a medical librarian's adventures in evidence-based living
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"But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talk about in the great outside world of "wanting and achieving".
The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.
That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think.
The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting [our hard-wired belief that we are the center of the universe], the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing.
What it is, as far as I can see, is the capital-T Truth, with a whole lot of rhetorical niceties stripped away. None of this stuff is really about morality or religion or dogma or big fancy questions of life after death.
The capital-T Truth is about life BEFORE death.
It is about the real value of a real education, which has almost nothing to do with knowledge, and everything to do with simple awareness; awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, all the time, that we have to keep reminding ourselves over and over:
"This is water." "This is water."
It is unimaginably hard to do this, to stay conscious and alive in the adult world day in and day out. Which means yet another grand cliché turns out to be true: your education really IS the job of a lifetime. And it commences: now.
I wish you way more than luck.
--David Foster Wallace, May 21, 2005, delivered at the Kenyon College commencement--
I don't know how I missed this extraordinary speech.
It seriously sidetracked me from everything I promised myself I'd do this morning. At least I made my bed! Oh well. Such is life. Delicious detours aplenty. Always!
Turns out, Wallace was a brilliant, award-winning, promising writer. A professor at Pomona College, who tragically died much too young at the age of 46, by taking his own life.
I'm still trying to get my head around how to reconcile the "well-adjusted" wisdom of his message to the Kenyon graduates, with the tragedy of his own depression, emotional distress, alcoholism, and eventual suicide. If anything, maybe it's an example of the message he was trying to get across to his audience:
"Get out of your own story, and pay attention to the people around you. Have patience, compassion, understanding. Everyone has a story--and baggage--not only you!"
Perhaps, he spoke about what he most wanted to practice in his own life. Teach what you want to learn.
"People who can adjust their natural default
setting this way are often described as being "well-adjusted", which I
suggest to you is not an accidental term.
Given the triumphant academic setting here, an obvious question is how
much of this work of adjusting our default setting involves actual
knowledge or intellect.
This question gets very tricky. Probably the most
dangerous thing about an academic education -- least in my own case -- is
that it enables my tendency to over-intellectualize stuff, to get lost in
abstract argument inside my head, instead of simply paying attention to
what is going on right in front of me, paying attention to what is going on
inside me.
If you saw the Cleveland Clinic "Empathy" video--you'll know exactly what Wallace is talking about--"Standing Inside Someone Else's Shoes".
In spite of his difficult life & tragic death, his words still ring powerfully true to my own "post-commencement" life experiences, and for that reason I want to share them.
This video is based on the abridged version of his commencement speech. It's some of the best life advice I've seen.
If you don't see the video on your screen, click here.
The Latest Spanish Study (NEJM) Nudged the Benefits of the Mediterranean Diet Up to a 30% Reduction over the "Western Diet" Control Group - But, There's a Better Choice
A Small Pilot Study Comparing Omega-3 Levels in a Mediterranean Diet (with fish & olive oil), the Average US Diet, & a Plant-Based No-Oil Diet
ALA=plant-based omega-3's
DHA=the most important component in Omega-3's
The higher the n3 Index, the better!
The lower the n6:n3 ratio, the better!
In the Spanish Study (Estruch, NEJM) the ALA levels in the best performing group (nuts & olive oil) averaged: 0.45--far below plant-based no-oil. The researchers speculated that the decrease in cardiovascular events seen in the olive oil/nut group was due to their higher levels of ALA--which were far lower than those in the plant-based in our pilot study.
Sorry, guys. I'm super short on time--so I'm just throwing out some slides & Gayl J. Canfield's excellent analysis of Estruch's Spanish Mediterranean Study before I get busy with vacation & holiday preparations.
I'll leave all the analysis to you! Sorry, no time to fill in all the details.
This article, recently published in the online medical news service, Medscape, presents one of the most balanced explanations of the recent Spanish Mediterranean Study that's gotten so much exposure lately. I posted it on FB today--but it's so good, I wanted to share it with non-FB readers, too.
Are olive oil, nuts, & fatty fish the way to go?
Not by a long-shot. Yes, it's a much better choice than the Western Diet--which for all intents-and-purposes is what it was compared to in the Spanish study. Make no mistake--the so-called "low-fat" control in the study was anything but low-fat & heart healthy.
Canfield lays out three diets that are much better choices than the Mediterranean Diet--with the Ornish/Esselstyn Diet (plant-based, no-added-oil, no nuts, with a source of omega-3's) leading the pack, because they provide the highest level of cardiovascular benefits--able to prevent & (sometimes) reverse heart disease.
1. Ornish/Esselstyn: Plant-based, low-fat, no-added oil, no nuts, & includes adequate omega-3's
2. Pritikin Diet: Low-fat, no-added oil, allows up to 4 oz. of animal protein a day.
3. DASH Diet: Very high in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and beans; low in fats, salt, red meats, and sweets; and moderate in fish, poultry, nuts, and low-fat or nonfat dairy foods.
Gayl J. Canfield, PhD, RD, The author is Director of Nutrition at the Pritikin Longevity Center in Miami, Florida.Medscape.
Mediterranean Diet Better Than Typical American Diet
In light of the recent media attention on the Mediterranean diet,[1]
you may find yourself fielding lots of questions from patients about
which diet they should follow. Right now, we cannot say which diet is
best because we still need rigorous studies of all of the popular diets
that physicians routinely recommend to their patients. Moreover, we
cannot unequivocally recommend the Mediterranean diet on the basis of
the recently published study because this study was seriously flawed.
One major problem with the study was that the
"low-fat" diet being used to compare against the Mediterranean diet was
not, in fact, low in fats. The participants in this group started out
with a diet that averaged 39% fat, and during the study period they
decreased fat intake to just 37%.
Nor was this so-called low-fat diet a
healthy, well-designed regimen. Many of the foods eaten by participants
were artery-damaging foods such as red meat, commercially baked goods
full of refined flour and fat, sugary sodas, and low-fat cheeses.
(Though called "low-fat," these cheeses typically get 35% to 60% of
their calories from fat.)
Moreover, the "low-fat" diet excluded
an important food proven to protect against heart disease: omega 3-rich
fish. This category of food is included in many healthy low-fat-diet
plans.
The bottom line is that the study authors
were not really comparing a Mediterranean diet with a nutritious low-fat
diet. It would be much more accurate to say that they were comparing a
Mediterranean diet with a typical American-style diet. But it did not do
justice to a well-constructed low-fat diet.
Healthy "Low-Fat" Diets
A substantial body of research exists that
has documented the heart-healthy benefits of 2 well-known low-fat diets,
Pritikin and Ornish [H.L.'s note: similar to Esselstyn's Diet]. In fact, the data are so strong that Medicare now
covers cardiac rehabilitation programs based on the Pritikin and Ornish
plans for people with a history of cardiovascular disease.[2] Both programs also include exercise and lifestyle-change components.
The Ornish Program [H.L.'s note: similar to Esselstyn's Diet] has been proven to regress heart disease,[3,4]
and the Pritikin Program has been proven to significantly reduce many
modifiable risk factors for cardiovascular disease, including
low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, triglycerides, blood glucose,
hypertension, inflammatory markers such as C-reactive protein, and
excess weight/obesity.[5-7]
Both programs recommend an eating plan with
about 10% to 15% of calories coming from fat, and both emphasize hearty
consumption of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and legumes such as
beans. The Ornish Program is completely vegetarian, whereas the Pritikin
Program allows up to 4 oz of animal protein daily, such as omega-3-rich
fatty fish, skinless white poultry, or lean meat such as bison.
Both of these programs are a far cry from the
"low-fat" diets of the 1980s and 1990s, many of which were anything but
healthy. Often, the "low-fat” and "fat-free" products people were
eating (remember "fat-free" cookies?) were essentially junk food
themselves -- very high in sugar, salt, and/or refined white flour.
Low-fat plans such as Pritikin and Ornish, by contrast, focus on real food -- whole, minimally processed, naturally fiber-rich foods that, as Michael Pollan wrote in his superb book In Defense of Food, "are foods our great grandmothers would have recognized as food."
Another low-fat diet that has proven to be
particularly beneficial for blood pressure control is the DASH (Dietary
Approaches to Stop Hypertension) diet. Several studies funded by the
National Institutes of Health (NIH) have found that the DASH diet lowers
blood pressure as well as or better than medications. DASH also
promotes menus that are high in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and
beans; low in fats, salt, red meats, and sweets; and moderate in fish,
poultry, nuts, and low-fat or nonfat dairy foods.
In one study, NIH researchers found that 8
weeks of following the DASH regimen resulted in reductions in blood
pressure in all groups of men and women studied.[8] Even
those who started with a normal blood pressure (systolic pressure <
120 mm Hg) saw improvements. The biggest reductions in blood pressure
were observed in the individuals who were hypertensive (systolic
pressure >140 mm Hg), emphasizing the fact that diet is a major
factor in determining blood pressure in most hypertensive patients.
In another DASH study, 3 groups of people
followed the diet but took in varying levels of sodium (3300 mg, 2400
mg, or 1500 mg per day). The researchers found that the biggest drops in
blood pressure occurred in the group on the 1500 mg/day diet.[9]
Life Lessons
After nearly a decade of teaching healthy eating at the Pritikin Longevity Center, I can say with certainty that people can
change. They really can revamp their behaviors and live better,
healthier lives. But it takes much more, unfortunately, than simply
handing them a diet pamphlet. What works is a solid education in several
key skills for healthy living: classes in grocery shopping, reading
food labels, cooking, and dining out healthfully. In addition, we
provide classes that teach why these skills are so vital and how they benefit the body.
What matters, too, is taking time away from
what I call the "American assault on our taste buds" -- a week or more
spent eating foods that are completely free of salt, sugar, and grease,
so that our palates have a chance to rediscover the good flavors of good
food.
If, as a nation, we can institute educational
programs like these, we can begin to empty our hospitals of patients
needing angioplasties or coronary bypass surgeries; we can lighten the
load of nursing facilities filled with people stricken with diabetic-
and cardiovascular-related strokes, kidney failure, and amputations.
We know that the Mediterranean diet is better
than the typical American diet. We also know that healthy,
well-designed low-fat diets are better than the typical American diet.
We need more research -- rigorous, randomized trials -- to identify not
only the best diets but also the best ways to teach these diets.
In doing so, we can achieve real change
across America, change that can not only curtail the staggering economic
costs of chronic disease but also help people feel better and live
better.
References
Estruch R, Ros E, Salas-Salvadó J, et al. Primary
prevention of cardiovascular disease with a Mediterranean diet. N Engl J
Med. 2013;DOI:10.1056/NEJMoa200303.
[No authors listed] Ornish, Pritikin get Medicare okay for cardiac rehab. Harv Heart Lett. 2010;21:7.
Ornish D, Brown SE, Scherwitz LW, et al. Can
lifestyle changes reverse coronary heart disease? The Lifestyle Heart
Trial. Lancet. 1990;336:129-133. Abstract
Chainani-Wu N, Weidner G, Purnell DM, et al.
Changes in emerging cardiac biomarkers after an intensive lifestyle
intervention. Am J Cardiol. 2011;108:498-507. Abstract
Barnard RJ. Effects of life-style modification on serum lipids. Arch Intern Med. 1991;151:1389-1394. Abstract
Sullivan S, Samuel S. Effect of short-term
Pritikin diet therapy on the metabolic syndrome. J Cardiometab Syndr.
2006;1:308-312. Abstract
Wegge JK, Roberts CK, Ngo TH, Barnard RJ. Effect
of diet and exercise intervention on inflammatory and adhesion molecules
in postmenopausal women on hormone replacement therapy and at risk for
coronary artery disease. Metabolism. 2004;53:377-381. Abstract
Appel LJ, Moore TJ, Obarzanek E, et al. A
clinical trial of the effects of dietary patterns on blood pressure.
DASH Collaborative Research Group. N Engl J Med. 1997;336:1117-1124. Abstract
Sacks FM, Svetkey LP, Vollmer WM, et al. Effects
on blood pressure of reduced dietary sodium and the Dietary Approaches
to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet. DASH-Sodium Collaborative Research
Group. N Engl J Med. 2001;344:3-10. Abstract
"'Always go to the funeral' means that I have to do the right thing
when I really, really don't feel like it"
I have to remind myself
of it when I could make some small gesture, but I really don't have
to and I definitely don't want to.
I'm talking about those things
that represent only inconvenience to me but the world to the other
guy: you know, the painfully underattended birthday party, the
hospital visit during happy hour, the shivah call for one of my
ex's uncles.
In my humdrum life, the daily battle hasn't been good
vs. evil. It's hardly so epic. Most days my real battle is doing
good vs. doing nothing."
-Deirdre Sullivan, "Always Go to the Funeral," August 8, 2005. NPR Series, "This I Believe"
Isn't it strange how books, teachers, people, podcasts, articles, and experiences sometimes serendipitously arrive on our doorstep, unasked for--but offering exactly what we didn't know we needed to hear? Does that make sense?
This week, three "Wake-Up Call" kind-of-serendipitous lessons literally fell into my lap. Two short videos. One short podcast. Two take place in hospitals. One's about funerals. Hmm. What's the connection here?
All together, they added up to nine powerful minutes out of my week.
Nine minutes that have kind of shaken me up--awakened me --and made me
look at my everday life a little differently. Maybe they'll have the
same effect upon you.
Here's the strange part. It turns out, all three of the following "on-line learning opportunities" are saying the same thing--sort of.
Many of us have jam-packed schedules. Throw in another obligation, or try to change the way we eat or shop or start an exercise program, or pay closer attention to everyone we have contact with during the day---sometimes it just seems impossible & so overwhelming. Who has the time for it all?
For me, the videos & the podcast were a kick in the pants to recognize what sometimes holds me back from "doing the right thing"!
Honestly, sometimes I just don't feel like it.
The antidote: Habit kicks in.
Bottom line: It's often the inevitable inertia of everyday life -- Aargh, I'm too busy for that right now, it's not a convenient time, & let's face it--what can look like the lack of empathy is more about being too preoccupied or busy to pay attention to what's going on with someone outside of my own inner circle. Just speaking for myself, here.
The Three Kick-In-The-Pants Reminders I Received This Week
1. "Always Go to the Funeral". I deeply regret the ones I've missed--but, shouldn't have. But, I still struggle with how to decide which ones are OK to miss, or which circumstances are excusable. It's not all black & white. Thoughts?
What Do "Two Hospitals" & "a Funeral" Have in Common?
1. They're about doing the right thing--even when it's inconvenient, even we're too busy right now, even when we can't afford it, even when we can't spare the time or even when we just want to take a pass--this once.
2. "If I waited until I felt like doing it--I'd never do it [you fill in the blanks]"
4. They're about the little things, the small good habits, the better choices, the slight attitude adjustments, when done over & over again slowly change us over time. After awhile, the changes become automatic--it's just what we do. Who we are.
They can add up to a healthy vibrant last 10 years of life.
They can add up to making a difference to someone else's life--even if we are unaware of it.
It's the power of habit, that changes us into the people we want to be.
5. It's about overcoming our own inertia and the inconvenience of doing what we'd rather not be doing.
That's it.
"Smart people who’ve thought about this usually understand that the
habits we put into practice end up shaping the people we are within.
Don't miss this one minute video produced by the Canadian Heart & Stroke Foundation.
What will your last 10 years look like?
My eyes filled with tears watching this--memories of my mom & dad. They are the reason I'm so careful about staying health. And so are my grandkids, my husband, & my kids.
Giant thank you to C.S., the Canadian reader who shared this video with me.
---------------------------
Empathy - If You Could Stand in Someone Else's Shoes, Would You Treat Them Differently?
Don't miss this video about EMPATHY--that profoundly challenges us to walk in someone else's shoes.
It has the potential to change your perspective forever. The video was produced by the Cleveland Clini & was featured on the blog of my favorite radio show: "On Being".
Have
a kleenex ready.
A big thank you to my daughter-in-law who shared this
video with me--I missed viewing it when it was shown at work last week. Read the full post about the video here.
"If
you could stand in someone else's shoes... Hear what they hear. See
what they see. Feel what they feel. Would you treat them differently?"
"These words
end this incredibly beautiful video produced by the Cleveland Clinic, a
nonprofit medical center that integrates clinical and hospital care with
research and education.
This video speaks to each person's complexity,
the stories that go unsaid but float just beneath the surface.
Titled
"Empathy," this video was presented by the health care organization's
CEO Toby Cosgrove at his annual State of the Clinic address on February
27, 2013. And it gets at a point that immunologist Esther Sternberg
explores in her work and personal life: how new knowledge about the
physical spaces of our lives can stress us, make us sick, or help us be
well and connect with others."
I
am forever grateful to Krista Tippett & the producers of "On Being" for the inspiration, the insights, & the new ways they make me
think about the world--every Sunday morning on the radio. If you aren't familiar with this
award-winning weekly show--I encourage you to discover it on NPR.
-Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each others' eyes for one instant?-
Listen to Deirdre Sullivan explain why she always goes to the funeral, here
"I believe in always going to the funeral. My father taught me that.
The first time he said it directly to me, I was 16 and trying to get
out of going to calling hours for Miss Emerson, my old fifth grade math
teacher. I did not want to go. My father was unequivocal.
"Dee," he
said, "you're going. Always go to the funeral. Do it for the family."
So
my dad waited outside while I went in. It was worse than I thought it
would be: I was the only kid there. When the condolence line deposited
me in front of Miss Emerson's shell-shocked parents, I stammered out,
"Sorry about all this," and stalked away.
But, for that deeply weird
expression of sympathy delivered 20 years ago, Miss Emerson's mother
still remembers my name and always says hello with tearing eyes.
That
was the first time I went un-chaperoned, but my parents had been taking
us kids to funerals and calling hours as a matter of course for years.
By the time I was 16, I had been to five or six funerals. I remember two
things from the funeral circuit: bottomless dishes of free mints and my
father saying on the ride home, "You can't come in without going out,
kids. Always go to the funeral."
Sounds simple — when someone
dies, get in your car and go to calling hours or the funeral. That, I
can do. But I think a personal philosophy of going to funerals means
more than that.
"Always go to the funeral" means that I have to
do the right thing when I really, really don't feel like it.
I have to
remind myself of it when I could make some small gesture, but I don't
really have to and I definitely don't want to.
I'm talking about those
things that represent only inconvenience to me, but the world to the
other guy. You know, the painfully under-attended birthday party. The
hospital visit during happy hour. The Shiva call for one of my ex's
uncles.
In my humdrum life, the daily battle hasn't been good versus
evil. It's hardly so epic. Most days, my real battle is doing good
versus doing nothing.
In going to funerals, I've come to
believe that while I wait to make a grand heroic gesture, I should just
stick to the small inconveniences that let me share in life's
inevitable, occasional calamity.
On a cold April night three
years ago, my father died a quiet death from cancer. His funeral was on a
Wednesday, middle of the workweek.
I had been numb for days when, for
some reason, during the funeral, I turned and looked back at the folks
in the church. The memory of it still takes my breath away.
The most
human, powerful and humbling thing I've ever seen was a church at 3:00
on a Wednesday full of inconvenienced people who believe in going to the
funeral. [I couldn't agree more.]
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Bet you can't read everything on this intriguing card! I know I couldn't.
So, I enlarged it--and was rewarded for my efforts. It's a hoot!
It may be tongue-in-cheek, but guess what? We're kind-of-living this greeting card message. Don't hate me. I lucked out "big time" in the husband department. Pooh-pooh-pooh! Kenahora! (But, don't get the wrong idea. We still argue, disagree, get annoyed, & get on each other's nerves sometimes. Who doesn't?)
Lucky us, I say!
But, it took 41+ years of practice--every day--to get there! We're slow learners. Plus, lots of luck, the 5-1 ratio, & Bill Murray's Groundhog Day. More on that later.
In case you're wondering, the words in italics are how the Healthy Librarian & the Lab Rat stack up to the card's standards.
I WILL
Buy You Flowers For No Reason. Check! He's done that. A lot. I haven't. But, I buy him other surprises for no reason, that I know he'd appreciate.
Remind You That You're Good at Your Job. Check! For both of us--all the time. But, it's usually not about our "work" jobs--it's about other things we're good at.
Make Coffee For You Every Morning.Check--whoever is up first, makes the coffee!
Open The Door For You.Check! For both of us.
Not Roll My Eyes When You Talk About How Hot Tom Brady Is? Huh? Who's Tom Brady?
Be Vegan If You Want To Be Vegan. Check! We both were willing to give this one a try.
Cook For Your Book Club.Check! It's "our" book club--it's co-ed--and we both cook for it when it's at our house.
Wash Your Car For You.Check! He washes my car. I've never washed his. He's into car care--I'm not.
Rub Your Feet While We Watched House Hunter's International.Check! I kid you not--this actually happened this year--and, trust me, he must have really felt sorry for me to do this. Can't think of a show he hates more--and he's not a foot-rubber.
Let You Spend All Day Sunday In Front Of The TV. Check! Sure, why not? Occasionally. Sometimes a guy needs to veg-out without being nagged about it. But, TV's his thing--not mine.
Not Interrupt You! Hasn't happened yet-but we're working really hard on this one!
Where Did This Card Come From?
This adorable card illustrated Tara Parker Pope's December 11th, 2011 Sunday New York Times Magazine story, "The Generous Marriage".
So, what's a "generous marriage"--and why should we care?
This excerpt will give you the gist:
"Researchers from the University of Virginia’s National Marriage Project recently studied the role of generosity in the marriages of 2,870 men and women.
Generosity was defined as “the virtue of giving good things to one’s spouse freely and abundantly” — like simply making them coffee in the morning — and researchers quizzed men and women on how often they behaved generously toward their partners. How often did they express affection? How willing were they to forgive?
The responses went right to the core of their unions. Men and women with the highest scores on the generosity scale were far more likely to report that they were “very happy” in their marriages.
The benefits of generosity were particularly pronounced among couples with children. Among the parents who posted above-average scores for marital generosity, about 50 percent reported being “very happy” together. Among those with lower generosity scores, only about 14 percent claimed to be “very happy,” according to the latest “State of Our Unions” report from the National Marriage Project."
Then, I asked my husband to take it. I couldn't believe he didn't roll his eyes at that request--but he took the quiz. It helped that there are only 4 questions to answer!
Turned out we got the same score--a 17, I think. But, if you ask me, he's definitely the more generous one.
Here's what I wanted to tell Tara Parker-Pope after I read her article:
Love this study--and this column. Thanks, Tara. I'll try to be more generous.
Yikes--In about 2 weeks my husband & I will be married for 40 years (note: originally written in 2011--now it's 41+).
He's incredibly generous--every day.
Last night he shared his Good & Plenty with me, at the movies, even though he only bought a small box because I swore I wasn't going to want any of it. No kidding--that's generous!
Whoever gets up last--makes the bed. Whoever gets up first makes the coffee in the morning. Whoever has the time, does the grocery shopping, makes dinner, or cleans the house.
He knows the stuff I hate to do--so he'll just do it for me. Car stuff. Lawn stuff. Money stuff.
I'll do the the stuff he hates to do.Make the phone calls. Keep in touch with the relatives. Make the social plans. Buy the presents, the cards, do the non-guy-type shopping.
He'd deny it, but, honestly, I think he's more generous to me, than I am to him--but, I always keep a look-out for what I can do for him.
So Why I'm I Bringing Up "The Generous Marriage" Again?
Today is Valentine's Day & I Think It's Excellent Advice! I Certainly Need the Reminder.
Everyone Has Advice About What Makes a Good Marriage.
But, I'm Still Sticking With What I Wrote on Our 37th Anniverary, Four+ Years Ago:
What's the Secret of a Good Marriage? Luck, the 5-1 Ratio & Bill Murray's Groundhog Day!
A reposting from:
December 26, 2008
Happy Anniversary - Secrets of a Good Marriage - Luck, the 5-1 Ratio & Bill Murray's Groundhog Day
"Happy marriages begin when we marry the ones we love, and they blossom when we love the ones we marry."
-Tom Mullen-
"Life is a Life-changing Experience"
-Harry Shearer-
Today is our 37th wedding anniversary! Yikes! Where did the time go? We were both only 20 years old when we first met. We literally grew up together. And now we are into the dessert course of marriage--the best part! Empty nest & grandchildren.
My husband is the funniest person I knew. He makes me laugh everyday, really! He's also the most trustworthy person I know. Except when he's being the most annoying person I know.
When I asked him what superlatives he would give me, he answered instantly, "You're the nicest person I now. And the kindest. Except when you're being the most annoying person I know. You're also funny, but not the funniest person I know. Sorry."
So what's the secret to a happy marriage? I wouldn't presume to answer that question for anyone but us, but I figure you need 3 things going for you:
Good luck in who you choose and good luck in the curve balls life will surely throw you.
The 5-1 ratio. Your nice-to-nasty ratio must be 5-1! It really works!
John Gottman's pioneering research on marriages suggests that there is a "magic ratio" of 5 to 1 -- in terms of our balance of positive to negative interactions. Gottman found that marriages are significantly more likely to succeed when the couple's interactions are near that 5 to 1 ratio of positive to negative. When the ratio approaches 1 to 1, marriages "cascade to divorce."
The Bill Murray Groundhog Day Principle. If you stay married long enough, and keep repeating the same stupid mistakes over & over again, you finally get it right! The light bulb will go on & you'll figure out what works & what doesn't. Ditch what's not working.
For instance:
I am spatially-challenged, so my husband has quit relying on me to help him move furniture through narrow doorways or going up & down stairs.
My husband is directionally-challenged (as in maps) so I'm the directions person, & I make sure I know exactly where we are going.
I love to hike, but I'll pass on backpacking--why would you want to ruin a perfectly good hike carrying 50 lbs. on your back? So he goes with a friend.
He's not into going to lectures on weeknights--I go with friends.
He got tired of listening to me whine & he finally learned to dance--and loves it.
He knows I hate to read technical manuals, so he'll just read them for me.
Nagging never works! (I'm still working on this one.) Sounds simple enough, but like Bill Murray, it took us years to figure these little things out.
"Making the best of what we have....is not second best. It is rather, a demand for active engagement in caring for what and whom we value.
That is what's touching about Groundhog Day. Our trapped weatherman has to learn this the hard way. His life is reduced to one inescapable day. It's the entire deck he's been dealt, the allotment of flowers he can arrange, the cast of characters in his life.
He goes through stages of feeling trapped, depressed, and living as if there's no tomorrow. He finally comes to the not-so-profound-but-still-pretty-rare realization that he can change his world by changing himself.
..it's about making the best of what you have...over and over. Making small repairs and improvements so that the commitments of midlife--the work you do and people you love--don't become a trap. They become and remain the town in which you choose to live even when you have options."
Back in May 2008, in honor of a very special wedding in Chicago I did a little thinking about what I'd learned after almost 37 years of marriage.
Laugh a lot, touch a lot, show affection & give each other compliments! It's the WD-40 of marriage.
When your spouse asks for your help or needs you to show up--Do it!
When your spouse needs to talk--Listen.
When it's important to speak your mind--Speak up.
Know when it's important to keep quiet.
Cut each other some slack.
Learn to dance.
Get into the habit of taking walks-it's the best time to talk.
Listen to your spouse. Shut up and listen, every day, for at least a half hour a day. Ask pertinent questions. Remember the answers. Keep notes if necessary. Your children depend on your relationship with your spouse. Make sure your marital relationship is solid and your kids will be fine.
For men: if your wife is looking miserable, ask her to tell you what’s wrong and keep asking until she spills her guts. WHATEVER it was, it will no longer make her miserable because she has talked about it with you. This is the magic key to making women happy. Flowers are always nice too!.
Rest. Sundays are good if only because other people may be doing the same thing. But any day is fine. Rest is essential to everything else you care about. Without rest, the fragility of your life will be front and center; with rest, you have a savings account of energy from which to draw to help out others. Make it religious in the sense you ALWAYS take rest at least once a week.
My Wish for Dave & Emily back in May 2008, is exactly what came true for us!
Outrageous & memorable adventures
Wonderful friends
Good health
Work that you're passionate about
Enough of life's challenges to make you stronger, wiser, and kinder
Kids who are above average, sleep through the night, are easy-going and lots of fun
The gift of balancing your life, your work and your family
Enough money to feel both secure and generous. Not so much that you become out-of-touch & spoiled.
The knowledge that it's your friends, family & experiences that will bring you your greatest joys. Invest your time and money accordingly.
"We've all got our good and bad sides. If you want to find love and joy in this lifetime you've got to live by mercy.
Focus on the best in people and ignore all the bad that you can ignore. It's really that simple."
To Life, To Life, L'Chaim, Be Happy, Be Healthy, Long Life!
Now It's Your Turn. What Secrets of a Good Marriage/Partnership/Relationship Would You Share with a Newly-Married Couple? Click here, scroll down, & share your wisdom.
Ann Esselstyn Speaking at a Hospital Employee Wellness Talk: "How to Eat Plant Perfect"
The Esselstyns
If you received this post via email, please click here to get to the web version so you can view the videos of Ann's talk, all the links, & photos.
Oh, gee, it's been three weeks since I PROMISED to summarize Ann's talk. Finally, coming through today, folks--here it is!
Isn't it Ironic that on January 14th, Tara Parker-Pope writes a column in the NYT on, "How to Go Vegan" , garnering almost 800 comments. Tara, why didn't you talk to Ann, first? She's got years of experience.
Then on January 15th, Ann Esselstyn delivers an energizing talk & demo on "How to Eat Plant-Perfect: What to Eat, Where to Buy It, How to Cook It" to a standing-room crowd of hospital employees where I work. Do you think plant-based is maybe, just maybe, moving a tiny bit closer to "oh, that's not sooo weird" & "it really does makes sense"?
Ann is a high-energy, down-to-earth dynamo & this crowd of "mostly-new-to-the-plant-based-world" employees loved her! She shared her Top Ten Plant-Perfect Rules, along with her most favorite foods--like who makes the best pizza crusts, pasta sauces, salad dressings, non-dairy milks, veg broths---& her go-to everyday breakfasts. Ann's all about making it easy. Not fancy schmancy.
Ann is the nuts-and-bolts member of the Esselstyn team. She'll tell you how to shop, transform your pantry, & how to cook all these strange new foods. Dr. Esselstyn, on the other hand, is armed with his clinical experience, statistics, angiograms, journal citations & science to explain how eating a diet of just vegetables, grains, beans, & fruit can prevent & reverse heart disease. You can get a summary of Dr. E's explanation here.
Ann tells us how to do it!
How to Eat Plant Perfect. The Ground Rules
1. Forget about replacing meat with "faux meat"
Avoid this: Ann calls it Vegan Junk Food, and the freezer cases of our grocery stores are filled with faux chicken nuggets, barbecue ribs, fake sausage, hot dogs, & lunch meat. Newbie vegans figure all they have to do is find plenty of plant-based meat substitutes. "Forget about it," explains Ann. Read the labels. Most of those "faux meats" are filled with faux ingredients. They're high in fat, contain ingredients of questionable benefit, like isolated soy protein, and they usually have too much sodium. Just read the labels.
Consider instead: If you're looking for a quality plant-based burger, Ann recommends one made by a company in Columbus, Ohio, called Luna Burgers. You'll recognize ALL the ingredients on their labels: Spelt Berries, Black Beans, Oats, Onions,
Carrots, Kale, Beets, Blueberries, Molasses, Garlic, Apple Cider Vinegar, Salt, Rosemary, Pepper. I know. Strange sounding ingredients for a burger--but, they're really good! Not available everywhere in the US, however.
2. Forget about vegan cheese.
Avoid this: Carefully read the labels. Most vegan cheeses contain 2 ingredients you definitely want to avoid: casein, which is a milk protein, & oil.
Consider instead:Nutritional yeast. Find it in the bulk food section of health food stores, or at most grocery stores, these days. Nutritional yeast is a "must-have" seasoning. It looks like dry pale yellow flakes, but it imparts a subtle cheesy taste to sauces, tofu "ricotta", "mac 'n cheese", pestos, mashed potatoes, popcorn or as a topping, sprinkled on casseroles. It is a bit of an acquired taste--but, an easy one to acquire. It's an excellent butter substitute in mashed potatoes.
3. Give yourself time for your taste buds to adapt & change
If you've eaten a typical American diet all your life, it's going to take time to adapt to the taste of no-oil cooking, new vegetables, less salt, less sugar, exotic spices, unusual beans & grains. Never fear. Our tastes change!
When San'Dera Prude, the 30-something single mom, featured in the documentary Forks Over Knives, was invited to lunch at the Esselstyn's for the first time, she later told Ann she hated the food she was served.
San'Dera was used to fried foods, Kentucky Fried Chicken, a lot of salt, & she wasn't much of a fruit or vegetable fan. Months late, San'Dera realized that she needed to taste a new food at least THREE TIMES before she liked it. Don't make a judgement on your first taste of something new.
Nuts & avocados are included in the less stringent Engine 2 diet plan. That's it. Both plans emphasize: no oil; no meat, no poultry, no fish, no dairy or milk; and both advise a diet of whole grains, mostly unprocessed foods, lots of leafy greens, vegetables, fruits, beans, and legumes. That's it! Engine-2 was originally conceived by Dr. Caldwell B. Esselstyn's son, Rip Esselstyn for a younger population who didn't have heart disease--and wanted to avoid it.
Ann's Top Ten Plant Perfect Pointers
1. No Oil, Ever.
It sounds hard, but it's really the easiest change to make. Here's what's problematic with olive oil.
Sauteeing vegetables without oil: Instead of oil, find a low or no sodium vegetable broth to saute with, like Kitchen Basics No Added Salt Vegetable broth. Read labels. Avoid boullion cubes. The first ingredient is usually salt, & the second ingredient is often palm oil.
Sauteeing onions & mushrooms is easy, because they have a high water content. First, preheat your pan on medium high heat. Add the onions, mushrooms or celery. Lower the heat to medium low, & cover the pan. Check on the vegetables about every 2 minutes, stir, add a little broth or water if they are starting to stick--and that will easily deglaze the pan. In about 7 to 10 minutes you'll have beautiful golden & soft vegetables. Garlic has less liquid content, so you'll need to add more liquid when sauteeing garlic.
Baking without oil: In place of oil, you can use mashed bananas, baby prunes (avoid Gerber Organic brand--it contain tuna oil. The "conventional" Gerber brand is fine! ), or apple sauce.
Salad Dressings without oil: Ann's favorite dressing is made with a no-oil, no-tahini hummus, some balsamic vinegar, the juice of an orange, & mustard. Often she dresses her salads with just a high quality flavored balsamic vinegar, like Olive Tap's. They have every flavor imaginable, like: black currant, pear, chocolate (which is great on banana "ice cream" or drizzled on strawberries), or tangerine.
2. Eat Leafy Greens. Many Servings. Everyday.
Strip. Ann's fridge & garden are perpetually stocked with kale & collards. Even in the winter she's harvesting kale. She calls kale, "Spinach with Heft" because it's so nutrient dense, hardy & "hearty". To help kale cook evenly, she removes its thick stems by holding each leaf in her left hand, and starting at the stem's base, grabbing the stem with her fingers & sliding the leaf quickly off of the stem. You can chop up the kale leaves, tear them apart--or not. Place them in a pot of boiling water, cover, & it's done in 5-6 minutes. Kale stems can be cut on the diagonal & sprinkled on salads, or thrown into soups. Kale stems: almost like a brand new vegetable.
Massage. To use raw kale in salads, you'll need to break down it's tought cellulose a bit by massaging it with your hands using a citrus juice, a non-oil dressing or even some hummus. After massaging, add cherry tomatoes, some lemon zest & lemon juice, or even mango & lime juice to your salad. An exotic delicious salad in minutes. Here's a favorite raw kale salad of mine.
Ann's favorite kale: Lacinato, the long deep dark puffy textured kale, also known as Tuscan or Dinosaur kale.
Use collard greens as a sandwich wrap, a burrito or for making sushi. Ann fills large softened collard leaves (burrito-fashion) with steamed asparagus, red peppers, carrots, hummus, cilantro, & lemon slices. Or she makes them into burritos filled with black beans, sweet potatoes, cilantro, & salsa.
Greens in your pasta. Another genius Ann tip. Throw cut up greens into a pot of boiling pasta water & let them soften as the pasta cooks--or throw a bunch into the pasta sauce as it heats. An easy way of getting more greens into your life.
Remember, no oil, greens every day--in salads, soup, pasta, or sandwiches. Lots of vegetables.
3. Eat Oats (Oatmeal)
Raw, Cooked, Rolled, Steel-Cut, or Whole Oat Groats. It doesn't matter how you eat them, just eat them everyday for breakfast. Or whenever.
Oats help to reduce cholesterol, reduce inflammation & the more you eat, the greater the results--because their benefits are dose-responsive.
Dr. Esselstyn eats his Old-Fashioned Rolled Oats raw, every night after dinner as a snack. He adds 1 tablespoon of chia or flax meal (kept refrigerated) to them, along with bananas or berries, a crunchy cereal like Kashi, Ezekiel, Grape Nuts, or Shredded Wheat, and oat milk.
Ann used to eat her rolled oats totally dry with halved red grapes, & maybe a squeeze of grapefruit juice. She wasn't a fan of cooked oatmeal. But, she's changed her tune, and she's now passionate about cooked steel-cut oats, made with a REALLY RIPE banana, 1 cup of water, & 1 teaspoon of vanilla. When done cooking, she tops it with chia & blueberries. No milk in her oatmeal.
Ann's Favorite Savory-Style Oats: Yay! She's a fan of my "Cheezy Savory Oats with Greens" They're steel-cut oats that you could serve to company for dinner.
Dr. Esselstyn's Favorite Milk: Oat milk
Ann's Favorite Milk: Almond milk
Don't Forget One of These Important Oat Toppers: Add a tablespoon or two of ground flax seed (flax meal) or chia seed to your daily oatmeal for a handy source of omega-3's. Flax seeds need to be ground for your body to absorb their nutrients--and always keep them in the refrigerator for freshness.
The of variety of non-dairy milks is stunning. Almond, Oat, Soy & Rice. Sweetened, unsweetened, enriched, Vanilla, Chocolate, you name it. Each come with there own benefits. Some are better for cooking. Some are better tasting. Most are enriched with calcium & vitamin D, to match dairy milk. Read the non-dairy milk labels carefully. Avoid any that contain oil or ingredients that you don't want to consume. Avoid coconut milk.
4. Fill Your Life with Beans & Lentils
Ann's favorite bean is red lentils, because they cook quickly & dissolve into a thick creaminess which is perfect for soups & stews. She even throws red lentils into pasta sauces.
Bean rule #1: Look for cans or cartons with no-added salt. Whole Foods 365 Brand & Eden Foods make no-salt beans. Eden Foods packages them in no-BPA cans, & now 365 Brand packages their beans in tetra-boxes.
5. Eat Whole Grains
Read all bread, tortilla, pasta & cereal labels CAREFULLY. The first ingredient should include the word WHOLE, as in WHOLE WHEAT FLOUR, not just wheat flour, or semolina flour.
Pizza crusts: Ann sometimes uses whole wheat pita bread or lavash as a pizza crust. But, her all-time favorite, & mine, is Sami's Millet & Flax crusts. Unless you live in Florida, unfortunately, you'll have to order Sami's crusts from their main bakery in Tampa, FL. To cut down on shipping costs, I order them with a group of four friends. 32 crusts at a time, 8 crusts for each of us, & we store them in our freezers.
Pizza & Pasta Sauce?
Ann recommends Walnut Acres Basil & Tomato. It's one of the few prepared sauces that's made with no-oil & is low-sodium. Look for it at health food stores, Giant Eagle, or order it through Amazon.
Second best:Muir Glenn's Portobello Mushroom Pasta Sauce.
Third best: Trader Joe's No-Oil Marinara Sauce. It's high in sodium.
Ann's tip for pizza sauce: Mix chopped-up cooked kale into your pizza sauce to get extra greens. You won't even notice it in there.
A Delicious New Bread Discovery by Ann. Almost dessert-like.
Manna Bread. This is a sprouted, organic bread made with whole wheat kernels, carrots, & raisins. Ann recommends toasting it for your "eating pleasure"--because it has a soft squishy texture. I haven't tasted it yet, but Ann's got a loaf set aside for me in her freezer to be delivered the next time we meet up at the gym. Look for it at some Whole Foods.
6. Drink Water
Don't drink your calories. No soda. No diet drinks. Don't juice. Don't drink smoothies. Better to chew your fruits & vegetables, & eat them whole, rather then blend them into a drink.
7. Limit Salt
The amount of salt that's added to processed, prepared, or restaurant foods is over-the-top. Instead of salting your foods, Ann recommends a squeeze of lemon or lime juice, because they activate the same taste receptors on the tongue & trick our brains into not missing the salt. Other brain-tricking options are using a dash of vinegar, hot sauce, sriracha or cholula sauce.
Ann tip: Freeze lemons & limes whole & grate some onto whatever you're eating. Vinegar takes the bitterness out of foods, so drizzle some onto greens or other strong-tasting vegetables.
8. Limit Sugar
Bottom Line: Keep sugary snacks & baked goods out of the house. It's just too tempting, & as long as you keep the sweets around you'll keep your sugar addiction. Just try eating one piece of chocolate or one cookie. You know you'll be back for more.
Ann tip: Consider a Yonanas machine& make your own sugar-free "soft-serve ice cream" from frozen fruit & bananas.
9. Avoid Coconut Milk or Coconut Oil
Coconut is everywhere these days, touted as a "healthy fat" mostly because of its creamy mouth-feel. It's in non-dairy milks, ice creams, & yogurts. Don't use it. It's a highly saturated fat. In just 1/4 cup of coconut milk (about 1 serving) you'll find 12 grams of fat--10 grams of which are saturated. Even if it was found to be a healthy, unharmful fat--it's still a fat, that's loaded with calories of limited nutritional value.
A Handy Coconut Milk Substitute: You can easily substitute the taste & creaminess of coconut milk in recipes by adding 1 teaspoon of high quality coconut extract, like Silver Cloud Estates, to one cup of non-dairy milk. You'll need 1 1/2 teaspoons & 1 1/2 cups of milk for a typical can of coconut milk.
10. Unsweetened Un-Dutched Cocoa Yes! Dark Chocolate, No!
Ann's daughter, Jane, recently gave her a Perfect Tortilla Cup set. It's available at Bed, Bath, & Beyond--so I hear. "The best part", Ann says, "is that the Engine 2 No-Oil Sprouted Grain & Gluten-Free Torillas fit perfectly into these molds & make "perfect tortilla bowls" for salads."
I'm an unabashed Ann Fan! She tells it like it is. She's fit, strong, energetic & a role model for all of us who want to age with health & vitality.
Excerpts from Ann's Talk at the Lab Rat's Rotary Breakfast Meeting (8 minutes)
Ann, you'll be happy to know, the Rotarians were taking excellent notes. Yesterday's newsletter had a full page summary of your talk!
Finding Our Footing - Balancing Between "Rain" Drops
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“I was in the same moment confronted by an unbearable loss and also by the realization that there were people and community that were there to help me bear it.
The most traumatic thing is not suffering; it's suffering alone."
If you received this via email or you're looking at it on your iPhone, click here to get to the web version for all the photos & links.
Please hang in there for my back story spiel behind the re-posting of this December 31, 2010 blog post: The three reasons why I'm re-gifting it today.
It's one of my favorites--because it actually works! It keeps guiding me in the right direction. At least when I'm paying attention.
Reason #1. On Friday, Newtown, Connecticut happened. Is there anyone who can get through their everyday lives without thinking about those children & their parents--and not weep, worry, and think of their own families?
Reason #2. Then on Sunday morning I listened to Kate Braestrup talk about her work as a chaplain to game wardens in the parks and forests of Maine. What's the connection here, you ask?
"These are law enforcement officials in the wild, called in to respond to danger and disaster." Think of missing children, murders, abductions, accidents, brutal rape, or a parent with Alzheimer's who wanders away. Kate's job as a chaplain is to bring comfort to the distraught--when a family member is "suddenly lost--and needs to be found."
"Her work...takes her, as she describes it, to hinges of human experience, moments where some lives are altered or ended and others swung in wholly unpredicted directions. Kate Braestrup calls this her "ministry of presence" to life and death, lost and found.
And her life had its own unpredictable hinge in the sudden death of her state trooper husband, at the age of 39. She learned then, she says, about the finality of loss and the human capacity nevertheless to cope and to care."
Kate has seen it all. She's a woman we can all learn from--and as I listened to her interview on Sunday I couldn't fathom the existential serendipity that she was the scheduled guest on Sunday's NPR broadcast of "On Being". And my good fortune that I was up early enough to hear it. If you want to hear more, catch her interview or read its transcript on On Being.
When What We Fear the Most Materializes
Before Kate became a chaplain, she was a writer & a mom, married to a State Trooper. Imaging the worst was often on her mind.
Ms Braestrup: So, you know, what I would always think about was, "Well, if anything happened to Drew, I would just lose my mind." And what I discovered and what we all discovered is actually, you don't lose your mind.
Ms. Tippett: … and you didn't lose your mind, right?
Ms. Braestrup: No, and not only that, even if you wanted to, you don't get to lose your mind.
You have to stay and you have to do it without him. So the loss is going to be real, and there is no anesthesia. So that was a thing I learned.
What I also learned, however, is that there is something in us that knows how to do that. And I — that lesson gets repeated for me over and over when I do death notifications.
What I find is people know how to do this. They know how to absorb that, the impact of that blow. It knocks them down. And all I do [as a chaplain] is I go down with them and sit on the floor and be there with them and hold them if they want to be held.
And after about 20 minutes — and I was just talking to some wardens about this and we all agreed, it's almost never more than 20 minutes — they will come up.
They will come back to themselves, and they will ask a very sensible question, which is usually, "Where is he? When can I see him?"
I mean, to me there's something miraculous just about that. I mean, like a little tiny resurrection. Like how can you do that? And we're talking about, you know, women who've lost a child, which is one of those ones where I just, you know, think, "Oh, I'd lose my mind."
Ms. Braestrup: They don't, and they somehow manage to do it and to continue to be loving, meaningful beings in the world. And that's amazing. And there's something very encouraging in the sense of giving courage. There's something encouraging about that.
What you lose, you really lose. You don't get to have it back.
And, you know, all of the wonderful things that happened to me and happened to my children and the people who love us and my second husband, who's darling and the kids love him and I love him and all this, all of that is wonderful. And Drew is still dead.
And that's just how it is. And, you know, that doesn't actually need to be redeemed.
It can just be there. And, it doesn't have to be fixed. It can just be there. And at the same time, immediately almost, being held up and, I mean, literally held up, actually, at the time when [you literally fall over from grief].
Now for the Re-Gifting - One Size Fits All
Finding Our Footing Once Again in an Unpredictible Future - With Family, Friends, Food, a Little Fun, and Advice From Daniel Gilbert & Jeanne Marie Laskas' Mother
ZeZe and ZaZa - Always Looking on the Bright Side
On Sunday afternoon I went to a dear colleague's retirement party.
Reason #3. My friend ZeZe was there, and out of the blue he began to tell me what an impression this two-year old post has made on him!
Mostly because of Dan Gilbert's advice: "We know that the best predictor of human happiness is human relationships and the amount of time that people spend with family and friends. We get more happiness from experiences than from durable goods. Forget about spending money on jewelry--give your sweetie the best gift of all: Time spent together doing something special. Like a trip!" It worked for ZeZe! A birthday gift trip to Mexico for ZaZa.
This is one of my favorite posts, too. Not so much for Gilbert's advice, but for Jeanne Marie Laskas' mother's advice: When in Doubt, Do the Positive.
Advice You Can Bank On from Dan Gilbert & Jeanne Marie Laskas' Mother
We're nearing the last day of the year. Soon we'll see the shortest & darkest of days, and OMG the sun is finally shining and it's going to reach 50 degrees today! Could this be a sign?
It's been another year of unspeakable devastation, heartache, & sadness--wrought by both humans & by nature. Newtown, Connecticut. Hurricane Sandy. Economic uncertainties, job losses, business closures, home foreclosures. Scaling down. Uncertain futures. Limited job prospects for new college grads who are saddled with unprecedented steep student loans. Serious family illnesses. Unexpected gut-wrenching deaths. It's a wonder how we all just keep-on-keeping-on.
But, it's also been a year of weddings, welcoming new babies to the world, delirious dancing, gorgeous giggling grandchildren, lots of hugs, graduations, family gatherings, hanging out with friends for an evening of cards and games, cooking with the family, and this list could go on and on. I like Phil Stopol's attitude--he's one of the "greatest generation", an 88 year-old who fought in World War II--and who I hope will soon celebrate his 63th wedding anniversary on Christmas day. Another example of Phil's positive attitude-here.
And yet, I've spent a year writing about eating right and exercising in order to stay healthy, perhaps reverse illness, lift your spirits, and just plain feel strong and good. What's up with that?
Here's why: Whether we like it or not, we are all connected to each other. When things fall apart for our family, our friends, our co-workers, our community--we hurt right along with them--as they do with us.
There's so much we have NO control over. But heck, we can always control what goes into our mouths. We can always control how much we move our bodies--yes, that's code word for exercise.
The way I look at it--it's a gift to everyone--and I mean everyone--when we can stay healthy, maintain a positive attitude, and have the energy to be present for those (including ourselves) who are hit by the uncontrollable curveballs that life always throws us--whether we like or not.
Your kids, your spouse, your co-workers, your friends have more than enough on their worry plates these days--they don't need to add you to the pile. Do them a favor and take care of your health--it's at least one thing you (mostly) have control over. And being in control of something, is the best mood lifter out there.
Daniel Gilbert: As Bad as Things Get--It Always Gets Better--It's the Uncertainty That's Making Us Miserable
I'm a research geek--I own up to it. Dan Gilbert, is the well-known Harvard research psychologist who specializes in figuring out what makes us happy and what makes us miserable. He's my go-to guy when I want an attitude adjustment. I hope his words can put into perspective whatever current worries happen to be on your plate this year.
What Gilbert learned when his own life fell apart. Or, how did he got into the happiness research business in the first place.
"Within a short period of time, my mentor passed away, my mother died, my marriage fell apart and my teenage son developed problems in school. What I soon found was that as bad as my situation was, it wasn't devastating. I went on.
One day, I had lunch with a friend who was also going through difficult times. I told him: "If you'd have asked me a year ago how I'd deal with all this, I'd have predicted that I couldn't get out of bed in the morning."
The truth is, bad things don't affect us as profoundly as we expect them to. That's true of good things, too. We adapt very quickly to either." Dan Gilbert
We're Clueless When It Comes to Our Own Worst Nightmares!
Think of your worst nightmare. The loss of your spouse, financial ruin, the unspeakable stuff I refuse to even write, a life-threatening disease. According to Gilbert, we're lousy predictors of our own unhappiness. When the unthinkable happens, we somehow get through it. He cites countless studies that show "a large majority of people who endure major trauma (wars, car accidents, rapes) in their lives will return successfully to their pre-trauma emotional states--and that many of them will report that they ended up happier than they were before the trauma."
How can that be?
For one thing, we change across time; the person you are when your are imaging what would happen if your nightmare came true, isn't the same person who ends up dealing with it first-hand. We learn to adapt--we just get used to things. And thankfully, we have a built-in "psychological immune system" that helps us through the big negative events like job loss, or the death of a spouse. Unfortunately, it doesn't work so well for the day-to-day insults, like car break-downs, and over-flowing toilets. That's where we do lose it.
We're also great at rationalizing. "It was a boring dead-end job, anyway. If I hadn't gotten laid-off I never would have had a chance to go back to school." "She never was right for me anyway." We have exceptional talent in finding ways to soften the blow.
And then there's the "I'm not the only one" trump card. If we've got buddies in the same boat--it's not so bad. When you're the only one in dire straits, that's a different story.
What Really Makes Us Unhappy is the Unknown
"An uncertain future leaves us stranded in an unhappy present with nothing to do but wait. That's because people feel worse when something bad might occur, than when something bad finally does occur. It's the not knowing that is making us sick." Daniel Gilbert
A University of Michigan study considered the emotional adjustment of colostomy patients. One group underwent permanent colostomies, another group had colostomies that might be reversed one day. Six months after the operations, those who had the permanent colostomies were happier than those who thought they could have a chance for reversal.
Why?
"Because when we get bad news we weep for a while, and then get busy making the best of it. We raise our consciousness and lower our standards. We find our bootstraps and tug. But we can't come to terms with circumstances whose terms we don't yet know. An uncertain future leaves us stranded in an unhappy present with nothing to do but wait." Daniel Gilbert
So, What Really Does Make Us the Happiest?
Here's what the research says. Pay attention and invest your time accordingly.
Yeah, we do need money, but not as much as we might think we need. If you're poor, a little money will absolutely buy a lot of happiness. And yes, we do all need the basics, like shelter, food, and some security. Those who think otherwise have never needed food stamps, been without health insurance, depended upon the generosity of family or friends, or lived for months on ramen noodles. But, after $75,000/a year, money won't buy you much more in the way of happiness--at least that's what Princeton economists say. Don't argue with me about that one.
"We know that the best predictor of human happiness is human relationships and the amount of time that people spend with family and friends.
We know that it's significantly more important than money and somewhat more important than health. That's what the data shows. The interesting thing is that people will sacrifice social relationships to get other things that won't make them as happy -- like money." Daniel Gilbert
Shopping for happiness?
Take the vacation, make a great gourmet meal and share it with friends, see a movie, play games with the fam. Forget about the expensive new couch or high-end car. Hands-down, the research says, we get more happiness from experiences than from durable goods. Read about one couple's experience living on way less.
"Another way I follow what I've learned from data is that I don't chase dollars. You couldn't pay me $100,000 to miss a play date with my granddaughters. That's not because I'm rich. That's because I know that a hundred grand won't make me as happy as nurturing my relationship with my granddaughters will." Daniel Gilbert
When in Doubt, Do the Positive! - Advice from Jeanne Marie Laskas
In the February 2011 issue of Prevention Jeanne Marie Laskas shares some wisdom she learned from her mom--another tool to put into our 2011 Toolbox.
"When in doubt, do the positive." This was my mother's favorite saying and a rule I live by. It's a handy one when you're faced with life's big dilemmas. Jeanne Marie Laskas
Laskas goes on to share the story of one of her life's "not-so-big dilemmas". She had a raging head cold. It was snowing to beat the band, and she was comfortably hunkered down--on the couch--in her bathrobe. She had no intentions of going out with her husband on that night to chaperone a Valentine's Day Dance for fifth and sixth graders.
There was no way she wanted to get off that couch--and she knew that no one would blame her for staying home--but then her husband pulled that "Do the Positive" card on her,
"When in doubt, do the positive. Remember? The positive is the active thing. Can't decide whether you're qualified for that new job? Just apply. Can't decide whether to go on that first blind date after a divorce or sit home in your pajamas? Go on the date." Jeanne Marie Laskas
Of course, Laskas goes to the dance. And it looks like it's going to be one big disastrous waste of her time. The kids aren't dancing--the boys are huddled in one group, the girls in another.
"Oh, for heaven's sake," my husband says. He pulls me onto the dance floor, twirls me to the growls of Lady Gaga. The kids are laughing, but then my husband does his Travolta spin, so I do a little hustle move, and soon the girls and some of the boys are out here with us, and the silliness of this night becomes a kind of freedom for us all.
The DJ "brings it down" to "Just the Way Your Are," and for the first time in more years than I care to count, I am dancing with my husband on Valentine's Day, cheek to cheek.
When in doubt, dance!" Jeanne Marie Laskas
That's exactly what I'll be doing tonight--this New Year's Eve 2011--dancing! I asked three couples to join us at our symphony hall for a bargain-priced evening with a Broadway diva performance, followed by some rock-n-roll dancing, noisemakers, and a kitschy balloon drop. This group then asked four more couples to join in the fun. So, we'll be dressed up and dancing tonight. When in doubt--do the positive--dance! What better way to ring in the the New Year?
When In Doubt - Do the Positive! Jeanne Marie Laskas' mother
The best predictor of human happiness is human relationships and the amount of time that people spend with family and friends. Daniel Gilbert
"When you're down and troubled And you need a helping hand And nothing, whoa nothing is going right. Close your eyes and think of me And soon I will be there To brighten up even your darkest nights. You just call out my name, And you know whereever I am I'll come running, oh yeah baby To see you again." James Taylor
Sitting silently beside a friend who is hurting may be the best gift we can give. Unknown
"I'm hardly a Pollyanna about family life.
I know about the stress of the sandwich generation, trying to be all
things to all bosses, parents, children, spouses.
I know that every family has troubles. At
some time or other, in some light or other, we all look dysfunctional.
But the fact is that most of us are functioning. And loving."
-Ellen Goodman, "The Functional American Family", The Boston Globe, November 24, 1994-
Originally posted November 24, 2009.
Oh, how much things have changed, since then. Two grandchildren on the scene. No turkey this Thanksgving--and the Lab Rat really knows his way around the grocery store(s). He's also become a fantastic cook!
This year, the kids are hosting Thanksgiving!
I have no business taking time off to write a Thanksgiving post--but right now I need a break from shopping, cooking, and scrubbing down a hand-me-down highchair--ick!
OK, I cannot tell a lie--my husband handled the highchair clean-up duties--thank goodness! And, he took care of the crib assembly--which now looks like it needs to be disassembled in light of massive of crib recalls. Oh well!
But my real reason for posting--I just love this cartoon & I want an excuse to use it.
Actually, I'm basically chilling this Thanksgiving--even though the gang is coming in from New York City, St. Louis, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh. The first guests arrive on Tuesday night. Very late. Midnight late.
Everyone is pitching in this year. My husband did the bulk of the grocery shopping. Poor guy had never experienced the Thanksgiving rush, and was clueless where to find "meatless" meatballs, Wheat-a-Bix, toasted pecan pieces, Lemonaise, currants, Larabars, red pepper spread, and more.
His first call to me at work with "grocery location questions" was all jokes & laughter. By the fourth call--this time I was away from my desk--he'd about had it.
Here's the voicemail message he left me: "I don't know where anything is. There's no one to ask and if I don't hear back in 5 minutes, you're on your own with the shopping!"
In the end, he found almost everything--without my help. On my way home from work, I picked up what he had missed.
Cleaning a Farm Fresh Turkey is a Great Reason to Eat Vegan
This year I got a pastured organic Kosher turkey from a nearby farm, about 7 miles from where I live. Who knew what a project cleaning a "farm fresh" turkey would be?
There's the rinsing, the pin feather-plucking--with my husband's tweezers--then ruining my knife trying to cut off the neck--the awkward seasoning maneuvers trying to turn a wet slippery 20 pound turkey. Not my idea of fun.
Washing my hands about 20 times--every time I needed to open a drawer, a cabinet, sprinkle salt, pepper, paprika, rosemary, turn on the faucet, get a pot holder, open the oven--there has to be an easier way!
And the clean-up: the grease, the raw turkey juices, the sanitizing of the sink, the counters, the cutting board. Who knew that easy grease-free clean-up turns out to be a good reason to eat plant-based?
Glad it's done. All cooked, quartered, and in the freezer.
Except for the Turkey--the Gracious Guests are All Cooking Vegan
Nephew Josh--a professional chef--is bringing Red Pepper Bisque, and instead of cream he's using Tal Ronnen's cashew cream. Click here for the cashew cream recipe.
My sister--an expert baker--is baking a Vegan Chocolate Cheesecake, out of the November, 2009 Gourmet Magazine.Click here for the recipe. She's also cooking up a vegan version of an Oatmeal Crust Apple Tarte Tatin.
My husband is making Tal Ronnen's Whipped Chipotle Sweet Potatoes and Martha Rose Shulman's fresh Cranberry Orange Relish. Click here for the sweet potato recipe. Click here for the cranberry recipe.
Niece Anna is making vegan Mashed Potatoes.
Niece Jamie is making a vegan vegetable tart.
My kids are making maple-roasted Brussels sprouts with shallots, traditional stuffing, and setting the table. They just don't know it yet.
Is this going to be a low-fat healthy Thanksgiving? Probably not. But it's a special day!
As for me--I'm sure I'll find something to do--like playing with my grandbaby.
Ellen Goodman's Wisdom. "The Functional American Family", The Boston Globe, November 24, 1994
As it always happens, last week I randomly came across this ever-so-wise fifteen-year-old Thanksgiving column written by Boston Globe writer, Ellen Goodman. I'd give you the link to it, but none exists.
For everyone who is busy getting ready for Thanksgiving company, take a minute to savor this memory of preparing for a family homecoming. Listening to the news, you'd think we're all in dysfunctional families. Ellen disagrees with that assessment:
"I am up to my elbows in Thanksgiving prep when the phone rings. There are macadamia nuts to the right of me, pecans to the left. Flour and eggs are wrestling in my mixing bowl.
I reach for the phone, cradling it between my ear and my shoulder and hear the voice of a television producer. She wants to know whether I might be available to comment on the decline and fall of the American family. A story for the season.
As I stand there, covered in batter, she rattles off the horrific list of stories that make her case. The South Carolina mother who drowned her children. The 19 toddlers found in a squalid Chicago apartment without food or clothes. The Pittsburgh couple who took off for two weeks without warning, abandoning three kids to teen-age babysitters.
I listen to this familiar litany with an equally familiar sense of gloom, and then I decline. I'm sorry, but this afternoon, I promised to visit my mother. Tomorrow, the cousins are coming from California. The next day is our wedding anniversary. Tuesday, the young adults we call "the kids" are arriving. And there is a crisis in the care of an aged aunt.
I hang up the phone, wiping pastry dough from my hair and savoring the irony that flavored this exchange. The irony of being too busy with family to comment on its breakdown.
Folding in the last ingredients of my much-too-elaborate recipe, the annual proof of Stewart's (as in Martha) Disease, I wonder how many of us live with this duality. We are convinced that the great amorphous, generic American family is falling apart. At the same time we are occupied with family maintenance.
All year, I have heard a steady drumbeat of despair about "family values." The overwhelming majority of Americans agree - 98 percent in one recent poll - that other people are not living up to their commitments. Yet in the same poll only 18 percent believe they're irresponsible themselves.
Everywhere I go, when people talk about what they value, the topic is their family. The coin of the conversational exchange between friends and even strangers is the state of their parents, their children, their spouses.
In our daily lives, we work at and for family. At 4 o'clock in the morning, when we worry, it's about our family.
Today, we have higher demands on ourselves as the parents of growing children and longer demands as the children of aging parents. But every morsel of evidence of success - did you read that 8 out of 10 high school juniors and seniors list parents as the people they trust? - comes lost in a survey of family woes.
What do we make of this duality? I wish the producer had asked me that. Some of it comes perversely from the very struggle to do a good job. The harder most of us try, the angrier we are at those who don't and at the price society pays.
But we are also reeling from something akin to negative advertising about the American family. The horror stories that make the front page, because they are so extraordinary, have slowly begun to be accepted as ordinary.
The radio talk shows, the Limbaughs and Liddys, provide an endless stream of antigovernment messages. But the Jenny Joneses and Montel Williamses, and the Sally Jessy Raphaels present an unbroken stream of pathological families.
On any day, we can channel surf across this electronic byway from murderous mothers to husband-stealing sisters to proud mothers of teen-ager strippers. If Norman Rockwell's Thanksgiving family were on the air, grandpa would be a child molester, grandma a recovering drug abuser and the kids would bear sexually transmitted diseases. The abnormal is the norm.
I'm hardly a Pollyanna about family life. I know about the stress of the sandwich generation, trying to be all things to all bosses, parents, children, spouses.
I know that every family has troubles. At some time or other, in some light or other, we all look dysfunctional. But the fact is that most of us are functioning. And loving.
Somewhere along the way Americans have lost a sense of proportion. We've come to believe that I'm OK, but you're not, and that thing called The American Family is most certainly not.
This Thanksgiving Day has always been been more about family than food. It's the time when Americans travel through airports, highways, ZIP codes, in order to squeeze around the family table and discover how many adults can sit on a piano bench.
Standing in my kitchen, covered in homebaked proof of my holiday excess, I wonder if those of us who are connected by bonds of DNA, marriage, affection and above all else, commitment, can forget for a while that we're supposed to be falling apart."
"Although heart disease, diabetes, cancer and obesity have felled relatives, I'm well at [85], thanks to my plate of plants. I look forward to more years of the same."
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You don't have to live on the Greek island of Ikaria to live a Happy Healthy Long Life. If you missed this favorite article of mine, "The Island Where People Forget to Die", you can enjoy it now.
Take heart! Margaret Bennet-Alder is doing it, and she was even a bit a late-bloomer.
When I grow up, I want to be just like her.
This energetic dynamo is 85 years old, publishes the"Gardener's Journal", maintains the Toronto Garden Book website, has an iPad, follows me on FaceBook, exercises daily, has been plant-based for over three years, & her latest accomplishment is poetry! Stay tuned--you'll find her brilliant whimsical "Veggie Verses" below.
We first met about a year and half ago, and I've been an admirer of hers ever since.
Margaret is truly living the Blue Zone life--even though she's miles away from Ikaria, Sardinia, Loma Linda, or Okinawa. It's something we can all do--no matter where we call home!
Margaret's checked off all the Blue Zone boxes--and so can you.
She's an avid gardener
She's a strong woman
She's got strong family relationships
She's active in her community
She execises, walks, and leads a busy life doing work she's passionate about
She eats plant-based--including plenty of legumes
She doesn't smoke
Sun---well, not so much!
She's a hip lady--who keeps up with times!
It's the Food Dude
Over a month ago, Margaret sent me a "keeper" kind of email, along with a clever "Ode to Plant-Based Living", she called "The Veggie Verses". She wrote it for the benefit of her friends, to condense everything she had learned that was enabling her to stay happy, healthy, and to lead a long active life without disabilities.
As Margaret once told me: "I realized that in their mid-to-late eighties many of the elderly go into nursing homes. I'm trying very hard to stave that off."
Me: "Your email, & Veggie Verses are just a
delight--and of course I'm immensely flattered to have made the cut--and
to get a very nice mention. Don't know how you did it--but you didn't
miss a beat--& covered it all. Love your mantra, "It's the food,
dude!" Especially, coming from you.
Please, please, please may I share it via the HHLL
blog? It's too good to hide under a hat. But, I totally understand if
you don't want to share it."
Margaret: "Thank you, Debby, and of course you may use it however you want to."
Margaret's Back Story
I hope you find this as inspiring as I do.
"You are one who continues to inspire me to follow a whole foods
plant-based diet. Tonight my son and I are going to have pizza based on
your recent recipe. Primarily because of you, I joined Facebook. Thank
you, thank you.
In attempting to share with my friends and relatives the information
I've found, I have composed the following doggerel, Veggie Verses.
Several resources are briefly mentioned including the Healthy Librarian,
which may be of interest to you. Even a crumb-sized comment will be
welcome.
But first a bit of my nutrition history.
I’ve
been eating plants for the past three years. At age 85 I’m in good
health, and my weight has come down to what it was in my teens.
This all began after my brother urged me, albeit gently, for 18
months to read The China Study, but what does a brother know? I found
out.
Finally three years ago this past June when I was about to turn 82,
he said, “Have you got the book yet?” I told him I was waiting for a
copy on reserve at the library.
He said, “You want your own copy.” As we
spoke on the phone, a Tuesday, I ordered it from Amazon, and it came on
Thursday. I dipped into it and by Saturday I was eating vegan.
What
convinced me was that generally speaking excess calories from animal
foods turn into fat whereas excess calories from plants are burned up in
activity or heat.
My brother also recommended books by John McDougall, MD. Following
The McDougall Program I began this new way of eating by using the
recipes and menus for his 12-day diet. Within a month I lost the 10
pounds I’d been trying to lose for 35 years.
As I studied further and cut out all added oil, I lost another 15.
My BMI in total went from 26 to 19: my clothes from size 14 to 8 or 10.
Friends tell me how great I look, and I feel good. My knees used to
hurt on the stairs, but no longer.
Diet trumps exercise and when people
comment on my good health, I say, “It’s the food, Dude.”
My background in nutrition helped me to accept what I was reading. I
graduated with a BA in home economics from the University of Western Ontario in 1949, and then taught
high school students home ec which included much nutrition advice I
would never teach today.
Other factors motivating me in this whole foods plant-based way of
eating is the ill health in my and my parents’ generation.
My parents,
neither of whom smoked, each died of a heart attack. Aunts suffered from
obesity, cancer and diabetes. My brother almost died of a heart attack
12 years ago. He and his wife were in a Honolulu hotel waiting to go on a
cruise the next day. He woke up in the morning with an elephant on his
chest and by 11 am had a stent in one of the arteries to his heart.
He also studied nutrition at the Ontario Agriculture College-University of Guelph. In The China Study, by T.
Colin Campbell, PhD, my brother found the information he was looking
for to avoid another heart attack and stent. We both also read How to
Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease, by Caldwell B. Esselstyn Jr., MD.
And so I continued to read and study, and wanting to share with more
than "It's the food, Dude," especially to neighbours and friends to
whom in conversation I can't
get across all the information that I would like to, I give them
the Veggie Verses with the preamble."
What Margaret didn't mention in this email is that she also walks 45 minutes a day, six days a week.
She lifts weights six days out of seven--with an increasing number of repetitions.
She also balances on a BOSU every morning for two minutes as her oatmeal cooks in the microwave.
She's read Dr. Norman Doige's book, The Brain That Changes Itself, where she learned about Michael Merzenich's Posit Science Brain Training, and completed the "auditory training". Judging by everything this woman is accomplishing at age 85--I think she's on to something!
This is fascinating stuff and I've written about it here. Don't miss it! Read about Dr. Merzenich's ground-breaking work in the New York Times, here and here.
The Veggie Verses - An Ode to Living the Plant-Based Life
Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot,
nothing is going to get better. It’s not! —Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax
You’ll find attached what my brain has hatched.
It’s my device for giving advice, free and unasked for, which may close the door on our seeing each other, which is not what I’d rather.
Make no mistake,
no need to partake. But being a taker perhaps may delay the sight of your maker. And if in the end, my way to wend is not your intend, I’ll still be your friend.
Veggie Verses
Many a diet I’ve tried,
to have less fat and more pride, but all to no avail, save for this holy grail.
At age 85, I should be dead,
like too many cousins and friends. Instead, I’m alive and don’t ail, thanks to this holy grail.
It’s the food, Dude!
Just eat the food: beans, greens, oats, groats, roots and fruits,
potatoes, tomatoes, berries and curries, onions and melons, beets and wheat.
Eat no meat, athlete, nor milk and its ilk, especially cheese, to prevent disease.
For the uninitiated,
avoid the fractionated. To achieve your goal, eat it whole.
T. Colin Campbell, of U. of Cornell, is retired as a doc of nutrition. He’s written, for our erudition, about his life’s work in a book.
So have a good look at The China Study: the plants are your buddy.
To improve your health, thus add to your wealth, Google McDougall, Dr. John. Free lectures, free letters—right on! As are his programs live-in and live-out.
He talks straight; does not mess about. His “The Perils of Dairy” on YouTube is awfully scary. Many books he has written. His newest on starch-strong nutrition, is The Starch Solution. It’s a true revolution
based on human evolution. To all and sundry, you’ll never go hungry. His programs residential are highly influential. You’ll be curtailed, but not food-failed. Have all you can eat, not forgetting a sweet.
The Esselstyn clan, Doctor Caldwell and Ann, have written a clicker to heal your ticker, and how “healthy” oil just increases hearts’ toil. Bill Clinton went seekin’ his advice on the vegan. Rip, their son, also is hip.
His Engine 2 Diet for 28 days will you amaze. His week-ends away, Farms2Forks, in the U.S. of A., do so much much more than make only hay.
A man of nutrition and a dietitian, Jeff Novick’s quick tricks
with meals made simple will show your dimple ‘cause his style makes you smile. He’ll save you time as well as your dime. He’s also a joker, and not mediocre.
The dot-com vegsource is a tour de force,
with many a link to help us shrink. There’s so much knowledge, it could fill a college. They’ve DVDs and CDs galore. If it’s names you’ld like to look for, here are a few to pursue: Barnard and Lisle,
Pulde and Lederman, Chef AJ and Heidrich, Robbins, both Ocean and John. Dapper Doc Klaper, and for your soul, the amazing Rich Roll.
The medical Healthy Librarian, a plant-based true vegetarian,
informs with voluminous vigor
the evidence-based and de rigeur on Facebook, email, and blog. Her web site, so topical, you’ll be agog. And her recipes, too, are nutritious and super delicious.
From peer-reviewed journals, good Doctor Mike Greger
makes videos short and of rigor which he posts every day on NutritionFacts dot org. He’ll delay your trip to the morgue.
Powered-up athletes who’ve given up meats ascribe their condition to starch-based nutrition.
And older men, too, don’t feel so blue. No more Viagra, they feel like Niagara.
A name with a hook is Forks Over Knives, a movie, a site and a book, all made to better our lives.
It’s worth repeating,
that this way of eating is catching on from city to farm. So let’s whoop it up for a healthy head’s up.
Choose this way to dine and do go online, where our brains are imploding with the info exploding.
May my little review make all easy to do. Thus you’ll not fail with this holy grail.
Margaret's My Role Model
I Hope She's an Inspiration to You, Too!
In Spite of Genes, Our Family History--or Even Our Age--It's Never Too Late to Change!
Thank you, Margaret, for your willingness to share your story & your Veggie Verses with all of us.
Why Not Give Margaret a Thumbs Up on FB or in the comments, right here?
If you received this post via email, click here, to get to the web-version where you'll be able to view the videos (you won't want to miss them), & connect to all the links.
I'm always surprised to learn that there are still HHLL readers out there who don't know that I post far more information on my facebook page, than I do on my blog.
These are short, "quick-summaries" & links to "hot-off-the-press" research/articles, recipes, photos, books, & whatever has captured my attention & seems worthy of sharing with others--kind of like "A Medical Librarian's Reader's Digest".
If you're interested--click on the FB picture-link in the upper-right-hand corner of my blog or just click here. You don't have to have a Face Book account to drop-in--just ignore the FB box that asks you to log-in, close it, or hit the escape button, & read-on. Drop-in for a visit.
Yes, I hear you--if you're already up-to-your-eyeballs with too much information & "computer-time-sinks"--just ignore this!
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"You can't expect from mammography what it cannot do. Screening is not prevention. We're not going to screen our way to a cure."
"It's just not true to say that 'if you get a mammogram, all will be well.'
A recent study indicates that most stage II and III breast cancers actually turn up clinically, between normal planned screens.
We are not saying that screening is bad. It's what you do with the information that makes it good or bad. We need to refocus and figure out how to tailor screening.
I think people like the simple message that screening is good and are uncomfortable with complexity. I understand that. However, cancer is a complicated disease.
We need to expand our messages to say, among other things, that many screen-detected cancers are slow growing and may not need treatment."
"Most women with screen-detected breast cancer have not had their life saved by screening. They are instead either diagnosed early (with no effect on their mortality) or overdiagnosed."
-Dr. H. Gilbert Welch, MD, Dartmouth Institute of Health Policy & Clinical Practice-
***************
Dr. Susan Love, the prominent breast cancer surgeon & women's advocate who is a Clinical Professor of Surgery at UCLA, "says the scientific understanding of cancer has changed in the years since mammography screening was adopted."
As a result Love would like to see less emphasis on screening and more focus on cancer prevention and treatment for the most aggressive cancers, particularly those that affect younger women. Roughly 15 to 20% of breast cancers are deadly.NYT 10/24/11 "Mammogram's Role as Savior is Tested."
***************
Honestly, I didn't plan on writing about breast cancer prevention today. No way. I was all set to summarize the BBC's fascinating documentary, "Eat, Fast, and Live Longer" I watched it on Saturday & loved it! So, I'm absolutely clueless how today's post morphed into a breast cancer prevention mash-up.
Let's blame it on October--It's Breast Cancer Awareness Month
Hope it's worthwhile, because it took way too long to put together.
No worries, gentleman, I'm not forgetting about you. I've got some fascinating & eye-opening excerpts to share from the latest edition of Dr. Patrick Walsh's Guide to Surviving Prostate Cancer--all about the role of diet on prostate cancer. Hint: It has to do with evolution, meat & dairy. Stay tuned.
Why So Little Information on Breast Cancer Prevention?
How About Something More Than Mammograms?
Up until 4 years ago, I figured that getting my annual mammogram was my best strategy for preventing breast cancer.
I dutifully went for my annual mammogram--and yes, I don't plan on stopping until sometime in my 70's. But, we have to remember that an annual screening mammogram is just a diagnostic tool--and according to many experts--it's often an "over-diagnosis" tool that can cause more harm than good. Sure, it may prevent us from dying of breast cancer, but, it doesn't do a single thing to prevent or slow the development of breast cancer in the first place.
Remember, a screening mammogram that everyone gets annually or biennially at a certain age, is not the same as getting a mammogram because you or your doctor felt a lump or a thickening or you have suspicious symptoms or a family history of breast cancer.
Here are some sobering facts to consider.
Mammography does a great job of finding microscopic precancerous lesions like Ductal Carcinoma In Situ(DCIS) that often don't progress to invasive cancer--but once they're found on a mammogram they're treated. Read more about DCIS here.
The really fast-growing aggressive cancers are often missed because they aren't visible at the time of an annual mammogram--so screening is often of no help for these "bad cancers." "Roughly 15-20% of breast cancers are deadly," according to Dr. Susan Love in the Oct. 24, 2011 New York Times.
Many cancers are slow-growing (known as indolent) and can be found and successfully treated when they're discovered either in that every-other-year mammogram or with a breast exam.
But here's the kicker! Mammograms are diagnostic tools--they don't do a single thing to help women prevent cancer. There is plenty of research pointing to real strategies that can help us prevent breast cancer--yet, how often do we hear about them? Not very often.
What's a Woman to Do? Consider These Four Breast Cancer Prevention Strategies
1. Do Diet & Exercise Matter in Preventing Breast Cancer?Yes, according to two registered dietitians, Sally Scroggs, MS,RD,LD, and Clare McKinley, RD,LD, at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, one of the leading cancer hospitals in the world. They say that breast cancer risk could be decreased by up to 38% through lifestyle factors, including maintaining a healthy weight, exercising regularly, and eating a healthy diet. Read Scoggs' & McKinley's detailed recommendations later in this post, along with a few "editorial additions" from me.
And don't miss checking out Dr. Michael Greger's excellent Breast Cancer & Diet Recommendations, here.
2. Consider Vitamin D for breast cancer protection. According to one recent UCSD study that reviewed 11 observational studies, a serum 25(OH)D level of 47 ng/mL was associated with a 50% lower risk of breast cancer. For many of us, it may take a lot more than 1000 IUs of vitamin D/day to get up to a 47 ng/mL level, especially if you live up North! There's only one sure-fire way to know what your level is--get tested. I've finally got my level up to 43 ng/mL & I plan to keep it there. Click here and here to read more.
What about the vitamin D cancer connection? It seems so far-fetched, right? (read more here)
Dr. Bruce Hollis of the Medical University of South Carolina has collaborated with Dr. Walter Willett and the Harvard School of Public Health for over 15 years, studying epidemiologic data on the effects of vitamin D on cancer. These studies have routinely shown that an adequate vitamin D status protects against 13 or 14 different cancers, including breast, prostate, and colon cancer.
Still, Hollis is skeptical that vitamin D could treat cancer once you get it--its benefit is in preventing it in the first place--and having adequate levels will lower your risk.
Researchers in Nutrition Reviews project that a vitamin D blood level over 52 ng/mL would reduce breast cancer by 50%, and levels over 34 ng/mL would prevent 50% of the colon cancers. (Note: a more recent study put the number at 47 ng/mL)
Here's how it works: Vitamin D helps control cell growth and that's why we think that it will reduce the risk of many deadly cancers like prostate, breast, and colon by as much as 50 percent. In its role as a hormone, vitamin D travels all over our body delivering messages to activate genes and control cell growth.
3. Avoid unnecessary diagnostic radiation whenever possible. Here's what breast cancer surgeon & spokesperson, Dr. Susan Love has to say about it: “Don’t get that X-ray unless it’s absolutely necessary. Stay away from unnecessary radiation--so if somebody orders an X-ray, you've got to say, 'How is this going to change my care?' And if it’s not, don’t do it."
4. Limit Your Intake of Animal Protein. Consuming more animal protein and
especially dairy products raises blood levels of insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1), and elevated
IGF-1 levels have been associated with increased breast cancer risk
in many studies. According to Valter Longo, PhD of USC Davis School of Gerontology, lowering one's blood level of IGF-1 protects against cancer & wild cell growth. The two ways to lower IGF-1 levels are by limiting or eliminating animal protein--and by eating fewer calories. We need adequate levels of IGF-1 and other growth factors when we are
young & still growing, but high levels later in life appear to lead to accelerated ageing.
As levels of the IGF-1 hormone drop, a number of repair genes
appear to get switched on, according to ongoing research by Professor
Longo. Here's why: When our bodies aren't getting overfed with the
extra calories & animal protein found in a typical Western diet, they switch from "growth mode" to
"repair mode". In case anyone's wondering--Dr. Longo is "pretty much a vegan" based upon his research. Interesting, huh? Click here to read more.
If you do not see this video on your screen, click here.
The MD Anderson Cancer Center's Recommendations for a Diet to Reduce the Risk of Breast Cancer
Does Diet Really Matter in Breast Cancer?
Written by Dr. Melina Jampolis (additions by the Healthy Librarian--noted in ORANGE)
Since October is Breast Cancer Awareness month, this is the perfect time to answer this question.
And the answer is a resounding yes. To get you the best possible information, Dr. Melina Jampolis turned to registered dietitians Sally Scroggs, MS,RD,LD, and Clare McKinley, RD,LD, at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, one of the leading cancer hospitals in the world. They explained that breast cancer risk could be decreased by up to 38% through lifestyle factors including maintaining a healthy weight, exercising regularly, and eating a healthy diet. In fact, less than 10% of breast cancer appears to have a genetic basis.
1. Limit Alcohol Consumption.From the Nurses’ Health Study: alcohol converts androgens to estrogens; 1 to 1.5 drinks per day is associated with a 19% nonsignificant increase in risk for breast cancer; 2.5 to 4 drinks per day is associated with a 41% increase in risk for breast cancer; and some studies show synergistic effect with hormone therapy. Update 11/01/11: A new study published in JAMA shows that women who routinely have even small amounts of alcohol, as few as three drinks a week, have an elevated risk of breast cancer. The recommendation now is to limit alcohol intake to 1-3 drinks a week. Click here to read more. (H.L. addition)
2. A Whole Food Plant-Based Diet is Best. It's Synergistic. According to the American Institute for Cancer Research, "no single food or food component can protect you against cancer by itself. But scientists believe that the combination of foods in a predominantly plant-based diet may. There is evidence that the minerals, vitamins and phytochemicals in plant foods could interact in ways that boost their individual anti-cancer effects. This concept of interaction, where 1 + 1 = 3, is called synergy." A recent article in the American Journal of Epidemiology looked
at the incidence of breast cancer in the long-running Nurses' Health
Study & found the risk of developing the "harder to treat"
estrogen-negative breast cancer was reduced by 20% in woman who ate the
highest amounts of vegetable protein, like beans, soy, & nuts--and
the highest numer of fruits & vegetables. (H.L. addition)
3. Eat a High-Fiber Diet--every 10 grams of fiber/day will decrease one's risk of breast cancer by a significant 7% Click here (H.L. addition) Also, consider including a daily dose of lignans from flaxseeds in your diet, too. "Women eating more flaxseeds with a documented higher serum enterolactone were found to have a 42% reduced risk of death from postmenopausal breast cancer and a dramatic (40 percent) reduction in all causes of death." Click here and here to read more.
4. The Best Cancer-Fighting Vegetables & Fruit: Some
of their top picks for cancer prevention include beans, berries,
cruciferous vegetables (broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, brussels
sprouts), dark leafy green vegetables (spinach, kale, chard, romaine,
mustard greens), flaxseed, garlic, grapes/grape juice, green tea, soy,
tomatoes and whole grains. A recent study in mice suggests that
walnuts may also play a role in breast cancer prevention, but these
findings need to be confirmed in humans.
5. Curcumin--a possible cancer-fighting spice. There is also a growing body of research suggesting that curcumin, one of the active components of curry, may play a role in both the treatment and prevention of various types of cancer including breast cancer.
6. Weight Matters. Lose It! Being overweight is strongly associated with the risk of postmenopausal breast cancer. Adult weight gain of 22-44 pounds is associated with a 50% greater risk and a weight gain above 45 pounds is associated with an 87% increased risk. (For the benefits of exercise, combined with a high-fiber-low-fat diet on the prevention of breast cancerread this and for the benefits of exercise on preventing breast cancer, read this.H.L.)
7. Banish the Belly Fat. Excess belly fat seems to be particularly harmful, most likely because of its effects on inflammation and its association with elevated insulin levels, so if you tend to be more "apple shaped" and carry extra weight in your belly, it is especially important to lose weight, exercise regularly, and limit refined grains, sugar sweetened beverages, and added sugar in your diet. (Read more about belly fat here H.L. addition)
8. Whole Soy Foods are OK--Limit Processed Soy or Soy Protein Supplements. When it comes to breast cancer survivors, a healthy lifestyle is just as important, if not more so. Many women are concerned about soy consumption, which I've written about before. Sally and Clare agree that up to three servings per day is safe, but they emphasize that soy should come from whole foods like soy milk, edamame and tofu, and that supplements like smoothies, bars and soy fortified cereals should be limited. (Rethinking Soy for Breast Cancer Survivors. H.L. addition) Read more about soy, here, too.
9. Supplement? Should I or Shouldn't I? Finally, during treatment, diet is very important to maintain health and optimize energy levels, but before taking any supplements, it is best to consult with a registered dietitian, preferably one that has experience with cancer treatment, because some supplements may actually interfere with chemotherapy or radiation.
"I give myself over to at least three or four hours a day to what, for
an old guy, is spontaneous free play. It could be reading or what I
would call as extremely low-quality rogue tennis, hiking, playing with
grandchildren. But, you know, if a day goes by and I haven't, at this
age, had some sense of timelessness and freedom and purposelessness, I'll probably be kind of ratty by supper-time."
-Dr. Stuart Brown, physician, researcher, and founder of the Institute for Play. Read more about Brown here-
It's 12:32 pm & I'm still in my pajamas---and lovin' every minute of it.
Last night we had a scrumptious raucous dinner party for nine, and on this lazy morning I enjoyed coffee, chocolate oatmeal, & conversation with our weekend houseguest--the development director for a clean water non-profit organization. She's a smart savvy thirty-something mother of two with a full-time job and lots of travel on her plate. One busy lady.
She was a complete stranger to me on Thursday when we first met--but by Saturday morning she felt like family. As we chatted away this morning about kids, marriage, books, politics, values, coping with a myriad of distractions, the feeling-of-too-much-to-do-and-never-enough-time, healthy eating and lots more--Dr. Martin Seligman's VIA Survey of Signature Character Strengths suddenly popped into my head.
Update 10/21/12: I learned yesterday, after writing this post, that the VIA Survey of Signature Character Strengths was also co-authored by Christopher Peterson, PhD, a beloved professor of psychology at the University of Michigan. He died suddenly less than two weeks ago (10/9/12), at age 62, of an apparent heart attack. You can read more about Chris' impact on those he taught here: "What Will People Say When You Die?" In January 2013, his last book will be published,Pursuing the Good Life: 100 Reflections on Positive Psychology. Or watch a short video (5 mins.) of Dr. Peterson sharing his wisdom on how to become a more optimistic person--as well as his own nature.
Last week Dr. Ned Hallowell was crawling into my brain--and this morning, it's Dr. Marty Seligman. I'm beginning to see a pattern taking shape.
Turns out, our houseguest was an English major, just like me. No wonder we had so much to talk about! She loves ideas, books, quiet time alone to read, think, & walk outdoors. All of which, she has precious little time for in this particular season on her life. BTW, her "must read" book recommendation to me: Possession, by A.S. Bayatt. Has anyone, read it?
Now back to Marty Seligman & the whole point of this post:
Me:Have you ever heard of Dr. Martin Seligman's Signature Strengths Survey? I bet you'd find it interesting. It's this serious-yet-useful questionnaire (University of Pennsylvania--gives it cred) that pinpoints the strengths that are unique to us--and integral to feeling our happiest. It's meant to help us zero in on the kind of "stuff" we need to make time for in our lives if we want to be at our happiest. The kind of stuff that makes us feel most like our "authentic" selves.
Our Houseguest:Sounds interesting. When you track it down, please email it to me.
Fifteen minutes later, she was on her way, heading off on the next leg of her journey--a meeting that was 4 1/2 hours down the road.
I tracked down Seligman's Survey, and the three year old post I had written about it--and emailed it to her.
And then I re-read it!
It's a message I continually need to be reminded of. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
And now, on this Saturday, October 20th, I'm taking that three-year old post's message to heart.
It's been a hectic week. Four days in New York City for a fabulous wedding weekend. Then a week filled with long days at work, a too-late night watching Tuesday's presidental debate & recap, getting the house prepped (AKA "cleaned") for our guest, shopping, cooking, & hosting last night's dinner party in her honor. (Re the Friday night dinner party menu: Seriously, I will eventually post the guest-pleasing recipes. Spicy Sicilian Gluten-Free Lasagna with No-Oil Pesto; Creamy Balsamic No-Oil Salad Dressing; Grilled Peppers, Onions, & Italian "Sausage" Rice Salad; & Double Chocolate No-Oil Brownies with Raspberry Sorbet)
Don't get me wrong about the week. I'm not complaining. It's all been good.
But, I'm guiltlessly chillin' all day today. Doing only what I feel like doing!
Maybe some kitchen lab experiments. I've got two new recipes to try out from gourmet cook/restauranteur, Janet Elberti & two from the Grande Dame of plant-based cooking, Ann Esselstyn.
I've got 2 books I'd love to curl up with on the couch & read. Snuggled in an afghan.
And then find some time for catching up on 2 promising videos (here and here) & 2 podcasts (here and here) I haven't had a chance to watch or listen to yet.
Or maybe I'll chuck all those ideas, & just take a Saturday afternoon snooze, instead!
What's the betting I just piddle away the day doing absolutely nothing?
Revisiting October 17, 2009: Getting Back the Zest - I'm Taking Coach Caroline Adams Miller's Advice & Taking a Day Off to Play & Not Think
Saturday morning. Hooray. Not working. Not traveling. Nothing I must do or the sky will fall down.
I usually like to post a blog on Saturday morning--but since what I planned to write about would take some concentration, and some serious thought, I've changed my mind.
I haven't had much down-time lately, the skies are gray, it's cold outside, and it's time to listen to Coach Caroline Adams Miller's advice.
"When you're tapped out--when your brain is too full--or in a serious slump--the surefire recipe to get back into the game is to clear your mind and put some fun and zest back into your day--or life." (paraphrasing Coach Caroline)
It's going to be all play and purposeless piddling around for me today! And tonight -- It's going to be dancing to a playlist of classic rock & music from the 1950-70s - American oldies, British invasion and Motown. Woo Hoo!
You see, I just took the advice that Caroline Adams Miller gives to all her new clients. Take the VIA Signature Strengths Test and see where the value of ZEST lines up among your other signature strengths. I learned I have a serious ZEST problem. Out of 24 strengths, ZEST comes in asa paltry #16 on my scale. What a shocker! No wonder I'm feeling rather cranky. I'm way too serious.
Check Out My VIA Scores
(Doesn't sound like a party-girl to me!)
Top Strength: Love of learning
Second Strength: Curiosity and interest in the world
Third Strength: Gratitude
Fourth Strength: Judgment, critical thinking, and open-mindedness
Fifth Strength: Perspective (wisdom)
No work for me today. Take the test yourself and see if you need to take the day off to play as well. This is a research-backed questionnaire out of Dr. Martin Seligman's prestigious Positive Psychology program at the University of Pennsylvania. To register & take the questionnaire (it will take about 10 minutes) click here and you'll find the VIA Survey of Character Strengths under Engagement Questionnaires. Don't miss it. I highly recommend registering on the site & taking the the survey. It's worth the time investment.
I'm a huge fan of Caroline Adams Miller and her recent essay on the importance of taking time out for play in order to recharge and get your groove back, is a must-read.
She was inspired to write it when she saw first-hand how her 14-year old son was able to speed his own recovery from a sports concussion when he took the concussion clinic doctor's advice: "Go home and "do not think"--just play!"
A Red Sox slugger David Ortiz, got similar advice when he experienced a serious slump!
Ortiz said Dave Magadan, Boston’s batting coach, had implored him to reduce the clutter in his mind.
“I guess I was worried more about that than basically the ballgame,”
Ortiz said.
“Trying to get so ready and so prepared and when the game
comes, there’s nothing there.”
Extra batting practice didn't help. The advice of friends and
coaches didn't, either. Dissecting his swing and stance was a bust. And
then Ortiz woke up one morning and decided to attack his game with the
spirit of a happy, 12-year-old Little Leaguer who was playing for the
sheer fun of it.
What Ortiz learned from his slump was that clearing your mind
and having fun was the surefire recipe for relaxing, eliminating
shoulder stiffness resulting from anxiety, and recapturing his love of the game. Although researchers have cited play as one of the most critical characteristics in developing a youngster's brain,
problem-solving abilities, executive functioning and imagination, we
often forget as adults how important it is to play. I always ask my
clients to take the VIA Signature Strengths test when we first start to
work together because I want to see where the quality of "zest" lines
up among the other 23 strengths, and when it's very low, I know I have
a client who needs more play in his or her life.
I had this lesson reinforced unexpectedly when my 14-year-old
son, Bayard, suffered a concussion in football practice in the weeks
preceding the start of high school. Almost immediately he experienced
swings of nausea, sensitivity to light and sound, an inability to read,
and extreme sleepiness. He fretted about the fact that all of his peers
were starting high school without him while he lay at home in a
darkened room, trying to listen to books on tape and adjust to the "new
normal" of his life.
He tried to conjugate French verbs. His head screamed in pain.
He wrote a short paper for English class. The headaches were fierce. He
went to talk to a therapist about how to deal with the varied fallout
from the concussion and what it might mean for school, sports
and other activities. He grabbed his head and pleaded with the
therapist to stop talking because the questions were so
thought-provoking that he couldn't tolerate what his brain was doing in
response.
The concussion clinic doctors examined his regression on the
baseline tests and ordered him to go home and "not think," so that's
what he did. He watched sappy movies, sometimes the same one over and
over. He organized his bookshelf and precious National Geographic
magazines. He refused to indulge any thoughts that might make him sad
or anxious.
The following week his concussion assessment scores catapulted
forward, all because he had decided to substitute fun and play for
serious effort and concern. Although my son isn't out of the woods
yet, he's back in school, just like Ortiz is hitting again.
Creating your best life sometimes means returning to a state of
childlike innocence, and seeing the world as a fun and happy place, and
not a place where we have to drag our depression and tension from
activity to activity, stressing our brains in ways that we may not even
be aware of.
In a similar vein, positive psychologists are trying to learn how to
teach adults to raise their zest scores because of the high correlation
between success, happiness and
zest. A happy person is often a flourishing person, and if childlike
enthusiasm is one of the tickets to get there, it behooves all of us to
learn how to play better and more frequently.
One easy way to do this is to be around other zestful people, and to
have a role model in having more fun. My grandmother was my primary
"fun" role model. She skipped down the street in her sixties, wore
ridiculous fluffy pink bathing caps in her seventies, and delighted in
the silly games she played with me, challenging me to a round of golf
in her eighties (she won) . As a direct result of her influence and her
role-modeling not to take life so seriously, I sport multi-colored
fingernails, drive an impractical canary-yellow car with a smiley face
on the spare tire, and jump on the bed of every hotel I stay in.
I guess it's no surprise that zest is my number-three VIA trait,
but I'm angling to get it up to number-one this year because my son's
injury has shown me in vivid clarity how valuable it is to not take
life so seriously, and why it's more important than I ever could have
thought to live out the Sesame Street mantra: "Come and play,
everything's A-okay!"'
