I Don't Know Where to Start

If you are thinking you might want to become more healthy and you are overwhelmed, answer this one question. If you were to change one thing in your eating program for better health, what would that be?

I'm sure many might say:

1. soda
2. candy bars
3. beer
4. french fries

Okay, that's a good start.

But you are going to miss what you used to love. So what w ill you replace it with?

How about replacing soda with homemade lemonade? Blend real lemon juice with watermelon or a peach or some cherries? Don't add sugar.

How about replacing a candy bar with a "living bar"  or "survival bar" from www.hacres.comwww.hacres.com? Remember I'm your health minister, so if you order, please use my PIN # FTP.


Beer is a little harder. How about replacing a beer with some "Margarita Cucumbers." Then drink some homemade lemonade, as described above, with it. Slice some organic cucumbers, sprinkle with lime juice, and then sea salt. Munch, crunch and enjoy!

For french fries, take a vegetable called jicama, slice like a potato and season with your favorite potato seasonings. Try mine: garlic powder, onion powder, paprika and some organic olive oil spray. Munch and crunch.

So this replacement thing is the way to avoid being overwhelmed with a new way of eating, one bite at a time, one sip at a time. 

How Stupid Do They Think We Are?

I can't believe it. I'm on the treadmill this morning at 6:00 AM and see two commercials that gave me enough angst to walk fast and long even though I'm tired!

The first was a commercial for Aleve. The actor's choice was: Aleve or Tylenol. Take more Tylenol or less Aleve for the same benefit, relief from arthritis pain. Duh! Just remove animal protein and sugar from your diet and you will get the same result without the loss of kidney function. That's right. Over time prolonged use of a pain reliever will cause your kidneys to fail.

You get to choose: reduced kidney functioning and potential failure or eat a new way.

For me the choice is easy. I enjoy the new way that I eat. Please read all the posts in this blog; they are short and informative. And check out www.hacres.com for more information.

The second commercial was for gout relief. Here is a double "Duh!" Gout is caused by too much ureic acid in the blood. How does it get there? Animal protein.

How stupid do they think we are? Apparently, pharmaceutical companies think we are very stupid because they sell a lot of these over the counter medications. I'm not buying. How about you?

Arthritis Be Gone

Almost everyone I know over 50 has aches and pains usually considered normal and expected at that age. Poppycock! I disagree.

My mother has arthritis and boy did she love her steak and veal chops and chicken. So did I. And so I thought that I would have arthritis just like mom. Was this a genetic flaw in my family? In my case, it was an eating flaw in my family, not genetics.

How else can you explain that after hurting for years, I even saw X-rays of my neck with disintegrating vertebra at the base of my neck, the pain is gone and I am pain free.

No animal protein. That's the answer and I'm sticking by it. I eat no animal protein and have added Barley Max to my diet and carrot juice everyday and I bounce on the elliptical and walk fast on the treadmill and bicycle along paths made for young people.

Your arthritis can be gone if you would try this way of eating. Pain or no pain. You can choose. 

I Don't Wanna!

Some days, you just don't want to exercise. There it is. The ugly secret. 

What should you do? Exercise anyway! What's wanting to do it got to do with it?

That's where we fall down. We let our feelings override what we know we should do. That is the hallmark of discipline, "Doing what we know we should do even when we don't want to do it."

Where is it written that we should exercise? Not only is it written in medical journals, the benefit of exercise on your health, it is written in your body. We all have the desire to move around sometime during the day. That is our body's way of telling us that it needs more oxygen to feed our muscles and our blood. Breathing deeply helps but it needs to be practised over a period od at least 20 minutes for the effect to get deep into the cells of your body.

"I don't wanna" sounds like a four year old complaining when his or her mom says, "Please help me clean up, or please eat your dinner, or it's bedtime." Letting the inner rebellious child in us win this tantrum is bad health,  erodes any chance you have for self-discipline and reinforces bad habits.

I exercised this morning, I didn't want to do it, but I did it. I'll feel better later when I remember that "It's in the bank." But that was another post. Hope you read it too. 

Bulk, I Need Bulk to Feel Full

Sometimes you just want a hunk of food with bulk to feel full. If you are on a plant based diet, this is hard to come by. Until now.

I think I have the answer: beans. Hear me out on this.

Take a can of organic beans, say northern beans. Drain them and then mash them until they look like masked potatoes. Then season them as you would a hunk of chicken or beef or veal or fish. For example, for the roast chicken flavor, season with garlic powder, onion powder, thyme and paprika. Roll in some whole grain crumbs, or crumbs of ground nuts, and bake for about 10-15 minutes, until it looks cooked.

Prepare the vegetables you normally would eat with roast chicken, like roasted carrots, parsnips, or potatoes, add something green and you have created a plant based meal that is bulky and tasty.

For a veal taste, roll the masked bean mixture in some whole grain crumbs or ground nuts and season with lemon juice and capers. Bake the same way and add steamed broccoli or asparagus.

Experiment and share your ideas with me. Being a vegan is easier and tastier than you expected, isn't it?

I Love My Meat!

I love everything I don't eat. Didn't I tell you that early on?

This is not about loving or hating animal products, anything like beef, chicken, pork, fish, eggs, cheese, milk, ice cream and, by the way, alcohol (wine and hard liquor.)

I love everything I don't eat. I just don't eat it.

Think about it this way.

• First, your taste buds change every two weeks. If you tried a plant based diet for 2 weeks, the tastes you gave up might not tantalize you.
• Second, if you had to choose between cancer and leafy greens, which would you choose? When I put it that way, the choice is not so hard. How about choosing between wine and a longer life? How about steak or no cancer anywhere in the digestive system?
• Third, if you knew you would live to 90, would you want to live it with energy and health or with little energy, dragging through each day and taking lots of pills?
• Fourth, if you could live to 90 without any kidney damage would you do it if it meant you had to give up pain pills and eat lots of raw foods everyday. Would you do it? Could you do it?

That's why I am blogging, to help you make up your mind. It's your health. You can choose to be healthy or to be sick. Which do you want?

If you have any questions, just send them my way. I'd love to be part of the solution. And sing you Happy Birthday when you reach a healthy 90!

It's In The Bank!

Up at 5:30 AM, check emails, dress for the gym and on the treadmill by 6:05 AM. I chugged along as fast as my legs would go, encouraged by a friend who was also workin' it on the elliptical and bicycle.

Now I will make my morning smoothie, frozen banana, frozen wild blueberries, almond milk, Barley Max, pineapple/coconut juice and some powdered B12 vitamins. I'll mix it in my Blend Tech high powered blender that doesn't complain despite the bulk of the ingredients. I'll share with my husband who got up to read the papers and keep me company before I go to work.

It feels good. It's in the bank: exercise and nutrition all before 7:30 AM> It's worth it. 

What Numbers Control You?

Returning to the treadmill exercise that I sweat over in Florida, I learned a big lesson. The numbers that tell me how fast I am going and how many calories I am burning have had the power to restrict and control me, far more than I realized.

In Virginia, without a treadmill, I go outside and just walk as fast as my legs will go, up and down hills, to and from destinations like Whole foods, or the duck pond or the pine tree lined paths. In Florida, I let the speed of 3.5 or 4.0 control me. If I go 4.0, for example, I say to myself that that is fast enough. I make up a rule and then I stick to it. Yikes!

This morning I just decided to go as fast as I go in Virginia without looking and I discovered I was chugging along at 4.2. I never go that fast, I mistakenly think, because that's too fast!

So instead of going at a speed of 3.8 I sped at 4.2 and burned 150 calories in 20 minutes, breaking out into a healthy sweat. ( I don't like to sweat but I do on my walks in Virginia!)

So I got to thinking, what other numbers control me and control you? Is it what the scale says vs. what you want it to say? You think you can't get to a certain number so you hold yourself back admitting defeat before you give yourself a chance to beat your own expectations of abilities.

What about your bank account? You don't save a dollar a day because you are thinking that $365 dollars saved in a year is not enough so why bother? What if you started saving $1 a day and then upped it to 2? You might want to do that once you got started? Or can't you handle saving $730 that easily?

What about bedtime? You can't go to bed early because the clock doesn't say it's bedtime. If you feel tired at 8  PM, go to bed. Forget about what the numbers are. You might need rest then. What about waking up at 3 AM? You can't get up and write, or pray or read or prepare a meal, or clean up or do laundry because that's not what people do at 3 AM!

Poppycock, balderdash, yikes and phooey! Get rid of the numbers in your life and reinvent new numbers. Discover them along the way. Let me know what happens when you do.