Can You Tell a Craving or Emotional Hunger from True Hunger?

One question that I get often is how to tell the difference between cravings, emotional hunger and real hunger. For many people knowing how to identify real from false hunger makes all the difference in their life and health.  We all have that “gee, I really want something to eat” feeling that happens even though we suspect that we aren’t actually hungry.  My craving voice used to run my life.  The cravings would sneak up on me in the middle of the afternoon and tell me that I needed a little something starchy.  Until some of my girlfriends acknowledged that this happened to them too I thought I was crazy.  Now I know that there are many things that cause these cravings including: hormonal fluctuations; eating too much sugar, fat or salt; emotions; dehydration and more.  However with time and a lot of experimentation on myself I learned how to deal with this demon and I want to share a few ideas with you in case you are suffering with cravings in silence.

Hunger is it Real or Not?:

When I get hungry but suspect it isn’t true hunger I always pause to figure out what is happening.  All of us get into trouble when we just feed the hunger without trying to figure it out.  There are a few questions that I ask myself to determine if I am experiencing a craving, emotional hunger or true hunger.  These questions are as follows:

1.       How long has it been since I ate?  If it is less than three hours I am usually experiencing a craving or possibly it is emotional eating.  However if it is has been more than 4 or 5 hours since I ate then I am usually actually hungry.

2.       Do I have any physical signs of hunger?  Does my stomach feel empty?  Am I getting a little dizzy, do I feel light headed?  Sometimes when I am very hungry I get a sensation in the back of my throat. All of those things strongly suggest that I am actually hungry.  When I don’t have any physical symptoms of hunger I delay eating.

3.       Would a piece of fruit or some hummus and veggies satisfy my hunger? When the answer is no again that is another sign that this is a craving.

4.       Do I want something very specific to eat?  For me this would usually be something starchy or possibly dark chocolate.  I seem to crave both bready things and chocolate when I am repressing some emotion or possibly experiencing hormonal fluctuations.  Other women have told me the same thing happens to them only with chips, salty snacks and soda.  I find that these specific cravings are almost never actual hunger.

5.       Have I been exercising and eat healthy whole plant-based foods?  Something else that happens is that when you eat things which contain a lot of sugar, fat and/or salt you body starts to crave those things.  When I am eating a healthy diet and I am active I don’t have many of those cravings.  Have you read "The End of Overeating?"  The medical doctor does a nice job explaining the addictive nature of sugar, fat and salt.

6.       Did the hunger come on quickly or did it build slowly? Hunger that takes time to develop is more likely to be true hunger.  I have found that cravings or emotional eating can happen in an instant and true hunger doesn’t do that.

7.       Could there have been a trigger for the hunger like a commercial on TV, a disagreement or a habit?   Commercials that show pasta or chocolate get me every time but I know this so I can ignore them. Many people have told me that a disagreement (repressed feelings) cause them to eat.  However habits are sometimes harder for people to spot. I know one woman who eats in the middle of the night and has done this a long time so it is now a habit. The only way to identify habits is to keep a food journal and if you suspect that you have unhealthy habits you may want to keep a journal for a while.

8.       Is it possible that I am dehydrated?  I realize that most people are chronically dehydrated and because I know that I get myself a glass of water or a green tea if I suspect that I am dehydrated and that is causing in my hunger. You will be surprised how often fluid will be enough. However don’t get something to drink that has a lot of calories like soda, fruit juice or a sweet coffee beverage since those are providing calories and sugar with little or no nutrition.

The most important thing that you can do to get control of false hunger is to not give in to it immediately. There is nothing that says you have to eat right away although sometimes it feels that way.   Stop, step back and think about what is happening.  At least half the time I find that by asking myself the questions above I am able to figure out easily that I am not honestly hungry and I don’t act on the urge.  Other times it takes me a little while to understand what is going on and sometimes I am actually hungry.  ;-)

I know that I am not the only one who has cravings since all my girlfriends talk about this now.  Until I started to talk about this with friends I felt like I was alone with my crazy cravings. I think it is important to realize that these cravings are normal but that you can get control over your behavior in response to the cravings. Since we all have these cravings let’s share what we have learned to deal with them.  What suggestions do you have for dealing with cravings? Do you have different tricks, tips or questions that you ask yourself? If you do have any suggestions please share them with the rest of us.  Here is short video from WebMD that you might want to check out on the subject.

Book Review:  Strength Finder 2.0

I have been doing a lot of introspective work lately trying to understand myself better.  My premise was how could I help other people overcome their challenges if I didn’t understand myself. With this in mind I bought a copy of the book StrengthFinder 2.0 and took the online test to find out what it would indicate were my strengths.  Honestly I didn’t expect much from a 30 minute online test where you had to answer a series of questions with your gut reaction each in 20 seconds.  However I have to say that I was shocked by my results.  Both Dan and I believe the test absolutely nailed who I am as a person. I wanted to share this with you because I think it will give you a ton of insight into what makes me tick. But I also think it might encourage you to find out what are your strengths. The premise of the book is that we will all be more successful if we use our strengths rather than trying to improve our weaknesses and this makes a lot of sense to me.

According to the online test my strengths are as follows:

1.       Input

2.       Learner

3.       Strategic

4.       Achiever

5.       Intellection

Since those are just titles of the various personality components I will briefly explain them so that they make sense to you. 

Input simply means that I have a strong craving to know more. Gee, really? That doesn’t sound anything like me! Yes I am being sarcastic about that.  It also said that I would like to collect information.  Funny how a simple test figured that out isn’t it?  There are reams of information at our house. I have binders full of articles about health and nutrition as just one example.  I never grow tired of collecting information about subjects that interest me which is exactly what this trait would predict.

Learners like to continuous learn and grow. How does an online test know that I spend hours every day learning?  This clearly explains why I am always reading and why our house if full of reference books on many different topics.  I spend hours every day studying something. I am definitely an information junkie, just ask my husband.  One of my favorite topics is nutrition but there are many other subjects that interest and one the most recent is Buddhism.  Yes, I do realize that I am a bit eccentric.  ;-)

The strategic trait speaks to my ability to put together creative solutions to problems and the ability to spot patterns and issues.  I can’t tell you how many people have commented on my ability to put things I learn about nutrition into practice and I think this may explain why that comes easily to me.  I have always been a big picture person.  I think this trait is the reason that I was able to make the connection between nutrition and health so quickly which is what caused our dramatic dietary shift years ago. It also explains why I am frequently surprised that others can’t add A plus B and get C.  My poor husband has to listen to me talk about this all time.  The man is a saint; you know idea how difficult I can be.  LOL

Achievers are described as people with a lot of stamina who thrive on hard work. This type of person takes great satisfaction from being productive and that also describes me quite accurately.  When I worked in corporate America I would routinely work 12 hour days.  While I was never a morning person I was almost always the last one out of the office by many hours.  I have never had a problem putting in the time to get something accomplished.  Dan used to show up at the hospital after midnight with dinner and try to drag me out of the office so I could get some sleep.  I have been a hard worker my entire life.  Even when I “retired” I still continued to use a to-do list so that I could get a lot accomplished. I am definitely one of those people who had to learn to relax since getting things done is very important to me.

Intellection is used to describe people who are characterized by their intellectual activity.  This group is said to be very introspective and to appreciate intellectual discussions.  Once again I am guilty as charged. I love to figure out why I do certain things or what makes me and others tick.  I love a good conversation about psychology, philosophy or anything else that is outside my usual area of expertise.  Anything that takes me out of my comfort zone and causes me to think in a new way or about a new topic I love.

Anyone who knows me was probably nodding in agreement as this read what the book predicted are my strengths. I am still a little shocked by how accurate that test actually was.  If you are thinking about changing careers or just want to find additional satisfaction in your current profession this book would probably be a good idea for you. This isn’t a book that you can check out from the library however. Each book has an individual code in it so that you can take the online test.  You use the code to set up an account for yourself.  If you are someone who enjoys introspection I would recommend this book.

Have any of you read this book and taken the test?  If you did what were your top 5 strengths?  Did you feel like they accurately described you? I was very pleasantly surprised by how the test really seemed to peg me, particularly the first few traits.   A little piece of me had expected to see “positivity” show up in my top 5 traits but I also understand why I got the ones that I did. Other than that one missing item I didn’t really see any surprises.

The interesting thing about the results of this book was that it crystallized for me things that I knew about myself at a gut level.  The other book I am reading about marketing also asked me to list my strengths.  The reason that the when we use our strengths a few things happen. By leveraging our strengths we increase the probability that we will be successful. When we use our strengths results come easily and this increases overall satisfaction.  One of the things that I do well is my ability to remember facts and seemingly unrelated facts particularly involving nutrition.  I can talk about nutrition for days which all my friends can attest to.  This is one of the reasons that wellness coaching makes so much sense for me.  Do you know where your strengths lie?

Bean Cookbook:

Given that I have no come out of the closet in terms of my “need for information” you probably understand why I am always reading.  Yesterday morning I was reading Epicurious and came across this link for a bean cookbook.  I try not to add too many cookbooks to my collection now because it is completely out of control and I don’t really use them.  In fact when I buy a cookbook I read it like a novel and then it goes on the shelf where it will probably remain. I am definitely not someone who cooks from recipes; I don’t use my recipes or those from anyone else.  Cooking for me is more of a go with the flow experience. I like to taste, adjust and tweak as I go.  Are you starting to see why it is difficult to get me to actually write down a recipe?

When I was reading this article about the bean cookbook my first reaction was, I need this book.  Why?  Well I love beans and we eat them every day after all.  However I suspect this book will be like the all the others I will read it like a novel and it will go immediately to one of my bookcases with all its little cookbook friends.  The reason I am writing is twofold.  First if any of you have this book I would love to hear what you think of it.  Do you recommend purchasing the book? Second if you are stumped for bean ideas I wanted to let you know that this book exists. If you do buy it please stop back and share your thoughts on the book, I am sure that I am not the only one who would like to know more.

Saturday:

What happened to our 71 degree temperatures which started February?  Saturday was cold, snowy and incredibly windy.  Due to the weather we spent most of the day inside our nice warm house.  Snow is always more pretty when you are inside look out but that is particularly true when the wind is blowing.

Breakfast at our house was things you have seen before.  First we had some no-sugar and no-oil granola with homemade almond milk and fresh fruit. This is an old picture which shows bananas but I used blackberries today instead.

Dan and I shared a green smoothie (kale, cherry, banana, walnut, cocoa, cinnamon, vanilla with a little stevia).

I had savory oatmeal for lunch. This time it included mushrooms, onions, garlic, Italian seasonings, nutritional yeast and I added thinly sliced Brussels sprouts at the very end of cooking. Since Brussels sprouts are part of the cruciferous family I try not to cook them much either to maximize the nutrition that we consume.

We met Lauren for dinner at our usual place and had a great time.  We started with the Middle Eastern plate.

Then Ian came to the table and we chatted about food.  He made some suggestions which sounded delicious to us and that was what we went with.

First there was a blood orange, hearts of plan, and avocado salad with sesame which was delicious.

Then we had a smoky grilled asparagus with a habanero salsa which I loved.  However I do have a secret love affair with habanero peppers so that may explain why I enjoyed this so much.

However we all agreed that our favorite dish of the night was the grilled oyster mushrooms which were drizzled with a sauce of:  balsamic vinegar, truffle oil, and sweet soy.  The mushrooms were served over baby arugula and came with pickled kumquats.  This is delicious!  Lauren and were both taken with the mushrooms and the kumquats.  It always amazes me that Ian feels like he doesn’t do vegan food well, because we think it gets it right every time.

Lauren definitely fits right in at the restaurant and is getting to know everyone.  She told us that the girls on th nursing e unit were getting together next Sunday to celebrate the February birthdays and she suggested the restaurant.  We might just have to stop in for dinner that night to say hello to everyone since we were there so long we feel like part of the crew.  ;-)

Happy thoughts:

There are so many things to be thankful for each day if you are open to the good things that happen in all of our lives.  Here are the things that I have been happy for lately:

·         We had a lovely dinner Saturday night with our new friend Lauren.  It is fascinating that we have so much in common with her since she is young enough to be our child.  However knowing people like Lauren gives me great hope that maybe the health of this country can be turned around.  *fingers crossed*  We lingered over dinner while we spent time talking about everything and nothing.  I love evenings like those don’t you?

·         Saturday the predicted snow and rain mix was nothing more than flurries though it was fairly windy (we had guts of 40+ degrees and it felt like I was back in Chicago). Thankfully the weather wasn’t bad enough to derail our dinner plans with Lauren.

·         Sunday Dan and I had a lovely relaxed day together. We did a lot of nothing and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. The weather was cold and windy and it was definitely a great day to stay inside.

·         Monday I had planned to have lunch with a friend but I hurt my knee and thought it made more sense to stay home and keep the knee iced. While I am not happy about my knee I am grateful that I was able to stay home and keep my knee elevated and iced.  Being somewhat immobile I took the opportunity to get a little reading knocked out. You are shocked by that I know LOL.  Before you ask, no I never get tired of learning it is what I love to do.

·         Tuesday I am having lunch with my girlfriend Deirdre. We haven’t had a girl’s lunch in months. I can’t wait to hear what she has been up to.  There are few things in life that are better than spending time with a good girlfriend.  Can’t wait!

·         Wednesday I get to go to the dentist.  What, why is that a happy thought?  Okay so I am not weird and in fact I actually have a bit of a dental phobia from a bad childhood experience. However the people at our dental office are so nice that I don’t mind going in to see them and even enjoy it. The time at the dentist is more like seeing old friends than having work done.  What, you don’t email the people who work on your teeth?  Yes, I really do pick up new friends wherever I go.  Are you starting to see how much I love people?  LOL

Signing Out:

I have a crazy busy week planned with something planned everyday this week.  Yikes!  Someone seems to have overbooked her schedule again.  I will try to be pack at least once or twice this week with posts but it is going to be difficult. Please understand if you only hear from me once.

I hope you had a wonderful weekend and that your Monday was a good one.  Have a happy and healthy week and I will talk to you again as soon as I can.  Ciao.

31 Days to Better Health - Day 31

Happy last day of January and Tuesday everyone!  How has your week started out?  Monday was very busy for me, and Tuesday isn’t looking much better. However the remainder of my week appears to be good and for that I am very thankful.  I am looking forward to getting some of the backlog of tasks crossed off my to-do list.  I will feel much better when my life is more “under control”.  Some people do their best work under pressure, but I am not of them any longer.   At this point in my life I find it hard to believe I ever thrived in a high pressure environment, it must have been “smoke and mirrors” is I can say.  ;-)

We have covered a lot of topics this month.  When I looked at the list today even I was shocked how many different things we have talked about in just a month.  To remind everyone of what we have accomplished so far here is a recap of the first 30 days of January:

Day 1 – Defined Success and What is/was Holding Us Back
Day 2 – Determined our Purpose and Looked at Passion
Day 3 – Listed Our Goals for January
Day 4 – Listed the Things We Have Needed to Work on for a While
Day 5 – Looked at Optimism vs. Pessimism and Fear vs. Intuition
Day 6 – Practiced Conscious Eating
Day 7 – Hara Hachi Bu
Day 8 – Taking the Stress Out of Meal Time
Day 9 – Acknowledgments
Day 10 – No Excuses, Do it Anyway
Day 11 – Is it True?
Day 12 – Have You Really Connected With Someone Today?
Day 13 – Motivation is a Decision
Day 14 - Successfully Navigating Dinner at an Unfamiliar Restaurant
Day 15 - What Do You Want, Have You Asked?
Day 16 – Treating Others as You Wish to be Treated
Day 17 – Food as a Budget
Day 18 – Silence Your Inner Critic
Day 19 – Replace I Have to With I Want to
Day 20 – Identifying Your Rituals
Day 21 – Face Your Fears
Day 22 – Give Up the Diet Mentality
Day 23 – The Meaning and/or Purpose of Food
Day 24 – Trigger Foods/Situations/People
Day 25 – Words Have Meaning
Day 26 – Lose All-Or-Nothing Thinking
Day 27 -  Decide to live as if ……
Day 28 – Two-Bite Test
Day 29 - Vision Board
Day 30 – Are You Hiding Behind Excuses

What did you think of the last topic regarding hiding behind excuses?  When I wrote that one I knew it was a tough topic emotionally which is why I left it for the end of the month.  Very few of us like to consider that there are things we could be doing but we aren’t.  However being open to the idea that there is something that we could do or change is the key to moving forward. I hope something that I wrote leads you to consider changes that you have otherwise been unwilling to seriously consider.  If there is anything that you would like to me explain differently about this or anything else just let me know.

It is Just My Life:

Do you know what I mean by “it is just my life"?  I am hoping that after reading the posts this month many of you will realize that what matters isn’t a specific diet, or a particular workout routine.  What matters is every little decision that you make each moment of your life.  Your health is nothing more than the accumulation of the last few thousand decisions you have made.  Here is a list of the type of things I am talking about:

·         Do you routinely get adequate sleep?

·         Are the vast majority of your meals healthy?

·         Is your weight in a healthy range or steadily moving in that direction?

·         Do you make it a point to be active most days and preferably every day?

·         Have you learned to manage your stress?

·         Do you spend time cultivating your relationships?

Being healthy is not as complicated as people make it sound.  However it does take consistently good decisions.  You can’t expect that eating occasion healthy meals or working out on weekend is enough to stay or get healthy.   Being healthy requires consistently healthy behavior which becomes how you live your life, not something temporary like a diet.

Another important thing to remember is that you need to remain open to change.  Something that has worked for you in the past won’t necessarily work for you now.  Remember my friend who lost 50 pounds practicing moderation but then the weight stopped coming off?  That is a perfect example of this concept.  We all need to be open to change because things that have worked for you in the past may stop working. 

When Dan was in the hospital earlier this month I was open to improving our diet. After talking to the dietitian and the doctors I quickly realized that we actually couldn’t improve our diet, but I asked a lot of specific questions and I was open to the idea.  This is exactly the sort of attitude I am talking about.  It is critical to look at your health dispassionately and determine if there is something that needs improvement for example do you know your:

·         Weight (based on height)

·         BMI (<24.9 = normal)

·         Body fat percentage/muscle mass (there are different numbers based on age and sex)

·         Blood Pressure (115/75 or less)

·         Blood Sugar(<99, 100-119 = prediabetic, 120 = diabetic)

·         Cholesterol (<150 is ideal)

In order to determine if any of these need improvement you need to know what your numbers are, and what they should be.  I am going to go back to the example of my friend whose weight loss has stalled at 50 pounds.  When moderation was working to reduce weight it might have appeared that the concept was working.  However at the same time the weight was dropping lab results showed that fasting blood glucose was 105.  I knew this was pre-diabetic but my friend was in denial and was convinced it was fine. This why it is important not only to know your numbers but to also know how to interpret the numbers once you have them.  Do your homework and educate yourself about what should be your health targets.

When we first embarked on a mission to improve our health I had a lot to learn.  Like many of you I had gotten most of my health information from the mass media and I was misinformed.  I was fortunate that I knew enough about health research to start at PubMed reading scholarly information on health.  These articles gave me an abrupt wake-up call about what we should be eating and formed much of the basis of our diet as it is today. There are few popular books that have accurate information but they are definitely in the minority.  Many people email me asking about specific popular books which I haven’t read, and there is a reason for that.  Many of the books that are written for the general public that I have gotten from the library have had a definite bias and haven’t been based on the totality of good science.  One caution I would give you is to be careful if you are tempted to read the latest “health book du jour” as it may cause more harm than good.

Authors of popular books definitely seem to have a bias and that is important to know when you read their books.  I am suggesting that the author is writing biased books intentionally but it is difficult to look at food from a completely scientific perspective.  Most people look at food and nutrition through their own personal bias (often emotional) and that alters the studies they are willing to read and therefore the recommendations they ultimately make.  However when you look at the totality of science there are many facts which are undeniable. Sadly you wouldn’t know this based on the popular books on health.

The question I get all the time is “what should I do to improve my health”?  The obvious answer to make sure you are doing all those things I bulleted above. However if your question is about specifically what to eat, or not eat here are my suggestions.

Items to include in unlimited amounts in your diet:

·         Fresh vegetables, concentrating on leafy greens (at least half raw)

·         Fresh whole fruit (fresh fruit juice should only be drank occasionally since it can elevate your blood sugar)

·         A variety of beans (including soy but the less processed the better like edamame, tempeh and then tofu)

·         Mushrooms are extremely healthy and make a wonderful meat substitute (be sure to generally cook them as mushrooms contain low levels of natural toxins which are probably fine in small amounts but certain not in the quantities I think mushrooms should be consumed)

·         Green and white tea (unsweetened of course, but be sure to add some citrus to increase your absorption of the EGCG)

·         Water (most Americans are chronically dehydrated be sure you aren’t one of them)

Items to include but not in unlimited amounts:

·         Whole unprocessed grains, like quinoa not things made from whole grain flour (these are only on this list for two reason, they are higher in calories and tend to crowd out the more nutritious food like vegetables, fruit and beans)

·         Raw seeds and nuts (I listed seeds first because they tend to be more nutritious, they are only this list because they are very calorie dense and can lead to weight gain

·         Avocados (included here only because they are calorie dense meaning if your weight is good this isn't an issue)

Items to restrict or better yet eliminate from your diet:

·         Animal flesh (this includes red meat, pork, chicken and seafood and I recommend eliminating it because of it elevates IGF-1, is calorie dense crowding our healthier foods, increases calcium loss and adds saturated fat to your diet.  However if you won’t eliminate it than eat it like the Asians an ounce or so at a time and not every day)

·         Animal products (dairy and butter and yes I am including skim milk and non-fat yogurt here for the same reasons that I listed for meat.  Diary and butter are more harmful than meat due to the concentration of saturated fat some cheeses getting 70% of their calories from fat.  I think this is very important to eliminate these.)

·         Soy protein isolates (should be eliminated for the same reason as meat and meat-by-product, it elevates IGF-1)

·         Processed food (things with more than 5 ingredients are suspect)

·         Sugar (it adds empty calories and increases your blood sugar levels which isn’t healthy)

·         Oil (included here because it is empty calories and also adds saturated fat, yes even olive oil)

·         Salt (increases  your risk of stroke as well as increasing your blood pressure)

·         Chemical additives like:  artificial flavors and colors, pesticides and chemical fertilizer residue, BPA and parabens (chemicals have been associated with everything from cancer to autism and I do my best to keep our exposure to a minimum without driving myself nuts)

When you read this list is seems restrictive, and to some extent it is. However I hope that you have seen enough about how we eat to realize that you can follow a diet like this and still eat food a wide variety of food which tastes great and is good for you.  It really comes down to what you demand from your food.  Are you more interested in your health or do you want the flavors that you grew up with?  Believe me if I had known years ago that we could have possibly avoided cancer by changing our diet I would have made these same changes a long time ago.  I have often read that people don’t appreciate things until they are gone, like their health, and I agree.  Once you are faced with a devastating disease (like cancer or heart disease) there is nothing that tastes as good as having your health feels. I hope that a few of you will make the difficult decision to change your diet now and possibly avoid cancer.  Remember, cancer is no longer a rare occurrence. Today in America 1 out of 2 men and 1 out of 3 women will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime. The odds are high that you or your family will have to face cancer directly.  However the changes you make now can improve your odds.  I think of this way, would I rather have steak and cancer or a long healthy life?  Trust me, take the long healthy life  because the pleasure of eating unhealthy food only lasts a few moments, the pain, anxiety and side effects from cancer last the rest of your life.

Sorry to be such a downer at the end but I think that most of us don’t want to think about the ramifications of our decisions.  Food can have powerful effects on how your body operates. When you feed your body a highly nutritious diet you are giving it the tools to repair itself and fight disease. However the inverse is also true. When you put things into your body that aren’t nutritious (see the list of things to reduce or eliminate above) you aren’t helping your body to do its job.  I think of food as one of the tools that I use to stay well and I hope you start to look at food that way too.    When you are making food decisions I want you to think about what is the healthiest thing that you want to eat, because your health depends on it.

Of everything that I wrote this month here is the most important thing to remember:  You have the power to change your health.  Every decision that you make, no matter how small impacts your health. Once you develop the habit of making good decisions you are on your way to your best possible health no matter what your current age or physical decision.  Please go back and look at the life you described in your journal as part of the day 27 exercises and start to put those ideas into practice. 

Now that we have finished this January series I would love to know what you think. Did you have a favorite topic?  Would you like me to expand on any of the topics from this month?  Is there a topic that you had wanted to see here that wasn’t included?  Should I include one of these “health” posts once a week or once a month?  Please let me know what you think.  Thanks!

Today’s Exercise:

1.       Pick one item to change in your diet from the dietary habits listed above.  I would suggest you pick a big one as it will make the most impact.  However you should also pick one that you know you can stick to. Many people find that giving up dairy has a huge impact.  I have heard from many people that they didn’t realize they were lactose intolerant until they gave up dairy and then had some later and the familiar symptoms of mucus and stuffed sinuses came back almost instantly.  Given how prevalent lactose intolerance is you may want to start with dairy. I find that being able to feel the difference helps people stick with dietary changes.  There is a very good chance you will also see an improvement in your weight and cholesterol as a result of this dietary modification.

2.       Keep track in your journal of the results of making this change. Did you feel better, lose weight, and need less OTC medication? Just be sure to record your experiences. I would also suggest that you try adding a little of whatever you have eliminated back in a few weeks so that you can feel the difference. You might be surprised by the difference that you can feel in your body.  Maybe people have told me that they feel things first by the change in their GI system and that know immediately when their transit time is increasing since they start to feel bloated and uncomfortable.  However you won’t usually know this unless you take something away for a while and then add it back as a test. This is the same principle they use with a formal elimination diet. 

Progress on my goals:

1.       Newsletters – Monday was another busy day which meant the newsletters didn’t get worked on.  This will definitely move up on my February list now.

2.       Body Bugg – I continue to wear my bugg and I have gotten back into using it the way I had intended when I purchased it.  Go me!  J

3.       Date with Dan – No date on Monday, but we ran errands together Tuesday evening.  I guess that doesn’t count for most people but we have fun whenever we are together even running errands.

4.        Measuring calorie dense food – I am making progress adding nuts and seeds to our food. I

5.       Working on my business – My schedule got in the way of working on the business today. Once January is over and I have more free time I will jump on this again.  I remember that I promised you the link to my second website on February 10^th and I really, really don’t want to miss that deadline.  *eek*  Nothing like self imposed pressure.  ;-)

How are you feeling about your progress so far?  I hope you feel like you have made a few lasting changes this month.  J

Random Thoughts:

As much as I have loved writing this series I am burned out now.  When I decided to do this I had no idea how much time it would take. Since these are things that I can talk about anytime I thought the writing would just flow and I was wrong.  If I do this again next year I am definitely going to pre-write much of the series.  I hope that you found something to apply to your life from what I wrote.

My schedule is very busy right now and I don’t have as much time to write as I used to.  I would like to hear what you would like to read about going forward.   Here are the options I came up with:

·         Recipes (which won’t be that frequent since I don’t have much time to measure and document)

·         Our daily food choices and why we made the choices that we did

·         The log of our day which would include the food

·         Links to articles on health and nutrition

·         The mental/emotional issues related to making changes to improve your health

·         Nutrition specifics about individual foods (for example the benefits of hempseeds or kale)

Do any of these ideas appeal to you or would you like to see something different?  Please let me know what you think, I really do want to know.

Acknowledgements:

Have you made any progress writing acknowledgements?  I hope you are working on this exercise and enjoying it. I find that it helps me stay positive and recognize the things that I do every day.  Here are my acknowledgements:

·         The 2012 - 31 days to Better Health series is finished!  *woo hoo*  I hope that it meant as much to you as it did to me and that you found some ideas to apply to your life and health.  It was definitely a labor of love for me. 

·         I received a $1,000 scholarship from IIN today to award.  I have offered it to the first reader who contacted me about the program.  However if she doesn’t want it I am going to offer it to anyone who is ready to sign up in a few days. The scholarship would require signing up for the program between Wednesday and Friday of this week. If you are interested send me an email at veganepicurean@gmail.com and let me know.  If now isn’t a good time no worries, there will be future scholarships and I will keep you all in the loop by posting the information here.

·         My fur children were very appreciative of the Blue Buffalo cat kibble that we picked up for them this evening. I love to see the little ones get excited about things like this.  They are such sweet little babies it is nice to make them happy with something like a special food.  Normally they get prescription cat food but occasionally we treat them to something different, like tonight.

·         Dan and I were talking this evening and we are going to try to step up our diet a little.  In our case that means more beans, and raw veggies.  We are also going to start shifting our sleeping schedule so that we can get back to 6am workouts at the gym before work. Wish us luck on this one since neither of us are morning people.  ;-)

 
Monday:

Since I spend half of the day on Tuesday running around I have literally blanked on what I did on Monday. That is a sure sign of burn out.  LOL

Breakfast was a quick green smoothie like you see us have often.  I love getting raw kale into us at breakfast.

There was a grapefruit snack and some Brazil nuts and seaweed that weren’t photographed.

I also had a small bowl of curried red lentil and tomato soup which I also neglected to photograph so I used an old photo.

Dinner was a huge arugula salad with the spinach and artichoke dressing (cold leftover soup from a few days ago), baked tofu which I glazed with fermented black bean sauce and finished with sesame seeds.

Happy thoughts:

Have you gotten into the habit of writing your happy thoughts?  I find it helpful to remind myself how often things go well and that I shouldn’t take these things for granted.   As always there are so many things to be thankful for that I almost don’t know where to start. Here are my happy thoughts:

·         We had the most amazing weather on Tuesday; it was literally 68 degrees here on the last day on January.  It does not feel like this is Maryland in the winter time but I am not complaining.

·         Our refrigerator is stuffed full of fresh produce again which means that I feel much better. We had an appointment to take care of this afternoon and decided to stop for food while we were out.  Life is definitely better with produce.  ;-)

·         We picked up a bag of Blue Buffalo cat kibble for the little ones and you would have thought we brought home drugs. They dove at the bag and opened it with their teeth while I put away the produce. Okay so they were a little uncivilized but they are felines so I cut them some slack.  It was nice to see them so happy about different flavor of kibble.

·         There was the cutest little bird at the pet store all by himself that I was talking too. Dan had to practically pull me away from him.  I am sure my fur children would not have appreciated a bird in the house but he was darned cute.

·         Dinner was raw veggies and hummus this evening and I loved it. That is such a simple dinner but one that I never grow tired of, I could eat it every day I think.

Signing Out:

I am looking forward to some time to myself tomorrow. I was just telling Dan that I am going to start the day by getting outside and I may do 4 miles before breakfast.  I bought some nice pears and cucumbers so there might be a nice fresh juice in the future, not sure yet.  If the weather is as nice as it supposed to be I might even work in my garden.  There is also laundry that is calling my name, homework to be done, the other website to work on, and lots of house cleaning but those may just need to wait until Thursday since that is when they are predicting rain.

Whatever you have planned of the next few days please take some time to relax and enjoy yourself.  Life is too short not to take some “me time” to relax and regenerate.  Talk with you again in a few days once my battery has recharged.  Ciao for now.