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Confession. I am not an athlete. I’m actually not much of an exerciser, period. I was a small kid. My family moved around a lot (six moves, 5 states by the time I was in 6th grade). I’m an only child and my early socialization was primarily with adults. My first experience with kick ball, in 1st grade, felt like being dropped into another country without a passport. I was weak, had no control over the ball, and wasn’t very fast. I NEVER made it to 1st base. It was humiliating.
And that pretty much sums up my experience with all group or school sanctioned sports right through high school. I always seemed to miss the part where they actually taught you how to play the sport, and everyone was new to it and kind of sucked. Yup, I was the stereotypical “last kid picked for the team” over and over.
Part 101 here
Part 201 here
Part 301 here
Part 401 here
Nutrition Buzz Words and What You Need to Know
Omega 3’s and Omega 6’s.
You’ve heard about them. They seem to be mentioned everywhere. Omega 3’s and 6’s are simply essential fatty acids (remember, that means the body can’t make them itself) involved in the body’s ability to synthesize hormones. Sources of omega-6 fatty acids are numerous. Soybean oil alone (um…that would be big ag) is now so ubiquitous in fast foods and processed foods that it is estimated that 20 percent of the calories in the American diet come from this single source.
Part 101 here
Part 201 here
Part 301 here
Learn to Try New Things
One of the best things about going on a diet is that you get bored. Yup, boredom. Because when you are bored, you’ll try new things just for the novelty. Lets face it. We get into ruts. We eat the same 15 meals week in and week out because we are 1) pressed for time or imagination 2) don’t know how to cook anything else or 3) don’t want to try anything new. It’s an evolutionary advantage to eat the same things all the time. That red berry on that bush? It might be great. It might just kill us. Best to just stick with what we already know. We’re inherently creatures of habit.
For 101, click here. For 201 click here.
http://www.oldwayspt.org/mediterranean-diet-pyramid. Not a bad way to eat.
It seems to me that we humans fall into several categories when it comes to food. There is the simple “I live to eat” vs ” I eat to live” category. I’m clearly in the “live to eat” camp. Food is a great pleasure in life, and I probably spend more time than the average person thinking about it (how it’s made, where it comes from, how it’s processed, how much it costs, how healthy is it, and can I grow it or make it myself, just to start). I know there are people who simply see food as fuel for their bodies, and don’t really give it much thought after that (like about 80% of all teenage boys I have met).
And then there are the Justifiers and the Controllers. The Justifiers: “I want to eat what I want when I want it in any quantity, and I will go to great lengths to defend this behavior. Red wine contains antioxidants… why yes, I’ll have another glass. And could you please poach that chicken in butter, because butter adds so much flavor!” The Controllers: “the world is a scary and chaotic place. I need to set boundaries about what goes into my mouth, because at least I can have control over that. So I’ll have a vegan raw cookie, please, with a shot of wheat grass juice on the side.”
For part 1, start here.
I’m self diagnosed as somewhat hypoglycemic. This is basically the opposite of being diabetic. In diabetes, the body does not produce enough insulin (the hormone that helps glucose [sugar] in the blood stream move into the cells for storage). With hypoglycemia, the body overproduces insulin in response to a sugary meal, causing too much circulating blood sugar to be removed.
Summer 1970 I'm guessing. My father is about 47 here, mom about 39. Me, I'm about 4. The dog is a Chesapeake Bay retriever named Charlie. He was my buddy.
Yup, it’s that time of year. The time when we come out of the holiday season and say, holy crap, how did that happen, I gained 5 lbs! And we resolve to cut back and get real and lay off the dessert menu.
And I am no exception. I was a skinny kid. So skinny in fact that at one point a pediatrician recommended a glass of chocolate milk every day as a midday snack to try to put some meat on my bones (of course, now days they serve that with the hot lunch at school…childhood obesity, huh, wonder where that comes from). I’m 5’3″, small boned, and weighed 105 lbs through high school (last seen in my early 30’s after a difficult break up – serious stress makes me lose my appetite). I had the metabolism of a hamster when I was young. I could drink milkshakes as an after dinner snack every night and never gain an ounce. If I got sick, I dropped a few pounds in a few days. Honestly, I was too thin and would have loved to have gained 10 lbs.
Ok, starting a blog post with a quote from “Buffalo Bill” in The Silence of the Lambs is maybe not the best lead in. But admit it, you did laugh a little bit. Alternative title: If you can make salad dressing, you can make lotion. Seriously. It really is that easy.
This was for one batch of lotion. You don’t need to get this carried away. I was just trying to use up what I had on hand.
Clean? Seriously, who cares? Now rub my belly.
Or… more than you wanted to know about me and natural cleaning products!
I hate house cleaning (OK, who doesn’t). When I was a pre-teen, my mother had this wonderful pen and ink drawing of a woman in a long dress. In her hands was a broom, broken in half. The caption read F*#K HOUSEWORK. (Click here to see a copy if you’d like.) I understand exactly. It’s not the actual work which I mind. I love jobs where I can really see the results after I am done, and my detail oriented side will get out a toothbrush to get into that grimy corner that a sponge won’t reach. It’s just that it never ends. You sweep the floors, and a few days later, they need to be swept again. Such is the nature of entropy. Read the rest of this entry »
MilesAwayFarm
Miles Away Farm Blog 