Another stream of consciousness blog posting that really doesn't say much.

Yesterday I faxed my order to Chipotle for the 5 free burritos that I won, and then when we got there, my order was wrong. They gave me rice and beans, cheese, and no lettuce. And only one small scoop of mild tomato salsa. (I only wanted barbacoa, peppers/onions, 3 scoops tomato salsa and lettuce) But it wasn't the right time and place to complain, so I ate it anyway. The rice should not have been eaten on my diet. But I was with my colleagues and wasn't able to do anything about it. Oh well. I surely was disappointed, as I eat at Chipotle so many times, and have my favorite way of doing things that I don't like to stray from.

On another note, I spoke with a VP at Alpine Aire (a freeze dried food company) yesterday. As I continue on my quest for healthy long term food storage options, I was very impressed with them, and they need a shout out! I had left a message about my concerns with finding long term freeze dried foods without MSG or its many names (autolyzed yeast extract, hydrolyzed this or that, natural flavors, maltodextrin, etc). Most people don't even recognize that these other names for MSG are actually MSG. But what this Alpine Aire VP did, was do his own research, and he called me back and told me that he hadn't realized how many ways MSG can be hidden in foods. I was very impressed, to say the least. He researched on his own what products of his that I could buy, and not worry about MSG. And he gave me that list. Not only that, he said he now was going to change the labeling or way they promote their foods. Well, for sure I am going to buy his products!! How cool is that! And, whenever someone discusses freeze dried long term storage products with me, I will definitely refer them to his company.

Mountain House is another brand, I have both products right now, in my food storage pantry. We actually have only tried Mountain House Chili Mac, but Steve loved it, and if he loved it, then it is good enough for me! I worry about feeding him food he doesn't like.

Well, I just finished filling my orders for today for my detox foot pads. Now I have to finish my physical therapy and get heading off to work. I always run a little late. But most of the time I eat my lunch at my desk as I tend to work related issues, so it all works out!

Tomorrow I am taking the day off because I am attending a funeral. My grandma's first cousin and his family live in Minnesota -- my only relatives out here! He passed away last Saturday and so I will be traveling to Northfield (about 1 hour 45 min away) and there is no way I can just take off half a day... I have to leave by 9:30am, and then I wouldn't get back until after 3:30pm. So unfortunately I am taking the whole day off.

Yum -- Chipotle burritos for lunch... barbacoa bowl, fajita style!

I get my free Chipotle burritos today! 4 of my colleagues and I will go to our local Chipotle and eat, as my business card won the drawing they have every week.

I LOVE barbacoa. Thankfully, I have less than 5 days left on my diet but I can still eat Chipotle. I just have the fajita burrito bowl, barbacoa, no rice or beans, (I think I could have beans but I don't like them without the rice), I just have the onions and peppers, 3 scoops of the mild tomato salsa, barbacoa, and lettuce. I usually have the beans and rice, too, along with sour cream and cheese. Next week I will, since I am sure I will go back next week. :)

I didn't weigh or measure myself this morning but I will be sure to give an update tomorrow. I think I will be down about 15 lbs by tomorrow. That is 17 days on the diet, not too shabby!

So far the hardest thing was I made Steve some biscuits for his stew last night. They smelled SO good and fresh when they came out of the oven... I so badly wanted one!! That was the strongest craving I have had so far on the diet... and I am not even a huge biscuit fan. Steve was a sweetheart and put the rest away for me so I didn't have to smell them. What a guy!

I am going to be getting money back from the IRS this year, so I hope that I will be able to do all that I want with the tax refund, including getting a fence installed for my duplex rental property.

Have a great day! Remember to pinch someone if they aren't wearing green today, as it is St. Patrick's Day!! I LOVE being Irish!

My goals for this spring/summer

I have some goals for this year. This is just a stream of consciousness post... goals for myself, not relating to other people:

1. Plant a LARGE garden -- try some new veggies, such as asparagus and brussel sprouts, besides normal veggies
2. Cultivate my fruit trees -- and hope they start bearing fruit this year!
3. Learn new recipes to use wheat, brown rice, beans, lentils and legumes
4. Learn to can -- basic water bath canning first! Then move on to the pressure canning
5. Continue to increase my food storage -- more freeze dried foods, more long term storage foods
6. Get rid of my shoulder pain for good (via aggressive physical therapy)
7. Reach my goal weight of 140 by end of April, and then consistently stay there!
8. Furiously market Purify Your Body once my new shipment of detox foot pads comes in (I can't until they arrive, as I am very low on stock!)
9. Pay off my Mastercard debt -- it is what I used to finish grad school... low interest rate but I still don't want to have a balance!
10. Be ACTIVE!!! i.e. take the dogs on walks, bike rides, to the park, garden, do the sauna, clean the house, all those activities!

Updates on HCG diet, cortisone shots, and Far Infrared Sauna

Update on my HCG diet...

I have 5 1/2 days left of the diet. So far I am down 14 lbs in the 15 1/2 days of doing the diet. I can totally tell the difference when I look in the mirror, so I am happy. I have lost almost 4 inches off my waist. My goal was to lose 25 lbs on this diet, and 5 inches off my waist. I probably won't make the 25 lbs weight loss, but I think I will lose the 5 inches off my waist. I have not been hungry... as the days go by it is easier and easier. Thankfully junk food really never appealed to me (excluding chocolate and fudge -- that is ALWAYS appealing to me!). I am craving brown rice, raw milk, and sure, some chocolate... :) I had some pot roast for lunch today, and a large bowl of tomato and pepper soup from Trader Joe's. Oh my, it is so good! 200 calories from the soup, and the roast probably was about 150 calories total. I didn't eat any carrots, potatoes or gravy.

On another note, my right shoulder is feeling SO much better. The 2 cortisone shots I got (one on each shoulder) seemed to work. I would have to say my right shoulder feels 90% better. My left shoulder, is the most painful, and it probably feels 65-70% better. I am guesstimating the percentages. I am worried that the cortisone will wear off soon, and my pain will come back. Some people are telling me the shots last maybe 1 week, others say 6 months. All I know is that I really needed a way to attack that inflammation. Nothing was working! It would be fantastic if as the cortisone wears off, the inflammation doesn't come back, and the physical therapy that I do continues to prevent the inflammation from ever coming back. I plan on doing exercises every day for the rest of my life, if that what it takes to not have that pain anymore. I think I made the right choice in getting those shots. My quality of life was deteriorating. It was very bad.

I am taking a lot of good saunas lately. It is important to detox your body, and my detox foot pads are one way. But as I have mentioned before, Far Infrared Saunas are another good way. Here is a quote I found online regarding the difference between regular sauna and a far infrared sauna:

The key to a good detox from a sauna is to understand the effects of a deep healthy sweat. Research has been conducted to find out exactly what toxins are leaving the body when we sweat. The sweat of people using a conventional sauna was found to be 95 to 97% water while the sweat of those using an Far-infrared thermal system was 80 to 85% water with the non-water portion principally cholesterol, fat-soluble toxins, toxic heavy metals (such as mercury and aluminum), sulfuric acid, sodium, ammonia and uric acid. (Far-Infrared, Technologies that Harness the Sun, Valerie Free, 2001.)

I also have been consistent in doing acupuncture at Winer Acupuncture. If you are in the Twin Cities and need a good recommendation for a licensed acupuncturist in the Minneapolis area, try her out!

Neurotoxins and Epilepsy

Over the past weekend I came across some research I had done previously, about excitotoxins (neuro-toxins) and some of the common symptoms that they cause. One of the more common side effects are seizures. This is near and dear to me because my cute adorable niece, who is in 1st grade, was recently diagnosed with general seizure disorder. Some of the neurotoxins that we seem to ingest on a daily basis include aspartame and MSG. Unfortunately there is msg hidden in almost everything. I try to avoid it but find out that I can't always avoid it.

It saddens me to see so many children out there, eating this junk. We had 3 girls over for the weekend, 10, 12, and 13 years old. All they wanted was junk food. So I made them what they would normally eat: Pizza, Mac and Cheese (with msg in the cheese sauce), cold cereal with high fructose corn syrup, along with genetically modified corn as the grain, soda pop with high fructose corn syrup, Capri Sun fake juice with high fructose corn syrup, chips galore with gobs of MSG, ice cream cones. I think the ice cream probably was the healthiest thing for them!!! Scary, huh!? At least I provided them raw milk, with tons of nutrients in it. Try getting them to eat veggies, fruits, even water! no way!!

I realize that this stuff is what is fed to most of our kids. No wonder so many of them are sick! Mental disorders, ADHD, learning disabilities, depression. I would be depressed and sick in the head, too, if I was exposed to all of this. What ever happened to eating home-cooked meals at the table with the family? Homemade mashed potatoes (not the boxed instant mashed potatoes, as they usually have MSG in them as well). Make your own gravy! Steamed or frozen veggies, a grilled chicken breast. How delicious is that! And if you make pasta, why not make your own spaghetti sauce? Boil the tomatoes, process them in the food processor, and spice them up as you simmer them on the stove with some italian sausage!!

And, for overall healthy living, or even getting your health back, use my detox foot pads for a month straight. The detox foot pads can be used on children -- newborns, teenagers, and everyone in between. Don't let your children suffer the consequences of poor eating, poor nutrition, obesity, illness, learning disorders, etc. (MSG is what scientists use on lab rats to decrease their IQ). So try them out now. Children even seem to sleep better when they are wearing the foot pads. A well-rested child is a treasure!

Cortisone shots - my story of today's events!


I did it.

I got two cortisone shots this morning. My appt was at 7am, and I barely pulled into the parking lot at 6:58 and made a dash for the building in the rain. I made note of where the stairs were (quicker to run up 2 flights of stairs than wait for the elevator) when a lady sitting in the lobby area called to me. She didn't speak English too well, but I could obviously see her need: She had a young child, maybe 1 year old at the oldest, and she was trying to open up her stroller. Her hand was broken and she said she was waiting to be taken to the hospital, as it appears the doctors in this building advised this of her. She needed help opening up her stroller. I can't NOT stop and help. No way. I knew I was going to be a minute or two late for my appointment, but that is ok, she was in need.

Well, apparently that wasn't the case. I fought over that folded up stroller for a good 5 minutes and COULD NOT get it to open! I pushed down on the lever, grabbed part of it between my knees to gain leverage on opening that thing. No such luck. After awhile she told me to forget about it, it's ok, she said. And shooed me away.

Then I did my mad dash up the stairs and wasn't even panting when I got to the reception area of the rheumatologist's office. So this lady rheumatologist, well, I have to say she rocks in terms of patient care. I will tell you why. She diagnosed me with bursitis late last August, and for reasons I won't get into now regarding my health insurance, HSA, etc. I didn't start physical therapy until end of January of this year. I have been going to PT for 7 weeks now and the pain is still intense, though there are plenty of signs of improvement, it is just a LONG process. Well, before going to PT, I had to get a referral. I couldn't remember her name, so I tried getting one from my PCP, who I also went to for my joint problems (of course he didn't find anything wrong with me, but definitely took my money). He took 5 days to get back to me saying that he wouldn't approve the referral because PT doesn't help bursitis, and told me to take Aleve instead. (DOH! I HAVE been taking Aleve, too much, in fact! It isn't helping! Maybe with acute bursitis attacks, but not the chronic issue I have been dealing with since August of 2008). So that ticked me off and he isn't my PCP anymore. Anyone who asks why, I have a long list of reasons for this besides this incident. Needless to say, I have absolutely no respect for him as an MD. So, at the last minute I found out who the rheumatologist was that I saw last August, and in 2 hours, she had faxed over the referral.

Much better.

And, yesterday when I called her office hoping for a cortisone shot, she was able to fit me into her busy schedule before her regular office hours, at 7am this morning.

The shots themselves weren't so bad. They didn't hurt anymore than giving blood at the American Red Cross does. I got one in each shoulder, directly into my bursa sac. I have 7 bursa sacs in each shoulder, and she told me the name of the one she did, I can't remember the name, but if I saw a picture of them (a human medical picture) then I could point it out. It is the one right in the middle of the rotator cuff.

Now I am a bit sore. But other than that, I feel ok for the time being. I am not going to judge the effectiveness until at the earliest, Sunday.

And, I will be using my detox foot pads tonight, both in the sauna and then again while I sleep. I still am not 100% sure that they aren't poisoning my body, so I will have to detox my body.

Today is Friday, and Wednesday night I went to bed feeling pretty sick. So I took a high dose of NutraSilver, and when I woke up Thursday morning, I felt worse, so I called in sick. I took another 3 doses of NutraSilver on Thursday, and feel about 85% better this morning. I will take NutraSilver again tonight and hope to be 100% better tomorrow. I suppose it really does work, because it seems like I had the same cold that Steve had last week, that put him out for 8 days. (well, then again we know that men can't handle sickness as well as women can!). For me being out only 2 days (well, not being "out" but being sick), that isn't so bad. (Dosage is 50 drops in water 3x a day for 2 days, and then you should be feeling better -- I think it works!)

But the next issue is for me to stop GETTING sick in the first place. Which is one of the reasons I decided on the cortisone shots. I cannot sleep well. As a result, my immune system weakens, no matter how well I take care of myself. Sleep is SO important to one's health. If you don't get enough sleep, no matter what else you do positive for your health, it won't cut it. So since the pain has been keeping me up at night, something has to be done. That is what tipped my decision in favor of getting the shots.

I will report more later, to let you know how they worked!

Iodine

Remember the red stuff your mom put on cuts and scrapes?

It contained iodine, a mineral that kills germs. But iodine is more than just an antiseptic you put on your skin. It’s a trace element essential for life. A teaspoon is all you need in a lifetime, but most people in the U.S. are deficient.

The tragedy is that many doctors don’t recognize iodine’s role in disease. You may suffer from chronic fatigue and hear “there’s no cure.” Your cholesterol or blood pressure is too high, and nothing short of drugs brings it down. Or the doctor tells you the cysts in your breasts or ovaries lead to cancer.
You may have one of these things as a result of a simple iodine deficiency.

Almost 2 billion people in the world don’t get enough, and over 50 million people have brain damage caused by iodine deficiency. It’s the most preventable kind of brain damage in infants and children, yet 36.5% of school age children are deficient.1,2


Brain damage also affects adults. Even a small deficiency can lower your I.Q. by 15 points.3 It may be the deciding factor whether you can get a job and keep it.

Our ancestors didn’t have this problem. In ancient times, the water and soil were rich with minerals. Plants absorbed the iodine. Animals ate the plants. Man hunted, fished, and gathered the animals and plants.

But today, our modern day diet consists of foods grown by commercial farming corporations on depleted soil. Our water is polluted. We suffer the consequences.

We have to find a way to mimic the environment of our ancestors and find good sources of iodine.


Iodine helps prevent oxidative stress that leads to chronic diseases such as atherosclerosis, diabetes, or arthritis.4 It’s also critical for thyroid function. When your thyroid doesn’t work well, you can develop heart disease. Your cholesterol goes up, and you can have a heart attack.

You also need it for metabolism – to convert your food to energy. If you don’t have enough iodine to keep your thyroid healthy, you get sluggish and store fat on your body. You may also develop symptoms like fatigue, depression, and weight gain.

That’s not all. When you’re short on iodine, a lot of other things can go wrong:5,6


  • Breasts: A lot of iodine is concentrated in breast tissue. When you don’t have enough, you can develop fibrocystic breast disease. Up to 93% of American women have it. This is when your breasts become very painful and have nodules and cysts in them. The longer you have this disease, the higher potential for breast cancer.

  • Skin: 20% of iodine is stored in the skin. Most in the sweat glands. If you don’t have enough iodine, you get dry skin.

  • Digestion: Iodine is concentrated in the stomach. When you don’t have enough, you develop a condition that feels like you have too much stomach acid. But it’s just the opposite… you don’t have enough. If it goes on long enough, it can develop into stomach cancer.

  • Eyes: Tear glands in your eyes contain large amounts of iodine. Lack of iodine can cause dry eyes.

  • Mouth: Salivary glands in your mouth contain large amounts of iodine. Lack of iodine can cause dry mouth.

  • Ovaries: Iodine is concentrated in the ovaries. Women who lack iodine develop cysts. The greater deficiency, the more cysts. It can also lead to a disease called polycystic ovarian disease.

You can avoid these problems if you pay attention to your intake of iodine. The current suggested daily dose of 0.15 mg per day of iodine is too low. It doesn’t take into account all the organs of the body that need it to stay healthy. I suggest 12.5 mg up to 50 mg of iodine per day from natural sources to support better health. Here is a list of foods that contain iodine:

Food

Serving

Iodine (mcg)

Salt (iodized)
1 gram

77

Cod
3 ounces

99

Shrimp
3 ounces

35

Fish sticks
2 fish sticks

35

Tuna, canned in oil

3 ounces (1/2 can)

17

Milk (cow's)
1 cup (8 fluid ounces)

56

Egg, boiled
1 large

12

Navy beans, cooked
1/2 cup

32

Potato with peel, baked
1 medium

60

Turkey breast, baked
3 ounces

34

Seaweed
1/4 ounce, dried

May be greater than
4,500 mcg (4.5 mg)

If you find you need more support, check to see if your daily supplement contains iodine. If it doesn’t, take a trip to your local vitamin shop and ask for an iodine supplement or kelp.

It’s always best to talk to your doctor first. If you have symptoms of iodine deficiency, your doctor can take a simple test to determine your level.

To Your Good Health,

Al Sears, MD

It is our goal to be self-sustaining and living off grid someday

It is our goal to be self-sustaining and living off grid someday. We would love to get solar panels (most of our home is electric, only the furnace is gas). We can have a large garden and learn to can the fruits/veggies we grow, and also dry the herbs we grow. We have quite a few fruit trees. (15 or so) with a variety of fruits: Pears, Apples, Plums, Cherries, Apricots, and Peaches). We have 2 freshwater ponds on our property, and have a lake across the street. We also have a well. We want to get a manual pump for our well.

The thing that we are lacking right now is hunting/fishing skills. We don't eat venison, wild game, or fish. If we did, it would be a lot easier, I could send Steve on hunting trips to catch a deer or fishing trips to catch fish, and we could store the meat until we needed to use it. Maybe we will try some venison and see if we like it.

Living off grid to us doesn't mean living in the wild, like camping. It just means using our own resources, or resources from nature (like the sun). We would still have to have a high speed internet connection, probably that along with cable TV would be our only vice.

We have medicines, vitamins, first aid kits, and the knowledge how to use the items. I have a lot of homeopathic medicines for various illnesses. My detox foot pads also are in stock, and can help us stay healthy if we use them consistently. When I use my foot detox pads on a regular basis, I just don't get sick. I have my stock of them at home, and they are stored in a storage room in my basement.

We also have a large stock of NutraSilver, which not only purifies water, but is a unique form of colloidal silver and works as an antibiotic for any illnesses that we may face. And we have a large stock of MMS (Miracle Mineral Solution), which does some similar things that NutraSilver does, but also can cure chronic illnesses and even acute illnesses such as malaria. It also takes care of yeasts, funguses, molds, and can purify a large supply of water, very similar to how bleach kills off the bacteria, except it isn't harmful.

I think it would be fun to be a contributor to our society, vs. just guzzling our natural resources and guzzling electricity that we can't make on our own. I can't wait to learn to can, and learn more about gardening. I also can't wait to learn more about solar energy.

However, one thing that would be hard for me would be to give up my truck. I LOVE my truck!!

So, those are our goals. We would love to be able to do this within 5 years!!