Food Police

A recent article pertaining to diet and cognitive problems in the elderly, ages 70-89 (and let me point out, "elderly" is a relative term)in a study involving more than 1200 people.

This article (if you want to read it is: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/251760.php  )
talked about carbs and the relationship to Altzheimer-like problems. In a nutshell here is part of the article:
By year 4 of the study, 200 of the 940 started to show signs of mild cognitive impairment, with deficits in language, memory, thinking and judgment.

The researchers found that:

• The highest carbohydrate eaters had a 1.9 times higher risk of mild cognitive impairment than the participants who ate the fewest carbs.


• The highest sugar consumers had a 1.5 times higher risk of cognitive impairment compared to the lowest consumers.


• The participants with the highest fat intake had a 42% lower risk of developing cognitive impairment compared to the lowest fat eaters.


• The highest protein consumers had a 21% lower chance of developing dementia compared to the lowest consumers of protein.


• When taking into account fat and protein intake, the highest carb eaters had a 3.6 times higher chance of developing mild cognitive impairment.

Now my thought is this: Where are the studies of younger people and carb related problems? (I'm sure if I dug I would find them) I used to work for a well-known weight-loss program. I had lost a lot of weight with them and so after reaching my goal, I went to work for them. I loved working for them for a variety of reasons. One thing I remember clearly is when people would ask me about low-carb diets,we were instructed to say "We don't count carbs per se, and we feel that low-carb diets are a fad and not particularly healthy as you need a balance."
 It is true, we did not count carbs, but we did place  a lot of emphasis on "good" carbs vs "bad" carbs i.e. an apple vs a slice of white bread. The emphasis was more on fiber so the theory was the more items you ate with fiber the more satisfied you would feel and by the very nature of fiber, you would be choosing more complex carbs vs say potato chips (which I daresay would contain little or no fiber) However, the company's huge push was that you could eat whatever you wanted as long as you counted it. I'm sure this resulted in people binging on, say Oreos, counting them, then starving the rest of the day. So back to the study above. It goes against everything I believed about nutrition.
Fat? BAD.
Protein? While not BAD, we tended to emphasize good carbs instead of meaty dishes. I personally have been eating vegan-ist for more than a year and what did I get? Pre-diabetes, anemia, low Vitamin D levels (We have no sun here to speak of and I don't drink milk) . In a more comprehensive  article, it mentioned that nut/oil eaters did better than their carb eating compatriots. According to the nutritionist we saw for DH after his stroke, that would be blasphemy! He was told to AVOID nuts/oil/carbs of the processed flour/sugar variety meaning pastas,breads,cookies, etc. Of course we know that too much protein is also bad for you: kidney problems, gall bladder problems, etc
I have always felt that our problems in our quest for diet nirvana was not that we lacked protein, but that we lacked fiber. How much should we get?
Adult women: 46 grams of protein per day, Men about 56 grams. This sounds like a LOT, but in reality it would look like this for a woman:3 oz of meat, a cup of dried beans, a glass of milk a day.
Fiber: Different lists vary, but it seems as if 25-30 grams of fiber a day is a good thing to strive for. Veggies, fruits, whole grains blah blah, you know the drill! There is no fiber in meat, not even the toughest steak.
Added sugars i.e. sugars that don't appear naturally, for example high fructose corn syrups, honey, table sugar should be no more than 100 calories a day (Ha, I could eat that in one bite...)
And FAT, the big bad elephant in the room: stick to about 65 grams a day, find this in nuts, good oils, avocados, fish...not those yummy Oreos. And here's a little tip: If it says Trans-Fats=0, by law, you can have less than .5 grams per serving and still be considered trans-fat free, making CRISCO in that category! Wahoo! Now that doesn't mean you can eat a whole can of Crisco and be fat-free, so don't run out and buy a can... DO YOU FEEL CRAZY WITH INFO YET?

Happy Crazidays

I am not out shopping After-Christmas sales. I am sitting here in the house alone while kids/DH are off in different directions, running errands, some gone back home. It is the most quiet it has been in days.
We had a wonderful holiday time, not only with our out-of-town kids visiting, but our in-town kids celebrating. Over the past few years, we have tried to not go insane over the holidays. I want it to be much more than the stores would have you believe: Christmas is NOT to buy more crap for people that they can't use. The point of Christmas to me is to stop and take notice of surroundings and just enjoy being with your family. Here's an idea of gifts we gave to each other:
Went to a used book sale in November, a fund raiser for our son's all-night grad party coming up in June. I was amazed by how many wonderful books there were, some obviously not even cracked open. Just about every single person on "the list" got some used books. I think we spent a total of about $25 that day and got probably in the neighborhood of 50 books. It was so cool. New ones/barely used ones/some still in plastic(!) and others with not even a crease. It was awesome. 15 people got books that way. I helped my kids and grand kids make grocery bags out of recycled fabric. DH and I got requested chocolate bars and home baked goods, and I scored 2 GIANT boxes of Jr. Mints. I am going to Weight Watcher HELL after this. No, I won't eat them all at once! I plan on making them last all year in the mini-fridge and divvy them out carefully to reward myself for exercise. Haha. My son got a giant container of Pub Mix, the ubiquitous mix of pretzels,rye bread crisps, cheeze-its etc. DH also went to Costco and bought our son Pub Mix and was so thrilled with his purchase I felt badly that I had to break it to him that I had already gotten some, hence, our son got two containers.


Another great thing I got for Christmas from Behcet's was about 5 new or forming lesions in my mouth. This was not my idea of a great gift, but it is what it is.

I don't want to focus on that. I want to focus on how great DH is doing. I know this whole stroke thing has been sobering to our family, him in particular. This has been a trying year...yet...it has been wonderful too! I so love having him home on a nearly full time basis. We are enjoying working on projects around the house, going to movies, reading more for fun (not just for his work). I also think that secretly he has been wanting to retire for a long time, and even though this isn't the way he thought of retiring, it has still been good for him to slow down and enjoy life a little more. 

It feels like a breath of fresh air to not have him working 8 hours a day, then coming home and writing papers, grading tests, etc for another 2 or 3 hours a day and weekends. I know this has also been hard making instant life changes, but for someone who hates change, well, he has learned to roll with the punches.  Here's to rolling with the punches
and a 

Going forward, looking in the rearview mirror

  There's a line in an old Billy Crystal movie called Mr. Saturday Night in which he played a down on his luck comic. He points to a man with a terrible toupee and says: "Is that a toupee? I, for one, was fooled."

I bring this up because this year started off bad and ends craptastically as my son-in-law would say.
I, for one, had such high hopes.

I don't want this to be a rehash of  our Annus Horribilis (Latin for Horrible Year) but suffice to say I hope next year is better. I think we have a tendency to separate things into neat little boxes i.e. weeks/months/years and suggest January 1st will be better than December 31st. It makes no sense really, but we are creatures of habit.

Happily we send 2012 into the abyss and hope, really hope that 2013 is brighter and cheerier. I received results from two important blood tests: My Vitamin D level and Hemoglobin a1c which measures your blood sugar averages for the last three months. It is like a video, where your fasting blood sugar is like a still photo of that one moment in time. It can detect diabetes and look for trends. I had one done in August and while elevated, did not put me in the diabetic category...yet. The docs said it was "pre-diabetes", which some suggest is a misnomer, doesn't really exist: You are or you aren't diabetic in other words. My naturopath said to me "I don't know how long you can be a vegetarian." I did not understand the gist of that until recently. You see, "schmeat" (my word for vegetarian versions of the animal proteins) contain a LOT of carbs. Compound that with I LOVE carbs: breads, cookies, yum.
I have always tried to be balanced though and I eat a lot of veggies and fruit. We all do. But DH likes cereal in the morning and we all like pancakes and waffles on a special family breakfast day.

Reckoning Day: My Ha1c went UP, not DOWN, as I had hoped and so I decided to start reintroducing chicken and fish into my menu. I had counted on going veggie to help with cholesterol levels, and it did. But crazily, I feel like I have failed. DH has been following a mostly veggie diet since his stroke too, but apparently we both have issues with our bodies processing insulin. Which means refined sugars and flours are the bad guys. Or so we want to believe. It feels like a losing battle. So, once again, I realize it is time to try and fine tune the dietary habits. Being a vegetarian, I think I was excusing the carb (over)load, thinking it was better than eating animal proteins. I am not sure there is an answer. We read about cave men, mostly meat eaters, but that they needed their body types to get them through lean times. Genetically speaking, women carry a lot more fat than men, but who dropped like flies on the Oregon Trail? HA. That would be the guys.
There have been countless books written about dieting, everything known to man (and woman) kind.
Blood type diets, carb diets, protein diets,egg and grapefruit diets, hummus and squid diets (ok, made that one up) blah blah blah. What are we supposed to eat? What is healthy? What is normal? What will prevent disease? Most nutritionists would emphasize balance in all things, heavy on the fruits and veggies, low on the goodies. This makes sense, but what the heck is "balance"? Whose idea is balance? I am out of ideas.

And after last week, who cares? I, for one, don't much feel like it matters. I hate feeling defeatist but does diet and good health really matter? I am hoping I feel more perky soon, but right now I feel so sad about things that make no sense. We try and control the world around us in the best way we can, but we have no control, not really. I hope next year is an 'Annus Mirabilis, a year of wonder and miracles. This year is shot as far as I'm concerned. Oy Vey...alas, alas.

Unimaginable Sorrow

Silent Night...
Mommy, when is Santa coming? Daddy, tomorrow is our last day of school before the break. Can we go to the zoo? Are we going to Grandma's house to open presents? Huh? Huh?


Holy Night...All is calm, All is bright...
Shh Baby, you have to go to sleep right now! Did you get all your homework done?



Round yon virgin, Mother and Child, Holy infant so tender and mild....
Hey, you have to scoot to the bus! I'll see you after school...you have ice skating tonight.





Sleep in Heavenly Peace, Sleep in Heavenly Peace.



 
 
 
 

Our hearts are broken.

One stupid choice

 Although this blog entry is not exactly about disease or illness per se, it is about the human toll of someone's actions. I am now going into my second week of a migraine and a mouth lesion that has taken a toll on my body. I don't need someone else's stupid decisions to affect my life, it's bad enough to just try and maintain. Here's a glimpse into the stress in our lives, all of our lives, that exact a "cost", not all of which is money.

Last Thursday I had to take my son for nasal surgery to a small community hospital about 20 miles from our house. I had decided to flatten two birds at the same time by making an appt for my mammogram at the same hospital earlier in the morning. We headed out, first one freeway, then the next...notorious for accidents both south and north. We were headed north for milepost 9. Keep that number in mind. It was a 65 MPH on this freeway and we were flying! (And running on time, but for me that is running late) Then...coming up to milepost 6 I see red brake lights. Crud. No, No, No! I am getting a very sinking feeling in my belly.

Now a full stop. Now a dead stop. T H R E E  more miles.

3 miles might as well be three hundred. Three thousand. I am doomed. I make the call that I "may" be late. oh ha ha. Duh! We creep. We crawl. My GPS says it is 2.9 miles to exit. 10 minutes later 2.8.
Panic. Sweat. I HATE BEING LATE. Then, up ahead, I see flashing lights. Getting close to actual accident (or what I assumed was the accident) It is now 9:30. My check-in time was 9:15. I want to puke. I am still in Migraine territory. I have had a migraine for almost a week at that point. I have had a horrific lesion on the roof of my mouth for almost a week. I cannot eat anything except small sips of liquid. The pain is amazingly, frighteningly, painful. But all I can think about is "we're late" lol.

I see the bumper of the car smashed into the guard rail on my right. Literally. The bumper, not the car. Oh dear. The car is across two lanes, in the median on the LEFT, backwards. What the? How in the world did it get there? The southbound traffic is slowing to rubberneck. The northbound is slowing for the cones/flares/police.

We finally arrive and much to my joy(!) they are running late because the techs didn't arrive due to the accident. but my joy was short-lived. The surgeons, the nurses, etc were also late and his surgery, once scheduled for 1:30 gets bumped back again and again due to the accident.
He goes in finally around four, and we leave the hospital at 9:30, hours after I thought we would be home.

I got to thinking, I am almost certain that speed played a part in the accident. That accident probably will cost the car owner $500-$1000 deductible. The insurance maybe another several thousand more.
Renting a car, maybe time off his/her job, medical bills...well it adds up tremendously. And that is the one person who got into the accident.

Try this on for size: The police/fireman/medical response=$$$
People late for their jobs=$$$
Someone misses their flight=$$$
Someone returns their rental car late=$$$
They haven't arrived to their shopping destinations costing merchants $$$
The hospital revenue cost $$$ for people being late, even something so simple as the cafeteria closing down before I can eat because of the lateness of my arrival.
The entire economy of the area suffers because someone decided to speed that day. I'm sure if I thought about it more, a lot more people would be affected exponentially. Sad, isn't it?

Since I first wrote the above words, but hadn't published them, word came of a shooting at the mall on this exact freeway. They closed down the freeway and all roads surrounding it. The mall has now been closed for the second day. Lives have been lost, one teenage girl fights for her life. Over 100 police personnel were involved in this horrific investigation. One young man decided that day to take an assault rifle to kill people at the mall. He made a choice to wreak havoc in many people's lives that day. Parents grabbed their children and ran, Santa hit the floor, people hid in dressing rooms, a young woman's life was spared because the gun jammed, two families got word that their husband/wife/father/mother were killed, one family got the word that their son had done this deed and killed himself. It has stunned the entire community. One stupid choice...

This Bud's for you

By "Bud" I do not mean the so-called "King of Beers". You know the one I am talking about! Do I have to spell it out for you????


No I am talking Buds as in Buddies: Good Friends, Special People, Associates, Chums, Companions, Comrades, Confidants, Cronies, Pals, Sidekicks...and cousins! (yeah this blog entry is for JG, because she thinks I only do this on Wednesdays, which is purely coincidental, I might add. And yes this is Sunday night..so gotcha!)
Okay, I totally got sidetracked...big surprise there. Friday morning I woke up with so much pain in my right ear and the right hemisphere of my pointy little head. And a lesion in my throat. Hmmm, Behcet's related pain? DENIAL. Sinus? DENIAL. Run of the mill headache? DENIAL.
But we were having friends over Friday night for dinner, shoot a little pool, play darts, watch Stanford wallop (err, maybe not wallop, maybe squeaking by...) UCLA, well it was going to be a fun evening and I wasn't going to let a little bitty pain spoil that. Soldier On Sergeant! Ignore this! Stop whining!
It was a fun night...one of my BFFs who is on chemo was having a far worse night than me symptom-wise. So my puny little picayune headache had nuttin' on her chemo rash and mouth lesions. It is so funny how a body responds in many of the same ways despite what illness or treatment you are on...so we played "match the lesions!" and I mixed up my magic mouthwash for her for hopefully some relief from that %$#&*^% chemo's side effects from the %$^#*^&! cancer.

Other than the craptastic symptoms, we had so much fun. It was good to laugh and attempt to play pool like drunken monkeys, even though there was no alcohol involved. PS DH, this sign is for you. You'll get it even if no one else does.

  No I'm not explaining it, private joke.


But I digress again. Horrible painful night trying to sleep and I woke up bright eyed and bushy tailed.

Bushy tail: check. Bright eyes: Dead

This is how I felt. OMG I was in so much pain! I dug through my medicine stash and found 2 year old generic Imitrex for migraines. Say...could it be a MIGRAINE???? Take the stupid meds and see what happens. If you have ever had a migraine and taken Imitrex or one of many generics, you know a weird thing happens. Your head feels like you have blown off the top like a gas leak in a crowded neighborhood.     But happily in a matter of minutes the ear pain subsided. Not the entire headache, but the ear pain calming down helped a bit. The nausea that came after and the pain upon hearing loud noises, not so much. Saturday night pain pain pain. Searing horrifying kill me now pain. Dang, this Behcet's is outta control! Called the local walk-in clinic blessedly open 7 days a week. What a great service! Within a few minutes it was determined that I was indeed suffering from the MOTHER of all migraines. (which I might add I get them 1-2 times a year, different than the cluster migraines that I get fairly regularly, but treat with Excedrin) Now you would THINK I would know this by now, right? Remember? DENIAL? (There was one time I went to the doctor having suffered for several days and he said to me just before giving me an injection: "What the HELL took you so long????" DENIAL silly!) Within an hour's time I felt human again.My new Buds (and old Buds): Bless you Mara NP. Bless you ZoomCare. Bless you drug companies. Bless you DH who drives me to the doctor and pharmacy without whining. Bless you debit card for swiping happily and coughing up its $. Bless you my BFFs who play pool and darts and keep me laughing. Bless you beloved cousins who Skype and make me smile. Bless my daughter who got me on Skype so I could "attend" a baby shower 500+ miles away today. Heck bless Skype and all forms of technology that have made our lives fun and brought us together (ok, sometimes it tears us apart, but that's another story for another time) Geez, my dad, who died in 1987 would have LOVED this stuff. Bless label makers. Where did come from? Oh, I had so much fun labeling all my crap that I had to show you! And this is me, so my DH can figure it out who the heck I am...Thank you to all my BUDS, new, old, whether they are people, objects, electrical currents, internet bandwidths floating in the air, movies, books, my Kindle, music, the ocean, grandchildren, cousins, family, daughters, sons, mountains, snow, the sun, the moon, keyboards, fences, grass, crossword puzzles, knitting,trees...stop me now, I'm getting carried away!  I'm so happy to be ALIVE. Denial, yes, sometimes, but joyful, always.