Active Lifestyle One way is to set aside a special time for a formal exercise program, involving such planned activities as walking, jogging, swimming, tennis, aerobic dance, exercise to an exercise videotape, and so on.
But don’t underestimate the value and importance of just being more physically active throughout the day as you carry out your unusual activities. Both can be helpful.
The formal programs are usually more visible and get more attention. But being more physical in everyday life can also pay off. Consider taking the stairs a floor or two instead of waiting impatiently for a slow elevator.
Park and walk several blocks to work or to the store instead of circling the parking lot looking for the perfect, up close parking space.
Mow the lawn, work in the garden or just get once in a while and walk around the house.
These types of daily activities often not view as “exercise,” can add up to significant health benefits.
Recent studies show that even small amounts of daily activity can raise fitness levels, decrease heart disease risk, and boost mood and the activities can be pleasurable, enjoyable ones. Playing with children, dancing, gardening, bowling, and golf….all these enjoyable activities can make a biog difference. Active Lifestyle
We need to get back to eating foods that kept our ancestors healthy for thousands and even millions of years. There's a lot we can learn from the past and those who don't learn the painful lessons of history are doomed to repeat them. So here's a little retrospective music for looking back to learn our lessons to help us cope with the future. (click the small arrow on the lower right of each video for full screen)
Live the Life.
One minute I held the key Next the walls were closed on me And I discovered that my castles stand Upon pillars of salt and pillars of sand
Viva la Vida - Coldplay 2008
If you love someone, don't forget to show it.
When the future's architectured By a carnival of idiots on show You'd better lie low
Violet Hill - Coldplay 2008
Horrible History. Let's not repeat it.
If I were your appendages I'd hold open your eyes, so you would see That all of us are heaven sent And there was never meant to be only one To be only one
Megalomaniac - Incubus 2004
More questions than answers.
Why do we never get an answer When we're knocking at the door With a thousand million questions About hate and death and war
It's where we stop and look around us There is nothing that we need In a world of persecution That's burning in it's greed
Questions - Moody Blues 1970
Sometimes you don't know what you have until you lose it.
Oh no, not me We never lost control You're face to face With the man who sold the world
The Man Who Sold the World - Nirvana
To be or not to be ... selfish? Does it really matter?
Nothing really matters Love is all we need Everything I give you All comes back to me
Nothing Really Matters - Madonna 2006
And here's a little tribute to modern medicine, drugs, and poor diet.
I want you to know He's not coming back Look into my eyes I'm not coming back
Knives Out - Radiohead 2008
And running the rat race.
Find out who you are before you regret it Because life is so short, there's no time to waste it
Run Baby Run - Garbage 2005
But don't panic.
And we live in a beautiful world Yeah we do, yeah we do
Don't Panic - Coldplay 2001
Who makes up all the rules?
We follow them like fools Believe them to be true Don't care to think them through
They - Jem 2005
To our children's children's children.
With the eyes of a child You must come out and see That your world's spinning 'round And through life you will be A small part of a hope Of a love that exists In the eyes of a child you will see
Eyes of the Child - Moody Blues 1969
A celebration of femininity.
Wherever, whenever We'll learn to be together
Suerte - Shakira 2004
I view the list And take my pick I view my fate And make a choice 'Cause it's nobody else's but mine
Breathe Your Name - Sixpence None the Richer 2006
And masculinity?
Pay your surgeon very well To break the spell of aging Sicker than the rest, there is no test But this is what you're craving
Californication - Red Hot Chili Peppers 1999
Who knew the other side of you Who knew what others died to prove Too true to say goodbye to you Too true, too sad sad sad
Dani California - Red Hot Chili Peppers 2006
And now for a lighter note or two. We need more sun and fun. Get that vitamin D!
It's not having what want It's wanting what you have
Soak Up the Sun - Sheryl Crow 2002
On an island in the sun We'll be playin' an' havin' fun
Island in the Sun - Weezer 2001
A little dancing is good exercise.
Casino - Acoustic Alchemy 1992
With a love like that, you know you should be glad!
She loves you/I want to hold your hand - The Beatles
Don't take it for granted :)
Happy Holidays !
P.S. Thanks to Wildernessgal for the inspiration for the title to this post.
Breakfast: The most Important Meal You will notice marked improvements in mood and energy, with fewer cravings for junkfood, when you eat a breakfast that is high in water, protein, good carbs (loaded with antioxidants) and healthy fats.
But many people who struggle with their weight often skip breakfast altogether or have a light breakfast consisting of something like a glass of juice with bagel, a piece of toast or a bowl of cornflakes.
The typical American breakfast is essentially pure carbohydrate that is quickly absorbed and leads to a spike in blood sugar followed by a compensatory spike in insulin. This stimulates a steep fall in blood sugar, leaving you famished and sluggish by mid morning and susceptible to cravings for doughnuts, pastries, cookies, and junk foods and sugary drinks from the vending machines that are ubiquitous in the workplace.
This eating style is a vicious cycle that forces you to mindlessly consume excess calories leading t0 obesity, aging and disease. Instead, have a forever young breakfast with protein (eggs, whey protein, fish, or meat) and high nutrient, fiber rich foods (fruits, nuts, berries or veggies), and wash it down with tea, water, soymilk, or nonfat milk.
The rest of the morning you will walk straight by the box of doughnuts at work feeling compelled to indulge your self.
There was a study found that the breakfast bunch received four important benefits:
Lower BMI (average body weight)
Reduced risks of diabetes, metabolic problems and obesity
Better long term weight loss maintenance
Improved mental alertness throughput the day
Breakfast jumpstart your system when you roll out of bed in the morning by increasing your metabolic rate about 25 percent. This revs your energy up and improves your ability to perform both physically and mentally.
On the other hand, people skip breakfasts are stick in the hibernation mode and often plagued with the consequences of a slow metabolism like obesity, constant fatigue or sluggishness and chronically feeling cold.
Snacks eaten before bedtime are more likely to be converted to body fat while you sleep. In contrast, breakfast calories can be burned throughout the day supplying you with the energy you need to perform your best. Breakfast: The most Important Meal
I walk through snowy woods to a bend in the river, hidden from view by the trees and a small slope. The short day's light is beginning to fade, but a nearly full moon hangs above the naked trees upriver. I've followed a deer path and now stand at river's edge in two feet of snow. I have found a sacred place to savor and celebrate winter's solstice.
Breathing, listening to the joyful sound of shallow water rushing over riverstone. I hear my heart beating and soften into a quiet stance. Who am I?, I ask the river. Who do you want me to be? The sound of my beating heart is a solid rhythm for the river's bright melody of gentle waves and currents. The wonder held in this space suddenly shocks time into hibernation and I stand dissolved and free of name and contraction.
Moonlight pours from my face and the low hanging branches and round river stone. Our bones reach deep into the snowy bank, absent of leaf and bird. The river whispers our true name, speaking her fluid language of source intelligence, a universe of bubbling life. This, this again, she sings, now and now, this unending flow. We float upon gravity's grace in an effortless flow of being, tumbling as beauty's truth, rising as creative essence serving love's expansive reach.
My cold toes bring me back to the riverbank, Thomas shivering in the near darkness. I make snowballs and toss my dissolving fears into the rapids. Obstacles of arrogance and laziness and judgments and worries and clutchings are tossed one by one into the river until the sharp pain of my frozen fingers says Enough! I stand silent in the polar essence of the solstice and devote my fullest energy and awareness to being an embodied action of presence expressing the unity of planet, sun, life, motion and soul to all resonant beings sharing this evolving field of emergent life.
Most of us are deficient in vitamin D, especially at higher latitudes in the winter. Until recently, vitamin D was thought to mainly play a role in calcium metabolism. But recent investigations have discovered that it plays many important roles in the health of our immune system as well. Chronic vitamin D deficiency leaves us more vulnerable to infectious diseases as well as cancer and perhaps even heart disease. The correlation of colds and flu to winter and rainy season around the world is a prime example of vulnerability to infectious disease because of vitamin D deficiency. The correlation of many cancers by latitude is a strong indication of the effects of vitamin D deficiency in causing cancer.
Our early human ancestors in Africa had plenty of sun to maintain optimal vitamin D levels most of the year. Today, people living in this area who get good sun exposure are generally able to achieve about 50 to 60 nanograms of vitamin D per milliliter (ng/ml) of blood and this appears to be near the optimal level. Ultraviolet (UV) light forms vitamin D from a cholesterol-derived precursor in the top layers of the skin (another reason why cholesterol is good). Sun angle, cloud cover, altitude above sea level, skin exposure area, skin color, sunscreen usage, obesity, and age are all factors that affect the body's ability to make and utilize vitamin D from sunlight. With optimal conditions, it only takes about 10 minutes of full-body high-angle direct sun exposure for the body to produce about 10,000 International Units (IU) of vitamin D. Darker skin color and sunscreen both block UV light and reduce the vitamin D rate of formation. Obese and elderly people also need more sun exposure to achieve optimal blood levels of vitamin D. Above about 35 degrees latitude, the winter sun is inadequate to provide enough vitamin D to maintain optimal levels, even with full and frequent exposure.
Sunshine Dilemma
Strong sunlight on our skin is necessary to produce vitamin D but also ages our skin. Diets high in polyunsaturated fat especially make the skin more vulnerable to damage from UV rays in sunlight - another good reason to limit polyunsaturated fat to ancestral intake levels of around 4% or less. Sunburn especially damages the skin, by literally burning the skin and can cause first, second, or third degree burns. So, those with fair skin need to be very careful to avoid sunburn when getting vitamin D from sun exposure.
Supplementing Beyond Sunshine
When adequate sunshine is not available, vitamin D levels need to be maintained by diet and/or supplements for optimal health. The foods highest in vitamin D are mostly animal seafoods, as shown in the table below. The problem is, there are many confounding factors in determining how much dietary vitamin D is necessary to achieve optimal blood levels. Part of this problem is that vitamins D, A, and K2 all interact synergistically and increasing one without increasing the others is more likely to lead to toxicity problems. Getting plenty of calcium and magnesium are also important to prevent toxic effects from high intake of vitamin D. Dairy and animal seafood are excellent sources of these minerals.
Vitamin D in Food (click to enlarge)
At high latitudes in winter, getting as much as 1,000 to 4,000 International Units (IU) of vitamin D by diet or supplement may be neccessary to achieve optimal blood levels. Some people may need that much from food or supplements year-round. Others may need little extra vitamin D from diet. The best way to be sure how much is needed is through blood testing.
Blood Testing for Vitamin D
The best blood test to indicate vitamin D status is the 25(OH)D (25-hydroxyvitamin D) test. Ideally, 25(OH)D levels should be in the 40 to 60 ng/ml range for optimal health. The cost for this test ranges from about $50 to $150 and is usually not covered by insurance - even though vitamin D status is probably as much or more important than most covered parameters (a sad comment on the poor state of our modern "health care" system). Ideally, testing should be done at least twice a year, once in summer and once in winter.
Healthy Lifestyles Doing regular physical activity is a healthy lifestyle that health experts feel is among the most important. Not only does it help you prevent many of the major illness and enhance your physical fitness and health, but also it can contribute to good health in other areas as well.
Their list includes some of healthy lifestyles that you can adopt to promote good fitness, health and wellness. These lifestyles are only of benefit if you choose to do them. The choices you make have much to do with your fitness, health and wellness.
My son Isaac taught me a form of ritual. When he was about six I asked him, what do you think you should do when life feels complicated? Without any hesitation he said, “sit down, think, ask for help.” It is a process for both personal and communal learning that has taught me much.
Yesterday, I walked with my daughter, now 13. It was a “private walk with Dad.” We are vacationing, “holidaying” in Canada with grandparents and cousins. I wanted to make sure we had some time. My daughter so much relished the time. Her life, questions, stories were pouring out of her. We walked among the trees of this little town, Fairmont BC. We went to a favorite place, by a stream. I picked up two small stones. At the end of our walk I gave her one and called it a “truth stone.” It was a simple invitation, a simple symbol to invite our truth telling and witnessing with each other, whenever needed. It was one of those moments when my daughter and I just clicked in a great mix of laughter and seriousness.
Exercise for Your Health Exercise can have many additional benefits, beyond helping you lose weight and keep it off and being an important part of building a healthy, strong, flexible body that will serve you well for years to come.
Exercise can safeguard your mental health. Studies show that being physically active increases your self-esteem, improves your body image, and decreases your risk pf serious depression. Exercise also helps prevent or reduce anxiety. It can be a great stress reducer and mood enhancer.
Exercise can prevent catastrophic disease. It not only protects your heart and lungs, but also can be a factor in preventing certain forms of cancer. For example, studies have found that women who are physically active as teens and young adults significantly reduce their lifetime risk of breast cancer (as well as osteoporosis, the painful and debilitating loss of bones that cripples many women in their later years). Exercise for Your Health
There are several widespread misconceptions about fat that might be hilarious if they didn't lead to the poor health of millions of people:
Eating fat will make you fat. Saturated fat is bad for health. Polyunsaturated fat is good for health. Low fat diets are good for health.
These misconceptions are partly responsible for the obesity epidemic and an important contributor to the the declining health of millions for people around the world. Here's the real truth about fat:
Eat more fat to lose weight. Excess carbohydrates (sugar and starches) will make you fat. Saturated and monounsaturated fat are good for health. Polyunsaturated fat should be restricted to about 4% of total calories. Artificial trans-fats should be avoided completely.
Eating more fat to lose weight seems like an oxymoron. But ironically, because of the satiating effect of fat, most people eat fewer calories in the long run when they eat a higher percentage of calories as fat. And eating fewer calories will lead to weight loss if your activity levels remain the same.
Eat Carbs Get Fat
When you eat more carbohydrates than you burn, your body converts the carbs to saturated fat and stores it in fatty tissue. Eating large amounts of refined carbohydrates, like sugar and white flour, causes a rapid rise in blood sugar levels. In healthy people,the pancreas then releases insulin to reduce blood sugar by storing small amounts as glycogen while large excesses are stored away as fat. Diets that are high in refined carbs often lead to a roller coaster ride with a blood sugar high followed by a blood sugar crash. With the blood sugar high, you may briefly feel happy and energetic. But when your blood sugar crashes you will likely feel tired, irritable, and hungry. If you then eat more refined carbs, you keep the roller coaster ride going. Over time, it can lead to obesity and insulin resistance and then type II diabetes.
Saturated versus Polyunsaturated Fat
Saturated fats have falsely been blamed for increasing risk to heart disease largely because they tend to raise low-density lipoprotein (LDL) "cholesterol" levels. Likewise, polyunsaturated fats are supposedly heart healthy because they reduce LDL "cholesterol" levels. But LDL levels are not a strong indicator of heart disease, and in fact oxidized LDL is a much stronger indicator. How does LDL get oxidized? Polyunsaturated fats are more prone to oxidation in processing, storage, and cooking, and when ingested, they end up in LDL. It's the oxidized polyunsaturated fats that greatly increase heart disease risk.
Saturated fats are mainly from animal foods that have been predominant in healthy human diets for hundreds of thousands and perhaps millions of years. The change to more animal foods may be largely responsible for increasing human brain size and our evolution away from apes. So, it doesn't make much common sense that foods that nutured our ancestors for so long are now suddenly bad for us.
In contrast, polyunsaturated fats were low in our ancestral diets and have increased dramatically in consumption the last 100 years with the large-scale production of cheap vegetable oils like soybean oil, corn oil, safflower oil, and sunflower oil. Also, entirely new to the human diet within the last 100 years, are artificial trans-fats, mainly in the form of partially hydrogenated vegetable oils. Trans fats appear to be even worse than polyunsaturated fats in causing health problems.
Polyunsaturated fats suppress the immune system and are involved in immune dysfunction as well. This effect increases the risk of illness and of a variety of cancers, as well as autoimmune diseases and an increased risk of asthma. Polyunsaturated fats also inhibit enzymes and thyroid function that are vital for bodily processes. Furthermore, they cause age spots on the skin because they are easily oxidized by sunlight and the oxidized fats damage skin cells. Oxidized polyunsaturated fats also wreak havoc elsewhere in the body and are implicated in inflammation, atherosclerosis, heart disease, and cancer.
Traditional Diets
Traditional diets typically had about 4 to 10 percent of total calories from polyunsaturated fat, with a ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 polyunsaturated fat of 2 to 1. The low end of the traditional range appears to be an optimal amount for a healthy diet - around 4% of total calories. It's mainly the omega-6 polyunsaturated fats that have increased greatly in modern diets, primarily from vegetable oils that are used in processed foods and cooking.
Traditional diets were also low in sugar and keeping sugar to less than 10% of calories is probably ideal for optimal health as well. In the modern diet, most sugar comes in forms that are about half fructose, such as table sugar and high fructose corn syrup. Large dietary intake of fructose is implicated in a variety of metabolic syndrome problems, including insulin resistance, elevated triglycerides, abdominal obesity, elevated blood pressure, inflammation, oxidative stress, endothelial dysfunction, microvascular disease, hyperuricemia, glomerular hypertension and renal injury, and fatty liver.
PUFA in Meat and Dairy
The following tables show the percentage of calories analyzed as polyunsaturated fat calories in a variety of meat and dairy foods for reference. The data are from the USDA nutrient data base and are more likely to be representative of typical commercial meat and dairy products. Unfortunately, the USDA does not have data for pastured animal products, but game meat may be closer in this regard. Click on the tables to enlarge them.
Eating Vegetables and Fruits for Longevity Vegetables and fruits do so much for longevity quest in so many different ways. Fruits and vegetables are energy foods. For most part, they’re fiber rich carbohydrates, ideal for optimal energy flow. Fruit, in particular, may be the perfect workout food. While other sugars will give a quick burst of energy, fruit sugars deliver a steady stream of carbohydrate energy over a few hours.
All those vegetables and fruit will keep body weight down too. With some notable exceptions like coconuts and avocadoes, most fruits and vegetables have little or no fat and not much in the way of protein either. They still have calories, of course, but filling up on their fiber will push fat and excess calories out of body system.
By eating lots of fruits and vegetables, it will reduce cancer risk in at least two ways. The fiber they provide pushes digested food through body gut faster, giving potential carcinogens less times to damage cells in digestive tract. But also, the antioxidants that are so abundant in fruits and vegetables destroy cell damaging free radicals. They may also actually reverse existing cell damage before it leads to cancer.
Eating a lot of fruits and vegetables at any age has been shown to slow down, brake or even reverse many if the unpleasant developments associated with the aging process. Heart disease and cancer are just two such problems that antioxidants combat.
They also help keen body mind sharp, body becomes strong, eyesight keen and body immune system powerful enough to fight off infections and other illnesses.
There’s even some promising evidence that the phytochemicals and other good things in fruits and vegetables retard the aging process itself at the cellular levels.
In other words, if antioxidant intake is high from eating lots of fruits and vegetables, people may be biologically “younger” than others age who have low antioxidants intakes. Eating Vegetables and Fruits for Longevity
Putting one's hand in a bucket of ice or just holding an ice cube helps with being stressed out. It immediately brings you back into your body. And it makes me think about warmer things. On a similar note, I often go to my window in the morning as I'm setting my intention for the day, thanking the creator for this precious human life. Sometimes I put my hand on the window and notice it's coolness. Then look out to see the sun bringing light into the day. Both of these actions remind me of humanness and how lucky I am to be alive. They help me to remember my connection to self and others and to our planet. My breath deepens and my body relaxes.
The only healthy rituals that I have are the ones that I'm trying to make into habits--the weekly workouts in the mornings.
Oddly enough, Shadow has enforced the biggest rituals--an evening walk and some kind of morning exercise. He likes for us to get up in the morning no later than 7 a.m., and at night, around 10:00 p.m., he takes a deep breath, scratches the floor underneath him, and throws himself down with a big sigh (his way of saying that he's ready to go to bed, even if we are not). So maybe getting a dog has been one of the healthiest things we have done, and he is the enforcer of our main rituals!
Healthy Eating Lifestyle Eat for variety Foods from all food groups are important. Eat foods from all the food groups every day and choose a variety of foods within each food group. For optimum nutrition, eat more foods from the grain, fruits, and vegetables.
Eat fruits and vegetables at every meal and snack Fruit and vegetables are packed with vitamins, minerals and antioxidants; plus they provide fiber to help keep our bowels regular. We should get at least five servings of fruit and vegetables combined each day. Fruits and vegetable that are deep green or orange or red pack the most vitamin and minerals. It is important to select fruits and vegetables of different colors to get all of their beneficial nutrients. Go for whole grains Whole grains contain more nutrients and fiber than processed or refined grains because the milling process removes the nutritional part of the grain. Aim to make half of all the grain foods that you eat the whole grain.
Limit foods and beverages with added sugar Sweet drinks such as soda, fruit punch, lemonade, iced tea, and sport drinks have a lot of sugar but no vitamins or minerals. Consuming too much sweet drinks makes it hard to get all of the vitamins and minerals that your body needs. Soft drinks and sweets such as candy, cake, cookies and donuts can cause dental cavities, and they add to calorie intake, which makes it hard to keep a healthy weight.
Choose foods with healthy fat The fat on our bodies serves several purposes: it protects our organs, keeps us warm, and stores our energy. Fat in food provides a feeling of fullness and it adds flavor. Some fat – namely unsaturated fat – is healthy for the heart, but other fat – the saturated fat – can damage arteries and lead to heart disease over time. Trans fat does the most damage and should be avoided. Healthy Eating Lifestyle
We are symbiotic masses of trillions of one-celled creatures, some of which happen to carry the human genome and many of which do not. It's quite amazing, maybe even miraculous, how a consciousness can arise from this mass of tiny creatures we call a body or life form. That consciousness, or mind, or spirit, or whatever you want to call it is the focus of our being. Our senses can be viewed as a portal on the universe. In this way, every conscious life form is a portal on the universe.
Primal Forces
In my view, the forces of nature identified by science are the same as the will of the universe or God or Allah or Yahweh or Brahman or the great spirit or the creator or whatever you want to call the source and enforcer of these natural forces. In this universe, we are constrained to follow these forces. Ironically, our existence is only possible with the exact balance of natural forces that we observe. If these forces were different, our universe would be different and might not be capable of generating conscious life forms as we know them - the anthropic principle.
To me, it seems intuitive that for the universe to exist, it must have always existed and will always exist. Also, each conscious portal on the universe is the same ONE consciousness, just at a different location in space and/or time. It is the form of our consciousness that changes over time.
I am you as you are me and we are all together.
Duality of nature
Yin and yang
Female and male
Heads and tails Light and dark Day and night Good and bad Hot and cold Wet and dry Sweet and bitter Smooth and rough Forward and backward Selfishness and selflessness
"The relationship between yin and yang is often described in terms of sunlight playing over a mountain and in the valley. Yin (literally the 'shady place' or 'north slope') is the dark area occluded by the mountain's bulk, while yang (literally the 'sunny place' or 'south slope') is the brightly lit portion. As the sun moves across the sky, yin and yang gradually trade places with each other, revealing what was obscured and obscuring what was revealed."
Health of the Spirit
Health of the spirit or mind is an important part of our overall health. The mind has a powerful influence over our body, but our body also influences our mind. Pain or illness can be mentally debilitating. But the mind can choose how to react to stimuli from the body and can influence our health for better or for worse.
It's critical for our good health to eat a diet that will nurture our body, but our mind must chose to do so. We must learn what foods bring the best health to our bodies. We must also act on this knowledge to achieve optimal health.
It's important for good health to foster a positive attitude. Focus on the good things in your life. Don't dwell on the negative more than is necessary to deal with it. Find things that you enjoy. That can mean receiving pleasure as well as giving pleasure.
Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream. An infinite cosmic dream.
Recognizing some basic truths can make life more enjoyable for everyone.
You reap what you sow. What goes around comes around. Treat others as you would like to be treated.
Taking risks
Life is all about taking risks. With any action that we take, we have to weigh the possible benefits of success against the risk of failure or harm. Knowledge is our best tool to help in this process.
Balance
Finding the right balance between the benefits and risks in your life is probably the best goal. Don't try to do too much. You can't have it all, but you can have a lot. Cherish what you do achieve. You have to take care of yourself first, so you won't be a burden on others. But also, help others when you can.
Handling Stressful Situations
Chronic stress is linked to many health problems. Our best defense is a good offense. Recognize when you are stressed and take time to relax and rationally deal with the cause of your stress. Sometimes by planning ahead, you can avoid stressful situations. Also, confidence is a key to overcoming stress. Build your confidence by learning about the cause of your stress and finding ways to deal with it. Focus on the things in your life that you can control. There's no use in worrying about things you can't control.
Religion
Religion is the human effort to understand the forces we cannot control and to explain what happens to the spirit or soul after the body dies. Many people find comfort in following the rituals associated with religions. Religion can also help provide structure to an otherwise chaotic world for many people. The fact that there are so many religions with differing views is a sign that no human ever really knows all the answers to every question about the universe and probably never will. However, most religions do have common themes of helping others and having faith that good things will happen. The differences are in the details and unfortunately have led to considerable strife over the years. Probably the worst outcome of religions are zealots who believe that their way is the only way and anyone who seeks a different way is not worthy or is even condemned. If you choose to follow a religion, at least be considerate of those who choose not to follow that religion.
It's easy to take for granted the good things in life. Enjoy them while you can.
To infinity and beyond! May the force be with you! :)
Exercise for Fun and Fitness Regular exercise and physical activity are vital to your physical emotional health and can bring you fun and fitness at the same time. Having chronic illness and growing older can maker an active lifestyle seem far away. Some people have never been active and others have given up leisure activities because of illness.
Unfortunately, long periods of inactivity in anyone can lead to weakness, stiffness, fatigue, poor appetite, high blood pressure, obesity osteoporosis, constipation, and increased sensitivity to pain, anxiety and depression. These problems occur from chronic illness as well. So, it can be difficult to tell whether it is the illness, inactivity or combination of the two that is responsible for these problems. Although we don’t have cures for many of these illnesses, yet, we do know the cure for inactivity – exercise.
Most people have a sense that exercising and being active is healthier and more satisfying than being inactive, but often have a hard time finding information and support to get started on a more active way of life.
Regular exercise benefits everyone, especially people with chronic health problems. Regular exercise improves levels of strength, energy, and self confidence and less anxiety and depression. Exercise can help maintain a good weight, which takes stress off weight- bearing joints and improves blood pressure, blood sugar and blood fat levels. There is evidence that regular exercise can help to “thin” the blood, or prevent blood clots, which is one of the reasons exercise can be particular benefit to people with heart disease, cerebrovascular disease and peripheral vascular disease.
In addition, strong muscles can help people with arthritis to protect their joints by improving stability and absorbing shock. Regular exercise also can help nourish joints and keep cartilage and bone healthy. Regular exercise has been shown to help people with chronic lung disease, improve endurance, and reduce shortness of breath. Many people with claudication (leg pain from severe arthrosclerosis blockages in the arteries of the lower extremities) can walk farther without leg pain after undertaking a regular exercise program. It also suggested that exercise may even increase life expectancy. Regular exercise is an important part of controlling blood sugar levels, losing weight, and reducing the risks of cardiovascular complications for people with diabetes. Exercise for Fun and Fitness
The companies that develop and manufacture vaccines for profit and the clinics that provide the vaccines also for profit, would have us believe that vaccines will save us from disease while causing negligible harm. They point to the dramatic drop in disease as evidence of the effectiveness of vaccines and claim that risks in taking vaccines are minimal and well worth the benefit.
But a closer and independent look at the data paints a different picture. While some vaccines may confer a reduced likelihood of infection, all vaccines have significant side effects, with substanitial numbers of severe adverse reactions, sometimes resulting in death. Not surprisingly, there have been no long-term safety studies for vaccines where the health of vaccinated children is compared with an unvaccinated control group! We need to take a very careful and unbiased look at the benefits and risks of any vaccine before accepting it.
Most infectious diseases were already declining rapidly before vaccines were introduced, with little evidence that vaccines have made an improvement. Some vaccines are notoriously ineffective, such as the influenza vaccine. Many people who take the vaccine get the flu anyway. Even the most effective vaccines offer no more than about 40 to 60 percent effectiveness and some vaccines are actually suspected of causing cases of the disease they are supposed to prevent.
The above graphs show the decline in death rates from infectious disease in Australia based on the official death numbers and shown in the book Vaccination A Parent's Dilemma. Most other countries show a similar result.
Against this backdrop of uncertainty about the effectiveness of the vaccines, we have the problem of side effects caused by vaccines. In order to make a vaccine work, it must strongly stimulate the immune system into responding to the target agent given in the vaccine, usually a disabled version of the target infectious agent. But strongly stimulating the immune system has its own hazards, one of which is possible triggering of allergies to other non-infectious agents that just happen to be present when the vaccine is given or shortly thereafter. The rapid rise in asthma and allergies in recent years could be one of the consequences. Another hazard is the possible triggering of auto-immune problems like lupus and type I diabetes, and neurological problems, like autism. The pertussis vaccine has actually been used to induce auto-immune disease in laboratory animals. Another problem is that vaccines are often given several at a time to young children. This practice is likely to compound the effect on the immune system, which is not fully developed in young children. Yet another problem is that some of the adjuvants used to stimulate the immune system are poisons in their own right and can cause harmful side effects, such as aluminum hydroxide and aluminum phosphate. Finally, the production and preservation of vaccines introduces even more potentially harmful compounds directly into the blood, such as foreign animal proteins used to incubate the infectious agent, poisonous formaldehyde used to deactivate live infectious agents, and thimerosal with poisonous mercury which is still used to preserve some vaccines.
Below is a long but well worthwhile video about vaccines. It can be paused to take breaks by clicking on the start/pause button.
An excellent resource for vaccine information is the National Vaccine Information Center. They have information about individual vaccines as well as state laws and exceptions regarding vaccines.
Before mom passed away: Called her every day Told her I love her every day
What I always do: Wash my face and brush my teeth before bedtime Take my two pills before bedtime
What I strive to do: Listen to birds in the morning Listen to insects at night Listen to my thoughts when I wake up Look out the bedroom window at the roses blooming Collect water from the shower and water plants outside Recycle Be conscious of water use Have reading glasses in hand
What I do now: Listen to Paul sleep Check on Paul if he is napping in the daytime Listen to how energy is flowing through my body
What I always have done: Create Watch Think a lot Touch different textures Love music Find beauty in everything
I think this is a lot, but I feel that it describes a lot of rituals in an overview that are important. I feel like I have just sent an outline of my life.
Everyone knows what cholesterol is now - that stuff that clogs arteries and causes heart attacks, right?
Wrong!
When you get a blood test for "cholesterol", what they are measuring is not the chemical cholesterol directly, but instead is the total amount of certain lipoproteins that just happen to contain some cholesterol. It's a bit of a misnomer - sort of like calling a car an engine. Let's measure the weight of all those engines on the road by totaling the weight of all the cars on the road. What's worse, there are many other vehicles on the road that have engines but are not cars, like trucks and buses. Does it make sense to total the weight of just cars as an indication of the weight of engines on the road?
There is a chemical called cholesterol and it's an essential part of every cell membrane. It's a precursor to several important hormones and to vitamin D. It's considered both a sterol and a lipid, but not a fat. All fats are lipids, but not all lipids are fats. Cholesterol and fats are not soluble in water, but are needed by our cells. In order to transport cholesterol and fats through our blood, which is largely water, our body bundles them into packages of protein, fat,and cholesterol that can be carried in the blood. These packages are lipoproteins.
There are several kinds of lipoproteins the body uses for different purposes. They are classified by their density, which also roughly corresponds to their size. The largest and least dense are chylomicrons, followed by very low density lipoprotein (VLDL). Both of these contain cholesterol but are not included in total "cholesterol" blood tests. Next are low density lipoproteins (LDL), intermediate density lipoproteins (IDL), and high density lipoproteins (HDL).
In blood tests, the VLDL is called "triglycerides", even though all lipoproteins contain triglycerides (more confusion?) and "total cholesterol" is the total of LDL, some IDL, and HDL.
So how do cholesterol and lipoproteins relate to heart disease?
True cholesterol does not really appear to be a player in heart disease. It is actually very important for good health. However, glycated proteins and fats as well as oxidized fats, all of which can be incorporated into lipoproteins, do appear to play a role. Glycation occurs when a sugar molecule, such as fructose or glucose, binds to a protein or fat and oxidized fats are generally polyunsaturated fats that have been oxidized into peroxides. Some types of glycated proteins and all fat peroxides can cause a variety of problems and are implicated in both heart disease and cancer.
For optimal health, and thus avoidance of heart disease and cancer, we should be striving to reduce our load of glycated proteins and oxidized fats. Elevated blood sugar and triglyceride levels are correlated with elevated blood levels of glycated protein. So, obviously, keeping blood sugar and triglyceride levels normalized is ideal. Eat starches with fat and protein to minimize blood sugar spikes after meals or snacks. Don't eat foods with added refined sugar and don't eat too much fruit. Low-carb diets and/or excercise tend to normalize blood sugar and triglycerides.
The fats most prone to oxidation are polyunsaturated fats. Large amounts of dietary polyunsaturated fat are new to the human diet. Up until the last couple hundred years, the typical amount of dietary polyunsaturated fat was around five percent of dietary calories or less. Only recently has the amount of polyunsaturated fat been increasing dramatically in the human diet as cheap vegetable oils have displaced healthier animal fats in commercial food products. Keeping dietary polyunsaturated fats under four percent of total calories is ideal. That means avoiding most processed foods like sauces, dressings, baked goods, and most cooking oils, and eating only small amounts of nuts. Most commercial sauces and dressings are loaded with soybean oil or other oils high in polyunsaturated fat. Most commercial cooking oils are also high in polyunsaturated fat and sometimes trans-fat (made from hydrogenated polyunsaturated fat). That means avoid most commercial fried and baked foods.
Hopefully you are now less confused about cholesterol :)
Land of Confusion by Genesis (thanks to Yahoo Music)
I am heading out on a mammoth trip today. My itinerary looks like this:Monday – drive to Port MacNeil on northern Vancouver Island
Tuesday – Facilitate community to community forum with North Island First Nations and local governments. When finished, drive back to Campbell River and jump on a plane. Fly to Vancouver, then Toronto then Ottawa.
Wednesday – Facilitate workshop in Ottawa with the Canadian Union of Public Employees.
Friday – Finish workshop and return to Vancouver
Saturday – Facilitate one day Open Space for the Ministry of the Attorney-General Family Court Committee. Return home Saturday night.
This is a little unusual for me, in that I usually don’t do a red eye flight across two thirds of the country. I know I will be tired, and I know I need to stay focused on these three jobs and what I am doing. And believe it or not, I woke up this morning deliciously anticipating the journey ahead.
For me, this kind of travel and work is a mindfulness practice. I use these journeys to be very mindful about where I am and what I am doing. Often, when I am en route, I don’t speak to other people at all, preferring to travel in silence, reading, listening to music or podcasts or writing. If I do speak it is only to be polite, get where I am going or ask for help. As a silent meditation I find travelling in this way to be incredible practice, and it brings me to the work I have to do with as much presence as I can. In general I don’t check my emails when I am on the road, preferring instead to give as much attention as I can to the work I have at hand. Fortunately I have my partner Caitlin Frost is back in our office, answering phone calls, sorting logistics with clients and flagging important emails for me. This is an incredible gift as it allows me to be on the road, safe, undivided and present for my clients.
Seeing travel as a meditation retreat for me shows up in many ways. For example I have a few practices I cultivate on a daily basis and being mindful means focusing on doing them in unfamiliar places with limited access to tools. I try to exercise everyday, and have developed several “hotel room” workouts, that can be done between queen sized beds in small roadside motels. These are 20-30 workouts focusing on strength, flexibility and cardio fitness. Of course, access to a weight room or a gym makes this easier, but it isn’t necessary. Sometimes, if I’m driving and I get tired I pull over and go through a circuit of push ups, sit ups and squats or I run through some of my taekwondo patterns to get the blood flowing and energize my body.
Eating is another area that becomes a mindfulness practice. Because it’s so hard to find good and healthy food on the road, I think carefully about everything that enters my body. Instead of defaulting to restaurants, I’ll often stop in to grocery stores and stock up on fresh fruit and vegetables, pre-mixed salads or healthy instant soups that can be made with only boiling water. Travelling does not have to mean bread, oil and potatoes.
Travelling offers several benefits to the emotional side of mindfulness practice as well. It is a rare trip when everything goes according to plan and delays, changes and inconveniences force me to be mindful of my emotional states and to practice equanimity with people, machines and other pieces of reality that are out of my control. Some of my favourite trips have been those which have gone horribly wrong, with missed connections, bad weather and few options. If I come through those with a minimum of anxiety, the journey and the return home seems sweeter for it.
Travel can be stressful because it breaks our routines and rhythms. We need to become completely dependent on our own resources, carrying everything we need with us. It forces us to make careful choices about what we take and what we do on the road. We have to live differently than we do at home and that forces us to pay more attention to what we are doing. THAT alone is a gift, for if we can use the opportunity to focus ourselves and work with our mind, we can not only travel better, but understand ourselves better as well.
Slow down, be careful and attentive and see what you learn about yourself.
Reasons for Mountain Biking Mounting Biking is for fun Mountain biking will be contrast with hiking. Both have their niche and the choice is ours. We can do both. In the end, it’s matter of personal preference. Relative to hiking, mountain biking might be for fun. The wind in our face, the feeling of speed…. Speed compresses the time interval between successive events such as turns, drops, and climbs and we are forced to think ahead while controlling the bike. The combined mental and physical challenge makes mountain biking fun.
Mountain biking is for exercise Mountain biking is a great low impact, cardiovascular exercise. Aerobic activity, which increases our metabolism, is the best way to burn calories. Aerobic activity also strengthens our heart, lungs and legs muscles. Our blood’s capacity to carry oxygen and nutrients is increased, producing stamina. In this regard, cycling is similar to running.
We can use bike’s gears to regulate the intensity of our cardiovascular workout. Using lower gears for an easy spin brings our heart and respiration rates up to sustainable levels for long periods. Or, use the big gears and feel the burn on short, intense rides.
Because of cardiovascular benefits, some have discovered that biking makes an excellent adjunct spot to other activities, such as hiking and backpacking.
Mountain biking as a challenge Once the sole province of young daredevils, men and women of all ages are now getting into the sport. Part of the attraction is the challenge that comes from the interaction between bike and rider. If we accept this challenge and work at it, our skills will improve. Everyone has personal limits, but practice and tenacity will soon have our riding trails that we once found intimidating. Overcoming these challenges produces a lot of thrills and also provides a sense of accomplishment. Reasons for Mountain Biking
It's really a philosophy for healthy eating that's been around for thousands of years and was put into perspective about 70 years ago by the work of Weston A. Price (WAP). The idea is to eat foods that kept our ancestors healthy and to avoid highly processed and refined foods that are low in nutrients and high in harmful additives. Actually, many people do lose weight using this approach to eating, but the main goal is getting good nutrition for optimal health. Normalizing weight is a fringe benefit :)
Not all of the foods that our ancestors ate were equally healthy. Some foods confer greater health than others. That's what Weston Price studied in the 1920's and 1930's when he traveled around the world to document the native foods that people ate and their health. His conclusion was that the healthiest native diets included animal seafoods, organ meats, and/or dairy in their diet. These are the foods that have provided optimal nutrition for thousands of years. He found that when people abandoned the healthy diet of their ancestors for a more modern diet of refined flour and sugar and highly processed foods, their health suffered greatly.
Today we see a massive shift to highly processed foods in much of the world and a corresponding rise in poor health. Rates of obesity are increasing rapidly as people follow sadly misguided conventional dietary and health advice and are confused and misled by advertising for manufactured fake foods. When they get sick, they are given expensive drugs that often cause more health problems than they solve. It's time to get back to the foods that kept people healthy for thousands of years and shun the modern manufactured fake foods.
The Weston A. Price Foundation (WAPF) has been teaching the about the WAP approach to eating for about 10 years now and is a good source for health and diet information. My experience is that each of us has to discover which ancestral foods are best for us by trial and error. Not all traditional foods are best for everyone. Try them out and find the ones that work best for your health. Here's a WAPF video that discusses Price's teachings:
Some people have food sensitivities to even some traditional foods that others are able to tolerate. Read here for more information about food sensitivities. That's why it's important to find the traditional foods that work best for your own health.
Two of my favorite daily self-care rituals: _____________________________________________
1. My "MDDR" (Minimum Daily Dance Requirement). This is my tongue-in-cheek version of the "MDR" acronym, which stood for Minimum Daily Requirement in regard to vitamins and minerals). My MDDR is to dance at least one whole song every day. Just to be sure it always happens, I do it first thing upon rising in the morning. I love it!
2. "Three Nice Things." A while ago, I read about an experiment where participants (who were challenged by depression) took time every night to write down three nice things that happened to them that day. They also wrote about why they thought those things happened. The study found that this writing exercise markedly decreased symptoms of depression, and even after the participants had stopped doing the writing exercise for three months, the positive change in their mood still remained.
I thought that sounded like a great idea, depression or not. However, I didn't want the pressure of having to analyze the nice things that happened, and it felt like work to have to write anything down before bed. So I came up with my own version of the exercise.
Every night before I go to sleep, I think about three nice things that happened that day. Most days I remember many more than three things, but three is my minimum. Next, I think about three (or more) things I can do tomorrow that I know will make me and/or someone else feel good (the latter having the bonus of making me feel good as well, of course).
When I wake up the next morning, I don't let myself get out of bed until I do the ritual again. That is, I review the previous day and remember three nice things that happened. These can be the same things I thought about the night before, or different ones. After that, I think about three things I can do that day to make the day nicer (again, these can be the same things I thought about the night before, or different ones).
After doing the "Three Nice Things" ritual for while, I got hooked, because it's a sweet thing to do before and after dreamtime. I also noticed that it seems to help me go to sleep, which is a bonus. And it's a double bonus to drift off to sleep every night while thinking about nice things!
Over time, I've noticed that this simple ritual seems to be changing my ongoing daily thought patterns at deep-brain levels without further "efforting" on my part. In particular, I've noticed that my overall sense of gratitude and my focus on what's working (as opposed to what's not working) have both greatly increased. I mean, I've always been a grateful sort of person since I was a child. Even so, I strive to be even more appreciative of everyone and everything--and one of my goals in life is to experience gratitude as a constant state.
"Three Nice Things" has helped me tremendously in this regard, so I've made it part of my daily (and nightly) rituals for self-care. I don't know if my version of this exercise would have the same effect on another person's focus and "gratitude barometer," but who knows? Maybe the ripple effects for someone else might transport them to other equally lovely dimensions of life!
Dietary Fiber Recognition of dietary fiber as an important food component was reawakened in the mid 1970s. Since the simple notion that “roughage” relieves constipation has been replaces by the concept of an active dietary fiber with its many possible implications for general health. Result from the extensive research devoted to the dietary fiber during the last 15 or so years have suggested this food component may be quiet important in the prevention and management of a wide variety of disease states. Not surprisingly, fiber has been implicated as important in various aspect of bowel function. The metabolic diseases, diabetes and obesity, are believed by some researches s to be more easily regulated with high fiber and fiber supplemented diets. Fiber has also has been implicated in the control or prevention of variety of carcinomas as well as certain diseases affecting the cardiovascular system.
The varying aspects of the fiber observed by researches are related to the fact that dietary fiber is made up of different compositions, each with its own distinctive characteristics. Delineation of these many components plus their various, distinctive characteristics emphasizes fact that dietary fiber cannot be considered a single entity.
Food components figures of fiber traditionally have referred to crude fiber, primarily cellulose, rather than being inclusive for the various component making up dietary fiber. Dietary Fiber
The thought just came into my mind about a ritual of mine. Thanking whatever spiritual beings that surround me for the wonderful people in my life!!!!!!!! I feel that I should never take them for granted and should let my spirits know!!!!!!!!
Another ritual........I do many things that incorporate the number 8.
I have rituals and they change in the details of how they unfold.
I have a morning practice that I do at least 5 or 6 days a week. The goal of the practice is to have some time for moving my body, some time for meditation and some time for written reflection. Having said that, the details depend on the time available. Some mornings I have only 30 minutes and then it gets pretty compressed. Mostly, I like to have an hour. An hour and a half is delightful (although more and more rare). My morning movement varies – mostly yoga stretches. I try to do at least a few minutes of some kind of stretching.
Recently, I was doing the Presence Process by Michael Brown. Doing that work, my meditation takes 30 minutes to an hour which pretty much squeezes out the other aspects. It also has added an evening meditation.
Other rituals – I call my Uncle Walt weekly. He is 91 and living alone in his own house. Actually, I have a ritual about calling all of my family – so I am in touch at least every couple of weeks.
I do intensive exercise – preferably NIA or yoga 2-3 times a week and try to do some exercise daily. Lots of walking.
I now have a ritual of taking an extensive set of supplements in the morning – but that is new in the last six months.
I mix my Alexander restorative rest and a series of healing visualizations.
So, as you can surmise, this all rises and falls depending on the time available. Some days it is very compressed and not all of it happens and occasionally I actually do it all!
Active Lifestyle
Park and walk several blocks to work or to the store instead of circling the parking lot looking for the perfect, up close parking space.
