How to Increase Your Covid Risk of Death Tenfold

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

Locker Defense and New Year's Resolutionists

This morning was the first time this year I had to defend my locker space at the gym, but I was prepared.  It happened a few weeks ago for about 6 out of ten days.  I came back from the pool intending to stash my wet swim bag and water bottle in the top locker to find that someone had put a lock on it.

THE HORROR!

Initially, I thought, "Surely this will not happen again.  Who would want to stand in the same square footage as another person coming straight from the showers?"  Alas, I was mistaken.  Someone apparently did really want to stand on the same 1x1 foot square of ground as my very freshly showered self.  It happened again, and then again, and again.  I was significantly perplexed and disturbed as all of the other lockers in the section were empty and had no locks, and yet this person chose to select the locker that was directly above mine - the one I've been using for nine years almost every weekday. 

**Side note**
People who wake up at 4:50 a.m. to jump into a cold pool to swim for an hour to start the day and use the same locker for nine years in a row aren't usually people who are generally characterized as those who are laid back and go with the flow.

Obviously, I considered buying another lock and locking the top and bottom locker, but then I decided that probably wasn't necessary, and I could just spread out a bunch of random weird things in there that nobody else in their right mind would want to touch instead and solve the problem just the same.  Since that day, I've tossed in an empty bag, shampoo, a towel to save the spot while I was swimming and today it paid off.

Today, I returned from swimming and the brass lock adorned the neighboring top locker.  SAFE!  WINNING!

(Although, still perplexed.  Why do you insist on being this close to me?  All of the other lockers are available.  Personal. Space. Please.  Thank you.)

Although moderately disturbing, this is not something that is new to the landscape of January at the gym.  It is a magical thing that happens.  In the last few weeks of December at the gym, the parking lot in the morning looks like a barren wasteland.  You could do your entire workout plus cartwheels up and down the parking lot without any concern of being run over or killed.  You could mimic the entire movie of The Sound of Music (complete with all dancing scenes) without bumping into a car. 

And then it happens.  The magical fairy dust of the calendar flips and the first working Monday in January bestows all gyms everywhere with plethoras of swarming humans in the exact places you have been for approximately the last 3,287 days.  You turn the corner into the parking lot at exactly 5:19 a.m. (and 20 seconds) and make the same left and right turns as you have done for forever (so much so that you can do it in your sleep - and half the time you actually are still asleep), and then gasp in abject horror when you see that a non-authorized vehicle has taken your spot.  Your spot - one row back and two places over from the lightpost - is being violated by a random car that you've never seen before.  You close your eyes and breathe, reminding yourself it is too early to commit crimes.  You see all of your friend's cars and they are all out of sorts also, scooched around like this is some kind of sick survival game.

But you are a survivor and you know what you must do - you must summon enough tenacity to bravely face what is ahead of you: the Return of the Resolutionists.

You sling your backpack off to one shoulder to beep yourself into the gym, saying hello to the front desk person who knows you by name.  The man who walks toward you with his towel on his left shoulder on his way up the stairs to walk the track at exactly the same time every morning nods in your direction and you nod back.  You glance at the elliptical machines and every single one of them is whirring as if we're trying to power the entire midwest from the output, and make your sharp left turn toward the locker rooms.  You swing the door open and take the thirteen steps to your locker.

FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD.

There is a lock there.  There are a bunch of strangers spread out everywhere and you're trying to smile in a friendly way, but you have to squeeze past them, and you're really just trying not to cry from having to think about what to do next because you are not programmed to do so this early in the morning. 

You pull your coat and clothes off, grab your towel, swim bag, water, and conditioner, and lock up.  You stand in the same place you do every single morning at 5:27, holding up the wall and saying good morning to your fellow teammates.  They all are standing in the same place as they always do and arrive in the same order that they do every day.  There are more people here today, though, and they are punctuating the open spaces that are there every other day of the year.  The aquatics manager appears at the end of the hallway and all of us move in a Pavlovian manner to bend down and grab our swim bags.  She arrives with the holy grail at 5:29 and 40 seconds - the key to let us in. 

You enter the natatorium and grab a kickboard and hop up onto the bulkhead to walk to your lane.  And then the worst thing in the whole world happens - someone else that you don't know is standing in front of lane 4.  Half of your soul dies immediately on the spot.  You consider leaving, but remember that perseverance only comes through difficulty.

All swimmers know that we swim in assigned lanes.  You have a primary lane and a secondary lane.  You would never swim in anything but those.  You would never swim with people you don't swim with because you know exactly how the people you swim with swim. You know when they will turn, where they will push off the wall and how far over you need to be to not have a head on collision, and who is most likely to take out the back of your hand with a paddle on a long set, or swipe your butt on backstroke, and who you will 100% of the time one-arm duck under on a returning fly so you don't die.  You know exactly what to do if they might lap you - you've choreographed it every day for years (Is it a wall pause with a foot grab or will you split until they pass?  Will they pass you on the left or will you flip turn and go under them?  And it will change if one of you is swimming stroke, so you know that, too.).  You know who will split and who will circle.  You know the pecking order and how to adjust for pulling and IM and a sprint set.  You know the hundreds of nuances of swim etiquette and who leaves 3 seconds early instead of 5. 

As a result of the invader, everyone is bumped around and the Not Very Laid Back people are pretending we can be flexible, but now we don't even know how to swim anymore and are considering giving up on life in general or starting a war in the middle of lane 5. Two of the very vocal people are making statements aloud that you only barely thought of in your head. 

Somehow - thankfully - we survive the day.  And the week.  Barely.  But not without deep trauma.

Soon enough, equilibrium will return.  Until it happens again next year.

Peace, love, and chlorine,
Ms. Daisy

expectation is the mother of disappointment

I don't know if that is a quote that Socrates already claimed, but over the last week or so, that thought grew and bloomed into what I am guessing is going to be some kind of vital pithy saying that I'll throw out there every once in a while (mostly for myself, but for days that I am waxing eloquent it could also be shared with those feeling like a bag of crap - pardon me while I pat you on the back with this broom).

Quite frankly, I don't suppose it is something very comforting.  It basically blames that disappointed person when they already feel quite terrible already.  I do not like this aspect, but I think if you can walk around that to the other side and examine this under logic, you can hold it to prevent at least some future disappointments.

If you think about it, when you have no expectations, you really won't be disappointed in what comes out of life.  If you can perceive it in this way, you can almost be an amused bystander as things happen to and around you.

I am generally an optimist.  I do not find any joy or use in approaching life with a dark curtain pulled over it.  I don't see this as helpful, except in rare instances that feel like they will upset the very balance of my entire being, and in that case, I will purposely imagine the absolute worst possible scenario so that whatever does happen, it is sure to either meet or exceed my expectations in a good way.

What I am about to suggest to you is going to sound depressing, but I can assure you that if you take a good look at this, it actually yields pleasant results.


Here is a dreadful example from my own very exciting life.

A couple months ago, I was preparing for a speaking engagement. I had been doing some over the winter with good success - I was meeting a lot of people I didn't know and getting great feedback.  I went to a new venue and had to do my own marketing and promotion (gah, horrible). 

I figured I could pull in maybe like half a million tremendously interested people who would be basically shoving each other out of the way and risking being trampled like it was Black Friday at Best Buy.  I imagined my books selling out and basically becoming a millionaire while famous people asked me if I'd like to sign up for either becoming the next greatest comedian or someone who should have an honorary doctorate at Harvard for my groundbreaking presentation skills and information.

The day was going to be great.  I had my outfit picked out, my sister and friend were going to help me with admission and book sales, and I was looking forward to being able to hold a microphone (BECAUSE I LOVE MICROPHONES).  Early in the morning, a friend told me he couldn't make it.  Sometime in the afternoon, I got a text from a friend saying that she couldn't make it that night.  A half hour later, I got another text from another friend saying the same thing, but for a different reason.  An hour later, I got another text with the same message.  After person number 6 or so, I still had a very optimistic outlook.  It was fine - they have things going on or they are not well, it will work out, plenty of other people will still come and it will be fantastic.

I mean, facebook said it would.  Just LOOK at all of those people who say they're coming!  It will be great.

We scurried around and set up the room and the tables and the projector and my laptop and the microphone, the books were set up, the clipboard with the names of people who were coming were on it, ready to be checked off.

Although there were hardly any people there, I figured they must be coming later.  They're just late, lots of people are late all the time.  I'll start anyway because I said I would start at 7:00 and I will.  I walked to the front of the room and looked out at the audience.

Terrible news and spoiler: I was not about to become wildly rich and famous this night.

This was when it hit me.  In this audience were a pile of people related to me (thank you), a few people who must have just felt sorry for me but wanted to support me, and a very small handful of others.

This is it?  This is it!  Oh holy crap.  So, I put in all of this work for nothing?  I'm not even going to have enough money to cover the cost of this room.  This is unbelievable! 

 And then, the blind rage and insatiable fury welled up inside from the depths of my soul and I could barely see straight.  I am not sure because I have blocked it from conscious memory, but I think the only reason I got through the first fifteen minutes of that presentation was because I was reading slides like some sort of  unsocialized seventh grader who had to do the first public speaking presentation of her life but who really preferred to spend most of her time hiding in books or under tables or perhaps, more suitably, rocks.

Now, I don't know about you, but what made this exceptionally worse was that this failure got to be full blown in front of my family, who now would be permanently scarred with the embarrassment of having to be related to me FOREVER MORE, who really must be dying to sneak out to the bathroom in a nonchalant manner, but then just run full speed out to their cars, drive to the nearest bar, and get black out drunk at the thought that this was a branch on their own genetic chain and there was nothing that they could do about it except conveniently forget to invite me to the next family reunion and sharpie my face out of every picture ever taken with them.

After the first fifteen minutes, when I had begun to accept my distressing and unpleasant fate, I began talking to myself instead of listening to myself. 

Now you listen here, missy.  You stop this nonsense right now.  Suck it up, buttercup.  I don't want you to express one more second or iota of this blind rage out of your face that you are experiencing because even though apparently tonight you are not going to become wildly and insanely famous, there are still people in this audience who deserve for you to take a cliff dive out of your own head and give them the information that you promised, and without the boiling ears and the facial expressions that are basically plain as day written on your face that you are going to go on a psychotic spree immediately at the conclusion of this presentation.  Whether you like it or not, you are going to stand up here for the next 45 minutes, and even though you would like to throw the microphone across the room and go bananas, that is not going to happen.  There must be ways that you could prevent this from happening again, so you will fix this later, but for now, rub some dirt on it and do this.

While this was undoubtedly the worst presentation I have ever done in the history of my life, I did learn some things from it and was reminded of other things I knew before, namely that:

1.  You can't take anything personally - you have to have thick skin for being in front of people and if you want to achieve anything of any worth at all.

2.  People flake.  If you've done direct sales, you live with this on a daily basis.  Expect it, it's not personal.

3.  Asking people to pre-register is a better idea than crossing my fingers and hoping people will show up.

4.  Being a wildly successful and famous person takes more than five minutes of effort.  Unless you're that kid yodeling in Walmart.

5.  Remember why you're doing what you're doing.  I got into health coaching and writing because I wanted to help people.  I really wanted to be able to help them change their lives.  I was tired of seeing people suffering from preventable issues and not getting answers or feeling that they are heard regarding their chronic health issues and lack of energy and brain fog from who they were dealing with in the medical community.

6. Some people have really good advice, even when you don't want to hear it.

It took the gentle words of dear people to help me to be able to pick this up and look at it again without wanting to scream, and without feeling judged as a complete and utter failure in all aspects of life to walk through this and try to make change for the next time around.

The next speaking engagement I did was wonderful and vividly reminded me of why I do what I do.  I walked in without expectations, telling myself that the people who would show up that night are the ones who were meant to be there - whether there were 3 people or 300, they were the ones who were supposed to be in my circle that day.  They were supportive of each other, asking questions and helping each other.  We made connections and laughed and learned from each other.  I walked in thinking that I am here to help, and I will help in every way that I can.  I walked out having connected with many other people, making new friends, and with opportunities to expand my business and to genuinely help other people.

Oh.  Yeah.  How about that.

Our lives are saturated with things that we might not prefer, but if we can back up, there is space to look at things through a different perspective.  Although my situation is embarrassing and makes me want to erase it from the hard drive of my memory, I shouldn't - it is a place for me to learn something.  I hope that it could be used to help others to learn the lesson without having to go through it. 

We are not alone in our disappointments.  They fill our days.  People will fail you and not be who you want them to be.  You will find yourself in places you wish you could rewind and do over again.  In this, I've been thinking about a very well-known passage in the letter that the apostle Paul wrote to the church in Corinth - you've likely heard it, it's about love.  It says that you can do all of these heroic deeds, like letting yourself be burned as a martyr, to selling every last possession you have and basically living like a monk in a hair shirt, but if you don't have love, you're nothing.  You've basically wasted all of your efforts.  You could be the most amazing understanding genius and be a person who possesses all faith, but you will gain nothing.  It goes on to say that love endures all things and love bears all things. 

Here it is directly:  

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.  Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.  Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

So let me encourage you to bear all things and endure all things.  When people are idiots, you can bear all things through love.  When you wish you could sell them down the river, love endures all things.  When your life is so stupid and you would like a reset button, endure all things.  When things are not going the way that you had hoped and are so far from the things you wish for, bear all things.  These things have been done for you already.  You have been the idiot.  You have been the one who should be on a raft floating down the river. 

I mean, good thing you aren't right NOW, I mean, that was before.  We are clearly fixed of all idiocy at present.

(Literally just wait five minutes and I'll have another story on tap.  Don't you worry.)

Peace, love, and endurance,
Ms. Daisy

on volatile dehumanization

We stand at the junction of two paths.  Floods of people are going to the left, floods are pouring off to the right.  They are convinced they are going the right way.

They try to prove how right they are and they start by yelling at the other side, telling them how stupid they are.  This (remarkably) doesn't seem to convince them, so they dehumanize them, writing them off as less than human (maybe like 3/5?) and suggesting that they are a scourge on humanity and need to be disposed of.

Then strangely - I'm sure it's not at all connected - there is an uprising of violence.  This isn't a time to connect and see why or what caused it, it is a time to shift more blame, stand taller on the soapbox, and to yell louder.  This is advanced and successful communication.

The horrors of the past are filed under the fact that those old timers were ignorant.  They were slave traders, not seeing others as human.  They were greedy little pigs, seeking gain for themselves, running others over, letting nothing get in their path.   They were awful in their push for more land, dehumanizing the native people, raking them over the coals into a trail of tears.   They were influenced by old ideals and they do not resonate with us.

But we are faced with it now - it's not just relegated to our history.  It's here, saturated in lust as people are bought through the sex trade and human trafficking.  It is saturated in a hunger for power and land conquest.  (Does this story seem new to you?)

The ship is sinking and we're arguing about the curtains.

Do you remember how to have a conversation?  Do you remember how to listen?  Do you remember how to disagree without hate?  Can you keep your passion without losing your mind?  Can you hold an idea in your hand and turn it over intelligently?  Can you respectfully return it?  Can you use social media and remember that there are humans on the other side of your flippant words?

The people on the "other side" are people.  When you treat them otherwise, you are the slave trader, you are the one standing behind the Cherokee mother, swaddling her baby, poking her to keep moving west, you are the one buying a half hour with someone's daughter, chained to the bed.  

Every atrocity could only be committed because the psychology allowed for another group to be seen as less than human, as idiots, as maniacs, as ones to be subdued, as worthless, as a waste of space, as disposable trash.

You stand on the dark side of history when you participate this way.

You were made with intelligence.  You were made with compassion.  You were made for connection.  You were made to use your talents to love and serve others, not to amass a tiny, temporal kingdom. 

It does not mean that you must bow out of the conversation.  You have a voice that ought to be heard.  In order to hear, you really ought to listen.  

Every idea that isn't yours isn't a personal attack.  

Every belief someone holds that isn't reflective of your own is not a pointed insult.

There is so much poison out there.  You can drink it.  You can make more of it.  You can spray it all over your house, your land, your children, and bathe in it.

Or you can retain your intelligence with magnanimous poise and nobility, genuinely listening and seeking to understand.  

You will be written into the tapestry of our history for future generations.  Which side will you be standing on?

Peace, love, and get it together,

Ms. Daisy

Coconut Elvis Granola and Evil Canola Oil

You may already know this, but I am not a superfan of cereal.  Most of the time I feel like it is a little bit of a worthless thing, but that is because it is mainly marketed as something you eat for breakfast and it is (usually) loaded with sugar.  I am a strong advocate for eating something savory in the morning (after your 16 ounces of water, obviously) as it sets the tone for your palate for the rest of the day.

But.

Sometimes you hear something that just inspires you.  I used to eat cereal.  Growing up, that was breakfast.  If I was lucky, it was going to be Lucky Charms (with as many marshmallows as I could possibly get).  As I got a little older, I thought I would refine my tastes with muselix or granola.  You know how that is - it's the fight in your mouth.  The challenge of the hard clumps that cut the top of your mouth - really, I've heard it said that there's nothing like it to wake up to (except maybe a good set in the chlorine).

Because I never buy it, my children think that it is Christmas, their birthday, and Superbowl Sunday all in one if we have cereal in the house and they end up acting like they are some kind of deprived and starving animals and eat it for dessert and the $6 box is gone in a day and a half.  (Well, that was worth it.  Not.)

Today is some sort of snowpocalypse and everyone is out of their minds.  People aren't going to work; children aren't going to school.  Instead, they are playing video games, skiing, and going to trampoline parks. 

This was the day that the granola was destined to be made.

I had a recipe from a friend that was called "Elvis Granola".  Out of all of the people I know, this friend is the all-time world champion of granola eating, so I knew that it was going to be legit.  This "Elvis Granola" contained peanuts and chocolate, so even though it was basically dessert, I figured it was worth a try, even if that try was going to actually be dessert and not breakfast.

There was only one problem.

The original granola recipe called for canola oil.  Excuse me?  Canola oil?  No.  No way, José.  As if I would use poison in my recipe! 

What's my problem with canola oil?  Well, first of all, approximately 90% of canola oil is made from genetically modified ingredients and sprayed with Roundup (glyphosate - made by Monsanto).  Glyphosate is a known carcinogen.  That looks like a bunch of cancer all over the place.  I'll pass, thanks.

The other problem that I have with canola is that it is inherently modified.  Canola oil wasn't invented until the 1960s in Canada, and it was invented because of a demand for a cheap oil (olive oil had a price point that was too high for manufacturing of faster foods).  It was derived from the rapeseed plant (within the mustard family).  Using it as rapeseed oil without hybridization led to a host of issues mainly because of its toxic levels of erucic acid (which can also be found in other members of the Brassica family, but has high concentrations in rapeseed and canola), like blistered lungs and skin. 

Good news, though.  It is used to make paint because it will adhere to wet metal, which is great for ocean vessel applications.  Mmm, practical AND tasty.

By 1978, chemical companies figured out how to get the erucic acid levels lowered a bit so that we could escape the pesky business of lesions on lungs and other problems, and so they could market it to manufacturing as a cheap alternative. 

In 1995, the brilliant scientists found a way to inject the DNA with a bacteria so that it could be resistant to Roundup, making it possible for farmers to spray mass amounts of Roundup on their fields, killing all of the weeds, but the canola plant would survive.  Genius?  Yes.  Diabolical?  Probably.

Canola oil is highly processed and also very reactive to heat, light, and pressure, causing oxidation.  (That means rusting in your body.  That means premature aging and degenerative diseases like cancer, Alzheimer's, dementia, and WRINKLES.)  When canola oil is heated, it produces high levels of butadiene, benzene, acrolein, formaldehyde and other related compounds.  Have you heard of any of those?  Yeah.  Poisonous carcinogens.  Awesome.

This study shows the unfortunate side effect of how canola oil decreased levels of vitamin E so drastically that some animals died.  (They supplemented vitamin E to see if and how that would help.)

Meanwhile, back in the kitchen, I decided that I would sub out the toxin for coconut oil so that when my offspring saw homemade granola and decided to go on a wild binge, I wouldn't be contributing to their early deaths.

Here is what I did instead.

Coconut Elvis Granola

Preheat oven: 275 F.

 Mix these guys in a pan: 1/4 cup organic coconut oil, 1/3 cup maple syrup, 1/4-1/2 cup crunchy peanut butter,  1/2 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon cinnamon.  Stir.  Cook a few minutes until you think it isn't going to do anything different.

 While that is simmering, get a big huge bowl (Pyrex for vintage feels) and dump in: 4 cups organic oats, 1/4 cup ground flaxseed, 1/2 cup unsalted peanuts, 1/2 cup sunflower seeds.  Mix it all up.

Dump the warm liquid into the dry crunchy.  Mix all over until everything looks so happy.

Pour onto two stainless steel (seriously, do not give yourself Alzheimer's with the aluminum baking pans) baking sheets and spread out.

Bake for 20 minutes, rotate pans, bake for 20 more minutes.  You may need a little longer than that, but check it at the 40 minute mark.

Let it cool.  Add a bunch of non-soy dark chocolate chips.  I like Enjoy Life brand because they don't have any allergens.  This is how I made it the first time, but I would add shredded coconut to the final mix because dark chocolate and coconut are bae together.  It would benefit the overall flavor to double the peanut butter and make it 1/2 cup instead of a wimpy 1/4.

I did not eat this for breakfast, and I won't because I am an egg and toast kind of girl, but it is an amazing dessert.  I poured it over my organic, grass-fed, whole milk plain yogurt and ate it until I thought I might make myself throw up.  Moderation?  I doubt it.

If you try it, let me know how you like it.

Peace, love, and actual granola,
Ms. Daisy

 

 

Weight Loss on the Winning Team

Well, lovies, we've made it.  2017 has been cleared off of our plates and we're here with a fresh start, a new calendar waiting for you, blank, and ready.  The first day of 2018 greets us with the promise of new hope, dreams, and aspirations.  Will you focus on self-improvement, sanctification, connection, your health, being intentional and present, dropping addictions, loving more, enjoying your littles, learning something new, or a combination of all of those? 

Or perhaps you resolve to not make resolutions.  You've failed in the past and you aren't about that useless nonsense of flipping a calendar and waving a magic wand, hoping that you will magically change into someone new. You know yourself well enough to know that change comes slowly, and not because it is tradition when the Gregorian calendar tells us so. 

Whatever camp you find yourself in on this day, perhaps you are like many of my clients and friends who find themselves not quite exactly where they'd like to be physically after the head-on collision they've had with the holidays.  It all starts so subtly.  An extra bag of candy from the grocery store at Halloween because they've got a 2 for 1 sale slides quickly into the eating frenzy and near bake-off of Thanksgiving, which careens us smack into Christmas and Hanukkah, at which point we have given up on the voice of moderation because "it's the holidays" and we'll deal with that later, but now is the time for enjoyment!

Ah yes.  Enjoyment.  January 1 comes and that luster of "enjoyment" looks like you staring at yourself in your mismatched plaid pajama pants, gazing disgustedly at your puffy face, your unshaven bits (PSA: Hey guys!  It's time to shave those beards!  No, seriously - the homeless look is now officially out of vogue - unless you're a millennial, then whatever, man, go back to your microbrewery in the basement.  We won't bother you while you so creatively express yourself.), and a pile of glorious lumps you have somehow managed to acquire over the last few months.  You look aghast, wondering if it is the lighting or if, please God no, let me not really and actually be this hideously ugly.

Okay, that's it.  I'm not going to say it to my friends or on facebook, but bruuuh, I have got to do something.   And so it begins.  You start to reel it in just a little because you know you cannot go on like this. 

But what will work?  What will bring the success that you crave?  (Hint: It's not taking my locker at the gym.) 

Will it be to swear off cookies for the rest of your life?  Will it be to sweat it out on the ellipitical for three hours a day everyday for the unforeseeable future (a.k.a. until Valentine's Day when they have candy hearts and boxed chocolates for sale)?  Will it be to make chard sandwiches for breakfast to punish (I mean, reward) yourself?

If you even have an inkling about the nature of our complicated brains, you will know that these things can only work for a short time.  They are not sustainable (especially the chard sandwiches - right, Court?).  We are desperate little creatures sometimes and we will resort to absurdities to climb out of our panicked states.

I am not all about that cray cray thang.  I believe in making sustainable change slowly, and making it a lifestyle (want more?  Hint: YES, YOU DO.  Check out my book on Amazon: Just One Thing: Simplifying the Mystery of a Healthy Lifestyle.  You can snuggle it on your pillow or frame the cover and hang it on the wall.  Blow it up to poster size and put it next to your mirror with a speaking bubble that says, "YOU CAN DO EEET!"  Or just read it.  Any is fine.). I want you to be able to actually enjoy your life with a cookie, but not be a slave to the sugar god.  I want you to be able to look at something (even though it looks completely delicious) and shrug and be able to say, you know, right now I'm just not feeling it.   Contrast this with the feeling of you holding that third cookie in your hand, biting down, chewing, and thinking, I don't even really want this.  What am I doing right now?!  

What works?  In my health coaching practice, there is one thing that brings a glowing highlight of attention to what is going on in your life, and where you can study yourself to make good and lasting change.  It isn't exercise (although you ought to exercise).  It isn't swearing off foods exactly.

It's a food journal.

What?!  Yes.  A food journal.  Let me propose something to you.  I know it may seem wild, but just hear me out.  I believe that there is a potential that you may have slight cognitive dissonance between what you think you are eating and what you are actually eating, and you won't be able to bridge that gap until you put it in black and white and see for yourself.

My awesome clients have come back to me with amazing revelations.  They see that they are desperately in love with tortilla chips.  (This is actually a recurring theme among many of them. Read: YOU ARE NOT ALONE.)  They see that they are eating about a micro-ounce of protein all day and it suddenly dawns on them why they feel like they got hit by a truck and have energy swings like a cross between a Nanny 911 toddler and your 16 year-old self raging through a tornado of severe PMS.  They see that they are surviving on McDonald's and coffee during the day, cheese and crackers for dinner, and three bowls of ice cream before bed.  They realize that they are drinking a lot more junk than they thought they were (whether that is the poisonous Coke Zero or Tito's vodka or vanilla caramel lattes from Starbucks). 

You can do this old school - pen and paper.  You can get an app.  (And if you do, for the love of all that is good, do not bother tracking your calories.  Counting calories is so Jane Fonda era.  What counts is that you're eating real food.)  You can do it throughout the day.  You can do it at the end of the day.  You know what will work for you.  I also recommend that you write down a few other things in your food journal: how much sleep you got the night before, your overall mood (on a scale of 1-10), if you took any vitamins that day, and your stress level.  Those things will give you a broader picture of  what is going on in your life and how your body is responding to things.

Exercise is great and has many benefits for mental health, brain plasticity (by creating BDNF), preventing Alzheimer's, dementia, and increasing overall good mood, but it will not erase and repair your five donut a day habit.  Food is first.  In my personal guesstimate, I'd say that weight loss is 85% your food and beverage choices and 15% exercise.  Exercise comes to tone up the flabby.  Exercise is how you get that solid six-pack, but you won't even find that six-pack if you buried it under six layers of bagels and Pop Tarts.  Hear me: I do want you to exercise, but I want your exercise to be effective.  It is a lot easier to keep something up when you are actually hitting goals and making change than when you shovel ice cream down your pie hole and put yourself back ten steps.  You're fighting yourself and that is a losing battle, no matter how you look at it.

I want you to win for 2018.  I want you to smash goals.  If you're still breathing, you life isn't over.  Your race isn't finished.  It is not time to give up.  You've got stuff to give.  You were put on this planet to do something, to help others, to give your talents to change the world.  That is a lot easier to do when you have energy, a clear brain, and a body that works optimally.  No, it's not everything.  Your eternal soul will long outlive your shell, but what you do here and now makes a difference for eternity.  Embrace it and go get it.

Peace, love, and let's do this!
Ms. Daisy

p.s. If you'd like to work with me and have someone come along side of you and cheer you on and guide you toward your goals, get in touch with me.  It is an honor to watch people grow and change and become who they have wanted to be.  I'd love to help.  (Send me an email and connect with me: energeticwellnesscoaching@gmail.com)  I do Skype as well as in person programs.

maybe not me, too.

Perhaps you have seen it on facebook - the horrible "me, too" on your female friends statuses, a mark signifying that they have been (in some way) sexually assaulted or harassed. 

The first time I saw it, my eyes widened.  Oh no!  My poor friend.  I thought, "How bold of her to stand out in the face of rape.  She is brave!"  And then I saw another, and another, and another, and another, and another.  My sad face emojis were everywhere.  What on earth!

After seeing about fifteen of these statuses, I thought, "Wait, am I mistaken?  Am I understanding this clearly?  Are all of these people saying that they have been raped?"  Or is sexual assault not rape?  In my head, assault is a violent and brutal action taken against someone.  Defining it further by explicitly calling out "sexual assault" is the equivalent of rape in my mind. 

But maybe they are focusing on harassment.  Maybe they have lost their job or felt threatened that they would by a male co-worker or boss.  Maybe it's like those 70's movies where the dude is grabbing people's butts and pinching them and winking at their secretaries.  I have never seen that in person, but maybe I'm not in that culture or maybe I'm just an oblivious moron.

So I thought about it.  By the grace of God and his mercy, I haven't been harassed and I haven't been sexually assaulted.  Maybe because from my sophomore year in college until I got married, almost all of my friends were male and they were a barrier to the bad guys.  My brothas from anotha motha stood by me and kept an eye on me and any guy I dated knew that I had a pack of homeboys who would step up and pay them a visit with a baseball bat (if I didn't do it first) if a situation warranted it.  It was never needed; mercifully, I didn't date guys who crossed the lines I drew. 

But the truth is, I do have a few friends who were raped and some who were molested, and the actions of those men are deplorable and horrifying, but that is not the vast majority of my friends.  This is not to be discounted.  The men must be called to account and justice ought to be served to them.  What of the masses saying otherwise, though?  What is going on?

Perhaps the definition of harassment is wider in the minds of the rest of society and I am unaware.  Maybe they don't mean just rape.  Maybe they are including when a guy yells out his window at you that you're hot.  Maybe they're including when you walk into a grocery store and a guy mumbles something to you.  Maybe they mean when a guy walks over to you because he thinks you're good looking, calls you beautiful, and gives you the extra money on his expiring gift card to pay for gas because his tank is full and he can't use any more.  Maybe it's the vast and interesting collection of weird stalkers you have that they are tossing into the pile.  Maybe it is the honks and yells you get when running and biking.  Maybe it's when a guy lets out a loud and exaggerated swear word with his buddies as he looks you up and down as you pass his table in a restaurant trying to make your way quietly to the bathroom.   (Simma down nah, dawg.)  Maybe it's the guy at Costco who writes the line on your receipt and tells you that you have the most beautiful smile he's ever seen and he says he has seen a million.  Maybe it's the guy who takes your fingerprints and tells you that your scent is oh so pleasing and relaxing (no, my patchouli just reminds you of smoking down, bruh).

Here's the thing, and don't kill me for thinking this way.  In order for me to truly feel harassed, I have to own these things.  They have to get under my skin, they have to bother me, they have to define me, and they have to make me a victim to the whims of weirdos.  Weirdos are weird, and they can keep it.  I don't absorb it.  What they're saying is on them, not on me.  I do not feel victimized and I'm not a victim.  I am amused at their oddity (and I'm glad I smell good, to be honest).  They have to live with their weird little selves and their wild swears.  I am doing my own thing and it doesn't include them.  They are a blip in the day and they're gone.  If I can avoid them, I will, but if I can't, they are nothing to me. 

I don't want a culture where the appropriate men are terrified of speaking to women at all.  That's idiotic.  Say what you want, I have enough sense of self to keep your opinion outside of me.  We're on this planet and we need to work together.  We all have our quirky ways.  If you individually offend someone, let them tell you, and fix it with that person.  Some people are more sensitive than others.  Yes, you need to not be a total bonobo, but for the love of all that is good, let's work this out one on one and not blanket society with the thought that all men are rapists and all women have been raped.  Men are not all evil.  (Well, they are because they are inherently sinners, but I don't mean that if you have three legs instead of two, you're a vicious predator.)  Women are not victims. 

I am thankful for the good men in my life - from my high school and college homies to the husbands of my friends, to the bros at church to my fellow athletes in the water and in the sport of triathlon, to the many males in my family and even the random strangers who have helped me in crisis - you are good, quality homies and I luh you.  They bring admirable qualities to my world that I very much look up to.   I am concerned that they are being demonized because others are total butthead sociopath jerkwads.  If speaking out for what is right is what we're after, then I am here to speak up for them.  I hope that their character speaks for itself to all they are surrounded by, but in case they are only seen as a male power-hungry potential rapists, I want to stand in the gap for them and say they're not all like that.  They're not even mostly like that.  The weirdos are few and far between and they are the glitches in the gene pool.

For those who have been assaulted, there is no excuse for those men.  You are precious and they are wrong.  They have something wrong with them, and you didn't deserve it - not under any circumstance.  I am sorry that it happened to you and I wish you would have been protected from that situation and from them.  If I could reach you, I'd give you a hug, and then I'd like to find them and blowtorch their faces off.  They are horrible humans, and I'm sorry you experienced their depravity in that way.

Peace, love, and hugs,
Ms. Daisy