superfood is super

Directions:
   1.   Watch Food Matters (featured above is the movie trailer) and visit their website at http://www.foodmatters.tv/_webapp/Superfoods for inspiration on what/where to purchase life saving nutrition.

   2.   Fill your fridge with Odwalla Superfood green sludge and water. Spirulina is your friend! Holler at some goji berries, son!

        Are you a chocolate fiend? Get chocolate covered cacao nibs,
they'll get you goin'.

   3.   Get to juicin' (disclaimer--this is not in reference to steroids) delicious veggies and fruits and, if possible, produce that is NAHT covered in pesticides and other toxic chemicals.

      ~*~Note: Purchase of a juicer is required, though the blender can be a barrel of fun, as well. If you lack the creativity or testicles to juice on a whim without knowing just how delicious it will taste, there are recipes available in assorted places {online (it's googleable) and books}. ~*~

   4.   Cut the shit...out that is. 'Shit,' is in reference to absolutely everything involving a Drive-Thru, and basically anything that you have to cook. However, don't hurt yourself or believe this to be impossible. Increasing the amount of raw foods in your diet from nothinggg to a nice even 51%, so even half of your day, will work wonders.

   5.   Start feeling amazing. Here's what David Wolfe has to say:

"By eating superfoods you have more energy, you're more alert, your brain works better, you're more innovative, ideas come quicker, your wit is sharper."

"Boom. Things flow out. My cousin lost 150 pounds in about an 18 month period on our program--raw, organic, natural foods--and he actually moved all that toxicity out through his bowels."

"The subtle energy of your food becomes your mind [which he quoted from the Upanishads] and that's been my experience...Wow. How deep that is, how important it is to realize that the subtle energies that we're expose to day to day can have deep impact on our health and well-being."

 Addendum: I will still be eating pizza whenever the occasion occurs. It's the original superfood.

these are Ada's origins

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This promiscuous combination of four different breeds resulted in the exceptional mix that is active, affectionate, easily-trainable, friendly, intelligent, loyal, responsive, protective...a.k.a. perfect, though at times clumsy and super goofy. The baby shown above grew to be this gorgeous hairy, beach loving bitch.

I wouldn't want any other dog and I regret getting her fixed.

stress is a mess

The research on stress is so ridiculously interesting.

I like to think of stress as comparable to ice cream:

     -necessary in our lives

     -helpful in moderate quantities

     -dangerous in excessive amounts and over long periods of time, especially for your health

Aside from my sweet analogy...a little stress—like right before an exam—can boost your performance; the 'fight or flight' response—which allows us to lift cars when babies are stuck beneath them—is hardwired into our bodies; chronic stress is slowly murdering millions, and get this—the stress you encounter also affects your unborn child! The following summary speaks to how hardships throughout life can ultimately change our genetic activity: not for the better and not just during pregnancy. 

Unzipped chromosomes pass on parental stress

by Andy Coghlan Mutant fruit flies have helped solve one of the biggest puzzles in genetics: how the stress of starvation or drug addiction can pass on its ill effects to the sufferer's children and grandchildren. Stress is thought to cause "epigenetic" changes that do not alter the sequence of DNA but leave chemical marks on genes that dictate how active they are. Previous studies have shown that if mice are stressed for two weeks after birth, their offspring will show signs of depression and anxiety, despite enjoying the usual levels of maternal care. And there is mounting evidence that common health problems including diabetes, obesity, mental illness and even fear could be the result of stress on parents and grandparents. However, until now attempts to identify changes in inherited DNA that might explain how these effects are passed on have failed. Now, Shunsuke Ishii at the Riken Tsukuba Institute in Ibaraki, Japan, and colleagues have identified a molecular mechanism by which the effects of stress can be handed down without altering genes or DNA. "We believe we can convince many sceptics by clarifying the mechanism," says Ishii. His team have shown that chemical or environmental stress detaches a protein called activating transcription factor 2 (ATF-2) from chromatin, the densely packed DNA that makes up chromosomes. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

 

I suggest you read Robert Sapolsky's Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers.

Plus, he is a bearded beauty.

Hope everyone can find a way to lead a mostly stress-free life! And if you do, let me know your secrets!

men do not think with their penis

Men actually think with their testicles.

these are some 2011 New Year's Resolutions

This is young Ada Louise...

 In order to perfect her girlish figure for 2011, she has started a weight lifting routine.

To fulfill her daddy's warrior criteria, she has been destroying stuffed animals and taking names. 

 And to maintain proper brain functioning so that she will always be ready

 to jump on and smooch whoever enters the house,

Ada's third New Year's Resolution is to have a regular regimen of

 rehabilative sleep in all rooms of the house.

My goals for this upcoming year are as follows:
-graduate from college with an unecessarily high GPA and go on a celebratory cruise with my precious husband and two other loved ones
-get into graduate school for occupational therapy, as well as a sweet job in rehabilitation (and if not, at least complete an extensive amount of volunteer hours in the field)
-be an awesome big sister to my own lil bro and lil sis along with my BBBS little sister
-train and complete some sort of half marathon/ marathon/ running event
-broaden my consumption of foods past bread and cheese
-and also have a regular regimen of rehabilitative sleep with my love Ada

SO, what are YOUR and/or your pet's 2011 New Year's Resolution?

if you have a sheep-like smooth cortex, you should listen to Aristotle

especially when he says:

"...the brain is not responsible for any of the sensations at all. The correct view is that the seat and source of sensation is the region of the heart."

AND

"The seat of the soul and the control of voluntary movement-in fact, of nervous functions in general,-are to be sought in the heart. The brain is an organ of minor importance."


 



exhibit A



exhibit B

       A is NOT ≥ B!



However, I will cut poor Mr. Aristotle a break because the brain is only now becoming demystified. For example...

Einstein had it right!

"He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice."

So does Cahill et. al:

"Emotions give a more activated and chemically stimulated brain, which helps us recall things better."

                 (no but seriously, if you want something you learned to be retained for sure, find a way to make it emotionally relevant for yourself!)

As well as William F. Allman:

"The brain is a monstrous, beautiful mess. Its billions of nerve cells-called neurons-lie in a tangled web that displays cognitive powers far exceeding any of the silicon machines we have built to mimic it."

                 (however, neural networks are still important tools, duh!)

Susan Blakemore described how

"In proportion to our body mass, our brain is three times as large as that of our nearest relatives. This huge organ is dangerous and painful to give birth to, expensive to build and, in a resting human, uses about 20 per cent of the body's energy even though it is just 2 per cent of the body's weight. There must be some reason for all this evolutionary expense."

                  (except, since I don't think we are meeting the recipe for evolution any longer, what will become of this long-awaited masterpiece that is the human brain?)

And John R. Searle aptly said

"Because we do not understand the brain very well we are constantly tempted to use the latest technology as a model for trying to understand it. In my childhood we were always assured that the brain was a telephone switchboard. ('What else could it be?') I was amused to see that Sherrington, the great British neuroscientist, thought that the brain worked like a telegraph system. Freud often compared the brain to hydraulic and electro-magnetic systems. Leibniz compared it to a mill, and I am told some of the ancient Greeks thought the brain functions like a catapult. At present, obviously, the metaphor is the digital computer."
        (in another century, or even another decade, I wonder how our technological advances and social and cultural ideas will be reflected in our knowledge of the brain)

          This also goes along with the following two quotes...

"The brain struggling to understand the brain is society trying to explain itself." Colin Blakemore (from Mechanics of the Mind, 1977)

                                              and

"If the brain were so simple we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn't."
Lyall Watson

Another necessary reminder comes from Will Rogers

"You know you've got to exercise your brain just like your muscles."

Regardless, the point is: Out with the old-think, and in with the new 'cause our nervous systems control everything we do!



this is an important exclamation

Many thanks to Howard Dean and Dave Chappelle.