Sunday, January 25, 2009

What a Week

and if you are not inspired yet, I would encourage you to open your eyes and see what we are living. There is finally someone who is taking the country's interest at heart. I do believe that where we are now starts the collaboration between two seemingly different ideologies to come up with a plan to help us start a new tomorrow. WITHOUT all the special interests....maybe.
I know this is a deviation from my usual rants on health, but my mental and emotional health has improved this week with the hope that things are going to change. That we don't have to destroy other lands to spread love and democracy. That we don't have to have a trickle down effect so that the CEO's get all the benefits while the rest of us wait at the bottom of the food chain. That we can open our minds to the possibilities that we don't have to do the same old thing with the same old results. We are being fleeced everyday by programs that don't work. We are being cheated by government offices that allow our families to injest poison legally. We are told that living in a clean world just won't work for us. Well, this week says that maybe we can. Maybe we can stand up to all of the big businesses that think they can spend our money irresponsibly. Maybe we can have a say about our own health care, our own bodies, and our own lives (isn't that in the constitution?). Maybe we don't have to see a gloomy future of nothing but war, cancer, and poverty.
This week, on the health front, was the first week that there was a legal stem cell trial done for a spinal ailment. Thank goodness it happened, and lives can be saved. It happened without a lot of hoopla or craziness. It's just the right thing to do to save lives.
Let's end the anger and animosity and just do it. Just live for tomorrow. For our kids.

Monday, January 19, 2009

Les Mills Review

I spent the weekend with my pregnant butt on a bicycle seat, in the interest of finding out all about this Les Mills RPM program I have heard all about. It is to be discovered how patrons will feel about specifically choreographed biking, but it has its positives.
-there is emphasis on body form and care for the back
-music is predetermined to ensure a varied terrain (though the terrain will always be the same type in ratio of flat to hill)
-all classes will be the same so that patrons can memorize what to do and focus on doing it well.
-speed drills are to mimic outdoor cycling

I guess that is a positive and a negative. After all, I feel the brain must be working in order for the body to get full benefit of the exercise, and we don't want people to tune out and go on auto pilot. The instructor must be good at keeping people engaged in order to avoid this.

The cycling programs I usually teach are harder on the muscles than this program. This program is more about speed and VERY short intervals of work. It will be discovered as to whether we see benefit on the body from that ideal.

Sunday, January 4, 2009

It makes me SICK...

If it is not bad enough that we have to worry about pesticides on our vegetables and deadly bacteria growing in our meats, but now we have to worry about ARSENIC in chicken. ARESENIC? Did I read that right? Isn't that the famous poison they use in the movies to kill people? Yes. Chicken farmers feed it to their chickens. And it's LEGAL. You injest it when you eat chicken...
UNLESS you are looking at organic and farm-raised chicken. Hmmm....let's rethink what we thought before about that. My pregnant body has injested ARSENIC, therefore, my tiny lemon-sized person inside has ARSENIC in its body. How incredibly INSANE that is. And my 4-year-old? ARSENIC is in her blood!
What's the moral of the story? Let's do our research and buy products with social consciousness. Organic and farm-raised might take more money, but ARSENIC? No, I will spend the money to save my body and my family from poison! And, I will use other forms of protein more often. Besides, I am terrified of the amount of mercury in local fish, and I am uncertain about all forms of animal proteins that are not farm raised. Organic beans, tofu, and rBST-free cheeses are less expensive in the long run, so those may be my new choices.
USDA and FDA need to get on the BALL. Our lives should not matter less than keeping these unhealthy businesses growing. I am SICK of government caring more about them than us.
Keep reading and keep sharing. Otherwise, we won't be told.

more goals

I had to keep the previous blog brief. Here are some more things to do for 21 days to really kick the health quotient up.
1. eat your fruits and veggies. go for a baseball size of fruit or veggie with every meal, and at least one snack every day.
2. get your fiber. start your day with a high-fiber cereal (like All Bran or Fiber One or good old fashioned oatmeal), fill up on veggies, beans, and legumes.
3. lower your salt intake. don't cook with salt, and definitely don't add it on the table. Try pepper spices and no-sodium alternatives. for snacks, if you are a salty snacker, move to Soy Crisps or flavored popcorn cakes instead of chips, and slowly reduce your intake of those.
4. less sugar. You can switch your sugar add-ins with Splenda for a while and slowly reduce the amount you use. Definitely go for sugar-free prepackaged snacks like sugar free yogurt. Get rid of the junk food in your house and replace it with simpler snacks. Need a fix? Try a fudgsicle or a tootsie roll. They are sweet without packing on the calories.
5. reduce your stress. If exercise, diet, and sleep schedule do not fix the stress issue, look into alternative therapies like massage therapy and acupuncture. Stress affects everything on this list, so we want to work it down to a push of happiness intead.