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.
Limit foods and beverages with added sugar
