Hey, I’m not alone. I’m not the only sad soul trapped in the insomniac vortex going by the comments on my recent I’m an insomniac get me out of here post. Respect to you all who shared and reached out. And a big, virtual hug if you’re going through tough times just now. I know your relentless, inescapable pain. I do.
image via tumblr
So many of you shared such great tips following my post. Thank you! So generous. Let’s spread them about, shall we?
1. Avoid caffeine after 2pm. Caffeine stimulates the production of stress hormones, and inhibits the absorption of the hormone adenosine, needed to give us a sense of calmness, which can contribute to sleep problems.
2. Try an evening breath meditation – Patty.
30 minutes of left nostril breathing really activate the parasympathetic nervous system (the rest and digest part of us).
3. Eat green leafy veggies. To increase magnesium levels, which calms and supports the nervous system.
4. Exercise during the day – Lucy.
5. Ultra Muscleze Night. Someone at Bioceuticals read my post and sent me a pack of this. Which was very thoughtful. The stuff has been working really nicely. I take a scoop at night before bed and it chills me the fork out.
It screened last night on Nine’s repeat channel Extra. I think they got it…Didn’t catch it? Well, I thought I’d do a little catch-up post on the stuff. Coconut oil, that is. Here’s a rundown of why coconut oil is so good for you. Here’s a rundown of 19 clever things to do with coconut … Read more
Oh, we get competing messages, don’t we. The latest befuddlement that we’re trying to get our heads around is this “exercise myth” idea. In the “everything you used to think was right is wrong” vane, it’s now being suggested (ready for it?) that…
exercising can make us fat.
What do I think of this?
Photo by Rachel de Joode
Glad you asked, because it’s become a little project of mine lately – to wrap my head around the science of it all, and to encourage people to back off a little. To be gentle. To enjoy exercise and not use it as a self-flagellating mechanism of misery.
First, I should say…I used to do a lot of exercise
I used to self-flagellate. I used to run soft sand races and compete in 24-hour mountain bike races. I ran 10km to work when I edited magazines. And back. I went for 3-hour bush runs on weekends. I went to the gym, did chin-ups on first dates (and didn’t that end badly), and could beat my boyfriends in arm wrestles. Yes, it was an ego thing, too.
But a few years back it took its toll (the ego stuff as well). I kept trying to exercise hard. I kept getting injuries. And eventually I had to accept, that this way of doing things was somehow not right.
We are not meant to push ourselves. We are meant to move and be energised and get blood flowing…but beyond that, it’s just dumb and ineffective.
Exercise does not work for weight loss
Indeed, we’re designed to NOT lose weight when we exercise.
In his book Big Fat Lies, David Gillespie touches on the science that explains that we are designed to NOT burn off a lot of energy when we exercise. This is what enabled us to keep going and going all day and not waste away.
Then there’s the psychological element. If you’re doing exercise just for weight loss, don’t bother. Let me rephrase that. Exercise. Move. Keep active. But don’t expect it to make you lose a lot of weight.
A study compared hunter-gatherers in Tanzania with Western folk. It calculated the participants’ typical daily physical activity, energy expenditure and resting metabolic rates and found the former do move more, but they weren’t burning more calories. In fact, they found their metabolic rates the same as sedate Westerners. That’s the way we roll. Calories in doesn’t equal calories out. We’re far more complex than that.
To put things in perspective:
To burn off a piece of white bread you have to run up 20 flights of stairs.
In fact, it can make us fat!
A Time magazine cover story a while back – ”Why exercise won’t make you thin” – looked at all the evidence and found exercise may actually cause us to consume more calories than we expend, therefore negating the hard, sweaty work on the stair master. It jolted me awake when I read it. The article went as far as to say our over-exercising obsession is adding to the obesity epidemic.
The missing link for a stack of folk out there when I bang on about how bad sugar (or, more specifically, fructose) is for us is this:how it has come to be that a) no one has told us this before and b) in fact, we’ve been told quite the opposite our entire lives.
And not just by the Big Bad Sugar Companies. By the Government and the health advisory bodies, too.
Sigh. It’s a very long and complicated explanation. And, unfortunately, it requires using the word “conspiracy” a fair bit, which turns a lot of us off. If you’re interested in a very thorough rundown of how the sugar industry dupes us and shuts down counter views in the US, check out this MotherJones timeline. It’s fascinating stuff. Much the same happen here in Australia, and around the world. (And, PS, the pictures I’ve used here to break up my rant are from their collection, too. They make an apt backdrop, don’t you think?)
But to news just in, here in Australia. The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) – Australia’s main health adviser – yesterday published its once-a-decade update of the Australian Dietary Guidelines.
And. Wait for it.
We’re finally being told to “limit” sugar!
This actually represents a toughening of official advice against added sugar, advising Australians for the first time to “limit” our consumption of added sugar, in the same way we have been encouraged to “limit” our consumption of alcohol.
Yes, this is a big deal. Why?
1. Because previously we’ve been told that sugar is OK in moderation.
Yes, the guidelines used to say to moderate sugar consumption. Which is just dumb, and scary and depressing when the evidence points to the fact sugar is highly addictive and
I use icecube trays for storing excess chicken stock (ready to pop out and use for deglazing or even frying) and I use my Vitamix for a bunch of steps in a recipe (by reordering the way I do things). Check out these additional doozies that I’ve collected, and feel free to add yours below….
I’m a bacon nut. And this idea – plaiting it before grilling or frying it – is very much my favourite thing today.
I read The Art of Possibility a few years ago. It’s an odd book..I’m not sure that I get it entirely. But I like the way it’s sprinkled with little lessons, like this one below. It’s very much a “just because” read with no apology given for it’s odd format. Anyway. The lesson: Four young … Read more
I was born anxious. I’ve fretted for as long as I remember. I worried for one and all. Some days it cripples me and I have to disappear for a while. Others, I am able to accept it as part of my character. These days, though, I manage it better. I know what works. What to do when things build up. I’m philosophical about it. And I don’t apologise for it anymore. Those around me get some good kickbacks for being a mate with a worrywart. Like, um, never being kept waiting. And not having to navigate, pack, plan or negotiate when travelling with me.
Recipe is below
Yes, so. I manage my anxiety.
And, so. Last week I was at my Chinese doctor getting needled. I’m able to direct her now to the spots that need a-needling. I pointed her to a spot at the top of the shin, just on the outside of the shin, about an inch below the knee joint.
She laughed. “Ah, yes. The chicken soup point.”
She explained: “This point, it does the same thing that chicken soup does when you drink it.” Which is what? “It nourishes your whole body in one go. That’s what chicken soup does.” She makes chicken soup every week and feeds it to her sons to keep them healthy. They get chicken soup for afternoon tea.
The chicken soup point. Feel it on your own leg now, if you can. Press into it. Does it feel sensitive? That kind of “painful” that feels better when activated? I describe this kind of release as “juicy”. And can you see that this kind of almost-orgasmic release is also experienced when you eat something truly nourishing? OK. Well, I do.
I know I’ve been banging on about my new book rather a lot over the past few weeks. But, hey, give me a little grace here: it has just become the number 1 selling non-fiction book and the 2nd overall last week in the country. I’ll keep this one short and sweet. Due to people … Read more
Not sure what you’re up to, but in our little office we’re Moving Forward. One considered step at a time. As I vaguely mentioned here a few weeks back, we’re giving the behemoth that has become I Quit Sugar a new home. And so, the birth of Iquitsugar.com. We’re a while off…but if you’d like to stay connected and be alerted to a bunch of giveaways and offers we’ll be running for the launch, please do sign up to the mailing list. As always, we won’t be spamming you!
As we chug along, I’ll share as much as I can with you about the process. I’ve posted about how to make money from blogging and how to publish ebook before. And I was asked to keep sharing this kind of thing. So. I will.
For this new project I’ve decided it might be nice to bring in Friends of IQS whenever we need a designer, a nutritionist, a doctor, a … florist. I know the car scheme GoGet do this – everyone down to the dude who supplies the ink cartridges for the computers in the office are drawn from their membership base. I like this. To this end, we invited Joi Murugavell, who’s been following this blog for eons, to design the landing page above. I love it stupid, although it is a tame version of what she can often create.
You may remember Joi from this post, where I shared an interview I’d done with her on her Oodlies site. I particularly love her teacup interpretation of my hashimotos.
Well, we asked Joi to design the landing page for us at Iquitsugar.com, so that we could officially open the site, build
