Healthy Living

Well, the pounds keep melting off! I went to landsend.com a couple weeks ago to buy two new swimsuits for the summer and found, much to my surprise, I was now a size 22!--read more

Have you gotten the Great Respiratory Virus of 2008?--read more

Anyone here go to the gym? What gyms do you all go to and how do you like it there?

I juts started going back to the gym like i used to, and i have to say i enjoy it.

I've been slowly and steadily loosing weight since last fall and I've now reached my first major benchmark, I've gone down a whole size!--read more

I walked Friday night 30 min @3 mph with a 1%. Sunday walked 20 min @3 mph with a 2% incline and this morning walked 25 min @ 3mph and 2% incline.--read more

This week I did something very exciting -- I cut my Effexor dose in half again, and added a bit of Lexapro, in order to get off Effexor completely.--read more

I love walking in the rain but have not done it for some time, since my regular walking program fell apart oh, say, 8 years ago.--read more

Oh, no, not back to school or, heaven forfend, the holidays. No, when you're my age, "that time of the year" means your period.

It hasn't been a year since my last one, it just feels like it. It's been about three months. The first month, I forgot about it. Midway through the second month, I got nervous and took a pg test (negative). And then I promptly forgot it again until this morning.

It explains why I've been feeling out of sorts the last few days, complete with PVCs. Those things had nearly disappeared, and it was disconcerting to have them back. And I gained a bunch of weight in the last two weeks that was driving me crazy, what with the walking I've been doing.

This morning I asked John, "So if women get to be cranky one week out of four when we're having a period every monthh, does this mean I get to be cranky three months out of twelve when I'm having one once a year?"

He said no.

Phooey.

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One of the best new things I tried in my class was Tai Chi. I had never really thought much about tai chi -- I have done yoga, dance, all kinds of things, but tai chi just wasn't one of them.--read more

I recently took a class called Resilience Training, and I am really hoping to put some of the things I learned to regular use, so I'm hoping that writing about them will help.--read more

Who said when you are over fifty and a grandparent of a 15 year old male, a 12 and 7 year old female that you have to act like a granny nanny?--read more

Let's see, I've been wallowing around in Dental Hell for what feels like months, painting and doing home improvements like mad before the upcoming visits by my mother and my MIL & FIL in July, and not--read more

I fell off the treadmill, so to speak. I didn't get on it for about three weeks. I can't really say why. I wasn't feeling well, it was hot, blah blah blah.

So I decided to research exercise motivation strategies and found one (and only one, strangely) really good article: The Motivation to Move. Answering the questions in that piece really brought it into focus for me.

I'm still not used to exercise making me feel better, but after my rehab experience, it's true: I feel better when I get on the damn treadmill. My PVCs diminish, I sleep better, I stand straighter--everything's better with the treadmill.

All other reasons fade into the background for me. That's my sole exercise motivator. Some people need variety. I don't care if all I ever do is the treadmill. Some people need company. I prefer to be alone with my audiobooks. And so on. The only motivator I have is that I feel better.

What is/are your exercise motivator(s)? Or are you still looking for yours?

The last few days I've spent really struggling with the server this website sits on. It's been nearly nonstop, and every time I thought I had it fixed, a few hours later it'd be broken again.

So for the rest of the week, I am resting. Resting is one of the hardest things I ever do, I'm really bad at it. I have a great deal to do on the site, but there's always a great deal to do. But now that the server's working, the rest of it can wait.

I'll still be around, reading and such, but not posting on the blog. I need to rest and take care of myself, so that's what I'm going to do. See you in a few days!

Guess what I just read? iPods can make pacemakers malfunction:

iPods can cause cardiac implantable pacemakers to malfunction by interfering with the electromagnetic equipment monitoring the heart, according to a study presented by a 17-year-old high school student to a meeting of heart specialists on Thursday.

The study tested the effect of the portable music devices on 100 patients, whose mean age was 77, outfitted with pacemakers. Electrical interference was detected half of the time when the iPod was held just 2 inches from the patient's chest for 5 to 10 seconds.

The study did not examine any portable music devices other than iPods, which are made by Apple Inc.

In some cases, the iPods caused interference when held 18 inches from the chest. Interfering with the telemetry equipment caused the device to misread the heart's pacing and in one case caused the pacemaker to stop functioning altogether.

frickety frack frick-a-frack.

Next note to self: Don't put the iPod over your heart...

I took two 1 mg melatonin tablets last night in hopes of helping my sleep; I've heard people talk about doses anywhere from 1/2 mg to 10 mg. While I did get to sleep I had trouble staying asleep; I had dreams weird enough to verge on the nightmarish. Known side effect. So tonight I'm back to 1 mg. I feel like crap today, though I can't say whether it's the sleep issue.

TNH's edition of "The American Frugal Housewife" from 1832 is now available in wire-bound paperback. It's $9.95 from CafePress. The ebook is available here at TNH for $1.95, 10% discount for members, 75% discount for subscribers. (Discounts don't apply to paperback editions.)

I've written here before about how inspirational I have found the Dervaes family of Pasadena, CA, which homesteads on a large city lot. Well, meet a new inspiration, No Impact Man, who is trying to live in extreme simplicity in New York City:

My wife Michelle and I decided, before jumping in at the deep end of this year-long project, to try no impact living as an experiment for a week. No garbage. No greenhouse gasses. No toxins. No water pollution. No air pollution. No electricity. No produce shipped from distant lands. No impact. Or so we naively hoped. ...

The fact is that if city dwellers can’t learn to live without reducing their ecological footprint then we’re in deep trouble because most of the world’s population now lives in cities. Saving the world can’t be left to the country bumpkins. It’s an urban problem. ...

In specific terms, the challenge is to take a year to develop and live a no impact lifestyle. Our approach will be to research our ecological options and run down our damage in one area at a time—solid waste, transportation, energy, for example. Our aim, over the course of the year, is to do no net harm to the environment. We’ll wind down in stages.

A brave experiment and engagingly written. I'll be watching them to see how they do.

"Who cares? I don't have pet pigs." Yeah, but I bet you've been known to eat pigs:

Pet food contaminated with an industrial chemical made its way to large hog farms in six states across the country and has been detected in the animals' urine, the Food and Drug Administration said today.

Hogs in three states -- North Carolina, South Carolina and California -- tested positive for melamine in their urine, said David Elder, the FDA's chief enforcement officer. The FDA does not know whether the chemical ended up in the urine of the hogs in the other states -- New York, Utah and Ohio.

Contaminated pet food also made its way to a poultry farm in Missouri, the FDA said in a telephone news conference.

And yes, pork from those contaminated pigs was sold in California. No word yet on whether the meat had melamine in it or not. Moral of the story: Know your farmer. Don't have a farmer? Get one.

The news has been a bit much lately.--read more

I'll keep saying this until people start believing me! And citing evidence that keeps coming in inexorably, like the tide. For instance, this: Fatty acid tied to depression and inflammation:

The imbalance of fatty acids in the typical American diet could be associated with the sharp increase in heart disease and depression seen over the past century, a new study suggests.

Specifically, the more omega-6 fatty acids people had in their blood compared with omega-3 fatty acid levels, the more likely they were to suffer from symptoms of depression and have higher blood levels of inflammation-promoting compounds, report Dr. Janice K. Kiecolt-Glaser and her colleagues from Ohio State University College of Medicine in Columbus.

These compounds, which include tumor necrosis factor alpha and interleukin-6, are "all-purpose 'nasties' for aging," and have been tied to heart disease, type 2 diabetes, arthritis and other ailments, Kiecolt-Glaser told Reuters Health.

Omega-3 fatty acids are found in foods such as fish, flax seed oil and walnuts, while omega-6 fatty acids are found in refined vegetable oils used to make everything from margarine to baked goods and snack foods. The amount of omega-6 fatty acids in the Western diet increased sharply once refined vegetable oils became part of the average diet in the early 20th century.

Vegetable oils are for fueling your car or oiling your furniture. They are not for eating. What is? How about butter? Or homemade lard? If you must use vegetable oils, use olive, coconut or palm.

Got Spelt?--read more

I only had the stomach part of this bug for about 36 hours, but through today I have been as wrung out as a dishrag--just exhausted. We went to church Sunday night because the girls were in a pageant; by the end of the night I was so tired I shook walking back to the car.

Anhata came over today and helped me get a little caught up with laundry--thanks again, Hata--and tomorrow I'm going to try going in to the rehab gym. I'm nervous. I'm not feeling 100% yet and I have to drive myself. We'll see what happens, I'm going to take it very easy tomorrow.--read more

I've got a stomach flu. I've managed to choke down a couple of popsicles and that'll be dinner tonight. John and the girls made mashed potatoes and steak and it's weird: It smells wonderful and horrible all at the same time. I'll probably be mostly AWOL till Saturday.

Oh! John's first day of work was today. It went well. It's going to be good.--read more

I got an email today listing all of the various ways agri-business tries to pass itself off in the health food segment as small, mom and pop natural/organic companies. Most of them I knew about--when in doubt, assume it's owned by Hain-Celestial--but this I did not know about: Colgate bought Tom's of Maine last year. I'm almost as upset as when Kraft originally bought Celestial Seasonings in 1984. I honestly thought Tom's was still owned by the Chappelles. Perhaps it's time to start making my own.--read more

Has anyone here tried one of those menstrual cups (rather than disposable feminine products)? I've been looking into it, and wanted some opinions other than those written on their websites!

Thanks!--read more

Which one is true?

Starve a cold and feed a fever

or

Feed a cold and starve a fever

-miserable in Florida