I really did not want to write an article about covid. The simple act of reading the word for a lot of people piles on anxiety and contributes to a disruption in mental health. The media has never talked about another issue as much as it has with this one; it is ultra-saturation overboard and I did not want to contribute to any of that. Most of the articles that are scrolled across are full of panic, fear, death, OCD-handwashing, isolationism, potential poverty, job loss, economic collapse, and political fights. It is no wonder that people are stressed out and on high alert, living around the clock in fight-or-flight mode. Something as simple and seemingly benign as a trip to the grocery store has people behaving as if every other human being is a threat to their life - strangers hiding behind masks, gloved up, and eyeing each other suspiciously or not at all.
As the weeks and months have crawled on at a snail's pace, we have thankfully been able to gather quite a bit of data regarding many things surrounding this issue to understand it a bit better.
I have recently come across some information that may be initially a little scary for some of you, but I intend to give you a workaround and provide you with some hope.
Here's the thing, lovelies - we're not afraid of a regular virus. We're not afraid of the flu, we're not afraid of a cold.
We are, however, afraid of a virus that we think is going to kill us haphazardly. We don't want to die. We don't want our loved ones to die. We don't want to be a statistic. We don't like the thought that just going to the grocery store could end our lives. Many are paralyzed with fear that they could be carriers and kill of their parents, their children, and all the old people in the grocery store, out on the streets going for a walk, and all of our neighbors. What seems like a random chance of a very unpleasant death alone in a hospital bed is a nightmare that none of us want to participate in. Nobody wants to play Russian roulette with this. This is understandable. But what if it's not exactly that way? We have read the numbers about how it significantly affects the elderly population more strongly than the youth. This is still not a relief, of course, but with this we are able to see a pattern. New information is coming out that is showing an overwhelming and shocking link to the severity of covid with several underlying comorbidities.
Data from the first 2204 patients admitted to the National Health Service in Europe revealed that 72.7% were overweight or obese. That is an incredible number! This number speaks only of obesity, and not even of age. (Please note that this number is the percentage of those who were admitted to the hospital, and not of those who died.)
Those with type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome have a ten times greater risk of death than those who are metabolically healthy.
Because this virus strongly affects lung function, it is no surprise that a study from China found that smokers were fourteen times more likely to get severe disease than non-smokers. Other staggering comorbidities reflected that hypertension (high blood pressure) was a prevalent partner in those who were dying from the novel coronavirus.
With only 12.2% of Americans metabolically healthy, how could this ever be hopeful? It is hopeful because of something called nutrigenomics. Nutrigenomics is the study of how our genetic expression is affected by the food we eat and how the food we eat affects our genetic expression. This branch of science, biology, and medicine offers a tremendous amount of hope to all of us, but especially to those who are living in fear of death by "the rona". Here's the deal. Food is the language of our cells. Every single bite is information to our bodies. Every single bite delivers information that turns on or turns off genetic expression. Maybe you are among those who are suffering from type 2 diabetes or obesity - right now, your body has those switches flipped on. But it doesn't have to stay that way! When we think of making a difference in our bodies by changing our diets, many of us think that it takes months or years of nonstop suffering and kale to see effects. We think with targets out that far away, it's not even worth it - there's no hope. It will take too long and it will cost us too much joy. Weight loss may be something that does take a while, especially if you don't have a lot of testosterone and if you are over 40. But weight loss is not the same as genetic expression. All of this means that you can do something about it. It means that you can drastically cut (or increase) your risk of death by the novel coronavirus. It is not an unknown monster hiding in the closet. It is not Russian roulette. You have access to actions that can decrease or increase your risk of death. Every single bite you take makes a difference. Every. Single. Bite. Within two weeks, your body will begin reflecting significant change in genetic expression. You may not see that in weight loss and you may not see instant toned abs and a six-pack, but at a level that you cannot see, change is happening and it is drastic. Type 2 diabetes and obesity can be changed drastically with diet. It is a wonderful, glorious, and hopeful fact! It is not easy and there is no magic pill to take, but it will bring results that you will be thankful for. If you find yourself in this position and you want to make change, I urge you to do a few things that will significantly affect your genetic expression, pushing you farther and farther away from risk in each bite that you take. 1. Only eat real food.
This sounds dumb, but most food in the grocery store isn't real food. I mean that you should be eating only fruits, vegetables, meats/fish/poultry, and very minimally processed dairy. You should not be eating food that comes out of a box. You should not eat foods that have bright colors. Eat food that grew on trees, grew out of the ground, walked on the ground, swam in the water, and is recognized in nature. Cereal is not real food. Tortilla chips are not real food. Granola bars are not real food. At least, none of those are real food for this purpose. Eat only real food that you put together to make other food, not food that a factory made for you. Yeah, I know. I lost you when I spoke disparagingly about tortilla chips, but since this is a life or death kind of thing, I'm going to tell it to you straight because you need to hear it and because you really can change your life. 2. Avoid sugar and carbs like the plague. You already know this, especially if you have diabetes - sugar cranks up your levels like crazy and makes you get into a downward spiral for insulin sensitivity. That's the problem and that pushes you deeper into metabolic syndrome, type two diabetes, and obesity.
The other thing is that sugar destroys the good guys in your immune system and paralyzes them. That's the last thing you need when there is a psycho virus on the loose. This includes liquid sugar (which is the absolute worst of all) - soda, juice, energy drinks, and coffee drinks that pretend to be coffee but are actually just dessert. It includes cookies, cakes, pies, candy, ice cream, and every single thing that you love. (I know. I'm just going for it all today, aren't I? Sorry, not sorry. I will risk hurting your feelings if it will save your life.)
Bread? Nope. Not right now. Not for you. Pasta? Sorry, it's not on your team, either. I wish they were. I get it, I really do. If you don't hate me yet, I'll get you with this - alcohol. You probably should significantly limit that, also. 3. If you have type 2 diabetes, you should consider looking into intermittent fasting. That looks like eating within an 8 hour window in a day. This helps regulate insulin levels significantly. Here are some things that you should be doing: 1. If you're not taking zinc, you're out of your mind and you need to get on that immediately. Research is coming out solidly showing how zinc works with your immune system to fight covid before it can even get in and cause damage. 2. Drink your water. Hydration is huge for helping your body work optimally. 3. Get outside and get vitamin D on your skin. This is huge for fighting this virus. 4. Exercise at least 150 minutes a week. Go. This is not for vanity anymore. This is to save your life.
5. Take and eat probiotics. This includes naturally fermented foods like brined sauerkraut, kimchi, kombucha, kefir, miso, tempeh. You can also take it in supplement form. These not only help digestion and weight loss, they boost your immune system.
I know that many of these things are hard. I know that reading through this might feel like I am a huge jerk who is raining on every fun party that ever existed in the history of the world. I understand why you would think that - these changes are difficult! Not drinking wine and whiskey while simultaneously having to suddenly homeschool your children is for some a rather monumental task.
But lovelies, difficult is not impossible. You can do this. And with the risk that is out there, you owe it to yourself and to your family to have a fighting chance and to get yourself out of those categories that push you much closer to death. Feeling out of control and hopeless is a very disturbing place to be. Certainly life comes with wild things and we cannot control everything, but with what we know and understand of this virus, there are some helpful things that can be done to mitigate significant risk. Let us not panic. Take charge and do something about it. If you are concerned with the death rate, begin taking action that will separate you from being a person of high risk. Do hard things. We're in this together and I'm cheering for your success. You've got this, Ms. Daisy
Have you been just laaaaaanguishing wondering about how you could become more "cultured"? I know. I totally knew you were, and I am here to help. You've probably just been sitting around your house, sighing, wishing someone (FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD) would just tell you the lifelong and nagging question: What is Ms. Daisy's jam?
Now, I can only answer you for my current jam, which by current, I mean, it could change by next week, but for the last (at least) two weeks, it has pretty much been on nonstop repeat. This is the song I drive to, run to, and dance around the house to, so you pretty much want to go right now over to your itunes or amazon account and download it and do the same thing. You're welcome. It's called Insomniac by Trip Lee (featuring Andy Mineo). Listen here:
Okay, so was I right, OR WHAT?! Isn't that the best song, like everrr? Now, I can not recommend the spelling and lexicon of the person who wrote up the lyrics on there, but who cares, the song is still just that awesome.
Now, you've got the music side of your brain taken care of, but you're missing art! I love art. I love going to the Detroit Institute of Arts and walking around the galleries. If I didn't have littles with me and the need to run out every two hours to feed the parking meter all of the quarters I've ever owned in my life, I could stay in there all day. I am drawn to European art, especially Impressionism (but I do have a special place in my heart for art of the Renaissance and Baroque eras - oh, and cubism.). Mary Cassatt, Picasso, Monet, Manet, van Gogh, Renoir - I could spend half of a day just in that section. Outside of European art, my favorite thing in the whole DIA is Diego Rivera's gallery room of murals - top to bottom, telling crazy stories about this world with so overwhelmingly much stuff to look at, your brain and heart go crazy at the same time. And if you are there when the sun is shining, it's like a trifecta of joy.
There is one, however, who stands out to me strongly and has some strange emotional pull behind his work. When I was walking up and down the galleries one day, I happened upon his work and it was like something inside the painting pulled me over to it. It was okay to stare, which is good, because I couldn't stop doing so. I was like a gawker in a five car wreck on the expressway. I thought, "I should go look around at what else is here now since I am staring like a dazed weirdo..." and then I didn't. I kept staring. She was staring back at me, though, and I'm sure she was trying to tell me something (I don't know what it was), so I just kept staring. I tore myself away (finally) and looked around the room, but before I left it, I had to go back over again and stare some more. Who on earth is that artist, anyway? I had to know.
It was Modigliani. If you've seen a Modigliani, you will know instantly when you see another one. His art has strong characteristics that he repeats in all of his portraits. The heads are elongated ovals, they are almost always a bit cocked to the side. The necks are long, shoulders sloping. The faces carry subtle expressions. But they are haunting, in a lovely way, if that can ever be said. They are simple and strange and wonderful. (He had a unique set of eyeballs in that head of his, if you ever see a picture of his girlfriend you'll know what I mean. She looks like she was straight out of The Munster's.)
I am not an artist, but I pretend to be one on tv, so I painted my own painting in the style of Modigliani just for all a-ya'll. I know, try not to ask for my autograph all at the same time. Okay, okay, you can. Go ahead. I mean, maybe you've already seen my awesome drawings in previous posts? I just got this new paint app on my tablet and I've been playing with it. So, here is my awesome (toddleresque) rendition of my own sort of Modigliani for your viewing pleasure to round out your culture lesson for the day.
Wow. See. Did I tell you or what? Amazing? Huh? Huh? Yeah, I know, thanks. Try not to cheer aloud at your desk while you're supposed to be working, people will get suspicious.
Until next time, my dears.
Peace, love, and dance around the kitchen, Ms. Daisy
p.s. If you want to read up on Modigliani (here: part 1 and part 2) I wrote a post on a biography of him over on my reading club page.
Hey peeps! So, you made it one week (maybe). Did you make it? Tell me f'realies how it's going. Is it easy? Impossible? Sometimes you forget? Tell me! When I gave up my microwave, I was terrified that somehow I would fail or starve or something (actually, I don't know what, but I knew that I depended on it somehow...or I thought I did). I wanted to distance myself from it without jumping off of the cliff straightaway, so I put it in the basement. For about 6 months. Do you know what happened when I put it into the basement? I stopped using it. Just like that. It wasn't convenient to me, and I was purposing to live without it - and I did. And it was no big deal. It was like switching to homemade deodorant. At first you think, "OH MY GAWSH, that is NOT EVEN POSSIBLE!" and then you do it and you wonder what your problem was. (It's the matrix if you're wondering.) If you're having a hard time, but think you are able to do it and your microwave is on the counter, put it in the basement/garage/pole barn/shed/chicken coop (?!) and you'll realize two things. One, you have more counter space and two, you can do this. Don't really put it in your chicken coop, we don't want them climbing in and laying eggs in the radiation box... And then that was it. It was over. I didn't need it anymore. I lived without it just fine. Now I wonder why I used it in the first place. If your microwave is mounted under a counter above your stove, well...can you unplug it? I wouldn't want you to cook and have that thing on shooting your brain with cancer bullets. (If it were me, I'd unscrew it and sell it on craigslist, but hey.) I haven't had a microwave in the house for about two years. At first I was the only one on this bus in my house, the hubby wanted to warm up his coffee in it and would occasionally go down and nuke it. I would ask for his coffee when it got cold and heated it up in a pot for him and he liked that just fine. It slowly transitioned over where he didn't want to use it either. He rated it a 5/10 difficulty at first for stopping the use of it and now he wouldn't use it at all. What's the point? If we can do it without much consternation, I think you can too.
Let me know how you're doing! If you have questions or need a mini Ms. Daisy on your shoulder, just ask! (justonethingchallenge {at} gmail.com) Peace, love and you can do eeet, Ms. Daisy
Think of the worst thing you could possibly have to do. Shovel dog doo-doo? Squirt dog doo-doo with a hose because it is a cowpie? Do a 1,000 piece puzzle? No, worse, worse, and worse. Go deep. Dig. I mean something along the lines of waterboarding. What could be worse than this? Let me tell you exactly what is worse than this. Having to make a toothpick bridge with Elmers glue for a child's project. So apparently I got an email about a month ago informing me that my offspring ought to be just chugging right along on their toothpick bridge project (a what?!), so I said, great. That sounds horrible. I'm glad I don't have to do it! I received a follow-up email that said hopefully the said offspring is near completed with said project (last night - since it's due in 2 days). Panic begins as I ask offspring what the deal is and how it's coming along. Panic increases towards hyperventilation as offspring procures a ziplock bag of 2 boxes of 750 flat toothpicks and a bottle of Elmers. There is nothing done. There are no plans. This is where you make the choice. The choice to allow your child to fall flat on their face and fail (especially since this offspring couldn't fine motor their way out of a paper bag) or where you veer off into Neverneverland as you hear phrases come out of your mouth that you have a vague recollection of hearing before somewhere in your childhood in the form of something sounding like the voice of your mother/father. This is where arm-flailing becomes a sport and sighing it's cheerleading companion, where mumbling and raking your hands through your hair is no longer dramatic, but seems the only way you could survive such a horrid ordeal. This is where you picture the teacher laughing as they assigned this sick torture and your blood begins to surge into your temples because all you want to do is put up your freakin Christmas tree and instead you have to deal with glue and toothpicks. But you are a teacher, too, and no assignment will ever be willingly overlooked, so it's time to jump in, both feet. This is the point at which I decide there must be an easier way. There must be weird sickos out there who like this sort of torture (architects, engineers, etc.), and who are they and how can I bribe them to do this for me? Let's go easiest first: ebay. Does anyone have these things for sale? Crap! Why not?!!! Let me just tell you - if you are one of those weird sickos, PUT THOSE THINGS ON EBAY!! YOU COULD BE A BAZILLIONAIRE!!! Just give me a cut for thinking of a business for you, 10% will be just fine, thank you. Secondly, my next thought brought me to this: I live not very far from a world-class university with a fantastic engineering program, perhaps I could get one of those smart (and yet, crazy) people to do this for me. They are in college, thus, they are poor! I could pay them with food, laundry washing and money. But I don't know any of them. I did go on their college of engineering website in hopes they might just randomly list some really A+ students who didn't have a life on a Sunday night (unless you count Warcraft as a fun thing to do with your time). This also fell through. So, I am not an engineer. I am more of the Spanish/English teacher type, actually, and that has pretty much nothing to do with engineering. I obviously did what I figured was the best plan on bridgemaking: line up a whole bunch of toothpicks in a row and pour 1/3 of the bottle of glue on top of it. My first plan was to just dump the entire box of 750 in a plastic bin and empty the glue entirely on top of it and use a hairdryer to make it dry quickly, but my hubby said no, I could not do that. I am pretty sure that is the fastest way to build a bridge, though, and surely that must count for something. I had a kickin' row going on and my hubby and I were convinced by all these pictures on the internet that we had to make it go "upward" too, not just be a flat bottom thing. So we made triangles (that's what the cool people did) and glued them together and attached them to the bottom bridge thingie with things that look like piles of kindling wood in a huge lump. I am pretty sure this is the best way to do it. However, we still felt that this was a little embarassing and disasterous and getting more drastic every second we tried a new idea on it, so I did the only logical thing: Text my brother and father (both engineers/retired) with this message, "engineering emergency 911 - this is supposed to be a bridge" and a picture of the fantastic thing we made. They were not able to help, probably because they were too busy cracking up. I would like to say to the teacher, "Do you hate me and my life?" No, no, better: "Why do you hate me and my family?" I got to thinking about all of this torture and punishment and thought about how such a hideous idea could be put to good use. Aha! Prison reform! In order to stop the common problem of inmates being released only to be sent back to prison after a very short while, we approach them with this: you come back to jail any time soon, you have to make a freakin toothpick bridge using those and just Elmer's glue and it has to hold your weight or you can't leave. No TV, no movies, no nothin' - just you and your sticky fingers and the toothpicks that you will soon poke into your eyeballs out of sheer frustration and horror. No talking, no free time, no internet and no, you can't decorate your Christmas tree until you're finished. Wanna come back and start your project? I didn't think so. Now stop being a criminal, OR ELSE! Seriously, ya'll should'a voted me for president. Obviously. UPDATE! So I was working on this post last night and today was the bridge competition. I got to go into the class while the torture, er, I mean, bridge weight testing was going on. I walked into a classroom filled with things that were stinkin' replicas of DNA spirals and the most complicated and amazingly artistic bridges I've ever seen. It would have been devastatingly sinful to break these things! Then, it was our turn. I kept my eyes low as everyone nearly gasped in horror at the sight of it. They weighed the bridge first and well...it weighed more than twice as much as the next heaviest bridge. That might have been because everyone else was using airy, creative and mathematical maneuvers and I was using the technique called stack the toothpicks and pour on 70% of the glue in the entire bottle. She put the pencil through with some yarn hanging down and looked at it dubiously. I cringed. She hung a water bottle on it. I thought, "Here we go, kiss it goodbye, child!" And it stood. She added another. And another. And another. And another. The paperclip was breaking from holding the water bottles. She hung a bag in a container of marbles from it. She traded out the water bottles and got a gallon jug of water. It still was fine! At this point, the hilarity of this entire situation was bathing over me and I would have flown my husband to the location to experience it because it was so insane. She re-hung the individual water bottles on it and it stood. There were cheers. I stared in utter disbelief. Then she ran out of weights. Our stupid and hideous monster withstood all of the weights. She told my offspring that they ought to bring it home. This horrendous and grotesque creation won an award! (We disqualified because the offspring forgot to tell us it had to have "legs".) Yes, the others looked like ballerinas while ours looked like a fat, squatty, obese tank, but it worked. Poetic justice for the English teacher. Win. And yes, the keyboard is still mightier than the toothpick bridge. Er, sword. Or that was a pen. Oh, never mind. Peace, love and use more glue, Ms. Daisy
