World Breastfeeding Week: Oct 1-7

I have volunteered as a local La Leche League Leader for 4 years now. Over this time, I have been able to offer information and support to more than 5 dozen local families as they begin their parenting journeys. LLL offers mother-to-mother breastfeeding support. Locally, we offer home visits and telephone support, as well as monthly meetings.

October 1-7 is celebrated in Canada as World Breastfeeding Week. Despite the World Health Organization's recommendation that infants be breastfed exclusively for 6 months and then, with food being introduced, continued breastfeeding to 2 yrs and beyond, it often doesn't happen. In Canada initial breastfeeding rates are over 90%, yet by 6 months, they've dropped below 30%. In my opinion, we do not live in a society that supports breastfeeding.

La Leche League Canada - Sooke (http://groups.lllc.ca/view.php?area=British+Columbia%2FYukon&group=Sooke) is celebrating WBW with two local events. First is the Annual Walk to Support Breastfeeding, which will be held Oct 2nd, 10 a.m. at Ed MacGregor Park. Please consider making a donation; contact me for more information (post a comment).

Our second event is to participate in the Global Breastfeeding Challenge. More information is available here: http://www.babyfriendly.ca/challenge/index.php More than 194 sites globally have been registered. At 10:45 on Oct 11th, at the Reading Room Cafe in Sooke, we hope to have mothers and babes arrive. At 11, they will latch on simultaneously, along with other mothers and babes across the globe.

Please consider supporting La Leche League Canada. It is a registered charity and can give tax receipts for donations $10 or more from Canadians. More information is available at www.lllc.ca

What are your health priorities?

I'm just curious. I'm at a place where I've gone, from 3 years ago, being rather unhealthy and 60+ lbs heavier than I currently am, eating the SAD, not exercising, etc., etc., to a place where I have learned the importance of near-daily exercise, discovered the joy of at first a vegan diet and now a raw-vegan diet, and all the accompanying healthy-ness that comes with that. One of the more profound 'side-effects' of my increased health has been the lightness and happiness with which I face life. I feel so much more optimistic and generally more stable and calm and able to handle the waves of emotion that come. And that's a huge huge change. If that's what eating raw and exercising give me then that is wholly worth it.

What else am I already doing to benefit my health? Fairly regularly I practice Taoist Tai Chi, which I think is really super-beneficial (one of the benefits that everyone seems too modest to mention is the boost to your sex-life. If more people knew about this benefit, I think you'd see even more people practicing Tai Chi - LOL) Also I recently began a course of homeopathics after visiting the naturopath and have begun B12 sublingual supplements. I spend time in the sunshine, and I try to connect with the earth through simple gardening and composting.

I'm at a place where I'm contemplating what further steps I can take towards optimal health. So the things I'm contemplating are:

• a reverse osmosis system for purifying and alkalizing water. I've found ones between $500 & $750, so I'm just trying to justify the cost, even though you can taste the chlorine in our water some days (yuck).
• digestive system health: some raw foodists rave about colonics/colon hydrotherapy and enemas and others are against them. I'm just reading information for and against these treatments, and I think there's even an upcoming night class at the university on it.
• I'd love to have more regular massage treatments (inexpensive ones can be had at the local (reputable) massage school) and also go for Reiki and Aura Soma, and even take Level 1 Reiki.
• I'd like to make it a habit to do sitting meditation, especially now that I've got a special corner set up for it.

I'm certainly not obsessed about my weight but I can easily stand to lose more. I think technically my BMI is at 29, which is overweight, bordering on obese, if I'm not mistaken, but this is down from a BMI of 34 just 2 1/2 yrs ago, so things have improved drastically. I've dropped my weight by 23%. I don't know what % of body fat I've reduced, and it really doesn't matter exactly what that number is. It's about my overall health. And I feel a lot healthier.

What things do you do to benefit your health? What are your health priorities? Drop me a line or leave a comment. I'd love to hear from you. :)

Daily report

This past weekend dd & i went to a gem/mineral place and found some beautiful crystals: amethyst, clear quartz, turqoise, citrine, chrysoprase, aventurine, rose quartz, carnelian, snowflake obsidian, blood jasper, goldstone, and more. Lots of fun. (I had been reading a Reiki book that talked about using crystals during attunements and which crystals resonate with which chakra; i'll try to post about it before I return the library book). We got some colour baths (if you're not familiar with these, you're missing out), and a special trip to Cafe Bliss downtown - yummers. Raw yam chips with salsa, guac, & cashew sour cream, and a smoothie for each of us.

Quick update on my health: it's been 5 days now on the homeopathics and i am doing fine - no major changes to report. i am noticing some minor changes and am struggling to find the motivation to exercise daily, although i KNOW i can do it effortlessly when i choose to. so it's a bit of a struggle - I'm just feeling less toned than I was, say, a year ago when I was devoted to exercising 5-6x/wk, but I've been struggling since just before my surgery earlier this year with motivation. i'm ensuring i get at least 1 juice drink in a day (i had 1L ultimate smoothie today & 1L of juice: carrot/beet greens/apple). also got the Juice Feasters' Handbook (by Angela Stokes of http://www.rawreform.com/) in the mail today, so that's a great read. Looking at finding a used rebounder, not only for my own enjoyment, but also for the kids to use. My girlfriend found one locally for $20 in great shape, so I'll have to keep my eyes open.

the Ultimate Smoothie

Last week I watched some YouTube clips with David Wolfe, who was making "The Ultimate Smoothie". It's actually delicious. I will share with you here what I've made:

water, I suppose I put in 2-3 cups. David used the water & meat of 2 young coconuts; they're hard to find around here and they're not local produce -LOL
1 tbsp raw cacao nibs
1 tbsp raw cacao powder
1 tbsp raw cacao butter
a handful goji berries
a small handful (~12) raw cashews
1 oz/2 tbsp acai liquid
~1 c frozen blueberries (local)
~1 c frozen raspberries (local)
2 bananas
2 frozen wheatgrass juice cubes (from ZenZero in Courtney)

Blended in the Vitamix, this makes 1.5 L of smoothie; enough to last 2 "meals".


Today I am grateful for the warm sunshine
I am grateful for a weekend alone with my daughter
I am grateful for my raw diet
I am grateful for my very nice car
I am grateful for my marriage and a loving husband

A visit to the naturopath

Today, for the first time in six years, I went to visit the naturopath. I just wanted confirmation that I'm vibrantly healthy, and to tweak my metabolism a bit. I've only been raw for 4 months now and I feel like I have learned so much about good nutrition in the past few years, but there are moments I find myself doubting that I am getting all the nutrients that I need in my diet overall. Well, I was reassured to find out that yes, I am healthy, and of course we can tweak things a little to get to an even higher level of health. Things that we're hoping to adjust (through homeopathics) over the next couple months include functioning of the pancreas, digestive system/flora of the intestinal track, adrenals... just general maintenance, and because I am looking after my body overall, it's not like we need to do a serious overhaul of anything.

It's funny because here's a list of things that he suggested would be wise for most people to eliminate; and I've already eliminated them all: drugs, alcohol, meat, dairy, wheat, soy, caffeine and other stimulants... and I'd have to agree with him that overhauling your diet towards better nutrition is better for your health than eating whatever and then coming to him and undergoing a periodic cleanse. Really, I've done a lot of the detoxing work by eating vegan and now raw/live vegan. We are what we eat, right.

Overall, my diet does not appear to be lacking in nutrients, with the exception of B12, because I haven't been supplementing regularly and haven't made a conscious effort to include foods with B12, such as algae (E3Live or spirulina, for example), nutritional yeast, seaweeds, or fermented foods like sauerkraut. So I will supplement with a sublingual for the next while and see if that helps. I don't generally take a multivitamin, and I don't see any need to start including one.

One thing that came up was the importance of daily exercise, and confession here: I haven't been committed to it this year. For 18 months I rowed on my concept 2 rowing machine near-daily: an average of 10 kms, 5-6 x a week. I was seriously committed to it; I rowed 330+ kms each month. And then I don't know what happened, but I just sort of needed a break (and then had surgery). But this break has lasted far too long and I really need to exercise my will power now and get back into it daily. I do Tai Chi once a week at least (lately it's been more often than that), but on its own, it's just not enough. And when the children are in their swimming lessons, I swim a kilometer, but again, that's only 1/2 an hour, once a week. I really do need to include more physical exercise. I have always had a body that seemed to need more exercise than the average person and I've always struggled to be active enough to find a balance between calories ingested and calories burned. So I'm off toTai Chi class now.

So that's my check-in today: homeopathics, more B12, more exercise, but generally in great health.

Seed-Saving

Went to a seed-saving workshop today, put on jointly by the farm that we get our box through and the community gardens in town. VERY informative. I have lettuce that I've let bolt (well, I didn't actually let it do anything; it did it on its own), and I am keen on saving the seed. Turns out lettuce, tomatoes, and the brassica family (incl kale & chard) are easy seed-savers. I wish I'd taken photos at the workshop today that I could share with you, but there are several good seed-saving books available at the local library.

Seed-saving is important, for many reasons. The first that probably comes to mind is to keep variety in our diet's gene pool. People will comment that big companies (Monsanto, for example) appear to be buying up the seeds and then not offering lesser-known varieties for sale in the future. Statistics show that there are less varieties for sale which correlates with the size of growth of the seed companies. And the average backyard gardener or small-scale farmer (more likely to be growing organically, in my opinion) is also more likely to be savouring the taste of a potentially obscure variety of vegetable. Because you and I aren't likely to be buying thousands of pounds of seeds, it simply doesn't add up for larger companies to keep offering us these lesser known varieties - that's not where they make their money. Besides, as was pointed out to us today, there is something life-affirming in letting a plant complete its natural life cycle, in letting the plant produce seed, and in us saving it. And there is honour in having someone pass along seeds that have been saved for generations - we were told a story of a neighbour passing along heirloom paste tomato seeds, "the tomatoes were voted best in the village back in Italy for many years running" and now, 40 yrs later, the seeds are passed along to you to protect and nurture. It's community-building. And it's important. As I've said before, we all need to eat.

So I'd encourage you to check out a book on seed saving, or a website, and try it. I'll be trying to save lettuce seeds this year - my first attempt. Wish me luck.

Life skills...

Another beautiful sunny day. 14 degrees & 90% humidity in the greenhouse this morning. No, I don't know what I'm doing when it comes to growing my own food. I'm wingin' it in a big way. But the kale transplants and prize choy, chard, broccoli, silverbeet and raddichio that are in there seem happy. I do a daily slug patrol after they nearly devastated some of the plants. Hopefully the plants recover. I really want to eat fresh greens this winter, not something imported from California (or China, for heaven's sake). I have more transplants to go in the ground, but the problem is the "summer" crops haven't quite finished - the tomato plants (2 of 'em) are huge, and while they have beautiful delicate yellow flowers all over them, there are no tomatoes in sight, and being that it's nearing the end of the growing season for them, I'm considering taking the plants out so I have more space for winter crops. Same goes for the green beans and the winter squash, which doesn't have any fruit on them at all. It's frustrating because I don't know if it was something *I* did wrong (did I plant too late in the season? not water enough?) or was it just the cool summer and the fact that the deer came and munched them when they were seedlings, delaying their growth even further? Now that they're behind fence & plastic greenhouse sheeting, there is no chance of the deer getting at them, but still, I really feel uneducated when it comes to growing my own food. And what a sad statement on our times that is. Sure, I can tell you about psychology, about the physiology of your brain, I can have a debate on nature vs nurture with you, I can calculate 12% tax in my head - but I can't tell you how to grow a good crop of kale. We all have to eat. It's kind of important knowledge, don't you think?

Kind of like my girlfriend who says she doesn't know how to can food. I grew up in a house where we canned peaches, pears, cherries and more each year, so I find it odd when people my age (20s/30s/40s) say they don't know how to put food away for winter for themselves and their families. This year I canned 20 lbs of peaches, and I'm probably going to do more peaches and pears, and probably some applesauce. Nothing serious - not like the year I pitted and canned 100 lbs of cherries, 80 lbs of peaches & 60 lbs of pears. That was a crazy amount of canning, especially with the 100 lbs of blueberries & 100 lbs of raspberries I froze!

So when I think of what's important knowledge to pass along to my children, it's not the quadratic equation or where all the different First Nations tribes lived in North America, it's how to do simple, life-affirming things, like providing food for themselves - whether growing it or foraging wild food, like how to build their own shelter - and cob is great in that respect - it's pretty simple, like how to compost, and how to build our own simple composting toilet when the sewer or septic system fails. There is something to knowing how to split firewood, how to find clean water, how to build a solar oven or provide solar energy for your needs, or how to build a wind generator... these are skills that will, in my opinion, increase our ability to live more fully... a life that is less abstract and based more in reality - more in touch with meeting our life's needs.

Those're just my thoughts this moment.