Category: Health Page 1 of 3

Food Is the Boss of Me

On April 11, 2021

I think about food all the time. Here’s an example. The anniversary of my marriage to my wonderful and ornery husband was a couple of weekends ago. To celebrate we went to the beach – not to sit with our toes in the sand or stroll hand in hand listening to the ocean waves. No, my husband wanted to go away from the beach and drive two hours on twisty, gravel, muddy logging roads so we could hike two miles to see waterfalls and wildlife and such.

And see them we did. But the whole time, all I could think about was lunch. We left our motel around 8 in the morning, drove forever then started our hike. By 10:30 I was checking my watch – an hour and a half until I could eat. An hour later I checked my watch again. 10:48. What??? This went on at regular intervals, until around 11:30, when I started checking every couple minutes. Then I said, “I’m going to have lunch.”

“Must be 12 o’clock,” my husband said.

It was. I fight eating until the noon hour, and then until dinnertime because I want to eat all day long. Someone I worked with once told me they put out a cigarette on their break and immediately craved the next one, miserable because they’d have to wait until the next break to have it. That’s the way I am with food. Even when I proclaim, in misery, “I’m stuffed,” I still want a little something sweet; a little something salty. I’ve been told by lots of people that I eat more than anyone they’ve ever known.

I have to do three things to stay within the normal range of my body mass index (BMI). (1) I only eat at mealtimes – three times a day, and (2) I only eat healthy food (there are occasional exceptions to these two – I am human, after all). (3) is the one I don’t ever break: I never buy the next size up. Otherwise, with my appetite, I would always be the star of “The Biggest Loser.”

At straight-up noon I unzipped my fanny pack and ate my pumpkin seeds (for protein), a bunch of carrots (for Vitamin A), a lot of celery (for some crunch and filler), and two small mandarin oranges (for dessert). It was a lot of food, but all of it served my body’s needs for nutrition. I figure my mouth is like a car’s gas tank. I want to put the stuff in there that will my body run well. Good food is good fuel. I want my belly’s gas tank to give me a body that can get out of a chair without struggling.

Because of my three eating rules, I can eat like a horse and still wear the size 8-10 I’ve been wearing for decades. When I get above my ideal weight (always at Christmas because of sweets and party foods), my jeans get tight and uncomfortable (no stretchy pants for me – I need good old-fashioned Levis that let me know I’m not eating healthy). After those extra pounds slowly (way too slowly) melt off, I’ll be able to eat a few more fun things every now and then, like chips – man oh man I do love salt and vinegar potato chips. I hardly ever buy them, otherwise they’d be scarfed on the drive home from the grocery store.

America – It’s Time to Get Strong!

By Suzanne Olsen

On March 14, 2021

In Exercise, Food, Health

The American immune system is not a lean, mean, fighting machine. It is soft. It is flabby. It is housed in a muffin-top, beach-ball belly, existing on Cheetos, deep-fried Twinkies, mashed potatoes and gravy, and bacon-wrapped bacon. It doesn’t get any exercise except walking to the kitchen for a cold beer and a bag of chips because clicking through 988 channels of reruns makes a body hungry.

You may ask, “what is an immune system anyway?” Without getting too technical, it’s the boxers and street fighters and soldiers in your body – the guys that fight corona viruses and flus and bacterias when they invade your body to make you sick.

When a virus goes up your nose, instead of standing at attention and shouting a battle cry, America’s immune system lights up a cigarette, leans against a wall and says, “Sup?”

We need basic training for our bodies. We don’t want overweight and out of shape immune systems huffing and puffing on the battlefield, we want soldiers that can drop and give us 50.

We’ve been hearing a lot about compromised people with diabetes and heart disease. They might say, “These things run in my family.” That is absolutely true. Often it’s yo momma who introduced you to unhealthy lifestyle habits, just like her momma did to her. Those yummy comfort foods she fed you tastes good, and it’s cheap. It wasn’t so bad in the past, when people worked hard and had to carry water up from the creek, build fences, walk to the barnyard to feed the chickens, they could burn off all that cheap creamed corn, potatoes and gravy, bread and butter and apple pie.

Now we eat the same cheap stuff, along with modern-day chips of all kinds – but now we’ve got nothing to do but watch TV. There’s no nutrition in that stuff, it’s just handy and tasty. It’s the same food we give to livestock. How do you fatten up cattle before they go to market? Corn and other cheap grains. They get fat because it’s not their natural food so they keep eating, trying to get nutrition that isn’t there. It’s just calories. A cow will eat itself to death on corn if you let it – it’s stomach will literally burst. I know this for a fact because when we were kids, my brother didn’t latch the door to the feed shed at my grandfather’s farm, and one of the milk cows got in there, Pet was her name, and ate corn all night and her stomach burst and she died. She ate herself to death.

We’re eating ourselves to death, too. The human body is hollering, “Hey, you! We need some food that’s got vitamins and minerals in it! We’re hungry for something healthy!” But all you hear is the “hungry” part, and you grab a bag of potato chips. Your body keeps pleading, so you grab some buttered popcorn and a Pepsi.

You can’t have good soldiers unless you give them the food they need. I didn’t say “want,” because we all “want” unhealthy food. It’s tasty! Our bodies become addicted to sweets and starches. How many times have you said, “I’m not even hungry but I want a little something sweet (or salty)?”

Breaking an addiction isn’t easy, but it can be done. You’ve got to retrain your mouth to like carrots and broccoli and other vegetables. Hey, quit making that barf face! Why do you think healthy people eat these things? Do you see them gagging when they eat salads? No. They love ’em. Their mouths have been trained to like the taste, just like you were trained to like sweet tea even though it gags me because it’s so fricking sweet. Talk about a barf face!

While you’re at it, send your body to basic training. You don’t have to march up and down saying, “hep, deda-hep” or whatever those boot camp marchers repeat on TV – just stroll around the block to start out. Look at people’s flowers, listen to the birds sing, make fun of the paint on someone’s house.

You’ve got to repeat this mantra: “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” If your body is in bad shape, it’s because of you. Not your momma. Not your daddy. Not your genes. Your momma may have raised you to be unhealthy because that’s all she knew, and all your brothers and sisters and cousins might be unhealthy, but once you leave home, it’s all on you

Get rid of these excuses:

-“I don’t like vegetables.” (Your momma probably didn’t like vegetables either unless they were floating in bacon grease or butter or gravy or starchy stuff like potatoes and corn.)

-“Diabetes and high blood pressure and heart disease run in my family.” (That might be true, but look at them – do they have unhealthy habits, too?)

“My doctor says it’s genetic.” (Your doctor has also told you to eat right and exercise.)

Now stand up and do something. Walk around the block, up steps, down escalators. Bend over and pick up things rather than letting they lie there. Do you own housework. Quit parking in the handicap space. Walk through the mall even if you’re not going to buy anything. Do your own yard work, mop your own floors. Build up to a couple of blocks and eventually a couple of miles a day. If it makes your joints sore, are you carrying two suitcases full of body fat everywhere you go? Bad eating habits can do that to you.

Find a make-your-body-happy way to eat that makes you strong – I recommend eating the South Beach or Mediterranean way because they’re not weird diets to lose weight. You want something you can do the rest of your life, not just something to drop pounds. You’ll lose weight eating this way in the long run, but that’s not what we’re after. A leaner body is just a nice side effect of getting healthy. Your check-ups with the doctor will get better – lower blood pressure, lower cholesterol, so you may be able to get rid of some of the prescriptions you’re taking to treat your unhealthy lifestyle. Remember, the stronger you are, the stronger your fighting team will be.

The way you eat can be an addiction. No one was born to be an alcoholic, a smoker, or a food addict. You may have been brought up in a family with all of those things happening, and you may have generations of addicts in your bloodline, but you are the one who reaches for a bottle, a smoke, or a bag of chips.

Even healthy people want these foods – they’re tasty! The people who make this stuff and advertise it on TV have spent decades figuring out exactly what it takes to make you keep buying their products. Healthy people love potatoes and gravy and chips and dips the same as you do. But they learn how to eat well because they want to be, well, healthy. That’s why people who love to smoke quit smoking, and people who love to drink stop drinking. Unhealthy eaters change because they don’t want to be dependent on doctors and prescriptions for heart disease and diabetes – that “pound of cure” I was talking about, or they don’t like how it makes them look and feel and limits what they can do.

All addictions rob you of your strength and make your body weaker. It’s not about how you look on the outside. It’s about being strong! Next time germs invade, your immune system will stand up tall and say, “Oh, no. Hell no. Not in this house!” I’m not saying you’ll never get sick. But if you do, you may not get as sick. Your soldiers will beat up on those germs and eventually they’ll run off, holding their hands over their bottoms as you pelt them with all your healthy ammo. If nothing else, you’ll look and feel better. You can do this. Start today!!

America’s Bodies and Immune Systems. The strong. The proud. The free!

Wrestling with a Vitamin Jar

By Suzanne Olsen

On January 31, 2021

In Health

I got a new jar of multi-vitamins and began the task of opening it this morning. I finally got through obstacle Number 1 – removing the clear plastic wrapper that is molded around the lid and most of the jar. I put my best magnifying glasses on, grabbed a pointy steak knife and, delicately as a surgeon, nosed it at the edge of the plastic repeatedly until I got the tip under it, enough to lift a little edge that I could tear away with my teeth.

After I wrestled off all that plastic, I pressed down on the child-proof cap with all my might and opened the jar. I found obstacle Number 2 inside. The round white inner seal – held in place with industrial glue so strong you could chain it to a pickup truck, gun the engine and no matter how many horsepower or Hemi’s under the hood, it won’t pull the inner seal off.

Typical vitamin jar inner seal - nearly impossible to remove

The manufacturers like to trick you into believing the seal will come off, so they put a itsy bitsy little tab on the edge of the seal, or, as in this case, they have kindly glued a thin clear strip of plastic that sticks up like a shark’s fin for you to grab onto. I always get suckered into trying. “Maybe this time,” I say to myself with faith and hope, “maybe this time I can tug the inner seal off with my bare hands and brute strength.” Getting a grip on the thin plastic fin is not possible with human fingers – it’s barely enough to pinch. Gripping takes more finger real estate, almost all the way to the first knuckle. The jar designers know this, so they make the fin almost – but not quite – tall enough.

Death by Sticky Bun

By Suzanne Olsen

On May 25, 2020

In Bugs, Fears, Health

Last week at an outdoor farmer’s market, I didn’t notice this hefty woman coming toward me until she was almost beside me. At the precise second I saw her, she ah-choooooed into her stubby hand. Her sneeze spewed sideways on me like a blast from a fire hose. No social distancing, no sneezing into her elbow, no mask. Oblivious, she lumbered on, enticed by the distant aroma of fresh-baked cinnamon rolls, her hand saturated with sneeze goo.

She waddled over to the cinnamon roll booth, fondled her credit card with her wet, germy hand and pointed to the pastry of her desire. The bun lady took her credit card with a hand encased in a vinyl glove, which was instantly contaminated with a gazillion germs. Germs don’t care if they are on your hand or on your glove. They’re happy either way.

Cure for Restless Leg Syndrome

By Suzanne Olsen

On April 27, 2019

In Health

I’m no doctor, but I spend as much time researching medical cures as any board certified physician, so I consider myself a queasy expert. Or is that quasi?

No Wonder We’re Fat – We Eat Like Livestock

By Suzanne Olsen

On April 5, 2019

In Exercise, Food, Health

Ever been in a restaurant that serves fresh bread, and you eat it all and ask for more? When your belly starts pooching out, do you unbutton your pants, and when your food comes, are you still hungry enough to eat it all, and do you really really want to lick the plate? Do you unzip your pants all the way down and then feel in the mood for a little something sweet? When your dessert comes, do you hold your fork up to stab any hand that comes in for a sample before you eat every crumb all by yourself? Do you say, multiple times, “I’m stuffed” then, if there’s any bread left, reach for it saying, “I really shouldn’t eat this, but…” After you ask the waiter for more butter, do you finish off every piece of bread, even if it’s several slices?

My chicken fat thighs

By Suzanne Olsen

On March 20, 2019

In Exercise, Health, Vacations

We are going on vacation soon, and our family loves to snorkel, which means I’ll have to wear a swimsuit (groan). The long sleeve rash guard I always wear will hide my sagging crepe chicken fat skin from the waist up, but it leaves the lower half of me exposed to the world – big as life and twice as ugly.

The first thing when I crawled out of the warm bed this morning, I said, “Hey Google! How do I get rid of old lady cottage cheese on my thighs?” And you already know what Google said. Google came up with some exercise videos so I can watch young lithe girls contort their bodies in impossible exercises, and I know good and well that they don’t have even one lump of chicken fat on their thighs, much less being covered with it like peanuts on a Payday candy bar.

Sample video of the torture we must endure to get rid of cottage cheese thighs

Why is it that every solution to every appearance woe goes right back to changing what you eat and outrageous exercise? I’m lucky that I was brought up at a time when people ate healthy food. A meal was a small portion of meat, one starch (like a potato) a salad, some sliced tomatoes and/or cucumbers, and maybe another side vegetable, usually green beans because my brother loved them and insisted on them practically every meal.

My point is that I’m not fat or skinny, I’m about average, right in the middle of the body mass index for my height. I don’t have as much cottage cheese as a lot of people, but it’s still there even though I walk a couple miles every day. So I have to ask myself right now. Do I want to give up some of the food I eat to be skinny enough for a tropical vacation? And do I want to contort myself with heartless exercises?

Of course I do! The question is, WILL I? You know what? I think I will. I think I’ll do it. I think I can. Maybe. I’ll try. We’ll see. It’s a strong, a very strong, possibility. I know one thing, though. I’m getting tired and hungry just thinking about it. I think I’ll ponder it on my La-Z-Boy, and my oh my a nice bowl of buttery popcorn would sure hit the spot right now. Maybe I’ll think about the vacation tomorrow….

Eat, Drink and Be Merry?

By Suzanne Olsen

On March 12, 2019

In Health

I eat way more than I need to – always have. I didn’t gain weight as a kid but now I still have a good appetite. The problem is my stomach. It’s spent decades digesting huge quantities of food, and it’s had enough. I can picture it down there, looking up the pipe that leads to my mouth, shouting, “STOP! – NO MORE!” It protests loudly, with fierce rumblings. The eventual exhaust from my stomach sometimes causes Portland’s air pollution index to go up.

Old habits are hard to break. When “clean your plate” was our every night dinner chant, and the guilt about the starving kids in China weighed heavily, and the food was so mighty tasty – crispy fried chicken, buttery mashed potatoes, bacon-drenched green beans – I’d eat huge platefuls. I can only remember one food I loathed growing up, and that was eggplant. Vile, vile vegetable. I’ve since made peace with it in eggplant parmigiana, but as a kid I could not leave the table until I’d eaten the whole hideous portion of purple slime. If a human can eat eggplant as a child, they’ll eat anything.

The Curse of Pepper

By Suzanne Olsen

On October 29, 2012

In Health, Words

I love pepper. I sprinkle it on everything – potatoes, tomatoes, popcorn, ice cream, cottage cheese. Pepper ranks right up there with chocolate and salt.

Salt and chocolate, however, don’t make me gag. Pepper does. It’s a real medical thing – pepper gets in some people’s throats and makes them cough like they’ve got a hair ball, except worse.

For this reason I try not to eat pepper in public. It doesn’t happen every time, but if pepper hits the right spot in my throat it’s going to be five minutes of severe coughing and gagging and people yelling, “Is there a doctor in the house?”

Once the coughing starts, I can’t make it stop. Drinking water – nope. Holding my breath – I end up raining a waterfall of spit drops on whoever’s in range. My eyes water like I got sprayed with concentrated onion juice, and my face gets red as a monkey’s bum.

In restaurants people get these really worried looks on their faces like I’m going to keel over in front of them. They’ll get up and start patting me on the back – patting harder and harder until they’re knocking what minuscule air I have left out of me. It does no good since the coughing must follow its full five minute course, and not a second less.

Sometimes I’ll get up and go to the bathroom to finish out the gagging in there, but this is not so good. There are smells in there – that I feel like I’m gulping odor molecules down as I try to catch my breath.

Today I choked at work on some pepper I mistakenly put on my collard greens, and while someone was talking to me I started to sputter. I tried to force myself not to cough, and it worked for a few seconds, until my coworker said, “Are you okay, your face is getting red.”

I couldn’t answer because it took all my strength and concentration to stifle the cough. To no avail, though. It started, and my coworker got upset because he thought I was dying, until my other coworker said, “She’s okay, she must have eaten some pepper.” I got up from my chair and headed for the bathroom. I heard him holler after me, “Are you going to be okay? Should I call a doctor?”

My other coworker piped up and said, “Hey, yeah, call Dr. Pepper.” They laughed, and I went in the bathroom and nearly fell over – they have GOT to get that fan fixed – and five minutes later returned.

“Hey, did you see Dr. Pepper when you were in there?” They giggled – I could tell they’d been sitting there making up Dr. Pepper jokes, so I decided to join in.

“No,” I said, “but I sure could use a pepper-mint. Anyone got one? And your jokes are so corny – no, even worse than that, they’re pepper-corny.”

Pepper brings the clever out in me, I guess.

The Dieter’s Song Accolades

By Suzanne Olsen

On January 9, 2012

In Health

I’m a little shy about marketing myself. Members of my writing group and a couple of my friends know I write this blog, but I’m not emailing people and pestering them to read my new posts.

But I did send “The Dieter’s Song” to my writer’s group and some of my friends who I thought would commiserate with it. The response has been great! Debz says, “As I sit here my stomach still churning from the Tempeh and veggies I had for dinner, I think this little ditty was the best antacid anyone could offer! Suzanne…you are a genius!”

I am going to take that as a compliment.

Sunny said, “Sweetheart you are hysterically funny!!! Loved it and shared it!”

And this from Gloria, “Oh Suzanne, this is so funny!

I mean: da da da da da da da friggin’ funny!”

Kelli says, “Love! Love it so much Suz. Very cute and cleaver:)” I especially like that Kelli thinks I’m cleaver – which is a new word defined as a clever person with cleavage.

And finally from Donna, “Unbelievable…and to think you’re hiding behind a solar panel…somehow you MUST write more!!! :} thanks for the laugh today. I’ve been working my butt off with a slew of exercise tapes and have lost nothing. Now I can at least laugh when I get on the scale tomorrow. :}”

There are a couple of things about Donna’s comment I want to address. (1) by “hiding behind a solar panel” she means that I have not been writing as much because I’m working such long hours managing a solar company.

(2) I am not at all sure what those brackets Donna is using mean. They don’t look like smiley faces. They’re actually a little unnerving – like something that could sneak up on you in the night. Something sinister with evil intent. Some kind of heathen thing. (Heathen is a great word – I saw it on a rerun of the Big Bang Theory tonight and decided, “I’m going to get that word in my blog post tonight somehow or the other.” And sure enough, I managed to do just that. It is so satisfying to achieve a goal.)

Because of the great response, I am elated and feel quite bold and I’ve decided, just for today, to be shamelessly self-promoting. This urge may not hit very often, so take advantage of it now! Feel free to refer me to your friends and have them send flattering comments as well. This is a limited time offer – don’t let this opportunity slip away. Get your comment in TODAY!