Released last May 2014 Katie Couric produced and narrates the documentary Fed Up, which might seem like just another film about the effects of the standard American diet on our health, but this one has a very specific and heartbreaking focus: the effects of sugar on...
Previous post on weight & health: Trying to eat well to avoid pain Yesterday I attended the Asian Human Services Spring Health Fair where I got "my numbers" checked. That refers to my blood glucose level, cholesterol level, blood pressure and weight. The one I'm...
I'm very grateful to my friends. I had a bout of depression in the past week and they responded in just the right ways. They asked how they could help and offered to talk, but they didn't give me a pep talk or keep asking why I was depressed. They just let me know...
The April 2015 issue of The Atlantic has an article called The Irrationality of Alcoholics Anonymous. In the article Gabrielle Glaser, author of Her Best Kept Secret: Why Women Drink - And How They Can Regain Control, discusses the ways that Alcoholics Anonymous (AA)...
Previous post on weight & health: Get fit, THEN exercise My progress towards a cramp-free life seems to have slowed. The cramps I suffered during my last 28-day cycle were better than others since I stopped taking the pill last summer, but things still got pretty...
Nyctophilia is the love of nighttime or darkness and I am a big nyctophiliac. It’s nighttime now and I sit in a dim living room, lit only by the pinkish glow of two Himalayan salt lamps and, of course, my laptop screen. Although I prefer rooms that are bright with...
Previous post on weight & health: Sugar is NOT easy to shake Decades ago, Americans got stuck on two completely wrong ways to go about losing weight: eating less and exercising more. We got stuck on the two activities that actually increase hunger and make the...
Previous post on weight & health: I did the plow pose! I listen to a lot of health discussions and read a lot of books and articles about the best ways to get the nutrition your body needs. One thing that grates on me every time is when someone describes their...
Stock image of plow pose (this is not me) Previous post on weight & health: BLOWING OFF STEAM!!! I'm so excited to have reached a goal I'd had for over a year and a half. Last week I was able to do the plow pose again! It had been years since I could get my...
In former vegan Tovar Cerulli's 2012 article in The Atlantic, Hunters Are People Too, Cerulli makes the point that humans' impact on the welfare of animals isn't just about what we eat, but how we eat it. He writes: In great part, our difficulty with hunting stems...
Previous post on weight & health: Cooling the stimulus We fucked up. We Americans are so damn smart andso driven to make a buck and create new ways to earn money off each other that we tampered with natural ingredients until -- over the past five decades -- we...
Previous post on weight & health: Healthy practices - don't fight yourself My battle against my lifelong sugar addiction is having a surge of success these days. In the past couple of months I've changed my diet for health reasons, but it hasn't been easy....
Maybe I already knew this but was in denial: white potatoes don't do anything good for us and might even be harmful. Damn it. Some online research I did yesterday reminded me that white potatoes are members of the nightshade family of plants and contain alkaloids,...
The Huffington Post published this article: For Homeless Women, Getting Their Period Is One Of The Most Difficult Challenges. This had never occurred to me, but now I wondered: how are homeless women supposed to afford pads and tampons? Getting your period when you...
Last night I went to a birthday party. There were so many delicious homemade dishes (it was a potluck) that I ate very slowly so I wouldn't over do it. But there was birthday cake. I ate birthday cake. I also had a cookie and half a donut. I hate that I inherited my...