Depression

I love to eat

Many people think I’ve given up eating good food to be healthy. That’s far from the truth. It’s a matter of learning about food and types of foods and going against the cultural teachings on fats and salts and sugars.

We had one child on medication for depression for several years, and another one talking about going to a doctor for similar concerns. Then the knowledge of food began to come upon our family. The one child was able to get off the medicine, the other one never had to start.  The healing journey has been life-changing for all of us and it has filtered into their own families. It’s a legacy I’m proud of and very thankful for.

Enjoy eating? Of course! I would venture to say that I will enjoy tasty food longer than a person I know who is unwilling to look at food as the answer. The pills he/she is taking will cause damage, which will lead he/she to the doctor with more problems, which will result in more medications for other problems, which will cause more problems…you get the idea. I’ve noticed that multiple medications tend to take away the taste buds.

A new way to practice medicine

I have recently noticed a new term as I surf the cyber world: functional medicine. It’s so encouraging to see such a natural way of healing entering into the medical world.

“Functional medicine addresses the underlying causes of disease, using a systems-oriented approach and engaging both patient and practitioner in a therapeutic partnership. It is an evolution in the practice of medicine that better addresses the healthcare needs of the 21st century.”  [www.functionalmedicine.org] (They have a page on their site where you can search for a practitioner in your area.)

If you know anyone on antidepressants, I really hope you’ll check out this link:

http://michaelruscio.blogspot.com/2012/10/is-depression-causing-damage-to-your.html

And here’s another link. A doctor’s “functional medicine” blog: http://drtracymcalvanah.blogspot.com/2011/10/depression-linked-with-bad-digestion.html

In a nutshell

If you struggle from depression, you likely need more omega 3s in your diet, and good healing fats – plenty of them. Coconut oil, palm oil/shortening, meat fats. I also use butter. Supermarket butter is not a healing fat, but the grass-fed variety is quite expensive, so I settle for butter purchased from a Milk Producers Association in Michigan. I want to start making my own.  

The dangerous fats are the processed oils in the supermarket. They’re rancid before they ever get to the store. The manufactures do a good job of hiding the rancid odors. Canola oil is a prime example of bad oil marketed as good. [http://www.westonaprice.org/know-your-fats/the-great-con-ola]

One more link:

http://www.empoweredsustenance.com/four-traditional-fats-you-need-in-your-kitchen/

Mental health

I hope you can find your way to mental health. I hope you WANT to find your way to mental health. I spent years in a mental fog, living mostly in a state of melancholy. I treasure my good mental health now; it’s usually the first thing I list when I’m asked to write down what I’m most thankful for.

Nip it in the Bud - Right Away

Would you believe me if I told you that I have a very cheap, very easy way, to ward off a cold? It has worked 100% of the time for a few years now, for me and my husband, when we catch the cold in time.

I know…there are products marketed for that, some with good natural ingredients. But this is dirt cheap, and if you’ve never heard of it, will make absolutely no sense.

The only time it failed was one Wednesday last winter. I had just gotten to work and noticed that I was in the process of catching a cold. I thought, “RATS! I should run home and nip this in the bud.” But I chose to wait it out and take care of it in the evening. Twelve hours later I did my little treatment, and proceeded to suffer from a cold for a full seven days.

That was hopefully the last time.

So in my experience, it will not HEAL a cold, but based on my experiences, it most definitely will ward off a cold.

As I have struggled to increase my immunity, I would way-too-often feel the onset of a cold, so I would use this stuff often. It’s harmless, so I wasn’t worried about it. And it faithfully kept all cold activity at bay.

I’m now at a good place. I haven’t felt a cold coming on in some time, but I still use it occasionally, especially if I know I’ve been with someone who is sick.

Some websites will say it wards off colds AND flus.

I learned about it a number of years ago when I was suffering from a three-week stent of some pretty severe diarrhea. I’d reached a point of desperation and did some serious searching on the internet. I found this unusual information and started to implement it. It didn’t seem to help then, but whatever I had was full blown. For that problem, I found relief when I limited my food to homemade broth and bananas.

But the information I learned led me to prepare for the next time I felt a cold or flu coming on.

This is a far cry from my earlier days – childhood/young adult. Back then, when I’d catch something it would inevitably turn into an infection,

                                       which led me to a doctor,

                                                                   which led me to antibiotics.

Knowledge is power, and I now know how to manage colds and flus, or rather how to prevent them – which is better yet. My office and my home are equipped with this very simple arsenal of…

hydrogen peroxide.

Initially I was dripping it in my ear with a dropper. But if you have any damage at all on your eardrum it can feel painful. Besides it’s inconvenient.

Not only do I like cheap, I like simple.

As you can see in the photo, I saturate a cotton swab, insert it in the ear (PLEASE BE CAREFUL NOT TO INSERT TOO FAR!). I do both ears (never double dip), pitch the cotton swab, and go on my way. I usually feel the need to administer this for two or three days, once in the morning and once in the evening.

Is it nuts, wacko? Maybe. But it’s harmless and works like magic. I’m including a few links with additional information if you don’t want to take my word for it. And you never should. I have no initials after my name, I just do my own learning.

Be forewarned, that bacteria builds up in your ears, and peroxide fights bacteria. So the first time you use it, you may hear and feel the snap, crackle sounds that will likely go on. The first time I did it was quite wild. Now I barely notice it.

I’m convinced it’s safe for babies and children. My now-grown son wouldn’t have had all those bronchial infections if I’d known then what I know now.

Ready to try something different that’s not toxic to the system?

Peroxide Links:

http://www.naturalnews.com/025125_hydrogen_peroxide_flu.html

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2002/03/13/hydrogen-peroxide-part-one.aspx

http://www.purestcolloids.com/no-cold.php

http://otcguide.blogspot.com/2012/08/hydrogen-peroxide-to-fight-colds-and-flu.html

My Menu, My Guideline

I think I’ve finally found something that may work for me, for a while anyway. Putting together that one-week menu (the previous blog) has kept me away from dessert foods all week. So I prepared for another week. 

For me this is SO cool! 

What works is I can schedule in some grains and the occasional dessert (and then look forward to it!), rather than as before, I would realize in hind-site that, ‘hey, we’re eating way too many grains and sugars and getting bigger guts.’

Due to some crazy moments on some days, we didn’t get to follow the first menu perfectly, but just like a budget, it’s a good guideline to work with even if you can’t stick with it exactly.

In case you’re interested here’s my next week’s menu, and if our Sunday guests visit this blog, you may want to scroll down to the bottom for the menu:

MONDAY

Breakfast – waffles, eggs and bacon (add chia in some form, maybe with a little blueberry dish on the side)

Lunch – hamburger, sweet potatoes and asparagus

Dinner – chicken breast & salad (Romaine, radish, jicama, avocado, cheese, seeds/nuts)

Evening Snack – fruit/yogurt

TUESDAY

Breakfast – oatmeal, chia seeds, and fruit

Lunch – salad (bok choy, cucumber, red pepper, greens, chia, cheese)

Dinner – fish, red potatoes, red pepper, cucumber

Evening Snack – fruit/yogurt

WEDNESDAY

Breakfast – skillet fry (eggs, bacon, onion, mushrooms, cheese)

Lunch – sirloin, cabbage, cauliflower, quinoa stir fry

Dinner – salmon, carrots/peas with butter, peach soup

Evening Snack – apples/peanut butter

THURSDAY

Breakfast – Omelets and cheese

Lunch – chicken and lentils with biscuits

Dinner – lamb and brown rice curry

Evening Snack – cheese/nuts

FRIDAY

Breakfast – smoothies (add chia seeds and egg yolks)

Lunch – salad (greens, cucumbers, cashews)

Dinner – chicken thighs and California blend

We’re having company for Sunday lunch and several in the group eat low carb. So I’ve decided to make:

-a roast or sirloin steaks)
-with mushroom sauce (on the side in case low-carb crew doesn’t want the arrowroot starch I use for thickening)
-mashed potatoes (for the carb eaters)
-mashed cauliflower
-a veggie tray of cucumber slices, red pepper slices and carrot sticks
-with artichoke/spinach dip
-gluten free angel food cake
-with chocolate/raw honey/butter sauce (for the carb eaters of course) (By Sunday I will have stayed away from desserts for two weeks…I’m really looking forward to that dessert. I hope there aren’t any leftovers.)

Now that this is posted online, it's highly likely the very things I will be serving.  :)

(Note to self: If you post it, you’ll likely do it.)

Happy, healthy eating to you!

Cindy

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O LORD my God, I cried to you for help, and you restored my health. (Psalm 30:2)

Practice What You Preach!

INTRODUCTION 

I haven’t blogged in a while, so if we haven't yet met, and you’re interested, there’s more about me at the end this post.

Hello again! My name is Cindy and this is my second go-around of blogging. I’m not likely to get a large following. I’m in it for my own accountability. If I “state” it, I’m likely to do it. I posted on Facebook last month that I would only eat one plate of food at our Thanksgiving dinner and have only one piece of pie for dessert. I’d never accomplished that before, but stating it online for some reason gave me the ability to follow my self-made holiday rules. Since that seemed to work for me, I decided that posting blogs online might enable me to:

PRACTICE WHAT I PREACH!

I’m often telling people who struggle, as I watch them eat, that what they’re eating is highly inflammatory, hoping they’ll look at the part they play in their own health problems.

Well, now I’m having some health problems.

For the past few months I’ve been struggling with allergies – nasal issues. Very recently it progressed into a sinus infection. I avoid doctors, tests, drugs and treatments, so I came up with a plan. First, I began using specific food items as daily supplements:

Coconut oil (2 Tbsp., 2x day) (very healing product).

Apple cider vinegar water, and lemon slices in water (to get my alkaline levels up).

Raw garlic (natural antibiotic), but I only use it at bedtime so as not offend anyone (except my husband, each evening he tells me I smell).

And after a couple of days of the above, the pain subsided. I’m still struggling with the allergies, but I’m feeling encouraged.

NOW ABOUT OUR MEALS.

My husband and I have gotten kind of ridiculous with eating more and more sweet things. I’ve made too many angel food cakes and peanut butter cookies lately, and after every meal we say, “Want some dessert?” And we have consistently been saying “yes” to ourselves. Well, if I’m going to take care of my own health, I need to:

STOP THE NONSENSE!

It occurred to me recently that by adopting a well-known philosophy just might be what I need to help myself:

IF YOU FAIL TO PLAN, YOU PLAN TO FAIL.

We’ve tried different diets in the past, usually for weight loss, but I get frustrated in the busy-ness of life. Mainly because there’s no game plan. We come home after work, wonder what to eat, and more often than not, resort to “habitual” meals like nachos or something that includes the old stand-by – bread of some sort (gluten free for me, of course).

So, a couple of weeks ago I sat down with “The Master’s Diet” by Jordan S. Rubin (an incredible story of one man’s illness and healing that I assume includes a plan for healing based on biblical teachings – I haven’t finished his story yet, I just skipped to a menu plan) and a couple of Suzanne Somers’ books and wrote down a week’s menu. The first five days are from Rubin’s book.

We started this yesterday:

MY INTENTIONAL ONE-WEEK MENU WITH NO DESSERTS

Monday

Breakfast – skillet breakfast (egg, butternut squash, spinach, onion, cheese), tea or milk

Lunch – tuna salad (tuna, homemade mayo, flaxseed meal, onion, red pepper, celery) with carrots & celery

Dinner – marinated steak & green salad

Evening Snack – strawberries & homemade yogurt

Tuesday

Breakfast – veggie frittata (broccoli flowerets, yellow pepper, onion, butter/red palm oil, eggs, yogurt, lemon zest (Gene didn’t care for the zest), Monterey Jack cheese

Lunch – coconut milk soup (fish & leftover turkey, coconut milk, chicken broth, jalapeño, ginger, lime juice)

Dinner – salmon with pecan pesto, green salad, cultured veggies (I forgot to plan ahead, so they won’t be cultured L)

Evening Snack – carrot, celery, raw almond butter

Wednesday

Breakfast – onion/red pepper/feta cheese omelet, seasoned avocado slices

Lunch – oriental red meat salad

Dinner – coconut milk soup, broiled halibut, green salad

Evening Snack – yogurt, raw honey, vanilla, blueberries

Thursday

Breakfast – fast (if we don’t feel up to fasting, we may have an egg/cheese omelet)

Lunch – fast (or broth/soup)

Dinner – cultured veggies/sauerkraut, green salad, tuna steaks

Evening Snack – none

Friday

Breakfast – artichoke frittata (eggs, onion, marinated artichoke hearts, parmesan)

Lunch – lettuce wraps (mayo, cucumber, walnuts, chicken, cheese), tortilla chips/homemade salsa

Dinner – braised salmon, baked red potatoes, strawberries/yogurt

We’re into Tuesday’s plan now. Gene was gone over lunch, so he’ll probably eat whatever is served where he’s at, but as in the past when we’ve been intentional, he’ll probably skip the dessert.

ABOUT ME

I’m in my fifties. Almost 13 years ago I discovered I needed to go gluten free. Maybe I have Celiac Disease, maybe I have something similar. All I know is that when I went gluten free my world changed. The most significant change was when a mental fog lifted one Sunday morning while I was standing in church. Talk about a life-changing moment!

And I wasn’t just gluten free then. There weren’t all these GF convenient foods in the supermarket, so I was mostly grain-free as I figured out my new normal. And I’m thankful for that. A lot of healing happens when you go grain-free and even more so when you go sugar-free – and I DON’T MEAN using diet products like diet pop, etc. By sugar-free, I mean taking sugar/sweets out of the diet.

I’ve done a lot of healing over the years, especially the first ten years. I learn as I go. There’s so much information on the web, it’s just a matter of weeding through and finding what’s true and helpful. Because, believe-you-me (I know, it’s a silly saying) there’s a ton of contradictory info out there!!! And a lot more lies in the name of making money!

I have a husband who is a minister of a Mennonite church. I’m his secretary. We have two married children, and three oh-so-delightful grandchildren.

My husband is an incredible life partner. He takes his biblical role seriously – that one that says, “Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church.”

And a little side note: my current favorite book is “The Power of Blessing” by Kerry Kirkwood.

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Then if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and restore their land.   —2 Chronicles 7:14

Vertigo "Deficiency In" "Grain Free" "B12"

vertigo "deficient in"

vertigo "deficiency in"

vertigo "deficiency in" "grain free"

vertigo "deficiency in" "grain free" "b12"

These are the words and phrases I typed into the Google search field. This past weekend Gene and I BOTH began experiencing symptoms of vertigo! If it would have been just me, I would have first suspected a hormone imbalance. I’m already struggling with hot flashes anyway.

But BOTH of us?!

A couple of weeks ago we went grain-free. When Gene goes grain-free, his snoring decreases, sometimes disappearing all together. So we wondered if there are certain nutritional goodies in grain that we don’t get other ways.

The first couple of ideas that seemed worthy of reading about were deficiencies in magnesium or vitamin B12.

This vertigo thing isn’t new to us. Quite a few years ago this happened to me, and a doctor gave me an “exercise” to do something called Brandt-Daroff exercises. It’s a simple method of treating BPPV (benign positional vertigo), the most common cause of vertigo. If you’ve never experienced this…hmmm, well it’s as though your head is spinning, even though it’s not. The last time, several years ago (and this time), during the first round of the exercise, I just closed my eyes and enjoyed the “ride.” It reminds me of a crazy fair ride when you don’t know if you’re upside down or right side up. I was laying on the bed, yet feeling as though I might fall off if I don’t hang on.

And a year or so later, Gene had it too for the first time. He began the exercise and it soon left him, as it did me when I used it.

This is day two of exercising this vertigo away. The instruction sheet says to go through the process three times a day for two weeks. I didn’t spin as much this morning, so hopefully each day we’ll see improvement. The hard part is to remember to do it when we no longer have any dizzy feelings.

To church folks, if you come in this week and find us sitting up and laying down and sitting up and laying down on a pew, you’ll know what we’re doing. :)

So now to continue the search of what may be the reason for this, because I know there’s a reason. There’s a reason for every symptom, and it’s NEVER a drug deficiency, by the way. I thought I’d throw that in in an effort to promote healthy living. Drugs may relieve symptoms, but there’s a price to pay for every drug used, especially those long term medications. That price will show up one day, and then you’ll need meds for other symptoms until you have your typical, culturally acceptable and expected list of medications. That’s our culture. I choose to be counter-cultural. I’d love it if you’d join me.

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Look now; I myself am he! There is no other god but me! I am the one who kills and gives life; I am the one who wounds and heals; no one can be rescued from my powerful hand! (Deuteronomy 32:39)