Week 2 (take 1?)

PROJECT: This week’s project is to purify my drinking water.

(I already do that and have done it for years.)
DIET AND EXERCISE:

• Eat broccoli twice and fish at least once (per week 1).
• Try to increase whole grains. Replace white with whole- or 12-grain. Use steel-cut oatmeal or whole grain cereal.
• Familiarize myself with soybean products. (Oh, that’ll be a hard one — I have a serious issue with tofu.)
• Drink green tea instead of coffee or black tea.
• Start taking one capsule of mixed carotenes (10,000 to 15,000 IU of beta-carotene along with alpha-carotene, lutein, and zeaxanthin as well as lycopene.
• Continue walking. Increase to 15 minutes and try to do it 5 days this week. Use poles if I have low back pain. (Hmm)

MENTAL AND SPIRITUAL HEALTH:

• Visit a park or some other place of nature; feel the energy.
• Try a one-day news fast.
• Continue Breath Observation for five minutes a day this week, and add Begin with Exhalation for one minute a day.

JOURNAL SUGGESTION: Keep track of my water intake every day.

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Requiem for Week 1, Take 2

Got a little further this time but still not a really decent stab at Week1. So, we go back to the drawing board. Have eaten mostly Chips Ahoy cookies this weekend. Not sure why. But since I haven’t eaten much else, it’s not so bad. Bad for the blood sugar, though.

Haven’t cleaned out the kitchen but have made a decent assault at cleaning my living room, which is a step in the right direction. Got a few more days of work on the living room yet.

Week 1, take 2

OK. So Week 1 of my quest for Optimum Health has been, to be kind, an absolute bust. Today’s food choices were a foot long, day-old Subway cheese sub and A LOT of Turtles (“Mmmm, I love…”, yes, those ones). That’s it. To say that I am riding a major sugar/caffeine rush would be an understatement. Part of that is the usual Sunday night insomnia. Part of it is the expected “Oh shit! My vacation is almost over!” panic. But most of it is the chocolate. And the fact that my usual sleeping place is covered with a pile of stuff that used to be on a table that is no longer in this room.

So, I pretty much blew the better part of a 10-day vacation. Wish it was a little longer but imagine I would have just wasted more time rather than gotten more done. Got into gear today to do some major spring cleaning and guess what? Someone’s blocked up the garbage chute somewhere below my floor by cramming something they shouldn’t have into the chute. So garbage is backing up above us and we can’t throw anything out. And the rental office is closed today. What on earth are people thinking? Oh, wait. Maybe they’re thinking like the mailman who stuffs parcels into my mailbox that don’t fit out through the little door so you have to dismantle the box to get it out. (This is the same mailman who thought it seemed like a brilliant idea to fold a stiff cardboard-reinforced bubble envelope to make it fit into the mailbox, thereby ruining an irreplacable photo of my great-grandfather in all his Masonic regalia. A–hole! The mailman, not my great-grandfather.)

Anyway, so that put a big monkey wrench into my spring cleaning and I’m now surrounded by both junk I need to sort/throw out and bags of shit I already sorted through.  *sigh* The good news is that I found some stuff I’d been looking for but couldn’t find, including my various oracle cards. Yay!!! Now if I could only find their accompanying books… Half my bed is cleared off but the other half just depressed me looking at it so I came here for a break. I’ll tackle it again in the daylight.

The guys who were up a few weeks ago to fix my leaking radiator put a nice big hole in my bedroom wall that I didn’t notice until today. And chipped a lot of paint off the wall under the bedroom window. What the hell they were doing, God only knows. One more thing to add to my list of things that need to be fixed whenever someone can be moved to come up here again.

Requiem for Week 1, Take 1

Never did get the kitchen cleaned out. That, I think, is going to have to be a gradual process. Don’t think I can leap full into an optimum health thing here so will try for “optimumer health” (my new catchphrase). Didn’t go near a cruciferous anything, let alone eat one. And no fish. Food was mostly takeout, from a variety of places. Yummy but not exactly low fat. Didn’t do the breathing thing. Completely forgot. But am feeding my spirit by reading mediumship/psychic books. Does that count?

Did I do anything I was supposed to? Well, I took my supplements, though not quite as often as I should. Bought some new multivitamins and some wild salmon capsules to take with the flax seed (instead of just the flax seed) and B100. All huge monstrosities that are hard to choke down. Bought some new containers and a lunch bag, to encourage me to actually bring a lunch instead of buying it at work. I didn’t walk as I was supposed to but I did do a major shopping trip on Saturday that both exhausted me and made me feel like I accomplished something in terms of walking. Bought some new sneakers (running shoes as opposed to walking shoes or aerobic-type shoes) that will hopefully eliminate my oversupination problem. They have a wider toe bed as well which will mean less squishing when things swell up.

In addition, I bought some organizing caddies (two for hair stuff and one for supplements), a screwdriver (so I had put the casters on my filing cabinet), a new backpack (because the bottom is about to fall out of the old one), a spring jacket and some other clothes, and a couple of inexpensive runner rugs.

Vitamins and supplements

Dr. Weil rcommends his own vitamin supplements (big surprise).

His recommended supplements include:

• multivitamin (vitamin E, coenzyme Q 10, vitamin A, astaxanthin, zeaxanthin, lutein, lycopene, phytoene, phytofluene, b-complex, folic acid, bioflavonoids, choline, inositol, and rutin);
• omega-3 fatty acids (breast issues, heart);
• vitamin C (environmental);
• glucosamine sulfate (joints);
• horse chestnut seed (aescin; supposed to help increase the tone of the blood vessel walls and may possibly help reduce edema; 40-120 mg daily);
• siberian ginseng, cordyceps (a fungus), ashwaganda for energy;
• astragalus, polypore mushrooms for immune support;
• magnesium (prevents migraines);
• st. johns wort, B6 and folic acid for mood;
• gingko biloba and DHA (an omega-3 fatty acid) for brain function;
• Ester-C for circulation;
• evening primrose for PMS support.

(struck items are not items I’m willing to take at this time — both st. johns wort and gingko biloba gave me unpleasant reactions the last time I tried to take them, ester C is a type of vitamin C, and mushrooms just ain’t gonna happen even in pill form)

Supplements I currently have on-hand and could/should be taking:

• flax seed (1000 mg per capsule; cold pressed, certified organic; a-Linolenic acid or ALA and linoleic acid, an omega-6);
• wild salmon and fish oils (1000 mg per capsule);
• evening primrose (500 mg per capsule);  
• multivitamin, natural source (beta carotene 10000 IU, vitamin A 1000 IU, vitamin E 50 IU, vitamin C 150 mg, folic acid .8 mg, vitamin B1 or thiamine 25 mg, vitamin B2 or riboflavin 25 mg, vitamin B6 or pyridoxine 25 mg, vitamin B12 25 mcg, vitamin D 400 IU, biotin 25 mcg, pantothenic acid 25 mg, choline 25 mg, inositol 25 mg, di-methonine 25 mg, calcium 130 mg, iodine .1 mg, iron 15 mg, magnesium 65 mg, copper 1 mg, manganese 2 mg, potassium 15 mg, zinc 10 mg, chromium 20 mcg, molybdenum 20 mcg, selenium 20 mcg, vanadium 20 mcg, lutein .25 mg) ;
• glucosamine and chondroitin;
• calcium (333mg), magnesium (167mg), vitamin D (133 IU);
• vitamin C (500mg), wild blueberry (30mg), rutin (1.4mg), hesperidin complex (1.4mg), lemon bioflavonoids (1.4mg), acerola cherry fruit (1.4mg), rosehips (1.4mg);
• B100;
• fibre

Making a fresh start

Signed up tonight for Dr. Weil’s Optimum Health Plan. Could have just signed up again for eDiets but thought I’d give his plan a try since I like his books (despite not being able to follow his suggestions LOL). It’s an online companion to his 8 Weeks to Optimum Health book. It’s been republished since but I have a copy of the original version of the book. I’ve always wanted to try it but lack the self-control. It comes with a journal but think I’ll write here instead. I’ll keep that journal for private stuff. Having looked at the food section, I’m not liking it as much as the eDiets one — eDiets allows you to build custom menus by adding your own food items; this plan just offers you a collection of recipes with which to build your daily menus. But this plan has its own pros (mostly the advice stuff) so we’ll see.

So, this is week one, the so-called “Make a Fresh Start” week. Well, technically, it starts tomorrow since it is quite late tonight. I’ll work on the cleaning out tomorrow and maybe Tuesday and then the following day go to the store and get what I need.

PROJECT: This week’s project is to clean out the kitchen. *Gasp* I’m supposed to get rid of anything with artificial colouring, any oils but extra-virgin olive oi, anything containing partially hydrogenated oils and trans fats, any margarine or vegetable shortenings and anything made with them (e.g. crackers and cookies), anything made with cottonseed oil, artificial sweeteners, and more chemicals than recognizable ingredients.

Should also be aiming to keep total fat intake to about 30% of calories, saturated fat as low as possible, and zero trans fats. On a 2000-calorie-per-day paln, 600 calories (70 grams) can come from fat. No more than 100 calories (10-12 grams) should come from saturated fat.

DIET & EXERCISE: “Cruciferous vegetables and Omega-3 fatty acids; Antioxidants; Walking”

Cruciferous vegatables are things like broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage. Supposed to be rich in fibre and cancer-fighting properties. Broccoli I can do. Cabbage I might be able to do. Cauliflower ain’t gonna happen. Not quite ready to start grinding up fresh flax seeds to use on my food so will concentrate instead on taking the flax seed and evening primrose supplements I have on hand. I’ll outline my supplements in another post.

So, this week, I’m to eat fresh broccoli twice (small amounts to start), sprinkled with lemon juice to help digestion. I’m also to eat fish at least once this week: wild Alaskan salmon, canned sockeye, sardines, or herring. Canned sockeye is not my fave (I much prefer Pacfici pink) but there’s a lot of it around so maybe I’ll try that. If not fish, then I should grind flaxseeds or sprinkle walnuts (yuck) on my food.

As far as exercise goes, I’m to try to walk 10 minutes a day for 5 days this week.

MENTAL & SPIRITUAL HEALTH: This week, I’m to become aware on my breathing, to practice Breath Observation for five minutes every day. I’m also to make a list of illnesses, injuries, etc. that I’ve recovered from in the past two years and note how I may have helped the healing process. And I’m to keep track of my mood (he has a tool online for that). I’m also to bring fresh flowers in and to educate myself about bad habits (and stop smoking if I smoke).

TIPS FOR ME FOR THIS WEEK:

• take a B-complex vitamin (100 mg of B6 and 400 mg of folic acid)
• increase activity levels
• for heart healt, try to exercise for 30 minutes a day, five days a week
• eat a well-balanced diet
• compile family medical history
• commit to a weight loss program
• commit to a diet high in fruits and vegetables and low-fat or fat-free dairy products (calcium) — diets rich in potassium, calcium, and magnesium and low in sodium help maintain blood pressure levels
• avoid trans fats