Snacking

Like many moms with young children, I used to eat snacks regularly, twice a day or whenever my children needed one.  At the time I was eating every 2-3 hours, even when I didn’t feel hungry.  I was eating to prevent myself from reaching to a state of dizziness and shakiness.  Since my grandfather used to feel shaky if he became too hungry, I thought that was genetic even though in the back of my mind I knew something was wrong.  Besides, I heard recommendation that people should eat every 2-3 hours to keep their metabolism going, so I just keep on snacking away.

 

After I paid more attention to my diet and added in exercise regime to my life, my fasting blood sugar was out of the danger zone, lowering from 102 to the mid-80s.  I experience less and less shakiness after 4 hours of not eating.  Then I read some information from Dr. Ritamarie about meal spacing, arguing against eating every 2-3 hours, http://drritamarie.com/blog/2013/08/06/the-myth-behind-small-frequent-meals-encore-presentation/  I learned that by snacking every 2-3 hours, you are causing insulin in your blood stayed elevated all the time because they are needed to transport the blood glucose from the food that you eat to your cells.  When your insulin is elevated, your growth hormones are inhibited.  Why is that undesirable?  Well, your growth hormones are in charge of burning fat, repairing your body, and building lean muscles after exercise.  With insulin running wild in your blood, you won’t go far with your exercise and weight loss plan. 

 

Just as with the multitude of conflicting information we read online regarding health, I was confused and not sure whether to snack or not.  It would be easy for me to keep on snacking because…. who doesn’t like to snack, right?  Yet, I want to do what’s necessary to take good care of my body.  Then I recalled when my mom visited us in the summer, I was surprised to find out that she didn’t snack at all.  She eats 3 meals a day and that is that.  There is no mid morning snack or afternoon snack.  Looking back to my childhood, I remember that I only ate one snack a day and that was after school, before dinner was ready, because our dinner usually didn’t start until 7pm.  Even during high school year, the so called “teenage growth spurt” period, I don’t remember ever having snacks at school.  I guess we had big meals so there was no need to snack anytime of the day.  In the end, I decide to listen to my body and Dr. Ritamarie.  I try not to eat if I don’t feel hungry and, therefore, lengthen the time in between eating to 4-5 hours.  I eat bigger lunch than I used to so I don’t need to eat until 6 pm.  If I want to eat out of boredom, I do a quick round of exercise (yoga stretching or bodyweight exercise).  That usually takes away my craving for snacks.  What do you think, snack or no snack? 

Stress

I don’t like to spend lots of time thinking about what to eat.  Yet, this summer I had to do just that, almost every meal.  We had some family members from Taiwan visiting us, some staying for 2 weeks, some, 2 months.  At one point, we had a total of 11 people in our house.  During this whole time, I still needed to maintain my daily 4 hours of work and started preparing for the volunteer work I did at my girls’ school.  I was stressed out most of the time.  Sometimes if the caffeine in my morning tea was a bit higher than usual, I would start to feel panic.  Whenever I thought about having 11 people in my house and I have to figure out what to eat, my heart raced and I felt a heavy weight in my stomach.

 

One day after a particularly hectic morning, when I finally got everything done, sitting in front of the computer with my lunch (so I can finish my work), I was flustered and feeling frustrated.  I didn’t feel hungry at all.  I knew that if I didn’t deal with my emotions, I would have headache and indigestion later.  Then I remember something I heard from one of Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo’s webinars.  I made a cup of Holy Basil (Tulsi) tea and while sipping it, I talked to myself, “I’m eating this food that will help me, it will calm my mind.  It’s beneficial to my health and I am grateful to drink it”.  Little by little, my heart rate went down and the knot in my stomach loosened.  I felt calm and peaceful.

 

Stress is a silent killer.  It will gradually increase your waistline (yes, believe it or not) and make you more susceptible to all kinds of illness.  When you are stressed out, your body responds by releasing the adrenal and cortisol, which will result in increasing the sugar circulating in your blood.  It was to prepare your body to physically run away from the danger but nowadays there is no physical danger for us to run away.  Instead of moving around, we tend to sit down and worry ourselves sick.  The only things that are racing are our heart and the sugar in our blood.  So here is the action plan that I have when I’m stressed out,

 

(1) Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), also called tapping—whenever I feel restless or panicky, I would do some tapping.  This is a technique combining the knowledge of Chinese acupuncture and modern psychology.  It’s easy, free, and you can do it any time and anywhere.  I love the quietness and the crisp smell of nighttime so at the end of a stressful day, I usually go to our backyard, take several deep breaths, do a few rounds of tapping and some positive self talk.  If you are interested in learning EFT, please click here for more information, http://www.thetappingsolution.com/

(2) Moving around or exercise—If I start to feel the effect of stress, I get up, move around, or do some quick exercise, such as, running in place, yoga stretching, or simple body weight exercise.  All I need is a yoga mat and some short breaks.  After that, not only do I feel better (because exercise releases serotonin, the feel good hormone), I probably wouldn’t feel much headache or indigestion, my usual symptoms of being stressed out.

(3) Drinking the Holy basil tea—Holy basil is a type of adaptogens, which work with your body to bring it back to balance, http://renegadehealth.com/blog/2011/05/20/holy-basil-my-number-one-ace-in-the-hand-herb.  There are many brands of Holy basil or Tulsi extract but my favorite is from Renegade Health website, http://store.renegadehealth.com/Raw-Foods-Superfoods/Kev-s-Super-Nutritious-Holy-Basil-Tulsi-4oz-p480.html

(4) The power of appreciation—The happiest person on earth is the person who is grateful and appreciates what he/she has at the moment.  I wasn’t born a “bubbly person” but I tried to stay positive and count my blessings every day.  Not only does this help brighten my days but it also brings positive energy from outside, which is what the law of attraction talks about.  At times of stress, I would sip Holy Basil tea, taking deep breath, while thinking about how the tea is calming my mind and how grateful I am to have the knowledge to deal with stress and to experience this calming effect.

(5) Yoga—I love doing yoga and it’s the only sports that I’m good at (if you can count it as sports).  Because of yoga, my back pain disappeared and my belly no longer looks like 6-month pregnant.  After practicing with several teachers in a variety of studios for 5 years, I bought a few Yoga DVDs and started doing it at home regularly.  These are the DVDs that have 20-minute sets of yoga practice so I can do it every other day or everyday.  If you are new to yoga, it’s better to start your practice with a teacher.  There are some nuances in yoga poses that a beginner can’t pick up from just watching the DVD.

 

What are your strategies in dealing with stress?  Please share down below.

P.S. Please note that I don’t receive any financial incentive by referring you to any of the websites mentioned above.  The reason that I refer you to their sites is simply that they are where I got my information.

Peaceful Outing with Your Child

On the flight to our most recent vacation destination, I sat beside a mom with her 3-year-old son.  Once settled down in their seats, she took out a stickers activity to play with her son.  They talked about what the characters are and how to make them.  After a while, she took out another activity and the process starts all over again.  Throughout the whole 3-hour plane ride, I didn’t hear any screaming or crying, just talking and giggling.  All the other passengers were amazed at how well-behaved this little boy was.  It was actually not a surprise, considering how prepared this mom was.

 

When my girls were young, I used to pack crayons and paper in my bag.  When they are older, I stopped packing for them but asked them to pack for themselves, even for a short trip, like eating at a restaurant.  Granted now that we have more electronics, they are usually preoccupied by the video games while waiting.  If we don’t have enough electronics for each of them (e.g. they are being charged at home), they either take turns, draw pictures or read a book.  What I’m trying to say is a bored child is usually a misbehaved child.  It takes planning and training for parents to enjoy going out with their children.  Some parents might say that their child doesn’t play with the materials that they pack or he/she isn’t interested in anything else but electronics.  That’s why I said “preparation” and “training”. 

For children younger than 3, it’s helpful to pack a little bag with toys or objects that they don’t play at home.  If they can only play with them when going out, they are going to be engaged with exploring what’s in the bag.  The toys in the bag should not include electronics.  Nowadays most children have enough screen time at home that they don’t need more while going out.  Without the electronics, they are learning to entertain themselves with more meaningful and creative activities.  For children between ages 3-6, their better fine motor skills (so they can use pencils/crayons), more advanced concept of symbolic representation (that is, using one thing to represent the other), as well as vivid imagination make paper, pencils or Magna Doodle quite useful.  You can also ask them to pack for themselves.  Children this age love to imitate grown-ups and they would be very enthusiastic to pack for themselves.  If they are into pretend play, they can pack little action figures or dolls for hours of fun.  For children who are able to read and write, they can get into a habit of packing for themselves.  We usually limit our girls’ screen time during the weekdays but let them bring electronics on the weekend when we go out. 

 

What are your ideas and strategies?  How do you keep your child entertained on the long trip or when waiting in a restaurant?

Green Smoothies v.s. Salad

After the whirlwind of family visiting and school volunteering, life is finally back to normal.  To pick up my blog writing again, I want to start with green smoothies, our staple daily drink, as suggested by my younger daughter.
 

As mentioned in my past blog post (http://te-chen.blogspot.com/2013/03/green-smoothies.html), my husband and I have been drinking green smoothies for our breakfast for the past year.  We’ve experienced really good results in our health.  In addition, we exercise more and made changes in our diet—more veggies, less meat, and less processed food.  When our families from Taiwan came visiting us in the summer, they were amazed to see the changes in our appearances, more fit and slim. 

 

For our girls, I also provide them with green smoothies daily or every other day.  I even ventured into packing them salad (without salad dressing) for their lunch this year.  I use Costco’s sprouted pumpkin seeds and dried cranberries to flavor the mix greens or lettuce.  Since store bought salad dressing has so many undesirable ingredients and sometimes too rich to our taste, I find that the saltiness of pumpkin seeds and the sweetness of the cranberries are better alternatives to make the green more palatable.  I also add a little cilantro in my older daughter’s greens since she likes the taste of it.  Last week on our way home, I told them that it was green smoothie day.  My younger daughter groaned and asked, “can I eat it as salad, not green smoothies?”  I told her that the greens in the smoothies aren’t the same as the salad I packed them for their lunch.  There would be kales, carrot tops, ginger roots, celery, chard, kefir, tomatoes, cucumbers, parsley, and chia seeds.  Some of the greens might be hard to chew and swallow.  It would also take longer to chew than to drink them in smoothies.  She said that she didn’t care and she wanted to try eating them as salad.  So, for the next 15 minutes, I was feeding her leaves/stems of carrot tops, kales, and all the ingredients that I had prepared for the smoothies, with my older one watching amusingly.  I was a little worried that she might gag on the carrot tops or chard but bless her little heart, she chewed and swallowed them all.  After that, I did a little interview with her and here is what she commented,

-kales are disgusting

-carrot tops tasted like metal (parsley is mixed with carrot tops)

-chard is bitter

-ginger is yucky and gingery

- love tomatoes and cucumber

- celery and chia seeds are okay

- she always likes kefir

 

When I asked her if she wanted green smoothies or salad for next time, she answered, “Green smoothies!”

 

Robyn, the green smoothie girl is coming to San Jose, California on 9/18 for her last talk on green smoothies.  She did a similar experiment in the last event, green smoothies vs salad (with the less palatable but more nutritional greens).  She is starting another round of seminar on a new topic next year.  Like I said in the past blog post (http://te-chen.blogspot.com/2013/04/green-smoothie-girl.html), she has amazing stories and give away raffle prizes throughout the evening.  It would be both educational and entertaining.  If you want to attend, please click here to get the tickets (https://sanjosegsg.eventbrite.com/?ref=ebapi).

Homework or no homework, that is the question

Sometimes I feel like living in two different worlds and I’m not talking about languages or culture in a general sense.  My girls attend a progressive education school that embraces the philosophy of constructivism.  Their learning is hands on, project based and cooperative.  There are no tests or grades on their work, just portfolio with samples of their work recording what they have learned.  After 6 years of schooling, my older daughter learned how to work with different people, motivate her teammates, resolve conflicts, and tutor her peers.  They don’t have much homework and rarely do any worksheets in school and after school.  With all the free time after school, they spend their time playing, baking, drawing, making crafts, and lately watching TV, going online, and playing video games.

 

Many of my Chinese friends have their kids attending private schools or prestigious local public schools.  Their children take tests, do hours of homework and worksheets, and go to after school programs to be drilled again in math, reading, writing, and Chinese.  They have grades for everything and think about applying for famous universities early on.  From what I learned by chatting with the parents, the learning in these schools is not cooperative but competitive.  In the after school programs, they often preview the math concepts for the next year during summer and then review the content and perfect their math skills during the year.

 

Coming from the traditional educational system in Taiwan, I have a hard time dealing with school without homework, and learning without rote memorization.  Therefore, we provide supplemental homework to enhance our girls’ arithmetic proficiency and have them memorizing multiplication tables.  We can’t do much with their language art since we are not English native speakers.  I read to them every day since they were babies, though.  By the time they were in 2^nd grade, they’ve become avid readers and are advanced in their reading skills.  It’s also fortunate that our girls can learn correct spelling purely from reading and word analysis.  My older daughter didn’t have any spelling tests until this year in 5^th grade.  When her teacher started testing the names of the 50 states and their capitals, some parents were questioning his methodology, considering it violating the philosophy of constructivism

 

I love how my girls enjoy going to school and are quite adept at dealing with social problems.  Their creativity is limitless and they are kind and helpful, quite different from what I had experienced at school.  When I was growing up, I gave up all my free time just so I could get good grades and eventually passed the test to get into a good high school and university.  I used to love reading but schooling took that away.  For a long time, I only read textbooks and avoid reading if it’s not going to be in the tests.  It was not until 20 years later, I started enjoying reading again.  I don’t want my children to walk the same path and experience the same loss as I did.  Yet, looking at them spending more and more time online and on watching TV, I cannot help but feel that something is not right.  I think that they need to learn a lot more basics now rather than wait until those basics become relevant later in their life.  Yet, at the same time, I don’t want them to memorize a lot of useless facts to pass the test and forget them afterwards.  All I want is to seek the middle ground, for them to enjoy the fun of learning as well as manage the pressure of examinations and homework.

 

 

Before the school was over, my husband told my older daughter that he was going to give her a challenge, doing 3 to 4 hours of homework every day, 5 days a week.  The workload includes reading, researching, writing essay, math worksheets, Chinese, and projects (my younger daughter has a similar challenge, but less work).  We also set a limit on their daily screen time.  At first, I’m a little hesitant because all their friends are going to enjoy summer without doing any homework.  Yet, as the first week passing by, I saw her showing pride in her accomplishment in completing a presentation or an essay. Mmmm, maybe this is okay….  As parents, we want the best for our children but we will never know if what we do are the best.  Even with the uncertainty, I still feel hopeful and that my girls are learning and accomplish more than what I’ve done in a less “painful” way. 

Sibling with less rivalry

Growing up in Taiwan, I’m aware of the differentiated treatments received by the elder and younger siblings in Chinese families.  Parents are usually quite strict with the oldest sibling, hoping to set an example of “good behaviors” for the younger ones.  I cringe whenever I hear adult saying things like “Let him/her (younger sibling) have it now, he is younger than you,” “you are older, you should let her… (do it, have it, or whatever).  After we decided to have children, I told my husband that I would never do that to my oldest child.  Not only would that make the older child resent his/her parents and siblings, but also teach the younger sibling to be manipulative.  Confucius said that “You don’t need to worry about not having enough but you need to worry about not fair”.  If you want “siblings without rivalry”, first you have to treat them fairly.

Yet, fairness doesn’t mean everyone gets the same but everyone gets what s/he needs.  At first, when I bought something for one child out of necessity (like when Dana outgrew her shirt while Kate could still use big sister’s hand me down), I felt a little uncomfortable about not buying anything for the other.  Yet, I didn’t want to be wasteful and make random purchases just for the sake of being fair.  Therefore, I tried to find practical things that the other child needed, such as underwear (you can’t really share that!) and they both got something they needed.  As they grew older, especially when Dana started having homework and she sometimes envied Kate for not having any, I taught them that fairness doesn’t mean everyone gets the same but everyone gets what they need.  This concept works well, too, in an emergency, when one child needs some “one on one” attention right away but you don’t have time to do that with all of your children on the same day.

Eleven years later today, I can say that my two daughters like and interact with each other peacefully most of the time.  We’ve tried to treat them fairly and not to compare them against each other.  Here is what we had done or are still doing to facilitate their amicable relationship,

(1) Sharing—Even though we are not minimalist, we tried not to buy more than we need.  Thus, there are plenty of chances that the girls have to share.  When Kate was younger and not able to express herself well, if there are conflicts with sharing a toy, I would step in and said, “I see that both of you want to play with this but we only have one.  What can we do to solve this problem?”  By asking for solutions, rather than making one child gives in, Dana often suggested taking turns with Kate and let Kate have the first turn.  At that time, they hadn’t had a good grasp of time concept.  In order to let both of them feel that the other person’s turn would soon be over and they are not waiting indefinitely, I either stay there counting with them (e.g. after we count to 50 then it’s another person’s turn) or use a timer.  As they get older, sharing and finding a fair solution have become a routine and I rarely need to get involved in their conflicts regarding sharing.

(2) Conflict resolution—I had heard some stories where the younger sibling used crying to get adult’s attention and get older sibling in trouble.  It’s our innate reaction when hearing a young child’s cry, we rush to conclusion that the older child must have done something wrong.  Even the older child could feel “the blame” coming before her parent speaks.  That’s what Dana tells me from time to time and why I have repeatedly reassured her through my actions.  Whenever Kate cries, I would use my least accusing tone to ask what happened.  I let them know that I want to understand and see if I could help the situation.  My focus is on what and how to solve a problem, not who to blame.

(3) Talking to your child in private during conflict resolution—There are times when your children make accusations against each other and you would want to talk to them in private.  I would make time to talk to each child behind closed door so they feel safe to express their opinions and observations freely.  Human beings have the defense mechanism to protect themselves by making excuses and blaming others if their mistakes are being pointed out in public.  When talking in private and given time and space to reflect what they have done, they might feel safe enough to reconsider their actions and maybe even admit their mistake.  After hearing their side of story, I usually gently ask some questions like, “how would you feel if she treated you like that”, “do you think you are being fair to her” if I feel there’s a need to request kindness or respect toward their sibling.

(4) The eldest child is still a child—It’s so easy for parents to ask their first born to be a babysitter for the younger siblings, especially if the first born is a responsible and caring girl.  We need to respect the older child’s need to be with her friends or by herself.  An older sibling, especially a responsible older sister can be a really helpful babysitter for a parent.  Yet, it’s also a burden for this big sister.  Understanding Dana’s needs of being a child, I always tell Kate that when at school, Dana has the choice of asking her to leave and just spending time with her friends.  The same goes to having time alone by herself at home.  Even though they still share a room at home, if Dana wants to stay in the room by herself, Kate needs to respect that and vice versa.

Green Smoothie Girl

After reading her blog for a year, I finally got to meet Robyn, the green smoothie girl, in person (http://greensmoothiegirl.com).  She held a free event in San Jose, showcasing her products and sharing her experiences with her readers.  She looks so young and energetic even though she’s in her mid 40s.  She shared the touching story about her journey to healthy eating and the amazing and contrasting outcomes her relatives achieved in dealing with cancer.  It was eye opening and inspiring.  If you are interested in attending her event, you can go to her site to register, http://greensmoothiegirl.com/green-smoothie-girl-classes/  At the event, she gives everyone two raffle tickets and gives away prizes throughout her talk.  The prizes are really good so that’s another incentive to go.

 

Adding green smoothies to our diet has been the best thing I did to our health.  I recently listened to Jon Gabriel’s talk online, (the creator of the Gabriel Method, http://www.thegabrielmethod.com/ ) and he mentioned that eating healthy is not as daunting as you thought.  You can do this by adding more healthy food in your daily diet.  The one thing that people all agree about healthy eating is to eat more green vegetables.  Yet, you can only eat so much salad or stir-fry vegetables.  And what about children who hate eating salad or who choose to eat burgers or steaks when eating out?  I used to nag my girls about choosing veggies and salad when eating out.  Ever since I start making more green smoothies for them at home, I don’t nag as much.  When they have their daily green smoothies, I let them order what they like in the restaurant.  I’ve also noticed that by adding more greens in my diet, my taste in food is changing, too.  I don’t crave sweets or coffee as much and I eat much less junk or processed food.  Are you ready to join thousands of green smoothie girl readers and start drinking green smoothies?

Listening and Dreaming

When Dana was 6 years old, she came home one day, very sad.  She said, “I wish I look like other girls in my class (she was the only Asian girl, and the majority of girls in her class are Anglo-Saxon descents).”  This wasn’t the first time she made similar remarks.  Having read the book, “How to listen so your child will talk and how to talk so your child will listen (by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish)”, I was finally ready to address this problem.  I sat her down at the couch and got a pencil and paper.  I said, “Imagine that we have magic to change your look, what would you want to change?”  We went from hair color, eyes, nose, all the way down to skin color.  It turned out that she was okay with her eyes, nose and mouth (Whew!).  The only features that she wanted to change were hair color and skin color.  That made her a little bit happier.  Then I said, “I wish that I had the magic to give you what you want, but if you want, you could dye your hair when you grow up.”  She smiled and that was the end of her wanting to be like a white girl.  Well, nowadays, her wishes and wants focus more on body type and sizes of thigh, legs and waist, but that’s another story.

What really worked here are two things, one is that I acknowledged her needs and she felt being understood.  Without being heard and understood, a child couldn’t get over her emotion to look at the problem more objectively.  The other is that we found the supporting evidence mentioned in the “thought lie detector” from the book of “More than saying I love you” by Andrea Goodman Weiner (which I mentioned in blog 2).  Through analyzing and actually going through all the parts that she might want to change, we got the supporting evidence that things were not “that” bad as she had imagined.  We are often too busy to listen to what our child is trying to tell us and too eager to solve the problem for him/her.  In my very short time of studying to be a counselor and my personal experiences with my family, I learned that you couldn’t just hand a solution to someone.  It would almost always be rejected if that person is still dealing with his/her emotions.  Then frustration comes in on both sides.  When we face another adult’s worries and complaints, we are more able to use empathic listening and support her to come to a solution on her own.  Shouldn’t we try to do it with our children, too? 

Green Smoothies

In the past, my breakfast usually consisted of one cup of milk and a slice of toast with cheese.  After cutting off dairy, it became one cup of soymilk and a slice of toast with nut butter. Then, it was one cup of almond milk and slices of apples or grains cereal (the kind that you can actually see the seeds and grains, not those sugary version).  Since my husband gets up earlier and I am a night owl, he usually just heats up a cup of milk and then grab a frozen muffin for his breakfast.  Ever since going down this path of healthy eating, it bothers me to think of him eating muffins every morning.  Besides, my girls would munch on muffins for snack or breakfast, just because they are tasty and easy to get.  The following is the story of how I make green smoothies our staple breakfast, 6 days/week for us adults, and one day/week for the girls.

When I first mentioned green smoothies, everyone in my family wrinkled their nose in disgust.  I was in doubt myself, whether I could tolerate the (imagined) weird flavor.  I decided to try my first green smoothies at Jamba Juice and it wasn’t bad.  It’s actually quite sweet, even though it’s green.  Then I used my $20 blender to make some pretty “benign” version, spinach, banana, water, avocado and apples.  They turned out well and my family is okay with that.  With that success, I started serving green smoothies twice a week, usually on the weekend when we eat less vegetables.

If you’ve been reading green smoothie girl blog (http://greensmoothiegirl.com/)

or other healthy eating website, you must have heard of Vitamix and/or Blendtec.  Those are my dream blenders but they are quite expensive as compared to the regular ones.  After my husband got ulcer and the medication cost $500, my desire to make green smoothies grew stronger.  Besides, my digestive system was growing weaker, too.  I couldn’t eat too much meat or beans without feeling the indigestion.  When the stir-fry vegetables are chewy, I’m also having a hard time eating it.  Therefore, I couldn’t tolerate kale well, no matter how nutritious it is. At the end of last August, when I saw Costco had Vitamix on sale, I bought it after getting my husband’s consent of drinking green smoothies for breakfast.  My plan was to get up as early as he does and make green smoothies for both of us.

With the powerful Vitamix, I become more adventurous.  I use a variety of raw veggies for the smoothies, not just spinach and lettuce.  Every morning I make 4.5 cups of green smoothies.  He takes 1.5 cups while I drink the rest.  Sometimes I save one cup for the girls to share after school.  On Saturdays, the whole family drink at least one cup of green smoothies for breakfast.  The effect?  My nails are growing faster and stronger.  I have more energy and less craving for caffeine.  Coffee used to be my vice and I loved it, not only for energy but also the aroma, the taste, and the “I can conquer the world” caffeine effect.  I had no intention of quitting coffee before I started my green smoothies journey.  A couple of months into drinking green smoothies, however, I found out that if I get enough sleep that day and drink green smoothies, I don’t need coffee for energy and I don’t have headache (the common withdrawal symptom)!  Since I don’t usually get enough sleep on the weekdays, I drink green teas.  I now only drink coffee once a week, on Saturdays, when my husband and I sit in the coffee shop, waiting for the girls to get out of Chinese school.  I know green tea still contains caffeine but at least, I sleep better at night when I don’t drink coffee.  I still have coffee at home but I rarely have the desire to drink it.

You might want to know what I put in my green smoothies, well here is the staple ingredients, with some extras below:

Mix greens (or lettuce), kales, parsley, chard, cucumber, celery, avocado (or chia seeds), ginger roots, banana, pear (or apple), water kefir

Extra: cilantro, beet roots (cooked or raw), doTerra OnGuard essential oil, carrot tops, lime/lemon juice, flax seeds.

Calcium and Strong Bones?

In my first blog, I shared my experiences on cutting dairy off from our diet.  Like many people, I was told drinking milk equals to strong bones.  After we cut off dairy, I bought soy milk and have all my family members drinking soy milk one cup a day so they can have enough intake of calcium (we have now switched to almond milk).  Yet, the “one cup a day is not enough” concept still bothers me a lot.  Am I doing more harm to my family by cutting off dairy?  Right around that time, one of my relatives found out that she had osteoporosis.  She is only 20 years old!  The urge of searching for an answer became more pressing for me.  Luckily, another mom at my children’s school introduced me to a health journalist whose blog I followed faithfully ever since (Kevin Gianni, www.renegadehealth.com).  From there, I found more resources and figured out there are more to bone health than calcium and milk.  Here is a brief summary of what I found,

(1) Human body is slightly alkaline (with a pH value between 7.365 and 7.45, based on Kris Carr http://kriscarr.com/blog/a-little-ph-refresher-course/).  When we eat a lot of animal products, our body turns acidic.  In order to neutralize the acid, our body releases the calcium.  That’s par of the reasons why in a study of 10 countries done by a Harvard professor, Mark Hegsted, it shows that the more calcium intake through dairy foods people have, the higher risk of bone fracture (a sign of osteoporosis) they have (based on China Study by T. Colin Campbell and Thomas M. Campbell II).

(2) In order for our body to absorb and utilize calcium, we need vitamin D.  That’s why all the milk and most of the calcium supplement are fortified with vitamin D.  Yet, there is another easy and free way your body can get vitamin D.  That is sunshine.  Everyone is different in how much sunshine they need.  The general rule of thumb is the darker your skin is, the longer you need to be exposed to sunshine.  Showering right after sun exposure or applying sunscreen before sun exposure will block your skin from absorbing the vitamin D through the sun.  Therefore, you need to find the balance between getting enough sunshine and getting sunburned.  If you want to learn more, you can go here http://www.naturalnews.com/rr-sunlight.html

(3) Even if you feel that you’ve got enough outdoor time and sun tanning, it doesn’t mean your body can absorb enough vitamin D to use.  You need to get tested to see your vitamin D level.  If you are low on vitamin D, you need to take supplement.  There are different types and brands of vitamin D.  It’s generally recommended that vitamin D in olive oil capsules is better (more assimilable) than the hard pills.

(4) When choosing calcium supplements, calcium citrate is better than calcium carbonate because calcium carbonate tends to deposit in body tissues, resulting in kidney stones. (http://renegadehealth.com/blog/2011/12/06/keeping-your-bones-healthy-isnt-all-about-calcium)  

(5) Just taking calcium supplement is not enough to have strong bones.  You also need exercise, especially weight bearing exercise, such as yoga, bodyweight exercise. 

(6) The use of bone drugs could increase your bone density but it is at the risk of changing your bone quality.  Your bones might become more brittle and easily get fractured. (http://renegadehealth.com/blog/2011/12/05/osteoporosis-myths-and-bone-breaking-osteoporosis-drugs)

(7) Dark green vegetables contain lots of calcium and they are alkaline.  You need to be careful with cruciferous vegetables, though, if you have low thyroid and iodine level.  

(8) And finally, how is your digestion?  If your body can’t break down the food you eat to get the nutrients, you could be eating the best and the most nutritious food, but you won’t be reaping the benefits.

There are more to bone health than what I wrote here.  You are welcome to check out the resources I cite here or find your own.  Please share down below if you find more useful information.

Chores and Allowance – Part II

In my previous blog on allowance and chores, I mentioned that we used “working for pay” approach from Neale S. Godfrey’s book “Money doesn’t Grow on Trees” to give our children their allowance.  Now that they’ve worked for a whole week, the payday arrives.  Instead of giving them the lump sum of what they’ve earned for the week (just a few dollars), we divided the money into 4 parts, using the “4-jar budget system” in the book. 

The first 3 parts are 30% of the pay each, one for Quick Cash, which they can use right away, one for Medium-Term Savings, which they can use to purchase more expensive items and one for Long-Term Savings, which in other words, is college fund.  The last 10% of the pay is for charity.  Since the girls’ Chinese school is run by a charity organization (Tzu Chi Foundation), we normally donate the money to them.  If the girls feel that there is another cause that they want to contribute to, such as making little food gift bags to homeless people, or helping chimpanzees by donating to the Jane Goodall Institute, they can take the money out to do that.  Over the years, they’ve used their Medium Term Savings on sewing machine, bicycles, or keyboard.  We paid half for such big items while they pay the other half, but the ownership of these items belong to them.

After my older daughter learned how to do decimal addition and subtraction, I created and printed out a simple version of savings account balance sheet for her to record her income and expense on her Quick Cash and Medium-Term Savings.  Not only does she get a practice of math, but she also knows how much money she has that she can use.  The only drawback of this, though, is that she enjoys watching her money grows so much that she hates to spend it.

There are much more money concepts that we can teach our children.  After writing this blog, I realized that I needed to review the book and perhaps add or make a few changes with the routines.  If you have other ideas, please share them with me in the comment area.