Alternative Health...and Oprah.

Stumbled upon this article today. Awesome! Who's right? Who's wrong?

A scientist details how upset he is with Oprah's messages regarding alternative health therapy.
Fascinating!

Btw. I haven't had any sugar or refined carbs today. Sigh...i mean...I'm LIGHT as a feather. :-)

What to eat?

I love and I hate Alternative Health (AH).
On the plus side, the world of AH provides answers to dietary medical problems and muscular medical problems that Medical Doctors, traditional nutritionists, and your average personal trainer cannot provide. Things like:

• Crohn's disease
• Irritable Bowel Syndrome
• Chronic Fatigue
  

But because AH practitioners are on the fringe of the medical world, and are largely unregulated they are scary. Add to that the distrust from traditional medical doctors and the zealot like followings for diets like Atkins, herbal remedies, strange cayenne pepper diets ...and frankly it all looks like a lot of bullshit...and requires some shrewd studying to determine how to proceed.

So as I've been thinking about this Candida experiment, I decided to visit my local health food store and get information.
The lady there recommended a $20 cure that I can take for 30 days...much like the lovely Asian woman I talked to a couple of weeks ago.
She also recommended acidophilus for my unhappy tummies. I decided to take a pass on all that for now, use up my $28-30 day remedy first...THEN see about her stuff.

Instead I bought a book called "Restoring your Digestive Health".
Imagine my sadness and surprise when I opened it to find a program called..."Guts and Glory".

Tomorrow I go with safe, and eat lovely brown rice and whatever doesn't turn my stomach. and I'm going off of liquor and tv all week...until i know what it takes to get "Guts AND Glory".

Awe Sugar...Awe honey honey.

I'm having such a hard time believing that any of this working out will help me lose weight.
This week has continued my run as the candy-crazed woman @ work who cannot pass the candy dish w/o helping myself.

And once again, i am eating food that makes my stomach hurt.

I've also been toying with yet another new diet to snap me out of my bad habits. this one is the Candida diet.

According to an Asian woman who runs O.R. Smoothies in the Central West End, she can see AND feel that I very likely have systemic Candida which makes it hard to lose weight, increases likelihood of yeast infections, and slows a person down. Which is a problem that natural health practitioners feel 80% of the population has, and 100% of traditional MDs will not treat.

And I love natural practitioners. There's just enough truth in each suggestion they make to make me believe...and is a solution is less than $50, and involves mostly a change in habits, I'm sold.

"The yeast crave the sugar...make you eat more. This kill the yeast, make you slim and beautiful.".

Ah well, we'll try it for 7 days and see what happens. 7 days never killed anybody. I did almost diet that time I tried a 1700 calorie diet for 7 days though...i let you's know when i decide to do it and what happens.

Website for logging workouts

complete with weight training routines that could keep it interesting...

http://www.fitlink.com

Gaining back 35 lbs after a 100lb wt loss

Gaining back weight sucks. This is a great blogger, who wrote a book called "Half-Assed". all about her journey to lose 100+ lbs.

http://pastaqueen.com/halfofme/archives/2009/05/so_about_my_weight.html


She has gained some weight back. I really like the way she talks about it here....

"The Hardest to Learn is the least complicated" - The Indigo Girls

I like introspection...here's some more.

For 21 years I've been dieting, thinking about losing weight, and lamenting my physique.

21 years. That's a lot of practice. And most of that time i didn't really do anything...except drink skim milk instead of whole, drink diet soda instead of regular, eat NO fat, then I ate more protein, etc. etc.

It wasn't until about 5-6 years ago that i decided to drop the habit of "weight loss thinking".

The main thinking can be boiled around to three basic statements that can revolve in my head at time.

1. "Oh i better get around to losing weight."
   
2. "I'll finally be able to rest and be happy if i get skinny."
3. "I can't believe anyone could love someone whose legs/stomach/arms/face is so fat"
   

Part of me is waiting to live my life because I don't feel that being who i am in my body is enough to make my life fulfilling.

So way back when, I deicded to quit the 21 years of bad thinking.
I quit worrying about fat grams, calories, minutes spent in the gym, heart rates. All of these things were stressing me out and would cause the loop of those 3 thoughts and a lot of depression and anxiety to start again and again.

Here's what I started DOING that helped stop the THINKING about doing..;-)

• Dropping all the "Food rules" while I figure out what exercising will do for me. It takes the pressure off and lets the mind just rest and ENJOY FOOD. A funny thing also happens...exercise changed the food I chose.
• Playing sports. I love to play sports...i never really understood this until a few years back. Volleyball, softball, and soccer for a short while helped me to socialize without the bar ;-) (or less bar!)
  
• doing yoga. stretching and strengthening...
• Discovered that I LOVE to dance to bands with funky and awesome beats. And trhough other friends i learned that anyone can dance ;-)
  
• Trying ANYTHING. Rock climbing was fun...couldn't make it stick, running felt good, but is too hard on my knees and hips while I'm over 170 lbs, swimming has turned out to be the perfect exercise for ME.
• Stopped watching so much tv. TV tends to tell us stories that we take into our life that are not useful (See my tiny rant about Nutrasweet below..)
• Realize that exercising is great and sweating feels good.
  
• Eating things that taste good...only. Seriously, how did we all convince ourselves that NUTRASWEET is TASTY? IT IS DISGUSTING.
  
• Taste testing new foods. Eggplant. Different types of mushrooms...Fruit salads (pineapple plus anything equal tasty!).. Tofu, not so much for me.
• Remind myself how great myself is. This body is slamming. It can swim, run when chased, do a full back bend
  
• Remember that loving myself as I am is my first job if I'm going to love anyone else.

When i day dream about the perfectness of my body at a size 10 (oh sweet jeans), I just accept it as a possibility...then look down at my chubby tummy and thighs and say "I Love You."

When in doubt about how great I am, I listen to the Indigo Girls.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYcGcT-FMHc

WW@W Weeks 3 and 4

Week 3: Lost 3ish pounds. Considering what I gained the week before, this wasn't so bad. I think I'm still ahead when it comes to losing weight. My tracker thing is around here somewhere. :)

Week 4: I was in a 3.25 hour training class so I didn't get to weigh in. This was good. It was a very bad week to weigh...I was emotional and extremely hungry. I'm guessing that this week is why I've been so hungry all week. Hungry for something that is not here, of course. And apparently hungry for the Pepperidge Farms cookies I bought at the store on Monday.

I'm still interested in losing weight. Apparently I'm still working on that commitment thing. I did so great that first WW@W week when I wrote everything down. Novel idea, I know.

So, we'll see how week 5 goes this week. I am enjoying meeting during the day instead of meeting at night. It is so much more convenient. I have a MAJOR work project this month, so I will have to remain committed to going to the meetings during this stressful time.

Well, I'm bored and must go move a bit before I settle in to read a book. God bless nap time!