Category: Uncategorized

Tee Vee

I watched TV with my husband last night, and every commercial break was for things we would never buy, knowing what we know now. Mainstream things that carry hidden harms and toxins, which most people don’t realize…

Time to put the roast on.

  • Tide laundry detergent: There are a lot of harmful chemicals and endocrine-disrupting scents in typical laundry soaps, such as Tide. Years ago, I reacted to clothes washed in Tide, got a full-body rash, and haven’t touched it since. We used Purex after that but recently changed to Meliora soaps for our laundry. Check them out at  https://meliorameansbetter.com/
  • Febreeze plug scent boosters: This is a little machine that takes artificially-scented oil and shoots it into the air of your home, so that you and your loved ones can breathe endocrine-disrupting scents/chemicals at the touch of a button! You can also sign up to have more toxic chemicals sent to you regularly in the form of scent cartridges! Because your house smells so bad, folks…. don’t clean it or open windows, give your money away in exchange for this little button.
  • Downy fabric softener: First, the advertisement convinces you that you simply must get those smells out of your clothes! But we know that if you only used natural fibers, you could get the smells out with hot water. With polyesters, nylons, etc., you’ll need this chemical-laden potion to get smells out. There are so many alarms going off about this… People breathing microplastics shed from the polyester, chemical smell-removers, and endocrine-disrupting scents to follow you around when you wear the clothes. It’s too much. But the song is so catchy (Total eclipse of the heart, Bonnie Tyler)…
  • Starbucks Keurig pods: Brew your coffee thru plastic! Yay! Don’t think about how these things are artificially flavored or preserved. Don’t think about the waste you’re producing. Think of all the time you’ll save by not having to scoop the coffee into the little basket yourself. You deserve that little convenience, right?
  • Too many prescription drugs to mention, with strange names that I can’t begin to spell… and horrible side effects that may be worse than the original condition.
  • Charmin Ultra Soft: All I’m going to say is, if you eat better and take care of your microbiome, you won’t have situations that call for special, deluxe, quilted, top-dollar toilet paper. Enough said… Except did you know that every mainstream toilet paper brand except Scottissue uses formaldehyde in the paper?? Formaldehyde is a known carcinogen, folks!
  • Universal Orlando: Ok, this one looks good and reminds me of my son’s 12th birthday. 🫠 yes, go have some fun!

Sorry for the snark, but it’s as a “buyer beware” sort of world. Don’t let yourself be persuaded, fooled, or robbed of your money and health. XO.

Bread

When I first got diagnosed, my sweetheart of a husband started baking bread for me. Eventually, I found a brand that’s really good, has omega 3s, and gets a high score on Yuka.

There are a couple of varieties — seedtastic, graintastic, thin slices, thicker slices, etc.

I don’t eat a lot of bread, but when I do, it’s this brand.

100 out of 100 … that’s a rare thing. Thanks, Aldi!

If you are thinking of baking your own bread, I recommend One Mighty Mill flour. Expensive but really pure. Here’s their information:

https://www.onemightymill.com/

Weekend Routine

The weekend priorities are to see as many people as possible, spend as much time outdoors as possible, and get lots and lots of exercise. And of course grocery shop for the week and get healthy foods.

Check out the steps I got yesterday! Farmer’s market in the morning, then a 5K CLL walk with my support group, then visiting with family all evening. Plus a couple of walks with Max. 🐕‍🦺

Weekday Routine

Over the past year and a half, I started keeping a food diary that grew into a scorecard of sorts.

I had been dealing with an unhappy gut for a long time and, as previously shared, got AMAZING results from simply drinking a shot of kombucha daily. Things got better FAST, and I felt so much healthier, but I knew I could still improve.

I had read that for optimal gut health, we should try to eat 30 different plant foods per week. That seemed like a good and achievable goal. So, I started keeping track in a notebook.

It was a way for me to put gut health in a spotlight. At the bottom of 30 numbered lines, I put a question: Did I achieve the goal? Yes or No.

So that was the start. I’ve been adding more tasks and check-offs along the way… some proved useful, others have been phased out…

Any notebook or journal will do, but if you pick up a planner (they’re really inexpensive in May), you’ll be able to see the calendar, too.

Some people like keeping lists, some people like crossing stuff off a list, and some people get a little charge out of hitting their goals. I like all of that! So, in a way, this is a game. I’ve gamified my health.

If I hit all my goals, I reward myself in a healthy way. 🧶

Feel free to print one out and try it for a week. Or, make your own… I find that the time it takes to create a page each week is kind of a nice ‘zen’ task. Get some markers and get  creative!

Ooh… one thing that’s missing is the daily step count from my dumb watch. Gotta add that.

Nutrition and Mental Health

I’ve learned a lot about diet and nutrition since being diagnosed, but I hadn’t looked at the brain health/mental health aspect until recently.

Side note: A few weeks ago, I came across a mention, from a researcher I very much admire, that the ketogenic diet didn’t seem to have much of an effect on cancers of the immune system. So, briefly, I have “normalized my relationship with carbs,” and while it sure tastes good, I can feel a sluggishness taking over. Gotta get back on track.

The almighty algorithm put this video in my path today, and I am glad to see it. I’m amazed to find so much overlap with what I have learned about eating for cancer management and physical health.

Georgia Ede has a book and a website if you want to learn more: https://www.diagnosisdiet.com/

Sweat

You need to sweat. Every day. Sweat cleans out your systems and allows toxins to leave your body.

I live in a cold place, and sweat is hard to come by for about half the year. So once a month or so, I treat myself to a 30-minute sauna.

It feels wonderful.

I usually have to take a break halfway through, just open the door and let some heat out and room-temp air in.

The place I go to has private rooms, some quite large to accommodate multiple people or a wheelchair or walker.

There are also rooms with cold plunge tubs. I haven’t tried that yet. 🥶

A really nice feature of this sauna studio is that they give you a cold towel with a menthol/camphor oil in it to wipe down as you sweat. So refreshing!

The first time I went to the sauna, my daughter came with me, and we couldn’t get over how similar it was to driving in our old Subaru.

When we lived in Florida, we would sweat every day, whether we wanted to or not.

The Subaru had black leather interior. It would bake in the driveway or a parking lot… we’d need to drive somewhere, open the door and see heat and humidity rising visibly like vapors off a barbecue grill.

Good times, good times. 😉🚗

Morning Routine

I recently spoke with an old friend who had heard of my diagnosis through the grapevine. He asked if I was doing all the things… all the things a person does when they get a diagnosis like this. Yes, I replied.

But what are the things? Well, there’s a lot of ’em, so I’m breaking them down by the phase of a typical day.

Here’s Part 1: Morning Routine.

I’ve wavered in consistency lately in terms of my morning routine. Months of extra-snowy and cold winter, plus traveling & staying with family are just a couple of the reasons why. There’s also “couch inertia,” aka “warm blanket in front of the fire,” inertia.

Yeah, its a thing.

It’s just a little snow… no biggie.

Here’s the morning routine I strive for (and often achieve):

  • Wake up between 6 and 7 am. I don’t use an alarm but seem to always wake up around this time.
  • Put on my dumb watch, which counts my steps and tells the time, but isn’t constantly sending updates to my phone.
  • Open the blinds & get a blast of natural light into the bedroom.
  • Brew some organic coffee, which I drink black.
  • Use filtered water, of course.
  • I add about a tablespoon of chaga to my coffee. Chaga is a mushroom product that has some really great health benefits.
  • A quick walk outside, usually my backyard. Put bare feet on the earth. This is called grounding, and there’s a wonderful documentary on YouTube called The Earthing Movie… check it out.
  • While I’m outside, I like to break pine needles and smell them. I feel that it wakes up a different part of my brain. In the summer, we have other aromatics like rosemary, basil, and lemon balm to choose from. But in winter, it’s pine.
  • Set my circadian rhythm by looking at the sun. We have mostly hazy sun here, and if you live in a very sunny place, this would be impossible. Still, our stomachs set their expectations based on this morning exposure to the sun. Read about it in the book The Oldest Cure in the World by Steve Hendricks.
  • I started doing this morning activation routine with Master Shi Heng Yi, and it was a great starting point. However, over time, I’ve added reps and hand weights and a few more exercises to make it a more challenging routine.
  • A shower with only yuka-approved soap, shampoo, and conditioner.
  • While showering, I do a lymphatic massage. This is based on lots of reading and videos by lymphatic specialists. A great resource is the Lymph Love Club, which you can follow on social media for lots of reminders and techniques. (Note: CLL is not only considered leukemia but also a form of Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma, so taking care of that system is important for me, especially to balance out my sedentary work.)
  • A cold blast at the end of the shower, based on the research of Wim Hof.
  • Out of the shower, I get dressed, walk the dog, and do chores — or hit the rebounder — with a goal of getting 2500 steps before settling down to my desk at 8:45 am.

Ok, that’s it for the wake-up routine. Tune in next time… 📻

Like Your Life Depends On It

I’ve written before about the need to filter your water. Every time I look at the news, there’s a new reason to do so. If it’s not the herbicides and pesticides, it’s the PFAS and forever chemicals, it’s other people’s pharmaceuticals that can’t be filtered out 😦, it’s contamination from industrial areas, it’s… just a really long list that keeps growing.

So yes, filter your water … like your life depends on it … because it does.

This video is a great explanation of PFAS and related risks and also covers types of filters and filtration systems.

This YouTuber is a great source of inspiration, especially during spring cleaning, as she knows her stuff about household contaminants and hidden sources of toxins. Check her out!