Choosing Health, Wealth and Happiness
As a nation, we spend over $3 Trillion (Trillion with a capital T) annually on healthcare. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 75% of this goes toward the treatment of chronic disease. Medicare spends 93 cents of every dollar and Medicaid 83 cents of every dollar to treat chronic disease. Chronic disease is responsible for 7/10 deaths in this country. Sobering right?
Continue reading “5 Steps to Take Your Goals to a New Level”
I completed my first Whole30 in 2017 and since that time have continued to eat in the manner the program taught me most of the last year. Since that time, I primarily eat lots of fresh and frozen vegetables along with some fruit. I eat plenty of eggs, avocados, nuts and seeds. I eat fish, chicken and some meat. I use coconut oil, coconut milk, avocado oil and vinegar along with spices. I rarely eat bread, pasta, rice or dairy. Don’t get me wrong, a few foods and beverages did creep back into my meal planning that are not compliant including beer, wine and dark chocolate. Yes, these are a few of my favorite things!
Beer, wine, and dark chocolate are the 3 foods I have trouble eliminating from my diet for more than 30 days. For the entire month of January and for 1 month last year, I did it. Mission accomplished.
With the exception of eating out on occasion, we cook and eat pretty much all meals from scratch. Needless to say, there is a lot of chopping, dicing, peeling, and mixing going on in my kitchen. Once the prep work is done I am sauteing, roasting, baking and frying my food until it is ready to devour. I read plenty of articles that say that it is expensive to eat real food. That one reason people eat prepared foods, fast food and junk food is because it is cheaper than healthy food.
Prepared food, fast food and junk food are not in the same category as real food. They contain copious amounts of sugar, salt, hydrogenated oils and refined flour. Folks who subsist on this “food” are often overfed but undernourished. They take in too many calories but don’t get adequate nutrition. Did you know you can be morbidly obese and malnourished at the same time? When we eat like this we are gaining weight but starving for the vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients that our bodies require for health. Over 60% of us are considered overweight in this country.
The holidays are over and winter stretches ahead like a long, dark, daunting tunnel with only 1 exit. I can choose to keep my head low, plod along muttering about the arctic cold and wind or I can sit back and enjoy the warmth of the fireplace and the good company I keep. I remind myself frequently that my perspective on any given situation makes all of the difference. If my perspective does not keep me on the path I have chosen then it is time to change it!
Work has been slow for the last week which is no big deal, however I have to stop myself from getting anxious about an upcoming tiny paycheck. When I don’t work a typical 9-5 gig it is easy to lose focus, forget why I work per diem instead of harnessing the security of a full-time job.
Oh my goodness it is COLD outside. Not just a little cold. Not zip up your jacket and grab a hat cold. Nope, old man winter has taken up residence in Central New York. Going outdoors, unprepared can take your breath away.
I bundled up the other day to walk Fenway. I had long johns, jeans, a long sleeve shirt, my heaviest sweater, a winter vest and a heavy jacket. I had a neck warmer with a hat attached and another hat plus my hood. I had winter gloves on my hands and 2 pairs of socks under my winter boots. The weather app on my phone said it was 1 degree with a real feel of -13. I was so bundled, I could hardly move.
When I did my first Whole30 back in January 2016, I found breakfast a pretty easy meal to plan. Eggs were allowed and encouraged and you can eat as many as you want. So, I ate eggs pretty much every single day with a variety of vegetables and some healthy avocado.
I continue to eat plenty of eggs and am concerned that I will get tired of them as I gear up for my next Whole30 that begins January 1st! Mother Fran told me I was going to start clucking like a chicken if I don’t figure out other breakfast foods!
Any change in eating habits can be easily derailed by a stressful day, bad news, hunger pangs or brownies that keep calling you from the cabinet. It is time to do some preparation in order to get ready for our Whole30 that begins on January 1st. Are you ready to get healthy? In my last post, I asked you to join me in choosing health! My first recommendation is to remove all food from your refrigerator and kitchen cabinets that you will be eliminating on the Whole30 eating plan.
You would think this would be easy but you will need to read the ingredient label on every box, can and bag of food in the house! Watch out for sugar in your spaghetti sauce, soy in your canned tuna fish and sulfites in your vinegar. In this post I wrote about unexpected places you might find sugar lurking in your kitchen.
Box up the brownie mix, flour, sugar, cereal, oatmeal along with the 10 boxes of pasta that were on sale 5 for $5 bucks. No sugar and grains for the month of January! Give away the mayonnaise made with canola oil, the crackers with soybean oil, half and half as well as the blocks of cheddar. We won’t be eating vegetable oils or dairy.
Thanksgiving is in the rear view mirror and Christmas is just around the corner. We all know what that means! Lots of parties with crazy delicious food, fun drinks and yummy desserts. For many of us it also means Tums, Pepto Bismal and a hangover or 2. Shortly after the holiday last year, we decided to do a Whole30 Experiment and radically changed our eating habits. We expected it to last 30 days but we liked it so much we pretty much kept eating according to the program guidelines.
The Whole30 has you eliminate sugar, alcohol, dairy, legumes and grains and replace them with vegetables, high quality meat and healthy fat. We did a strict Whole30 for about 42 days and we ended it when we went on vacation last winter. On vacation we ate and drank anything we wanted and when we returned home we sort of resumed our new way of eating.
Many of the people I work with in the nursing home don’t seem to have much going on in their old age. They sit and stare into space or at the television screen until it is time for bed or their next meal. Whatever leisure activities they enjoyed in the past either cannot be completed in the nursing home setting or they have lost the interest or ability to participate.
I have worked with some elderly patients in their home as well and some of them are in the same position. They wait for the phone to ring, for their favorite game show or for a visitor to stop by. I want more in my old age! I want to be more like Mother Fran and other seniors who still know how to live life with a purpose.
When I was a kid we celebrated Thanksgiving in the traditional American way. Our family got together and prepared a delicious turkey dinner with all of the fixings. It doesn’t sound like a big deal but thinking back it was a complicated process that all of us engaged in. Think of an orchestra where every musician brings their special talents; knows what to play and when to play it in order to create a masterpiece!
