A Recipe to the Rescue

The very talented blogger, Ciao Chow Linda, sent a recipe to help us out. Enjoy!
http://ciaochowlinda.blogspot.com/2012/11/cranberry-squares.html

Fatigue doesn't lend itself to a sane life

There I am at the top of this blog with a wide and happy smile on my face. But, the truth is, I've taken time away from my blog because I have been dealing with fatigue, the MS kind, something that has dogged me from the days I had my first symptom. The fatigue comes and goes, and when I'm in the middle of a bout, I have trouble rising up out of my lethargy. 

You probably already know I have multiple sclerosis and have dealt with it for over thirty years. MS fatigue isn't just about being tired. Words escape my ability to describe it. I'm an active,  creative person. But when I'm dealing with fatigue, it grabs me and won't let go, or so it seems when I'm in the midst of it. 

My reason tells me that this will pass and I have to just wait it out. So be patient, rest, eat right. But I can't wait to begin this blog again. When I first started this series, I told you that we'd cover many topics together. So let's do it. Let me know how you're doing. Send me a recipe or two that is healthy and easy to make. Let me know how you're getting exercise in your life. We'll do this together!

I'm eager to give you a recipe during these cold days and I promise I'll do it soon. Very soon.

A little movement, please, instead of banana bread

The other day on Face Book, a friend posted her dilemma. Should I, she asked, go to the gym or stay home and knit. There in lies the problem.

If you have to make the decision every time you plan to workout or exercise, then you're lost. Because I guarantee that most days something more important or inviting will rear its head. Should you walk around the block or watch the news? Should you vacuum the floor or sit down for a few minutes and read the paper? Should you go to the gym and work out on one of the machines or cook that banana bread that has to be made so you don't have to throw away the bananas. And on and on.

And why should you bother with any kind of exercise in the first place? It's a lot of trouble. However, the facts are that exercise has been shown to lessen the severity of just about all diseases and ailments. Harvard School of Public Health lists these benefits:

• Improves your chances of living longer and living healthier
• Protects you from heart disease and stroke or its precursors, high blood pressure and undesirable blood lipid patterns
• Protects you from developing certain cancers, including colon and breast cancer, and possibly lung and endometrial (uterine lining) cancer
• Helps prevent type 2 diabetes (what was once called adult-onset diabetes) and metabolic syndrome
• Helps prevent the insidious loss of bone known as osteoporosis
• Reduces the risk of falling and improves cognitive function among older adults (That means it has an impact in preventing or slowing Alzheimer's.)
• Relieves symptoms of depression and anxiety and improves mood
• Prevents weight gain, promotes weight loss (when combined with a lower-calorie diet), and helps keep weight off after weight loss
• Improves heart-lung and muscle fitness
• Improves sleep

That's just a beginning. I heard a young man say today that when he finishes exercising  "you feel life is great. You're ready to conquer the world."

What works for me is to have a regular time and days that I exercise, so that I do it without thinking. And the time of day that works best for me, if the early morning. I do it without thinking and without letting other desires keep me from it.

Why don't you try setting up a regular schedule that works for you?

"After exercising you feel life is great, you're ready to conquer the world."

Cool mornings, hot cereal--So good!

Fall has finally arrived, even if it's just in the early mornings. And this is a time to begin bringing out the oatmeal or any of the many grains that cook into soul-satisfying breakfasts. Even better for the mornings when we're rushed, maybe even groggy, these grains are so easy to make, and quick. Here's a bowl of cooked oatmeal with a spoonful of brown sugar and tablespoon full of raisins and chopped walnuts and milk on top. Took about five minutes to make. 

(A little hint: Make two or three times as much as you'll need for one morning; save what's left after you serve the day's breakfast in a plastic container; reheat in the microwave for about 45 seconds, plus or minus, and add your sweetener and milk. You've got another great breakfast.)

The easiest and best way to make it is on the stove top. Measure about 1/3 cup oatmeal and one cup of water along with the raisins and walnuts. Bring the mixture to a boil, remove from the heat, cover, and let sit while you finish up with other breakfast doings. After about five minutes, transfer the cooked oatmeal to a bowl in which you're place about a tablespoonful of brown sugar. Add a little milk and stir.

Now that's a good breakfast that'll last you for hours. You need it to break that long fast and to give you energy for the rest of the day. Now enjoy it, too.

Recipe for cooked oatmeal or other whole grain: For proportions of grain to water, follow the package directions. Remember that the more water you use, the creamier the cooked cereal; the less water, the firmer the grain. I usually use less water because I like my hot cereal firmer or "toothier," as it is called.

Cooked Oatmeal
Ingredients
Whole grain, use package directions. For one serving of whole oats
     1/3 cup dry whole oats
     1 cup water
     1 tablespoon raisins, or other dried fruit, chopped
     1 tablespoon walnuts, chopped, or other unsalted nut
     1 tablespoon brown sugar or other sweetener such as honey
     Low fat milk
Method
Place first four ingredients in a saucepan over medium heat. Stir occasionally as the oatmeal is heating. Some grains will require longer cooking times. When ingredients come to a boil, remove from the heat, cover, and let sit for about 5 minutes. (Larger quantities of whole grains may take longer to cook.) Transfer servings of the cooked cereal to bowls in which about a tablespoonful of brown sugar or honey has been placed. Pour about a tablespoonful of low fat milk over the hot cereal. Mix. Enjoy!

Exercise Belongs with Healthy Eating

When I began researching healthy eating, I discovered it also must include exercise. Now I didn’t want or expect to write about exercise. That was for exercise physiologists or physical therapists or even coaches.

But as I delved more deeply into the subject, I could see that we must move our bodies in order to use all those calories and nutrients, whether they were healthy or not. Otherwise, they go to fat and cause diseases like diabetes, heart problems, cancer, depression, and so much more! 
Now that’s scary.
I wanted to inspire busy people, or those who had many other kinds of compromises, to actually eat in ways that would make them healthier. So, how to include exercise into those tight schedules? It’s actually easy once you think about it.

First, try to get in 20 minutes of exercise, or movement, a day. You ask, where can I find 20 minutes? Well, it’s right there in your everyday life. When you vacuum, when you rake leaves, take out the garbage. When you walk from the far end of the parking lot. When you take stairs instead of the elevator. And you can break up those 20 minutes by doing 10 minutes at a time.
More quickly than you thought would be possible, you’ll increase those minutes of exercise to 30! It’ll be easier than you realized. Try walking around the block, then two. Your stamina will increase as well.
Just by moving you’re improving your overall health. It’s well worth taking a step or two. You can do it!

A Different Approach to Healthy Living: Making the Rounds on the Web

There's a blog that's making the rounds on the Web and on the face of it, it tells readers the same thing I'm telling readers of this blog, Prospero's Kitchen, and my book, Even You Can Be Healthy! (also as e-book). Here's an exact quote:

"Just eat food. Eat real food, be active, and live your life. Forget all the diet and weight loss nonsense. It’s really just that. Nonsense."  www.yourfairyangel.com
 

The writer, Iris Higgins, shown above, is saying what needs to be said about healthy living in a nutshell. Unfortunately, the background of this statement isn't so simple. She has impressive credentials: nutritionist, cookbook author, and work with eating disorders. Her blog that's going the rounds is An Open Apology to All of My Weight Loss Clients. On the face of it, the apology is genuine and many replies have indicated that readers like what is said there. So do I. 

However, my own approach to healthy living is much simpler than Higgens' because I know that my readers are busy, maybe handicapped, and probably don't know a great deal about healthy living. So I give easy, simple ways to work exercise into daily life, ways to calm down, and best of all incorporate healthy eating into their lives, even while on the run. Even Mayor Bloomberg of New York City tells citizens there to work exercise into everyday life; take the stairs instead of the elevator, for example.

Higgens approach isn't so simple: there are thirty (!) minute meditations, and glucose-free cookbooks. And
she guides her followers as they let go of what's holding them back. She must appeal to women who have the time, space, and money to devote to themselves. Sounds like the 1970s to me. Been there, done that.

Let's keep our lives simple and healthy. Most of us don't have the time or energy to indulge in fairy-angel practices.

It's not just food. The good life also means exercise and stress relief!

I'll bet you thought that if you had a healthy diet that's all you had to do to live the good, long life. Wrong! When I first began researching a healthy diet, I thought that picking out the right foods was all that was needed. Lots of fruits and vegetables, whole grains instead of white flour, the right kinds of fats, water but no soda, little sugar and salt.

Very quickly, as I researched the topic, I learned that healthy eating must also include exercise and stress relief . Bummer. But eventually I saw that the body is a system:  Using the food we put into it that creates energy; combining with the movements we make to use that energy; and with the calming strategies that promote the integration of that system. Our "system" needs every part working together to be healthy.

In the book, Even You Can Be Healthy! I was writing to:

• busy people who think it's impossible to have a healthy life because of their other "more important" goals, the immediate needs of their families, and many other obligations;

• people who don't know or care what it means to lead a healthy life, who think the consequences won't affect them;

• people who believe they can't do much to help themselves because of aging or disabilities and then give up. People not unlike me.

So I wanted to make living a healthy life as easy as possible for that group of people, who are like you and me, so it would become second nature. With that in mind, here's a couple of hints for including exercise and stress relief in our daily lives: (I'll expand on these at a later date.)

Exercise

1. Get up from the computer every 45 minutes or so and walk around. Go to get something cool to drink (not soda). Do knee bends at your desk. Do wall pushups while you are seated.
2. Go outside for 15 to 20 minutes and just walk. Around your garden, around the neighborhood, around the block.
3.  Clean the house or apartment and work in the garden 15 to 20 minutes at a time. Vacuum, rake the leaves, dust, change the sheets, bathe the dog. Any number of tasks will count toward exercising.
4.  Start out exercising 10 minutes at a time till it adds up to 30 minutes a day. Your stamina will increase amazingly fast.

Stress relief

1. Stop. Take three deep breaths. Focus on what you are doing right NOW.
2.  Focus. Picture a scene that calms you--the forest, ocean, baseball game. Whatever. You decide. Just for a moment. You can use these first two techniques throughout the day and whenever you feel overwhelmed.
3.  Meditate. Find a regular time you can sit or lie down to just be. You can meditate in any of several ways, but the purpose is to focus on your inner being. Don't worry about what you have to do. The sounds around you have no meaning. Listen to them. Let them layer in your consciousness. Relax. Deep breathe.

But it all begins with what you put into your body and here's your healthy, delicious, easy recipe for the day, a cool summer salad: 

Summer Tuna Fish Salad

Summer Tuna Fish Salad for Two

Super Easy

"It's really delicious and works both as a salad or sandwich filling. Terrific lunch on a hot day with a glass of iced tea." Carol Wills, recipe tester

Serves 2

Ingredients

2 6.4-ounce packets or cans dark meat tuna packed in water

1 pre-washed packaged celery or 1 stalk celery, chopped

1 teaspoon powdered or dried minced onion or 1/2 cup onion, chopped

1 apple, such as gala, Granny Smith, delicious, seeded and cut into pieces about the size of the celery

Juice of 1 lemon or 1 tablespoon bottled pure lemon juice or 2 teaspoons vinegar

2 teaspoons lite mayonnaise

2 teaspoons plain or Greek yogurt, low-fat or fat-free

4 whole lettuce leaves, washed and drained

Salt to taste

Method

1. Combine tuna, onion, celery, and apple and toss. Pour lemon juice or vinegar over ingredients. Toss.

2. Add mayonnaise and yogurt and toss until all ingredients are well combined. Serve over lettuce leaves spread on plates. Season with salt, to taste. Offer crackers or pita bread to accompany.

This dish can also be made without the mayonnaise and yogurt.

Enjoy!