Toms Diary

Archive for the ‘Health’ Category

Common Cold: 2011-02

Tuesday, February 22nd, 2011

I’m feeling a cold coming on. My nose, though not running is burning and my throat feels a bit dry and scratchy.

This is my second cold of 2011. The first one lasted several days, and I got that one in early January. At that time, I was not getting as much sleep as I need, and with all the celebrating going on to ring in the new year, I probably wasn’t completely nourishing myself either. But this cold, I’m at a loss to explain. I have on the whole been eating better — lots more fruits, vegetables and lean meats. Further, I’ve scaled back my intake of refined carbs with much less sugars in my diet. But on the other hand, I’ve been spending time at Mom’s nursing facility, and the last time I visited, I heard numerous sniffles, coughs, nose-blowing toots, and hawking. So it’s probably that I got it up there.

But then, I’m one who believes that you cannot avoid a cold by applying all those hand sanitizers, masks, rubber gloves, smocks, and so on. I mean, it will get you eventually because it’s impossible to create an environment that is totally free of the rhino-virus (the cause of the common cold). Indeed, if you make your environment too sterile, you may delay the onset of the cold for a time. But by avoiding exposure, in my opinion, the immune system eventually forgets how to fight a cold. So, when you finally do get the cold you’ve been attempting to outrun, it catches up with you, with a vengeance. Its symptoms are nasty, it seems to last forever, and it takes longer to completely get back to full strength. So, I don’t run away from colds.

But I do try to strengthen my immune system as much as I can. Thus, my strategy to minimize the severity and duration of this cold is this: Drink lots of orange juice, eat beef, get lots of rest, avoid all possible stress, and try to remain at home until it’s all better. By staying at home, my goal is not to avoid exposure to more germs, but rather to reduce the energy consumption of my body. By utilizing the skeletal muscles less I theorize, the more energy there is for the immune system to fight off the illness. Well, we’ll see how that works this time. Look for comments below that will detail my progress through this cold.

Tom Hesley

Posted in Food, Health, Illness, Refined Carbs, Sleep | 6 Comments »

Diet Soda Pop Scare

Saturday, February 12th, 2011

Boy, with all the hubbub lately about diet soda possibly being linked to heart disease, I’m glad I resolved to give it up in 2011. So far, I’ve not had it at all this year, and yesterday’s reports make staying away from it a whole lot easier. So thank goodness for bad news. I thought decades ago that by replacing sugary regular soda pop with diet that I was definitely doing myself good. But that may in fact not have been the case.

I replaced diet soda with low-sodium V8 vegetable juice. Not sweet. But it works. Then too, I have perhaps 20 different flavors of herbal tea that I sweeten with stevia; two or three big mugs of it per day. I had begun phasing out all consumption of that bad diet soda some years ago, and tea was one of my diet pop substitutes along with the V8. I occasionally drink organic skim milk as well.

About stevia: They’ve managed to get rid of that aftertaste in Now Stevia Extract and Now Stevia Glycerite. I’ve used these products for over a decade now. You can get an eight-ounce bottle of the glycerite for under $15. Still a bit pricey to be sure. But good long-term health is worth it I think.

Now it’s too early to assume that diet pop is to heart disease as cigarettes are to lung cancer. The causal link for the former is nowhere near as strong as it is in the latter, because as some have pointed out, questions about the sample used in the study indeed abound. When I read the report, I imagined the sample to be a bunch of already-obese people whose doctors told them to drink diet pop as a last-ditch effort to get their weights under control. So it’s possible that the group already suffered from perhaps decades of overweight, and that heart disease was simply an inevitable outcome of a glutinous life style, from which merely switching to diet soda could not avert. I dunno. We’ll have to watch as this whole thing unfolds, and similar studies are conducted on clearly healthy individuals. Still I’m opting for more natural solutions (literally) as the way to go, where possible.

Tom Hesley

Today’s Business: 2011-02-11

Posted in Addictions, Health, Sugar Addiction | 1 Comment »

Smart Calcium, The New Rave

Saturday, February 27th, 2010

01:30 PM; Listened to an info-mercial on KQV radio about a new calcium supplement that promises to reverse bone loss as well as de-calcify the arteries and improve everything from mood, to blood pressure, to sleep patterns in the process. As per usual with these sorts of advertisements, they made many lofty claims but provided little direct evidence to back them up.

When I voiced this skepticism to [Emmy], she asked how one distinguishes a legitimately healthful product from snake oil. I thought about this for a bit, and then told her that anecdotal testimonials aren’t good enough to make the product tried-and-true. Just because two, or five, or even a hundred people say it worked for them, doesn’t mean that it will work for her, or that she even needs this.

In my “old” middle age, I’ve learned that unless you hear about the product on the major news sources, it’s probably no good. Either that, or it’s too new to risk your health on. Why? Because if they invented a pill that did all that this one’s supposed to do, the network news reporters would be all over it, clamoring to be the first ones to get out the good news. So far, that has not happened for this smart calcium supplement.

Also, I suggested: Look for numerous, independent studies that corroborate the claims. If you can’t find any, then ads like this may just be the same sort of hoopla that enticed millions to take garlic and vitamin E supplements back in the early 1990s to reduce arterial diseases, which by the way was to no avail. Of course now, it’s clear that there is in fact, no link between popping garlic pills and lower rates of heart attacks. But back then, taking them was all the rage. I advised her not to get caught up in this mob-hysteria because it would likely lead her to a disappointing place; either the supplement would not work at all, or it could wreck her health. I hope she understands.

Tom Hesley

Today’s Business: 2010-02-27

Posted in Emmy, Health, Illness, People | No Comments »

Today’s Diet: 2010-02-01

Monday, February 1st, 2010

Today, I consumed the following items:

Peppermint, spearmint, and “Lemon Zinger” tea throughout the day, along with diet caffeine-free Pepsi. 0 calories.
03:45 PM: 1/8 cup raisins. 65 calories.
03:55 PM: 2 cups Kashi Go-Lean Crunch cereal. 380 calories.
03:55 PM: 1 cup skim milk. 80 calories.
04:30 PM: Multivitamin. 0 calories.
07:10 PM: 3 slices Muenster cheese. 240 calories.
08:31 PM: 1 banana. 125 calories.
08:32 PM: 1.5 cups skim milk. 120 calories.
11:45 PM: 4 sugar-free cookies. 130 calories.

Total calories: 1135.

Tom

Posted in Food, Food Diary, Health, Journal, Today's Diet, Weight Control | No Comments »

Mom’s Status: 2010-01-31

Sunday, January 31st, 2010

Pending Appointments And Issues

2010-02-19 @ 11:00 AM: Friday: Appointment with her eye doctor to check the progress of the clearing up of the blood in her right eye.
2010-04-14 @ 11:10 AM: Wednesday: Appointment with orthopedist for the next quarterly checkup on the progress of healing of her charcot foot.
2010-04-23 @ 02:00 PM: Friday: Appointment with PCP for quarterly checkup.

Log

09:00 AM: Blood sugar: 262. Covered with 20 units of log insulin. I found Mom crying over this high reading, and also discovered that she’d been eating bread; diet bread yes, but bread nonetheless. She says she only had one slice and that she covered that with insulin earlier. But given this value, I find her statements incredible. I’m trying to encourage her to maintain a truthful view of what she’s putting into her mouth and how the various foods affect her sugar. This is neither voodoo nor rocket science. But she insists that some as-of-yet unknown variable is elevating her sugar, and that she’s not to blame. I ignored this, and told her that if she really wants better control, that she’ll have to eat less carbs (in fact, no bread that has flour), and more proteins and fats (eggs, cheese, meats, chicken, pork, and fish). We’ve had this debate before though and she’s not yet improved her diet appreciably. It’s likely that she never will unfortunately, and that’s sad. But she’ll only do what she thinks she can do and wants to to. Her passion for healthier eating appears insufficient to the task of actually accomplishing it.

09:05 AM: Dispensed Mom’s morning meds.

12:30 PM: Dispensed Mom’s lunch-time meds.

01:30 PM: Blood sugar: 262. Covered with 20 units of log insulin.

06:30 PM: Blood sugar: 95. Great!

06:32 PM: Dispensed Mom’s evening meds.

07:00 PM: Covered her supper of two English muffins and a piece of cheese with 18 units of log insulin.

10:15 PM: Blood sugar: 176. Covered with 14 units of log insulin.

10:20 PM: Dispensed Mom’s night-time meds.

Tom

Today’s Business: 2010-01-31

Posted in Food, Gripes, Health, Illness, Mom, Mom's Diabetes, Refined Carbs | No Comments »

Caffeine Headaches

Saturday, January 30th, 2010

From audio journal episode: AJE-2010-01-30-11-05.

I wanted to talk today about green tea and caffeine a little. You know, the last couple months, ever since I purchased this Mr. Coffee coffee machine, and then consumed copious amounts of coffee through the holidays, I often got headaches. Even if I kept drinking the stuff daily, not allowing my body to begin the painful caffeine withdrawal process, I still got the head pains. I’ve found also that when I don’t drink coffee, the headaches go away. Now it takes several days for all the effects of the caffeine to disappear, once consumption of it stops. But in my case, they do stop. Indeed, there have been months-long stretches over the years where I’ve not consumed java, and in those times, I practically never got headaches.

It’s not just coffee either that affects me so. Indeed, any beverage or food item containing caffeine makes me feel bad after a few days of consuming it. Unfortunately, this includes green tea; my favorite appetite suppressant that I’ve relied upon through many diets to help keep my food cravings at bay. Now ten years ago when I brewed several cups of green tea per day while dieting, I never thought that it would trigger the same sorts of headaches that coffee does. Indeed, the amount of caffeine in green tea feels to be less per cup than coffee. But green tea appears to cause the head to hurt as well; particularly on days that I skip having it. In fact, earlier this week, I experienced lots of headaches. Then on Tuesday, I suspended green tea consumption. Though the headaches persisted another two and a half days, eventually, they went away and today, I really feel fine; just as I did when I wasn’t drinking caffeinated liquids.

So this may be a key to assuring that I’m living up to my fullest potential: Avoid caffeinated foods and drinks, because the symptoms impair my abilities to concentrate, and the headaches irritate and make me irritable, and they’re just no fun to carry around for days on end. Based on this latest find, it appears that to avoid the headaches, I must severely limit how much green tea I take in on a day. I’m even afraid to drink the decaffeinated versions of either coffee or green tea, because I get headaches from them too.

I know that lots of people have no problems with caffeine and these drinks. But unfortunately, it appears that I do, and if I’m drinking a whole lot of the tea, I wake up the next morning not only with a headache, but I feel nauseous; a sort of tea hang-over. Thus, I really should avoid these products and find other ways to curb my appetite. Indeed, I’ve read that caffeine can increase the sensation of hunger, making overeating all that much more enticing and irresistible.

I’ve also read that green tea is what they call a thermogenic, which means that it does rev up the body’s metabolism through the stimulation of heat production within the body, and that this is why it triggers weight loss, since it kindles the body to burn up more calories per hour. But I’m wondering if this action occurs due to the caffeine in the tea? Without the caffeine, would the tea still function as an effective thermogenic? I don’t know, nor do I care to run any further tests on myself.

I still have lots of green tea here. So perhaps I’ll just drink one cup per day until I use it all up. Then the rest of the day, I’ll drink the naturally caffeine-free teas such as the spearmint, peppermint, chamomile and other herbal concoctions. These teas never give me headaches, and I’ve consumed five to seven cups of them per day without headaches in the past. They’re just as effect-neutral as water, and so I think I could drink ten cups per day without ill effects. They seem to diminish how good I feel, except that they force me to visit the restroom more often. J

While green tea does encourage greater weight loss for me, I have to cut way back on it and then, cut it out once I exhaust my supplies of it here. I’ll make the necessary adjustments to enhance my work energies. In fact, even without the tea, I still feel energized. If I find something to do that I’m impassioned to complete, I feel just as invigorated without the tea as with it. Plus, without caffeine, I don’t get that madly-scurrying-about, spinning-wheel feeling that I experience when I’ve ingested too much caffeine. You know that feeling where you have all kinds of energy, but you don’t gain any traction. So you accomplish little because it’s hard to stay focused on one task for very long. Let’s see. Let me do this. Then, let me do that. Then let me come back to this, and so on. I’m jittering and bouncing around when I have too much caffeine; that natural speed, and I end up getting less done because the subsequent headaches slow me down much more than that initial rush speeds me up.

Now caffeine can indeed wake me up the morning after a restless night. For the short-term, it works great. But it makes directing and focusing that energy harder. This is the downside of caffeine. True, I’ve sung the praises of green tea over the years. But now, this downside of it I must acknowledge as well, and come up with a less painful way to help me keep the scale moving in the downward direction.

Take care.

Tom Hesley

Posted in Addictions, Caffeine Addiction, Health, Illness, Journal, Weight Control | No Comments »