Archive for health
The 9 Step Television Diet
Posted on 01.07.08 | 71 Comments
Photo: Confused VisionOver the holiday break, I traveled back to Canada to visit my parents. Since I don’t watch TV at home, I decided I would indulge my senses and watch a little. “Hey, it’s the break. Relax, let it loose and watch all those shows I miss out on.” At the end of two weeks, I was an addict. I sat and watched so many random shows that I’m embarrassed just thinking about it.
Coming from a life where the TV never gets used, I found that the change in me was swift and noticeable. My holiday daily routine went something like this: sleep in, lazily walk into the kitchen looking for food, turn on the TV to see what’s on while I eat, watch TV for several hours, spend some time with my family, eventually return to the TV and watch for several more hours.
At the end, I felt so drained and tired. Even with knowing how it made me feel, I continued to repeat this each day until the day I left. Like I was under a magical spell. What’s worst, after coming home, I downloaded all the missed episodes of Tila Tequila’s ‘Shot at Love’ and watched them. Even knowing that it was trash for my mind, I did it anyway.
Yikes! Now, I needed to do something about it.
Don’t Break Your Back! Tips to Healthy Posture
Posted on 12.17.07 | 49 Comments
When you were a child, you may have been told to “Stand up straight!” or “Don’t slouch!” from your parents and teachers. I remember when I was younger, my mother would poke my back out of nowhere to remind me to stand up straight. I hated this as a teen and was determined to rebel for no reason other than to be stubborn and go against what I was told. My purposeful slouching eventually turned into a habit and carried with me into adulthood.
Now that I’m older, I understand why my mother was so insistent. My poor posture now makes me feel:
- Pain in my back and shoulders.
- I am breathing shallowly.
- I appeared to lack self confidence.
- Energy was not flowing efficiently throughout my body. I was often tired.
- It made me look and feel weak.
I have spent much time correcting the damage, and undeveloped muscles, from my rebellious teen years. Like any habit, breaking bad posture can be a challenge, but definitely doable with some attention and practice.
Many of us may like to improve our posture, but we often don’t know how, or where to start.
How I Ended My Relationship with Coffee
Posted on 11.02.07 | 50 Comments
Photo by jacob chenLet me just start by saying that I loved my cup of ‘Grande Soy Latte’. But, I didn’t like how it made me feel after the ‘kick’ worn off. I live in Seattle, the home of Starbucks, where coffee culture is BIG, and coffee shops are sprinkled on every street corner. Every day, I walk past seven coffee shops on my short eight-minute walk to the office. Deciding to quit was a personally challenging one, and I am very proud to announce that I’ve been ‘clean’ for 8 months.
Caffeine can be a sneaky little pick-me-up. I hated how it made me feel afterwards and how much I was dependent on it. Here are other reasons why I decided to quit:
- I was sweating more.
- I would get nervous for no reason.
- I would feel dehydrated
- I felt mentally “numb,” less sensitive to my surroundings, less intuitive and less creative
- It was hard to truly relax and be calm.
- Headaches from lack of caffeine.
- I saw my friend hospitalized from too much coffee on a regular basis.
- I learned that coffee is highly acidic (I’ll cover acidity and alkalinity in food in another post)
- Caffeine masks both our true physical and emotional states. Giving my body a false boost of energy made it harder for me to tell what I really needed: more food, more sleep, more calmness?
So, I decided to end my eight year ‘love affair’ with coffee (who I ’saw’ at least twice daily). How did I do it? The answer lay in restructuring my habits. I started with staying off coffee for two weeks, and then another two weeks, which eventually turned into eight months.
