As a result of all of these seemingly shifting tides, I’ve been known to head to the Wal-Mart in the second nearest town in the middle of the night to purchase Poise, as I certainly don’t want to be seen in my local CVS with the telltale pink and turquoise package.

So, if I’m so embarrassed by my recent predicament that I’m willing to go 20 miles out of my way to avoid the stigmatizing exposure associated with mild urinary incontinence then why the heck am I writing a blog about it, you ask. Good question. The answer: because I’m willing to face the mild embarrassment to get this information known. Besides, when you admit something publicly, it loses its sting. Or maybe I am tired of being what Erving Goffman refers to as discreditable and have decided to discredit myself openly and on my terms.

Notably this biggest, most stigmatizing water problem varies by the season. It tends to get worse in the winter and all but disappear in the summer. Weird, huh?

And as we are heading into what seems like the sixth month of winter, I have been at my wit’s end, seriously. I have tried meditating. I have a regular appointment with an acupuncturist and Chinese herbalist, who assures me that healthy kidneys – at least from the Chinese perspective – are the seat of good health. In fact, at our last appointment, he asked me if I still drank coffee.

Nope. But, I told him proudly, I drink a ton of herbal tea.

What kind?

What kind? What do you mean, ‘What kind?’! It’s herbal tea, for God’s sake.

I mean what kind. Not all herbal tea is the same. They all have different energies and, therefore, different effects on the body.

Well, Tazo’s Sweet Wild Orange, Cinnamon Apple, and Orange Spice.

What?!

So, essentially, when I had replaced my daily water intake with herbal tea (which “everyone” – everyone other than my Chinese herbalist acupuncturist, that is, tells you is cool), I was essentially downing 8 – 10 cups of a pretty powerful diuretic. One that also has, in clinical trials, been shown to lower blood pressure. (Last time I was at the doctor, my blood pressure was 86/45.)

Do you know what happens when you get dehydrated (which diuretics will do)? You retain water.

Do you know what happens when you drink 64 to 80 ounces of diuretics? You spend a lot of time running to the bathroom, not to mention quite a bit of time skulking around the pharmacy section of a big box store in a town where no one knows your name.

My prescription: start drinking tea (even green tea) that does not contain hibiscus.

Do you know how hard it is to find an herbal tea (other than chamomile, which is undoubtedly the Coors Light of herbal tea) without hibiscus? Pretty darned hard, as it turns out. Apparently all fruit flavored teas – including Blueberry – have hibiscus as their number one ingredient. Who knew?

I ended up with three boxes – all from Celestial Seasonings: Bengal Spice, Honey Vanilla Chamomile, and Green Tea Honey Lemon Ginseng. So far, the Bengal Spice is pretty tasty – beneath a veritable explosion of cinnamon, it has a nice under flavor of almonds.

So, I’m drinking more water, I’m drinking less hibiscus tea – actually, no hibiscus tea. And, big surprise, I am holding on to less water, and more often than not, I have time to stop and pet the cat on the way to the ladies room. All in all, it’s a win-win.

The more I learn about my body, the more I realize that there’s always more to learn. In my next life, I want to be a holistic health care practitioner and I hope I live in a world where all forms of knowledge – Eastern or Western – are easily accessible, available, and appreciated.

Exiting the Roller Coaster – appropriate, but not necessarily enlightening.

Becoming My Own Expert – probably a little more elucidating.

How about, Reclaiming the Owner’s Manual?

Last year was a year of experimentation and disappointments for me in terms of my health, my motivation, and – let’s get real – my weight.

It started with the food allergies: gluten, dairy, soy, and – as much as it pains me to admit it – nuts.

In an attempt to deal with those, I went raw and for 4 or 5 months, I felt great. In fact, in May, I felt (and looked, lest we forget that I am much more shallow and vain than I had ever given myself credit for) better than I had in my entire life. I also weight in at a slight 132.5 (a whole 100 pounds from my high weight recorded in the Weight Watchers office at 21st and Sheridan in 1986).

In June, things started to change.

My energy started flagging. I was no longer working. I could barely get out of bed and on the days that I managed it, I often spent the afternoons on the couch. I think the most worrisome thing for those closest to me was that I was no longer exercising. Not only did I not have the energy, I didn’t want to. Zero interest.

In an attempt to jumpstart my interest – in anything – I started looking to experts. I tried High Intensity Interval Training (which I hated) and, even though it worked for everyone else, it did nothing for me. I read a book where the authors suggested that counting calories was bad and that you should just eat slower and take more pleasure in your food.

Due to a strange twist of fate (numbness in my hands which resulted in a second degree burn), a neurologist did a panel of blood tests and as it turns out, I have Hashimoto’s disease, which means that my autoimmune system is attacking my thyroid. My chiropractor recommended that I start eating some cooked food. My health coach recommended that I start eating small amounts of animal protein at every meal and that I treat the underlying problem using herbal and nutritional supplements without taking the prescribed synthroid.

About this time, I also started working with a fitness coach, who convinced me to separate food from exercise. I took supplements, I cleansed. I didn’t take the medicine as prescribed. The thyroid numbers got worse and worse.

I took belly dancing, yoga. I danced in my living room.

You name it, I did it.

And I still felt like crap and still had no energy.

I cleansed again.

And still my clothes didn’t fit. In six months I had gained 16 pounds…. Ugly.

My mood swings were turning into tilt-a-whirls. I started the synthroid, while continuing the herbal treatment for the underlying adrenal exhaustion.

I have recalled my calorie tracking program and relinked calories in with calories out, even though I do know enough to know that not all calories are created equally.

This is not a New Year’s Resolution. This really is more of a state of the union. The state of the relationship between me and my body.

To date, we are stronger than we were just a few weeks ago.

Why? Because I’ve decided to stop listening to the experts and to really tune in to what I/we need to heal.

But trust us, we have a long way to go.

It’s funny, I used to know what worked for me, but in the last six months, I’ve felt completely out to sea. Not only out to sea, but out to sea without a map and, if truth be told, without a compass.

Over the next few days, I’m going to get serious about creating that map and putting it into place. I am also going to tune into the compass – that is, my intuitive knowledge about myself – that I have also been so steadfastly ignoring. I’m, importantly, I am going to use this blog as a personal and public tool for accountability as I turn this ship around and get headed in the right direction.

And over the next few weeks (and months, as I have no illusions that this can be undone as quickly as it was done), I will chronicle my fears, my frustrations, my joys, my successes, and my aspirations.

I love my body. It’s the only one I have and – barring all medical emergencies or miracles – the only one I’m likely ever to have.

If any of you would care to join me, I’d love for you to come along for the ride. Or if you’re simply willing to bear witness, I’d appreciate that too.

The doctor was concerned that I hadn’t felt it until it was too late. We started talking and I told him that I often lacked feeling in that hand, as well as on the outside of my right calf.

All this comes on the heels of a recent diagnosis of Raynaud’s.

Off to the neurologist I go – five weeks later, which would be yesterday.

I spent several hours hooked up to electrodes, being shocked and measured all over my body. It seemed spookily reminiscent of the Milgram experiment, but I digress.

Carpel tunnel in both wrists (no surprise there) and asymmetrical reflexes. Those two things alone warranted an appointment for a spinal MRI and blood test in the amount of 7 (yes, you read that right) 7 vials of blood!

Today I get a call from the doctor at my office – a few minutes before 6:00.

There were some abnormalities in the blood work.

It appears that my Thyroid Stimulating Hormone test came back a 20. The “normal range” is 2.5 to 5.

“Have you had unexplained weight gain?”

Duh.

“Has your memory gotten worse?”

Check.

“Headaches?”

Check.

“Have you noticed a decrease in energy and overall motivation?”

(I started to ask if he’d been reading my blog!)

And then there were a few other questions you don’t need to know about….

Check. Check. And – you guessed it – check.

As a general rule I hate medicine and have lived my life to avoid it at all costs. However, I think that this is one I’m not going to be able to avoid.

Damn.

As my sister just so gently reminded me: “Getting old is not for sissies.”

This summer I decided to follow a couple of different HIIT exercise programs and while they were okay, for a while, I eventually felt like I was losing ground cardio-vascularly. Maybe it the fact that I was panting on the Nordic Track after just five minutes that gave it away – can anyone say, “Former Spinning Instructor”?

Since HIIT is all the rage, I decided that I simply must not be doing it right. Right?

Well, I logged into the members area for the program that I was doing on-line and all of the women that it was working for were using it as a supplement to their other cardio workouts! One woman in particular, was bragging about how it had really improved her training.

What training, you ask?

The training she was doing for her upcoming marathon!

No wonder it was working for her! Jeez!

I expressed my dismay about my less than optimal hit rate with my then current HIIT program to my personal coach (who is not, btw, my fitness coach) and she said, oh yeah, I do HIIT – it’s great. I’ll send you a workout and a mix tape. Make sure you do a 15 minute power walking a couple times a day in addition to these more bursty-type exercises.

Okay. Why not? I’ve tried everything else this summer….

So, I start with 15 minutes on the Nordic Track (HIIT style; 30:30 sec interval ratio) as a warm up.

The new HIIT workout (6 different exercises on a 60:60 second interval ratio)

Then 10 minutes cool down, back on the Nordic Track

I just about died.

Did I mention that twice a week, I’m supposed to do this not once a day, but twice?!

I feel bad about switching horses in midstream, so to speak, but that’s life!

Maybe I’ll mix in the other routines on the days that I’m supposed to do two sets.

Regardless, in just three days, I can already feel a big difference – and this time, in the right direction – in my body!

Go me!

I’ll keep you posted!

A few weeks ago, I went to a nutritionist, who wanted to see a list of everything that had gone into my mouth for a week. SInce I was still counting calories then (more on my experiences not counting calories to come) I had a very detailed account of what I had been eating, not just for a week, but for months (if not years).

After about ten minutes of flipping through print outs she asked, “Where are you getting your fat from?”

I looked at her sort of funny and said, “Well, as you can see, I eat a lot of tahini. It used to be peanut butter, but I can’t control myself around that. I had switched to almond butter, because I didn’t like it as much and then eventually got to be just as much as a trigger food as peanut butter. Now it’s tahini.”

She flipped through another few pages. “Do you eat olive oil? Fish? Flax?”

Uhm, not really. Mainly I had stopped eating all of that stuff because my nut butter compulsions were so out of control.

Her suggestion: Maybe the reason I can’t control myself around peanut butter, almond butter, and (while not quite as bad as the other two) tahini is that I’m fat deficient.

To be honest, I almost laughed.

Until she started giving me the symptoms associated with fat deficiency: constipation, dry hair, brittle nails, dry skin, fatigue, depression, anxiety – you name it, I have been experiencing it.

Prescription: eat more fat.

More to the point: eat a wider spectrum of fats.

Since I met with her I have really upped my fat intake and, importantly, reduced my nut and seed butter intake dramatically. So instead of eating nut butters and or tahini straight out of the jar and feeling like an out of control pig in the process, I am consciously adding fat to every meal.

To my morning smoothie, which is heavy on the rice protein, raw cacao, and dark leafy greens, I am adding 1 tablespoon of Barlean’s Chocolate Raspberry Swirl Essential Oils for Women. (If you haven’t tried this stuff, it is so good that you could eat it – literally – off the spoon or as a topping for ice cream. Seriously, it’s that good!)

To my lunch, I have added an avocado.

For my snack, I am having 1, if not 2, tablespoons of coconut butter. (If you haven’t tried this either, get some, as it is truly divine. I am not kidding, it is absolutely heavenly!) This particular brand comes in regular, which is just straight coconut and in chocolate – aptly named Raw Organic Cacao Bliss, which is coconut and raw cacao. Either way, it’s delicious. It’s a bit hard to deal with in the summer months because it goes liquid at 72 degrees, but where there’s a will, there’s a way! And trust me, its inconsistent consistency hasn’t stopped me yet. Again, delicious straight off the spoon, off my finger, or as a spread.

For dinner? Well, it depends. Sometimes it’s more avocado. Sometimes it’s sesame oil. Sometimes it’s flax seed. Sometimes it’s olive oil.

Bottom line: I am now eating essential fats at every meal.

And guess what? I’m no longer binging on peanut butter, almond butter, or tahini. In fact, it’s been days since I’ve had any of those things and I haven’t even missed them!

As someone who has counted calories (and fat) for years and who has tendencies to binge on high fat foods, the notion of adding fat purposefully and consciously into my diet not only seemed counter-intuitive, but also scary. However, it’s eliminated the binging and, more importantly, all of the subsequent guilt, self-abuse, and self-ridicule.

And how has this affected the scale, you might be wondering?

Well, I couldn’t tell you, because in addition to ditching the calorie counting, I also have stopped weighing myself. But it appears – by sight, by the fit of my clothes, and by the number on the measuring tape – that Barlean’s claim to be an “approved belly fat cure” may not be as overstated as I originally thought.

Got fat?

So, why do I like her so much?

1. She covers a wide range of exercises and for people at all levels of fitness (ranging from Tabata training to Kettlebells for beginners).
2. She’s easy to follow.
3. She looks like a real person – albeit with a body that any woman would envy.
4. She’s really just showing you how to do the exercises without a lot of hype.
5. She also covers a range of health topics, including things like strengthening tired knees, the health benefits of the contents of your spice rack, etc.  And for those of you who actually cook your food, she also has a number of healthy recipes you can check out!

Although I haven’t figured out her approach entirely, apparently she posts a new video episode every weekend and if you’re truly motivated, you can watch in real time via ustream, submit questions, and all that stuff.  Me? I tend to come to things late, so I’ve just been cruising the archives.

Anyway, if you’re looking for a no nonsense way to diversify your fitness routine, check her out!  I’ve certainly added her to my bookmarks!!!

50 Nutrition Tips to Better Your Brain

Everything from tonics to drinks nowadays claims to have fantastic properties. Losing weight, increasing stamina, and even sexual prowess are just some of the claims made by today’s latest wonder drugs. But if looking for a simple brain boost to pass a test, make a presentation, or other task, what are the best ways to naturally increase your brain power?

Below we have gathered 50 nutrition tips to better your brain the all-natural, diet way. They include foods to get lots of, along with options to stay away from.

Read more

Considering I’m off the meat and dairy bandwagon, I did surprising well! How about you?

If you eat food or know anyone who does, I heartily recommend you check it out!

By 2015, four out of 10 Americans may be obese. Until last year, the author was one of them. The way he lost one-third of his weight isn’t for everyone. But unless America stops cheering The Biggest Loser and starts getting serious about preventing obesity, the country risks being overwhelmed by chronic disease and ballooning health costs. Will first lady Michelle Obama’s new plan to fight childhood obesity work, or is it just another false start in the country’s long and so far unsuccessful war against fat?

Having said that, I also had an important insight that will serve me well as I start adding sugar back into my diet.

Here it goes: have you ever been in a situation where everyone around you – except you – is drunk?

That’s sort of what it felt like today, post-Easter brunch as I watched everyone around me slip into a sugar induced coma.

So, what is a sugar coma?

A sugar coma occurs because you eat too many calories – and too much sugar – in one setting. When this happens, an alarm literally goes off in your body, causing you to secrete insulin. Insulin is a hormone that pulls sugar out of your blood stream and stores it as fat. Insulin, unfortunately, is a rather efficient hormone. One could actually say that it’s too efficient, because insulin doesn’t just get rid of the excess sugar in your blood; it gets rid of all of the sugar in your blood. Then, when you don’t have enough sugar, you get tired, irritable, grumpy, and, let’s not forget hungry, which more often than not sets off another whole cycle of overeating.

Today, after brunch, I watched – like clockwork – as six reasonably healthy adults all pretty much dropped into a sugar coma within an hour (maybe two) of having finished eating. Without exception, every single adult (the kids, interestingly were unaffected; but then again, they’re still at the age where you have to convince them to eat!) started yawning and a couple of them even nodded off in their chairs.

Me, I felt completely energized. Moreover, I was relieved that I had foregone the regularly scheduled meal, despite the fact that it looked and smelled absolutely delicious! And based on the comments and expressions of rapturous delight around me, probably tasted just as good as it looked.

So, what constitutes a “normal” holiday brunch? I think this is a reasonable question, because I realize that my definition of normal is so far outside of the norm these days that it’s probably irrelevant.

This particular one consisted of mimosas, french toast, maple syrup, brioche eggs, spiralized ham, steamed asparagus, and green peas, followed up by a round of tea/coffee and an assortment of cookies and jam. (Actually, this brunch was pretty tame compared to those I remember from childhood, where there undoubtedly would have been some sort of “Easter Cake,” not to mention the infamous “Easter Baskets.”)

Me, I stuck to my aforementioned menu of Sunburst Salad, Black Sesame Bread, and Black Pepper Cheeze.

And though no one joined me in my offerings, as I didn’t choose to join them in theirs, I felt completely comfortable sitting down to break bread and catch up.

I think that the post-brunch-sugar-coma was so noticeable to me this time because I have spent the last month balancing my blood sugar and was therefore completely unperturbed by any rise or fall of blood sugar and, consequently, insulin following my meal. Also, there was nothing in the meal that would have caused my blood sugar to spike in the first place.

In addition to simply having had a wonderful visit with family and friends, today provided a really good reminder for me – as someone who is about to re-enter the world of sugar – to take it slowly (if at all).

As I noted previously, today is the last day of the 21 Day Sugar Detox, so as of tomorrow I can start adding sugar back into my diet. Judiciously.

Lesson from today: when I start adding certain foods back into my diet, I need to think not only about how good it’s going to taste going in, but also how it’s going to make me feel 2 hours, 2 days, and even – believe it or not – 2 years from now.

Does that mean that I won’t get any enjoyment out of my food for the rest of my life? No. But it does mean that I will continue to strive to eat the kind of food (that is, food that I actually do enjoy) that will allow me enjoy my life to its fullest.

This is a short video from Holistic Nutritionist Rose Cole. Check it out! It’s pretty amazing. It sort of reminded me of being back in my high school chemistry class! Ah, the nostalgia of it.

And, even if you’re not interested in better digestion (or weight loss or having more energy), it will answer that question that you’ve always had – but were too polite to ask – about what really happens to corn after you eat it! I’ll just stop there in order to preserve the sensibilities of my readers, but I’m sure that you know what I’m talking about!

Note: depending on your bandwidth, you might want to let the video load up completely before watching it! Enjoy!