Herbs & That Spirulina!

I tried the spirulina when I arrived home from my acupuncture appointment yesterday. I have not heard of this thing before, and now I know why the word isn't circulated freely amongst the population: most would prefer to have never met it before.

Spirulina is blue-green algae that is energizing and full of essential vitamins, minerals with apparently many health benefits including boosting the immune system and even fighting cancer. One serving (1 tsp) has the anti-oxidant value of 3-4 servings of vegetables.

That said, when you open the powder for the first time, all you see is a fine, really green powder. REALLY GREEN. Mossy green. Think a dark peat moss, ground up. Lovely! What have I agreed to?

Melissa said it's best to drink it mixed in a strong tasting juice like pomegranate or cranberry and not in water. Ok. That already goes against T'ai's recommendation to avoid juices. But since I don't actually start the nutrition plan until tomorrow, I'll take the juice.....this must tastes ghastly in only water!

So I pour myself a glass of strawberry/kiwi juice (the only juice I had on hand) and put one teaspoon of the stuff in and quickly mixed. What was a pinkish red colour quickly turned to green slime. Seriously, green slime. Moldy, green slime. And clumpy, much like when you try and mix up hot chocolate powder and it doesn't quite dissolve as well as you like. Yeah, but this sure ain't chocolate!

Can it taste just as bad as it looks? Worse!

Who can drink this? Everything I've learned about food, how it tastes, how it looks, doesn't come into play here! Danny came back into the house after being outside for a bit, and I quickly had to hide the stuff, for fear I'd have to explain myself to him as to why I'm drinking what resembles raw sewage.

I finished the glass, in rather large gulps, all while trying to disengage my tastebuds, and without hurling. I looked back at the empty glass, smudged up with green swamp water. If the herbs are the ones I was forewarned about the digustingness, then I'm really up a creek without a paddle. A green, slimy creek!

I tried the herbs later in the evening and it's actually not that bad. I taste a bit of ginger, which I'm not fond of, but it's not overpowering. I could do that. I can't do the greens. I'll have to keep it in the fridge with the hopes there isn't an expiry date this century. Maybe someone will find it and posthumously esteem me to be an actual health guru. You'd really have to be one if you took that crap.

I'll try again tomorrow.

Acupuncture and Me

So I went to the acupuncturist yesterday afternoon for my first official visit. Melissa was going to keep it simple today, probably since it was my first time and all. We discussed a little about how I was feeling since I last saw her, and I told her it's been a pretty easy week for me. We discussed some of the nutritional guidelines she suggested in a PDF she sent me earlier, like switching to a more natural sweetener like stevia, the herbal tea she's prescribing, and the spirulina stuff.

She gave me some samples of the stevia, which I haven't tried yet. It's commercially available in pharmacies as "pure" or with "filler" so you can use it somewhat similarly to regular sugar. This stuff is super sweet, apparently. One single serving packet with "filler" (inulin fiber, if you're curious) is equivalent to 2 tsp of sugar. You can get the liquid stevia in a purer form and actually need only 2-3 drops to sweeten your coffee! It has 0 calories, no impact on glycemic index and is sooo much better for you than sugar and way better than those artificial sweeteners like aspartame found in Equal or NutriSweet (which has been linked to cancer...google it).

To give you an idea of how sweet it is I found a recipe online for 4 dozen chocolate chip cookies and it requires only 1/2 teaspoon of stevia powder!

I'm considering switching over eventually....when I can handle all the other changes in my diet well enough. :)

I didn't have to disrobe for the session: I just rolled up my pants to my knee. Melissa started with my left leg, asked me take a deep breath in and when I breathed out, she popped the needle in. Having had taken blood tests, donated blood and even taken a flu shot just the other day, it was actually a joke that people are actually scared of acupuncture! There's no pain, just a tiny prick, not even like that of a blood lancet where it's quick but quite sharp.

She asked me if there was anything I left, like numbing, tingling, warming, anything but not pain. Hmph, I felt nothing. I was hoping it was because I'm not in tune with my body yet and not that I was really a skeptic. She dropped another needle in the soft tissue between my index finger and thumb on my left hand...still nothing. But once she did the same for the right hand, I started to feel a warming crawling up my arm. It wasn't strong, but it was surely there. She says that's good, and that she could still that my body was already responding to before that moment.

I think she put 3 or 4 in each leg and one on each hand. Then she moved to the head of the bed. Um, where was going to put it? On my face?

She found a spot on my scalp but, funny, I didn't feel a thing.

She left me alone in the room for 10 minutes, to dream about things, relax. Take myself somewhere, she said. I listened to calming Orient music in the background, as the heater she placed by my feet warmed be up....

I was thinking about something, when she walked in again. Was that 10 minutes?

She wiggled the needles a bit and then left me alone for another 10-15 minutes.

I swear she walked in after 5....though I couldn't figure out what I was thinking about when she interrupted me!

I must have been at the verge of falling asleep, because I'm sure I was thinking about something. Melissa routinely finds people asleep when she returns, some fallng asleep as the first needle goes in. I'd hate to be found snoring!

At reception, I paid for my treatment, my herbs, and the bottle of spirulina, and left relaxed and calm. Little did I know that it would backfire later that night.

I was driving to a friend's house with my two-year old son in the back and it was just raining down like I haven't seen in a while. With him screaming at me to change the CD in the deck to me concentrating on the road, I just lost and and was screaming at the top of my lungs, not really at him, but to the world in general, I guess. I screamed so loud and verociously that I screwed up my throat. I pumped the music really loud to drown out everything, my son, even my own thoughts. Everything today, the calmness, the zen, the relaxation, right out the friggen window.

Where's Melissa now?

Boot Camp: Day 12

Our hour didn't start off very promising, but ended with a POW!

Boxing class!

Our small class stood around for way too long, handing out recipes given by Winnie and Jenn (the "punishment" for 3-Dayers intruding on Tuedays and Thursdays reserved for us 5-Dayers) and listened to T'ai explain the benefit of doing so (nutritionally, more variety and less boredom). After, six of us partnered up and ran one -- only one! what? -- lap around the soccer field.

I never wear a watch, but when I go for my runs I usually do. However, my dependable purple Timex had stopped working on me sometime between my last run in, say, 2004 and now, and I have not replaced that battery yet. But I'm kinda glad I didn't have it with me today, because I didn't want to see how much time had gone by, wasted by chit chat....c'mon, let's get moving: I came here to sweat!

So, like I said, it turns out to be a boxing class. We learned how to properly stand so that our balance is stable when pushed. Yeah, he literally pushed us around to see if we would fall. We learned to jab, punch, hook, cross-punch, pivoting, hips lowering, keeping our hands by our nose and temple. Honestly, though, I didn't really learn anything new, since I had taken a whole bunch of kickboxing classes before and even several Boxer Fit classes while at Fitness World. He never once had to correct me, so I'm gonna take it that my form was fine. The only thing I found real difficult was shuffling left and right and then quickly throwing a jab, punch, jab, cross, jab, hook. My feet weren't cooperating before I needed to swing....I was still kinda shuffling before my arms where swinging away.

While we were in that circle, shuffling and swinging back and forth, we had a chance to spar one-on-one with T'ai, with boxing gloves. Jab, punch, jab, punch. He urged me to go harder because, he says, he knows I've got it in me. Ok. Then faster, he says. Ok. Next, jab and cross. Harder jab! Keep it going! Now, faster, for 10...9...8....omg! My bangs were soaking with sweat and strewn across my forehead and over my eyes, blocking my vision. I must have looked real attractive, up close and personal! I wailed on him with increasing power. My arms were weighted heavy. T'ai is taller than I am (duh!) so I was essentially pounding him from below. Finally, the rush was over. Water, water! Where's my towel?

Then out of nowhere comes this aching, excruciatingly tight pain radiating down my neck....ow, what's going on? I figure all that punching above me locked my neck in a paralyzed position of stiffness that, now as I move around, refused to release. I shook off the pain shortly after, as I resumed throwing jab after jab with the others in that Circle of Shuffling.

I must say, at this time, shuffling just does not do me any good. Really. After yesterday's shuffling around those barbells, my arches are just killing me! I don't think it's plantar fasciitis because I CAN still walk on it, but it sure damn hurts when I massage it. No more shuffling, T'ai!

He mentions to me privately after class that I should see an RMT (Registered Massage Therapist) and a Chiropractor and even consider making a call to the Acupuncturist he mentioned in class yesterday. [Oh, yeah....yesterday's pop quiz gave us a certificate to see someone who specializes in TCM - Traditional Chinese Medicine]. They work wonders with aches and pains, especially something resembling plantar. The RMT he recommended will also honour a free session, as one of T'ai's bootcampers....hmmm, when will be getting THAT quiz for the THAT prize? Apparently we only have a month after bootcamp to redeem our free sessions. Hook me up!

So, what started not-so-promising, ended up a real POW! I feel a lot more shoulder and back muscles activated, all on top of the shoulder and back pain I felt from yesterday's pushups. I should have a wonderful day at work!

Traditional Chinese Medicine

While in Puerto Rico last week, I emailed to confirm my appointment with the acupuncturist, Dr. Carr, for this past Tuesday. Free appointment (remember: it was another gift from boot camp), so I figured, why not give it a try? I'm all for Western medicine but there's got to be something to Eastern medicine, right? As a scientist but an open skeptic, I thought the experience would be interesting.

She asked me a whole bunch of questions regarding my physical well-being, if there were any aches and pains or anything significant from my head to my toes. Because I told her I'm not there for any physical reason (ie no plantar or carpal tunnel or anything), it was a pretty easy Q&A.

I did get a little emotional (really, just a LITTLE) when talking about the stresses in my life, like finding the balance between between a good wife and good mother, and keeping house, and work obigations. I mentioned I'd like to calm my anxieties and little distractions I find engrossed in that immobilize me when I'm stressed.

She went over the 5 elements in TCM (that's my title above). The cycle: Metal --> Water --> Wood --> Fire --> Earth then back to Metal. I can't remember the detail clearly now, but she said she's like to work on my Earth and Water elements. When you write the elements on paper in a circle, you can also draw a pentagon between the other elements, and they also work off each other, like a check and balance system. In this case, Earth and Water balance each other but Fire also balances Earth (and likewise, Fire also balances Water).

She related my kidneys to the Water element. On top of the kidneys are the adrenal glands, and they are responsible for providing adrenaline during stresses . If I have constant stresses, the adrenal glands are constantly working, overprocessing, and that's something that needs to be addressed.

The spleen and pancreas were related to the Earth element, which is a digestive issue. She mentioned something about eating the right foods associated with winter time, soups, stews, and drinking green tea or green/black tea chai teas which are calming and warming during the winter months. I guess by doing so, it will help balance the Water element.

And she said that because of these two elements, I could focus a bit on Fire too, which is the anxiety part, I think. She didn't really prescribe a treatment, though, that I can recall.

I agreed to two acupuncture sessions with her, and some herbal recommendations, an instant tea I can bring to work and not "cook" like so many TCM herbal remedies.

I feel better already!