Thoughts on a Rainy Day

I just posted a piece from Nurses.com on my Facebook page because the nurse in charge of the Wellness Blog had written a piece that sounded just like conversations I have had with friends and nutrition clients over the past few years. Since I have become vegetarian and a nutritionist I have tried to walk the walk as well as talk the talk and this lifestyle has had some amazing consequences.

As a child, my favorite dessert snack was cookies; most notably, homemade chocolate chips or Oreos although I also liked others. As an adult I continued to bake chocolate chips but usually opted for the "healthier" oatmeal or pecan sandies, but as I am very petite (4'11") I usually only ate one to test them and left the rest for my husband. Somewhere along the way, he also opted out of the sugar addiction and so no baked goods or processed grocery store product entered our house or our blood stream. Our doctors told us we had the healthiest blood lipid levels in their practice!

But there was always the occasional temptation a work that I would give in to thinking an occasional transgression would not hurt. An example was the time one of my co-workers at the Wellness Center brought in so called monster cookies. Oy Vey! HUGE chocolate ships with double the sugar and brown sugar of anything I had ever experienced. After I ate this refined caloric nightmare I felt as if I had consumed a couple of martinis in the same amount of time it had taken to eat the cookie. My body was simply not used to that kind of assault! I felt like I needed to sit down, lie down, anything but continue to work in my usual energetic on my feet style!

Now don't misunderstand me--I am an advocate of the high carbohydrate diet as our entire nervous system runs on carbs and they should comprise 60% of our total caloric intake. If you are eating the right percentage of macro-nutrients (carbs, fats (30%) protein (10%)) and the right kind of complex carbohydrates (vegetables, fruits and whiole grains) you don't have to worry so much about calories as these items are generally low in calories but nutrient dense. And they don't cause those big shifts in energy (that's partially due to the fiber--yet another benefit to these life giving foods). Having a sweet refined carbohydrate kind of snack to give you a mid-morning lift for instance is counter productive.

I recently gave a talk at a luncheon in which I was focusing on the foods that can improve cognitive function, fight disease, improve energy levels, make you look younger and , as sort of a light-hearted addition, improve your sex life. There are foods that actually do this and they are foods that contain phyto-nutrients or plant chemicals. Sorry omnivores, meats have none of these life giving qualities. I can however, give a push for eating yogurt because of the probiotics which help keep the gastrointestinal tract healthy. Plant foods contain antioxidants which are the main chemicals that help prevent damage and help to bild your diversified cells while they actaully inhibit the growth of non-diversified cells such as cancer.

As I am just in a kind of introspective mood today, I am not going in to the details but I have posted the entire speech on my web page if you want specific (www.jamierisedorph.com)

Another part of my inner ramblings touched upon thinking about my degree in biology and the fact that biology actually means the study of life. I studied the life sciences. Isn't that a beautiful thing? Life sciences...so much more than food...

For some reason that thought meandered cross my mind as I was returning from a stroll through my vegetable and flower gardens, talking to them and encouraging them to continue to grow and be beautiful and productive. It just occurred to me, I need to take my own advice!

Enjoy tonight's full moon and the beauty and bounty of summer!