by Grace on November 20, 2009
I’m back from a vacation to London, England. I had a great time visiting friends, shopping, eating, etc. The dog in the photo is Raul and he belongs to my friend, Laura, whom I stayed with in London.
A friend of a friend in London had H1N1 (now recoverd) so I was conscious of that and I carried a bottle of hand sanitizer with me at all times. I was avoiding certain foods (trying to at least) before I left to London that came out positive during a food sensitivity test. I didn’t manage to keep this up during my stay in London, allowing myself to eat whatever I wanted whenever I wanted.
I guess like many people on vacation, trying to maintain healthy habits was not my priority. I drank very little water in order to avoid dirty public washrooms but drank more wine than usual (you can’t go to England without going to a few pubs), and indulged in over-eating including late night, post-pub friend chicken. Before my vacation, I did a decent job avoiding potato chips which is one of my favourite snack foods. But in London, I succumbed to the temptation and munched on prawn cocktail flavoured chips (very yummy) almost every night. My justification: we don’t have that flavour in Canada so I must enjoy them as much as I can while in London.
After a week of jet lag and gaining too much weight, I am trying to be more disciplined about what I consume. Starting today, I will try to avoid wheat and gluten. I also developed eczema while away. Perhaps the eczema was the result of the climate but I have a suspicion that it may be due to what I was eating. Nevertheless, despite the weight gain and the eczema on my face, the trip was worth it.
by Ted Sedgwick on November 19, 2009
A couple of weeks ago I ran a brief and somewhat superficial survey to find out where people would get information on health issues. My conclusion was that advertising is the main source of information for those that read the daily tabloids. Occassionally information comes from a more credible source, such as prestigious journals, as was the following article that was recently brought to my attention.
Meditation Halves Risk of Heart Attack
Relaxation technique may be as powerful as modern drugs
http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2009/1116/1?etoc
The results from this study are intriguing, and quite in-line with what many people have suggested before. The impact here is that now it is being discussed in an acclaimed journal. Is this more reliable than the daily tabloids? There is nothing in this report that would lead me to deny it outright, so I might be inclined to believe the results. I would like to believe the results. My hesitation would be that although this is published in the family of a prestitigious journal, this is not a peer reviewed article, and the fact that it is published may be just a policy statement from the editors. To their credit, they do also publish comments in response to this article.
My observation is that many people will accept published information as being true without questioning the reliability of the source. There is a lot of money to be made in ‘snake oils’. Please read beyond the labels.
by Suzanne Jolly on November 17, 2009
Saturday I spent the day at Mt. Baker skiing. It was fantastic. I haven’t been to Baker since I was about 18, and it was my first ski day of the season. There was so much snow and I even enjoyed the road-trip feel of it- it’s a few hours south of Vancouver.
Skiing is my winter pastime. Last season I spent the winter at Whistler, and this season I’m dedicating the majority of my ski days to the backcountry. I had started trying to prepare for skiing by running recently. It seems it was a sad attempt to prepare my body for skiing, however, as I struggled to bend over on Sunday and Monday. Skiing, in case you didn’t know, works the lower back and abs in a whole new way. I always forget that (despite feeling “in shape”) I am never in good skiing shape the first few days of the season.
The sore muscles the day after skiing made me think more about cross training. I realized that so many times we think of ourselves as a Climber or a Skier or a Yogi or…??… and yet in essence, I love to cross train. I think that’s probably why I’ve struggled to commit to buying a single pass for anything- I don’t want to be locked into doing just one thing all the time. I like flexibility and it turns out that’s a good thing. I looked further into cross training, and it seems it’s a great way to reduce the likelihood of injury!
So here’s to winter and new fallen snow and crosstraining. I think I’ll do some yoga tomorrow to stretch out these sore muscles…and get ready for skiing next weekend.
by Juliana on November 14, 2009
I will be honest and say that there will be no eating healthy this week. It’s my birthday and I am expecting to pig out. And I’m not kidding about that…as I write this blog, I am eating a bag of potato chips.
I know for a lot of people, birthdays wreak havoc on their mental health…they see their lives passing by and that they feel like they are losing time. I try and keep away from that line of thinking. Every year brings wisdom, and with wisdom comes peace.
But it is my birthday and birthdays do mean presents. So here is a list of things that I would like to get on my birthday.
1. Scientists to discover that you only need to exercise once a week for 30 minutes to stay healthy
2. Chocolate that takes weight off instead of putting it on
3. Potato chips that don’t go straight to your hips
4. Scientists to discover that bacon, steaks and Kentucky Fried Chicken are a great source of the good cholesterol
5. Butter to be a good source of anti-oxidants.
Somehow I don’t think I’m going to get any of these items for my birthday, but no worries.
There will still be plenty of cake.
