5 A Day The Easy (or Easier) Way!

So I've known since I was little that you're supposed to eat five servings of fruits and vegetables a day. Growing up in a rural area, and in a family that owned a family farm for some time, I'm used to having a plethora of fresh produce all summer long, making it easier to eat the recommended amount.

Granted, although there were so many options available to me, I always preferred fruit. I'll blame it on genetics, since it seems everyone in my family has a sweet tooth.

That being said, as an adult, whenever I go to the grocery store, you can bet that I spend at least $25-$35 a week on fruit alone. Comparably, I probably only spend about $10 on vegetables.

I recently learned that the "5 a day" slogan doesn't mean that if you eat five servings of fruit ONLY, that you're covered for the day. In actuality, you're supposed to eat 3-4 servings of vegetables, and only 1-2 of fruit. My vegetable to fruit ratio is often more like 1:5 rather than the recommended 4:1.

Needless to say, I've been experimenting with different strategies to up my vegetable intake. Here are some creative strategies I've found recently:

* Add Vegetables to Breakfast. Put onions, spinach, mushrooms, peppers, etc. in your eggs for a sweet omelet or gourmet scrambled eggs!

* Put Carrots, Walnuts, and raisins in your pancakes for a sweet breakfast treat - and gain 1 serving of veggies toward your daily total!

* Vegetable juice. My grandfather LOVED tomato juice, and I remember convincing my grandmother that I liked it too - even as a 3 year old.  This is  a simple way to get one more serving.

* Buy Mini carrots or celery and cut the celery into snack sized sticks. Pack a mix of two in your lunch every day.

* Have a salad with lunch or dinner. It's just another way to get in a serving of veggies!

Any other ideas?

New Love

I have found a new musical love: Marta Gomez.

I think if you listen to the following two clips, you will fall in love too!

CONTIGO (WITH YOU)

To Franco

Music and Lyrics by Marta Gómez (2008)

Rhythm: Ballad 

It is of wind that my song is made

of blood that my pain is stained 

of green that I lose myself in your gaze

of water, of water that I navigate on your words

It is of days and nights, my dreaming

of suns and stars, my singing

of skies that I invent for you

of water, of water that innundates my reason with you

It is of earth that my heart is made

that insists on nesting in your life

searching not to forget its own voice

of air, of air that entangles every instant

with you, with you

ASÍ TE ESPERO YO (THAT’S HOW I WAIT FOR YOU)

Music and Lyrics by Marta Gómez (2005)

Rhythm: Festejo (Perú) 

The kernel surrenders itself to the corn

like the rain to the harvest

like my heart to you.

Like when it rains and then clears

like when the harvest fly sings

like the cricket that comes out to celebrate the rain

like the snail that waits until the rain’s over

that’s how I wait for you.

Like when the wind blows softly

like when whispering, it sings

that’s how my voice learned to whisper to you

like the tree that waits for the wind to sing to him

that’s how I wait for you

That’s how my thoughts await your words

that’s how I await your gaze

when you are near me

Like when it rains and then clears

and the whispering rain sings

and the sound of the wind invents a thousand songs

that I learn and teach to my throat

that’s how I sing to you

that’s how I sing to you

Going All-Natural

I recently purchased a book called "The Self Health Revolution" by J. Michael Zenn at my local Whole Foods store. What a great book!

This book summarizes what's wrong with our food and why so many Americans today are overweight, suffering from diabetes and heart problems.

I highly recommend that everyone check this book out. It's short, easy to read (the author uses a lot of humor!) and is packed with information about how to live a healthy life.

I've made a few changes to my lifestyle after reading this book - and one of them has resulted in rapid results. For the past year and a half, I have been struggling with terrible skin problems. I've had worse acne as a young adult than I ever did as a teenager!

In my search for clear skin, I've done everything short of seeing a dermatologist (which I've put off because I am convinced would only result in the Doctor prescribing either Acutane (a very bad drug which has terrible side effects) or the Pill (which I object to on moral grounds)). I've tried every over-the-counter product out there; I've purchased all the 'kits' - ones on TV, ones at the drugstore, etc.

Nothing worked. Most of the products left my skin red, burning, or flaky (they made my skin so dry it peeled!)

I even tried the oil cleansing method. My skin DID get a little better with this method (and thankfully, there was no peeling!) but it ultimately did not alleviate the problem.

So after I purchased this book, I was shocked when I started reading about what kinds of ingredients are in our personal care products, including skincare.

Given that our skin is very porous, everything we put on it is absorbed into our system. (Think: That's why the medical profession uses patches to dispense medication into our system...). What I discovered from reading this book is that some common ingredients in our skin care and personal care items (shampoo, conditioner, etc) are toxic, including:

Propylene Glycol
Butylene Glycol
Polyethlyne Glycol
Ethylene Glycol -

Here's the kicker: two of the three ingredients in ANTIFREEZE are GLYCOL-BASED.

So using products with these ingredients are somewhat akin to putting ANTI-FREEZE on your skin - which remember, is a highly porous surface which absorbs anything you put on it, delivering these chemicals into your system.

Even worse, the "glycol family' are not the only harmful ingredients which show up in these types of products. Additional toxic ingredients include:

* Mineral oil, Paraffin and Petrolatum (Petroleum products)
* Parabens (have been linked to cancer and have hormone disrupting qualities).
* Phenol carbolic acid (can cause circulatory collapse, paralysis, convulsions, coma and even death).
* Acrylamide (linked to tumors in lab research)
* Sodium laurel or lauryl sulfate - (found in car washes, engine degreasers, garage floor cleaners...and in over 90% of personal care products)

And the list goes on.

Needless to say, I was appalled when I read this. I immediately went out and bought some organic alternatives to the face washes, shampoos, and lotions that I had been using.

While looking at some alternative products, I came across a kit called "Organics to Clear Skin" by Juice Beauty. I was interested. As I mentioned before, I have struggled for the past year and a half with skin problems.

Although the kit was a bit pricey (although still around average for what you would pay for a comparable acne treatment kit in a drugstore), I decided to purchase it.

I've only been using it for a week - but the results have been AMAZING! After three days, my skin was already noticeably healthier, softer, and clearer. A week into the treatment, my skin looks even better! Old scars and pimples are healing. No new pimples have developed (*crosses fingers and hopes this trend continues*)

The cleansing gel is made out of fruit and is light and fresh. It doesn't have a perfumey smell- but the smell isn't bad either. It's natural, I guess. The blemish clearing serum smells great, and the moisturizing lotion - even better. Again, all natural smelling.

After using these products, I have NO itchiness, no redness, no peeling, etc. which I had with practically every other product I had tried. My skin looks great! I'm excited to continue and see what happens over time.

All of this has made me think about what I put in my body on a daily basis. Now, I want to make sure that I am eating foods as close to their natural state as possible, and without adding anything harmful. I want to be healthy from the inside out.

Call me a food-snob or a health-nut, but I think I'm going to be buying organic from now on.

Endings and New Beginnings

These past few weeks have been a time of great transition in my life. Graduating from Notre Dame. Moving to Chicago to start a new job. But the hardest of these transitions has been discerning whether to leave or stay in what I thought was a long-term relationship.

A friend - with whom I recently had the joy of reconnecting with -- put this on facebook just a few days before we met up, and at a time when I was particularly struggling with the decision:

"Porta itineris dicitur longissima esse" - 

the door is the longest part of the journey.

In my discernment, I have tried praying novenas to get an answer; nothing has surfaced - yet. While I am willing to forgive and work at the relationship, I also realize that I have to be true to myself. These past few weeks apart have not been as sad as I thought they would be. Instead, I've had time to reconnect with myself and with my deepest passions, passions which I thought I shared with this person, but which I have come to realize were never there in the way that I had hoped. With this realization, I've felt free to explore the expansive city around me, even if at times doing so reminds me of my loneliness.

Although things did not turn out the way I expected, I find myself reflective and grateful more than anything. Grateful for what I learned about life, about love, about myself. Grateful for the love that I received and the ways that this made me grow. I only have a few small regrets, which I realize have been the seeds of new insight and new wisdom, and I suppose if I had the chance to go back and do it all over again, I might have changed very little.

And so I believe that starting today - I am walking across the threshhold of that door and into a whole new realm of possibility. I know that the journey ahead will be filled with little moments of sadness, but also filled with hope.

101 Things in 1001 Days

I was inspired by my friend's blog to do the following exercise - come up with a list of 1001 things I hope to accomplish in 1001 days. 

By Saturday, May 3, 2014, I hope to have accomplished the following 1001 things:

(in no particular order):

1. Run a 5k

2. Finish reading all the Harry Potter books

3. See all the Harry Potter Movies

4. Walk the Camino de Santiago

5.       Go on a Pilgrimage to Lourdes

6.  Go on a Pilgrimage to Fatima

7.  Go on a Pilgrimage to Montreal to see St. Andre Bessette and Saint Joseph’s Oratory.

8. Get Certified as a Pastoral Associate in the Archdiocese of Chicago

9. Get a Black Belt in Tang Soo Do

10. Purchase a new car.

11 Build up my savings to $5,000.

12. Make pysanky for all my relatives for Christmas

13. Travel to the Northwest USA

14. Volunteer for an Animal Welfare organization

15. Become a Big Sister through the Big Brothers Big Sisters Program

16. Sponsor a child through World Vision or Food for the Poor

17. Get involved with Communion & Liberation

18. Smoke Hookah

19. Write a book on (Divine) Love.

20 Become carbon neutral

21. Take a yoga class.

22. Help a friend of mine go on a date.

23. Start working on a degree in counseling.

24. Become fluent in a foreign language (either Italian, German or Arabic - since I've already worked on them!)

25. Study French.

26. Get a Massage.

27. Get a secret published on PostSecret.

28. Study non-violence.

29. Read through the entire Bible.

30. Re-read the Confessions of Augustine.

31. Re-read the Odyssey.

32. Read the Desert Fathers & Mothers of the Church (selections)

33. Read the Fathers of the Church (selections)

34. Get a Spiritual Director.

35. Learn to make a great curry.

36. Learn to knit something other than scarves.

37. Go through all my belongings and donate 35 items.

38. Donate blood 5x.

39. Send Christmas cards to all my friends.

40. host a fancy dinner party for other catholic single young adults.

41. Try Ethiopian food.

42. Read or watch the news daily for a month.

43. Get a Netflix subscription.

44. Get a Wii- and get the Just Dance game!

45. Go on a silent retreat.

46. Exercise 2x a week - every week.

47. Attend an adult Summer Conference at Franciscan University.

48. Go to a Taize gathering.

49. Write my autobiography.

50. Clean my bathroom at least once every two weeks (don't judge!)

51. Practice meditation.

52. Study spanish.

53. Visit Our Lady of Guadalupe Shrine in Mexico City.

54. Get a pet (cat or dog!)

55. Have my immediate family visit me in Chicago.

56. Get engaged.

57. Go skiing.

58. Earn enough frequent flyer miles to get a free flight.

59. Get something cool from my credit card rewards program.

60. Master the art of Extreme Couponing.

61. Go out 2x a week - be more social!

62. Get married.

63. Get a pedicure.

64. Read the Brothers Karamazov

65. Remain 120 lbs.

66. Dye my hair.

67. Bring Communion to the homebound.

68. Befriend a homeless person.

69. Pay off my graduate school loan ($8500).

70. Make a new best friend. 

71. Commission Anne Marie to write me an Icon of the Holy Family

72. Write a Parent Newsletter for the CCD program each month.

73. Welcome 10 people into the Church through RCIA.

74. Read the Lord of the Rings Trilogy.

75. Read 3 books by Pope Benedict XVI (Joseph Ratzinger).

76. Go see a dermatologist.

77. Get my bike fixed.

78. Bike ride to work whenever the weather is nice.

79. Register "my" car under my name.

80. Switch my driver's license to Illinois.

81. Register to vote in Illinois.

82. Vote in every election.

83. Become more politically active / involved in my community.

84. Meet Cardinal George.

85. Write a book on the culture war / polarization in the Church.

86. Reduce my grocery bill to 65$ a week.

87. Plant a tree.

88. Give everyone I buy gifts for for Christmas - something from the Heifer project or Ten Thousand Villages.

89. Wake up early to watch the sunrise.

90. Learn how our government system actually works (I never took civics!)

91. Go to a concert.

92. Go to a Sox vs. Cubs game.

93. Sell 15 of my old books on Amazon.com

94. Travel to visit my college friends.

95. Write to my nun friends.

96. Discern what to do about current ‘relationship’ – move forward or move on; and do it.

97. Join the adult kickball league here in Chicago (WAKA).

98. Take a cooking class.

99. Bake a Key Lime Pie from scratch.

100. Run the Holy Half Marathon at Notre Dame.

101. Be intentional about having a real Sabbath day each week.