Ginger

My first exposure to ginger (Zingiber officinale) had nothing to do with gardening or with health: It had to do with taste. To me, there’s nothing like garlic and ginger to add a marvelous zing to carrots or asparagus. It’s even good with broccoli, chicken or tofu. Add a little butter and teriyaki sauce and voila, an easy crowd-pleaser.

Then I started hearing about ginger’s anti-nausea properties. I’m fond enough of candied ginger anyway, so I decided to give it a try nearly three years ago when I brought my third child into the world. Sure enough, in labor and delivery when I started turning green, I bit off a little chunk of candied ginger, and…blessed relief.

Recently, a friend told me she was feeling nauseous from chemotherapy. To make matters worse, the anti-nausea pills were causing her vision to blur dangerously and were making her feel tired. I suggested that she keep the pills nearby but to try the candied ginger — and we were both thrilled when she experienced dramatic relief using the ginger alone.

Ginger ale is relatively ineffective, because it is so watered-down and processed. Similarly, powdered ginger is not nearly as potent. For best results, select the raw or candied ginger root instead.

Candied ginger root is available at most supermarkets in the fresh food section, or filed away in the baking or gourmet imported foods section. If you use the raw ginger root, just peel off the rough bark and smash the root inside — but the texture and taste of the candied ginger is a little more pleasant.

For us gardening wonks, growing ginger ourselves might be the most pleasant alternative of all.

Growing Ginger

Ginger is a tropical plant that grows two to three feet high and produces lush, fragrant, orchid-like flowers. Native to Asia, it is now cultivated worldwide; Jamaica and China are big producers. In the U.S., it can be grown outdoors in Zone 9 or warmer. Gardeners living in cooler zones can grow it in containers; bring it indoors from before the first frost until late spring.

Ginger can be propagated from the root (technically it’s a rhizome). In order to grow it will need to have at least one “eye.” Place the root section sideways (parallel to the surface of the soil), cover it with a couple of inches of potting soil and firm it up. Keep it in a warm, sunny place until it sprouts.

Once it sprouts, repot it into a large container with a rich soil mix of loam, compost, soil and a little sand for drainage. Keep it warm and wet. However, don’t be disappointed if it doesn’t flower; give it some time and patience. In fact, some say ginger rarely flowers in cultivation — but “rarely” doesn’t mean “never.”

But the benefits of some natural medicines like ginger are undeniable, and their use is becoming more accepted in the mainstream medical community. Next time you feel a bit green about the gills, try ginger; you will be glad you did.

As a smoker, you can’t go anywhere today without having a guilt trip shoved up your nose or other body parts. And you aren’t helping it by feeling guilty and beating up on yourself either. So stop beating up on yourself for what you aren’t getting done. The fact is, something’s holding you back. Everyone’s different, and this quitting process involves you. Bottom line: It has to come from you, even though everyone’s getting on your case, and there’s a right way to go about it.

If it’s fears, find out what they are and then deal with them. When you know something, you’re not as afraid of it.

Let’s face it; your cigarettes or chewing tobacco are controlling your life. They plan your day. They control your mind. You find yourself plotting and scheming when you’ll be able to squeeze one in during your workday or anywhere out in public now. We used to be able to smoke anywhere we wanted, but we can’t any more. Restaurants, theaters, shopping malls, hockey arenas or anywhere that people meet is off limits to us. But that doesn’t stop us.

We’re conniving people. We plot and scheme. We change our day to make sure we’ll get that cigarette lit up somewhere. I know it and you do too. That’s addiction, and addiction is in control. You’re a reasonable person, but you’re not in control, plain and simple. Admit it.

So you go around mentally bashing this one, that one, and everyone who’s hinting, or outright telling you to quit. You hate what’s happened to you, because you didn’t even know it was an addiction. You used to have a “filthy habit”, as Sister Mary Margaret or your mother used to say. Today you’re hearing a deeper spin on it. Overnight almost, people are saying you have an addiction, and by having an addiction, that makes you an addict. If you’re balking at this, then you have some serious reading to catch up on. Time for a reality check, friend. There just is no easy or kind way to say it. Nicotine is in control.

Once you get that, then what are you going to do about it? Well, if you just up and quit without knowing how, then you’re only asking for trouble, and everyone around you better get out of your way.

Make a move by finding out what’s involved. Do it the right way. It’s not an overnight thing.

An addiction is an addiction, and that means your brain chemicals and pathways have been changed. Your whole body’s changed, your lungs, your blood vessels, you know the medical spiel (or do you?)

As an addict, make the decision to go into recovery.
# First there is preparation.
# Quitting smoking is only the step that comes after preparation.
# Your body then goes through detox.
# But it doesn’t end with detox. Once you’ve been through detox, you still have to fight the addiction. The recovery has to continue. That’s the idea behind the process.

So maybe you’ve quit a few times. Well the word quit means just that, quitting. It’s permanent. If you went back to smoking, then something was missing, and you didn’t really quit. Mincing words? You just didn’t feed your addiction for a little while. “To understand it you have to know it,” as people say.

If you’re going to switch this whole thing around so that you are in control and not the addiction, then you have to find out how it works on you today, in a year from now, and as well, all the way into the future. Get that winner mentality. Decide that you want control of you. That’s one of the keys to a successful quit. Make a commitment to find out all you can.

Head lice are small grayish bugs that lay their eggs, called nits, on the scalp. They use a sticky “glue” to attach the nits to the scalp. There are many commercial shampoos available to treat head lice. Most contain insecticides or pythrethrum. There are some situations where these products are not effective against lice. Some lice are resistant to pyrethrum and they are not killed by the shampoo. The shampoos are not recommended for those who are pregnant, breastfeeding, or sensitive to the ingredients. There are some herbal and other natural remedies available that are effective and not harmful to you.

Essential oils, especially tea tree oil, is very effective against head lice. A mixture of the following essential oils can be a natural remedy for head lice.
30 drops rosemary essential oil
7 drops tea tree essential oil
30 drops lavender essential oil
15 drops geranium essential oil
15 drops eucalyptus essential oil

5 oz olive oil

Mix all the ingredients together. Apply half the mixture to dry scalp and cover with a towel or shower cap for at least one hour. After the hour apply hair conditioner to the hair and comb all the nits out with a nit comb. It is essential to get all the nits out. Shampoo several times and rinse with apple cider vinegar. The vinegar dissolves the glue that attaches the nits to the scalp. Use conditioner and rinse out. Nit comb again. The life cycle of the head louse is seven days. Repeat this process with the remainder of the oil in seven days.

If you are pregnant, do not use the essential oils. Apply plain olive oil to dry hair, cover with a shower cap and leave overnight. In the morning, shampoo out the olive oil, rinse with apple cider vinegar, use conditioner and rinse. Comb the nits out with a nit comb.

Once the lice are gone, use tea tree shampoo or add tea tree oil to your regular shampoo once a week. This works well as a repellent. Remember to launder bedding and sterilize combs and brushes routinely until all the head lice and nits are gone.

Body composition

US Navy conducted a study of personnel whose body fat exceeded the Navy’s body fat standard. They had completed a 16-week, supervised fat loss program. All participants exercised but some plus to exercising consumed 400 mcg of Chromium a day and some had a placebo instead. Chromium was found ineffective in enhancing body fat reduction and was not recommended as an adjunct to military weight loss programs.

On the other hand, effects of same doses of Chromium supplementation (400 mcg/day) on body composition and glucose tolerance of mildly obese women during a 9-week weight loss program provided contradictory results. Those obese women who were consuming the Chromium Picolinate and didn’t exercise gained 2 kg, halve of the gain being body fat and halve being muscle mass. Those women who participated in exercise program while taking Chromium Nicotinate had a significant body weight loss with no change in lean body mass. Importantly, they also had a lowered insulin response to a glucose load. What’s more, Chromium supplementation combined with an aerobic exercise program was shown to be more beneficial than exercise training alone in ameliorating glucose intolerance.

Weight Loss

Chromium Picolinate supplementation improved body composition in a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled study. One hundred fifty-four participants received either a Chromium supplement (200 or 400 mcg/day) or a placebo for 72 days. Body composition was measured by hydrodensitometry before and after supplementation. No exercise program or special diet was advised but subjects had at least two protein/carbohydrate drinks that contained the different amounts of Chromium. Supplementation resulted in improvement of body composition compared with results from the placebo group. Chromium Picolinate enhanced both muscle sparing and loss of body fat. Interestingly, there was no difference in effects of doses 200 or 400 mcg a day.

In a second study, 122 adults had either 400 mcg of Chromium daily or a placebo for 90 days. Participants reported daily caloric intake and energy expenditure. The subjects with Chromium-supplemented diets lost significantly more weight (7.8 versus 1.8 kg) most losses coming from body fat (7.7 versus 1.5 kg)

However, these studies contained some serious methodological flaws, for example lacking to register actual supplementation dosage in one case or to accurately measure actual energy expenditure in another, etc. The US Federal Trade Commission concluded in July 2007 that there is no basis for claims that Chromium Picolinate promotes weight loss and fat loss in humans.

Mini Hershey chocolate bars

Marshmallow cream

Cut (or tear) the chocolate bars into small pieces. Put each piece between two identical shaped crackers. Dip into marshmallow cream. Enjoy!

*These can be any graham cracker. The Blue’s Clues crackers will be a fun alternative for children. Try Teddy Grahams, animal crackers, or regular graham crackers. Remember–keep the chocolate pieces approximately the same size as the cracker.

The debate concerning the possible bad side to soy products is not especially surprising. Any health claim is open to questioning and controversy. Before soy can truly be declared a “wonder food”, it has to stand before debate and questioning, and any possible negative side effects should be carefully explored and explained. It is also something to note that many food companies are exploiting consumers’ perception that soy is a health food by putting a meager amount of it in just about anything. To some consumers, who merely heard on the news that soy is good for your health, a chocolate-covered granola bar full of processed sugar and preservatives will protect him or her from heart disease because it is stamped on the label: Contains Soy! or some similar claim.

Doctors and scientists need to do a better job of explaining how soy works in the human body, what ways it is beneficial and in what circumstances it could be harmful. Soy by itself is not a wonder food drug, but an interaction of soy with different kinds of foods, a complete diet, that can be very beneficial to the body. This is whole soy I am talking about, such as tofu or soymilk or soy protein. Some marketers of soy are merely taking out components of soy products, such as isoflavones, and selling them as pill supplements to menopausal women and/or middle-aged men with heart disease. These components do not act in the body the same way that whole soy products do, which causes problems and leads people to believe that soy has a harmful side.

I urge anyone interested in the benefits of soy foods to do their homework. Talk to your physician before taking any soy supplements, and use soy additives/components sparingly. Stick with whole foods such as tofu, soymilk, and soybeans. Other good soy foods include tempeh, soy flour, miso, and textured soy protein.

If you suffer hair loss, it can be a problem. In reality, more than 100 strands of hair fall out daily from our scalp. Anyone who does not experience hair loss should consider themselves lucky, because hundreds of hairs can be lost daily. If you do not pay attention to your hair loss, at some point in the future, you may find that you have very little hair left.

Genetic or hormone issues are reported to be the reason for 90% of all hair loss. Androgenic alopecia is the reason men are bald at their hair line and on their whole head. This is also called male pattern baldness. For women there is normally thinning hair on the entire head. It is not similar to the lines of the hair that result from the same androgenic alopecia. For ladies, it is called hair loss in women.
When they are 45 years old nearly 65% of white men deal with hair loss. In addition, some women begin losing their hair between the ages of 30 and 40, but significant hair loss normally only occurs during and after menopause. Approximately half of those who deal with hair loss have acquired the problem genetically.

If you don’t desire your child having to deal with hair loss when they reach middle age, then you must do something to avoid this and find a remedy in the beginning stage. DHT is the main hormone responsible for hair loss. An enzyme called 5-alpha reductase that is produced by the adrenal glands, is responsible for the production of testosterone. In turn, testosterone produces DHT. It is based on how old the male is and how his enzymes function. The hair follicle is rather quick, due to the effects of DHT. It causes shrinking hair follicles, makes them shorter, and sooner or later destroys them. Men and women have hair loss mostly because of “Androgenetic Alopecia”. Stress, thyroid problems, autoimmune diseases such as diabetes, trauma systems, fever, psoriasis, etc. are some of the causes.

So we thought that using certain high-quality could help us restore hair to our balding heads, but treatment must begin early on. Many products are available to promote hair growth, and some are more expensive than others. These products will slow or block the production of DHT.

Let’s take a look at sets and reps, part of the core of your weight training routine. The number of repetitions (reps) of an exercise that you do depends on your goal. The number of reps you can do is limited by the weight of the resistance (provided by free weights, machines, or other devices). If you lift, say, a 10-pound dumbbell, as many times as you can, that will obviously be more than you could lift a 15-pound dumbbell (always assuming good technique) for the same exercise. If you do as many reps as you can, until your muscle gives out and you cannot finish another rep with good technique, that is called going to muscle failure, or just failure.

Before we get to how many reps you need to use, let’s examine the controversy over whether you should really go to failure on your exercises. Some people feel very strongly about this, and studies have shown success with both approaches. Let’s consider the safety factor, which is not always mentioned. If you are doing heavy barbell bench presses alone with no one else at home, should you go to failure? Of course not, unless you’re ready to spend the rest of the day with a barbell on your chest. Overhead lifts, like military presses, and complex lifts, like squats, can also get you in trouble if you go to failure, because you may lose control or compromise technique, which can lead to injury.

It is safer to go to failure when using machines, and it’s usually acceptable when you are doing something like a biceps curl or 1-arm row, where you can just set the dumbbell on the floor if you can’t complete your rep. Most ab exercises can be taken to failure. In most cases, it is safer and just as effective, especially with free weights, to stop a rep or two short of failure. You will get, if you pay attention to your body, to a point where you know you cannot do another rep with good technique. You can grind out another by compromising your technique, but that doesn’t count. What about stopping several reps short, such as doing only 10 reps when you could really complete 15? Don’t waste your time.

The number of reps you do in a set depends on your goals. For general fitness, the range 8-12 reps is most common. Using progressive resistance (which is necessary to continue to improve), when you can do 12 reps, you increase the weight lifted (resistance), which means you will not be able to do as many reps so will go back to 8 or so. This is also the bodybuilding or muscle building range. To emphasize strength gains, increase resistance to where you can only complete 4-8 reps. There is some overlap, of course, and you will get stronger with the bodybuilding protocol and increase muscle size when you work for strength. The reason the strength routine doesn’t give you the biggest muscles is that much of strength is neurological, so by lifting heavier weights, you train your nervous system to recruit more of the muscle.

Depending on the individual, the range of 12-15 reps to near failure (muscular fatigue) may give good gains in both strength and size, but when you go over that, you are working muscular endurance. If you work only muscular endurance, and there may be good reasons for doing that, don’t be surprised if you don’t get a lot of muscle size or definition. The lowest range, 1-3 reps, is generally only used by strength and power athletes, and is of less interest to most of us.

How many sets should you do? There are proponents of the one-set-to-failure routine. To simplify, the idea is that if you go to muscle failure, you’ve already stimulated the muscle as much as it’s going to be stimulated that day, so why do more? This can be deceptive, as not everybody means the same thing by one set. People who train heavy may do one set to failure, but preface that with several warm-up sets. Some such routines have you doing one set to failure on a series of Nautilus machines, which is not practical if you train at home. On the other hand, one set per exercise for 10-12 exercises, usually on machines, has been shown to be successful in some studies, especially for beginners and for general fitness.

Multiple sets to fatigue (just short of failure) is the most common alternative to single set to failure routines. Three sets is standard, although there is no reason you can’t do 2. Four or 5 sets is about all you should do, or you reach a point of diminishing returns. After that, you should switch exercises if you want to continue working that body part. Do no more than 10-12 sets total for large muscles, and 4-8 sets for small muscles.

You can also mix it up. For instance, do 4 sets of flat bench presses, 3 sets of incline presses, and 1 or 2 sets of dumbbell flies for your chest workout. The most important exercise gets the most sets. If you do triceps in this same workout, you could limit your triceps exercises to 2 sets, because you have worked them in the bench presses. If you are really targeting your triceps, you would do more, but be careful of over-training your arms.

With most recommendations, a set is a set, regardless of the number of repetitions involved. As a practical matter, though, if you are lifting heavier weights (for fewer reps), you will probably require more light warm-up sets, so you will be doing more total sets, although the number of work sets would be the same. If you are doing one set of an exercise, do not do less than 8-10 reps, or you may not have the requisite time under tension to get results. If you are doing very high reps for endurance, you may not want to do more than one set per exercise, because you will begin to be limited by anaerobic waste products.

One more thing to consider when choosing rep and set schemes is personal preference. I usually work in the 6-10 rep range and do no more than 4 work sets, with sometimes only one for some exercises. I just don’t like to do high reps, but some people love it. You do have to choose something that takes you at least to muscular fatigue. It may be uncomfortable at the time, but it feels good afterward.

Let’s sum this up with a few recommendations.

–If your goal is to gain muscle, gain muscle and lose fat, or improve muscle tone and definition, do at least 1 exercise per body part, 1-3 sets and 8-12 reps per exercise, to muscle fatigue.

–If you have a more ambitious bodybuilding goal, do more than 1 exercise per body part, 2-4 sets per exercise, and 8-12 reps, to muscle fatigue.

–If you are a beginner, choose 1 exercise per body part, do 2 or 3 light sets of 10-15 reps, not to failure, for 2 weeks or until you learn the exercises. Then go on to another routine that suits your goals.

–If you are interested in general fitness and have limited time to work out, do 1 set each of 8-10 exercises, covering all body parts, with 8-12 repetitions, to muscle fatigue or failure, if you are using machines and are comfortable with that.

–If your goal is to get stronger, choose 1 major exercise for each body part and do 4-5 sets of 4-8 reps. Add other exercises for fewer sets and the same amount of reps, as your time and energy level allows. Stop just short of failure, for safety reasons.

–If you want to improve muscular endurance, choose 1 or 2 appropriate exercises for the muscles you want to target, and choose a weight that allows you to do more than 15 reps, then go to failure for 1 or 2 sets.

Use rest periods of 30-60 seconds between sets for muscle building and 2 or 3 minutes for strength improvement, with no more than 30 seconds for endurance training. Do each rep slowly and under control. Do not train the same muscles two days in a row.

You don’t have to stick with the protocol you choose now forever. Variety in sets and reps is as important to your long-term success as variety in exercises. In another article I will describe “periodization,” which is a way of planning ahead that lets you get the most out of variety in sets and reps. For now, pick the protocol that best matches your goals, and enjoy lifting.

You have crystals on your desk at work, an altar on your car’s dashboard, and a pyramid under your bed.

You do numerology on a potential spouse’s telephone number, license plate number, and street address to see if you’re compatible.

You believe Demeter is the goddess of parking spaces.

When your computer’s hard drive gets corrupted, instead of hiring a tech, you perform Reiki on it.

You actually believe that you chose your parents in order to learn the lessons you needed to learn in this lifetime.

Satsang has become your entire social life.

You named your first child “Rain.”

You have a Buddhist meditation room in the basement, a Native American sweat-lodge in the garage, a Hindu fire-pit in the backyard…and you’re Jewish.

While your boss is berating you, suddenly you notice blue light coming out of her third eye.

You’ve been here now, done that already, and ain’t doing it again in the next life.

You can read your cat’s aura.

You really do see God in others…and she resembles your Grandma Rosie.

You are Scots-Canadian, African-American, or Japanese…and you legally changed your first name to Shiva.

You married your soul-mate in a nude tantric commitment ceremony on Maui where you exchanged eyebrow-rings.

Your teenager tells you she’s become a born-again Christian…and you call all the members of your coven to wail about it and ask what you did wrong as a parent.

You never do anything major without first consulting the i-Ching, your astrology chart, and your pendulum, then doing ceremony over it, meditating on it, and contemplating it. And even then, you have to ask your guru if it’s okay.

That power described above is creative visualization, and it can give you an edge over quitters relying on willpower and anti-smoking medication alone. This powerful tool addresses the psychological component of your addiction by enabling you to determine if you’re ready to quit and helping you relearn how to react to smoking trigger situations and tasks. If you’ve tried to quit smoking and failed once or a hundred times, creative visualization can be your key to lasting success.

Are you ready?

The first step in the process is to find out if you’re ready to quit smoking. Begin by examining your motivation. If you are quitting for any reason other than your own, (your doctor told you to, your spouse/family wants you to) you will fail. Why? External motivation is not motivation at all, and your subconscious will rebel. Your desire to quit must be genuine and internal. Be honest with yourself. If you’re not ready, don’t bother just to appease others.

How can you get ready to quit if you’re not? You can start by examining why you started smoking in the first place. Some people will say stress reduction. Now, that may be why you continued, once your body figured out how to utilize nicotine, but when you started inhaling smoke was about as relaxing as a Stephen King novel. You have to face the fact that you began smoking for some amazingly foolish reasons. Peer pressure. Fear. Insecurity. You must face the uncomfortable fact you made a life-changing decision based on how cool you looked.

If you honestly confront that reality, you can realize you don’t need to look cool anymore. (Let’s face it — you don’t look cool with a cigarette hanging out of your face. You never did.) You don’t need to be accepted by your peers based on how self-destructive and devil-may-care you act. You don’t need to hide behind that cloud of smoke, because I’ve got news for you: people can still see you. Make a conscious decision to stop thinking that cigarette smoking defines you and makes you who you are. Think about these things and you will come to the conclusion you don’t need to smoke anymore.

How do you do it?

Now what? Well, this is where the creative visualization comes in. If you’ve ever daydreamed or spent time thinking about future or imaginary events in a positive light, then you’ve got a pretty good idea of what we’re shooting for. Only this time, we’re going to use those positive images in a productive fashion.

Find a comfortable spot, like a favorite chair or your bed. Block out all interruptions: unplug the phone and make sure the family is asleep or out of the house. Dim the lights. Relax by breathing deeply, slowly and steadily in through your nose and out through your mouth. Close your eyes and clear your mind of the grocery list, the chores and tomorrow’s meeting.

First, take time to visualize all the elements of smoking that disgust, distress, inconvenience and alienate you. Think in detail and use all your senses. Some of the universal things are bad breath; smelly clothes and home; inability to laugh without coughing; burns; brown teeth; charred lungs; yellow-streaked heart; cold hands and feet; ashes on everything; being ostracized by non-smokers; breathlessness. Think up more of your own — the list is endless. Write them all down.

During each half-hour visualization session, dwell on one aspect. Use all your senses. Imagine what you must smell like to other people. How your phlegmy wheeze sounds. How dull your hair looks. How your mouth tastes. Immerse yourself in the revolting images until you can’t stand it anymore. Stay with this series of visualizations until you are convinced that, yes, smoking is as disgusting as everyone says it is.

The next series of visualizations are more pleasant. Picture yourself in an enjoyable social situation, one where you would normally smoke. Use all your senses to create the picture — the sound of the music, the smell and taste of party food, the physical sensation of dancing or laughing. The crucial point of the visualization is you’re not smoking, but you’re still having a wonderful time. Chances are, the first few times you try this, cigarettes will creep back into the picture because smokers smoke even in their daydreams. It’s a habit that can be broken with practice.

Make time each day to do this exercise using different happy social occasions. Picture yourself at an event where smoking is not allowed. Imagine you’re not uncomfortable; you’re not distracted by thoughts of when you get to leave and have a smoke. Play out these visualizations for as long and with as many variations as you like, as long as it’s pleasant and doesn’t include you smoking.

Once you’ve got the hang of visualization, and you’ve played out social situations until smoking doesn’t creep into the picture anymore, it’s time to list all the things in your life associated with smoking. Some of the most common are after a meal; with coffee or an alcoholic drink; while on the phone; driving in the car; during a confrontation; after a stressful situation. Write down every association, no matter how slight it seems. You’ll want to choose one of these scenarios per visualization session. Repeat each instance for as many sessions as necessary until the mind-movie is smoke-free.

How does it work?

How does creative visualization work? Scientists believe it works in the same way repeated thinking about an actual memory does — by wearing what amounts to a groove in the long-term-memory storage part of your brain. Athletes use the technique to imagine themselves in a game making all the right moves, as if they’re practicing their sport. Smokers who want to quit can “practice” in the same way to become non-smokers.

Does it work?

Can creative visualization alone turn you into a non-smoker? Only you can answer that question. If you have physical withdrawal symptoms, see your doctor about any of the excellent smoking-cessation drugs and aids available. Find out what herbal supplements and vitamins are helpful. You’ll need all the help you can get.

During this time, cut yourself some slack. Let the housework go. Go out to eat. Tell those closest to you what you are doing so they can support you. Put on some music and dance in your living room or go for walks to relieve stress and stave off weight gain. And don’t forget to relax and do things you enjoy. Given enough time and practice, your mind can achieve great things for you.

Good luck.