A whole new me

If you didn’t know it, your body will produce about 12 brand new skeletons over a normal lifespan. Things like muscle, skin and blood cells are replaced daily in order to keep our bodies at an optimum level of health.

Cells in our body are built upon proteins that do all kinds of jobs based on the types of carbohydrates that are assigned to them. Sometimes the proteins don’t fold just right and become impaired or useless. The cell usually stores these mis-folded proteins until too many are made and the cell gets clogged with them. The cell still functions but at a lower capacity and quality.

In comes Trehalose Complex by Dr. Peter D’Adamo. In a simplified explanation, Trehalose causes cells to either fix themselves or waive the white flag. By fixing corrupted cells and causing the destruction of others, more “new” you is created!

Trehalose also keeps the cell structure “together” better and the cell retains proper water balance. All of this results in a healthier cell. A healthier cell means a longer living cell and a healthier, longer living you.

I started using Trehalose on April 5th, 2012. I haven’t noticed anything extraordinary so far but I have noticed acne on my face and other places on my body that I don’t normally get it. I equate this to a “detox” effect of the Trehalose causing corrupted cells to be expelled and my skin is paying for it.

Even if I don’t notice what others have experienced, I chalk it up to the 12 years that I have been following ERFYT, LRFYT, GTD and SWAMI. After all, it does take a long time to process 7 trillion cells.

Thank you Dr. D.

I can’t remember the last time I ran fever. I’ve had a couple of colds since we moved to the Hill Country, but I don’t remember running a fever. The last time I remember running fever was in 2007. Overall, I’d say I’ve been exceptionally healthy on the BTD.

However, I did pick up a stomach bug last week and I ran fever for 24 hours. In between naps, I did a little self analysis. Why – I asked myself – did I get sick?

The first answer was obvious. I’ve been keeping a really fast pace, and have not been getting eight, or even seven hours of sleep. I know at 10:30 that I need to get off the computer and start winding down, but what I’m doing always seems so important to me at the moment. The fever forced me to slow down. It reminds me of the Bible passage in 2 Chronicles 36, where God says that Israel’s Babylonian captivity will last for 70 years to make up for their refusing to let the land rest every seven years as He had told them to do in the law.

God tells us to rest. Every credible diet and lifestyle program, including the BTD, emphasizes the need for rest. My common sense tells me to rest. If I ignore all warnings, something – like a stomach bug - will force me to rest. I’m caught up now. Even after I was over the virus, I slowed my pace over the weekend. I’m starting this week with a new commitment to get optimum rest.

While I was doing self analysis, I was confronted with something else. I’ve developed a pain that runs up and down my right arm. I recognize it from when I was on the computer all the time getting ready for a yearbook deadline. I’m spending too much time sitting at the desk holding the mouse. The easiest thing to do is to move the mouse to the left side of the computer. I get relief from the pain, but it doesn’t solve the underlying problem.

The hard thing to do is to stop trying to make every picture I take “perfect.” You see, I’ve developed techniques to open people’s eyes, improve lighting, take out background distractions, even move people around in pictures. When my clients pay me to do this, it is good. When I do this for the fun pictures I’m going to email to friends, it becomes compulsive. Being less compulsive about candid shots will mean less time at the computer, less pain, and more rest.

It seems so obvious, so easy. But I know that old habits are hard to break. Let’s see if I can start by posting this blog, then walking away from the computer and fixing a healthy dinner.

El mes pasado, escribía Martha sobre la importancia de la limpia y puesta en orden no solo de armarios, si no que extendió dicho concepto de limpia del acumulo general innecesario en nuestras vidas. Busquemos la fluidez dentro de lo simple y sin complicaciones. Nuestras vidas tienen sin duda un nivel de complejidad considerable y este hecho nos es muy íntimo y muy respetable. Sin embargo, la complejidad no debe ser complicada. Alcanzar la simplicidad como regla rectora puede ayudarnos a navegar con facilidad y gracia sobre una multitud de situaciones.

Tomemos por ejemplo el mundo de las dietas. ¿A caso este podría ser más complicado? Llámese dieta única para todos, paleo, vegetariana, etc. La lista es interminable!! Lo que a mí también me encanta de la dieta del grupo sanguíneo o Genotipo y el concepto de nutrición personalizada es que llevarla a cabo es muy sencillo y simple, aunado a su elegante plataforma científica que la respalda y trata a cada uno por su individualidad genética y fisiológica. En muchos sentidos simplifica nuestro estilo de vida y la manera en que elegimos nuestros nutrientes, y aún su impacto va más allá de la pérdida de peso, también nos brinda vitalidad y mejora de la salud. Esto también sucede cuando elegimos nuestras opciones en suplementos. Hay un montón de suplementos disponibles en el mercado, y puede llegar a ser abrumador examinar cuáles son los adecuados para nuestra individualidad tanto genética como fisiológica, ya que la gran mayoría entre nosotros no cuenta con un mínimo conocimiento de ello. Utilizando el concepto de suplementación personalizada permite espulgar en medio del desorden y encontrar aquellos productos diseñados específicamente para cada quien.

Siendo O, al igual que Martha, tenemos nuestros productos indispensables como lo son: Polyvite, Deflect, Polyflora, Phytocal. Estos forman una base central diurna y vamos agregando conforme nos vayamos sintiendo y de acuerdo a la temporada o conforme a nuestra actividad. Durante la primavera, generalmente ella agrega Phloxicin y Connectivar, brindándole a su cuerpo un apoyo favorable para todo el trabajo arduo de jardinería y preparación para el verano, trabajo que le encanta! De esta manera permite que los suplementos trabajen a favor de su salud y necesidad del momento.

Simplifique su vida ordenando su espacio, su dieta, sus pensamientos. Los invitamos este mes de mayo a que nos acompañen a tomarse el tiempo para simplificar y regresar a aquello que es esencial en sus vidas. Siguiendo los lineamientos diseñados por el Dr. D'Adamo, llámese BTD (La dieta básica fisiológica de cada quien) o bien los lineamientos Genéticos básicos de GTD (Genotipo) o la opción nutri genómica individualizada de punta llamada SWAMI, regeneramos nuestra sangre, regulamos la función intestinal, tonificamos el sistema nervioso, modulamos el colesterol, nos desintoxicamos, combatimos los efectos de raquitismo, escorbuto, anemia, descalcificación, diabetes, problemas de piel, oxidación, tumores, etc. Podría seguir enumerando los beneficios que aporta este estilo de vida y ciencia fisiológica y genética de vanguardia, antiinflamatoria por excelencia.

Otro día recuérdenme platicarles acerca de mis harinas de germinados ricas en vitaminas, especialmente A, B, C, E y K, así como minerales, aminoácidos, enzimas, oligoelementos, clorofila y otras sustancias biológicas activas. La idea de elaborarlas nació de Live cell, una bomba de nutriente en cada porción!

La salud es algo más que la ausencia de enfermedad: Es un sustrato fisiológico de florecimiento, que implica una actitud positiva frente a la vida. La prevención debe siempre ser nuestro principal propósito. Las enfermedades crónicas son producto de múltiples carencias. El término alostasis para apreciar la respuesta adaptativa del organismo a los desafíos externos. Hay un proceso de adaptación del sistema inmunológico, neurológico y endocrino a las demandas de la vida. Esta adaptación puede medirse mediante una serie de indicadores como la presión sanguínea o el colesterol, que ofrecen el indicador de carga alostática. Cuanto mayor es la carga alostática de una persona, más baja es su función cognitiva, y su tasa de mortalidad es mayor.
La Medicina se ha centrado en el malestar y ha olvidado el bienestar: En salud hay un excesivo interés en los indicadores objetivos: económicos, ambientales y de las capacidades personales; sin embargo, se han olvidado de la calidad subjetiva, como el bienestar o la felicidad.

Mas ejercicio, mas vida

Las personas mayores que realizan actividad física, aunque de jóvenes fueran sedentarias, están más protegidas frente a eventos coronarios que los ancianos que en su juventud hicieron mucho ejercicio y en el declinar de su vida se han vuelto pasivos. Este hecho indica que nunca es tarde para iniciar la práctica deportiva.
La prevención del cáncer es posible al reducir los factores de riesgo, esto es evitar cualquier cosa que aumente la posibilidad de desarrollarla, pues a pesar de que la predisposición a presentar ciertos tipos de cáncer depende no solo de la genética sino también de la epigenetica, apegándose a un estilo de vida saludable se reduce el riesgo.

Un estilo de vida saludable incluye:

• Correcta alimentación: Significa poner atención en la calidad y cantidad de los alimentos que ingerimos, esto es elegir los que estén libres de hormonas, químicos y/o agentes tóxicos y evitar los que estén muy procesados. Es recomendable que la alimentación incluya por lo menos el equivalente de 5 porciones de frutas y verduras al día, además de granos integrales y leguminosas, así como limitar las grasas saturadas mas no las indicadas para cada quien, como lo podemos determinar mediante un SWAMI (pidan informes).
• Buenos hábitos alimenticios: También la forma y frecuencia en que tomamos nuestros alimentos es muy importante, pues muchas veces malpasarse nos cobra la factura con enfermedades gástricas que de no atenderse a tiempo pueden derivar en algún tipo de cáncer. Asimismo, ello también puede afectar otras funciones del organismo.
• Evitar hábitos nocivos como el consumo de tabaco y alcohol. Fumar es uno de los principales factores de riesgo para el desarrollo de diferentes tipos de cáncer, no solo de pulmón, ya que altera diversos procesos químicos y a nivel celular del organismo. Por su parte, el abuso en el consumo de alcohol deteriora órganos como el hígado, riñones, así como la mucosa tanto gástrica como la garganta.
• Hacer ejercicio todos los días: A través de la actividad física regular el cuerpo se oxigena mejor y se estimula el sistema inmunológico, con lo cual el organismo tiene mayor oportunidad de protegerse contra las enfermedades.
• Mantener un peso adecuado: Al evitar la obesidad, estás evitando el cáncer, pues en la persona con obesidad ocurre un fenómeno que se llama proceso inflamatorio crónico de bajo grado. Esto significa que bioquímicamente en nuestro organismo las células se están inflamando, hay producción de células inflamatorias macrófagos y leucocitos que están rodeando a la célula grasa, lo que provoca que se inflamen los tejidos aunado a lectinas que aglutinan ciertos organos. Este proceso tiene mucho que ver con el proceso inflamatorio con el que comienzan muchos tipos de cáncer y/o patología en general.

• Protegerse del sol y usar un protector solar (con un SPF de mínimo 15) todos los días, debido a que una alta exposición a los rayos UV de la luz solar es el detonante del cáncer de piel.
• Prevenir y tratar las infecciones que pueden producir cáncer, como las infecciones por virus del papiloma humano (VPH), virus de inmunodeficiencia humana (VIH/SIDA), y virus de hepatitis B y C (VHB y VHC).
• Evitar conductas de riesgo tales como el uso de drogas, compartir jeringas, no usar preservativo.

Recuerden la importancia de dormir ya que es cuando reparamos todos los sistemas. Regular nuestro ritmo circadiano es de suma importancia con la ayuda de la metil cobalamina.
Los invito a practicar la prevención ¡Cuídense!

The recent hospitalization has definitely affected my overall outlook profoundly, even with respect to diet / lifestyle. I've faced a "worst case scenario" head-on, and it only confirms me in an easygoing approach.

No sooner did I recover from February's life-threatening ARDS than I found myself being recalled a couple of weeks ago about a suspicious radiologic finding. Then I was quickly worked up via diagnostic radiology and ultrasound, whose results compounded clinician suspicion. The lesion in question had four classic features of malignancy.

Yesterday's biopsy was under ideal conditions, including its being performed at a top-rated US hospital. Slides were prepared a few feet from my head, where the pathologist sat at her microscope and read them. She then delivered the good news.

Throughout the biopsy and the preceding two weeks' workup, I was serene.

1. I have enough of a medical background to know how advanced the technology is and how much of its use is justified by the need to train the personnel who use it! On the less cynical side, there's a necessarily high ratio of healthy patients who must be rendered anxious or apprehensive to those the technology really saves by finding their cancers early. So: Intellectually, I'm hip.

2. February's acute brush with death and day-to-day personal submission to Emergency and Critical medical care accustomed me to being pricked, probed, medicated, turned, transported, ventilated, and discussed by roving schools of clinicians and their acolytes, as well as nurses, aides, therapists and techs. My attitude is a paradoxic combination of exhausted "Yeah, yeah: Do what you have to do," and firm "Give it to me in straight clinical jargon; no 'lay language' for me, thanks," not to mention a very strong faith in God.

Now:
One thing I've always appreciated about Peter D'Adamo is his respect for holistic, as opposed to merely biochemical, individuality. He understands that not only diet but one's attitude toward health is unique to one's personhood. Some of us can tolerate more uncertainty, more sickness, more ignorance, than others. Some are more frightened by or intolerant of dysfunction or disability. Some are more scared of death than others are. And all of these factors must be considered when choosing a "compliance-level", because: Compliance with What? is the operative question.
Compliance with the D'Adamo books' recommendations?
Compliance with one's social situation? With one's workstyle or schedule?
Compliance with one's personal distribution of comfort zones?
I daresay the dadamo web forum community is far more concerned with dietary than these other sorts of compliance, necessarily to promulgate that aspect of the teaching. But dietary compliance as a major life preoccupation isn't for everyone or even for most, even in the wake of catastrophic illness – maybe especially under those circumstances! It's the old story of regretting not having told someone you loved him, say, as opposed to having used too much cinnamon. "Living Right" 4 one's bloodtype is not identical to living right for one's soul or spirit.

Emergency and intensive patient-hood often elicits a clearer expression of essence. There's a distillation, a purification, a consequent clarity. Nothing wrong with that. Having emerged from that crucible, the more recent "cancer scare" tested the substrate, and I'm pleased with the result.

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I get stuck in a bit of a rut and make the same dishes over and over for a while. A little change or variety can be a positive aspect in one’s outlook. The other day, dealing with a friend’s recent blindness, it seemed like a great time to change things up a little bit.

SWAMI rates red wine a neutral for me. No other alcohol is rated even that high. I rarely take any wine as a libation but it is useful for flavor in a variety of prepared foods.

While there are a wide variety of cheeses that are beneficial or neutral on my SWAMI list the suggested quantity and frequency is, for lack of a better description, on the verge of non-existent. Okay – a better description would be minimal. It’s all a state of mind. To get the maximum value from the qualities of the cheese, I choose to use it almost exclusively for cooking.

The idea this time was to create some kind of sauce that differed from the usual red sauce which I sometimes use wine in, and a basic Alfredo type of white sauce that takes advantage of my available cheese. The whole thing just came together as an experiment that worked out. Sometimes experiments are edible; sometimes they are much better than that. This time around the meal would be a salad, shrimp and some kind of sauce with rice noodles.

A large onion and a few cloves of garlic were started sautéing, and the thought of a cheese sauce that included wine magically appeared from the murky depths of what passed for thought while still concerned for my friend. Some wine was added along with what seemed to be a reasonable mix of herbs and seasonings, covered, and left to simmer. While getting the rest of the meal going some rice milk was added in about twice the amount of wine used. Eventually an egg or two was tempered in and some shredded mozzarella was melted in.

The shrimp might have gone in the salad but wound up in the mix with the sauce and noodles. Maybe it was just because it was different or maybe it was the day but the result was pretty darned good. I’ve committed the process to memory for future use and noted that chicken chunks would also work really well.

My friend dealt with the blindness well for a couple weeks, but was also deaf and dealing with other issues of age. She was a good cat.

Yesterday, I decided to make a variety of different dishes for dinner and use up some leftovers in the fridge. My son would have enough to eat with the leftover baked white potato, leftover white rice, beef, and either some raw baby carrots or a can of green beans. There was enough brown rice to reheat for myself, and neither of my daughters are likely to eat much rice anyway. Roasted sweet potatoes take over an hour to cook, but the rest of the food cooks up more quickly and needed to go into the oven later. Burgers take half an hour to bake, or I could cook the ground meat on the stovetop in about 10 minutes. Frozen broccoli only needs about 20 minutes, which is also about how long the rices and potato need for reheating. My plan was to have a whole bunch of different pans in the oven, which would then be carried a whopping 3 feet from oven to table when it was time to eat.

So, I got started cooking around 4:30, so dinner would be ready at 6:00 when Leah comes home from school. I peeled and cubed sweet potatoes and put them into a pan. Then I added olive oil, onion powder, garlic powder, sea salt, and paprika. I stirred it all together and put that in the oven. Then, at 5:20, the power suddenly went out! I knew the oven would stay hot for another 10-15 minutes or so, but also that the food wouldn’t finish cooking unless the power came back on quickly. So the sweet potatoes continued to roast while I spent 20 minutes on the phone with the power company to report the outage.

When I was done with the phone, it was 5:40 PM and the oven was “warm but not hot anymore.” I’d learned that the power wasn’t due back on until 8:00 PM, and that my dinner plans were shot. My electric oven was NOT going to be able to cook a variety of dishes! Nor could I cook anything on my electric stovetop. My Mom has a gas-powered stove in her kitchen downstairs, but she doesn’t keep kosher. Cooking my family’s meal downstairs means carrying down all my own dishes, ingredients, and cooking utensils.

I took my big frying pan and dumped in the half-roasted sweet potatoes. Then I added the ground beef to the same pan and put the lid on to make it easier to carry. In a separate pan, I put white rice, olive oil, salt, and water. I would have preferred to make a whole grain, but at this point there wasn’t enough time for brown rice to cook and my son won’t eat quinoa. Hannah helped me carry down the two pots, which I cooked on my Mom’s gas stove. I’d brought down one metal spoon to stir the contents of the frying pan. I added a little water when it was near the end of cooking. I think broth would have been even tastier, but the kosher turkey broth was a flight of stairs away.

When the food was mostly cooked, I realized I’d forgotten to prepare a green veggie for the meal! Had I been in my own kitchen, I would have added some frozen spinach or broccoli to the pan with the sweet potatoes and meat. But it was too much trouble to go upstairs with food on the stove that needed constant stirring. Nor did I want to scrounge around my Mom’s freezer, knowing she had ice cream that could melt if the freezer door was opened. Instead, I prepared a salad after the other foods were ready. We ate at my Mom’s kitchen table on paper plates with plastic forks, and used plastic spoons to serve the rice and the salad.

Leah, Hannah, and I really enjoyed this new way of preparing sweet potatoes and meat. The sweet potatoes turned into a sauce for the meat, rather than being a separate dish. Unfortunately, Jack had one taste and hated it. He’s the reason I normally make so many little dishes. Thanks to the power failure, he only had rice for dinner.

Power came back on at 7:03 PM.

The days before Passover are probably the busiest time of the year for Orthodox Jewish families. We need to clean our homes, cars, backpacks, etc. of any traces of chametz (leavened flour products.) The kitchen is the biggest part of the job. Everything is scoured, opened packages of foods are finished up or packed away, counters are covered, dishes are packed away, and special Passover utensils are unpacked. Some items can be kashered (made kosher for Passover) through the use of heat. Many families use a lot of disposables for the week. Then there’s another busy time when the holiday ends, and we need to put the kitchen back to normal.

Kashrut is even stricter this week than it is the rest of the year. Most products need special “Kosher for Passover” certification; even items that don’t require special certification during the year. Matzah is permitted, but anything else made from wheat, oats, rye, spelt, or barley is “chametz” and cannot be consumed. Ashkenazi Jews, those typically of Eastern European descent, also don’t eat legumes or rice for the week. Sephardic Jews, those of Southern European descent, don’t have that restriction, but they do have special rules about how those foods are prepared for the holiday.

A great many products are theoretically permitted for Passover use, but are not currently available with certification. This list includes ALL the sweeteners that are permitted to me. Honey and sugar are readily available for Passover, but those are both “avoids” on my food list. Agave and molasses should be acceptable for Passover, since molasses is made from sugar cane and agave is made from a desert plant. But I could find neither with Passover certification. That left me with two choices: don’t eat sweets for the holiday or compromise on compliance.

There were a few other special holiday foods that weren’t compliant. I used spelt matzah since rye matzah isn’t currently available. Charoset is a traditional food for the Passover Seder, representing the mortar the ancient Hebrews used during slavery in Egypt. Our family recipe is a mixture of apples, cinnamon, red wine, walnuts, and honey. I’m not supposed to have apples or honey. I could have substituted pears for the apples, but since I couldn’t find an alternative for the honey anyway, I went ahead with my traditional recipe and limited my own portions.

Other non-compliant goodies included marshmallows and coconut macaroons, and my 17 year old made chocolate/caramel covered matzah, chocolate muffins, and almond macaroons. The homemade treats were compliant except for the sugar, and fully compliant for the kids. I had a small taste of each treat but mostly eliminated all added sugars from my diet for the week. I also made almond milk for the week and had it in my daily yerba mate/cocoa beverage. My family doesn’t use rice on Passover, since we’re Ashkenazi. Without being able to use rice milk or molasses in my tea, I felt the need to add something to make my tea tastier. Since almonds are neutral for me, I figured that the damage from almond milk must be subtle, and felt it was a reasonable compromise for one week out of the year.

I ate far too much sugar the last few days of the holiday. That resulted, as usual, in eating too much food overall and never really feeling satisfied. But I did eat plenty of vegetables and meats, and managed to take a walk almost every day of the holiday. I’ve been eating clean since right after lunch the last day of the holiday, so nearly 2 full days now. Between the “less than perfect” diet and the late hours we were keeping, I got quite irritable and sore. I wasn’t in a full fibro-flare, but I didn’t feel particularly well either. I’m getting myself back on track now, and I hope to do better next Passover.

If you think this blog is about rationed health care, you are wrong. We already have rationed health care. If you need a heart, kidney or liver transplant, you go on a national waiting list. When an organ becomes available, there is a group that evaluates the people on the list and determines who gets the transplant.

Insurance companies do their own version of health care rationing. I spoke to a friend yesterday who has rheumatoid arthritis. She periodically needs a treatment that costs several thousand dollars. Each time her doctor must submit an application to the insurance company who decides whether she gets the treatment or not. The same application process requires to many medical tests, including PET scans that look for cancer metastasis.

As health care becomes more nationalized, such boards will become more centralized and more powerful. You may not like the term death panels (Obamacare calls them Independent Payment Advisory Board) but this is how a proponent of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act describes them:

The term refers to any of the multitude of expert commissions whose charge will be to dispassionately examine the scientific evidence in order to determine which patients will get what, when and how. These bodies, in fact, will be explicitly aiming to optimize the medical outcomes of the entire population titrated to the amount of money we’re allowed to spend on healthcare.

Sounds to me like somebody besides me and my doctor will be deciding whether I get treatment. But none of that is what this blog is about.

This blog is about the new USDA MyPlate for Better Nutrition.

I ordered supplements a few days ago from the Vitamin Shoppe, and when my order arrived, it included a flyer that tells me, “The US Government did away with the archaic and impractical food pyramid and implemented a more useful MyPlate icon to guide Americans toward consuming a balanced diet.”

The problem with this new guide is that if a Type O followed it, they would face weight gain, higher cholesterol, stomach inflammation, and joint issues.

I went on the USDA MyPlate Website put my age, height, weight, and physical activity level into the daily food plan guide. It tells me that every day I need to eat:
6 ounces of grain
2.5 cups of vegetables
2 cups of fruit
3 cups of dairy
5.5 ounces of protein

More grain than protein?!?
More dairy than vegetables?!?
What are they thinking?!?

I am not a conspiracy theorist – not by a long shot.
The title of this blog was more to get you to read it and think than to make a statement about the motives of government agencies.

However, this new plan makes me all the more thankful for the Blood Type Diet and for Dr. D who developed it. Perhaps if I ignore the USDA plan and eat Right for My Type, I will dodge the more insidious rationing panels as I get older.