Online Book Club – The China Study

I wanted to talk a little about the book club and what is next on that front which I think is very exciting. First there are more than 20 of you who have expressed the desire to take part in our first online book club discussing T. Colin Campbell’s landmark study and subsequent book “The China Study”. *woo hoo* Way to go guys! I am thrilled that so many of you want to discuss this book first because I think it is the pivotal book on nutrition of our time.

Since this book is a somewhat tough read I want to discuss it one chapter at a time so that everyone comes away with a complete understanding. Any of you who are interested in taking part in this book club please buy the book and be prepared to discuss chapter one beginning on Monday August 15. I will be sharing more about this as we get closer to the start date.

Here is the link to the book club blog. In order to take part in the online book club please become a member of the book club blog. Being a member of that blog is required in order to post comments. I have the comments set up to post automatically since I think that will facilitate discussion. Hopefully we don’t start getting spam on that blog like we do here. If that happens I may have to make the book club blog private which I am trying to avoid so that everyone can benefit from the conversation not just those who want to  actively take part.

I will be posting a few questions about chapter one prior to August 15 to help to get the conversation started. Let’s try to keep all the comments regarding each chapter to the post for that chapter. I think this will help us to all be on the same page. Hope to see you there.  :-)

Thank Goodness it is Thursday... or, How to Handle Stress:

I am so happy that this week is almost over. Typically I am a happy person but this week happiness has been a bit of a struggle though I did persevere. Do you have weeks where for some reason things don’t fall into place the way you are expecting? Seriously this would have been a good week to stay in bed curled in the fetal position and that might have been what I would have done in years past. However this week I pushed through and didn’t focus on what was going wrong.

Since I have been talking a lot about attitude recently I wanted to let you know what I do when life is giving me lemons and I just can't force myself to make lemonade. Here goes:

• In all honesty there were a few minutes of a pity party but I didn’t dwell on what was going wrong. I set a timer for 15 minutes and told myself that when the buzzer went off I had to get on with lifeand stop feeling sorry for myself, which I did.

• I allowed myself to do something that I knew would sooth me even though it wasn’t the healthiest thing that I could do. It was probably the endorphin rush but the Green and Black dark chocolate made me feel much better. ;-)

• I did not let myself dwell on what was not going well. In my case that meant no long phone calls complaining to friends. In fact I only fussed to my friend Louis and that lasted less than 5 minutes. We all need those friends we can tell our problems too don’t we? But don’t let yourself talk the your problems to death ... if you know what I mean. Too much negativity results in more negativity which is never good to anyone.

• When I was having a bad moment I listened to some upbeat music and watched an uplifting movie. I find that when I am not feeling the best a comedy always helps me to feel better. Personally “When Harry Met Sally” never gets old for me. ;-)  It should tell you something that I know every line by heart.

• I also took time to get in extra exercise to help work out my aggressions. It is tough for me to feel agitated when I am exhausted.

Does any of this make sense to you? I hope that you find one or two of these tips helpful.

Now I want to hear from you. What things do you do when you are having a tough week? Let’s all share so that we can learn from each other and make the world a healthier place.  :-)

Online Survey:

Recently I have been thinking a lot about what to focus on when writing the blog. Lately when I sit down to write a post I literally just wing it. That is why the posts have been all over the board recently in terms of topics.   It bothers me a little that I lack focus so I thought I would ask for your help.

In order to have some idea of what you are interested in reading I set up a short 5 question survey on Survey Monkey. Please take a few minutes to set up a free Survey Monkey account and respond to the questions. That would be a huge help to me in terms of guidance when I am writing future posts. Thank you in advance for your time.

Happy Thoughts:

Those days and weeks when life is not going the best are precisely the times when I think it is particularly important to find the silver lining to the dark cloud. Here are the things that I am grateful for today:

• The scale was my friend this morning and that made me very happy. I love to start the day with good news. I know that an inanimate object shouldn’t have an impact on my mood but today I will take any good news I can get.

• “Our ship has sailed” as my friend Louis so eloquently put it. *happy dance* Thanks for the good line Louis; I loved it and had to use it.

• I am excited about the online book club and am very much looking forward to discussing “The China Study” with you.

• We are having dinner this weekend with our friend Louis and that makes me very happy. There is nothing better than a good meal with a good friend to lift my spirits. :-)

• Dan is coming home early this. Okay it is only early for Dan but still that makes me happy. I love spending time with my sweetie.

• I took some time today to nurture myself and tried a different exercise DVD. When things aren’t making me happy I try to break out of my norm and shake things up to keep my mind busy.

• Today I listened to a new jazz DVD that I got out of the library this past weekend. I love having a library with a nice selection of music and books on CD to choose from.

• Massimo was running and playin today which made me extremely happy. Having happy and healthy fur children is a very good thing in deed.

Signing out:

It is time for me to log out and spend some time with my sweetie. He has been very busy at work this week and we haven’t had much time to spend together. Talk to you again soon.  I hope you have a great evening.