Tardy Observations

Hello, everyone! Sorry this post is so late... I was out of the house almost all of Friday and didn't come back home until afternoon today.

I have been trying to observe myself more closely this week. I feel the need to understand more fully how my brain works, to experience my ingrained habits rather than just be a slave to them. To see more clearly how I craft excuses and reasons that help me to convince myself that I do, in fact, need some chocolate (right now!). Especially with the idea in mind that I might be posing for my first PCC weekly photo on Friday, I thought it might be nice to find a way to feel proud every time I could say no to the chocolate, rather than always delighting in any chance of indulgence.

It wasn't a grand a scheme by any means, just a little thought that I kept in the back of my mind. When I would crave something or think to go out of my way to attain some food that was not healthy, I just took a slight pause to question it. It has been a while since I really paused to question my actions. I don't think I have actually done so - at least not with any consistency - since my PCP. It was kind of a relief. I really do feel like a slave to my habitual cravings and reasonings. It helped me to drop the thought much more easily, and just get on with eating well more of the time.

I am going to hold off until next week to start my PCC weekly photo. I never got the chance to take a picture on Friday or today, and I would rather have a regular schedule with a full week in between each picture. That way, I can really see the changes from one week to the next. But I am excited to get it started.

Maybe someone else could kick off their next post with a photo? No pressure, though! :)

Until next week,
Emiko

Don't Waste Your Money...

...on supplements and herbal remedies!

In my week in America I've overheard several people waxing poetic about the power of their vitamins and supplements. From fighting colds to building bone density, there seems to be something for any condition that comes in a scientific looking bottle and promises natural results.

I've been in stores that focus solely on these things, row after row of fish oils, vitamins A through Zinc, herbs, pollens, tinctures, balms, antioxidant teas, the list is endless.

These things are all a waste of your money and time, and you are being played for a sucker. If you eat a varied and wholesome diet you won't need any supplements because there won't be anything TO supplement. You'll already have reached maximum vitamin and mineral needs for your healthy body. There's no such thing as having 110% vitamin C in your system. After 100% you will just pee it out.

In our world of easily accessible fresh and frozen foods, a moderately healthy eater would be getting over the course of a few weeks all the vitamins he or she needed to have a normally functioning body. What's ironic is that the kind of people who spend hundred of dollars on supplements are already eating very well and are actually the people who need vitamins least.

The counterargument I hear the most is "But supplements can't hurt and there's a chance they could help." This is a pretty stupid way to go about things. Wearing tinfoil hats couldn't hurt either. But we have no evidence that they do anything besides make us look silly, and there's similar scanty evidence that vitamins do anything either for a normally eating person.

And what's worse is that the consumption of vitamins sends the message that alone we aren't equipped to give ourselves optimum health, we must rely on the wise men in white coats to manufacture substances that will sustain us. It's just a few years down the road that we won't think it's such a leap to take a pill for sleeping or to feel normal. This is all music to the ears of the drug and vitamin makers.

So don't give them any more money. Trust your body and not the psuedoscientific background noise of the "wellness products."

Hit up the vegetable and fruit section and give the pill-makers the finger.