or for worse.* There's a woman's voice worked into the dancy, pop-ish music that tells you when to 'change stations' and move to the next machine. She also asks you to stop and take your heartrate halfway through the workout. There's a chart on the wall that shows where your rate should be to not be over- or under-exercising. They also offer meal planning, vitamins & supplements, etc.

Because of the continuity of the programmed voice, the music, and the number of machines, two circuits plus cooldown equals a half hour workout. According to my pedometer, I also got in 2,000 steps in that time. (A drop in the bucket for the baseline 10,000 a day.)  There's no need to sign up for a particular time, you can walk in whenever they're open. You have a barcoded mini-card for your keychain, and you just scan in and start your work out. Cool off when you've done your circuit and go. They recommend 3 days a week, but I'm going for 5. Today was fun and I have more energy right now than I've had in months.
 
*There's some justification to the argument that hydraulic machines are ineffective for strength training. Even I, a certifiable non-gym rat, could feel the distinct lack of burn that I remember from weight machines. Still, I don't think Curves is where you go to become a muscle lady. It's just a decent stop-gap measure to get women of all sizes to get used to exercising in a comfortable, stress-free and unintimidating environment.

Here are two books that I've recently realized are completely indispensable in my kitchen.

The Field Guide to Produce is exactly what it claims to be. Roughly CD-jewel-case sized and about 2 in. thick, it's perfect for keeping in your car or reusable shopping bags for those random grocery trips. Without this book, I would never have had the courage to try fiddlehead ferns (fantastic sauteed with butter) or dinosaur kale - though I would often find unusual items such as these in the produce section. Now, I no longer get to stare curiously as I get another head of broccoli, but am forced to break out of mediocrity and try something new and exciting. Yay! The other side: This book is honest, at least - it doesn't step a hair over covering produce. (You need to get the 'Field Guide to Herbs & Spices" for that - no kidding.) The other morning, I was amazed to not find "chives" listed and realized that it doesn't cover any herbs at all. A pity, really, as it would be perfect all in one.

The New Whole Foods Encyclopedia is the holy grail to anyone embarking on a healthier, greener diet. Wood carries a relaxed, conversational tone through tales of sugar snap pea goodness or the brief history of quinoa, and I love her attention to detail in pointing out surreptitiously refined sugars in the most seemingly safest foods. At times, the lecture waxes a tad over-preachy, but the sheer breadth of foods covered, from South American grains to Asian legumes, makes this book a must-have for any cook.