A is for Eyesight

...or at least it is today… Yeah I had this cute idea to make the vitamin letters in storybook form, but I couldn’t find anything that starts with A that is a prominent benefit of vitamin A.  So today we’ll just pretend :).

But, as I was saying, vitamin A is super important for vision, especially when it comes to focusing from light to dark, and being able to absorb more light in dark places (aka night vision).  It can also help with glaucoma, macular degeneration, or other age-related vision problems.  It’s also great for cell growth and maintenance in the heart, lungs, kidneys, and other important organs.

Vitamin A is a fat-soluble vitamin, meaning it’s absorbed in the intestines with the help of lipids, or fats.  Fat-soluble vitamins absorb into the body more easily than water-soluble vitamins (which flush out in urine if your body gets more than it needs), so you should be careful not to overdo it if taking these.  Stay tuned – this Friday I’m going to talk more about fat!

Vitamin A is also good for the immune system – it strengthens mucous membranes, the linings of the eyes as well as the respiratory, urinary, and intestinal tracts, and it also helps strengthen white blood cells (which help fight off infections).  It’s a powerful antioxidant, and it’s helpful when it comes to tissue repair and strengthening cells, especially in bones and teeth.

So where can you get more Vitamin A?  Well, it comes from animal sources in the form of retinoids, a few examples being salmon, herring, and beef liver (gross… if you like that then yay for you, I have a peeve about eating organs though… :-P) and dairy.  It also comes from plant sources in the form of carotenoids, like beta-carotene, so you guessed it – carrots, sweet potatoes, and orange or yellow foods like mangoes, apricots, pumpkins, squash, and cantaloupes are all sources.  Broccoli, spinach, and other dark green veggies are good sources too.

How much should you be getting?  Fortunately vitamin A deficiency is rare – it’s pretty easy to get enough of it in the food you eat.  But, it’s all dependent on the individual – age, gender, and reproductive status (like pregnant or breastfeeding women).  This doesn’t seem like a vitamin to be too concerned about lacking, though.  But now you know why people say carrots are good for your eyes! 
Eat up!

Information sources:

http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/VitaminA-HealthProfessional/

http://www.healthdiaries.com/eatthis/7-health-benefits-of-vitamin-a.html

Guilt-Free Friday: Crackers

One of the hardest things I’m experiencing about this Paleo lifestyle is that it’s really hard to snack on stuff.  You’re kind of required to cook all the time, which is difficult to pull off with a busy lifestyle.  And sometimes you just have the munchies and you want to snack on something NOW, not cook and wait til it’s done.  That was probably a lot of the problem with my weight management prior to this – I’d just snack because I had the munchies, and invariably I’d snack on something BAD for me, either loaded with bad carbs or stuff that really wasn’t even food if you read the ingredients closely.  Sure I could grab a handful of grapes or nuts or something, but sometimes that’s just no fun!

Then one evening I thought, Crackers!  That’s fun to munch on!  And I had this big ol’ bag of almond flour in the freezer to tap into, so I scoured the internet for a good almond flour cracker recipe and voila, I found one!  It’s delicious, AND it’s easy!  Score!  This is from Zen Belly Blog, which happens to be loaded with a lot of great recipes that I'm definitely going to have to try!

They’re actually pretty filling too, for being such little guys, so your munchies don’t last very long.

One fun thing about these is that they’re versatile.  The recipe I found made them with rosemary.  I left that out and just used salt, pepper, and garlic powder, and they tasted AWESOME.  And since they were so easy, I experimented with different flavors like parsley and parmesan cheese and also honey and cinnamon for a dessert cracker.

If you’ve been interested in these recipes I post but haven’t tried them yet, you no longer have an excuse after I post this (unless you have an egg allergy, in which case you’re off the hook ‘cause there’s egg in this) – it’s too easy and too basic NOT to do.  Just get yourself some almond flour, which you can find at Schnuck’s, most health food stores, or online, and get crackin’!

1 egg

1 tbsp olive oil

2 cups almond flour

Your choice of seasonings – I used 1/2 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp black pepper, and 1/2 tsp garlic powder

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
In a large bowl, beat the egg and the olive oil.
Mix in the remaining ingredients and mix well, and knead it a bit with your hands.
Turn out onto a sheet of parchment paper and flatten out.
Cover with another sheet of parchment paper or wax paper and roll out to 1/8 inch thick.
Remove the top sheet of parchment and cut into 1 inch squares with a pizza cutter.
Transfer, parchment paper and all, to a baking sheet and bake for 14-20 minutes, checking occasionally.
The outside crackers might be done sooner than the center, in which case just remove the pan from the oven and carefully transfer the finished crackers to a plate to cool.
They’re done when they’re just barely golden.
Store in an airtight container and enjoy whenever you want!

Vitamins

Two posts back-to-back??  Whoa!  No, I'm not made of free time - that's hardly the case.  Yesterday's post was written several weeks ago, I just finally had the courage to post it yesterday... and I wrote today's post about a week or so ago to get a head-start.  I haven't had much free time since!  Before I dive into this post, though, I wanted to say thanks to everyone who read yesterday's post for not pouring sympathy on me - that's not what I want and not why I wrote it, so I really appreciate that everyone picked up on that.  I was aiming for shining some light for others in similar experiences, and it sounds like I may have accomplished that for some, and I'm really glad.

Today we're getting back to the theme of this blog - natural health choices - and this is a popular question!

This has been the topic of the year so far when it comes to questions people ask me.  Granted the year is only a few weeks old, but still.  It’s come up quite a bit!  More and more people are wanting to make healthier lifestyle choices, but not many know where to start.  Except for vitamins – that’s something we all have been told we need to take, and something everyone is fairly familiar with.  So I’ve been asked about them a lot – what to take, how much to take, etc.

But what are vitamins, anyway?  If someone asked you that right now, how would you respond?

Hmm… well, I think all I would have been able to come up with is, “They’re something our bodies need to stay healthy.”  But why?  How?  Where do they come from?  Are we getting enough?  Are some more important than others?

So I delved into this topic a bit deeper.  There are a lot of branches to follow on it, too!  So I’ve decided to write a series.  Today I’ll tell you about what vitamins are in general, and then each post after that will target a specific one.  Then later, when you’re thinking, “Man, sure would be nice to take something that would lift this mental fog, what was it that Jami’s blog said is good for that?” you can simply go back and look up Vitamin B!  If you’re getting enough vitamin B to remember that, anyway… ;-)

But I’ll get there in future posts.  Right now, let’s focus on what vitamins are in the first place.

To quote Wikipedia:

A vitamin is an organic compound required by an organism as a vital nutrient in limited amounts.  An organic chemical compound (or related set of compounds) is called a vitamin when it cannot be synthesized in sufficient quantities by an organism, and must be obtained from the diet.

So basically we all require vitamins as important parts of healthy and complete nutrition, and we get them through our diet because our bodies can’t produce it on their own.  Did you know most animals can create their own vitamin C in their bodies, without having to consume it through their diet?  Too bad we can’t, since it’s so beneficial to a healthy immune system!

So where do we get vitamins?  Well, each vitamin is different, and currently there are thirteen different vitamins that are recognized.

Vitamins are classified by their biological and chemical activity, not their structure.  Thus, each “vitamin” refers to a number of vitamer compounds that all show the biological activity associated with a particular vitamin.

Say what??  So “vitamin” is kind of an umbrella term, and there are a lot of different chemical compounds that behave differently (or offer us different kinds of benefits) and are each grouped under a generic alphabetic category: Vitamin A, Vitamin B, Vitamin C, and so on.  Some act like hormones, some regulate cell or tissue growth, some act as antioxidants, and most of them help enzymes catalyze metabolism.

These all sound pretty important!  So where do they come from, and how much do we need to be healthy?

Well, that’s where this series is going to come in handy.  I’ve decided to address each one individually and you can decide for yourself if you think you’re lacking in certain ones or not.

Stay tuned!

An Update On My Journey...

I realized I haven’t given an update on my postpartum recovery…  I’ll admit, though, I hadn’t intended to give you an update, since I don’t like to really shine a spotlight on that whole subject, but I feel like I’m finally at a place where I can say I’m good again.  I’m (mostly) ME again.  I’ve found a lot more balance, inner peace, maybe even joy.  I’ve read about other women’s struggles with postpartum depression, or depression in general, and how so many of them are at a loss for what to do.  My heart goes out to them.  It’s a terrible hole to be stuck in…  And I realized I should probably stop keeping all this to myself and share the rest of my story, because maybe I can provide some insight and maybe even some inspiration for anyone else in this same boat…  Because nobody should have to feel the way I was feeling.  Plus, if it weren't for some of the people in my life that shared their deep dark secrets, I may not have ever been able to figure out how to get help and how to move forward.  Even though it's hard, it's important to be honest, both with ourselves and with others.  So here I go...

I left off with my post in December, explaining that I had been going to counseling, joined support groups, and learned to put my experience into perspective with things that are just out of our control, and I used Justin and the loss of his father at a young age as a reminder that we do grow stronger as people from our tragedies.

But I just wasn’t feeling stronger.  A little bit, maybe, but not enough.  Not enough to be the mother I wanted to be, or the wife I wanted to be, or the PERSON I wanted to be.  And there were so many things happening in my mind and body that seemed so out of my control.  As much as I wanted to focus on the positives, like how Harlee is healthy and alive, and how this whole experience WILL ultimately lead me to a stronger me, I just couldn’t stay focused on any of that.  I’d revert back to anger, how unfair it all is that I wanted this wonderful birthing experience and got none of it.  There was nothing beautiful about it.  And then all this mess of confusion would set in, like how other people got to have wonderful birthing experiences, or would even have c-sections and thought nothing of it.  How can anyone grow a baby for 9 months, all by themselves, and then all of a sudden not do a damn thing to bring that child into the world except lay there, get cut open, have that baby yanked out of them and taken away, and then have to deal with recovery of MAJOR SURGERY while at the same time be expected to nurture this brand new baby??  How can any of this be a good thing??  Ya know, I can honestly say I’ve come a long way in the last 17 months, but that’s still one thing that’s beyond me.  Harlee’s entrance into this world was horrible for me.  His birth day was the worst day of my life.  And it breaks my heart that I feel that way about a day that’s supposed to be special for him…  I hope that as the years progress I can look past that, but I think it’ll forever be true… Just like September 22^nd will forever be the worst day of my husband’s life – when tragedy strikes, there will forever be an anniversary.  A pang of hurt, a reminder of the grief and fear you went through, every passing year.

There are a lot of people, namely those that see their c-sections as wonderful, that don’t get why I feel the way I do, just like I don’t get why they feel the way they do.  I think part of my healing process has been accepting my feelings for what they are, negative or positive - they’re MY feelings, and I shouldn’t try to change them, because they’re who I am.  But I do need to try to outweigh the hurt and all the negative feelings with more positive ones.

It’s hard to do when your mind has taken over and, for lack of a better description, has a mind of its own.  Here I’ll tell my story of my healing, naturally.

I swear I’ve felt schizophrenic some days.  And I hid this from my counselor.  I kept having these intruding violent and gruesome visions and images come through my head as I was going about my daily activities that I swore if I told anyone about they’d have me locked up in a heartbeat.  It was that bad.  I felt scared, I felt like I was losing it, I felt like I was going off the deep end…  And I didn’t feel safe telling ANYone – not Justin, and not my counselor, even though it was her job to help with things like that… I was afraid that if I told her she’d call an asylum and have me picked up.  I’m not kidding.  It was that bad.  Then one day a friend of mine who’d had a similar experience as mine (well, probably worse actually, in my honest opinion…) and had a similar recovery process ended up telling me that SHE had had visions that scared the crap out of her too.  I was so blown away… You mean to tell me I’m not alone?  I might not get locked up if I share this with someone?  I can be okay after all?  I am eternally grateful to her for sharing this with me.  I hope you’re reading this right now, you know who you are, and I can’t thank you enough, I may not have expressed this the day you told me, but you may just have saved me from completely losing it.  I don’t know what I would have done if I let this go on any longer, suppressing it, but thank you for coming into my life that day and applying the brakes.

So, I ended up telling my counselor.  This was AFTER Harlee’s 1-year birthday.  I’d been suffering with this for a year.  I remember her staring at me, taking it all in, weighing the severity of this situation that she had no idea was this out of control.  And I remember her saying that too – “Thank you for telling me this, I wish you had said something sooner, I didn’t realize how deep your depression was…”  Like I said in the last post about all this – I wanted to hide it.  I didn’t want anyone to know how f!@#ed up I was inside, and apparently I was so enveloped by my façade that I managed to fool my counselor.  Until I finally got the balls to open up all the way to her.

Then she suggested I get on Zoloft, and she suggested it tenderly and hesitantly as she knew how adamant I am about “saying no to drugs” (I spent enough time practically screaming to her and crying about how ho.rr.i.ble. the epidural was for me and how getting it tore me to my core in self-disgust because it went against everything I ever believed in and stood for).  So her suggesting an actual pharmaceutical antidepressant kind of stopped me in my tracks…  And as that thought processed in my mind, the last remaining ounce of passion and strength I had in me, buried inside, that was clinging to hope jumped up, stamped her feet and said NO.  YOU SAY NO TO DRUGS AND YOU WILL ALWAYS SAY NO TO DRUGS.  I immediately asked her what my natural options are, stressing that pharmaceuticals are an extreme last resort for me, if ever even an option at all.  She said exercise, eat healthier, some supplements to take are St. John’s Wort and 5-HTP (a neurotransmitter), along with vitamins B (complex) and D to start with.  I jumped on all of that right away.  The 5-HTP didn’t work as well though, but St. John’s Wort sure did!  I also took Juice Plus along with avoiding bad carbs and “foods” with additives, preservatives, and other harmful chemicals (although that’s really hard to do and I didn’t do it perfectly, but someday I hope to get there).  I jogged every night pushing Harlee in his stroller.  I lost weight.  I felt GOOD again.  All done naturally and WITHOUT the aid of Zoloft, thank you very much.

Around October I wasn’t feeling a strong connection with my counselor anymore.  I felt like I was just going in to chat, not really making progress.  I didn’t reschedule with her, figuring I’d ride the current on my own and see how I did.  I had seen my naturopath in St. Louis and she regulated my St. John’s Wort dosage as well as prescribed me some homeopathics (which I shared with you in my post about homeopathy), and I could tell a huge difference from that.  But I still knew I wasn’t 100%.  The intruding visions had subsided quite a bit (thank God), but I was still feeling a strong disconnect.  I still could not accept that Harlee was my son.  It’s weird to say that out loud, and I’m sure a lot of people reading this are probably thinking I’m crazy, but I felt like I was still waiting to give birth to him.  I didn’t bring him into this world, a man with a scalpel did.  I know I carried him for 9 months, but that was only half the battle, in my head.  Bringing him out of my belly and into my arms was the other half, and I missed it all.  None of my hormones released when he was born.  None of the oxytocin to feel that love and connection I hear other mothers talk about when they first meet their babies.  I loved him, sure, but not the way I expected to.  Or wanted to.  Maybe that’s where a lot of my depression stemmed from.  This tiny human came into my life and completely turned it upside-down, and I can’t grasp the concept that he’s even MINE.  And that’s not fair.

I’m still feeling that way, but finally feeling like I’m getting somewhere.  I discovered a new therapist via divine intervention (which rekindled my long-lost belief in divine intervention) and she’s been awesome.  We were in to see Harlee’s pediatrician in November and I found her brochure in the waiting room, just shortly after I was thinking I wanted to get back into counseling again, since I wasn’t feeling like I was quite myself yet.  Turns out she’s exactly the person I need to be talking to right now.  She's incredible!  She shares my desire to avoid Western medicine, has knowledge of energy work and plans to administer it (another long-lost belief I was hoping to regain soon), and doesn’t have kids, which, in a weird way, is refreshing.  My previous counselor had been through a traumatic c-section, so she could relate to me.  Now that I’m seeing this new lady, I’m finding that it feels like I’m getting a break from dwelling so much on my trauma and instead I get to focus on the grand scheme of things and heal myself beyond the trauma, like I’m tapping into my soul or my higher self.  The light at the end of the tunnel is getting brighter!

So things really are going well.  I've been a lot happier, I've been able to focus on enjoying Harlee and his presence in my life more than focusing on HOW he came into my life, I'm actually looking forward to celebrating his second birthday this summer instead of fearing horrible memories resurfacing, and a VERY SMALL part of me has been entertaining the thought of another child.  But don't get your hopes up too high.  On a side note it's driving me CRAZY being asked by EVERYBODY when baby number two is coming along.  My answer has been, "We're building a house this summer, so that's our baby number two right now."  Which is the truth.  But only part of it.  What I would LIKE to say is, "I'm scared to death of having baby number two, I'm still struggling with accepting that I have a baby number ONE, and I'd like to have all this shit figured out before I bring another human into this world and risk sending my psyche through another train wreck!  Thanks for asking!!"  Ah, sorry, needed to get that off my chest.  But, someday, I hope I am in a better mental state.  I trust that I will be, eventually.  It would be kinda fun to have two kids, I guess...

Anyway.  That’s my update, in case you were interested.  And in case you or someone you know is battling depression, hopefully this part of my story helped with the journey, or provided some inspiration and encouragement that healing from it naturally CAN be done.