tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58615661462011355422024-02-19T07:32:26.877+00:00A Million WordsA blog that was supposed to be about writing, and has wandered off track.Ameliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10416828902120818415noreply@blogger.comBlogger108125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5861566146201135542.post-5458454319998308812019-11-30T13:57:00.000+00:002019-11-30T13:57:35.056+00:00Website Woes November 2019My main author website has been hacked and I'm trying to fix it and finding the phone support at my web hosting company has gone way, way downhill in the past couple of years. This morning's support person has a raspy, sleepy voice as if she was out all night and is trying to make up for her lost sleep by curling up under the desk.<br />
<br />
Anyway, I didn't keep up the blog posts and now it's the last day of November, so here comes the litany of excuses. I have much more to say but I'm still getting distracted by further research on the internet, and other things I might do with my life. I've also written a stack of articles for the local newspaper, which always seem to take up whole days of my writing life at a time. Meanwhile I had some kind of cold/bug that kept my brain running on a very low gear.<br />
<br />
When that let up I have been trying to get my feet back on the ground at aikido. I'm about two months back into it after over a decade mostly away, and I'm trying to figure out a bunch of things... some of which actually relate to the health theme here.<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li>How much time can I realistically devote to practice, etc.? I used to practice about 5 days a week. With changing, getting there, etc., that added up to about 10 hours a week or more, which is a lot of time for me these days.</li>
<li>How do I recover my past skill level and begin to improve? Re-learning how to fall is part of this, and relates to...</li>
<li>Avoiding injury. So many people who train hard wind up with trashed knees, shoulders, etc. My weak point has been my lower back. I'm looking at a lot of resources about the kind of complementary workouts that I never really did when I was younger. I also need to figure out a way to practice that includes enough aerobic exertion while not leading to too many stupid injuries.</li>
</ol>
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All of that does not fit neatly into a blog post yet. </div>
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I'm also onto a kick of reading a lot about circadian rhythms, which has made me more firm about making my kids get outside every day. </div>
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As I finish writing this, the web hosting support people have emailed back, throwing their hands up. They are not good at their job.</div>
Ameliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10416828902120818415noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5861566146201135542.post-46737860185215923402019-11-11T22:51:00.003+00:002019-11-11T22:51:26.769+00:00Sick days etc.As with NaNoWriMo, my attempt at NaNoBloPoMo has been a bit uneven. I'm on day 11 and I think this is my 9th post. It's not that I don't have ideas, it's just that the day has been slipping away from me. I have all sorts of miscellaneous household stuff to do all the time, I have bits and pieces of paid work, and I like to keep up with the news, which is always incredibly distracting. Today I'm also achey and tired, probably fighting off the Thing That's Going Around. My son had it about a week ago, my nephew and niece have it, and my husband has also been feeling a bit under the weather. I'm not absolutely bedridden -- I did take the dog out for a walk, do laundry, and do grocery shopping -- but I spent a good part of the day lying around feeling like doing nothing at all.<br />
<br />
So it seems like a good day to talk about what to do when you're feeling like crap, because being on the road to better health doesn't mean you'll never get sick, especially if you have lots of contact with other people and their germs.<br />
<br />
You probably already know to get plenty of rest and fluids. I like hot ginger lemon when I've got something mild, and sometimes just because I feel like it (hot water poured over slices of fresh ginger and lemon, maybe with honey). Sometimes I just want to eat sugary things, and I don't think this really helps but I do it anyway. I like to read trashy books. Today I'm reading a sort-of romance with time travel in it. It's not a traditional time travel romance, but it's fitting the bill because its intellectual challenge level is set as close to zero as possible.<br />
<br />
I'm hoping that by giving in to feeling crappy today I will avoid the worst of it. Because I'm excited about probiotics these days I went out and got myself a ginger kombucha, which was pretty good. I skipped my core strength exercises because a) I didn't feel like it and b) I've recently learned that strength building exercises are not recommended when you're sick. I did take a little walk, which felt good and will keep me from slipping into that awful sick insomnia, where your circadian rhythms get thrown off because you're in bed and not outside and the day and the night get to be altogether too similar, but when I'm really running a fever I generally don't try to walk.<br />
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What do you do on sick days?Ameliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10416828902120818415noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5861566146201135542.post-12893188665408000982019-11-10T22:13:00.002+00:002019-11-10T22:13:38.432+00:00Life and Death since the Paleolithic: Part 2<style type="text/css">
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<b>Demands of
different lifestyles and adjustment stages</b>.</div>
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This morning I found
myself thinking about the future of our species, and of life on
earth. It followed from what I was writing about yesterday, the way
we used to be just one species among many others and have expanded to
conquer vast territories beyond our original ecological niche. We’ve
made big, disastrous changes to the planet, and we might not survive
that long, certainly not in our current numbers, with our current way
of life. We’re at a transition between stages of our progress, and
it’s a crisis that could prove catastrophic.
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I was thinking, too,
about how some countries and communities are worried about declining
birth rates. I don’t think it’s a problem, not in terms of
species survival. If only a tiny percentage of us continue to
reproduce, we will still go on. Homo sapiens were almost wiped out
more than once in ancient pre-history
(<a href="https://io9.gizmodo.com/close-calls-three-times-when-the-human-race-barely-esc-1730998797">https://io9.gizmodo.com/close-calls-three-times-when-the-human-race-barely-esc-1730998797</a>).
If we have a massive global pandemic or water wars that
decimate our population it’s going to absolutely suck for us as
individuals, families, and communities, but it won't necessarily mean the end of our species (though it might).</div>
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As I considered the fluctuation of life expectancies in the past, it struck me that we don’t make transitions smoothly, either as individuals or as groups, even as a whole species. There was a drop in
life expectancy, and probably in quality of life when we got into agriculture, but by the middle ages people were living just as long as they had as hunter gatherers. Moving into cities made early
urbanites very vulnerable to disease, but we had moments of getting sanitation right, which improved things. The industrial revolution gave
working poor people rickets and tuberculosis. TVs, computers, and
junk food have left us with widespread cardiovascular disease and
diabetes. Each new,
life-changing technology offered our species something we wanted,
whether it was a regular supply of carbohydrates or Netflix, even if it came at a high initial cost.</div>
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We haven’t
learned to thrive in the wake of our latest set of
innovations, but if we survive climate change etc., we probably will. I’m writing this to figure out a way through our current
transition, to try to make it not a complete end of everything. I
still want to know how to be happy and healthy when the world is
shifting and we’re becoming even more alienated from our biological
roots.
</div>
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We learn things, and we change. In the old world on the savannas, we
learned to use fire for cooking. Some say we started out as
endurance/persistence hunters
(<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistence_hunting">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistence_hunting</a>).
The idea, as presented in <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6289283-born-to-run"><i>Born
to Run</i></a><span style="font-style: normal;"> </span><span style="font-style: normal;">(or
was it </span><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13202092-eat-and-run"><i>Eat
& Run</i></a><span style="font-style: normal;">?)</span><i> </i><span style="font-style: normal;">was</span>
that the whole tribe would go out and chase down an antelope or
gazelle or whatever. The average adult was perfectly able to run all
day, from their late teens into their 60s (if they lived that long).
People’s speed peaks at around age 29, but declines only slowly
after that. I don’t think that the average 29-year-old today could
run a marathon, let alone whole family groups.<br />
If, early in human history, our running ability was paramount,
that probably changed as most people turned to agriculture. The
Marathon that gave the sport its name was a noteworthy event in
ancient Greece. With agriculture, we expanded our range of crops here
and there and our health and lifespans improved, albeit usually not
up to modern standards. With the industrial revolution, a few
generations of workers were notably less healthy than their farming
grandparents had been, but as the 20<sup>th</sup> century got off the
ground we figured out how to make cities less toxic.<br />
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Lifespans improved steadily in most of the world… until just
lately. Now, most people have work that keeps them inside and sitting
still for much of the day, and we get a lot of our entertainment
sitting in front of screens, too. We’ve moved quickly away from
cooking meals from scratch to buying takeout food or convenience
foods at the grocery store.<a class="sdfootnoteanc" href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?tab=rj&blogID=5861566146201135542#sdfootnote1sym" name="sdfootnote1anc"><sup>1</sup></a>
Just like with the invention of early agriculture, we’re left with
less nutritious diets than we had a little while ago, and a different
physical environment. We know some of what we should do, whether it's exercise or diet, but it’s not always easy to
maintain the motivation to go against the cultural grain even when
we have the means to do so (which we don’t always).</div>
I think I’m going to get into the actual “what to do” in the
next post, but I’m really enjoying this all-over-the-place
speculative digression.<br />
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<a class="sdfootnotesym" href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?tab=rj&blogID=5861566146201135542#sdfootnote1anc" name="sdfootnote1sym">1</a> This
is actually not just a feature of early 21<sup>st</sup> century
life. In ancient Rome, most housing for non-rich people didn’t
come with kitchens, and people basically got takeout. It’s an
urban thing, I guess.</div>
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Ameliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10416828902120818415noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5861566146201135542.post-58201403854278064592019-11-09T19:03:00.000+00:002019-11-10T11:47:45.364+00:00Life and death since the Paleolithic, Part 1<style type="text/css">
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There are a lot of
differences between the life of a Paleolithic hunter-gatherer and the
life of a modern, reasonably well-off human. We evolved and adapted
in conditions that were simpler, rougher, and more physically
demanding. Nowadays, we are more comfortable but that comfort has
taken a toll in the form of chronic debilitating disease, which
nobody wants. Looking back at our history – and especially our
prehistory – can show how we’ve strayed from the way of life we
were built for, but the past is a big place, people lived in many
different natural environments, and we only have scattered clues
about what actually went on. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Anatomically modern
humans emerged around 200,000 to 300,000 years ago in Africa, and we
stayed there for most of our prehistory. Around 40 - 60,000 years
ago, we started using complex language and moving around over long
distances, exploring new continents. Recorded history covers less
than 10% of the time since the first homo sapiens migrated to Europe.
Most people didn’t live in cities until a couple of years ago. For
an overview of the timelines, check out this excellent set of
graphics:
<a href="https://waitbutwhy.com/2013/08/putting-time-in-perspective.html">https://waitbutwhy.com/2013/08/putting-time-in-perspective.html</a>
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For the history of
urbanization, see this page: <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/urbanization">https://ourworldindata.org/urbanization</a></div>
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So, what does this
have to do with health? Each stage of cultural evolution placed
different demands on us, and our health varied. In the old days, the
most important thing for the continuation of the species was to
reproduce. 10,000 years ago there were only about 4 million people in
the whole world. That’s just a bit bigger than the population of
Los Angeles, Berlin, Cape Town, or Taipei… and there are dozens of
bigger cities. The world’s total population is now 7.5 billion.
Here’s a graph:
<a href="https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2018/11/Annual-World-Population-since-10-thousand-BCE-for-OWID-800x498.png">https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2018/11/Annual-World-Population-since-10-thousand-BCE-for-OWID-800x498.png</a>
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<a href="https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2018/11/Annual-World-Population-since-10-thousand-BCE-for-OWID-800x498.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="498" data-original-width="800" height="199" src="https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2018/11/Annual-World-Population-since-10-thousand-BCE-for-OWID-800x498.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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To accomplish the
massive expansion of our species, we made several big technological
upgrades. Fire for cooking and the development of language were big
ones. Farming, the development of cities and empires, the discovery
of vaccines and antibiotics, everything helped us survive and live
longer… in general. There were some ups and downs. People were
always getting into fights and conflicts and war, which knocked out a
lot of us. Before 1900, life expectancy varied quite a bit depending
on where and when you lived and your resources (see
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy</a>).
Life expectancy is estimated to have been around 33 or 34 in the
Paleolithic, once you survived infancy and childhood, and may have
been higher. Hunter-gatherers living a more or less Paleolithic
lifestyle who have been studied recently often live well into their
50s, but rarely much beyond that. In the Neolithic, with the
development of farming, life expectancy dropped to 30-ish, and until
1900 it stayed mostly between 30 and 40, with occasional drops and,
for some, pockets of good health that had people living as long as
they do today.
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In that time, before
1900-ish, the big killers were infant and early childhood mortality,
death in childbirth, accidents and violence, and – especially after
the development of agriculture and urbanization – infectious
diseases. Currently, the biggest killers (according to
<a href="https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/the-top-10-causes-of-death">https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/the-top-10-causes-of-death</a>)
are heart disease, stroke, COPD, lower respiratory diseases,
Alzheimer’s and dementia, lung cancer, diabetes, road injuries,
diarrhea, and tuberculosis… those last two being most prominent in
poorer parts of the world. There’s not a lot of overlap between
those two lists. The difference between them is that far more of the
modern causes of death are preceded by a long life, and often a
decade or more of ill health and disability. If you have any kind of
cardiopulmonary disease, diabetes, cancer, or dementia, you’re
likely to have a long period of feeling pretty crappy and maybe not
being able to do much before it finally kills you.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Life expectancy
still varies a lot depending on where you live, from a low of under
50 for some sub-Saharan African countries to a high of about 85 in
Japan (estimates vary a lot. See
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy</a>)
on average. Global average life expectancy at birth is now 70 years
for males, 75 years for females. People who live to over 100 are not
very rare. Are our modern causes of death the inevitable result of
old age? I used to think so – my impression of old age was that
nursing home care was almost inevitable for people over age 70- or
80-something, but you don’t have to look far to find examples of
people in their 80s and 90s who are living independently and are
still able to do most things they need to do (over 100, not so much).
In the places observed in the <a href="https://www.bluezones.com/">Blue
Zones</a> project, it is common for centenarians to still be out
there hoeing their vegetable plots.
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<br /></div>
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You also don’t
have to look far to see much younger people who are already
struggling with diabetes, poor cardiovascular health, cancer, etc.,
so these problems are not simply related to our increased lifespan.
In fact, they seem to be bringing life expectancy down. In the United
States, life expectancy at birth has started to decline in 2014. The
United States has pioneered a lot of recent lifestyle changes, for
better or worse. We were fairly early to urbanize in the 19<sup>th</sup>
- 20<sup>th</sup> centuries, assembly line car manufacturing was
invented here, we developed modern advertising, television, junk
food, and the internet. We are also behind the curve on health care
access. That leaves many people to deal with the consequences of bad
diets, bad sleep, and lack of activity more or less on their own.
</div>
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<br /></div>
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Getting healthier is important here because if you’re not healthy,
the US government is happy to let you die on the streets. Other
countries have put more resources into promoting healthy lifestyles
because they have mostly public health care systems, rather than the
mostly for-profit US system. When it comes to health, we’re a
special case, and not in a good way. I live in a very healthy area
with a good medical system, but I still see a lot of cases of
ill-health among my neighbors, just as much in younger adults as
among the elderly.
</div>
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<br /></div>
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I’m only a tiny
portion of the way through the material I hoped to cover in this
post, so in the interests of getting it posted today I’ll leave the
rest for next time… and maybe the day after that, too.
</div>
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<br /></div>
<br />Ameliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10416828902120818415noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5861566146201135542.post-65555280544404143722019-11-07T19:15:00.000+00:002019-11-07T19:15:55.624+00:00Don't Poison Yourself<style type="text/css">
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For some things in life, the healthiest amount to ingest is zero. That covers tobacco cigarettes, most illegal or recently-illegal drugs (probably -- research on them is not good), alcohol (maybe), refined sugar (again, maybe), and various additives and preservatives in "food-like substances." That said, your body can handle a bit of toxicity now and again, so there's no need to avoid every little additive, just avoid the biggest killers, cigarettes and excessive alcohol.<br />
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<br />
Here is the CDC's list of the top 12 causes of death in the United States, as of 2017:<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<ul class="list-false" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 17px; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px; padding-left: 25px;"><ul>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 0.4rem;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Heart disease: 647,457</span></li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 0.4rem;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Cancer: 599,108</span></li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 0.4rem;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Accidents (unintentional injuries): 169,936</span></li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 0.4rem;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 160,201</span></li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 0.4rem;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 146,383</span></li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 0.4rem;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Alzheimer’s disease: 121,404</span></li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 0.4rem;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Diabetes: 83,564</span></li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 0.4rem;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Influenza and pneumonia: 55,672</span></li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 0.4rem;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 50,633</span></li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 0.4rem;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Intentional self-harm (suicide): 47,173</span></li>
</ul>
</ul>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Source: <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr68/nvsr68_06-508.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #075290;" target="new">Deaths: Leading Causes for 2017, table 1 <span class="sr-only" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; clip: rect(0px, 0px, 0px, 0px); height: 1px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; position: absolute; text-decoration-line: none !important; white-space: nowrap; width: 1px;">pdf icon</span><span aria-hidden="true" class="fi cdc-icon-pdf x16 fill-pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; fill: rgb(193, 39, 45) !important; margin-left: 5px; margin-right: 5px; position: relative; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: inherit;"></span><span class="file-details" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; font-size: 1rem !important; text-decoration-line: none;">[PDF- 2 MB]</span></a></span></div>
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<a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr68/nvsr68_06-508.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #075290;" target="new"><span class="sr-only" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; clip: rect(0px, 0px, 0px, 0px); height: 1px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; position: absolute; text-decoration-line: none !important; white-space: nowrap; width: 1px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">pdf icon</span></span></a></div>
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<a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr68/nvsr68_06-508.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #075290;" target="new"><span class="file-details" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; font-size: 1rem !important; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[PDF- 2 MB]</span></span></a></div>
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Cigarette smoking contributes to risk for heart disease, cancer, respiratory diseases, stroke, and nephritis. Excessive alcohol is a culprit in cancer, accidents, and suicide... and maybe a couple of the others. Being obese and/or having diabetes contributes to risk of heart disease, cancer, stroke, Alzheimer's, and kidney disease.<br />
For smoking, I think it's pretty widely accepted that there's no up side to the habit. Alcohol, however, seems to have a more ambiguous status. Some believe that drinking a moderate amount is healthy. That's not such an open-and-shut case. I'm leaning toward drinking very little, myself. I'm adding my notes here, mostly un-edited, because there is a lot of information to plow through out there, if you want to.<br />
The conventional wisdom allows up to 1 or 2 glasses of wine in any
given day (or equivalent in other alcohol), but this is based on
outdated research, some of it funded by the alcohol industry. There
is some research that shows that light and moderate drinkers have a
lower risk of non-fatal heart attack than teetotalers, but they have
higher risk of cancer and other things, so on balance the physical
risks outweigh the benefits. However, drinking is a key element in a
lot of social and celebratory occasions, and we can tolerate a
little imperfection.<br />
<ul>
<li><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
(<a href="https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohol-health/overview-alcohol-consumption/alcohol-facts-and-statistics">https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohol-health/overview-alcohol-consumption/alcohol-facts-and-</a><a href="https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohol-health/overview-alcohol-consumption/alcohol-facts-and-statistics">statistics</a>,
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">An
estimated 88,000</span></span><span style="border: none; display: inline-block; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">8</span></span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"> people
(approximately 62,000 men and 26,000 women) die from alcohol-related
causes annually, making alcohol the third leading preventable cause
of death in the United States. The first is tobacco, and the second
is poor diet and physical inactivity.</span></span><span style="border: none; display: inline-block; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">) </span></span></span>Also
according to this 8.4% of men and 4.2% of women (adults over 18, in
the US) have “Alcohol Use Disorder” although many more than that
(26%) reported binge drinking in the past month. Low-risk drinking,
according to this, is no more than 7 drinks per week for women, 14
per week for men, and definitely not drinking all of those at one
sitting. </div>
</li>
<li><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Deaths from alcohol poisoning peak among middle-aged white
men
(<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2015/01/06/cdc-six-people-die-each-day-of-alcohol-poisoning-and-most-are-middle-aged-white-men/">https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2015/01/06/cdc-six-people-die-each-day-of-alcohol-poisoning-and-most-are-</a><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2015/01/06/cdc-six-people-die-each-day-of-alcohol-poisoning-and-most-are-middle-aged-white-men/">middle-aged-white-men/</a>)
Alcohol caused 1 in 10 deaths among working-age adults (20-64)
<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2014/06/26/excessive-drinking-causes-one-in-10-deaths-of-working-age-adults/">https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2014/06/26/excessive-drinking-causes-one-in-10-deaths-of-working-age-adults/</a></div>
</li>
<li><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Deaths from cirrhosis of the liver have been dropping since 1970
<a href="https://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/arh27-3/209-219.htm">https://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/arh27-3/209-219.htm</a>
… or have they?
<a href="https://www.sciencealert.com/alcohol-related-liver-deaths-have-increased-sharply-and-it-s-not-the-age-group-you-think">https://www.sciencealert.com/alcohol-related-liver-deaths-have-increased-sharply-and-it-</a><a href="https://www.sciencealert.com/alcohol-related-liver-deaths-have-increased-sharply-and-it-s-not-the-age-group-you-think">s-not-the-age-group-you-think</a>
“Cirrhosis-related deaths increased by 65 percent from 1999 to
2016, and deaths from liver cancer doubled, the study said. The rise
in death rates was driven predominantly by alcohol-induced disease,
the report said. Over the past decade, people ages 25 to 34 had the
highest increase in cirrhosis deaths - an average of 10.5 percent
per year - of the demographic groups examined.” </div>
</li>
<li><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
“<span style="background: #fff200;">Life
expectancy was 24–28 years shorter in people with alcohol use
disorder than in the general population</span>.
… <span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, stixgeneral, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">People
hospitalized with alcohol use disorder have an average life
expectancy of 47–53 years (men) and 50–58 years (women)</span></span></span></span>”
<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4402015/">https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4402015/</a>
and <a href="http://whsc.emory.edu/_pubs/em/2008fall/truth_alcohol.html">http://whsc.emory.edu/_pubs/em/2008fall/truth_alcohol.html</a> </div>
</li>
<li><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
The good news is that at
least 80% of Americans don’t drink too much (according to this
2015 article
<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/12/22/americans-are-drinking-themselves-to-death-at-record-rates/">https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/12/22/americans-are-drinking-themselves-to-death-at-record-rates/</a>)
“at the level of individual use, alcohol was the deadliest
substance, followed by heroin and cocaine.” <b>Recommendation:
</b>If you drink more than 1
drink/day on average, or ever drink enough in an evening to get
really sloppy, you should definitely cut back. If you’re already
drinking only a little, cutting back is unlikely to extend your
lifespan but it will probably reduce your risk of cancer and
Alzheimer’s disease. </div>
</li>
<li><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
“Moderate Alcohol Consumption is <b>Not </b>Associated with
Reduced All-Cause Mortality” <a href="https://www.amjmed.com/article/S0002-9343(15)01015-3/pdf">https://www.amjmed.com/article/S0002-9343(15)01015-3/pdf</a> </div>
</li>
<li><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/4/24/17242720/alcohol-health-risks-facts">https://www.vox.com/2018/4/24/17242720/alcohol-health-risks-facts</a>
<a href="https://www.wcrf.org/dietandcancer/recommendations/limit-alcohol-consumption">https://www.wcrf.org/dietandcancer/recommendations/limit-alcohol-consumption</a>,
<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/13/health/too-much-alcohol-drinking-limits-shorter-life-expectancy/index.html">https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/13/health/too-much-alcohol-drinking-limits-shorter-life-expectancy/index.html</a></div>
</li>
<li><ul>
<li><div style="line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal;"><span style="color: #222222;">Evidence shows that alcoholism or chronic alcohol consumption can cause both </span></span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal;"><span style="color: #222222;"><b>accelerated </b></span></span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal;"><span style="color: #222222;">(or </span></span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal;"><span style="color: #222222;"><b>premature</b></span></span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal;"><span style="color: #222222;">) </span></span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal;"><span style="color: #222222;"><b>aging</b></span></span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal;"><span style="color: #222222;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal;"><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">(from </span>Wikipedia, </span></span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_of_alcohol_on_aging">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_of_alcohol_on_aging</a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal;"><span style="color: #222222;"> 45% higher risk of death…)</span></span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal;"><span style="color: #222222;">“Alcohol consumption, even at moderate levels, is associated with adverse brain outcomes.” </span></span><a href="https://www.bmj.com/content/357/bmj.j2353">https://www.bmj.com/content/357/bmj.j2353</a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal;"><span style="color: #222222;"></span></span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<a href="https://www.alzheimers.net/alcohol-and-alzheimers/">https://www.alzheimers.net/alcohol-and-alzheimers/</a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal;"><span style="color: #222222;"> “[alcohol] may interrupt the body’s natural ability to clear amyloid plaques from the brain.”</span></span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/43050801?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">https://www.jstor.org/stable/43050801?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents</a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal;"><span style="color: #222222;"> “</span></span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal;"><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Mortality risk is low for light drinkers and many individuals who abstain from drinking—including those who abstain for religious and moral reasons, have a responsibility to family, were brought up not to drink and are not social. Mortality is higher among former, infrequent and moderate drinkers, and among individuals who abstain because they do not like the taste of alcohol, are concerned that they will lose control or are concerned about adverse consequences. Unsurprisingly, mortality risk is by far the highest for heavy drinkers. Our results show that reasons for abstention capture heterogeneity in the risk of death among lifetime abstainers.”</span></span></span></span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4100719/">https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4100719/</a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal;"><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></span></span></span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal;"><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">also addresses heterogeneity of non-drinkers. “compared to light drinkers, family prosocial abstainers do not have any statistically significant hazard ratios for any cause of death, except for cancer, where they have 34% lower risk of death over the follow-up period. Compared to light drinkers, prosocial abstainers have significantly lower risks of external causes of death, but have elevated risks of heart disease mortality. … Family prosocial abstainers, family prosocial infrequent drinkers, and current light drinkers have similar risks of overall mortality in our final models.” </span></span></span></span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal;"><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">and “Compared to light consumption, heavy consumption (3 or more drinker per day on average) contributes to </span></span></span></span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal;"><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="background: rgb(255, 242, 0);">55% higher overall mortality risk</span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal;"><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> over the follow-up period.”</span></span></span></span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/feb/27/how-much-alcohol-do-we-really-drink">https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/feb/27/how-much-alcohol-do-we-really-drink</a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal;"><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></span></span></span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal;"><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">in England they drink more, and the rich drink more.</span></span></span></span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/184358/drinking-highest-among-educated-upper-income-americans.aspx">https://news.gallup.com/poll/184358/drinking-highest-among-educated-upper-income-americans.aspx</a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal;"><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> churchgoers are less</span></span></span></span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal;"><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> likely to drink (47% vs 69%), binge drinking is equal across income levels. Conservatives and Republicans slightly less likely to drink than liberals, Democrats. Unemployed, not married, no children less likely to drink. 76% of suburbanites, vs 61% city dwellers and 59% rural, drink. Poorer people tend towards the extreme consumption patterns with alcohol -- all or nothing. </span></span></span></span> </div>
</li>
<li><div style="line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<a href="https://ourworldindata.org/alcohol-consumption">https://ourworldindata.org/alcohol-consumption</a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal;"><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></span></span></span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal;"><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">is interesting… apparently the US as a whole drinks about as much per capita as in the pre-prohibition era… but proportion of children per capita was much higher then, so maybe adults really were drinking more.</span></span></span></span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal;"><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><b>P</b></span></span></span></span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal;"><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><b>revalence of drinking</b></span></span></span></span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal;"><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></span></span></span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/09/25/think-you-drink-a-lot-this-chart-will-tell-you/"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal;"><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/09/25/think-you-drink-a-lot-this-chart-will-tell-you/</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal;"><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> I’m not sure how accurate this is – other things suggest that 70% of Americans drink. This one says that 30-40% of those barely drink, and 10%… jeepers! They definitely drink too much.</span></span></span></span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal;"><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Alcohol use rising? Especially heavy drinking:</span></span></span></span><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2017/08/12/people-in-the-u-s-are-drinking-more-alcohol-than-ever-study/#20c9e2853eb7"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal;"><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">https://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2017/08/12/people-in-the-u-s-are-drinking-more-alcohol-than-ever-study/#20c9e2853eb7</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal;"><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"></span></span></span></span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal;"><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><i><b>B</b></i></span></span></span></span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal;"><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><i><b>ut</b></i></span></span></span></span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal;"><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> moderate alcohol consumption (3 units/day) is associated with </span></span></span></span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal;"><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><i>lower</i></span></span></span></span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal;"><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> diabetes risk. Why?</span></span></span></span><a href="https://www.drinkaware.co.uk/alcohol-facts/health-effects-of-alcohol/diseases/alcohol-and-diabetes/"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal;"><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">https://www.drinkaware.co.uk/alcohol-facts/health-effects-of-alcohol/diseases/alcohol-and-diabetes/</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal;"><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">, </span></span></span></span><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19640960">https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19640960</a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal;"><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">,</span></span></span></span><a href="https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/318684.php">https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/318684.php</a></div>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
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</style>Ameliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10416828902120818415noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5861566146201135542.post-45235845375785788532019-11-07T18:47:00.002+00:002019-11-07T18:47:59.565+00:00Preliminary goals and disclaimerLast winter, I got a bad case of what was going around. It had me in bed for several days and hobbling along for a couple of weeks. This, despite being relatively healthy, or so I thought. But I was tired, I was still getting headaches, and I'd gained a couple of pounds.<br />
<br />
I quit alcohol and sugar for Lent, not as a particularly religious thing but because it's a good span of time -- long enough to make a change, short enough to see the end of it. My hope was to lose some weight, get more energy, and maybe, just maybe, cure my migraines. I also got a little bit competitive because my sister-in-law was doing a vegetarian version of the Whole 30 diet. So I checked out the library for some diet books, where I found two on eating for optimal brain health, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Genius-Foods-Smarter-Productive-Protecting/dp/0062562851">Genius Foods</a> and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Brain-Food-Surprising-Science-Cognitive/dp/0399573992/">Brain Food</a>. The first of these promotes a low-carb approach while the other touts the classic Mediterranean diet with a few modifications, but they agreed on many points. Reading those led me to looking into the <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Blue-Zones-Second-Lessons-Longest/dp/1426209487/">Blue Zone</a> diet – after all, it makes sense to look at what some of the world’s healthiest elderly people have been doing and eating. I recommend these books with some reservations. From there, I started reading articles, websites, blog posts, and dozens of bits and pieces on pubmed. I started keeping track of sources.<br />
<br />
By the time I was a couple of weeks into this, I'd ramped up my ambitions to include:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>lose a few pounds (about 10 -- I'm at 6-ish of those)</li>
<li>maintain good health as well as I can into old age/minimize end-of-life disability</li>
<li>have more energy</li>
<li>get sick less often</li>
<li>reduce or eliminate my migraines (a bit part of the "sick less often" thing</li>
</ul>
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Those are still the main goals, but every now and then I check out a new one, like getting in good enough shape to do a triathalon (I'm not at all sure that's going to happen), or this blog.</div>
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As I mentioned in my re-introduction, I've taken a lot of notes. I'm sharing this information in part to solidify it in my own head and partly because I think it might be helpful to other people. It is not medical advice. Some things I recommend will not work for some people, for one reason or another, and that's fine. These are just simple things that support good health in the long term... simple, but not always easy. </div>
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<br /></div>
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The easiest one, in my opinion, is walking. More on that soon!</div>
Ameliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10416828902120818415noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5861566146201135542.post-30650147023921689932019-11-05T12:28:00.002+00:002019-11-10T14:51:48.003+00:00Methods<style type="text/css">
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How did I arrive at this plan? Basically, a lot of tooling around the internet, reading some good books, and experimenting. As I begin to write more posts, I find that I'm looking at human evolution and history as a way to discover what works best for human beings, but it's not my only source and I think that modern science has a great deal to contribute. It's also the best place to go for figuring out <i>why</i> things work the way they do. Understanding something about the mechanisms behind health makes me far more likely to follow the guidelines I set out for myself.</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
When it comes to
research, I have generally trusted the more mainstream medical
research, research coming out of universities, and articles in medical journals. Government recommendations from countries with robust
public health systems, like the UK and Canada, are also good, as is the World
Health Organization. Their guidelines that will work well for most people, most of the
time, but they lack granular detail. I wanted to understand more about specific factors and mechanisms, and how risk factors for different diseases differ. The <a href="https://www.cancer.org/healthy/eat-healthy-get-active/acs-guidelines-nutrition-physical-activity-cancer-prevention.html">American Cancer Society</a> has a set of guidelines for reducing cancer risk, the <a href="https://www.heart.org/en/healthy-living/healthy-eating/eat-smart/nutrition-basics/aha-diet-and-lifestyle-recommendations">American Heart Association </a>has one for preventing cardiovascular disease, and for Alzheimer's disease prevention, you can find guidelines at <a href="https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/about-dementia/risk-factors-and-prevention/how-reduce-your-risk-dementia">Alzheimer's Society</a>, a UK-based group.
</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
These recommendations are all broadly similar and/or compatible, with a couple of notable exceptions. For cancer prevention, the recommendation is to consume no alcohol at all, or very little, while for heart disease moderate consumption is recommended (1 drink/day for women, 2 for men). Maintaining a healthy weight is part of each of these plans, but cancer risk is lowest in the lower part of the "normal weight" range. </div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Sometimes, though, these mainstream sites just didn't answer my questions, so I went further afield. The internet can be
a wild and woolly world of wonder and disinformation, but there are
some real gems out there. When I come across a new website, one
of my first questions is: What are these people selling? If an entire
website’s goal and purpose is to direct me to a product, I’m not
going to take its conclusions seriously. If they present something interesting or intriguing I’ll look for backup references and
more disinterested research. On a related note, if it appears that a
scientific study is backed by a big corporation or an industry
lobbying group, I’m going to be somewhat skeptical.</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
In some areas, like
exercise and eating patterns, there is a much smaller and more
limited amount of robust research and I will look at anecdotal
information as well on those topics. In some topics, I’ve found
work by specific researchers who appear to be the leading experts in
their fields, and I will follow them closely. I’ll recommend their
books at the end of each section. Finally, I rely on my own personal
experience, when that’s applicable.
</div>
<br />Ameliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10416828902120818415noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5861566146201135542.post-85931776376413567402019-11-04T23:02:00.001+00:002019-11-07T18:49:28.220+00:00Preliminary Summary of Plan<style type="text/css">
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It's day 4 for November and my pledge to write a blog post every day is being put to the test -- it's been a rather hectic day and I had an article due which I just turned in at 5. So, I'm grabbing a couple of lists from my notes. I probably should have started with this, the plan I've been pretty much following for the past six months.</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b>Summary of the
plan:</b></div>
<ul>
<li>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Sleep plenty: 8 – 9 hours of nightly rest, in bed, in the dark,
with no electronics (except maybe a Kindle that’s on airplane
mode, and that only if you are having a really hard time getting back to
sleep).</div>
</li>
<li>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-weight: normal;">S</span><span style="font-weight: normal;">tay
physically active </span><span style="font-weight: normal;">throughout
the day</span><span style="font-weight: normal;">. If you wear a
fitbit-type thing, your daily minimum should be 10,000 – 15,000
</span><span style="font-weight: normal;">steps</span><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
If you don’t </span><span style="font-weight: normal;">want to
count steps</span><span style="font-weight: normal;">, </span><span style="font-weight: normal;">aim
for about 3-4 miles of walking outside on top of your usual daily activities.</span></div>
</li>
<li>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-weight: normal;">G</span><span style="font-weight: normal;">et
outside every day, </span><span style="font-weight: normal;">for at
least an hour, except in extreme weather (more on this later).</span></div>
</li>
<li>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-weight: normal;">Over
half of what you eat should be </span><span style="font-weight: normal;">from
whole </span><span style="font-weight: normal;">plant</span><span style="font-weight: normal;">s;</span><span style="font-weight: normal;">
a variety of vegetable</span><span style="font-weight: normal;">s and
</span><span style="font-weight: normal;">fruits, whole grains,
beans, nuts, and seeds. </span>
</div>
</li>
<li>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Don’t snack between meals -- and no more than 3 meals a day.</div>
</li>
<li>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Stay hydrated.</div>
</li>
<li>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Hang out with other humans.</div>
</li>
<li>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Structure your environment to support good habits and healthy
routines.
</div>
</li>
<li>Don't poison yourself</li>
</ul>
A lot of this is about creating <b>new habits</b>, so it's probably best to start with one thing at a time... although that "one thing" could be a a new schedule with time set aside for sleep and getting outdoors.<br />
Here are some notes I made the other day on habit formation. Habits aren't formed instantly, and some will take more work than others. https://jamesclear.com/new-habit “On average, it takes more than 2 months before a new behavior becomes automatic — 66 days to be exact. And how long it takes a new habit to form can vary widely depending on the behavior, the person, and the circumstances. In Lally's study, it took anywhere from 18 days to 254 days for people to form a new habit.” <a href="https://jamesclear.com/new-habit">https://jamesclear.com/new-habit</a><br />
Here are the steps he lays out:<br />
<ol>
<li>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Identify the habit that you want to develop. (i.e., going to bed at the same time every night).</div>
</li>
<li>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Identify a time and place that you will engage in this activity –
morning or evening routine can be good for this.
</div>
</li>
<li>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Every time you encounter that time and place, do that activity.</div>
</li>
<li>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Repeat.</div>
</li>
</ol>
<div>
Simple, but not necessarily easy. </div>
<br />
<br />
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</style>Ameliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10416828902120818415noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5861566146201135542.post-78188538968302639502019-11-03T14:38:00.002+00:002019-11-05T12:14:44.871+00:00A trying-to-be-brief discussion of weight<style type="text/css">
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<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
A brief discussion
of weight.
</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
One thing that set
me off on my current quest to understand health better was that I
wanted to get back to my pre-pregnancy weight, even though my doctor
thought that my weight was just fine. I don't consider myself to be particularly obsessed with weight, but I do think about it. Over the course of my lifetime, people have gotten fatter. Here's a chart (from <a href="https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/health-statistics/overweight-obesity">https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/health-statistics/overweight-obesity</a>)<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://www.niddk.nih.gov/-/media/Images/Health-Information/Other-Child-Pages/Health-Statistics/adults_bmi_949x703.jpg?la=en&hash=3F2BC986889EB2C11842C38070B10803" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="593" data-original-width="800" height="237" src="https://www.niddk.nih.gov/-/media/Images/Health-Information/Other-Child-Pages/Health-Statistics/adults_bmi_949x703.jpg?la=en&hash=3F2BC986889EB2C11842C38070B10803" width="320" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Interestingly, the percentage who are classed as overweight has stayed about the same (the so-called "overweight" bracket seems to be associated with similar health outcomes to the "Normal" bracket). The general increase comes from people who are in the part of the charts where weight seems to have a real negative impact on their health.<br />
<br />
Enter the diet industry. Thinking about
weight loss is so easy; picking a number, setting a goal, the idea
that you can fix all your problems with a simple calories-in vs.
calories-out calculation. I’ve always had a bathroom scale in the
house, and I think most people do.<a class="sdfootnoteanc" href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?tab=rj&blogID=5861566146201135542#sdfootnote1sym" name="sdfootnote1anc"><sup>1</sup></a>
That makes weigh-ins convenient. On top of that, you have the
cultural and commercial pressure to diet – the dieting industry is
enormous (over $70 billion spent in the US in 2018<a class="sdfootnoteanc" href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?tab=rj&blogID=5861566146201135542#sdfootnote2sym" name="sdfootnote2anc"><sup>2</sup></a>)
and it wants your money. With all that advertising and obsession
about appearance, a lot of weight loss ambition is driven by anxiety
over appearance more than a desire to be healthier.</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
So let’s get this
straightened out (a little). In general there are two
dominant, polarizing narratives about excess weight. One is that it’s
a result of poor self-control and weak-mindedness. The other is that
it’s all about a person’s genes, so there’s nothing they can do
about it.<a class="sdfootnoteanc" href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?tab=rj&blogID=5861566146201135542#sdfootnote3sym" name="sdfootnote3anc"><sup>3</sup></a>
Neither of those stories is very helpful. I actually find it more helpful to blame the world in general: in recent decades (and centuries) our environment has
changed to make us more sedentary (driving cars and
working desk jobs), while simultaneously there has been a rise in
consumption of junk food, sugar, and empty calories in general (also
driven by food companies pursuing profits).
</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
You’d be hard-pressed to find an obese hunter-gatherer
or an obese subsistence farmer. A pattern of moving throughout the
day, eating natural whole foods at mealtimes, where meals take a lot
of labor to prepare, does not lead to obesity. Sitting in front of a
glowing screen while eating highly processed snack foods all day and
half the night does, and even if you’re still skinny after all
that, it doesn’t mean you’re healthy.</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
There are small things that
you can do to change your own environment, short of banning all cars and cell phones, but I’ll get into that
later. First, I am going to go out on a limb and say that yes, there
is such thing as a healthy weight. I know that for myself, I feel
better when I’m under 150 pounds (at which point my back starts to
hurt) and over about 135 pounds, at which point I start to feel run
down and wrung out, so 135-150 is an okay range for me, personally.
Establishing an ideal weight guideline for people in general is more
of a problem, because you can do broad epidemiological studies and
find a decent general guideline but there will always be some
exceptions (though maybe not as many as some people would like to
think).
</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
So what is a healthy
weight, anyway? BMI is the most popular tool used to determine this. It’s
not a perfect gauge of health but it’s pretty good, especially in conjunction with
other measures (blood pressure, cholesterol, VO2Max, etc.). You can calculate
it easily using your weight and height. Here’s a link to one of
dozens of calculators:
<a href="https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/educational/lose_wt/BMI/bmicalc.htm">https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/educational/lose_wt/BMI/bmicalc.htm</a>.
I would steer you away from “ideal weight” calculators because
they set narrow targets that probably aren’t the healthiest for
most people.
</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I’ve encountered
the whole “Healthy at Any Weight” line of thought and I’m not
sold it. Excess weight, especially if it’s in the form of fat, is a
strain on the body. Every heavy person I know seems to have more
joint pain than the skinny people I know. Excess weight – or excess
fat – also increases risk of the following:
</div>
<ul>
<li>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
diabetes</div>
</li>
<li>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
arthritis</div>
</li>
<li>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
liver disease</div>
</li>
<li>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
several types
of cancer (such as those of the breast, colon, and prostate)</div>
</li>
<li>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
high blood
pressure (hypertension)</div>
</li>
<li>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
high
cholesterol</div>
</li>
<li>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
sleep apnea
</div>
</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<div style="border: none; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
(see
<a href="https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/how-useful-is-the-body-mass-index-bmi-201603309339">https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/how-useful-is-the-body-mass-index-bmi-201603309339</a>)
</div>
</ul>
<div style="border: none; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
<br /></div>
<div style="border: none; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
Meanwhile, low BMI goes along with a different set of increased
health risks:</div>
<ul>
<li>
malnutrition, vitamin
deficiencies, or anemia</li>
<li>osteoporosis from too little
vitamin D and calcium</li>
<li>
decreased immune function</li>
<li>
increased risk for complications
from surgery</li>
<li>
fertility issues caused by
irregular menstrual cycles</li>
<li>
growth and development issues, especially in children and
teenagers</li>
</ul>
<div style="border: none; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; padding: 0in; widows: 2;">
(from <a href="https://www.healthline.com/health/underweight-health-risks">https://www.healthline.com/health/underweight-health-risks</a>)</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
However, the range
for healthy weight is pretty broad, and doesn’t correspond neatly
to the “normal” BMI window of 18.5 to 24.9 (as defined by the
World Health Organization and the CDC). Overall disease risk is
lowest in a slightly higher range. “… <span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "stixgeneral" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">many
epidemiological studies show an inverse relationship between
mortality and BMI inside the normal BMI range. Other studies show
that the lowest mortality in the entire range of BMI is obtained in
the overweight range,” (</span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "stixgeneral" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">from
</span></span></span></span></span></span></span><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4115619/">https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4115619/</a>).
This study shows lowest overall mortality at a BMI of 23.4, but no
significant difference from 20.8 to 27.7, meaning that the lower end
of the “overweight” range had better health outcomes, on average,
than the lower end of the “normal” range. Using this range, my
healthy weight could be anywhere between about 125 and 165 pounds.
That’s a wide range. It would probably take me from a pants size of
2 to a pants size of 18. On the other hand, if I use one of those
“ideal weight” calculators it gives me a weight range of 122-130,
which is lower, narrower, and not going to happen any time soon (I
hope).</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Another measure of
health is the waist-to-hip or waist-to-height ratio, which is
probably a better measure of “fatness” and thereby a better
predictor of cardiovascular disease risk. You’ll need a nice
flexible tape measure to check this, like the kind you would use for
sewing, or a non-stretchy piece of thread and a measuring stick. If
your waist is nearly as big as your hips, or bigger, that’s
indicative of a problem, or at least increased risk. Your
waist-to-height ratio should be definitely less than .5, meaning that
your waist circumference should be less than half your height (see
<a href="https://health.clevelandclinic.org/beyond-bmi-a-better-tool-to-measure-your-health/">https://health.clevelandclinic.org/beyond-bmi-a-better-tool-to-measure-your-health/</a>).
The trouble with waist measurement is that you’re supposed to
measure it with your breath exhaled, but not sucking your gut in, and
<i>of course</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> I’m going to suck
in my gut. For comparison’s sake I tried it without sucking my gut
in, then with my gut sucked in, and lo and behold there was a 2-inch
difference. Anyway, this is said to be a better and more accurate </span><span style="font-style: normal;">way
of looking at weight health than BMI is. (See
</span><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/01/against-body-weight/513428/">https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/01/against-body-weight/513428/</a>)</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
It seems to me that
if you’re officially obese, or underweight, it’s probably worth
some effort to get into a healthier weight range. I have friends
who’ve had success with calorie counting, low carb diets (temporarily), fasting,
and even bariatric surgery (stomach stapling), but many of these
approaches are not sustainable in the long term and are not
necessarily healthy. (I do also know a couple of underweight people,
and they haven’t had an easy time gaining weight, either.) If you
want to lose weight, there are many options, but for most people,
most of the time, it’s better to adopt permanent lifestyle changes
than to try to lose a lot of pounds quickly.<a class="sdfootnoteanc" href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?tab=rj&blogID=5861566146201135542#sdfootnote4sym" name="sdfootnote4anc"><sup>4</sup></a>
</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
So, figure out an acceptable weight range for yourself, based on your own health indicators, but don't make it the be-all and end-all.</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Tomorrow, I’m
going to get more into the thing about our food and physical
environment. It affects a lot more than just our waistlines.</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div id="sdfootnote1">
<div class="sdfootnote">
<a class="sdfootnotesym" href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?tab=rj&blogID=5861566146201135542#sdfootnote1anc" name="sdfootnote1sym">1</a> I
don’t know, though, and Google failed me. The closest I got was
this report,
<a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/807251/us-retail-sales-of-bath-scales/">https://www.statista.com/statistics/807251/us-retail-sales-of-bath-scales/</a>,
which puts average annual sales of bathroom scales in the 270
million dollar range. At $20 per scale (about the average price for
the top results on Amazon.com) that would be about 13.5 million
scales sold per year. There are about 127 million households in the
United States, so if the average bathroom scale lasts 10 years,
that’s about one per household. So yes, most people have them.
</div>
</div>
<div id="sdfootnote2">
<div class="sdfootnote">
<a class="sdfootnotesym" href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?tab=rj&blogID=5861566146201135542#sdfootnote2anc" name="sdfootnote2sym">2</a> <a href="https://blog.marketresearch.com/u.s.-weight-loss-industry-grows-to-72-billion">https://blog.marketresearch.com/u.s.-weight-loss-industry-grows-to-72-billion</a>
</div>
</div>
<div id="sdfootnote3">
<div class="sdfootnote">
<a class="sdfootnotesym" href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?tab=rj&blogID=5861566146201135542#sdfootnote3anc" name="sdfootnote3sym">3</a> Genes
do contribute to body weight, but not as much as people would like
to think. “When these 32 ‘top’ genetic hits are combined into
a genetic risk of obesity score, those with the highest genetic risk
(i.e., carriers of over 38 risk alleles), have just a 2.7 kg/m2
higher BMI on average than those with a low genetic risk. This
translates into about a 15-lb (7-kg) weight difference between two
5’3” (160 cm) individuals with high versus low genetic risk
(24).” from “The Epidemiology of Obesity”
<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4859313/">https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4859313/</a></div>
</div>
<div id="sdfootnote4">
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<a class="sdfootnotesym" href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?tab=rj&blogID=5861566146201135542#sdfootnote4anc" name="sdfootnote4sym">4</a>
For the traditional approach, you can check out US News & World
Reports diet ranking, here,
<a href="https://health.usnews.com/best-diet/best-weight-loss-diets">https://health.usnews.com/best-diet/best-weight-loss-diets</a>.
Weight Watchers, Volumetrics, and Flexitarian diets take the first three slots. Crash dieting is generally regarded as bad for people. </div>
</div>
Ameliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10416828902120818415noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5861566146201135542.post-90145141531964547102019-11-02T19:15:00.002+00:002019-11-02T19:15:36.821+00:00Brought to you by the letter U<style type="text/css">
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The u- or j-shaped
curve is a feature of a lot of research studies on health-related topics. “Moderation in all
things,” is as true now as it was when Hesiod and/or Aristotle doled
out the advice thousands of years ago. It’s also a key to some of
the trickiness of health advice – you can get too little <i>or</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
too much of a thing</span>. People like to latch onto particular
foods or behaviors as being healthy or unhealthy, but none of them
exists in isolation. I mean, sure, kale is packed with all kinds
of minerals, but if you only eat kale, the results aren’t going to
be pretty.</div>
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Here’s another
maxim from the ancients: “The dose makes the poison,” attributed
to Paracelus, a Swiss alchemist (b. 1494-ish, d. 1541). That can
apply to everything from Tylenol to red wine, both of which will, in
sufficient quantities, utterly destroy your liver, but which are
pretty okay in small doses. Fish, likewise, is good for you (Omega 3 fatty acids are important), but
because it also often contains some heavy metals (not so good for you) you should go easy on it.
Then there’s exercise. None is very bad, and any amount more is better, until you start to get to the point
where you’re utterly wearing yourself out.
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One of the first
places I ran across this relationship was when I was wondering about
optimal weight. According to the stock advice these days, normal
weight is defined by the <span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "stixgeneral" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">18.5
to 24.9 range of BMI (Body Mass Index, more on this in another post).
However, “Normal” does not match the range of the BMIs with the
lowest all-cause mortality. “… many epidemiological studies show
an inverse relationship between mortality and BMI inside the normal
BMI range. Other studies show that the lowest mortality in the entire
range of BMI is obtained in the overweight range (25–29.9).” This
paper has a long title: “</span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "stixgeneral" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">How
Much Should We Weigh for a Long and Healthy Life Span? The Need to
Reconcile Caloric Restriction versus Longevity with Body Mass Index
versus Mortality Data.” </span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "stixgeneral" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">It
also has a nice little chart </span></span></span></span></span></span></span>which
shows lowest mortality at a BMI of 23.4, but no significant
difference from 20.8 to 27.7. </div>
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<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4115619/bin/fendo-05-00121-g001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="636" height="320" src="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4115619/bin/fendo-05-00121-g001.jpg" width="254" /></a></div>
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The u- or j-shaped
curve also shows up when you look at the results of exercise, eating red meat
or protein, drinking alcohol, or eating sugar, though in those later
two cases it’s unclear that any amount is really <i>good</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
for people. Sleep is another problematic example, which merits a blog post of its own. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-style: normal;">For
almost everything, there’s going to be a balance. Fortunately,
we’re adaptable creatures, and that balance point is very broad without a gigantic drop-off for most things. Don’t get too stressed out if
you’re not hitting the bullseye. Being more or less on target
really is good enough. Still, it helps to have some idea of what the targets are, and that's what I'll get into in a little while. </span></div>
<br />Ameliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10416828902120818415noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5861566146201135542.post-65948386432403349402019-11-01T18:33:00.001+00:002019-11-01T18:33:34.537+00:00Re-introducing myself<span id="goog_508052049"></span><span id="goog_508052050"></span>Welcome to the next chapter of this blog! Apart from one lonely stub post in 2012, I haven't touched this blog in over 9 years. Back then, I was focused on all things domestic. In some ways I still am, but my focus has really been all over the place. I finished my fantasy series and a Regency romance. I still write miscellaneous articles for the local press. My two kids are now well into their school years, and doing fine. Our family was on a TV show a couple of years ago, which was interesting, and my husband now has a thriving Youtube career.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiepugQD3pG6UJ5G4p5xJF4XRLXlFVx3rEyzAlJIU1wUTQQXrYIE12iLY-TGCEOVDInBYYD25kb8Ni8roklqve5Xsljb61nopewoteUMlBp7P1DMb7Sxb0rEr_l9Eiq455-MjlEizFE52E/s1600/IMG_20190722_105251.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiepugQD3pG6UJ5G4p5xJF4XRLXlFVx3rEyzAlJIU1wUTQQXrYIE12iLY-TGCEOVDInBYYD25kb8Ni8roklqve5Xsljb61nopewoteUMlBp7P1DMb7Sxb0rEr_l9Eiq455-MjlEizFE52E/s320/IMG_20190722_105251.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
As for me, I'm casually looking for a job, trying to get around to building a new chicken coop, playing guitar a little (this is new-ish), reading a lot, and continuing my usual hobby of immersing myself in one subject after another. This year, it's health -- a broad topic, but pretty important. At my age, and being as well-informed as I like to think I am, I should have figured out how to be healthy by now, right? But no. I do okay. I always pass my annual physicals just fine, but I have also always been a bit tired, gotten sick a bit more often than I think I should.<br />
<br />
Humans are remarkably good at getting by in all sorts of settings, but it turns out that the modern mostly-urbanized, desk- and car-bound world is a setting that we're really not well adapted to, even though we made it ourselves. The problem is invisible because it's all around us, and it's complex and multi-faceted. Worse, enormous industries are heavily invested in maintaining and expanding the unhealthy status quo.<br />
<br />
I've copy-pasted vast, scrolling pages of urls in my recent quest, and in the pages of this blog I hope to distill some of the best information into a usable form. I'm doing this as a variation on NaNoWriMo, known as NaNoBloPoMo, in which I am supposed to post daily for the entire month of November. We'll see how that goes.Ameliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10416828902120818415noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5861566146201135542.post-21680980776653562462012-12-25T18:29:00.001+00:002012-12-25T18:29:46.262+00:00I haven't been around here much lately, but I've recently set up a new website and <a href="http://ameliasmith.net/blog">blog </a>at www.ameliasmith.net<br />
<br />
See you<a href="http://www.ameliasmith.net/"> there!</a>Ameliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10416828902120818415noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5861566146201135542.post-48250056906827694502010-04-14T14:11:00.006+01:002010-05-18T12:53:36.421+01:00Cleaning an untreated wood ceilingI have been scouring the internet for advice on how to clean untreated wood, and I've come up dry. I found articles about cleaning wooden furniture, routine cleaning of wood floors (almost all of which have some kind of finish), and washing outdoor decks. None of them seemed suited to my problem -- an untreated, semi-post-and-beam ceiling with about 40 years worth of woodsmoke, pollen, and general household dust built up on its surface.<br /><br />Last fall, I washed it with a wood cleaner, diluted in water and mixed with bleach as directed on the bottle. I slopped it on with a rag, scrubbed it with a stiff plastic scrub brush, and wiped it down with another damp rag. It looked a bit cleaner, but it wasn't significantly brighter, and now, after a winter of construction dust, you can't tell the difference.<br /><br />I read that oxygen bleach is the active ingredient in most wood cleaners, so I decided to try an experiment. I found some of my sister-in-law's oxygen bleach near the laundry machine here, mixed up a cup of it, and cleaned a spot. Just above it, I gave the wood a quick whack with 120-grit on a power sander. Here are the results:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP2gZwDM0TFa5FtuGVp6KZVe49HLsDcOcwwjpfWToy2FRJOhNp-hk5vdgJLzBQd_gvF_v58eXvMHlnlFtQFJm2IklLbg15YeUDsSPsyA4rrZ-0AARmpl4Jgjw8e_jl73XEbkiDsAlPVmM/s1600/100_2042.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 214px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP2gZwDM0TFa5FtuGVp6KZVe49HLsDcOcwwjpfWToy2FRJOhNp-hk5vdgJLzBQd_gvF_v58eXvMHlnlFtQFJm2IklLbg15YeUDsSPsyA4rrZ-0AARmpl4Jgjw8e_jl73XEbkiDsAlPVmM/s320/100_2042.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5461103658048760994" border="0" /></a><br />The top part is sanded, the bottom part is bleached.<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwxwSpVbML6agDzT70FjtCV7QCQjw_qx2wm4hb95AlRhdP_6nFLno5fW-f1t1BcNFlCFsAtraHNm34xfVGCxc8mHNk5citY53noWZiYLtRAHCdwmEW-pWUJK7TKo_3cPVwfGg77ufIiOc/s1600/100_2041.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 214px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwxwSpVbML6agDzT70FjtCV7QCQjw_qx2wm4hb95AlRhdP_6nFLno5fW-f1t1BcNFlCFsAtraHNm34xfVGCxc8mHNk5citY53noWZiYLtRAHCdwmEW-pWUJK7TKo_3cPVwfGg77ufIiOc/s320/100_2041.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5461103654127540018" border="0" /></a><br /><br />....<br /><br />I began writing this post over a month ago, and now the project is mostly done. After messing around with wood cleaners, I found sanding to be faster, easier, and more effective, although it was also noisier and dustier. I drafted my husband to sand the living room ceiling. I had painted the kitchen ceiling after only lightly cleaning the wood, and it took 4 coats of paint to attain a decent shade of white. The parts of the living room ceiling which were sanded, wiped down, and painted looked better than the kitchen ceiling after only 3 coats of paint. <br /><br />Conclusion: If you can sand it, that is totally the way to go to revive and brighten old, darkened wood. Otherwise (as in the case of rough-cut pine), oxygen bleach or wood cleaner does an OK job.Ameliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10416828902120818415noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5861566146201135542.post-32398877023483536462010-04-11T12:08:00.005+01:002010-05-18T14:11:35.726+01:00Adventures and misadventures in Poultry<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio3kBxibPN0th-lh8sqNAwl0uh2AnP757ObCffbGMH0VNwdDIjofG643hQgkgxkQ9ZTDQNloZfo3tizIApjNGkp0OXf8aaDgvgAdr7v77EKvcDNwS6C3ViIhYv8y2KrTerl6PAKd1Ojbs/s1600/100_2033.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 214px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio3kBxibPN0th-lh8sqNAwl0uh2AnP757ObCffbGMH0VNwdDIjofG643hQgkgxkQ9ZTDQNloZfo3tizIApjNGkp0OXf8aaDgvgAdr7v77EKvcDNwS6C3ViIhYv8y2KrTerl6PAKd1Ojbs/s320/100_2033.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5458838838662739714" border="0" /></a>I haven't posted much here lately. We've been busy with one thing and another, including various experiments in backyard poultry. My brother gave us 4 hens and a rooster at Christmas. They were theoretically his birds before that, but they spent most of the time at our house, anyway, so it wasn't a massive change. They are entertaining and low-maintenance. The biggest hassle they cause is by hiding their eggs all over the property. Nova finds them entertaining and sometimes likes to collect the eggs, when we can find them.<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgP2Sn97hPlXyTLQzNObtk24pFRh5jbVGJBhxgbbSsCZ1KeKpoglNgnWdnPSVcngi-2vDTlhseN4NCKlv80lZ8LpLJLmahurP0dsovD4zsIL8AF2P6ZqErYJjlJfXCqawgYkvLa7PHfkbg/s1600/100_2038.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 214px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgP2Sn97hPlXyTLQzNObtk24pFRh5jbVGJBhxgbbSsCZ1KeKpoglNgnWdnPSVcngi-2vDTlhseN4NCKlv80lZ8LpLJLmahurP0dsovD4zsIL8AF2P6ZqErYJjlJfXCqawgYkvLa7PHfkbg/s320/100_2038.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5458838852234571938" border="0" /></a>Around about March, things started to get more complicated. I was told that this guy, Jeff, wanted to sell off some egg-laying ducks, so I bought three of them and threw them in with the chickens. At around the same time, my brother talked me into ordering more ducks, because I'd been talking about raising some for meat. Despite pregnancy, the renovation process, a new, short-lived job, and being generally over-extended, I ordered 8 Pekin ducklings from McMurray hatchery.<br /><br />We were totally unprepared for the ducklings. They spent their first week in a couple of cardboard boxes in the living room, going through at least 6 rounds of water a day, spilling and pooping everywhere, creating a godawful stink. Ducklings are way, way messier than chicks. The stink was getting to me by the time we finally cobbled together a duck house. I started the project and Mike finished it on one of the days when I was off at work, and Nova was parked in front of the TV. <br /><br />Here's a picture of them at about 3 weeks old:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8rT0VSnPNFfj3UodplPyjH9kOxF9KPYVbw14nlmj2NROOxGKDyN8cI9Ka-UzV1N5E_yLY-5aiKS62Da1N-IHO4nAfUXBwFZzAiXHke1HPdVbg_abfEFF2ts3wkIPy47YUQAFNThNaLGo/s1600/100_2031.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8rT0VSnPNFfj3UodplPyjH9kOxF9KPYVbw14nlmj2NROOxGKDyN8cI9Ka-UzV1N5E_yLY-5aiKS62Da1N-IHO4nAfUXBwFZzAiXHke1HPdVbg_abfEFF2ts3wkIPy47YUQAFNThNaLGo/s320/100_2031.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5458838863367024658" border="0" /></a>We had an unusually warm spring this year, so the ducklings spent most of their days outside from the time they were about 2 weeks old onwards. There was a heat lamp in their house for nights, and I put a dimmer switch on it so they wouldn't broil and the electric bill would stay under control. One of them had had an eye infection of some sort, but it cleared up on its own only to return a few weeks later, but other than that they were all healthy despite the night-time overcrowding. Their house was built on a pallet, about 4' by 3' 4", for a total of less than 2 square feet per bird. They really could have used about twice the space, but at least they got to run around outside in the daytime.<br /><br />All went along at a fairly even keel for a few more weeks until "processing" time came around. Processing is a euphemism for slaughter and butchering, but I guess I don't mind the less graphic terminology. This past weekend was supposed to be processing weekend. I was going to do it on Sunday, with a bit of help from someone or other, and as the day approached the household ganged up on me. My father and husband wanted to give the ducks away, my mother said she just wished I wouldn't do it, etc., etc. By the middle of the day on Sunday, I was a nervous wreck. So I threw the ducks' feed back in and put the slaughter off until Monday morning, when my cousin Jethro and his friend Rob had offered to help (as of Sunday afternoon).<br /><br />Jethro had killed and butchered chickens, but none of us had done ducks before, so it was a learning process. We had a traffic cone, borrowed from a neighbor, a couple of big pots for scalding, a table, a board to hang them from for plucking, and a bunch of other stuff. It's all a bit of a blur. We got started at 8:30 in the morning, had a long coffee break a bit before noon, the guys took off at 1:30, and I put the last duck in a freezer bag just before 3. It was exhausting, but much better than the horrible, harassed build-up and delay had been the day before. I had great intentions to document the process and the set-up, but getting the job done was more important.<br /><br />I now have about 56 pounds of duck in the freezer, and a vegetarian husband.Ameliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10416828902120818415noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5861566146201135542.post-90765832140694142632009-12-22T19:35:00.005+00:002009-12-22T20:04:03.605+00:00The Family-Holiday Morass strikes againI haven't gotten around to doing <span style="font-style: italic;">anything</span> in the past few weeks. Ever since Thanksgiving, it's been one unfocused, vaguely hectic day after another. Nova has been struggling along with her teeth. She has horrible decay in her front top teeth because of my tooth-cleaning negligence combined with night nursing, and her bottom back molars were coming in.<br /><br />Nova had her 2nd birthday, and I made two cakes for two separate celebrations of the occasion. The first, a <a href="http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Chocolate-Brownie-Torte-with-White-Chocolate-Mousse-and-Caramelized-Bananas-107884">Chocolate Brownie Torte with White Chocolate Mousse and Caramelized Bananas</a> was a bit of a flop, but tasted good. Nova enjoyed blowing out the candles and eating it.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGinaV9okVXAmTfNUPEcuPdBcHnvzTkrT38H7WuqDTSUBEubsQlXNrvKUjcrEqbXuCMlHYt8armtKMDORIz6ueZmCGNDhUyBo_vfSEzg9wJVYy-xbOCKSFG4Ki2DELtkpBQsdXdsawNY4/s1600-h/100_1910.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGinaV9okVXAmTfNUPEcuPdBcHnvzTkrT38H7WuqDTSUBEubsQlXNrvKUjcrEqbXuCMlHYt8armtKMDORIz6ueZmCGNDhUyBo_vfSEzg9wJVYy-xbOCKSFG4Ki2DELtkpBQsdXdsawNY4/s320/100_1910.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5418151097797441138" border="0" /></a><br />The second cake was equally mediocre, but held together better. It was a basic chocolate cake with orange frosting and chocolate-frosting decorations. I tried to decorate it with the traditional pastry bag and tips. Nova ate the bits of chocolate off the top. Obviously her diet is not as tooth-friendly as a dentist would wish for, either.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAemwhEZj9Bv49N-Yt0vCihboQZN2ZoOjTWWxMkJznsbExS9QoeMausm6kS7ckzqK3IxLL19hsqzHpN18ywQjugpqi5z7g3gFBnhTL5oNTrdm1kui60S2FiTpSc9-y9sk91SO-JnfLJKg/s1600-h/100_1930.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAemwhEZj9Bv49N-Yt0vCihboQZN2ZoOjTWWxMkJznsbExS9QoeMausm6kS7ckzqK3IxLL19hsqzHpN18ywQjugpqi5z7g3gFBnhTL5oNTrdm1kui60S2FiTpSc9-y9sk91SO-JnfLJKg/s320/100_1930.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5418151094402712130" border="0" /></a>We have been doing a much better job at keeping up with the tooth-cleaning, though, and she has an appointment to get some fillings on Christmas Eve. Hopefully there'll be enough excitement afterwards that she'll forget the agony and forgive us for putting her through it!<br /><br />Meanwhile, we've had a storm which had us snowed in, with the power on, for a good 36 hours. We all played in it together on the first day, making snow angels and throwing the dry, powdery snow around. Nova had no interest in coming inside until she was soaking wet. This morning, I introduced her to sledding. We went down the gentle slope of hill next to my parents' house a few times, and promised to come back to it later today, or tomorrow morning.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAJQYPlhQNHvB7qHLBiNKOzsLWPy4Jz78qljvQtjcvLW9142zg3AtUiw0zflEgEk3aqPZj83XfLNeZhVES7eTMguxa6KUQpC9CKUcCnKij46a1TrWXy00nQk0gyEZILsNJKogf2YEhjVk/s1600-h/100_1967.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAJQYPlhQNHvB7qHLBiNKOzsLWPy4Jz78qljvQtjcvLW9142zg3AtUiw0zflEgEk3aqPZj83XfLNeZhVES7eTMguxa6KUQpC9CKUcCnKij46a1TrWXy00nQk0gyEZILsNJKogf2YEhjVk/s320/100_1967.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5418151104964953778" border="0" /></a>I intend to write Christmas cards and send them out in the next 48 hours. Ha!Ameliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10416828902120818415noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5861566146201135542.post-60168351203707227072009-11-07T21:58:00.002+00:002009-11-08T00:54:53.129+00:00Renovation UpdateI haven't been posting much lately, and don't have much excuse, but I'm logging on today to report that there is visible progress in our house renovation -- the floors are in (mostly): <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8x6GGNF-ETz0hjIqAImEMyeD79V6C5VpeDOVWeEcJDdQtxdzll5DjeD67w9GDo38df9aY80xqGnP90dzWV2dlOLtWpHOM_Pk6gjx3iUF73RjEHQf4lLIE4Q2a8W0vOK8eNboK_NHoV_o/s1600-h/100_1869.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 214px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8x6GGNF-ETz0hjIqAImEMyeD79V6C5VpeDOVWeEcJDdQtxdzll5DjeD67w9GDo38df9aY80xqGnP90dzWV2dlOLtWpHOM_Pk6gjx3iUF73RjEHQf4lLIE4Q2a8W0vOK8eNboK_NHoV_o/s320/100_1869.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5401527409726450482" /></a><br /><br />In addition, we spent the entire day Wednesday on an expedition to Ikea to pick up the kitchen cabinets, which are piled in the basement, waiting for the plumbing, wiring, insulation, drywall, and painting to be done.Ameliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10416828902120818415noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5861566146201135542.post-69893428967213542092009-10-29T13:54:00.003+00:002009-10-29T14:01:19.601+00:00"Shut Up!"A few days ago, Nova started saying "Shut up!" loudly, emphatically, and frequently. We were puzzled and troubled by this development. We don't say that around here, at least I don't think we do. Where had she picked it up? Who was she telling to "shut up"?<br /><br />Well, along came this morning's batch of pancakes, and Nova started the shouting again. "Shut up! Shut up!"<br /><br />And then we took it out of the fridge:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6vIYyOg_AFLQGx-leyhECFcRC3XWba8eRoQcJAAAiBFKA2JKWhQw95ZtEj_HJRAJwI3IwBKXFxN-Ao96zYklXcC48hhr_p2wIonYkcj_o5pwUv1q2YRfb6_aX4e05g0b1NX-0aIm9mms/s1600-h/100_1860.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6vIYyOg_AFLQGx-leyhECFcRC3XWba8eRoQcJAAAiBFKA2JKWhQw95ZtEj_HJRAJwI3IwBKXFxN-Ao96zYklXcC48hhr_p2wIonYkcj_o5pwUv1q2YRfb6_aX4e05g0b1NX-0aIm9mms/s320/100_1860.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5398021565130575154" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Syrup!Ameliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10416828902120818415noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5861566146201135542.post-75227603339350145852009-10-21T19:23:00.003+01:002009-10-21T20:16:20.945+01:00Beginning The Artist's WayI don't remember when I first heard about <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Artists-Way-Spiritual-Creativity-Anniversary/dp/1585421464/ref=tmm_pap_title_0"><span style="font-style: italic;">The Artist's Way</span></a>, by Julia Cameron. It must have been over a decade ago, but I never felt the urge to try out the program until a few days ago. It's just not my style, not what I really needed. I was pretty confident about my creative direction and the work I was doing. I was writing novels, revising them, sending them out, getting rejections, and starting the whole process over and over again. <br /><br />The accumulation of rejections, without a single expression of interest in my fiction writing, was moderately discouraging, but not unusual. I was prepared for it. I kept going, knowing that persistence was the key to success. I could have kept going like that, but since our return to the US almost three months ago, I just can't find the time. You might think that with all the other adults around to entertain Nova, I should have more time to write than I had in Galway, but it doesn't work out that way. There, I could write while she napped, or find a quiet moment in the early mornings or evenings. Here, there's just too much to do, and too many people around all the time. I need my own space to write. I need a house or a cafe table to myself, where I know I won't be dragged off into conversation or into doing some minor housekeeping task for just a minute. <br /><br />That's just not possible around here, not these days. I can beg a few hours here or there to write a newspaper article or go to a writers' group, but to write fiction? Forget about it. Not the kind of time I'd need to create anything substantial. I know what I need: To write or revise a novel, I need at least 1-2 hours/day, at least five days a week, for three or four months. And I can't get it. I've asked for it, and I can't get it, can't afford it, can't find it. I'm really frustrated. I have to figure what I can do, and how to deal with my stalled novel-writing career, my lost momentum.<br /><br />I went down to the <a href="http://www.bunchofgrapes.com/">Bunch of Grapes</a> on Tuesday and picked up <span style="font-style: italic;">The Artist's Way</span>, hoping that it would help somehow. I don't know if it will or not, but I'm going to give it a half-baked try. The first chapter advises setting aside 7-10 hours a week to work through the program. If I had 7-10 hours a week, 7-10 solid hours, d'y'know what I'd be doing? Writing!!! Real writing, not just self-help journalizing! But the book also promises creative and spiritual renewal, which would be nice. So I'm going to give it a shot, at a rate of about a half-hour a day, half the recommended time, because that's all I can find in my current situation. <br /><br />We'll see how it goes. Meanwhile, I hope to keep blogging about the miscellany of life around here.Ameliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10416828902120818415noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5861566146201135542.post-25815608951272909802009-10-10T19:30:00.004+01:002009-10-10T20:06:12.797+01:00Last Blast of the BlueberriesIn the early 1980s, perhaps in the summer of 1983, my grandfather, Professor Henry Clay Smith, took it into his head to plant about fifty blueberry bushes in front of his house. He had the idea -- suspect even at the time -- that these blueberry bushes would provide for his grand-children's college tuition. Even with today's rising food prices and this year's excellent blueberry season, the patch could produce at most $1000 worth of blueberries in a year. In retrospect, we think that the blueberries-as-college-tuition idea might have been an early sign of my grandfather's future decline into Alzheimer's disease.<br /><br />But it was a spectacular season. When we arrived here in late July, the front bushes were producing a good crop, and only four days ago, in the first week of October, I took these pictures. Most of the bushes look like this:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7eW51rddae5PI98eAI2wB5v1ANq9f9kK93mUVyq7zgg0Pw3353OPWCi5rlrKcVvuOrFNmLh4gi_2YKnRlLk65ZkkRZypeuTNQ7IFwpIgwlHAq1xa-ErBJdETOMs30dqxCjBBM6Z9QqPs/s1600-h/100_1819.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7eW51rddae5PI98eAI2wB5v1ANq9f9kK93mUVyq7zgg0Pw3353OPWCi5rlrKcVvuOrFNmLh4gi_2YKnRlLk65ZkkRZypeuTNQ7IFwpIgwlHAq1xa-ErBJdETOMs30dqxCjBBM6Z9QqPs/s320/100_1819.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5391040955936289970" border="0" /></a>In the last row, two final bushes were still loaded with berries: <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0UbtR2UMm6uqgJASjXvvlSGVXIIAXJf8G9wt-mH_EOlh293dW7voc-XCe88ChwKt-3khfM2ivbdzPm2sOq_6V-kWeR58n5Al71HmIKv1NqfHF6eAN3eEnPrCV3NfvOjCjZqFmF8a2Sys/s1600-h/100_1821.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0UbtR2UMm6uqgJASjXvvlSGVXIIAXJf8G9wt-mH_EOlh293dW7voc-XCe88ChwKt-3khfM2ivbdzPm2sOq_6V-kWeR58n5Al71HmIKv1NqfHF6eAN3eEnPrCV3NfvOjCjZqFmF8a2Sys/s320/100_1821.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5391040964854559394" border="0" /></a>Next year, as part of my orchard plan, I hope to put in a few blueberry bushes of our own.Ameliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10416828902120818415noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5861566146201135542.post-35793511071880861212009-09-27T21:31:00.004+01:002009-09-29T01:14:38.000+01:00Home food production designMike has a fondness for talking about the zombie apocalypse. He figures, since he can live on beans and packet noodles, he's in better shape to survive it than I am, with my gourmet tastes for a ridiculously wide range of foods. My brother and his wife are living off the grid (except that they hop over here to use the shower, washing machine, and internet connection) and have a truly lovely vegetable garden.<br /><br />I want to get in on this apocalypse-prep game, but my way of doing it is to skim about fifty million web pages and a few dozen books on the subject before I do anything that requires physical work or much investment of money. Besides, I don't really think that the apocalypse (zombie or otherwise) is coming anytime soon, and in the meantime none of us are making much money (to put it mildly). So, I have spent the past four or five days calculating our food needs, projecting costs, and figuring out how that all lines up with what kind of food we can produce on our three acres of sand without putting in more than 5-10 hours a week, max. Because in all likelihood, I'm the one who's going to be doing all or most of the work, and I don't want to be a full-time subsistence farmer.<br /><br />Figuring out the cost of food and the cost of gardening is a bit of a puzzle. Because we're living with my parents, I can't get a good food-cost estimate from our current grocery bill, but when I was single here I always seemed to spend about $200/month at the grocery store. $200/week seems to be a reasonable estimate for a family of four in our very expensive neighborhood, and it lines up pretty closely with the <a href="http://docs.google.com/gview?a=v&q=cache%3ARtwdbOrWRh4J%3Awww.cnpp.usda.gov%2FPublications%2FFoodPlans%2F2009%2FCostofFoodJan09.pdf+usda+food+plans+2009&hl=en&gl=us&sig=AFQjCNG2G1wtP6WRFUcfDdeVxWKcG8imvQ&pli=1">USDA "moderate" food plan</a>. I also looked at prices in the grocery store - $7.50/lb for the cheaper chicken breasts, $5 for a half gallon of organic milk (but only about half that price for the regular milk), and $3 or more for most of the fresh produce, except for bananas, onions, potatoes, etc. which are a bit less than a dollar a pound. I figure this is the expensive stuff, and that organic fruits, vegetables, meats, and dairy products have the highest markup of anything in the grocery store. Most grains and dried beans are cheap, most spices won't grow here, and growing tropical fruits here is pretty much out of the question.<br /><br />So, let's assume that the annual cost of food would be about $10,000 for a family of four, because that's a nice round number and pretty close to my best current estimate (and the USDA's numbers, too). The cost of gardening and raising animals is a bit harder for me to figure.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Fruits and Vegetables:</span><br /><br />Let's start with gardening and my pet project, the orchard. Fencing seems to be about $1/foot. We would need 200 ft. to enclose my planned garden, 300-400 feet for the orchard. So, in the interests of keeping numbers tidy, let's say that's $500 of fencing. A cheap greenhouse/cold frame will run about $500. If those last 5-10 years each, that makes $100-200/year for fencing etc. I'll say $200/year, because really, I know it will be even more than that, even if we get fence posts out of our own woods (we have a couple of locust trees). I'll also figure about $200/year for fertilizer and mulch. We make some compost, but this land needs a lot of enrichment. Another $100-200 a year would go to seeds and plants (I know this could be done for less, but I'm trying to be realistic). So, the cost of my vegetable garden should run about $500/year, no more than $1000/year.<br /><br />The cost of our local CSA is on the upper end of that range. They're pretty good, but you can't choose what you get and there's usually a lot of waste. They also don't do fruits, except for some raspberries. In addition, they're only open 5-6 months of the year. My hope is that we'll be able to get close to year-round vegetable production using the techniques outlined in <span style="font-style: italic;">Four Season Harvest</span> by <a href="http://www.fourseasonfarm.com/">Eliot Coleman</a>. So yes, I think I can make that work.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Dairy Goats:</span><br /><br />I would like to keep goats, but I know it would take a lot of time and effort, and Mike thinks it's going way too far along the road to actual farming. But just for fun, let me run the numbers. Suppose we kept 2 milking does and 1 wether. They would need housing, fencing, and milking equipment, probably a solid thousand dollar's worth or more, which might be good for about ten years (coincidentally, that's also the approximate working life of a milking doe). From the look of things, they'd get a lot of forage around here, but miking does would still need grain and all that plus the odd bit of veterinary care. Let's say that's $5/day total for 3 goats (based on price of Purina Goat Chow and feed estimates at the <a href="http://fiascofarm.com/goats/feeding.htm">Fias Co Farm</a> website). That's almost $2000/year (rounding up)... I looked up some other sites and this estimate seems way too high, but it still seems like you're looking at at least $20/week for feed for a few milking goats, taking into account the fact that we're on an island and everything here is expensive, except for perhaps the goats themselves. You can buy a goat around here for about $75-$100. Total cost of keeping some dairy goats: probably not much less than $1500/year.<br /><br />If we spend $30/week on good milk and cheddar cheese, that's also $1500/year, and a whole lot less work. I know that you <span style="font-style: italic;">can</span> make goat butter, but frankly it sounds like more trouble than it's worth. The only way I think it would be worthwhile is if you could share the goats among 2 or 3 equally committed and involved households -- not a likely scenario, given what people are like. I'd also like goats to clear out some of our brush, but that's a different scenario. OK. I'm scratching goats off the list for now!<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Chickens, Eggs, and other poultry:</span><br /><br />My brother and his wife keep chickens. They seem to be pretty easy, not too much work on a day-to-day basis, and Nova enjoys them. They go into their coops at night, and forage freely during the day. I don't think they eat much chicken feed, at least not in the summer. The down side of their free-ranging is that we never know where the heck they're hiding most of their eggs, though there are usually a few in the laying boxes coops. Also, they poo everywhere.<br /><br />They shared a big batch of mixed-sex chicks with our cousin, Jethro, and they all planned to use the male birds as meat. This has not been as successful as the egg end of the business. Slaughter, plucking, and gutting are all pretty nasty, and there are vegetarians around. I think it might be worth it, though.<br /><br />Another option would be to get ducks, which are cuter than chickens and have nicer voices. I just ate a duck egg and it was yummy. Duck meat is awfully good, too, and quite a luxury item. They're also good at eating bugs and slugs, and so complement the vegetable garden.<br /><br />I like <a href="http://www.gatewaytovermont.com/thefarm/chickens.htm">this page</a> for a run-down on the cost of raising chickens, and feel confident that because even the cheap eggs here are $3/dozen, it would be worthwhile for us financially. At present, our household of goes through one egg per person, per day, on average. Most of us have an egg for breakfast most days, and some go into baking and cooking. So, for my theoretical family of four we'd want 28 eggs a week, over two dozen. If those eggs cost, say, $2 less per dozen than our grocery store eggs, and we extend the laying season a bit and store some for the early months of winter, that could be a savings of $4/week, or $200 over the course of the year. Not big money, but something.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Small Livestock for Meat:</span><br /><br />I have a book called <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Backyard-Livestock-Raising-Natural-Expanded/dp/0881501824/ref=ed_oe_p">Backyard Livestock</a>, which I've been poking at on and off since I picked it up a few years ago. It's almost got me convinced that we could save oodles of money by raising our own animals for meat. However, there are a lot of factors to take into consideration, like our current lack of fenced pasture land, the cost of transporting animals off-island and halfway across the state to the nearest federally licensed slaughterhouse, and the fact that Mike is threatening to turn into a vegetarian. In any case, I will leave that part of the project for another year.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">In Conclusion: </span><br />I'm pretty sure we can save money by growing most of our own vegetables and raising chickens &/or ducks, but the jury is out on doing anything involving mammals.Ameliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10416828902120818415noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5861566146201135542.post-44967511292509961512009-09-26T21:28:00.005+01:002009-09-27T21:31:30.736+01:00Clearing ground, and more design musingsSo, we have moved back to the Vineyard, back to my parents' house, and are renovating the house that I grew up in, summers, and lived in for a few years here and there in my earlier adulthood. It's all on one big lot. My parents built the original house in 1971-'72, but in the mid-90s, they decided it just wasn't big enough to serve as their primary residence... especially since it had (horror of horrors) only <span style="font-style: italic;">one bathroom</span>. So they built this house, which is about two or three times the size of the old one, and has three and a half baths.<br /><br />The two houses share roughly five acres, most of it covered in scrubby oak and pine. People have always said to me that they think this is a beautiful part of the island, but I've never been enthusiastic about the landscape immediately surrounding our house. I find it dull and a bit closed in. The trees loom over the house, making it feel dark except when the late-afternoon sun hits its more open northwest side.<br /><br />In hopes of remedying this situation, I have made a preliminary landscape plan which calls for cutting down at least fifty to a hundred trees and killing off about a huge poison-ivy thicket. I want to replace all of that with lawn, garden, and orchard. It's a long range plan, and I worry that it might be a bit too ambitious, but if we're going to be living here for the foreseeable future, I want to enjoy the place and get the most out of it.<br /><br />At the moment, I have no qualms about clearing those trees. They crowd each other horribly, and all of them of species that are plentiful around here. <br /><br />Meanwhile, we're 99% done with the demolition and my father is on the verge of saying we can set a date with the tile guy. I'm shopping kitchen cabinets like there's nothing else to do, and musing on the economics of gardening and home food production. More on that in a minute!Ameliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10416828902120818415noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5861566146201135542.post-76628406785433024252009-09-20T19:59:00.003+01:002009-09-20T20:13:27.894+01:00blog lag, fiction fizzleSomehow, a month has slipped by without a blog post here. I suppose I must have been busy. I certainly haven't been working on my novel, or exercising, or getting a real job. <br /><br />I have, however, landed a pretty regular (so far) paid writing gig, doing short articles for the <a href="http://www.mvtimes.com/marthas-vineyard/directory/?a=2">Martha's Vineyard Times</a>, Calendar section. It's been kind of fun. I've written one or two assigned articles a week for the past three or four weeks. They've been on a range of different subjects, but the substance of most of them is doing a few interviews and setting people's quotes, and the information they give me, into a sensible, readable narrative. I have to say it's a lot easier than writing fiction. At least, I find it easier. <br /><br />However, as I remember from last time I did this, I have a really hard time switching gears. In order to make good progress on a novel, I need a solid 1.5 - 2 hours, at least five days a week, to work on it. A reliable 1.5-2 hours, that is, not a half hour in the morning before Nova wakes up, 15 minutes while she's off playing with someone else, another half hour while she's napping (though I can still squeeze an hour out of most naptimes) etc. I need to know that I will have that time every day, or at least 4-5 days out of the week, otherwise I just don't function well as a novelist. <br /><br />So I think I am going to take a break from fiction after all, even though I don't really want to. I just can't get the time I need. I'm enjoying writing nice, short articles which get me out of the house and talking to new and different people. I am really preoccupied with our massive <a href="http://ameliajames.blogspot.com/2009/08/renovations.html">renovation project </a>and all the work that needs to be done on the house and yard, not to mention the usual stuff of everyday life. I'm still writing, but it's not quite the same. <br /><br />I'd better post this before Nova wakes up!Ameliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10416828902120818415noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5861566146201135542.post-18380486030378085012009-08-22T19:48:00.006+01:002009-08-22T20:55:29.675+01:00Prize-winning...This is the weekend of the <a href="http://mvas.vineyard.net/">Martha's Vineyard Agricultural Society Fair</a>. It's the biggest event of the year in West Tisbury (barring presidential visits) and although some curmudgeons avoid it like the plague, I've gone almost every year for as long as I can remember. The exceptions were 1986, when I was in Japan, and 1991, when I was in New Zealand.<br /><br />This is the first year in a long time that I've entered anything. I decided that if we're going to settle down here again, I'd better start participating. So I went the category I've been working on most lately: baking.<br /><br />For my entry, I decided to make carrot cake. I used fresh local eggs, laid by my brother's chickens, and carrots from the local CSA. I spent about an hour peeling those tiny little roots, put everything together as planned, and stuck it in the oven. Ten minutes later, I looked up and noticed that a key ingredient was still sitting on the counter. Ooops.<br /><br />When I took it out of the oven, I discovered that it tasted OK, but not as good as usual. My mother, who had not tasted the way it was meant to be, talked me into entering it anyway. I figured, what the heck, it's all about the decoration. Fortunately, I finally got the frosting right. It had taken me three tries to get cream cheese frosting that wasn't runny. I had thought it was supposed to be easy. Anyway, this is the cake I took in for the fair:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO5k1dSM5nAtWFvHRF1heTY9nTn87aMb02Yhxzm5F73gwZZa9hCuCt5ZPmYCSfwLIbp1yU-mR3Ox3Qvz26_IZLoSNBoaO_zLcnuOjyDBT28KzxZKhJKrWCFjDTTcv36r6jDdYNoeX0qv4/s1600-h/100_1773.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO5k1dSM5nAtWFvHRF1heTY9nTn87aMb02Yhxzm5F73gwZZa9hCuCt5ZPmYCSfwLIbp1yU-mR3Ox3Qvz26_IZLoSNBoaO_zLcnuOjyDBT28KzxZKhJKrWCFjDTTcv36r6jDdYNoeX0qv4/s320/100_1773.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5372864986723950050" border="0" /></a>I visited it later in the day, and lo and behold, it had a blue ribbon attached!<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXzsvBuYH_McV4NTE2JPj63Jq2BH5TsaGJMN3fwTQgDDQ7EbCGmH7QHUa-G2K14SXODQM-u9f_JnkT9vYUH5hu973bVdzfXTf8YuGGG-M18rE0FScbY-4appY8P75hsoEY46xUlqbTXdU/s1600-h/100_1775.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXzsvBuYH_McV4NTE2JPj63Jq2BH5TsaGJMN3fwTQgDDQ7EbCGmH7QHUa-G2K14SXODQM-u9f_JnkT9vYUH5hu973bVdzfXTf8YuGGG-M18rE0FScbY-4appY8P75hsoEY46xUlqbTXdU/s320/100_1775.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5372876865675855714" border="0" /></a><br />Mike also entered a couple of things. He got third place in the professional sculpture division for his angel and second in Handicraft: Metal Works for his latest sword:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCLluOVMvnK84lHXsIzINfCK6CedPA-QcFJTYRGcqZrYe4UnszRr5MXvVmHnrDDCTtEFmi4E5lMO51brS7PlUyO_D3aS5qCvd3BLfW8uhj8xAvT2aUr4pNZ5YsgHwBO6ti6hp9DkV3Hzo/s1600-h/100_1778.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 214px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCLluOVMvnK84lHXsIzINfCK6CedPA-QcFJTYRGcqZrYe4UnszRr5MXvVmHnrDDCTtEFmi4E5lMO51brS7PlUyO_D3aS5qCvd3BLfW8uhj8xAvT2aUr4pNZ5YsgHwBO6ti6hp9DkV3Hzo/s320/100_1778.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5372876853216129266" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXIDIYdauC3L7h5vVm7VYaj_26Uy7C54LPsuYCaRAUeN_fqF8QkrT5dCCZ1lt8qE7rNix4W619soChL5LVvX7DG-zvEh3AiM7lXLCHDnqiDlVdhyphenhyphen9v8igS0HbGr-gO-gtoFNUhPa9zb2M/s1600-h/100_1780.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 214px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXIDIYdauC3L7h5vVm7VYaj_26Uy7C54LPsuYCaRAUeN_fqF8QkrT5dCCZ1lt8qE7rNix4W619soChL5LVvX7DG-zvEh3AiM7lXLCHDnqiDlVdhyphenhyphen9v8igS0HbGr-gO-gtoFNUhPa9zb2M/s320/100_1780.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5372876846213558194" border="0" /></a><br />We will be collecting our $12 in prize money next week! Long live the fair!Ameliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10416828902120818415noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5861566146201135542.post-41750920910804043932009-08-13T13:26:00.006+01:002009-08-19T23:53:44.860+01:00RenovationsWhen I was about Nova's age, my parents built a house in the woods. We lived there summers and weekends while I was growing up, and later, when we moved further away, other people rented it in the winter. The place has housed quite a menagerie over the years, and it's held up OK, but decades of wear and tear and sweating slate floors have left it almost uninhabitable.<br /><br />When I arrived home in late July, the house smelled of mold and abandonment, so much so that it was difficult to breathe inside. Some of the mold was the result of recent water damage, but it had been growing over the years, especially during winters when the house was unoccupied. In any case, the work was already well underway. In the photo bellow, you can see the new dormer: <div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivpnfOrNdeGjIJp5hCf-ZyNhDHXQ_qpfJS6yAJ-QxnQitp-SgMI_YVniL7GWU_MS4hNSUJa9wnQZliouU2C7lbpCtVqQlI0Lh4eJKh3oEQMnJ6oCwMk1zazVYdlbXb5bGkj9J02K-J6is/s1600-h/100_1745.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivpnfOrNdeGjIJp5hCf-ZyNhDHXQ_qpfJS6yAJ-QxnQitp-SgMI_YVniL7GWU_MS4hNSUJa9wnQZliouU2C7lbpCtVqQlI0Lh4eJKh3oEQMnJ6oCwMk1zazVYdlbXb5bGkj9J02K-J6is/s320/100_1745.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5371804279848276386" /></a><br />In the former upstairs, there were three small bedrooms, a nice library nook, and a virtually windowless storage nook. The dormer creates a whole bunch more space in two of those bedrooms, and gives them closets. My parents also wanted to wedge in a full bath upstairs, which is now framed in. </div><div><br /></div><div>Downstairs, the plan is to re-floor the place with some kind of insulating sub-floor on the slate and concrete slab, and to re-insulate and sheetrock the walls. In the photo below, you can see some of the last of the old rough-cut pine wall. I'm sure it looked great when it first went in, but as the decades passed it got darker and dirtier, until it sucked up all the light which had managed to escape the slate floors and darkening ceiling. It was also a wicked fire hazard. I dragged my feet for a while on the plan to sheetrock, because I liked the warmth of the unfinished wood walls, but now I'm totally sold on the plan to sheetrock.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizWKAlQEnwvfx86Tyjq3fTep_3evD879lL0qIi90XFPEcl6IzyA2gcHTFz08I_WYG0276R6rO-qY4gMSmgsDyyMDmMzThTn2LysQie3eMSBeHJIbGDzFqMxLUwv3xBGdkmNJouOrVQdvA/s1600-h/100_1751.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizWKAlQEnwvfx86Tyjq3fTep_3evD879lL0qIi90XFPEcl6IzyA2gcHTFz08I_WYG0276R6rO-qY4gMSmgsDyyMDmMzThTn2LysQie3eMSBeHJIbGDzFqMxLUwv3xBGdkmNJouOrVQdvA/s320/100_1751.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5371804290395062290" /></a></div><div><br /></div>While we're ripping things out, we'll be doing the kitchen, too. Here's how it looks at the moment:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu7M61x8XETzZCdmWx62GYOz6rJLqfw9OK9h2tHawWfCOnBROnH6QrZfoLwt9vHJpa5zVMSok5iCPL0by9fnj9-NBYTuZ8Xiin246vViQ704KT0RmhhZoOYbtH-bDPgaUglv_D6sx6REY/s1600-h/100_1752.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu7M61x8XETzZCdmWx62GYOz6rJLqfw9OK9h2tHawWfCOnBROnH6QrZfoLwt9vHJpa5zVMSok5iCPL0by9fnj9-NBYTuZ8Xiin246vViQ704KT0RmhhZoOYbtH-bDPgaUglv_D6sx6REY/s320/100_1752.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5371804298839798114" /></a>Unfortunately, I don't have any photos of the old kitchen at hand, but I'd like to unearth some for a before and after series. <div></div><div><br /></div><div>I've been thinking about getting back to work on my novel, but the overhaul of the old house is sucking up most of my available brain power and spare time. For the past few days, I've managed to get over there for half-hour stretches of time to do bits of board-cracking, nail-pulling demolition. I'm kind of enjoying it. </div>Ameliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10416828902120818415noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5861566146201135542.post-2460671060678888302009-08-13T12:35:00.007+01:002009-08-13T13:02:03.871+01:00My Birthday DinnerYesterday was my birthday, and I thought I'd celebrate by cooking up a whole mess of things I hadn't tried before. I spent most of the day cooking up three different salads. I was particularly excited about <a href="http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Octopus-Salad-242008">Octopus Salad</a>.<div><div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsINlpij9LdktrrrQJOohvKNhj0zJi1dvGb6vkq9_TB1zcpeDdT1JxKHGtl9hH2Jpkw6gZi8AwcF0t93bxn94__q6KpFHZdYP0Vbrxn4o4dMzyqGqgbCY6oqzM2gR0VoSuYbTDxjR0P9A/s1600-h/100_1741.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsINlpij9LdktrrrQJOohvKNhj0zJi1dvGb6vkq9_TB1zcpeDdT1JxKHGtl9hH2Jpkw6gZi8AwcF0t93bxn94__q6KpFHZdYP0Vbrxn4o4dMzyqGqgbCY6oqzM2gR0VoSuYbTDxjR0P9A/s320/100_1741.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5369411697022656914" /></a><br /></div><div>Copping up the octopi was strangely fun, but I was sadly disappointed when they came out of the boiling water 45 minutes later at about half their original volume. It was fairly tasty when done, but much, much smaller than I'd hoped for.</div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKkSlj6Sa9FWqOT67lsVzEF33JoZx7FNQ1VZOHIIAPQ7_4lvycjwhNElAC6i9DN7mnRLpK9jlRGJuf0snSnKw8i4BLuo5JySVmTtJjQL5D1MufUsNZT9ZRY0p9Kme3Pw9ooddhKxqO60A/s1600-h/100_1766.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKkSlj6Sa9FWqOT67lsVzEF33JoZx7FNQ1VZOHIIAPQ7_4lvycjwhNElAC6i9DN7mnRLpK9jlRGJuf0snSnKw8i4BLuo5JySVmTtJjQL5D1MufUsNZT9ZRY0p9Kme3Pw9ooddhKxqO60A/s320/100_1766.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5369411678769309474" /></a>My mother was supposed to make this <a href="http://splendidtable.publicradio.org/recipes/salad_tomatomozzarella.shtml">tomato and mozzarella salad</a>, but she had strep throat, so she couldn't cook. I think I probably had the strep the weekend before we left Ireland, and chances were she caught it from me. Anyway, I wound up making this, too, with some last-minute help from my cousin Jethro.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDwVPfh0oLqXjhqv4gKqH2N0rwgzsEJ-bGqRjQWb5WUy7MKFMgDizDK4CtDARjMIeh8zAcZBxt_HoHoqzrYiwACw1Vy-4mZ4Zw-hKEE63DsDkkbySSHBCCSdm8_hZBNwm_X5CUbo0iQiU/s1600-h/100_1764.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDwVPfh0oLqXjhqv4gKqH2N0rwgzsEJ-bGqRjQWb5WUy7MKFMgDizDK4CtDARjMIeh8zAcZBxt_HoHoqzrYiwACw1Vy-4mZ4Zw-hKEE63DsDkkbySSHBCCSdm8_hZBNwm_X5CUbo0iQiU/s320/100_1764.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5369411689457222114" /></a>We had a huge load of green beans from the local CSA, which went into this salad:<div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKbWAugcNbKJ_5656ZdkVtrMZPLXye1CUQYDu5rKXu6YqJgwb0t6c5B6RqijSSRQdtwIh7vFImfZaSkgzKLEQBjIB1UipPH9k1CEJli5gDYi6LF0UCGbHj7Os3CqPttlTI7cSGlsszlSw/s1600-h/100_1767.JPG"><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKbWAugcNbKJ_5656ZdkVtrMZPLXye1CUQYDu5rKXu6YqJgwb0t6c5B6RqijSSRQdtwIh7vFImfZaSkgzKLEQBjIB1UipPH9k1CEJli5gDYi6LF0UCGbHj7Os3CqPttlTI7cSGlsszlSw/s320/100_1767.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5369411669860544018" /></a></div><a href="http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Green-Bean-and-Hazelnut-Salad-242289">The recipe</a> called for hazelnut oil, but I couldn't find it at any of our local shops, so I just used olive oil. It was still good.<br /><div><br /></div><div>Dinner began with an assortment of hors d'ouevres, including pate, clam dip, cheddar cheese, crackers, and assorted vegetables for dipping (there was a box of them in the fridge from a few days ago). There was wine, too. Soon enough, we moved on to the table, where we ate up the salads along with very good steak which my father grilled and a last-minute and somewhat under-risen and burned <a href="http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/One-a-Day-Baguette-14497">baguette</a>. </div><div><br /></div><div>We finished it off with <a href="http://ameliajames.blogspot.com/2009/08/spanische-windtorte.html">Spanische Windtorte</a>, which got a post all of its own.</div></div>Ameliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10416828902120818415noreply@blogger.com0