Healthy World's next Advisory Group meeting will be on Tuesday, July 5, due to the Independence Day Holiday. We will meet at 6:30 p.m. at the Friends Meeting House. Please join us and bring a friend!
Even kids loved our Pea Hummus!
Kamis, 30 Juni 2011
Tastes of York a Success & July's Advisory Group Meeting Info
Healthy World Cafe joined dozens of local farm markets, restaurants, agencies, and foodies at the first annual "Tastes of York" held recently at Spoutwood Farms. We had an opportunity to meet tons of interesting and interested people, who had a chance to hear about HWC and taste some of our delicious food. We served Pea Hummus, made from fresh, local peas, and spread the word about our community cafe.
Healthy World's next Advisory Group meeting will be on Tuesday, July 5, due to the Independence Day Holiday. We will meet at 6:30 p.m. at the Friends Meeting House. Please join us and bring a friend!
Thanks to all who came out, and thanks to Spoutwood Farms! What a great event.
Healthy World's next Advisory Group meeting will be on Tuesday, July 5, due to the Independence Day Holiday. We will meet at 6:30 p.m. at the Friends Meeting House. Please join us and bring a friend!
Senin, 13 Juni 2011
Amelia's Food Evolution
Weight Watchers.
Nutrisystem.
Jenny Craig.
Low Carb.
Intuitive Eating.
Health at Every Size.
Gluten Free.
The Metabolism Miracle.
The Paleo Solution.
To say I’ve been searching all my life for the best way to eat/live to lose weight and be healthy for life is an understatement. I have tried almost everything. Throughout my dieting sojourns, I have learned a great deal. My understanding of nutrition and activity’s effect on my weight and health has evolved over this time. Recently, I’ve read a couple books that have truly blown my mind and helped me turn everything I thought I knew on its head: Why We Get Fat and The Paleo Solution.
While following the Metabolism Miracle, most recently, I did extremely well on the lowest carb stage but ran into a plateau when I moved to eating a serving of carbs every 4-5 hours as instructed. I liked having more carbs but felt that eating on such a schedule was a little artificial. Right at this time, I happened to read about an eating style called Paleo on a new blog started by an online friend, Sally: Paleo Pleasures. At first, I thought that nixing pretty much all processed foods including grains, seed oils, dairy, legumes, and sugar seemed impossibly strict and dismissed it as out of hand. However, the more it kept popping up, the more intrigued I became.
Finally, I sat down and downloaded The Paleo Solution to my kindle app. I could not put it down. This guy (Robb Wolf) was talking to ME. So much of what he was talking about overlapped with what I had learned in Why We Get Fat (sugar/carbs are the culprit in weight gain and things like heart disease, not saturated fat). I was already sold on that point: looking at the science, it was impossible to deny that fat cannot be stored without being in the presence of insulin, which is secreted in response mostly to carbs. OK… But the Paleo Solution took it one step further. The quality of the food is just as important, if not more so than the macronutrients (carbs, fat, protein). In fact, many Paleo folks are not particularly low carb: fruit and starchy tubers like yams/sweet potatoes are perfectly fine. However, if one is trying to lose weight, it’s generally understood that the carb content needs to stay low while that goal is on the table.
I finally had a rationale to help explain why the traditional dieting paradigm wasn’t working for me (or most people, for that matter). Grains and legumes contain many anti-nutrients that are the plant’s natural defense system. Those defenses wreak havoc on our digestive system as cause a myriad of problems in ways one wouldn’t even necessarily suspect (the damage doesn’t always show up as GI issues). Many auto-immune conditions have been linked to this issue. The most notable being Celiac, which is quite obviously tied to gluten consumption, but almost every other autoimmune condition can be helped by adopting this diet. Dairy, I knew was an issue for me, but now I understood why the lactose (milk sugar) and casein (milk protein) were problematic. I have since discovered that I can tolerate high fat dairy items that are low in those two components like heavy cream, butter, a little aged cheese, and yogurt.
Seed oils like soybean, corn, and even the vaulted canola oils are all modern concoctions that simply didn’t exist until we had the industrialization needed to refine these products. They are very delicate and easily oxidize in the blood stream causing systemic inflammation and a cascade of medical issues. Yes, the very “heart healthy” oils we’ve been told to use instead of real butter, lard, and tallow are causing much of the disease of civilization. I’ve had to do a lot of work to un-learn my fear of fat, particularly saturated fat. Coconut oil is now my friend. Olive oil is still good to use, but mostly on raw items because it too can oxidize if heated too much.
To combat the inflammatory seed oils and other high levels of Omega 6 fats that are abundant in our food supply, it’s important to minimize those as much as possible and off-set it with Omega 3s. We’ve been eating a lot more wild caught salmon and other fish as well as enjoying lots of free range eggs. Fish oil capsules are a daily habit, but I'm about to switch to fermented cod liver oil, per some great info from The Healthy Skeptic. Grass-fed beef is also higher in Omega 3s than its conventionally grain fed counterparts. It may be a bit pricer, but it is sooooo much better. I’ve actually started eating beef jerky, it’s so good. First time EVER!
The Paleo approach is very much based on looking at how our hunter-gatherer ancestors ate/lived before the relatively recent advent of agriculture (in an evolutionary sense). This argument is interesting to me, but not at all the focus in my mind. There is too much wiggle room for argument concerning what they actually ate/did and how we can best emulate it in our modern world. To me, it’s a thought experiment but my rationale comes mostly from the practical evidence that this type of eating/living works best for me right here, right now. I do not feel good when I eat processed food, for sure. Now, I understand why and what I can do about changing the way I source, prepare, and enjoy my food.
I thought this transition might cause some strife with the Cute Man. It IS a big change, after all. However, he’s been 100% supportive and super appreciative of the uptick in fresh homemade food. He is not completely Paleo himself, enjoying his brown rice and raisin bran as usual. He loves pretty much everything I cook, though, and is thrilled that we’re both getting healthier. Over the past few months, including pre-Paleo days, he’s lost over 50 lbs and I’ve lost about 25.
So far, it’s only been a couple months of eating this way. There seems be a vibrant online community with tons of great recipes so I have little fear of getting bored (see my “favorite places” on the right for links to great recipe sites and more). I’ve also been able to avoid the whole “I feel so deprived because I can’t have that” syndrome. I just don’t think of that way. I eat the stuff that makes me feel good. I’m my own boss – I can eat whatever I want to, really. The couple times I’ve deviated have left me feeling sluggish and exhausted. I’m sure there will be times when those effects will be worth it, but for the most part, I’d rather feel as good as I do eating Paleo foods.
So, as usual, I'm a work in progress but feeling so incredibly thankful that I've been able to implement these changes in my life.
Nutrisystem.
Jenny Craig.
Low Carb.
Intuitive Eating.
Health at Every Size.
Gluten Free.
The Metabolism Miracle.
The Paleo Solution.
To say I’ve been searching all my life for the best way to eat/live to lose weight and be healthy for life is an understatement. I have tried almost everything. Throughout my dieting sojourns, I have learned a great deal. My understanding of nutrition and activity’s effect on my weight and health has evolved over this time. Recently, I’ve read a couple books that have truly blown my mind and helped me turn everything I thought I knew on its head: Why We Get Fat and The Paleo Solution.
While following the Metabolism Miracle, most recently, I did extremely well on the lowest carb stage but ran into a plateau when I moved to eating a serving of carbs every 4-5 hours as instructed. I liked having more carbs but felt that eating on such a schedule was a little artificial. Right at this time, I happened to read about an eating style called Paleo on a new blog started by an online friend, Sally: Paleo Pleasures. At first, I thought that nixing pretty much all processed foods including grains, seed oils, dairy, legumes, and sugar seemed impossibly strict and dismissed it as out of hand. However, the more it kept popping up, the more intrigued I became.
Finally, I sat down and downloaded The Paleo Solution to my kindle app. I could not put it down. This guy (Robb Wolf) was talking to ME. So much of what he was talking about overlapped with what I had learned in Why We Get Fat (sugar/carbs are the culprit in weight gain and things like heart disease, not saturated fat). I was already sold on that point: looking at the science, it was impossible to deny that fat cannot be stored without being in the presence of insulin, which is secreted in response mostly to carbs. OK… But the Paleo Solution took it one step further. The quality of the food is just as important, if not more so than the macronutrients (carbs, fat, protein). In fact, many Paleo folks are not particularly low carb: fruit and starchy tubers like yams/sweet potatoes are perfectly fine. However, if one is trying to lose weight, it’s generally understood that the carb content needs to stay low while that goal is on the table.
I finally had a rationale to help explain why the traditional dieting paradigm wasn’t working for me (or most people, for that matter). Grains and legumes contain many anti-nutrients that are the plant’s natural defense system. Those defenses wreak havoc on our digestive system as cause a myriad of problems in ways one wouldn’t even necessarily suspect (the damage doesn’t always show up as GI issues). Many auto-immune conditions have been linked to this issue. The most notable being Celiac, which is quite obviously tied to gluten consumption, but almost every other autoimmune condition can be helped by adopting this diet. Dairy, I knew was an issue for me, but now I understood why the lactose (milk sugar) and casein (milk protein) were problematic. I have since discovered that I can tolerate high fat dairy items that are low in those two components like heavy cream, butter, a little aged cheese, and yogurt.
Seed oils like soybean, corn, and even the vaulted canola oils are all modern concoctions that simply didn’t exist until we had the industrialization needed to refine these products. They are very delicate and easily oxidize in the blood stream causing systemic inflammation and a cascade of medical issues. Yes, the very “heart healthy” oils we’ve been told to use instead of real butter, lard, and tallow are causing much of the disease of civilization. I’ve had to do a lot of work to un-learn my fear of fat, particularly saturated fat. Coconut oil is now my friend. Olive oil is still good to use, but mostly on raw items because it too can oxidize if heated too much.
To combat the inflammatory seed oils and other high levels of Omega 6 fats that are abundant in our food supply, it’s important to minimize those as much as possible and off-set it with Omega 3s. We’ve been eating a lot more wild caught salmon and other fish as well as enjoying lots of free range eggs. Fish oil capsules are a daily habit, but I'm about to switch to fermented cod liver oil, per some great info from The Healthy Skeptic. Grass-fed beef is also higher in Omega 3s than its conventionally grain fed counterparts. It may be a bit pricer, but it is sooooo much better. I’ve actually started eating beef jerky, it’s so good. First time EVER!
The Paleo approach is very much based on looking at how our hunter-gatherer ancestors ate/lived before the relatively recent advent of agriculture (in an evolutionary sense). This argument is interesting to me, but not at all the focus in my mind. There is too much wiggle room for argument concerning what they actually ate/did and how we can best emulate it in our modern world. To me, it’s a thought experiment but my rationale comes mostly from the practical evidence that this type of eating/living works best for me right here, right now. I do not feel good when I eat processed food, for sure. Now, I understand why and what I can do about changing the way I source, prepare, and enjoy my food.
I thought this transition might cause some strife with the Cute Man. It IS a big change, after all. However, he’s been 100% supportive and super appreciative of the uptick in fresh homemade food. He is not completely Paleo himself, enjoying his brown rice and raisin bran as usual. He loves pretty much everything I cook, though, and is thrilled that we’re both getting healthier. Over the past few months, including pre-Paleo days, he’s lost over 50 lbs and I’ve lost about 25.
So far, it’s only been a couple months of eating this way. There seems be a vibrant online community with tons of great recipes so I have little fear of getting bored (see my “favorite places” on the right for links to great recipe sites and more). I’ve also been able to avoid the whole “I feel so deprived because I can’t have that” syndrome. I just don’t think of that way. I eat the stuff that makes me feel good. I’m my own boss – I can eat whatever I want to, really. The couple times I’ve deviated have left me feeling sluggish and exhausted. I’m sure there will be times when those effects will be worth it, but for the most part, I’d rather feel as good as I do eating Paleo foods.
So, as usual, I'm a work in progress but feeling so incredibly thankful that I've been able to implement these changes in my life.
Selasa, 07 Juni 2011
Ten Tips From A Shaolin Monk On How To Stay Young Forever
Ten Tips From A Shaolin Monk On How To Stay Young
1) Don't think too much. Thinking takes energy. Thinking can make you look old.
2) Don't talk too much. Most people either talk or do. Better to do.
3) When you work, work for 40 minutes then stop for 10 minutes. When you look at something all the time, it can damage your eyes and also your internal organs and peace.
4) When you are happy, you need to control your happiness, if you lose control then you damage your lung energy.
5) Don't worry too much or get angry because this damages your liver and your intestines.
6) When you eat food don't eat too much, always make sure you are not quite full as this can damage your spleen. When you feel a bit hungry then eat a little.
7) When you do things, take your time, don't hurry too much. Remember the saying "Hasten slowly you will soon arrive"
8)If you only do physical exercise all the time and you never do Qigong this makes you lose your balance and you will become impatient. You lose the Yin of your body. Exercise balances the Yin and the Yang.
9)If you never exercise, just peace, meditation, soft training, Qigong, then this doesn't give you Yang energy so you use up your Yang energy.
10) Shaolin Gong Fu gives you everything. The purpose of our training is to balance our Yin and Yang. How many hours is not important. It's down to knowing what your body needs.
If you like this blog post you can sign up to my newsletter. As well as my monthly training tips direct into your inbox, you get access to more than a year's worth of archive newsletters. As well as DVDs, meditation aids are available so that not only your workout is a meditation but your life.
If you like this blog post you can sign up to my newsletter. As well as my monthly training tips direct into your inbox, you get access to more than a year's worth of archive newsletters. As well as DVDs, meditation aids are available so that not only your workout is a meditation but your life.
Sabtu, 28 Mei 2011
HWC's Community Garden Plots are in!
Our raised beds have been constructed, dirt and compost delivered, and thanks to our wonderful volunteers, our beds have been planted! Special thanks to Dave Miller of Miller's Plant Farm, who donated vegetable plants to our effort. The community gardens are sponsored by York County 4-H/Penn State Cooperative Extension. Healthy World Cafe's efforts are under the coordination of Robin Pflieger, Advisory Group and Food Subcommittee member. Thanks to Robin and all of our volunteers.
There will be a ribbon cutting for the Community Garden at 234 S. Pershing Ave., York City, on Tuesday, June 14, at 11:00 a.m. York City Mayor Kim Bracey will join us in celebration. Please join us!
Our next Healthy World Cafe Advisory Meeting will be held on Monday, June 6, 6:30 p.m., Friends Meeting House, 135 S. Philadelphia St. All are welcome to attend.
Thanks to Miller's Plant Farm!
Our next Healthy World Cafe Advisory Meeting will be held on Monday, June 6, 6:30 p.m., Friends Meeting House, 135 S. Philadelphia St. All are welcome to attend.
Senin, 16 Mei 2011
Help kick start HWC's Community Garden Plot
Healthy World Cafe has partnered with York County 4-H and Penn State Cooperative Extension on their Community Garden initiative. We have four raised garden beds at the community garden located at 234 S. Pershing Ave. in York City.
We need help building beds and planting at the site on Saturday, May 21, between the hours of 9 a.m. - Noon. If you can help, e-mail us at healthyworldcafe@gmail.com. Join Us!
There will be a ribbon cutting at the community garden with a dedication from York City Mayor Kim Bracey on June 14, at 11 a.m. Join Healthy World Cafe and support community gardening in York!
We need help building beds and planting at the site on Saturday, May 21, between the hours of 9 a.m. - Noon. If you can help, e-mail us at healthyworldcafe@gmail.com. Join Us!
Rabu, 11 Mei 2011
Are You In A Workout Rut?
You may have a great martial art's routine but are you in a rut?
In order for your body to work at its optimal you need to keep surprising it.
My 15 DVDs complement each other and keep your body surprised as they move you through traditional kung fu, hard and soft Qigong, Shaolin Tai Qi, and the fighting arts. Once you know the moves on the DVDs, you can get creative and start mixing them up to make your own workouts.
Even if you're not working with my DVDs, your workouts still need to have elements of surprise. If you don't confuse your body, it will get lazy and reach a plateau where it's no longer burning fat as quickly as it should, and your fitness levels, flexibility and skill are no longer increasing. Here's my six top tips to how you can keep your mind and body in optimal fitness.
Please note these tips are not for beginners but for those who already have a solid martial arts or workout schedule.
Do bag work one day, Qigong the next, traditional kung fu the next, Shaolin Bootcamp the next, Shaolin Workout, just sprinting, just jogging. Don't rule out canceling the cardio for one workout and going through the 36 movements in Rou Quan. These movements work your muscles and mind and elevate your heart rate in a relaxed way. I think of this form as food for my kung fu.
2) Change Your Focus
Sometimes focus on doing the movements perfectly, other times just get yourself through the workout. Focus on flexibility one day then Qi the next, focus on power one day then speed.
3) Make sure you do aerobic and anaerobic
4) Stop making excuses
Don't use the excuse of having no time. If you only have twenty minutes then do anaerobic interval training. You can take a 20 minute segment from one of my kung fu DVDs or run intervals and mix this with squats and press ups.
5) Use your own body to build muscle
Muscle burns fat by increasing the metabolism but Shaolin martial artists usually use their own body to build muscle. To build upper arm strength, do Qigong press ups as well as regular press ups. When you do regular press ups, change where your hands are in relation to your body.
6) Work your body from the inside out and the outside in.
Never forget to do Qigong. Even if you're pushed for time, do ten minutes to cool down after your workout. Our life is increasingly fast-paced and stressful. Qigong reduces cortisol, balances the hormones, regulates the blood pressure, and un-blocks stress. You will find that regular Qigong not only increases your energy levels but also your fitness level too.
If you like this blog post you can sign up to my newsletter. As well as my monthly training tips direct into your inbox, you get access to more than a year's worth of archive newsletters. As well as DVDs, meditation aids are available so that not only your workout is a meditation but your life.
Rabu, 04 Mei 2011
One Small Step To Transform Your Training
Or, if you're a martial artist or fighter, what small step can you take to make your skill better?
Write it down - writing something down increases the likelihood that you will do it.
Don't make it ambitious - The Tao Te Ching says: "With expectation, One will always perceive the boundary"
Make sure it's simple and doable.
If it isn't then think again.
Schedule this small step into your diary for the whole month.
Make a note of where you are now so that you will be able to see the improvement you've made.
Keep acting on this small step. (This one step is something you're going to build on later on and I'll explain how in next month's blog post. )
The famous basketball coach, John Wooden says, "When you improve a little every day, eventually big things occur. Don't look for the big quick improvement. Seek the small improvement one day at a time... and eventually a big gain is made."
The Tao Te Ching says, "A Journey Of A Thousand Miles Starts With A Single Step."
Trust in their wisdom. Trust in this small step. Don't doubt it. Just Do It.
If you like this blog post you can sign up to my newsletter. As well as my monthly training tips direct into your inbox, you get access to more than a year's worth of archive newsletters
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