Child Nutrition and the Obesity Epidemic

I'm thinking about starting a newsletter about child nutrition and the obesity epidemic. This is a topic I've been thinking about a lot lately. I feel like I need to do something, but I just can't figure out what. It seems like a losing battle; no matter what anyone does, this epidemic never seems to get any better. If we can't get the parents to change their mindset, it never is going to get better. This is something that needs to be handled from the roots. Policies and school lunches are not going to teach parents how to feed their children and take nutrition seriously.

So, in an attempt to handle things from the ground up, I'm going to start a monthly newsletter. I'll gather facts and statistics and healthy kid-friendly recipes. Each month I'll try to find a new topic to cover. Maybe I'll poll people to see what they would like to learn about. Working at a daycare gives me an audience, and maybe HealthSmart will let me put the newsletters out on their little table by the door.

What kind of things would you want to read about in this type of newsletter?

Dr. Oz's 7-day Energy Surge

I don't watch much day time TV, but today I happened to watch Dr. Oz. One segment of his show today addressed the fact that 2/3 of American women are sleep-deprived. He offered a "7-day energy surge" to boost your energy levels for the rest of your life. I was happy to see that I'm already doing most of the things he recommended.

The first step is to make over your morning. When you first wake up, instead of just jumping out of bed, lay in bed and take a deep breath. Cover your eyes with your palms and massage your forehead with your fingers. Then, breathe in for six counts and out for six counts. Then, when you get up, turn on the lights to tell your body that it's time to wake up. Once you're up, eat a healthy and hearty breakfast. Make sure it's full of protein and fiber. One recommendation was to eat muesli. It's a cereal like oatmeal and is very nutrient-rich. I often eat this for breakfast and it really makes my mornings better.

The next step is to add certain vitamins into your diet. The two that were spoken of were magnesium and tyrosine. Here is a clip from Dr. Oz's website: "Magnesium activates enzymes that contribute to energy production and helps regulate the levels of important nutrients like calcium, copper, zinc, potassium and vitamin D. While you can get magnesium from foods like whole grains, nuts and leafy green vegetables, most Americans need a supplement to reach the recommended daily value: 400 mg magnesium with 600 mg calcium." Again, here is a clip from the website on tyrosine: "Tyrosine is a nonessential amino acid and a building block for the mood-enhancing neurotransmitters epinephrine, norepinephrine and dopamine. Chronic stress can deplete your level of tyrosine and contribute to feelings of exhaustion. Tyrosine supplements should be taken in 500 mg doses 3 times a day, at least 30 minutes before meals. For a super boost, open a 500 mg tyrosine capsule, place the powder under your tongue and let it dissolve. It has a chalk-like consistency that may be hard to swallow, so take water as needed."

The third step is to replace your afternoon pick-me-up with a shot of wheatgrass. Wheatgrass is a superfood that is full of antioxidants, stimulates metabolism, and alkalinilizes your body. If you can't find it fresh, it can be purchased in powder form. This is something I've never tried, but I know that it's good for you. I do plan on giving this a try in the near future, as well as the magnesium and tyrosine.

The fourth and final step is to make your sleep easy and restful. Listen to music for at least 45 minutes before your bed time. Turn your alarm clock away from you so you don't watch the clock as you're falling asleep. When you have to get up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, use a low night light. This way, your body won't wake up too much to fall back asleep quickly when you go back to bed.

Most of these things are things that I already do. I take supplements, but I want to try magnesium and tyrosine. I also want to try the afternoon shot of wheatgrass. I think my morning and before bed routines are pretty good right now, but I'm sure there's room for improvement.

What do you do to de-stress and energize yourself? Will you try the 7-day Energy Surge?

Today's Post a Day topic suggestion is: What would you do with a million dollars? I think I'll answer that since I really have nothing much to say today.

The first thing I would do is to pay off my remaining debt. Then I would move back to California and buy a nice house. I wouldn't buy a huge house though. I just want something that is nice and manageable. Then I would open some sort of business. It would probably be either a health food store or a gym/weight loss center. Or maybe even a combination of the two. Or, maybe it would be a health food store that offers weight loss and healthy living counseling. That sounds pretty cool.

Cooking Dinner

I made dinner tonight. It's quite unusual for me. I never cook. I know, it's usually the wife's job to make dinner, but it's not mine. Chad enjoys cooking and is very good at it while I usually do not enjoy it and am not good at it. Thus, Chad does the cooking. Today, however, I got a strange urge to make dinner. I also wanted to make a Santa Fe style type of dish. In particular, I was feeling corn, black beans, rice and tortillas. So we went to the store and started to make the dish in my head. I ended up cooking rice and frying it up with corn, black beans, tomatoes, and peppers. I then squeezed some lime into it. I got some tortillas and used them to eat the rice dish with. We also got some organic salsa at Healthsmart and topped the dish with that. I suppose you could say I made fajitas. I have to say, it was pretty good. It was also very filling. Now I just have to do the dishes.

My Trip to the ER

My readers, I have failed you once again. I haven't been blogging daily. I do have a somewhat reasonable excuse for that though. I have been very sick. Everything in my life has been neglected for past several days. This includes my apartment, which I've been so proud of lately. I'm ashamed of the way it looks right now, but I can only do so much when my body is punishing me so severely. It makes for an interesting story though.

Saturday, before I had a chance to do the chores I needed to, Chad decided that it was time to go out. We needed to go to the store, so I put things here in the apartment on hold. We went to the grocery store, Healthsmart, and then stopped at our favorite local eatery, Delightfully Yours. Just before going to the restaurant, I started feeling a little off. I thought maybe I was just hungry because I had some pangs in my stomach. After I started eating, however, I realized that wasn't so. I couldn't finish my meal and I didn't want to stay out and get coffee. So, we went home and I laid down on the couch.

Not long after getting home, I got really sick. I started throwing up and I had awful cramping in my abdomen which also traveled to my back after a while. I've had a stomach virus before, but this was nothing like I had ever experienced. After about five trips to the bathroom, Chad decided to take me to the hospital. I couldn't even take a sip of water without throwing up and I was starting to feel dehydrated. Also, the cramping in my abdomen and back was getting exponentially worse.

Upon arriving at the hospital we filled out all my information, answered a bunch of questions, took my vitals and what-not, and then was placed in a bed in the ER. It took an hour for the doctor to come see me. By then, Chad said I looked like a dead person. According to him, my lips were blue-ish and my face was pale and jaundiced. After I was seen by the doctor, they put me on an IV with fluids and some anti-vomiting medicine. FINALLY I was starting to feel better. Then another nurse came to take me to get X-Rays during which I almost passed out due to the anti-vomiting medication I received. They wheeled me around in a wheel chair, which was a weird experience for me. The only other time I've been in a wheel chair was right after I had my wisdom teeth removed and I was pretty loopy.

After that, I laid in my bed while the fluids drained into my body and slept on and off. Finally, just before 4am (it was 9:30pm when we left for the hospital), I was released. I was diagnosed with a stomach virus and a UTI (which explained the cramping in my abdomen). I was prescribed some antibiotics and was told to take over-the-counter pain meds if I needed them. Chad pulled the car around and my nurse wheeled me to the front door. She was really nice to me the whole time and I wish I had been coherent so that I could have learned her name and got her a card or something.

This was quite the experience for me. I've never been taken to the ER before. So, that's my crazy story for you. Hopefully it makes up for the few days I missed.

Between All or Nothing

Those of you who read my blog know that I use flylady.net to get my home in order. I subscribe to the e-mail list and receive many e-mails every day. Most of them are testimonials, a few are the daily "flight plans", and some are inspirational messages. Many of the testimonials and messages today have a recurring theme which speaks directly to my life at the moment. I've fallen off the bandwagon this week and let my home get out of order again. I feel a sudden rush to catch up on everything I've missed, but Flylady would not approve of that. She always says to just jump in where you are. So, here's me jumping in. I received an inspirational message from Flylady just a moment ago and it pierced me so sharply I had to share it with you. Here are the last few sentences:

"There is this beautiful place between all and nothing at all and Flylady and I teach how to be in that place. It's called baby stepping. It's incremental progress and it takes being patient, kind and loving with yourself and celebrating the small stuff.

Be easy with yourself. Find a photo of you when you were a child and when you look at it see if you can imagine that child still within you because she is. How could you be mean, impatient or unloving to that little one? Think how children enjoy life. I think we are meant to enjoy life and it should get better and better. You are in self-improvement mode or you wouldn't be signed up for these emails. Celebrate that desire to be better and enjoy the in between of all or nothing at all as you baby step your way to a better life."

That is exactly where I am at.  Not only in organizing my home, but in many aspects of life. I'm in between working a "just for now" job and doing what I really have a passion for. I'm in between living in WV and wanting to move back to CA. I'm in between paying off debt and being able to spend my money on things I actually want to. These are things that often try my patience. I'm not the most patient of people. I keep telling my husband that I just need to get on Deal or No Deal and win a bunch of money. Then we can pay off our debt, move to Ca, buy a house, and I can afford to do what I really want to do. I'm sure suddenly coming into a large sum of money could fix just about anyone's problems but unfortunately most of us are not afforded that luxury. We have to work for what we earn. And, most of the time, we don't really earn enough.

But, enough whining. I've got to stop whining and just live my life where I am at right now. Yes, I am working towards bigger and better things, but my life is great right here too. One day I'll accomplish everything I want to, but for now I can be ok with "baby stepping". Baby stepping to an orderly home, baby stepping out of debt, baby stepping to CA. I can do anything in baby steps.

Baby step onto the elevator...

Possibly Deficient

I love search engines. They are the hypochondriac's dream. All you have to do is punch in some symptoms, and BOOM there's your disease. I have been feeling really tired for the last few days and I've also been a bit moody. So, being the genius that I am, I go to bing.com and type in "what makes you overly tired and moody?". Oh, so may diseases to pick and choose from. First on the list: cervical cancer. Then thyroids, then hypoglycemia, then pregnancy, then stress.

I've been tired and moody before, so don't go telling me I'm pregnant. It's probably something as simple as a vitamin deficiency. It's very troublesome though. I feel like I can't get anything done. I get home from work with the intentions of getting caught up on my housework and then all I can think about until it's time to go to bed is how I just want to sleep. If the smallest thing is amiss, the whole world might as well have fallen apart.

One minute I'm as happy as ever and the next I'm biting someone's head off (that someone being my poor husband). I suppose I should go to the doctor and get some blood work done. Then I can know once and for all what I'm deficient in. This has happened before and it will probably keep happening if I don't do something about it. But for now...I'm just going to go to bed.

Having a "Me" Day

I'm taking today to refuel. I feel the need to charge my batteries. I'm tired and sore and my apartment is mostly clean, so today has officially been declared a "me" day. Plus, it's snowing outside and we're under a winter weather advisory.

When I got home from work today I took a long hot bath, ate my leftover Indian food, and after throwing some clothes in the laundry, have sat down to watch my current favorite show, Pushing Daisies. So here I sit on the couch typing my blog between episodes and will probably do some writing in a little while. I will also probably go to bed early again tonight.

You probably don't want to hear any more about my "me" day, so I'll leave it at that. Take some time for yourself today.

My blog is going to be short tonight. I'm pretty worn out. I did my Zumba routine twice this afternoon and also went to boxing class this evening. So, as you can imagine, I'm pretty tired. We went to HealthSmart again today. I really love it there. I would go there just to hang out. After HealthSmart, we went to Aangan, the Indian restaurant, and ate some delicious Indian food.

Writing Again.

I started writing a book. Of course, if I had a nickel for every time I said that and never completed what I started, I would be rich. Thus, the reason that I blurt it out in public on my blog. Maybe, just maybe, if I know that other people know that I've started this project I will be more motivated to finish it. I've come very close to finishing a story a couple of times, but something always happens. I always come up with a reason to not finish.

This time, it's do or die. I will finish it if it's the last thing I do. Hopefully it's not the last thing I do though. I would like to get something published before I die. Maybe it will be this story. I think I finally have something I can grasp. I always try to write a story that I'm not very passionate about. This time, however, I'm writing the kind of story that I would like to read. I don't want to write something that I think others would like to read, because then I won't care about it as much. If I care about the story, it will show in my writing and cause others to like it too.

Just to give you a little idea of what I'm going for, it's something of a fairy tale. But it's more on the side of Grimm's than Disney. It has a little bit of Alice in Wonderland, Pan's Labyrinth, Tim Burton type of inspiration. It's going to be odd, but it will also be the type of story that I love. I love fairy tales, but I prefer the way fairy tales were originally told. So, that's the inspiration behind my new story. I'll keep you posted as it develops.

Adventures in Morgantown, WV

I had an adventurous evening last night. Our boxing instructor fought in the Budweiser Fight Night in Morgantown. I'd been looking forward to this for a few months. I enjoy boxing although I've never enjoyed watching it very much, but since someone I know was fighting I thought it would be fun to watch. Morgantown is a few hours away from where we live, so we set out soon after Chad got home from work. Soon after hitting the interstate, we noticed that the car seemed a little shaky so we stopped to check the tires. One was a little low so we filled it and got on our away again. About 15 miles out of Morgantown, the tire blew. We put the spare on and drove to a restaurant called the Kenyan Cafe where we had planned on having dinner before we decided what to do about the car.

When we got to the Kenyan Cafe, I questioned whether we were in the right place. The outside doesn't look like anything special. Inside, however, is a wonderful little ethnic restaurant and cafe. Our food was delicious and as we ate it, we made the decision to go ahead and drive home on the spare and call our tire shop over the weekend. The tires on my car are smaller than most and usually have to be ordered, so we knew we wouldn't be able to get one in Morgantown anyway.

After we ate, we went to the fight. I'd never been to a live boxing match before, so it was really interesting. Now that I know a few things about boxing, I can actually get into the fights. Our instructor was the fourth fight and he did great. Unfortunately, he didn't win, but he did put up a hell of a fight. We made sure to cheer him on the whole time. He looked a little despondent when he came out to see us, but I know he'll pick himself back up and keep going strong.

After the fight, we drove slowly home. We stopped for coffee to keep ourselves awake and didn't get home until after 2am this morning. I went directly to bed and didn't wake up until after 10am. I've spent my day today cleaning since we can't take the car anywhere for a couple of days. I also did some reading. I guess being stuck at home is a good excuse to do that. So that's been my adventure for the weekend.

Shade-Grown Coffee vs. Sun-Grown Coffee

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I learned something new yesterday. It happened while I was in HealthSmart. Chad picked up a bag of coffee beans and put them on the counter. They were in an earthy brown bag with birds on the front. They owner asked me if I had seen the brochure about it. I hadn't, so she showed it to me. It's called "bird-friendly coffee". It's bird-friendly because it's shade-grown. Apparently, most coffee farmers produce sun-grown coffee beans, which means they have to cut down trees to grow the coffee plants in full sun. These trees house many varieties of migratory birds and many of them are not returning to the area because of the lack of trees. I did not know anything about this. All I knew was that I like coffee.

Shade-grown is the way that farmers had traditionally farmed coffee beans, but due to higher demand, over half of these farms have switched to sun-grown to increase production. Here is a quote for you from the Smithsonian brochure: "In addition to being havens for birds, shade coffee plantations provide habitat for myriad insects, orchids, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and other less well known denizens of tropical forests. Furthermore, shade trees protect fragile tropical soils from erosion, provide nutrients, and suppress weeds, thus reducing or eliminating the need for chemical herbicides and fertilizers, and lowering farming costs. Farmers also harvest an assortment of fruits, firewood, lumber, and medicines from the shade trees. These products make farm families less vulnerable to coffee price fluctuations on the world market."

I think that sums up the issue pretty well and I'm on board. Americans drink one-third of the world's coffee, so if we choose to buy shade-grown coffee, we can make a big impact. If you buy coffee beans with the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center logo, you can be sure that it's legit. The farms must also meet organic certification standards in order to be eligible to be bird-friendly.

Here are some facts for you to sum up my blog for today:

-In some Central American countries, shaded coffee plantations represent a large percentage of the remaining forest cover.

-Of the 6.9 million acres of coffee planted in northern Latin America, 40% has been converted into sun coffee.

-Shade coffee plantations can support well over 150 species of birds.

-Many coffee connoisseurs maintain that shade-grown coffee tastes better than sun-grown coffee. (I agree with this.)

So, ask for shade-grown coffee and be environmentally friendly.

I learned something new yesterday. It happened while I was in HealthSmart.

HealthSmart

Today I had the pleasure of checking out our new health food store here in Beckley called HealthSmart. I'm really excited about it! It's just like Edith's in Lewisburg, except it's only five minutes away instead of an hour. They have a great selection, are extremely friendly, and are willing to order anything you want to buy. They're even going to look into getting good local grass-fed beef to sell in the store (I recommended Sarver Heritage Farm because they told us they've been looking for a place in Beckley or Princeton to stop by) . I can't express how excited I am about this store. If they get enough variety, and meat and produce, I can just skip the grocery store altogether! I know that this is the grocery store of the future. I wish all grocery stores were like this.