Sunday, January 31, 2010

3 quotes

One of my favorite things to do is collect great quotes. So here are 3 of my favorites.

"I would rather regret the things I have done than the things I have not." Lucille Ball

" Every man is born an original, but sadly, most men die copies." Abraham Lincoln

"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."
Albert Einstein

Saturday, January 30, 2010

Simply Living

One morning last week I was saying my 10 gratefuls for the day. This is something I do each morning to remind myself that I have much to be grateful for in my life no matter what is going on. So one of my things was living a simpler life. After I said it the thought came to me that to a lot of people our lives, my husband & mine, probably seems anything but simple. He has a very serious health issue, our diet is very strict, we are living on one income that is not great by modern standards,etc. These things have taught us well how to really live our lives. My favorite shopping experience is to the health food stores not the department stores. A treat comes my way when the Farmer's Markets open up in early Spring and I can "window shop" the stalls. Preparing our meals has become a creative process for me not a chore that I would rather not have to do. To me simple doesn't mean living without but appreciating what I do have and not constantly adding to a wish list of more. It means believing and trusting in a higher source and ourselves to take care of us in all ways. No more money blues or worries but not because we won the lottery but because we feel safe and know that the universe or source makes sure that we have what we need to take care of ourselves & each other. Living simply to me means being happy with myself and what I am doing right now in the present moment. It means loving so much it is almost tangible. It means finding meaning in everything. I live this way and it is a beautiful life. I am not saying that I don't get anxious sometimes or sad but I allow myself to experience these things and then turn them around. Living simply is simply living. It took serious illnesses in both of us for us to wake up to our lives. Don't wait for something like that to happen to wake up to yours. Everyday is full of possibility and opportunity you just need to take off the blinders to see them.

Saturday, January 23, 2010

meditation & play

I just finished reading Bernie Siegel's ideas on meditation & play in our lives and how important they are. I know meditation has /does help me alot. I make time to do it no matter where I am or what I am doing. I have two guides that I like to use. One is on the in breathe I say "I am like the ocean" or "I am like the mountain" and on the out breathe I say "I flow free" or "I am strong". I visualize a calm ocean on the in breathe or a strong beautiful mountain with evergreens. On the out breath I see whitecapped waves rolling in shore or ripples catching the sunlight or a simple strong mountain sustaining life with its' trees and animals. It is just peaceful.
As for play writing is play for me as is preparing meals. I try to attach some kind of creative meaning to "chores". This is not always easy. we walk alot or take motorcycle rides when the midwest weather permits. We have two cats that I love playing with. we try to make each other laugh alot.
I think that the modern world teaches us that children play and adults are serious. Even our sports teams are not suppossed to be in it for the fun but for the win. They makes unbelievable amounts of money and are held to very high standards in all ways even feeling like they need steroids and such all in order to play a game. It is crazy. we call people who are not as serious & disciplined as we think they should be slackers. Being serious and rigid all of the time will kill you. I ask you today to remember how it felt when you were little playing with your favorite toys or friends. Find that kid again and the joy & happiness he/she had then. Meditate on it!

Saturday, January 16, 2010

Walnuts

It seems that I have developed an addiction to walnuts. I crave them. I eat them every morning in my breakfast and they are my snack food. I wanted to find out why so I looked up the nutrition chart on them and found out that they are an excellent source of omega3 which I kinda already knew. Omega3's are essential for proper brain health among other things. I figure that since I had a serious brain illness I need the omega3's to heal & rebuild. They are also very heart healthy. I found the interesting info. on World's Healthiest Foods website. I do take some exception with the info. suggesting peanut butter or peanuts because peanuts are one of the heaviest sprayed crops and they contain aflatoxin which is a carcinogen. From my reading I also understand peanut butter is made from the scrappy peanuts not suitable to be sold as is. Other nut or seed butters I support and do eat like almond butter or sunflower seed butter. Anyway check out the article on walnuts and the health benefits they offer at whfoods.org.

Friday, January 15, 2010

Buddha Bowls

Last night I made a super dinner. It was easy & fast and healthy. I would love to take credit for the idea but I cannot. It came from the great Kris Carr author of Crazy Sexy Cancer Tips and more. It is called a Buddha Bowl. The idea behind a Buddha Bowl is to mix an alkalizing grain with various veggies that you have around the kitchen that need eaten. The grains can be quinoa or millet. I used two types of rice...small grain brown & brown basmatti. I used these because my husband told me he was sick of quinoa and brown rice benefits the pancreas which is the main organ we are trying to heal. I do not know if these rices are alkaline or acid to the body. Our veggies were alkaline though. I had kale, arugula, yellow onion, garlic, broccoli & avocado. We topped it of with about 5 sprays each of Bragg's Amino Acids and a little fresh lemon juice. It was extremely filling and yummy. The other thing I like about it is that it is part raw/part cooked. My husband has been wanted a little more cooked rather than raw so this was a nice compromise and fit the healthy eating program we are on. It is a good transition meal to raw. It is also a good way to get the family to eat those important veggies, especially the leafy greens. Eating healthy is not hard to do. Simplicity is what it is all about. Enjoy!

To find out more about the Alkaline/Acid balance in the body just google it. Food charts will pop up. Our Naturopath gave us one. There needs to be a proper ratio of alkaline to acid but to heal from disease or prevent one you need to be more alkaline. The foods & drinks we eat influence this delicate balance that is so important. A good resource to learn about this and see a food chart is thewolfeclinic.com

Thursday, January 14, 2010

I want to recommend blog myyearwithout.blogspot.com. It is a blog for all you sugar addicts and offers some great advice on giving the stuff up as well as facts and replacements.

Monday, January 11, 2010

a great day

Today has been an amazing day! Tonight during meditation and the class afterwards I had some awesome realizations. During meditation I realized that I am truly happy and joyful. Happy as in content and joyful as in excited. I have thought of this before but tonight I meditated on it and it brought tears to my eyes because it is so great to feel this way. I did not always and can say it is like being the innocent child again. I also meditated on my intentions for this new year which are to defeat cancer in my husband and find a new career path. I feel it in my core that this year is a turning point year. I focus my qi or life force energy on it. I have no doubt that these things will happen and that makes me joyful and happy. Something else came to my realization that makes me happy and excited. My birthday is next month and I have not known how to feel about it because last year my dad had cardiac arrest on my birthday and 2 days later he passed. I am a daddy's girl big time. So I have had some confusing feelings about my birthday this year until tonight. Earlier today we went to a health food store on the other side of the city to use a gift certificate we received on Christmas. The cashier gave us a flyer of upcoming events and listed on my birthday is a lecture by a woman who has successfully treated herself for stage 2 cervical cancer using food,not chemo,radiation,etc. I know of this woman for a few reasons and just by the fact that the past 2 years and still the focus in my life has been using nutrition to beat cancer for my husband. So what are the chances that on my birthday this year this woman is going to be talking about this topic and how she successfully achieved it! I do not believe in coincidence but rather manifestation. I think this is so either by my dad's influence,he communicates with us often, or because I manifested it as part of my intention to have this be a turning point year.
We listened tonight to ThichNaht Hanh talk about 12 exercises for mindfulness. These are 4 exercises for the mind, 4 for the emotions and 4 for the body. Concentration and the gain of insight was one of the exercises. He says that insight is not a notion and in fact when we gain insight it negates notion. He used the idea of impermanence as an example. I believe that Paul & I have the insight of impermanence because of the life experiences we have had with serious illness. I believe that it is this insight that allowed me to deal with my dad's passing as well as I did. It is pretty cool to realize that you truly have insight into something so fundamentally important. He also discussed that we all posses joy and happiness. It is always there within us and around us. We chose to acknowledge it or not. If we concentrate on it so it will be. Something else he spoke about in regards to impermanence is that if when we feel anger and argue with someone they then are feeling that too. But what if we concentrate on where will that person that I love be in 100 years and where will I be in 100 years and then open our eyes to see him/her we feel happiness because he/she is still here and so am I. I think this is great because we have all had the petty fights and it is such a waste of energy.
This has been one of those days where I feel like I have achieved amazing things. Everyday should be this way...I offer up that it will.

Sunday, January 10, 2010

New year,New juicer

Our new juicer had its' maiden voyage last night and was it ever successful. We purchased a masticating juicer,our first and there is a huge difference. I got more juice with fewer veggies than ever before and the pulp was totally dry. A masticating juicer costs more but it is obvious to me that we will save money in the end at the grocery store. A first time thing last night...3 juicing carrots &7 celery stalks made enough juice for me & my husband. This would not be possible with our 2 previous juicers. I am so happy & excited to have this appliance in my kitchen. It also grinds spices, nuts, makes nut butters, pastas, baby food all kinds of stuff.
So if you are looking for a juicer I highly recommend a masticating juicer over a centuifuge juicer. We bought the Omega 8004 from Omega juicers. They have a polished reputation and offer nice warranties.

Happy juicing!

Monday, January 4, 2010

nutrition & cancer

Today I purchased a book that I have heard about for years. It just might be the most important book I have ever read about nutrition. It is The China Study by T. Colin Campbell. I am not finished with it but it is having that wow effect on me. I knew some of these things but not in the context in which the book describes them. Mostly what I love about it is that it is empowering knowledge. I have a degree in English Literature not biochemistry or nutrition but I have taught myself a lot in these two fields over the course of 2 years. I am not an overachiever. I am a wife determined to save her husband's life from stage IV, metastic, inoperable pancreatic cancer. Guess what...with help from 2 fabulous openminded doctors I am doing it. How? Food...nutrition. There is a lot of information out there and some of it is junk. It takes a knowledgable mind and a lot of dedication and determination to unearth the real information available. It does exist. The way we eat means everything. In our schools it should be a core class from grade school through college. It effects every aspect of our lives. Even Hippocrates knew this but it seems to be a subject disregarded in most medical schools. Most conventional doctors are totally ignorant on the topic. That is a crime in my opinion. Money can't be made on teaching people how to eat well or how to eat to reverse illness but it can be made on pills,surgeries,etc. It makes me so angry. When I asked our allopathic (conventional) oncologist if he wouldn't at least consider that the dietary changes we have made had made a difference in my husband's current state instead of the diagnosis being wrong he said he was not a dummy and could not deny what was right in front of him. Now we know that as an allopathic oncologist he can't say that he does believe that our dietary changes have made a significant difference but he as much as he could he acknowledged that they had. I have seen the suffering caused by cancer first hand with my oldest sister who passed from lung cancer. It is aweful to me now to think of it because it was so preventable and unnecessary and easy but we just did not know anything about cancer & nutrition at the time in my family. Her experience filled me with dread when we found out that my husband had cancer and I was determined that he/we would not go through that and that I was not going to lose him to this damned disease. I understand how it works now and the many factors that help it to progresss and stop it in its' tracks. We are still fighting it but we are winning and I know we will be victorious. I just want others to know they can do it too. The diet changes may seem to overwhelming or too big but in comparison to what? Chemo & radiation are pretty overwhelming and big! My husband did chemo for 14 months. He faired better than most do while on it and we agree along with one of our docs that our diet & some supplements made that possible. Basically what has happened in the course of 2 years is a stabilization of the tumors. They are still there but they have not grown or progressed since initial diagnosis. This is highly unusual for adenocarcinoma of the pancreas as it is considered an aggressive cancer. "Eating the right way not only prevents disease but also generates health and a sense of well -being, both physically and mentally."T. Colin Campbell

Sunday, January 3, 2010

My views on food

Over the holidays I had a fun coversation about food. It has had me thinking about my views on food in our society. So here are my thoughts.
We have lost respect for food...all food. We are no longer greatful for the apple we are eating we just expect that there will always be apples available and so what..we would rather have a candy bar. That piece of meat on our plates so...I can go to the store and pick from a wide variety. An animal suffered and died for it,for me...whatever. Our ancestors grew & raised thier food. They didn't force feed the cow to produce more meat or add hormones and antibiotics to its's feed. Nor did it eat corn instead of grass. The fruits,veggies and grains were grown with hopes of sustaining the family through the year, summer & winter. Weeds were picked not sprayed. Large applications of pesticides and herbicides weren't sprayed directly onto the food to be baked in by the sun or ruin the soil below. Nowadays we take it for granted that food will always be in our stores so big deal.
Why do we eat? Food is fuel for our bodies. It contains the natural nutrients that we need to survive and thrive. It gives the little doctors inside of us the tools they need to keep us healthy. Real live food does this. Processed, dead, nutrient deficient foods ladden with chemicals do not do this. In fact they do the opposite. We took some nutrition classes from a clinical dietician last year and she said that if we invite time traveller over for dinner he should be able to recognize everything on the plate and if he can't we should not be eating it. I like this. Would time traveller recognize Doritos, coke, or peperoni pizza? How about McDonald's or Taco Bell?
We must respect ourselves by respecting our food! Be grateful for that apple in your hand (hopefully it is organic) and that food in the kitchen. It is here to nourish you not comfort you or fill a void in your life! I will paraphrase Hippocrates when he said your food shall be your medicine and your medicine shall be your food. so look at the next thing you have on your plate,fork,or in your hand and ask yourself Will this help me or hurt me? Is it real? would time traveller recognize it?
eat with respect and in good health!