Dairy has been a subject of much research and inquiry for me. I grew up on a dairy farm…and of course, milk was currency there. Being from the Midwest, I have a love for cheese and dairy, and I’ve been unwilling to let it go. However, when I met my boyfriend, my view began to shift. He is dairy free consumer, and while I couldn’t imagine such a thing, I was intrigued. I started doing some real research into this power player in the “Food Pyramid” to see if it really is as valid as “they” say. Here are a few tidbits on what I found out…and I’ll leave it up to you.
“They say cow’s milk is pure…however, fifty years ago an average cow produced 2,000
pounds of milk per year. Today the top producers give 50,000 pounds! How was this accomplished? Drugs, antibiotics, hormones, forced feeding plans and specialized breeding; that’s how.” Excerpt from Dr. Kradjian article, see link below
“During the 1930’s, Dr. Francis M. Pottinger conducted a 10-year study on the relative effects of pasteurized ad raw milk diets on 900 cats. One group received nothing but raw whole milk, while the other was fed nothing but pasteurized whole milk from the same source. The raw milk group thrived, remaining healthy, active and alert throughtout their lives, but the group fed on pasteurized milk soon became listless, confused and highly vulnerable to a host of chronic degenerative ailments normally associated with humans, including heart disease, kidney failure, thyroid disfunction, respiratory ailments, loss of teeth, brittle bones, liver inflammation, etc. But what caught Dr. Pottenger’s attention most was what happened to the second and third generations. The first offspring of the pasteurized milk group were all born with poor teeth and small weak bones…which indicated lack of calcium absorption from pasteurized milk. The offspring of the raw milk group remained as healthy as their parents. Many of the kittens in the third generation of the pasteurized group were stillborn, while those that survived were all sterile and unable to reproduce.” Excerpt from The Tao of Health, Sex, & Longevity by Daniel P. Reid
There is so much more information…and this isn’t to say that all milk is bad. Choose wisely what you put into your body. I still occasionally have cheese, but no more pasteurized milk. I do use rice milk, however. The choice is always yours…I’m just here to get information out. Keep on truckin’!
Dr. Kradjian’s article: http://www.notmilk.com/kradjian.html
Plenty of more info: http://www.notmilk.com/
While I’m a naturally fit girl (hey, I put my time in 
I’ve been on the search for the easiest health and weight loss or maintenance program out there than would give me the BEST results…and taste great too…oh, and no counting (yuck!). A year ago I was told by a couple of my friends that they were achieving their health goals through Isagenix. They never pushed it on me…in fact, they never even offered it to me! So, I went on my merry little way…doing what I “knew” to do, and what had worked “before”.
This is the trap my friend. We, or I, revert back to doing what has always worked in the past. Working on trying to get back there, only better, faster, and with less effort! Seriously, it’s like craziness. Why am I trying to get back anywhere? Always forward…always forward.
Anyhow, recently I was reintroduced to Isagenix by some new friends. They, again, weren’t pushy…just reaching and surpassing their fitness and health endeavors.
My boyfriend has been dealing with ulcerative colitis for 9 years. If you don’t know what it is, it’s a dreadful disease that NO ONE deserves! I’m always on the lookout for what is going to help him reach his goals…the simple stuff in life we often take for granted. Then I started hearing about the benefits from Isagenix in colitis among many other illnesses! And, I was intrigued.
Long story short…my boyfriend and I are now on our own Isagenix journey! In two days he is already having improvement with little pain and irritation. I am having more energy and clarity! Amazing! I’ll be letting you all in on our breakthroughs and accomplishments as we go along our paths. Stay tuned! If you’d like to know more about Isagenix, click the link below.
http://EasyHealthAndWeightLoss.com
I’m off to knock the socks off of today!!
As you can imagine, I was reeling with my diagnosis. When I got off the phone with my doctor, all I could do was sit there and hear the news over and over again…I was literally stunned. Should I be scared? Sad? Happy? Ok? Strong? Embarrassed? Well, at that moment, I was all of them…and none of them. I first had to be with the news before I could figure out what to do next.
I chose to be sad and scared at first. I called my mother, I called my boyfriend, and I called my closest friends. After speaking to all of them, I was able to be really sad and scared. So, I cried. I cried for about half and hour, and then I was, for lack of a better word, relieved.
The news was “pre-cancerous” and I’m a healthy young woman. There’s no way that I’m going down yet…and definitely not to cancer. So, what’s the next step?
Unfortunately, I was no longer with my prior company and no longer carried any insurance–this was one of my biggest challenges. I knew it was going to cost a bit of money to get treated and to have the testing/lab work done to be healthy…and when I called my doctor’s office, they were more than willing to work with me to have it be affordable…at least the procedures at any rate.
3 weeks later I went in for a colposcopy biopsy. My boyfriend had to work and couldn’t be there with me this day and so I went in, scared out of my bones about the procedure. The nurse and my doctor were simply fabulous and made it really easy for me to relax and even have some fun with it. It was, to say the least, uncomfortable and only really painful when I cramped up. For more info on a colposcopy http://www.webmd.com/cancer/cervical-cancer/colposcopy-and-cervical-biopsy.
I was then to wait. I had to wait for my test results to get back on the biopsy and for my doctor to get back from vacation…a grueling 3 weeks! In the meantime I had to heal. This was, by far, the most annoying and depressing part of the procedure. It took a full 2 weeks before I could get back to my normal exercise and active routine…(oh, and no sex for 3 weeks!). It was also apparent that I would need a LEEP procedure…that was scheduled 5 weeks out from the date of the colposcopy and would be much more invasive.
Yummy Yogurt!
Constantly staying ahead of the artificial additives game in the food industry is trying and today I discovered something new, at least for me and perhaps you! I recently became addicted to strawberry yogurt and granola…it’s a delicious and good for you snack, if you are using the right yogurt! Yoplait, a very common and massively consumed brand, took up most of the area. So I decided to investigate this popular brand a bit, Sherlock Holmes style, by reading the ingredients. I’m sure he was much more intense in his sleuthing than I, but I did find something shocking!
Yoplait has Aspartame in it! Aspartame is that artificial sweetener that has recently been found to do all kinds of nastiness to your body! Here’s a little excerpt from the attached link stating what Aspartame does.
“Aspartame accounts for over 75 percent of the adverse reactions to food additives reported to the FDA. Many of these reactions are very serious including seizures and death.(1) A few of the 90 different documented symptoms listed in the report as being caused by aspartame include: Headaches/migraines, dizziness, seizures, nausea, numbness, muscle spasms, weight gain, rashes, depression, fatigue, irritability, tachycardia, insomnia, vision problems, hearing loss, heart palpitations, breathing difficulties, anxiety attacks, slurred speech, loss of taste, tinnitus, vertigo, memory loss, and joint pain.”
Now, if that isn’t enough to turn one off a bit from diet sodas, yogurt, and other artificially sweetened products, I’m not sure what it will take. If you read more of the article link, you’ll find out more information. And, as always, feel free to research it on your own.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a complete addict in recovery from Diet Pepsi and Splenda…it took a lot, but what I recognized immediately was how much better I felt knowing I was putting something natural into my body, not something manufactured in a huge processing plant. At any rate, the choice is always yours, just remember this is the only body you get for this lifetime (unless science proves me wrong)…so listen to it, treat it well, and it will treat you well back.
On the yogurt quest, well, I ended up with Activia. Unfortunately, it does have sucralose in it (think Splenda) and I won’t be sticking with it–I just wanted some strawberry. But it was my best bet at the particular market I was at.
The best I’ve found so far (although not the tastiest) has been Nancy’s Vanilla yogurt. It uses organic agave sweetener and loads of live cultures. I’m still in search of a great tasting strawberry flavored yogurt, though. My suggestion is do your research before you go to the market. I will be doing more researching. I would love to hear any suggestions and thoughts!
Oh…and my favorite by far…is frozen yogurt!! Yummy!
Aspartame link:
http://www.mercola.com/article/aspartame/dangers.htm
6-20-09 An Answer!
Hello there! Since I wrote this post I have been searching high and low for a great yogurt…and I’ve found two! One can be found at Trader Joe’s and is their brand. They have several, so look through them and find the one that doesn’t contain sugar…it’s delicious and great for you! The second, and my favorite, is Brown Cow brand. It does contain organic cane juice…and that’s a heck of a lot better than straight sugar and a universe of difference from Aspartame! I found Brown Cow at Whole Foods and I love the Maple flavor with some granola for breakfast! Hope you are finding yogurts that work for you! Love hearing from you!
As I was saying, my results were on the end of the spectrum where I was going to need some additional attention/procedures–meaning I had “pre-cancerous” cells on my cervix. Here’s what you need to know about abnormal cells and cervical cancer…like I said in my previous post, abnormal cells can often go away on their own and can be caused by anything from a cold to a medication you are on. That’s the one end of the spectrum. When you start moving towards the other end, you get into abnormalities that are caused by HPV (Human Papillomavirus). Here are two sites that speak about HPV in detail, although both are a little outdated as there have been more strains discovered.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_papillomavirus
http://www.cdc.gov/STD/HPV/STDFact-HPV.htm
From my understanding, with my conversations with my Dr. and many other professionals, HPV is very prevalent in our society (~90% of sexually active people that have had more than 1 partner will have some form of HPV in their lifetime, and many won’t know they have it) and there is not enough education about it. A person can have contracted HPV years before any signs show up or it becomes an active infection. Last year when I had my Pap smear I was clean…but within a year my HPV had activated and was now affecting my body. It’s also pretty save to say that men are just carriers of HPV. There is currently no test for men to see if they have it, and there are no solid facts or stats that show any effects of HPV on men.
Guardasil is a new injection that can be adminstered to protect against HPV…but here’s the skinny on that (from what I have heard):
- You have to be under the age of 24
- It only protects agains 4 strains of HPV…where there are over 130
- You have to have never had sex before or only 1 partner (not sure if this is a truth at all, but something I heard)
- for more info http://www.gardasil.com/what-is-gardasil/index.html
So, that’s what is there for protection and prevention. The other steps a person can take is to practice safe sex, although this alone does not 100% protect a person from HPV, it does help. And, the other action is to stay healthy, eat healthy, and deal with your stress–as stress is often a trigger for HPV to become active. I had just moved to a new state with my boyfriend, away from my close friends, and was starting a new business when I was diagnosed…to say the least, I was stressed.
Stay tuned to find out what I’ve had to do since the diagnosis.
