Life is Healthy

I saw an ad that said, "How to convince your mind to stop overeating." Well, now that's intriguing, I thought.

My mind game would probably be something like this: "OK now mind"--this is me talking to my mind now. "OK now mind, you've got to stop craving so many foods that bad for me like cake and cookies, and stuff."

"But I want to eat the cake now. Look at it. All chocolatey frosted. I can already taste it. Hey check it out. I'm making the taste buds water. You can't stop it now mind. Once the taste buds get ready to taste something, it better be there ready to be tasted. Oooo, this is gonna be so good."

And then bite. That's what would happen next.

So if anyone has been successful in the mind over food approach, please let me know.

If you happen to be one of the 50 million people who use an iPhone or iTouch check out these two free apps on losing the belly. They are each a collection of the 15 best videos you will find on YouTube to help you lose weight. Included is diet and exercise advice.

One is aimed at men with more emphasis on building six-pack abs Lose the Belly for Men and the other is for women, with more emphasis on yoga poses Lose the Belly for Women. Both apps include some of the best advice for what foods to eat for weight loss.

Chronic cholecystitis was the final diagnosis on my gall bladder. Apparently its weird little abnormally was genetic--you know the duct that was too narrow. I had a moderate amount of sludge in my gall bladder, and it couldn't squeeze itself out through the narrow duct--causing increasing pain and inflammation each time it had to do its job. It would only have gotten worse. Thank God I found these docs in Uniontown, PA. They took immediate action because they recognized that it was my gall bladder that was causing all the trouble. Thank you, thank you, is what I have to say.

Sorry docs in Morgantown, just standing around doing nothing would've helped.

One thing I would like to mention. The doc was floored at how quickly my surgical wounds are healing. I say it was from all of the exercise that I'd done for more than two years. My skin was getting plenty of oxygen. Two of my incisions are almost fully healed. The other two are still sort of sore, but nothing like what I expected.

I think that anyone considering surgery should make exercise a priority. Or maybe you should just exercise anyway. You'll be healthier in the long run, and when things do have to get you down for a little while--it won't be so bad. You'll heal up quicker.

I'm feeling much better today.

by Talin, Software Engineer, Blogger

As a blog author, you've probably spent more than a little time getting exactly the right "look" for your blog. A blog is an outlet for creative expression, and how your blog looks says as much about you as what is written on it. And we at Blogger are committed to giving you the tools to make a great-looking blog.

The Blog*Spot navigation bar ("navbar") is one area where we realized that there was some room for improvement. Our four traditional color scheme choices — Blue, Black, Tan, and Silver — are somewhat limited, especially if your blog's background color is lime green or hot pink.

That's why we have added two new color schemes — "Transparent Light" and "Transparent Dark." These new color schemes take advantage of the ability of modern browsers to render transparency (a technique known to web designers as "alpha blending"). This allows the navbar background to blend together with your blog's background color and pattern. The "Transparent Light" color scheme has a semi-transparent white background, producing subtle pastel colors, while the background of "Transparent Dark" is a semi-transparent black that produces a shaded look.

Some of you might remember that back in January I wrote about how I was one of several people featured in Joy Bauer’s new book, “Joy LIFE Diet.” Joy Bauer is a dietician and nutritionist and is regularly featured on the Today Show, especially twice a month when she inducts someone who has lost more than 100 pounds through diet and exercise into her Joy Fit Club. On Monday, I will be the latest inductee.

My segment will air during the 10 a.m. hour, called the “Fourth Hour” of the Today Show, but not shown in all markets at 10 a.m. For instance, in Pittsburgh it airs at 2 p.m. and in Minneapolis it airs at 11 a.m. I’m sure it will be on the MSNBC website at some point and I’ll post a link to it when I find it.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to the trip to New York. Weather looks nice for a big old walk around Central Park on Sunday and trying not to worry about saying something stupid the next day or forgetting my name. I’ve been on TV before, but man, those butterflies are relentless.

For those of you who haven’t seen the Joy Fit Club, the woman in the following video is Tammy, and she’s one of the most awesomely inspiring inductees ever. I don’t know her personally, but she is my hero. She lost 410 pounds and went from needing five liters of oxygen a day to race walking. But that’s not what makes her my hero. As you’ll hear her say, she lost her weight from the inside out. How many times have I said the same thing? It was only until I figured out what was going on inside that I could lose weight and keep it off for good this time. That Tammy and so many of you reading this GET THAT really makes me wish that kind of insight for everyone struggling with weight issues.

I LOVE Tammy's story. Like Matt Lauer said, “I don’t even know you and I’m proud of you!”



So…now you know why I’m going to New York.

HALLOWEEN UPDATE: Podunkville didn’t get the memo that Halloween is Saturday and so held its trick or treat night last night. This worked out perfectly for me because my daughter came up to stay overnight with the g-babies!

Larry and I took Claire and Luca out around our neighborhood while Cassie handed out candy at our house. Claire was a little skeptical at first. She can’t say “trick or treat!” but once she figured out that all she had to do was show the person who answered the door her plastic pumpkin and they’d put something (she didn’t know what) in it, she was all about walking around the neighborhood, even when it started drizzling.

This is Claire eating her first Kit Kat bar. So THAT’S what people were putting in my pumpkin, she’s probably thinking. Last night was dress rehearsal for trick or treating in her own neighborhood on Saturday. Larry and I will be there handing out treats so Cassie and Matt can show the kids off. A quick pat on the back for me: Two Halloweens in one year, and not ONE piece of candy will be consumed by yours truly. It helps that I bought Skittles (gag) and Starbursts (I cherish my fillings), and Cassie bought pretzels. But even if I’d bought my favorite candy in the world, I’m pretty sure I would have the courage to say no. Peanut butter Reese’s pumpkins vs. my waistline? My waistline wins hands down, especially if I want to fit into that tight black dress I’ll probably wear on the Today Show. Yikes!

Happy Halloween! I’ll be in touch from New York.

The weather has done me no good. My sinuses are killing me. That combined with the constant tiredness from the surgery has made me into a slug. I've done nothing but sleep over the past two days. When I'm awake, I feel terrible. How do I get myself back?

P.S. I'm really looking for inspiration.

As I had a little time off between programs Sandra, Pitu and I went to Madrid for a few days and to the zoo; courtesy of tickets that Covadonga sent to me (many thanks for that).

Now that pitu is walking about everything is an adventure to her.
She is growing so quickly now, not only is she talking, walking, dancing but also her teeth have come through. It seems every time I come back she has taken yet another step in her growth.

Anyway we went to the zoo and she got to see the various animals and she shouted at the dolphins. In Madrid she walked around the palace; everyone though she was so cute, I could have made a fortune just sitting her there and people give her money (maybe an idea for the future, lol).

She also has a moody aggressive side where she will growl at people she doesn't like!
Not sure were she gets that from :S

Later that night we went for a Indian meal and she actually wanted to eat my Madras after having a little taste!! (not as hot as in England, but still packs a punch for a pitu)

The photos of her big day out can be found below

The Los Angeles Times has five stories of people who were diagnosed with diabetes but who later kicked the insulin habit with diet and exercise. See their inspiring stories here.

Yesterday morning, I got a call from Oresta. She told me that she had read my article in the Centretown Buzz and wanted to reach out to me.

Even though I love her store and spa (I asked for gift certificates for Christmas last year), I was not on her mailing list and had not received the letter that I posted above.

It's hard to read, so here is the text, in full:

OCTOBER is BREAST CANCER AWARENESS MONTH

Pinkwasher: (pink’-wah-sher) noun. A company that pur-
ports to care about breast cancer by promoting a pink
ribboned product, but manufactures products that are
linked to the disease.

Dear clients,

ORESTA organic skin care confectionery is committed to providing organic spa
treatments and to supporting companies that manufacture truly pure and organic
products. We believe in beauty without compromising your health.

We have been touched by cancer in our families and with our clientele - as
cancer survivors and undergoing cancer therapy. The prevailing comment of clients
who have come in for a spa treatment while undergoing therapy was how nurturing a
visit to ORESTA organic skin care confectionery was for them.

We have wanted to help the cause but have struggled with a way to do this.
Do we donate a % of sales? a % of services? Do we fundraise? For which organiza-
tion or foundation? In the end, what feels right for us, is doing what we do best:
pampering.

If you, a friend or loved one is undergoing cancer therapy and would enjoy an
organic facial treatment, please contact us. We are committed to treating one
woman per week to a complimentary ORESTA treatment.

Dr. Yongsoon Park and colleagues recently published a great article in the British Journal of Nutrition titled "Erythrocyte fatty acid profiles can predict acute non-fatal myocardial infarction". Stated simply, the title says that the fat in your red blood cell membranes, which reflects dietary fat composition, can predict your likelihood of having a heart attack*. More accurately than standard measures of heart attack risk such as blood cholesterol.

Let's cut to the data. The investigators examined the fat composition of red blood cells in people who had suffered a heart attack, versus an equal number who had not. Participants who had heart attacks had less omega-3, more long-chain omega-6, and particularly higher trans fat in their red blood cells. In fact, 96% of the heart attack patients had elevated trans fat levels, compared to 34% of those without heart attacks. This is consistent with a number of other studies showing a strong association between blood levels of trans fat and heart attack risk (ref).

92% of heart attack patients were in the lowest category of EPA in their red blood cells, as opposed to 32% of those without heart attacks. EPA is an omega-3 fat that comes from fish, and is also made by the body if there's enough omega-3 alpha-linolenic acid (think flax and greens) around and not too much linoleic acid (industrial vegetable oil) to inhibit its production. 96% of heart attack patients were in the lowest category for alpha-linolenic acid, compared to 34% of the comparison group. 0% of the heart attack patients were in the highest category for alpha-linolenic acid.

62% of heart attack patients were in the highest category of arachidonic acid (AA), compared to 34% of the comparison group. AA is made from linoleic acid, and is also found in animal foods such as eggs and liver. Animal foods from pasture-raised animals are lower in AA than their conventionally-raised counterparts, and also contain more omega-3 fats to balance it.

The investigators found that low omega-3, high AA and high trans fats in red blood cells associate with heart attack risk far better than the Framingham risk score, a traditional and widely-used measure that incorporates age, sex, smoking status, total cholesterol, HDL, hypertension and diabetes.

If the associations in this study represent cause-and-effect, which I believe they do based on their consistency with other observational studies and controlled trials, they imply that we can have a very powerful effect on heart attack risk by taking a few simple steps:

1. Avoid trans fat. It's found in margarine, shortening, refined soy and canola oils, many deep fried foods and processed foods in general.
   
2. Avoid industrial vegetable oils and other sources of excess omega-6. Eating pastured or omega-3 eggs, rather than conventional eggs, can help reduce dietary AA as well.
3. Ensure a regular intake of omega-3 fats from seafood, or small doses of high-vitamin cod liver oil or fish oil. Flax oil is also helpful, but it's an inferior substitute for fish oil.
   

“Don’t buy dumb candy, Mom,” my daughter said while grocery shopping with me last Saturday.

“Dumb” candy? I get this harsh warning even after she ate some of the tastiest hummus she’s ever had? Hummus I made myself? …sigh…I get no respect. (OK, so I do, but I had to find a way to work hummus and Halloween into the same blog.)

“What exactly is dumb candy?” I asked.

Carlene rattled off a litany of things including Good ‘n Plenty, Almond Joy, Mounds, Mary Janes, 3 Musketeers (blasphemous!), Necco Wafers, and Smarties, which she retracted because, on second thought, she likes Smarties. Who doesn’t like a mouthful of artificially flavored sugar? Heck, I do! Seriously. I love Smarties. Heart them. I don’t eat them anymore, though. (But I secretly want to.)

I told her it was important that I buy Halloween candy that is not enticing to me (following Lori’s advice from last year) because it has to sit on top of my refrigerator for a few days (see last year’s blog, “The Scariest Day of the Year”) and, as Carlene knows, chocolate and me go WAY back.

So I bought three big combo bags filled with boxes of Skittles and Starburst – candy I just don’t understand. Or eat (which is the whole purpose, right?). All of it is perched on the top of my refrigerator, looking down at me like an owl, but I’m oblivious because I could care less. If they were Snickers, though, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. I’d be head first in the bag.

Trick or treating is tomorrow here in Podunkville. Someone keeps forgetting to send our borough the memo that Halloween is the 31st. I can’t remember the last time kids in m town trick or treated on the actual Halloween day. Thank goodness my grandkids in Pittsburgh will trick or treat on Saturday night and I’ll be there to see them in their costumes! Whoohoo! And WHY will I be in Pittsburgh on Saturday night, you ask? (You did want to know, right?)

Well….

TEASER ALERT: I’m leaving Sunday morning, very early, for New York City where I’ll walk around Central Park, eat some ethnic food, stay in a hotel and work out on some awesome cardio equipment before wandering over to 30 Rock on Monday to be on the Today Show! I promise more info on that in a few days.

But for now, I want to talk about hummus!

I love hummus, but the kind that really floats my boat is from Trader Joe’s, and I don’t get there enough to keep it in stock. Tribe is OK in a pinch, but I really like TJ’s horseradish or roasted red pepper hummus. After a hummus dry spell, I decided to scour my cookbooks and the Internet for recipes. I conquered refried beans, after all. I figured I could do hummus.

I bought some tahini (slimy, gunky stuff that it is) and made my first batch of hummus a few weeks ago. Just some garbanzo beans, tahini, lemon juice, horseradish…typical plain hummus. It was alright, but I knew I could do better. And I did. Last Saturday, I combined two hummus recipes – taking the best options from both – and made a nice spicy hummus that I’ll definitely make again. Here’s the recipe:

Sun-Dried Tomato Hummus

4-5 sun-dried tomato halves (dried, not packed in oil)
1 can chickpeas (15 oz or so)
4 cloves garlic
2 T tahini
3 T lemon juice
1/3 C fat-free Greek yogurt
¼ t each salt and pepper
1 t curry powder
½ t ground cumin
½ t ground coriander

Finely chop the tomato halves and set aside. Put everything else in a food processor and process until smooth. Add the tomatoes and put in the refrigerator for a few hours.

This makes about 1¾ C of hummus. I love it on toasted Arnolds Sandwich Thins or with homemade pita chips.

I’m looking forward to finding and perfecting more hummus recipes. Store bought be damned! Just like I will never buy canned soup ever again, hummus will not be on my grocery list unless it’s an emergency. Wait…whoever has a hummus emergency? I guess if anyone does it will be me.

Anyway, I’ve got a big ass jar of tahini and I intend to use it well. I’ve also got the rest of those sun-dried tomatoes sitting in my fridge. What to do, what to do….If you have any ideas, pass them on!

Happy Halloween, everyone! What did you buy to pass out to the trick or treaters?

As someone in ongoing chemotherapy, I have a compromised immune system. This puts me at increased risk for contracting H1N1.

I am among the priority groups established by the City of Ottawa, as is my family, and were it not for the hours long lineups (several centres closed the lineups by late afternoon), I would have had my shot yesterday.

I did call the oncologist yesterday to ask about interactions between Neupogen (the drug I take after chemo to boost my white blood cell count and fight infection). When I didn't hear back immediately I checked with the cancer centre receptionist who, told me (after checking with someone) that I should go ahead and get the shot.

Today, the nurse who works with my oncologist called and told me to wait.

The reasoning goes as follows:

Chemotherapy suppresses the immune system.

The flu shot is meant to boost it.

Having the H1N1 shot (or any other flu vaccine) too close to chemotherapy lessens the effectiveness of the shot.

Those of us getting chemo are instructed to wait to the end of the chemo cycle, get our bloodwork done (to ensure that our counts are high enough) and then get the shot the day before the next round of chemo.

This means that I will be waiting until November 10 for my H1N1 vaccine.

And washing my hands. A lot.

There was a time when I thought I would never be fat again. I'd worked so hard to lose the weight, I was sure I would never regain it. Well, after having been sick for a year, I know now that's no true. Here I am again faced with losing the weight that creeped back on while I wasn't exercising.

I pride myself on my powers of observation. For instance, I am very good at noticing when people are left-handed, either in real life, or on-screen. Obviously this is fairly easy if you are consciously trying to spot if someone is a leftie as you can just wait for them to pick up a pen. What I mean is that I notice without consciously looking. As soon as I see someone writing something with their left hand, the thought immediately pops into my head: “That person is left-handed”, but if they are using their right hand then I don’t immediately think anything at all. I have never found a use for this beyond annoying my girlfriend during films, or pointing things out to new acquaintances that they would have been aware for the majority of their lives, but who knows what crime I might witness where the conviction hinges on which hand the accused was using to plunge a bloody knife into someone’s body? Beyond reasonable doubt I would notice if they were using their left hand, but if they were just like 90-93% of the population I would probably not register the scene at all and carry on walking. So beware, all you sinistral stabbers. Though I actually have no statistics as to how many southpaws I am missing – I only have my intuition that I am spotting them all. What I need to do is team up with someone who only consciously notices when people are right-handed, spend a lot of time together, filming everyone we see whether on-screen or in real life, then play the video back and see if there is anyone we have missed. Perhaps those people will turn out to be ambidextrous. Who knows? It’s a crazy life I lead.

Anyway, I was sitting in a cafe in Brighton on Saturday with my girlfriend when I noticed a strange thing. There were two photos of Brighton Pier on the wall behind her, taken from different angles. But something was odd about them. As I looked more closely I realised that the right-hand one was not a different photo taken from the other side of the pier as I first though, but was the first photo, reprinted in reverse. All the detail, down to the last pebble, was just flipped around. It felt like a cheap trick. How much time and money had the photographer tried to save by doing this instead of just walking to the other side of the pier and taking another photo?

After some intense study and internal conjecture whilst my fry-up got cold, I pointed all this fascinating detail out to my girlfriend, who stopped eating, sighed, took one look over her shoulder and said, “There’s a mirror between them”.

Sadly, she was right. The end wall had an alcove entirely filled with a mirror. There was only one photo, and I had been looking at its mirror image. This also explained why for 15 minutes a man had been sitting on a chair looking straight down the stairs to the basement, which I had thought a bit odd, even for Brighton. He was merely a reflection of a man who was sitting perfectly normally on a chair in the cafe eating his lunch, oblivious to the idiot at the next table. I consoled myself with the knowledge that one of these two men would be left-handed.

How on earth can I stop myself from this endless cycle of eating and not-eating, feeling hungry and then feeling guilty? There has to be a way of taking responsibility. So, thank goodness for a new wheeze (well, newish) by Twitter. It's called TweetWhatYouEat, commonly known as twye. It's the latest diet tool and apparently thousands are signing up to it every week.


The concept is simple. It is, basically, an online food diary where you log absolutely everything you eat and drink.

All you have to do is set up an account (or log in if you are on Twitter) and then start typing away. You can add your weight, your goal weight, even all the foods you shouldn't eat.




Go to TweetWhatYouEat

Source: DailyMail

As Windows releases its version 7 the folks at Apple are already creating their mocking ads - worth checking out, below's one I particularly liked


They are not happy stopping there, they have also just released a brand new 27" iMac, which looks amazing - twice as sharp twice as fast!! Not only that but they have a fantastic new mouse with their touchpad technology built in or rather on it and also the wireless aluminium keyboard. I wont bore you with the details, if you want to know the specs of this fantastic machine head HERE

Now that's a present Santa would keep for himself :)

Thank you for all your insights to my question, Is Michael Pollan right that most Americans don’t care about eating whole foods given the paltry 27 minutes of cooking time spent, on average, every day. Now I’d like to pick your brain about the cost of real food.

In his book, “In Defense of Food,” Pollan writes: “Is it just a coincidence that as the portion of our income spent on food has declined, spending on health care has soared? In 1960 Americans spent 17.5 percent of their income on food and 5.2 percent of national income on health care. Since then, those numbers have flipped: Spending on food has fallen to 9.9 percent, while spending on health care has climbed to 16 percent of the national income. I have to think that by spending a little more on healthier food we could reduce the amount we have to spend on health care.”

I’ve written about this before, but it’s worth addressing on a regular basis. Real food – as in fresh fruits, vegetables, whole grains and meats (including healthy fish) – can be costly. Add in the organic component, and the prices are even higher. Pollan acknowledges that many people can’t afford to spend more on food, but argues that whole foods, while costlier than prepackaged processed foods, satisfy us longer and fill us up faster and with less calories, thus offering a savings in the end. I would also add that, being on a tight food budget myself, it is possible to buy healthy items like dried beans, canned or frozen fruits and vegetables, and staples such as whole grain flour to make homemade bread without breaking the bank.

Take, for instance, my homemade chili. Meatless, it requires tomatoes, broth, vegetables, beans and spices. I went to WalMart and added up the price of my chili versus the cost of one can of Hormel Chili. Up front cost for six 2-cup servings of chili is $14-$16, depending on whether you buy canned or dried beans. Keep in mind, this includes roughly $7 for the spices: chili powder, cumin, oregano, salt and pepper, which will yield at least 10 batches of chili, making the average cost for 10 batches of chili around $7.70-$9.70 each. The price changes very little if you make it with half the beans and add a pound of lean beef or ground turkey.

Each can of Hormel’s contains 2.5 cups of chili which, according to the nutrition label, is 2 servings of 1¼ cups each. Fat content is low – about 1 gram per serving – and the fiber content is high in both the vegetarian and meat-added versions. However, the sodium levels are ridiculous! There are 780 mgs of sodium PER SERVING in the vegetarian version and 1,250 mgs in the meat-added. Double that and that’s what’s inside an entire can of 2.5 cups. Like a guy said to me when he saw me reading the nutrition label, “That stuff’ll KILL ya!” Amen.

My chili makes 12 cups, which I divide into six 2-cup servings, each containing less than 300 mgs of sodium per serving. You’d need to buy 5 cans of Hormel at about $8 to equal the amount of chili I make for about $8. Nutrition and taste aside (I guarantee my chili is more tasty than anything you scrape out of a can), the difference is that it takes about two hours from start to finish to make my chili and about two minutes to make the Hormel. Which do you think more folks will go for?

The same math applies to spaghetti sauce, stew, and many of the other soups and casseroles I make. Up front costs can be stiff, but in the end, the quality, quantity and ultimately the value are much higher when I cook than when I buy pre-packaged and processed food.

Pollan (and many other nutritionists, food writers, and dieticians) includes in his suggestions for how to shop at the grocery store to “stay away from the center aisles.” I’ve never understood this piece of “advice.” Yes, I know a lot of non-nutritional foodstuff and processed foods hang out in the center of the store, but there’s plenty of it around the periphery, too.

Two words: Bakery and Deli. And god knows you can find plenty of junk in the dairy case (how do candy sprinkles in yogurt promote health?), the meat case (scrapple anyone?) and the produce section (dried fruit dressed up as candy…seriously?). The center aisles are full of good stuff if you know what to look for. Beans, canned and frozen fruits and vegetables, condiments, pickles, nuts, oils, spices, sauces…the list is endless. The real foods in the inside aisles are not only healthy, but they can enhance the taste of the real foods you find on the periphery. They can also be more economical.

Advising people to avoid the center aisles doesn’t teach anything. In the end, it just makes people more confused. Stop demonizing the center aisles. They’ve got a lot to offer.

I did a rough calculation of how much my husband and I spend on groceries and it works out to be about 12 percent of our household income, up a few points from the average. We spend about 6 percent on health care costs (insurance premiums and co-pays). That can change, of course, depending on unanticipated health issues, but right now, the numbers seem to support Pollan’s assertion that if we spend more on better foods, we’ll spend less on healthcare.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this debate. What does your food spending say about your overall health compared to the overall food spending and health of the average American?

by Carl LoopNow, you are wondering if that sum you received was enough to pay for repairs to your damaged real (Structure) property or lost personal items (Contents).First, you need to understand whether or not the check(s) you received from your Insurance Company, was that their "final" offer, or was it just an "advance" on your total property insurance settlement. Very often, that is the case

By Craig RealtonChances are that if you are over 25 years of age you can get a pretty good discount on your car insurance. Auto insurance companies tend to give discounts to drivers over the age of 25 because they see them as more mature because of their experience behind the wheel.However the best age group that gets excellent rates on auto insurance are senior citizens. Auto insurance

By: Brian BannonWhen you are looking for cheaper car insurance, you will notice that the price for the same policy can be much more expensive if the person being covered is a teenager or a young driver under 25. Insurance companies find that younger drivers lack of inexperience behind the wheel, based on data collected over the years, causes accidents.Because of these factors, teenage drivers are

As we close the chapter on the first ten years over here on Blogger, the team couldn't be more excited about the possibilities that lie ahead over the next ten. And while we've got some great things planned already, we know that the ideas and passion of the Blogger community will inspire us further. So in that spirit, we're going to once again ask for some help writing out the next chapter of Blogger. Only this time, we mean it quite literally :-)

Another small group this week and yet another no-show. Was the group small because of the time of year or the recession? I'm not sure but I am sure both things have an affect, next year could be interesting as we await to see the dates we have for programs!?

The group themselves were great, older and loved to talk, although they found it more tiring than they had expected; talking for 12 hours about everything and anything IS tiring, so be prepared. I have said it before, Vaughan Town is not a holiday ;>)

The food was below par this week, which was a shame but the desserts were still good.

Things were going swimmingly until I awoke on Tuesday morning deaf in my right ear!
I had a really high pitched whistle sound for maybe an hour, and I could not distinguish sounds or voices, I could only hear muffled noises, that continued for the remainder of the day.
The next day my hearing was almost back but still not the same as my left ear, but now my head, neck and throat ached, so I think I had an infection.

That aside, things were fine and we cracked on not letting that slow things up; as we had a lot to get through: theatre, singing, dancing, presentations, stories, a quiz and of course a party!
The quiz was SO close and we had a tie for the first time! - he who dares wins ;)

As usual the folks did a wonderful job on both sides, which helped the bonding process and most realised that when they weren't on a one to one they still wanted to hang out and chat which is VERY important and shows how much they enjoyed the company.

I seemed to have forgotten lots this week, jacket (important as it's colder now), my phone, my camera and some material!! Damn old age is creeping up on me!
Luckily I had my other camera, so I used that, phew!!

The photos of the week can be accessed by clicking below

Vaughan Town - Salamanca - Program 189

Thanks to everyone who came to the Toronto launch last night.

My face hurts from smiling and my heart is so full it could burst.

And the bookstore sold out the books.

I’m slowly making my way through Michael Pollan’s book, “In Defense of Food.” “Slowly” not in the sense that it’s complicated, but I like to read books like this when I’m riding my stationary bike and I haven’t done much of that lately since I’m taking advantage of the nice weather and exercising outdoors.

Many of you may know Pollan’s tagline: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” (Full disclosure: I’m totally on board with that tagline.) “In Defense of Food” outlines the rise of nutritionism and nutrition science and how the food industry has turned many whole foods into processed pseudo-foods containing ingredients we can’t even pronounce.

The section I’m reading now is called “Getting Over Nutritionism” and how we can escape the Western diet. He writes: “A hallmark of the Western diet is food that is fast, cheap, and easy. Americans spend less than 10 percent of their income on food (as opposed to the Italians and French who spend 14.9 percent of their income on food and the Spanish who spend 17.1 percent). (Americans) also also spend 27 minutes a day preparing meals, 4 minutes on cleanup and 65 minutes eating. In 1965 the figure was 45 minutes of preparation, 21 minutes of clean-up and 68 minutes of eating.”

I’ll address the money and the escaping the Western diet parts in later blogs, but right now I want to talk about the amount of time we spend preparing meals.

I was a little surprised by how little time Americans spend, on average, in contact with their food pre-consumption. I mean, I’m not naïve. I know people consume a lot more fast food and prepackaged/processed food than they did in 1965, but seriously, 27 minutes A DAY for prep?

Even when I was 300 pounds I spent more time than that making food.

I know people are busy, and cooking is usually the last thing you want to do after a long day. But I also believe we make time for what’s most important. It’s not a stretch to conclude by Pollan’s stats that for most Americans, cooking for themselves, and in most instances, themselves and their family, isn’t that important. They may think it’s important, want it to be important, plan to strive to make it important, but 27 minutes doesn’t suggest much importance.

Absolutely there are days when I heat up a Boca burger, slap it in a pita, squirt on a little ketchup and call it dinner. Or I throw some yogurt and fruit in a bowl and call it breakfast. Or eat a string cheese, a handful of almonds, an apple and some carrots and declare it lunch. But those are the exception meals, not the rule.

It’s not like I’m a slave to the kitchen. On average, breakfast takes me 10 to 20 minutes to prepare, lunch another 10 to 20 minutes, and dinner about 30 to 60 minutes, not including cooking time. And I know a lot of you (based on the blogs I read) find ways to cut your prep time. Granted, sometimes my prep minutes include thawing and heating up meals I prepared ahead of time and put in the refrigerator or freezer. But the time spent in putting a soup or other recipe together is usually an additional hour or two a week.

Eating real food requires real cooking. Maybe people really can prepare three healthy meals consisting of whole and not processed foods in less than 30 minutes per day. If so, clue me in because I would love to know how that’s done. I made a tasty Swiss chard concoction for lunch a few days ago and it took 30 minutes start to finish. Not bad time wise, but 30 minutes is the same amount of time most people spend preparing their food for an entire day.

I’m really not trying to be heavy fisted and judgmental. I’m just trying to figure out how people eat. I mean, seriously, at my heaviest I spent more time in front of the stove than the microwave or on the phone ordering out. Not that that made me a saint. Good lord knows preparing cheesy potatoes takes over an hour to make and yet adds a pound or two to my waistline. My favorite pot pie recipe takes an hour to put together and includes all kinds of things I no longer eat. So time prep isn’t so much the issue, is it?

It’s about choice. Anyone can make a solid, healthy breakfast, lunch, dinner or snack in less than 10 minutes. But it takes a lot of planning ahead to make many of those healthy choices. They aren’t on every street corner and certainly not on every take-out menu or prepackaged package. Choosing to eat and preparing whole REAL food takes time.

So my question is: Is Pollan right? Do you think most Americans A) care; and B) want to try to find the time to make their meals? What will it take to get us back to 1965?

I'm off to Toronto today to celebrate my book! If you're in town, come see me at the Toronto Women's Bookstore.

We'll have a little nosh, a little drink, I'll read from the book...I think it will be a nice evening.

Meanwhile, here's a link to a blog called "Incredible Women," where I am honoured to say that I am being featured today.

Astragalus is a traditional Chinese herb, its root was found to increase resistance to disease by fortifying the immune system. For example, it increases the body's secretion of interferon, which fights viruses. According to Chinese studies, astragalus reduces susceptibility to colds and their duration.

Astragalus is sometimes used together with echinacea and ginseng, for use in degenerative conditions of ageing such as heart disease, cancer and arthritis. Since it is a diuretic, astragalus can be useful to reduce water retention. During the past decade, astragalus has been discovered by Western science, and is increasingly being incorporated into nutritional formulas sold in health food shops.

Blog Directory



Jobs available

Today I feel even better than yesterday. I made a promise to myself. Once I get back to the gym, I'm just going to start out walking. I have no grand ideas about jumping right back into lifting weights and doing hours of cardio. Once I feel strong enough to move on, I will. Until then, it's walking on the track for 20 to 30 minutes to begin.

My diet isn't great, but it's certainly not out of control. I eat a lot of fruit, some veggies, cereal and milk, bread and cheese, milk, and water--lots of water. Probably some stuff I'm forgetting, but it's better than before the surgery. But, in the next few weeks I've got to work out a real healthy diet--you know, one with lots of fresh fruit and veggies, whole grains, lean sources of protein.

Above all this time, I promised myself to hit the psychology side it. Why do I overeat? Even when it doesn't make me feel good? And that's true even while I'm doing it. So, we'll be working on that.

OK. That's it until later.

I came across a gem of a study the other day, courtesy of Dr. John Briffa's blog. It's titled "Margarine Intake and Subsequent Coronary Heart Disease in Men", by Dr. William P. Castelli's group. It followed participants of the Framingham Heart study for 20 years, and recorded heart attack incidence*. Keep in mind that 20 years is an unusually long follow-up period.

The really cool thing about this study is they also tracked butter consumption. So it's really a no-holds barred showdown between the two fats. Here's a graph of the overall results, by teaspoons of butter or margarine eaten per day:

Heart attack incidence increased with increasing margarine consumption (statistically significant) and decreased slightly with increasing butter consumption (not statistically significant). That must have been a bitter pill for Castelli to swallow!

It gets better. Let's have a look at some of the participant characteristics, broken down by margarine consumption:

People who ate the least margarine had the highest prevalence of glucose intolerance (pre-diabetes), smoked the most cigarettes, drank the most alcohol, and ate the most saturated fat and butter. These were the people who cared the least about their health. Yet they had the fewest heart attacks. Imagine that. The investigators corrected for the factors listed above in their assessment of the contribution of margarine to disease risk, however, the fact remains that the group eating the least margarine was the least health conscious. This affects disease risk in many ways, measurable or not. I've written about that before, here and here.

Can this study get any better? Yes it can. The investigators broke down the data into two halves: the first ten years, and the second ten. In the first ten years, there was no significant association between margarine intake and heart attack incidence. In the second ten, the group eating the most margarine had 77% more heart attacks than the group eating none:

So it appears that margarine takes a while to work its magic.

They didn't publish a breakdown of heart attack incidence with butter consumption over the two periods. Perhaps they didn't like what they saw when they crunched the numbers. I find it really incredible that we're told to avoid dairy fat with data like these floating around. The Framingham study is first-rate epidemiology. It fits in perfectly with most other observational studies showing that full-fat dairy intake is not associated with heart attack and stroke risk. In fact, several studies have indicated that people who eat the most full-fat dairy have the lowest risk of heart attack and stroke.

It's worth mentioning that this study was conducted from the late 1960s until the late 1980s. Artificial trans fat labeling laws were still decades away in the U.S., and margarine contained more trans fat than it does today. Currently, margarine can contain up to 0.5 grams of trans fat per serving and still be labeled "0 g trans fat" in the U.S. The high trans fat content of the older margarines probably had something to do with the result of this study.

That does not make today's margarine healthy, however. Margarine remains an industrially processed pseudo-food. I'm just waiting for the next study showing that some ingredient in the new margarines (plant sterols? dihydro vitamin K1?) is the new trans fat.

Butter, Margarine and Heart Disease
The Coronary Heart Disease Epidemic


* More precisely, "coronary heart disease events", which includes infarction, sudden cardiac death, angina, and coronary insufficiency.

I am featured on a blog called "Women at Forty" today.

When I was aked to submit a post, I thought it would be appropriate to re-visit a post I wrote on the eve of my fortieth birthday.

I'm looking forward to writing my fiftieth birthday post. Only eight more years and countless clean scans to go.

Feelin' better today. I go back to work tomorrow. Today turned out OK, too. So I'm lookin' for the positive life force that lives inside me--somewhere. I know it's there.

They say prayer changes things and they know it's true because they've done studies that support it's benefits. And what's wrong with that?

I've not been eating that much yet--not really very much for a week. So keeping my stomach on the shrunken side should pay off in long run. I've got to get back to work to get a plan going. I have friend there who can help. Healthy eating plan--here I come.

More as I get better.

"Three years ago, I saw a story on the news while I was at the gym. An investigative feature on the breast cancer awareness contributions that various corporations pledged during Breast Cancer Awareness Month found that most of these promotions led to increased sales and windfall profits that dwarfed the piddling donations that the extra sales generated. Until that moment, I was gung-ho about buying products marked with pink ribbons."

Roseann lost and gained many dozens of pounds when she was in her twenties. When she turned 30 however, she decided to make a major lifestyle change. She went on to lose 90 pounds.

She has maintained her weight (150 pounds at 5'10 tall) for 17 years now.

Check out her weight loss story and before and after pics here.

If you seek a more relaxed lifestyle, you should start by caring for yourself on the inside, and feed your body with good fuel.

When most of us say we are experiencing too much stress, we mean we are overloaded with work, personal problems, and life in general. Of course, a certain amount of stress can be stimulating and even exciting. But when we have stressors without a break, a host of symptoms from irritability and an inability to concentrate to a fast heartbeat, headaches and a reduced resistance to infections can develop. So it's not hard to suspect a causal connection between feeling stressed out and showing physical symptoms.

Useful vitamins and minerals are vitamin c, a good daily dose to take would be 500mg. Vitamin B6,B12,B5. Minerals- Selenium, Iron, Zinc, Iodine, Calcium.

Super health foods are Almonds, Apricots, Avocado, Barley, Beetroot, Broccoli, Carrots, Celery, Cider vinegar, Garlic, Grapes, Kelp, Lecithin, Molasses, Oats, Potatoes, Rabbit, (yes rabbit!!), Spirulina, and wheat germ.

Even if you just add some of these super health foods to your diet, it will help.

Last week, the Centretown Buzz (an Ottawa community paper) asked me to write the article that "I wish I could have read when I was first diagnosed."



It's on the front page of this week's issue, and begins like this:

On December 1^st, 2005, I found a lump in my breast, as I was getting undressed. One month later, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I was 38 years old, with two young kids and a very hectic life. I felt completely blind-sided.

Almost four years later, and with the benefit of hindsight, I share some advice for others who find themselves in my situation.

Bring someone with you to appointments, especially in the beginning.

Be your own advocate.

Be nice to the admin staff and nurses.

Don’t compare yourself to anyone else.

Let others help you.

Never give up hope.