Category: news

Our Health Journey: Healing as a Lifestyle

This post talks about detoxifying with bentonite clay, the practice of oil pulling, using a neti pot, doing coffee enemas, skin brushing, natural hair cleaning methods and other fun non-conventional ideas. She does this every. single. morning. 90 minutes a day. Wow. That’s dedication to health.

The Man Who Thinks He Never Has to Eat Again Is Probably Going to Be a Billionaire Soon

I’m amazed that people are so up in arms and scared of Soylent. I’m absolutely fascinated with this project and I really want it to succeed. Are people afraid that if Soylent succeeds that they will have to drink Soylent for the rest of their lives instead of eating? Because that’s not certainly not gonna happen. Sometimes people are just too afraid of “different.” This stuff isn’t on the market yet. It’s being tested. If it’s ever ready for public consumption, it’ll have a lot of research behind it. Stop worrying.

My $1.50 a Day Challenge: Eating a Plant-Based Diet on an Austere Budget

I try to eat like this most of the time. I buy for two (three technically ;)) and I’m lucky to get out of the store without spending less than $75 a week, but I think that’s pretty good. If you stick to basic foods instead of buying processed crap, eating cheap is much easier.

Improve Your Posture With The LUMOback Posture Sensor

Ooh! Ooh! A new product for my Christmas wish list. This device goes around your waist and tracks your body-position throughout the day. If you slouch, the sensor will send a message to your phone to vibrate so that you can fix the problem right away. It’s $150, so I probably won’t get one, but still cool.

The Scarecrow – Animated Video From Chipotle Showing Horrors of Factory Farming

Most of Chipotle’s ingredients are GMO, but I guess their foods are more “natural” than most other businesses. Despite that, this animated video is beautiful and has a wonderful message.

How to Slackline

One of my coworkers just told me about slacklining a couple weeks ago and I thought that it seemed sorta interesting, but ultimately pointless for myself. But after reading this article and realizing how balance is important for so many different things, now I want a slackline!

Scientists Use Videogames to Improve Older Brains

I attribute a lot of my eye-hand coordination and reading abilities to playing video games. I can’t say for a fact that video games benefited me, but I strongly believe they have. It looks like there are some other great benefits to video games as well – serious benefits.

Fermentation 101 with Jill Ciciarelli

This is a good intro to fermented foods. The only fermentation that I do regularly is to make kombucha and occasionally beer, but I’d really like to get into making pickles and sauerkraut. I might have to pick up this book. It’s only $10 on Kindle!

East Meets West Veg: Vegan Grocery Shopping 101 at Costco

Who knew that Costco had so many vegan products? Well I did, actually, because I shop there regularly. Well, I did shop there regularly, until I let my membership expire in March of this year. I love the deals at Costco, but I absolutely hate shopping there because of the crowds, which is why I haven’t gone back in such a long time. Now that we have a baby on the way though, we plan to renew our membership soon. I’ll have to keep my eye out for some of these cool vegan products.

Breathe Through Your Nose

I had no idea that nasal breathing was so important. Well I had some idea because I always hear the advice that you should breathe through your nose while running. This comes at an interesting time for me too because for the last couple of weeks I’ve been having allergy issues that are causing labored breathing and I’ve noticed that breathing through my mouth makes it much worse. Now it makes sense why. There are also some neat tricks in this post on unplugging a stuffed nose.

Do It Yourself: Homemade Natural Hair Gel with Flaxseeds – YouTube

I’ve always either just grown my hair out really long, or I shave it off completely bald. I haven’t had a real hairstyle for a very long time. I just got a haircut for the first time in probably 5 or more years and one of the biggest reasons is because I really, really hate having gross toxic products in my hair. I’ve hated hair styling products ever since I was a kid. Well, I’m getting married this weekend and my soon-to-be-wife wanted me to get a haircut, so I did. Before heading to the grocery store to pick some hair gel, I wanted to see if there were any natural hair gels on the market. I did a search for “natural hair gel” on Google and the first result was this awesome recipe using only flax seeds and water. I boiled 1/8 cup flax seeds with 1 cup water for about 6 minutes and then squeezed it through a paint strainer bag. So far I really like it. I hope it lasts through my wedding! Update: It got windy during my wedding and the flax gel didn’t last, but I still like it.

Best Nootropic Stack

I’m a huge fan of nootropics. I already take a stack of piracetam, choline, aniracetam and coconut oil when I’m at work. This article also mentions L-Theanine and Phenibut to act sort of like a beta blocker to cause calmness and reduce overactive brain activity, which can also be used with caffeine to wake you up, but without the negative side effects. That’s pretty freaking awesome! So this author recommends taking L-theanine at a ratio of 0.5 to 1 of the amount of caffeine taken, so if you consume 100mg of caffeine you want to take 50mg or more of L-theanine. The other nootropic mentioned here, phenibut, supposedly resets caffeine tolerance and can give you the best sleep of your life. He suggests taking it only twice per week (he does Sun. and Wed.) at two 300mg doses – one 3 hours before, the second as he’s going to bed. I don’t know about phenibut. If it feels like alcohol and can cause a hangover, I’m not sure I want it in my body. This forum thread about trying to get off phenibut is pretty scary too.

FDA allows natural blue from spirulina as food coloring

Food dyes are in everything and some of the most common dyes are quite toxic. It’s great that companies can start using spirulina as a food coloring. I never realized that it could be used as a food dye. I’m surprised it has taken this long to get approval.

Most Popular Strength Coaches & Thank You to All My Readers

This is kind of a weird thing for a strength and conditioning coach to spend their time on, but it’s clear that Bret Contreras is an excellent S&C coach and tech geek. There are some new names in his list of top ten coaches that are unfamiliar to me, so I’ll begin following them ASAP!

Dilutions Cheat Sheet for Dr. Bronner’s Castile Soap

I’ve been wanting to move away from some of the toxic cosmetic products I use, while also trying to keep things simple, so I’ve been thinking about switching to Dr. Bronner’s soap products to do just about everything – wash my hair and body, brush my teeth, do the dishes, do the laundry and so on. This cheat sheet should come in handy, although it looks like it’s more trial and error and just using a couple dabs here and there or more if you need it.

Facts about lipstick ingredients

I’ve been looking for a place to write where I could get paid for it and I found Helium so I gave them a try. They provide a whole list of topics that they’d like people to write about and when I saw a request for an article on the facts about lipstick, I thought that would be really interesting. I’ve been reading The Better Baby Book, which goes a little bit into to the toxins that are commonly found in cosmetics and why pregnant women shouldn’t use them, so I already had an idea of some of things I could talk about in this article. Check it out!

7 Squat Dilemmas Solved

There are things we can do to prevent injury but you shouldn’t feel forced into a position that doesn’t work for your body. A lot of advice on the Internet or in magazines will tell you that you absolutely need to do an exercise in a certain way, and for some people that just isn’t going to work. I’m actually trying to rehab my knee from PFPS, which was discussed in this article. I’ve always forced my knees out, but I believe my injury is from wide stance, which is something I read that I should be doing, even though it didn’t feel right to me. But I kept doing it and now I’m regretting it.

Three-Bean Vegetarian Chili Recipe

This is awesome recipe for red chile, but I made some modifications. Instead of canned beans, I cooked my own beans several days before because I prefer to soak my beans for 24 hours and then cook for 2 hours to remove lectins and all that good stuff. I used only pinto beans, instead three different beans, mainly because I didn’t feel like soaking more beans. I also don’t have a dutch oven, so I just made this all in a big pot. I simmered the veggies for 20 minutes and then added the beans and simmered for another 35 minutes. Last minute, we decided that we really wanted something to eat with it and I found this recipe for College Kid’s Microwave Cornbread, which took about 5 minutes total to make. It really turned out to be a super delicious meal.

The Better Bean Company

I eat a lot of beans, and I prefer to make my own so that I can soak them to remove lectins, but that takes at the minimum 24 hours to soak and two or more to cook. I usually either have beans that have been recently prepared or some extra that are frozen, but I don’t always have a specific type of bean ready so I cheat and go to the store to get canned beans. With these guys around, it looks like I don’t have to feel so bad about buying already-prepared beans anymore. Check out their ingredients! Good stuff.

Top training aids that keep you trackable & safe when alone on a ride or run

Having some sort of identification bracelet and/or a way to contact someone in case of emergency while out running, cycling, hiking or whatever it is you’re doing is super important. I hear so many stories these days of people disappearing while out alone hiking or running and they aren’t wearing a GPS tracker to help anyone find them. Most are not abductions or anything like that, but instead people suffering from heart failure or other serious injuries. Sometimes bodies can’t be found for weeks or even months. I don’t travel to the mountains by myself so I don’t have to worry about that, but if I go out for a long bike ride, I always have my phone or quarters for a pay phone and I make sure that someone always knows where I’m headed.

Endurance Add-On For Vegan/Vegetarian Endurance Athletes

A short list of supplements that vegan/vegetarian athletes should be taking. The photo at the top of this post are not part of this list. Those are just some of the supplements I take when doing heavy weight training programs. 😉

Recipe: Paleo Hummus

I was just talking with coworkers about this last week and then Chris Kresser posts a recipe. Awesome!

Marijuana stops child’s severe seizures – CNN.com

What an amazing discovery. It’s so sad that this little girl was suffering from so many non-stop seizures that it was damaging her brain and beating up her body. Who would have ever guessed that she could be treated by low THC, high CBD marijuana? It’s great that she’s finally living the life that a child should be able to live.

Remember To Hydrate With Tim Ferriss

This is a quick read featuring some of Tim Ferriss’s favorite drinks. I’ve never tried Cold Mugicha Barley Tea or Acai. Cold Mugicha tea sounds pretty cool, since it can decrease body temperature.

No, doctors did not “inject HIV into a dying girl” to treat her cancer

This one has been spreading across social media recently and it really is an amazing story. A lot of the headlines claim that this young girl was injected with the deadly HIV disease, which is not true and is sensationalist journalism at it’s worst. It’s actually a virus derived from HIV, and is so genetically altered that people question whether it should even be called HIV. Still, this is really an amazing feat for the cancer research and treatment industry.

Just a short update this week. With a baby on the way, we’ve been really trying to get prepared before Michelle’s third trimester, so I haven’t done much reading in the last week. We have most of our junk piled up and ready for a yard sale and soon we plan to paint several of the rooms. Looks like a busy next couple of months ahead of us, but I’ll do my best to share some of the interesting things I still manage to read.

Perfect Iced Coffee

I love coffee, just like anybody else. I take coffee to a higher level than most though. I’m often called me a coffee nerd because of all of the ways I make coffee. I own a regular coffee machine, but I never use it. I prefer to use a Hario V60 pour over instead. I also own an Aeropress, a french press and a moka pot, but I don’t use those as often. I try to buy only single-origin, organic coffee beans and I grind my coffee using a burr grinder instead of blade grinder. But I do these things because I want the cleanest, healthiest cup of coffee. If you sat me down next to a coffee expert to compare notes on various coffees, the only thing I’d have to say is “yup, that tastes pretty good.” I’ve tried a lot of different types of coffee, but for some reason I’ve never tried an iced coffee. That’s going to change after reading this! I plan to make some healthier modifications of course 😉

Easy Meals For Busy Athletes

Great post from Ben Greenfield about the importance of nutrient density in foods and he also included a huge list of 40 different meals and snacks that you can eat to support your health. I actually used this post to craft my meals for the upcoming week.

Sorry low carbers, your microbiome is just not that into you

Good info for everyone, especially people who do ketogenic diets. And for any vegans reading this, you might think it doesn’t apply to you since we eat so many carbs, but if you’re eating a lot of carbs that contain high amounts of indigestible fiber (wheat, bran, fruit skin, brown rice, seeds, nuts and skin from root vegetables), you might be starving your gut microbes. You should also consume plenty of pre-biotic (asparagus, burdock, chicory, dandelion root, Jerusalem artichoke, leeks, legumes and onions) and pro-biotic (yogurt, sauerkraut, kombucha, miso soup, sourdough bread, naturally fermented pickles and tempeh) foods or take supplements.

Find Your Kryptonite With the Free Bulletproof Food Sense iPhone App!

Food sensitivity testing is one thing I’m really surprised I haven’t actually done yet. I would like to though. But until then, I’ll be using this new iPhone app from The Bulletproof Executive. I can’t wait to see what kind of data I get from this!