WE LOVE EVERY NEW FAD.  IT’S LIKE THE PROVERBIAL “EATING AN ELEPHANT?”

How do you eat an elephant?

“One bite at a time,” as they say.

LATEST NEW TREND, DETOXING, IS LIKE THE PROVERBIAL EATING AN ELEPHANT

Grab the newest fad.   If it’s a new thing it looks exciting.  Not one bite at a time.  Let’s just do it!

We get excited about a new trend and go to it, no piecemeal for us.   If it’s a new fad we jump on the bandwagon NOW!

NEW PROJECT SOUNDS EXCITING, MAKE A TEAM

Empty the schedule, make calendar/Day Timer note, “Elephant eating,” get supply box with big knife, forks, water bottle…  Get a team.

First of the week.  Gather the team, and supplies.  Begin, one bite at a time.

Going great at first:  “It’s great to have a goal.  Finally got up courage to do this.” “Glad you guys are with me, part of something big!”

EXCITEMENT WANES AS WE SEE THE SIZE OF THE PROJECT

But…after 4-5 days, half of the team doesn’t show.  Excuses,  last-minute appointments, car breaks down, lost the big knife, mother-in-law getting married….

Elephant eating is a big job.  “It’s not as though I don’t have a million other things that take my time,”  “How big is an elephant?” “How many days…”

It’s not easy sticking with a project, especially one that will take a long, loong time.

WE ALL LOVE EXCITING NEW TRENDS AND FADS

We love fads as long as they don’t last too long.

In that way a fast/cleanse/detox is like eating an elephant.   The proverbial “40 days and 40 nights,” of lemon, water, and juices.

Master cleanses are like that.  BIG ELEPHANTS.  Fads everywhere.  T.V. advertising, the World Wide Web  Master  Cleanses,  Detox Programs.

We jump on the latest great idea, the magic health cure without taking our stressful schedules into account.   It’s just life, but every minute of every day is packed with activity.   We think it’s no big deal to add a detox.   We have little respect for what our body is required to do.

Problem is, we start and because we’re not educated about what is involved we don’t stick with the program.  Healthy living is about little changes to the daily routine, changes that, over time, support true health.  Habits that remain part of everyday life.

TOXIN BUILDUP SLOWS BODY SYSTEMS

Don’t get me wrong. I’m in favor of regular cleanse/detox.  John and I do a cleanse on a regular basis.

Toxins slow normal actions of our organs.  Cleanse systems (liver, kidneys, colon, skin, and lungs) don’t function 100% when sludge keeps them from working smoothly.   We gain weight, especially around the middle,  when our bodies can’t clean out toxins.  So, yes, do a detox/cleanse.

But pick a detox you can fit into your already busy, stressful life.  Begin slowly if you intend to take this regular habit into your healthy routine.

INCLUDE PROTEIN TO RETAIN LEAN MUSCLE

A few tips for your journey:

• Always include protein when you’re cleansing.  During a detox you’re restricting calories, so your body might interpret that restriction as famine and lower your metabolism.  Without protein along with your detox drink, your body may take calories from lean muscle, not from stored fat.  Snacks can include boiled egg and a small green salad with lemon juice dressing, a handful of raw almonds, or celery sticks. This should go without saying, but avoid all processed foods which are mostly carbohydrate-based, and have no essential nutrients.

• When you’re not eating normal meals, you’re allowing your body to switch from digesting food to cleansing.  Respect and support your internal wisdom. Don’t ask your body to support heavy exercise.  You won’t profit from your detox.

• Cut back on exercise. An extended cleanse/detox can, if you allow your inner wisdom to guide, bring you to a “different” reality.  You might want to let that happen.  Some have noticed a more introspective, a more “spiritual” mood.  Respect that and take time to assess your life.  Instead of vigorous exercise, take a walk outside, in the fresh air noticing the natural world.

• Keep a journal.  If you’re serious about a healthy lifestyle, and if you believe your body has internal wisdom, you want to learn from yourself, and you’ll want a record of that learning, during this experience.

• Do not do any detox or cleanse if you have health problems, such as diabetes, unless you’re under the direct care of a physician.   This is very important.  Check with your doctor first.

John and I have what I think is a great routine.  We take 1/4 cup of Isagenix “Cleanse for Life” drink every night just before bed (2 hours without food between dinner and bedtime).

That way we’re cleansing all night as we sleep!   Regular cleansing routine is easy, and over time we’ve lost a lot of that bulge around the middle.

SHARE YOUR PRODUCTS AND IDEAS WITH US BELOW

Whatever product you use and either love/hate share your thoughts in the “Comments” section below and let’s learn from each other.   It’s much easier to find a routine and stick to it when you’re talking to others and sharing ideas.

Hope to “see” you below soon!

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What’s the hardest part of healthy eating?  Fixing the food!  That’s what.

1. Do you know what’s healthy? 
2. If you’re eating whole food, real food, someone is fixing it.

Maybe YOU do know what’s healthy, but it’s obvious that many Americans are not eating healthy.  Diabetes, and obesity in the U.S, so someone out there is not eating healthy whole food.

Before we get going you should know that many of my ideas about healthy eating come from Michael Pollan (The Omnivore’s Dilemma, et al) and Dr. Mercola’s newsletter (www.drmercola.com). 

We’ve heard this same old advice so many times we no longer take it seriously. So, for the purpose of this article we’ll zero in on just a few ideas that seem to me, pivotal points for eating well in today’s fast-food culture.

• Eat vegetables and whole foods
• Not too much sugar, and really watch the fructose
• Eat breakfast, but be careful of what you’re eating.

Michael Pollan is famous for the “eat real food” phrase.  He doesn’t consider anything in a package, especially if it has a label with “health claims,” ”real food.”  (This doesn’t count produce with those little sticky labels on their sides.)

Real food is close to how it grows in nature.  Part of your diet should include raw foods, fruits and vegetables in hand or in salads.  You don’t have to make a big deal over this.  I’m not saying we should eat everythng raw, although there are those who recommend raw for a healing diet.  Carrot and celery sticks for lunches and dinner.  Cucumber slices, radishes.  When I grew up we had carrot and celery sticks every night with dinner.  My mother’s habit food.

It does mean, though, that most of what we eat for dinner/lunch will have to be cooked by someone. 

This is America’s soft underbelly–why we’re vulnerable and unhealthy.  We’ve gotten out of the habit of preparing meals.  Noone’s cooking.  Meals are something we throw, already processed, into the microwave to heat. This is our problem.

There has to be someone in the family willing to prepare meals.  Without that person you’ll eat processed food from which most of the nutrition has been leached and to which preservatives and sugar have been added for palatability.  Much food value has been removed.  Is that why processed foods have nutrition labels…

That’s the family discussion you’ll have to have.  Who will be major domo food-preparer/organizer?   

Get a crock pot.  I use mine several times a week.  Weekly grocery shopping centers around one meal I prepare in quanity on the weekend.  It’s enough food to go for a few meals so get a big crock pot.  They’re around $20-30.  Make soups, stews, spaghetti.  Teach the kids to make soup.  Cook a chicken and vegetables in the crock.  Serve as is one meal, add canned tomatoes and Italian seasoning and serve over pasta for a second meal, and then make soup with what’s left.  That’s the idea. 

You’ll save money on groceries.  With commodity prices rising you’ll want to buy in bulk anyway, whenever you can.

Share some of your ideas with the group here.  We’re a creative bunch, but we often don’t plan ahead. If you’re not looking ahead you’re going to get caught when food prices really rise…

P.S. Don’t tell me you don’t have time to prepare food. When food prices rise high enough, you’ll begin to notice, and you’ll have to start fixing your food.  Start thinking about it now.

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We’re making Christmas cookies!    These are Peanut blossoms.

I suppose most families have traditional foods this time of year.  John’s family was famous for Christmas cookies: green spritz wreaths decorated with tiny red berries–real works of art, powdered-sugar snowy Mexican wedding cakes, red-sprinkled shortbread, peanut blossoms, and tangy lemon bars. 

Mexican Wedding Cakes

Made with butter!

I don’t bake as much as I used to, but when I take time to make holiday cookies I use butter.  None of the chemical concoctions manipulated to taste like butter.  I use the real thing or I don’t bother. 

Since this is a blog devoted to healthy living, (Healthylivingbeyondfifty.com/) why, you might ask, am I devoting an article to baking Christmas cookies with butter?  Actually butter is something we should talk about.

A couple of Michael Pollan’s rules for healthy eating, “In Defense of Food,” are

• Eat Food.  ”Avoid food products containing ingredients that are unfamiliar, unpronounceable, more than five in number…”
• “Avoid food products that make health claims.”

(You know Michael Pollan…”The Botany of Desire,” “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” and “In Defense of Food.”)

Pollan means you should eat things your body recognizes as food, not chemical concoctions stirred up in a lab by white-coats who have never touched a cow, let alone milked one.  Processed foods make your liver work overtime trying to break up and excrete the toxins they contain.

Your body recognizes butter.  It knows what to do with it.  It’s just butter, and, hopefully, it’s organic without antibiotics or hormones which very often are part of the cow’s food and which are, once again, toxic to our bodies.

What about Pollan’s second point: health claims?  What’s wrong with health claims? 

Whole foods don’t come with written health claims. There’s no list of health benefits on the side of an orange or apple, ribe eye steak,  or an onion.

If it’s packaged with health claims on the side of the box it’s probably processed.  If it’s processed most nutritional value has been removed because nutrients are the part of food that spoils and shortens “shelf-life.”  Shorter shelf life means lower corporate profits.

Look at a package of breakfast cereal.  Natural, essential-for-good-health nutrients are removed so the cereal can sit forever on the shelf.  To sell you on buying it, though, the sides of the box will be plastered with health claims for the few chemical vitamins that have been added back to replace lost nutrients.

Some mis-guided advice tells us to avoid butter because it’s a saturated fat that will raise “bad” blood cholesterol and also cause weight gain. According to Dr. Mercola butter slashes heart attack risk in  half.

Gaining weight?  You’re more likely to gain weight on simple carbohydrate foods, processed foods containing simple carbs, and toxins your liver can’t break down for excretion. 

Natural saturated fats such as coconut and butter are stable.  Some vegetable oils, on the other hand, turn into unstable compounds that aren’t good for your body. 

Butter is especially good when it comes from cows eating green grass because it contains a compound that helps build muscle rather than store fat, and it has an excellent ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 fatty acids.  It contains many fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, K) and essential minerals difficult to get in our depleted western diet.  I always buy organic butter (Organic Valley brand) because it doesn’t contain those antibiotics and hormones.

Holiday baking is one of the fun things we do.  John is in the kitchen right now perpetuating the family tradition.  I think it’s lemon bars today.  Our two grandsons will be here next week, and they check out the cookie area where we stack the tins.  Father Daniel parses out the cookies or they’d finish them all in one fell swoop, I’m sure.

Have fun baking and sharing with friends and family. 

P.S.  Oh.  If you want to check out Dr. Mercola’s article on butter here’s the link.  More nutritional information that I quoted here.  http://bit.ly/hC84kQ

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Grow your own organic food

Organic food.  Not processed food.  Whole food at your fingertips.

PIcture big city (New York).  It’s summer and it’s hot. Farmers markets, fresh organic produce, and neighborhood gardens bursting with tasty, read-to-eat veggies, picnic in the park.  

Six months from now: Hunker down in cold, snowy, icy, blustery, sleety winter.  No-Fresh-Food.  Vegetables from the truck at the store.

Does that stop some of these people from enjoying fresh organic food?  No.  Not on your life.  I laughed with delight at this video, the inventiveness and creativity of my fellow humans.  There’s hope for any problem we face when individuals tackle the problem with this sort of creativity.  Watch this video.  You’ll love it.

Might give you some ideas…

Here’s the link http://www.windowfarms.org/

Blessing on all of you.  May good food and sunshine fill your days,

Janice

hmmm…I have a kitchen window that faces direct east in the winter… They have a kit…Want to try this for winter?  Let me know.  We’ll share ideas.

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Cleansing is the answer to diets. Regular cleansing takes care of diets–throws them in the trash.  American, though, are still obsessed.

My Oprah magazine just came. The cover story for the September issue, is ”Finding the diet that fits your life. 

Americans have a love/hate relationship with food. We’re dieting, counting calories, watching our weight, continually on some diet or restricted food plan. And yet, a high percentage of us are not only overweight, but obese.

Why do we have so much trouble with food?

Why can’t we relax and enjoy something that’s such a big part of living? Other cultures don’t seem to have these American hangups.  Look at the French, for example, and you’ll see a lot of slender French people eating gobs of saturated fat washed down with wine. These are a people who have a relationship to food completely different from ours, according to Michael Pollan, In Defense of Food.

The French eat small portions, don’t come back for seconds, and they spend considerably more time eating than we do. Taken together, these habits contribute to a food culture in which the French consume fewer calories than we do, yet manage to enjoy them far more,” page 183.

• Drink a large glass of water first thing in the morning to hydrate your brain. Continue drinking water throughout the day.
• Follow with breakfast, containing high-quality protein along with carbohydrate and fat.
• Have a 100 calorie snack about 10:00 a.m. (raw nuts, celery, carrots, vegetables, nut butters, tuna, and crackers.)
• Drink water throughout the day.
• At Lunch include high quality protein with carbohydrate and fat. 
• It’s another snack at 3:00 p.m. Aim for 3 snacks and 3 balanced meals every day.
• Evening meal around 5:30, or 6:00.
• Snack at 8:00 if you head for bed around 10:00.

EAT MORE FOOD TO RELEASE MORE FAT

1. Three 100-calorie snacks a day. Eat more to get best results because you don’t want to go more than 3 hours without eating something with protein. If you restrict calories, don’t eat, your body will lower metabolism and drop into starvation mode.
2. Avoid processed food, anything with high fructose corn syrup, long chemical names. These products are not food. Much of what we see in our groceries is a chemical rearrangement of three ingredients: corn, soy, and wheat, not real food.  When Pollan says, “Eat food, not too much, mostly vegetables,” he’s not referring to processed food which is fake.
3. Don’t avoid good fats found in eggs from open-range chickens, avocados, coconut, healthy fish, olilve oil, and butter from grass-finished cows. America’s diet is devoid of Omega-3 fatty acids that are very important to all aspects of good health.
4. Take time to prepare food, eat slowly, and enjoy it with someone you love.

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