Disconnect to Recharge

It's now 6 weeks after Christmas!

How goes it? Have you recovered yet, or are you still suffering the effects of weeks and weeks of busyness and very little rest?

The winter months are supposed to be a time for us to sleep more (hence the shorter daylight hours), and rest our bodies, so that we'll be ready for the longer, activity-filled days of spring, summer, and fall. There is, after all, a time for everything. Springtime is the time for planting gardens, summer for tending them, fall for harvesting. Winter is provided to prepare us to do all those things.

The problem is... well, technology. We now have electricity, so that we no longer get up with the sun and go to bed when it sets. In fact, we have all kinds of distractions to keep us up late at night, stressed, and unable to get that much-needed rest and relaxation. The television, the telephone, the computer/internet, cell phones --text messaging, kitchen appliances... there's something interesting on T.V., someone's on the phone, gotta catch up on e-mails, someone's on AIM, there are cookies to bake, projects online...  It's no wonder everyone is over-worked, stressed out, over-tired, and can't relax! What did people used to do before electricity anyway? What would you do if there was no T.V., no computer, no phone... nothing electronic... to capture your attention? Does that concept seem scary, or more like a welcome relief? If you could just take a break from some of those things for a while, think of all the possibilities!

You could:

• Watch the animals outside your window: birds, squirrels, deer... they provide some great entertainment.
• Read: Catch up on some classic literature
• Improve your mind and dexterity with some knitting or juggling
• Have a meaningful conversation with someone who is actually sitting with you in the same room!
• Play a board game -- It's good for creative thinking and problem-solving... and it's FUN! Try Scattergories, Balderdash, Loaded Questions, Imaginiff, Chess, Uno, Phase 10... the possibilities are endless.
• Go to bed early. ("Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise," according to Benjamin Franklin)

Try recreating a time before all these distractions came into existence... even just for a weekend. For some inspiration, or if you really need some specific guidelines, try Eras of Elegance website's "Victorian weekend." Here's their introduction with the "rules":  (Enjoy!)

Victorian Weekend Retreat

Too often our modern conveniences and daily routines can create the emotional and spiritual clamor and clutter that snuff out our peace and joy. Every once in a while, try spending one weekend--just two days--enjoying the simple pastimes of 19th century life! Unplug your television, turn off your telephone ringer, and even say goodbye to your computer for a few days! And get your family and friends involved; ask your best friend or dearest sister to try out our weekend schedule with you, and let your children in on the fun! So if you're up for a weekend that will rejuventate the soul and refresh the spirit, keep reading.


Here are the ground rules. First, no television, computer, stereo, Sony playstation, etc. Remember, there were no televisions or computers during the 19th century! Commit yourself for two days not to flip on the tube, check your email, or surf the Web. Hey, at least you can still use electricity. Second, limit your telephone use. Okay, so a few Victorian families had a telephone, but they certainly didn't have their cell phones glued to their ears as they walked through the cobbled streets or picked berries in the field. Of course, we wouldn't want you to miss out on truly important news. So turn off your ringer and the volume of your answering machine, and only check your messages and return crucial phone calls after 9 p.m. (see our schedule). Third, no processed, pre-packaged or microwaved foods. Part of the fun (and perhaps the challenge) this weekend is to try your hand and preparing fresh meals from scratch. Remember, a hundred years ago there were no fast food drive-ins, Chinese takeouts, microwaves, food processors, and the like!


So if you're still game to try our weekend challenge, find a free weekend in the next few weeks (and keep it free). Browse our schedule beforehand, and collect all the items (if any) you will need. At a minimum, find a novel written by your favorite Victorian author; stock up on tea, fresh fruits and vegetables; and find materials for your Victorian craft project. We invite you to make modifications of our schedule and to add your own special touches. For example, if you can find a few couples to join in on the fun, consider spending Saturday evening recreating a Victorian ball or getting together for a 19th century game of cards. Then make sure that you take care of any pressing business on Friday night. If you have bills to pay, or a major project at the office that needs to be finished, do your best to get it done before your weekend starts so you won't have the unnecessary stress.

To see the rest, including a "schedule" for a relaxing weekend, go to http://www.erasofelegance.com/living/retreat.html

Wholesome Wisdom from a 108-Year-Old Man

Yesterday, as I was researching some health-related topics... I happened across an interview by Paul Nison (a health enthusiast and author known for overcoming his ulcerative colitis & Crohn's disease with a raw-food diet) of a 108-year-old gentleman named Bernando Lapallo. Mr. Lapallo is active and healthy. He has his own blog, a facebook page, and even a book which he wrote in 2009, when he was 107. He's trying to make it to 120--- He says he'd like to give Abraham a run for his money!

Here's his biography, as given on his facebook fan page:

Bernando LaPallo was born in Victoria, Brazil on August 17, 1901 to Mattie Carr and Bernando LaPallo Sr. He moved to the United States and was raised by his father who was a doctor in Philadelphia. His first interest was in food and he went on to study the culinary arts at La Sorbonne in Paris, France graduating in 1928. After years of working as a chef on steam liners and resorts he retired in that profession to pursue an interest in the healing arts. He studied massage at The Swedish Institute in New York City. Later Bernando went on to study and become licensed as a reflexologist and podiatrist at NYU. He completed that course of study at the age of 73. He had a successful private massage practice in New York City for more than 20 years treating people from all walks of life. He currently resides in Arizona where he gives talks on the secrets of his youthful vitality and health. Age Less Live More is his first book. He is currently working on a second.

 In the interview, Mr. Lapallo gives some of his advice for living a long and healthy life. Most of his wisdom came to him from his father about 100 years ago, when he was growing up in Brazil. More advice is given in his book: Age Less Live More: Achieving Health and Vitality at 107 and Beyond. Here are some of the bits of wisdom he gives in the interview:

"The first priority in your life should be your health."

DIET

• Eat properly. He believes the best diet consists of fruits and vegetables (especially green vegetables), fish, and lots of fresh juices. Eat lots of raw fruits and vegetables, like Adam and Eve had in the Garden of Eden. Don't eat processed/fast-food.
• Eat organic.
• Eat animal protein sparingly: He eats fresh fish 3 times a week, perhaps some canned tuna or salmon, only 4-5oz. He eats meat once a year: lamb, because it was eaten at Passover. He'll eat cheese only on a rare occasion.
• Drink herbal teas. (He likes sassafras or cinnamon tea with breakfast). The worse thing you can eat for breakfast is a cup of coffee and a doughnut.
• Don't eat too much.
• Eat only during daylight hours. Eat dinner early, and don't eat after dinner. Eat dinner between 5 and 7pm, and don't eat after that. You could have water or green tea, but no food. It's too late to eat.
• Eat/Live for prevention of disease (He drinks cinnamon tea for prevention of diabetes, since he read that cinnamon was good for diabetics). "If you don't get it, you don't have to cure it."
• Supplement with whole food products: He uses a Superfood powder and Echinacea. These he blends with fruit or juice every day, to supplement his diet

LIFESTYLE:

• Walk every morning: Every day, rain or shine, he walks 1 1/2 to 2 miles before breakfast.
• "Stress will kill you." --His father told him.
• Rest is very important.
• Follow the Ten Commandments. He says his Christian faith is every bit as necessary as food, and remaining long without the nourishment of your soul can leave you just as hungry and depleted as going without food.
• Keep your feet clean and healthy: Wash your feet in soap (castille soap) & luke warm water every night, use a pumice stone to remove dead skin, dry, and then rub thoroughly and apply olive oil. Put socks on, and go to bed.
• Use olive oil as a moisturizer for your face. (Notice he hardly has wrinkles)
• Keep your colon clean, and all the other organs will be able to do their jobs properly.

You can view the 3-part interview at http://paulnison.com/archives/date/2009/12/
His story was printed in Phoenix's East Valley Tribune when he turned 105: http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/story/71921

The salad pictured above is one I made last week: organic leaf lettuce, fennel, dried cherries, sunflower sprouts, lemon juice & olive oil, Herbs de provence (with a little extra lavender), and sea salt, with homemade sunflower-flax crackers crumbled on top as croutons. Enjoy!

10 Easy Ways to Stay Thinner and Healthier Through the Christmas Season

Photo Source

Well, it's December, and we are only a couple of weeks away from Christmas!

What an exciting time of year! There's so much preparation that goes into these few weeks before Christmas, be it sending out Christmas cards, shopping for gifts, and oh, the food preparation! Cookies, fudge, candy, galore! It's kind of interesting how we spend lots of time shopping for special ingredients and making all kinds of delectable treats, and then eating with no thought to tomorrow or our long term health. Then, come January 1st, we make all kinds of new resolutions for solving the problem we created over Christmas: e.g. eating better, exercising more, etc. Is it possible to delight in some of the delicious food this season has to offer without having to make some major resolutions when we hit the new year?

I think so! Here are a few tips for participating in all the munching that goes on at Christmas parties and gatherings in the weeks ahead:

1. Drink... plenty of water! That will help to keep you from over-doing it when you get into the line for food.

2. Avoid/Limit... the SWEETS, especially made with white or brown sugar. Do what you can with less refined, more natural, sweeteners: dried fruits, honey, maple syrup, molasses, sucanat/rapadura (unrefined cane sugar). However, even these ought to be used sparingly. It's better to stick to whole foods.


3. Indulge... in lots of negative calorie foods. These are foods that require more energy (calories) to digest than they contain in themselves.

• Watch vegetable trays for: broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, cucumbers, radishes
• At a restaurant dinner, order a salad.
• For breakfast, have a grapefruit or a fruit salad of apples, mangoes, oranges, and pineapple
• Try frozen berries, especially in a green smoothie.

You'll notice all these things are high in fiber. So, whenever you can choose foods higher in fiber, you will help yourself to maintain (or help shrink) your waistline.

4. Enjoy... the natural whole food delights of the season: fresh pomegranates, oranges, apples, pears.

5. Be FESTIVE... with salads! Just another way to EAT those GREENS! Here's a recipe (more or less) for the festive salad pictured below, full of seasonal flavors:

Orange Spice Spinach Salad (all organic)
for One

Salad mix:
3 cups spinach
1 small apple, chopped
dried cherries and/or cranberries
unsulfured dried apricots, sliced
walnuts

Dressing:
1 Tbsp freshly squeezed orange juice
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 tsp orange zest
1/4 tsp nutmeg
salt to taste

Mix dressing ingredients together. Combine spinach and chopped apples, and toss with dressing. Arrange in bowl and top with dried fruit and nuts. *Tip: Another good addition would be clementine orange sections.

6. Create... eats and treats with coconut oil! Coconut oil helps to speed up the metabolism and aid in weight loss. You can learn all about the benefits of coconut oil at http://www.coconutresearchcenter.org/. Some of the ways I enjoy using it are the following:

• Fruit Smoothies with the addition of 1-2 Tbsp of melted coconut oil blended in.
• Coconut oil instead of olive oil on a salad.
• Steamed sweet potatoes with coconut oil (instead of butter) and sea salt, as a side dish.
• Steamed broccoli or cauliflower... "        "as a side dish.
• Organic poporn popped in coconut oil, with sea salt.
• "Mounds" candy bars from the Nourishing Gourmet or Coconut Bark-Almond Joy at Real Food Living

A good resource for recipes is Eat Fat, Lose Fat: Lose Weight and Feel Great With the Delicious, Science-based Coconut Diet, by Mary Enig and Sally Fallon.

7. Stop eating at 6:00... on most occasions.  This simple rule will help to keep you from packing on the pounds. To help conquer cravings... have some herbal tea. Licorice and Peppermint are especially nice this time of year. For something more substantial, try some rooibos tea, which is more full-bodied.

8. Spike your drink... (that is, your water) with apple cider vinegar. This can help curb cravings and also help to break down body fat. Add a couple teaspoons to your water bottle and sip throughout the day. It will help keep your blood sugar level.

9. Don't stress it... Stress messes with your hormones, which can contribute to weight gain. Remember what Christmas is really about

10. Play... that is, exercise! Go play in the snow! Make snow angels, meet friends for an afternoon of ice skating, go cross country skiing, build a snow man, go sledding, try snowshoeing, go for a hike in the woods! Join the kids for some old fashioned fun in the snow. Have FUN!!!

Adrenal Fatigue: The STRESS Connection

How does stress contribute to adrenal fatigue?

Basically, an ongoing high level of stress overstimulates the adrenal glands to the point that they just can't handle any more. Our bodies are designed to handle a certain amount of short-term stress: for example, an injury, an argument, a surprise encounter with a wild animal. However, today's society provides ongoing stress from all different sources: the daily news, long work weeks, heavy traffic, lack of sleep, malalignment of the spine, food- and/or environmental allergies, highly processed foods including white flour and white sugar, caffeine, toxic chemicals added to our food and water, building materials, polluted air, electromagnetic pollution, the list goes on and on. Add the death of a loved one, problems at work or school, problems at home, problems at church... and you have a recipe for disaster. Although you may not consider all of these things to be "stress" per se, they are all hard on the body.

College alone can do it for some people. In fact, that is what got me interested in this whole topic. When I first returned home after graduating from college, I had an overwhelming sense of fatigue along with aches and pains. I was first diagnosed with Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue. Later on, after I'd started dealing with ulcerative colitis (inflammation and ulceration of the colon), it was discovered that I had low adrenal function, and that that was likely the primary problem. For me, this was probably caused by a combination of the following: a Type A personality, spinal issues, lack of sleep, processed [read: cafeteria] food, parasite "souvenirs" from trips to China and Brazil, taking too many credits and trying to accomplish too many things... you name it. I'm sure no one else has ever had any of these things going on? ;)

So, when the body is under tremendous stress, it keeps producing the stress hormones epinephrine (adrenaline), norepinephrine (noradrenalin), cortisol, and a couple of others. Cortisol also just happens to be the body's most powerful anti-inflammatory hormone. After a while, the adrenal glands are just plain worn out, and can't keep up with the demands that continued stress places on the body.
When that happens, the body cries out for help via a number of different, seemingly unrelated, symptoms.
Stay tuned for a full list of symptoms...

Adrenal Fatigue: Do You Have It?

Photo Source

Do you feel like a trampled flower?

Have you heard of adrenal fatigue? Chronic Fatigue seems to be more familiar to people. Chronic fatigue is generally thought to be caused by the Epstein-Barr virus. Adrenal Fatigue, however, is not something one can "catch." It's more of something one sets oneself up for. It's also known as adrenal exhaustion, adrenal insufficiency, and hypoadrenia. Do any of these symptoms sound familiar?

• ongoing fatigue
• body aches
• insomnia
• unrefreshing sleep
• decreased ability to handle stress
• mild depression
• irritability/mood disorders
• digestive problems

Many people deal with such symptoms but brush it off, thinking "Oh, everyone deals with these symptoms--it's normal" or "It's just stress." Well... just because something is common doesn't mean that it's normal. And yes. Stress is a major cause of adrenal fatigue, but it's not anything to take lightly.

Unfortunately, the conventional medical community does not generally recognize adrenal fatigue until it has gone too far and has led to disease: Addison's Disease, which can be fatal. It seems more prudent to make changes before it gets to that point.

What are the adrenal glands, anyway? Well, this is "who" is involved when we talk about an "adrenaline rush" or that we're "running on adrenaline." Our two adrenal glands are located just on top of the kidneys. They have a major role to play in our physiology. I won't go into the details of that, but will provide resources in upcoming posts if you want the whole story on how they work. Their main job is to produce a number of different hormones which regulate the body's response to stress. Cortisol, adrenaline, and DHEA seem to get the most press. DHEA, by the way, is the anti-aging hormone.

Stress can come from both external and internal stressors. I think most of us are quite familiar with external stressors: deadlines at work, traffic jams, pollution of various kinds, relationship issues, etc. It's often the internal stressors that people are not as aware of. This kind of stress has a number of different sources: the thoughts we think, the foods we eat, the toxins we accumulate, and even the unsuspected parasites we host...

To be Continued...