Tag Archives: Indigenous

Tweaking The Routine

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I Snapchat my meals that I really enjoy and send to my friends and family. This is from this morning’s breakfast.

So, the habit stacking got derailed from travel 2 weekends in a row. Nephew’s basketball tournament and then a 50+ women’s tournament the weekend after. Did my best to eat good both weekends, but didn’t have the energy to meal prep or to prepare workday meals and snacks the night before. I’m so glad I went to both tournaments though. Love spending time with my sister and my nephew, got to see friends and family at the tournaments, and the 50+ women’s tournament was such an amazing experience that it deserves its own blog post. I am being more mindful of my social and emotional health, and the tournaments did give my heart a boost.

I’ve been tracking my foods but to be honest, I haven’t tracked everyday and on the days I do track, I don’t add everything I eat. Hence, the scale hasn’t moved and I’ve been feeling tired again. Also, when I do track my protein and I have my meals and snacks prepped, I realized that I am overeating….I’m finishing everything even if I’m full to make sure I get my protein in.

I feel like I haven’t quite hit on the right formula for my meals and snacks yet in order to see the results I want. So here are some of the tweaks I am going to try.

1- Slow down my eating, be mindful of how I’m feeling, and stop eating before I feel full or stuffed. I think that’s going to be really helpful right there, even if it cuts down on my protein intake in the short term.

2- Make sure I’m eating non-starchy veggies with my breakfast, lunch, and my snacks. Still save my carbs for dinner like sweet potatoes, quinoa, chickpea pasta, etc. Carbs at night help me sleep better.

3- Cut back on my dairy intake slightly and see if that makes a different. I love my cottage cheese and my yogurt, but I wonder if I have a little dairy sensitivity going on that is helping my body to hold on to some inflammation.

4- Find different food/meals/snacks that get my protein in without feeling stuffed. This will take some experimenting, some learning as I go, but I’m willing to put in this work because my health goals are everything to me right now.

This morning I wanted to put one of the tweaks into practice. I was hungry upon waking and but didn’t want eggs for some reason. So in my fridge I had a loaf of Dakota bread from Great Harvest Bread Co., some perfectly ripe avocados, leftover rotisserie chicken and some spinach. I toasted the bread, heated up the spinach and chicken in a pan with a little olive oil, mashed 1/4 of an avocado onto the toast, sprinkled some hemp seeds on the avocado, then topped it with the 3 oz of chicken and spinach, then sprinkled some Everything But The Bagel seasoning. This was soooooo good!! And I felt good after eating it. It was just the right amount of food where I didn’t feel full or stuffed, but satisfied. And it logged in at 35g of protein, 19 g of net carbs, and fulfilled about 25% – 35% of my magnesium, fiber, and Omega-3 goals!

I have to add that I’m surrounded by inspiring people. My sister is making astounding progress with her health, my oldest daughter Samantha has lost 30 lbs while being a busy mom and women’s health nurse, my middle daughter has lost 15 lbs on Noom and is doing PT to get her foot injury issues resolved, and my youngest is running track and very mindful of her nutrition. My husband is working on lowering his blood pressure and all his labs are good. Our family friend/brother lost 20 lbs during a weight loss challenge and he was laid up with a traumatic leg injury the whole time. He lost enough weight where his blood pressure came down quite a bit and his doctors have to adjust his medication.

I’ll keep the blog updated as I’m relearning this 55 year old bod. Sometimes I feel like I do not recognize or know this body anymore at all. That’s the frustrating part. But I value myself and my health enough to relearn myself.

Meal Prep

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I wanted to focus on some meal prep this weekend to see if I can have more time in the morning to enjoy my tea and relax before my day gets started. I also want to add more green and colorful veggies into my daily meals and snacks. 

I was going to go grocery shopping first and then meal prep. But I realized I bought supplies to prepare a few meals last weekend, so I started that prep before I went shopping. It cleaned out my fridge nicely and made room for the fresh stuff coming in later. 

I went to play basketball with my 50+ crew, assisted in our tournament prep by some youngsters who could hoop! Then went shopping and came home to do more prep. 

I had a wicked allergy attack that must have started before my b-ball, and I could not calm it down all evening. My head and sinuses ached from the moment I woke up this morning, and I felt groggy all day from the meds I took last night, so I’m glad I didn’t have to cook or prepare anything this morning as I was moving extra slow. 

These were my workday meals and snacks. 

Breakfast: Broccoli, bacon and cheese quiche with an almond flour crust. Using 5 eggs plus 5 egg whites for a protein boost. 2 cups of Tulsi green tea. 

Snack: 1/2 C Greek yogurt with 1/4 C each of strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, topped with hemp hearts and walnuts. A cup of peppermint tea. 

Lunch: Salmon and asparagus. 

Snack: Venison Chomps stick with red pepper and cucumber. 

**I got 30 min of walking in after work at my school. Walked on the grass around the football field. I had to make myself go telling myself I would feel better, which I did.  

Dinner (not pictured): Leftover Cashew Chicken from last night’s dinner. I used sprouted pepitas in place of cashews and it was a good substitute. 

Snack (not pictured): Baked sweet potato with 1 tsp Irish butter and about 1/2 tsp Allulose sweetener. Cup of chamomile tea. 

I wanted to see how these work today and then tweak if necessary. 

I’m back to keeping a food journal, but I’m really only tracking 5 things: Protein, Vitamin D, Magnesium, Omega 3, and fiber. I have goals for each one, and trying to meet my goals with real food. It’s challenging to get some of these just from food. I have some good supplements that I take no matter what, but still trying to find and eat foods that are rich in those nutrients. 

Which these foods today, plus I had to take a fiber supplement since I was just a tad short of 28g, I hit alllll of my goals, including 130g of protein. Wooooo!! 

I have the foods to repeat this tomorrow.

Cortisol, Inflammation, and My Health

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I’ve got a different perspective on my current health and I’m trying something different. I’ll be posting AAAALLLLL the foods I’m eating for the next 6 weeks on my Facebook page for 2 reasons: 1) I want a record of what I’m doing, 2) I want to keep myself accountable and motivated. I am thinking about doing a weekly collective thingy to post here as well.

A little backstory: I will be 55 in 2 months and I will finally enter the Golden Age category (55+ years) at powwows. I wanted to hit my new age category running, so to speak. I want to be in good shape and I want to be shawl dancing. I’ve been walking, started running some intervals (restarted my CouchTo5K program), and hit the weights a few times. I even got a $10 monthly membership to Planet Fitness so I’ll always have a place to walk or lift. I walked/ran my first 5K on Thanksgiving Day, got all motivated to get back into 5K races, and then tested positive for Covid for the 2nd time (1st go-round was January 2022) two days after that run. The second round with Covid was much harder than the 1st. I took Paxlovid to lower my chances of long-Covid and I hope that works. I gained 10lbs in the weeks following my Covid bout with not much of a change in my eating habits. The weight gain went all to my belly and my neck. I feel anxious when I wake up. My blood glucose is still elevated. My energy crashes mid afternoon. And when my energy crashes all I want to do is eat. My muscles and joints are sore most of the time and I have headaches and have to take Advil every night just to be able to sleep. And the daily life of being a middle-school therapist and a mom to 3 adolescent girls (we added one this summer, retained guardianship of my youngest’s best friend), is mentally and emotionally stressful. I didn’t think adding one more kid would make that big of a difference in how busy we are. But we learned quickly that it makes a significant difference. I joined Noom to get some structure back into my everyday life and started a wellness journal. However, nothing really helped. The scale moved 3 lbs in a month with some diligent effort on my part.

I’m so thankful for the knowledge and insight I received over the weekend from my sister’s personal trainer Lisa Allen. I’m also glad I had the courage to be transparent with her and tell her everything that has been going on with my health since my Covid bout, the weight gain, and how I feel from day to day. With her experience and education, she believes that my cortisol levels are high from being sick, from stress (it’s been a very rough time the last 2 years). And that those two factors are contributing to my body holding onto inflammation. She thinks my weight gain looks more like inflammation than body fat, especially where I’m holding on to the weight. She explained how cortisol works, what contributes to high levels and inflammation, and she recommended a very doable plan to help myself feel better, to bring down the inflammation that my body is holding onto. She really believes that I’ll notice a difference in how I feel within 6 weeks.

I started Sunday with this regimen but didn’t think to start documenting until today. I’m committing to 6 weeks of changes in my day-to-day living in hopes that I’ll feel better and my systems will start to heal. The changes involve refraining from doing things that my body will read as “stress”. That means I’m not doing keto, and no intermittent fasting. My body can produce more cortisol if I’m in ketosis or fasting because it signals stress in response to hunger. No intense workouts (just walking, light weight training), and jealousy guarding my sleep schedule. No all-night or even late-night binge sewing or beading for the next 6 weeks. I will be drinking all the water, and taking magnesium glycinate, Vitamin D, Omega-3 and Vitamin B complex supplements. My goal is to work up to eating 130g of protein each day from real food. Eating at regular intervals, all of this so my body doesn’t feel stress from workouts, hunger, or sleep deprivation. And saving my carbs for later in the day (I heard that referred to as “back-loading my carbs”). I’m going to watch my intake of processed carbs and bread, and keep my sugar intake low. I’m thinking this 6 weeks would be a good time to try regular/consistent yoga.

And this….yes, I’m actually saying this….I’m cutting down on my beloved COFFEE!!!!!

For years I’ve woken up and dove into my bucket of coffee. On an empty stomach, and then didn’t eat until anywhere between 10am-Noon. I didn’t realize that coffee first thing in the morning on an empty stomach was driving up my cortisol levels, which are already naturally high first thing in the morning. I did the coffee on an empty stomach and waited to eat because I thought that extended my overnight fast was good for my blood glucose. However, that habit is actually working against my health goals. I have a continuous glucose monitor and I noticed that my blood sugar is all over the place while I’m sleeping. That’s the cortisol and inflammation.

So, here we go with the first of the food pictures.

My breakfast today: 2 whole eggs, 2 egg whites, 1 cup of spinach, 1/2 cup mushrooms, and about 1.5-2 oz of leftover baked salmon, with a cup of green tea. I’m cutting down my coffee gradually to avoid caffeine withdrawals, so I had 1 cup of coffee after I ate. It’s a big change from the 2 huge mugs of coffee I would have every morning, plus another from my office Keurig once I got to work. I actually felt good yesterday and today with just green tea and a little coffee. Maybe I just need a hot drink in the morning and it doesn’t necessarily have to be caffeinated. Until then, I will be saving my coffee to drink after my breakfast.

This was really filling, so I ate half and I was full, packed up the rest for a mid-morning snack. My lunch is a 5 ounce piece of leftover baked salmon, and some leftover roasted asparagus. My afternoon snack is blueberries, walnuts and yogurt. My plan for dinner is Rao marinara sauce with grass-fed beef, with chickpea pasta, and a salad with my homemade vinaigrette.

I’m looking forward to this, and really looking forward to feeling better.

Checking-In With Myself

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I made the executive decision to forego doing keto while I am figuring out my emotional eating. I will eat the keto meals that are nutritious and that I enjoy, such as my egg and veggie brunches, and I will continue to make food choices that benefit my health, but I feel it’s more important to not put restrictions on my self-learning. Restrictions induce stress when it comes to food for me, so let’s get that barrier out of the way while I get my learn on.

I am starting with taking note of how I am feeling throughout the day. I am putting a name to my feelings and differentiating between a physical sensation and an emotion. I’m not labeling anything as good or bad, each thought or emotion is simply something that’s going on in my body or in my head. It is what it is, yo. It is me and I am ok. I take a few moments to do a check-in with myself, and I am being deliberate about doing this frequently. I share these things throughout the day with my husband as well. That serves two purposes: 1) it helps me practice my marital communication skills, sharing with my companion because he is not a mind reader, 2) I remember when I first started on my anti-depressant and my provider suggested that my husband be my “barometer”. I can enlist his observation and intuitive skills to help show me the progress I am making or to bring something to my attention that I may not be seeing.

I have to slow down a little bit to take this mental “pause”. I am so used to being busy all the time that I always felt like this would be more hindrance than helpful. Like, “I got no time to be introspective!!!” But feeling compelled to be busy all the time is also stressful. Aaaahhhhhh, see what I just learned about myself there??? I’ve found that taking that pause takes less than a minute. And the more deliberate I am about practicing this, the better I will get at it and more comfortable I will feel with it.

When I was cooking dinner last night (my mom’s chili recipe), Joe B asked me if I was learning if I had any trigger foods (foods that set off a binge once I start in), or if I had identified the foods I most frequently crave when I’m stressed. I promptly responded “Popcorn, chips, homemade chocolate chip cookies, and butter pecan ice cream.” They are salty, crunchy, and in the case of cookies and ice cream, they have a salty-sweet combo, where if they are available and once I start in, then that’s all I want to eat. Now that I think about it and reflect back on yesterday, I also discovered that I have the same response to my homemade kale chips. They are salty, crunchy, and once I start in I will knock out a whole plate. But I’m not going to put the stamp of approval on this choice because it’s simply swapping one trigger food for a nutritionally-dense trigger food. That’s still emotional eating. Another “Ah-ha” moment for me there.

This path I’m on is already very interesting. I have to remind myself frequently that this is a J.O.U.R.N.E.Y. And I can take my time to take note of and enjoy all the new discoveries.

Recovery From Another Injury

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My left total-hip replacement surgery recovery was going great until January 1st. I was all pumped up to working back into walking for exercise and not just rehab, and then I slipped on the bottom tile floor at the base of my stairs and landed in a crazy hurdlers stretch with my left leg/ankle/foot folded under my left hip.

I’ve not had an ankle sprain that bad in my entire life. I do acknowledge that I’ve never been 52 years old and fallen like that either, so there’s that. I ended up with an inner and outter ankle sprain, pain and discoloration on top of my foot, and pain in my knee, and up into my hip flexors. My foot and cankle were all bruised up, my left knee had some swelling, my hip was sore, and I ended up back to using my cane for almost a week.

To say I was frustrated and discouraged is to put the emotions I was feeling mildly. I was angry that I slipped, angry that my progress back to normal activity and my own physical wellness was abruptly halted. And true to my usual “just push-through-it” self, I automatically shifted to what I could do, and started chair exercises. But that hurt my hip as well so my chair exercise career was short-lived.

I did have it in my mind to let my ankle heal. I stayed off it as much as I could, ice, Tylenol, etc. But 3 weeks later there was still swelling in my ankle and knee and my hip was still sore. So I brought it up to my orthopedic surgeon at my 16-week follow-up last week.

He looked at my x-rays and saw that my new hip was perfectly fine. No damage done there, and what I was feeling was inflammation from some soft tissue damage (sprains and strains). He felt the best course of action was to put me back on Meloxicam for 6 weeks to bring down the inflammation so I could get back to normal. I was bummed when I heard his suggestion. I was on Meloxicam since 2016 to manage the pain in my left hip before replacement. It felt good to come off of it before my surgery in October and know I wouldn’t need it anymore. So this felt like a big set-back. I kept telling myself that it was a short-term course of medication treatment and it was moving me towards full healing. But I still didn’t like it and it weighed heavily on my mind and affected my mood.

I do have to say that I’ve been on it for 6 days, and the swelling and pain in my ankle and knee are much lower. I was able to take my dogs for a walk 2 days this week and the ankle and knee felt good. So that’s a plus. But I’m feeling side effects of the Meloxicam this time around….I have felt tired since last Friday, 7 days now. Even with plenty of sleep, I feel tired. And my stomach is upset for most of the day, which impacts my appetite and what I feel like eating.

Meloxicam is the type of medication where it takes about 2 weeks to build up in your body and reach optimum therapeutic levels. So I have another week to go and I’m hoping I will be used to it and the side effects will go away. I enjoy feeling like moving. I’m able to take the stairs at work without twinges of pain in my ankle and knee and that feels really good. My sister sent me a link to a stretching video and that helped me feel good physically as well.

Sooooooo….I am hoping to write more to help process all this stuff. It’s hard. It’s frustrating. And I’m still learning how to identify what I’m feeling instead of covering it up with positivity or being busy doing stuff. There’s something in all this that is serving as a learning experience for me, about me. My higher power wants me to be healthy and well, physically, spiritually and mentally. Maybe if I’m still enough and don’t fight it, whatever I am to learn about myself will come to me.

Tuesday Morning !!!!!!!

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Today was a mad dash to make it to work on-time. I forgot to set my coffee maker last night, and I slept past my alarm, so I had to shuffle my morning routine around a bit. Then my youngest tells me, as I’m headed out the door that she can’t taste the leftover pizza she was having for breakfast. Had to halt everything and check her taste, and thankfully her sense of taste is still there, it was just some very bland pizza. 😂

I’m thankful for a few small things that turned out to be very valuable things on my rushed morning. Im thankful for the spray bottle of windshield de-icer that Joe B bought and put in my car. Got my windshield clear and my car on the road 5 minutes sooner.

I’m thankful for this big thermos that Joe B and the girls gave me for Christmas a few years ago. ❤️ It was clutch today, as I didn’t have my usual time at home to enjoy my coffee.

I’m thankful for the first coffee mug I grabbed out of my cabinet that says “Rise and Shine”, a Christmas gift from my sister. Reminded me to greet every student that went through my hallway and I got several “have a nice day”s back from students. ❤️

I’m thankful for my job, that I get to be in the bldg and part of a wonderful team who demonstrate their dedication to students and their learning and their wellness everyday.

I’m thankful for my family and friends that lighten my spirits and bring laughter and light.❤️

Have a great Tuesday!

Bone Broth – 1st Batch

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Ta-daaaaaa! My 1st batch of bone broth is complete. And frankly….I’m not quite sure what to think. Lol.

It’s very dark. It looks like coffee. And feels rather thick when I drink it. It has somewhat of an earthy taste to it. It’s very rich.

I used beef marrow bones and let it simmer for 70 hours. I did NOT roast the bones first, which is something I will attempt with the next batch. It did not gel when it cooled, but from what I understand it’s because I didn’t use any bones with cartilage or connective tissue. Something else I will try with my next batch. I strained with some cheesecloth so it’s not cloudy at all, but it’s so thick you can’t see through it in the jar anyway.

I was surprised how much it cooked down. I started out with a little over 6 quarts of water to 3 lbs of beef marrow bones and I think I ended up with a little over 2 quarts of broth. I didn’t know if I should dilute it, or what. So I’m drankin it straight up. Lol.

If anyone has any words of wisdom with this bone broth making process, I would love to hear it.

So now I sit here and sip….and wait for all the healing properties to kick in. Any minute now….any minute now. 😁😊

Trying My Hand At Homemade Bone Broth

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Trying my hand at making homemade bone broth. I bought 3 lbs of local beef bones yesterday at Steve’s Meat Market in DeSoto, KS. So there’s the 3 lbs of bones, onion, carrots, celery, red and green bell pepper, pink Himalayan salt and black peppercorns, sitting in a large stock pot. I let the bones soak for 30 minutes in water and 2 Tbs of organic apple cider vinegar (the kind that includes the “mother”) first. Now it’s heating up and it has to simmer for at least 24 hours. I’ve been reading about the benefits of bone broth: gut healing properties, help with inflammation, relief for the symptoms of arthritis, joint and muscle repair. It’s an excellent source of calcium and magnesium for people who don’t have access to dairy products. So THAT’S how we got our calcium back in the day!! Back when we as Native people were the healthiest people on the planet. 😊

I’ll keep you posted on how it turns out.

Self-Care

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I had a really good conversation with a friend a few weeks ago at a powwow in Durant, OK. Part of the discussion was about self-care. How important it is, and the different ways she has found to do this for herself. 

My boss and colleagues talk about self-care. We are therapists so it’s vitally important to us and our clients that we stay healthy: physically, mentally and emotionally. Speaking only for myself, I add spiritual health to the list. Self-care is for everyone because we all have our own stress that is unique to each one of us. 

I honestly used to believe that self-care meant a pedicure or massage, or making sure I get a workout in. Massages and pedicures cost money, and many times I don’t want to spend the money. Sometimes I’m too tired or busy to workout, or it feels too strenuous to be self-care….sometimes it seems like self-torture, and who wants to do that? 

After we got our dog, I quickly discovered how therapeutic a loving dog truly is. He loves to snuggle, as the picture shows. I can always feel my stress melt away when he, and now our 2nd dog Sissy, come running to greet me after work. I realized how much our big puppies contribute to our wellbeing and how they contribute to our self-care needs. 

So here is another bulleted list, this time of self-care ideas. Some from my friend and some I’ve discovered myself. And most of them cost little to nothing except time. 

  • Coffee at home in quiet and solitude 
  • Reading a book
  • Taking a walk
  • Walking or snuggling my big puppies 
  • Having friends/family over for a simple breakfast/lunch/dinner
  • Watching a TedTalk on YouTube
  • Taking a bath. I did this recently and used Epsom Salts, lavender oil, a pure beeswax candle, and played my music on a Bluetooth speaker
  • Actually picking up the phone and calling a friend or family member to visit. So much better than texting. 
  • Sitting outside in the evening after it’s dark and looking at the sky
  • Using a meditation app
  • Getting out of the house to do something not work or housework related – go watch a youth or high school or local college game
  • Check out a new walking path in your city
  • Laugh
  • Dance 
  • Bake something from scratch and enjoy with a cup of your favorite hot beverage
  • Write in a journal 
  • Breathing exercises
  • Self-massage techniques
  • Go to a meeting (if in a 12-Step program)
  • Plan a game night with friends
  • USE the fancy coffee mug for your morning coffee
  • Visit your local library
  • Paint ceramics
  • Color with crayons or markers or pencils, either free-hand or a coloring book
  • Have a morning ritual that involves spirituality and gratitude 
  • Make a new music playlist 

These are just some ideas that I hope gets people thinking about how they can take care of themselves. I’ve learned the importance of nourishing not only my body, but my mind, my heart and my spirit. I can’t be my best for my family or my job if I ignore what I need. 

Morning Ramblings

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I’ve been feeling the urge to write again. But my mind is going in several different directions at once. I’m just going to list all the thoughts as they come to me. 

  • As soon as I hit the bulleted list button for this entry, my mind went blank
  • I need a long extended break from the news for self-care purposes 
  • I made flash cards yesterday of Dakota words and phrases 
  • We have 2 dogs now, and they are loved like my human children
  • I love Twitter accounts that make me laugh and inspire me 
  • Reading is a joy
  • Every woman of color should read Iyanla VanZant’s book “Peace From the Broken Pieces”
  • I didn’t realize how much I needed to recognize, accept, and let go of until my life became unmanageable
  • Gratitude is real and valuable
  • I love my babies
  • I wonder how annoying and preachy I used to be on social media 
  • I am beginning to understand what “self-care” really is and to make sure I do it
  • Self care doesn’t always mean shelling out $$ for massages. 
  • Fear has been the basis for much of my thought processes and decisions for years
  • I thought about giving up coffee and just drinking tea 
  • I give up that thought within moments of having it
  • I love kind people
  • I wish I could do yoga without hip pain. It looks so peaceful 
  • I have an affinity for finding good memes
  • I’m looking forward to turning 50

Maybe I’ll write more ramblings tomorrow. This feels like a good way to get back in the blogging game.