Healthy Living – Page 3

Wake Your Taste-Buds from the Snack-Trance

I struggle to lose weight.

One of my biggest barriers to doing that is – guess what? Too many empty calories.

Too many calories, period.

I get into a “snack-trance” where I’m eating and not really noticing how much.

Thinking about this recently, I considered the difference between Tuesday and Wednesday of this week Tuesday, I blew my calorie budget while I was at work, eating things like Red Vines, a muffin, a peppermint patty, and extra rice. I ate most of that mindlessly. I was hungry when I got home.

Wednesday, I was much more on target. I ate more vegetables, stayed on target, didn’t have a muffin even though I could have. Guess what? I was actually slightly less hungry when I got home. Either way, though, I was still hungry when I got home, so why didn’t I pick better foods to eat when I was at work? And why didn’t I notice what I was eating so I could actually enjoy it?

Some time I’ll write an article about this, but for the moment we’ll leave it at this: it’s really important to be able to tell whether your mind is making you hungry out of habit, or whether your body actually needs fuel. Filling your body up with water rich, nutrient rich food will help reduce your cravings, make you feel fuller, and leave less room for unhealthy food. Snacking can actually be good for you as it helps fight hunger and prevents blood sugar crashes. You simply need to do it in a healthy way.

Just as there are lots of things holding us back from exercising every day, there are lots of things that can sabotage our desire to eat healthy foods in a healthy way. So I’ve listed some common ones. If you like, skip down to whatever catches your eye first.

The Basics:

The simpler, the better – the fewer ingredients you see on a package, the better. Better yet, no package.

The easier, the better – keep your healthy snacks near you so you grab them when you’re hungry, and keep them simple so they’re easy to make.

The more water, the better – which is more filling and satisfying, a bunch of grapes, or the same grapes, made into raisins?

Make it easy to eat – prepare your snacks in batches, cut vegetables small, and invest in a few small containers to pack them in.

Be aware of high starch or high sugar fruits – especially if you are sensitive to them, it’s best to avoid grapes and bananas. Better to have apples, berries, or melon.

Don’t get in a rut – just like with exercise, change it up.

Buy seasonally – it’s cheaper, and you can try out new foods.

Cut veggies, cheese, or other snacks into small pieces – you will eat more slowly.

I forget

Make your healthy snacks memorable. Use colorful foods and containers. Leave yourself notes. Put healthy foods in the prime ares of the fridge, cupboard or pantry. Make sure you bring your snacks with you by keeping them with something else you need – if this means you keep your keys in the fridge for a while, so be it!

The flavor is boring

Spices can be your best friend. Cinnamon on your oatmeal. Curry powder sprinkled on zucchini slices or carrot sticks. A squeeze of lime on that chicken breast or baked fish. If you are tired of boiled eggs, try them with yellow or spicy mustard. Another trick is to have turkey pepperoni with your boiled eggs – with each bite, have a slice of pepperoni. Low calorie flavorings like mustard and hot sauce are your allies. If you don’t mind salt, soy sauce or tamari are great options too. They add flavor without extra calories, and studies have shown that bolder flavors cause us to be more satisfied with less food. Don’t forget lime and lemon juice, or flavored vinegars!

I can’t chew very well

There are ways to make healthy snacks easier to chew. For instance, if you can’t eat carrot sticks, steam them lightly or microwave them in a closed container for 30-45 seconds. Or cut them into “coins,” microwave lightly, and sprinkle with your favorite spices.

If you like them, cucumbers, zucchini, eggplant, cooked squash, cooked sweet potato, or lightly steamed cauliflower are all easy to chew. Cut into small pieces and sprinkle with your favorite spices.

I’ve found that soaking nuts in water makes them a lot softer, too.

Nut butter on peeled apple slices is also good.

A shake made with frozen fruit and yogurt, and perhaps a scoop of protein powder, is very easy to eat and can be kept in a thermos. Just keep track of what you put in it.

I need something easy to carry

Luckily, small Tupperware style containers are not only cheap, but easy to find too! If you buy a few of them, they are pack-proof, convenient, easy to clean, and you save money in bags too. I like the kind that are basically a snack cup with a lid that screws on. I keep nuts, cut up veggies, cherries, cherry tomatoes, and any number of things in mine. Another easy to carry snack is a meal bar, or even an orange or apple. Oranges are especially good for their portability. Protein shakes can be portable, just reuse your old drink bottles. The wider the mouth, the better.

I don’t have much money

I feel you! Vegetables are both cheap, and healthy, but often seen as boring or gross. See the “Boring” section for ideas on adding interest to cheap ingredients. If you always buy in season, and also buy larger containers, you will save money. You will also save a lot if you do all the processing yourself. Cut up your own celery sticks and carrot sticks, slice your own bell peppers.

Generally, the old fashioned version of a food is cheaper than the newer variety. For example, ready to eat sweet peppers cost a lot more than plain bell peppers, which are easy to cut up. If you crave nuts, peanuts and sunflower seeds can be bought in bulk, usually at low prices. Hard boiled eggs are weight loss champions and cheap at the same time! If cheap fruit is boring, jazz it up with home made dips and by sprinkling them with spices. Or take a few kinds of cheap fruit and mix them for a salad. Same with vegetables – several kinds of cheap vegetables can be a lot more exciting as a salad.

I love junk food

So do I! The best thing to do to help control cravings is to figure out what your cravings actually are. Sure, potato chips are fatty, salty, crunchy and often irresistible. But what is it that’s the greatest thing about them? What do you miss the most if you don’t have them? If it’s the crunchy, salty aspect, you might try lower fat crackers with bold flavor, pretzels, or some smoked almonds. Watch your portions, of course, but this can help you make healthier choices. If it’s the fat you crave, thin slices of hard cheese might do the trick. Then you are getting calcium and protein too, as well as curbing your hunger. If you yearn for ice cream, try Greek yogurt with fruit, frozen yogurt, or a fruit shake, perhaps even with a scoop of protein powder added. If you just want to be able to nibble for as long as you want, air popped popcorn with spices can be a great thing. Try popcorn with cinnamon, paprika, cayenne, nutritional yeast, parmesan powder, or dried oregano. A little salt is fine too depending on your own needs. In general, changing to healthier options isn’t hard if you are creative. Swap out milk chocolate for dark, candy for berries, Ramen for bean thread noodles, and so on. Healthier food will start tasting better, too.

I hate water

That’s pretty common. Luckily, there are plenty of ways to jazz plain water up. Here are some ideas:

Lime – squeezed into plain water, it’s pretty good. You can also use lemon.

0 calorie drinks – be aware of what kinds of sweeteners are being used and how your body reacts to them.

Green Tea – it also comes in powder packets that you can stir in, giving you a host of benefits.

Iced Tea Mix – you can buy it in jars, unsweetened, and add your own flavors.

Juice – thin it out to give water flavor.

Seltzer – have seltzer instead of tonic water to help with that soda craving.

Cocoa powder – you can make a great cocoa with this, along with non fat milk and your favorite low calorie sweetener. Add cinnamon.

Herbal Teas – experiment with different strengths. Or, throw some oregano or mint leaves into plain water.

Get a Brita – if your water is cold and clean, you might like it better.

Infuse with Fruit – some water bottles have little baskets in them where you can put fruit to flavor your water.

Recipe for DIY energy drink:

Thin orange juice with water, half and half. Sprinkle with salt. Mix well. This has much more potassium than the name brand sports drinks, tastes fine (especially when cold) and works well on hot days.

Snack Ideas

Cubes of hard cheese

Cubes of hard sausage, but watch your portions

Cut up lean chicken breast, baked or dry-fried

Nuts (sunflower seeds, almonds, or pumpkin seeds are lower in calories)

Hard boiled Egg (eat with mustard or turkey pepperoni)

Carrots – baby carrots, carrot sticks, raw or lightly steamed carrot coins, with or without spices

Cut up sweet potato – bake or microwave, flavoring optional

cauliflower – lightly steamed or raw

Bell peppers – get the colored ones for interest

Sweet Peppers – a nice, lightly flavored snack

Tomatoes – grape, cherry, or cut up tomatoes

Cherries – eat with dark chocolate if you’re craving candy

Tofu – cubes of Tofu are great with either soy sauce or mustard – or roll them in sesame seeds!

Celery – chunks or sticks, nut butter and raisins optional

Pickles – dill or garden pickles are great as a snack and have probiotic benefits too!

Dried Apricots – A good source of nutrients

Berries – any kind of berry, eaten fresh

Popcorn – air popped, sprinkled with your favorite kitchen spices

Fries – cut red potatoes or sweet potatoes into fry shapes, season, and bake.

Jerky – low in fat, high in protein. Watch the salt and sugar.

Greek Yogurt – with fruit to sweeten

Rye crackers

Of course, this is just the beginning. I hope you see a few on here that you haven’t tried before, and try them! Or put a suggestion in the comments, and I’ll add it to the list.

Bonus Tip: DIY “weight loss surgery”

This trick works surprisingly well. It’s pretty simple. Keep your portions small and try to eat small meals as often as you can. If you have to eat frequently, do that, but keep the portions at least dense. So no huge bowls of pasta or Dagwood sized sandwiches. Keep this up for a week or so. Pretty soon your stomach will shrunk and you will feel uncomfortable when you eat larger portions. You can stretch it back fairly quickly of course, but this can give you a valuable reminder that you’re eating more than you need, because you’ll feel full. Combine this with drinking plenty of fluids, and eating more slowly so you notice your food, and it will help you tremendously!

Here’s a link to some thoughts I had about dieting and how we often fight against our inner selves. Don’t Lose Weight, Win Health!

Here’s my article about different forms of low cost, convenient exercise. Spice Up Your Workout

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/trance/

Gateway to wonder – how to be positive when you don’t want to be

Healthy Living

There’s something you can do right at this moment that will transform your life. It won’t suddenly make you wealthy, or get rid of all your problems, or give you the perfect job, but it will subtly change how you react and alter your relationship with the world.

What’s that?

A wise man once said “your focus determines your reality.”

So it does.

For the record, I often have trouble maintaining a positive outlook. A lot of people do. Yet, being positive about life and seeing it in a positive way helps you find opportunities, learn better, and deal with other people in a way that draws them to you.

There was a study done that demonstrated how a positive outlook helped people feel luckier, so that they were actually more successful in life. Being positive costs nothing and really isn’t as risky as our minds might try to say it is. It can open us up to the world in a way that lets success in, and lets us see the many good things we already have that we might have forgotten about. One of the most positive people I know was homeless for a while. Living in a cardboard box near a railroad track, they still took time to see the beauty in their life.

With all the information we’re given about how great positivity is, why do we still have so many negative thoughts? I wonder that about myself all the time. I think it’s because the familiar feels safer and easier for us to deal with. “Better the devil you know.” Change can be scary. Success involves change. So our brains often resist it. However, we do have control of our lives and our thoughts, and we can override that fear! Here are some tips to help get you started.

Being positive is more than just phrasing things positively, though that can help. Luckily, there are some shortcuts you can use to jump start a sunnier outlook, and they don’t rely on you having a good mood to begin with!

Tips for staying positive when you’re too busy to do anything

Breathe deeply. It’s physically harder for the body to be upset and anxious if you are doing that.

Smile. It actually releases neurotransmitters that make you feel better. Force yourself if you have to and watch it become genuine.

Make really silly faces. When you are in a bad mood, go off into the bathroom and make the lamest, stupidest faces you can think of. Within a minute or two the sheer absurdity of it all may make you laugh. Boom, more feel-good neurotransmitters.

Strike a “power pose.” If we stand up straight and extend our arms and legs to fullest stretch, then hold it for a minute or two, our brains make us feel more confident. Try this in private right before a big presentation or meeting.

Sit up straight. People who have better posture learn faster and have more confidence than people who slouch. By contrast, you may well worsen your mood if you start to slouch, even if you were feeling good at first. I’ve seen this first hand.

Focus on the task at hand. Worry about other issues can really dampen your mood. So focus on where you are and what you are doing. Thanks, green guy.

Practice positive self talk. Even if you don’t believe a positive affirmation at first, repeating it again and again can help program that marvelous computer you carry between your shoulders. Use this ability wisely.

Take a walk outside and notice tiny details. Even if you just take five minutes to step outside the building at break, or step out onto an apartment balcony, there’s a wealth of beauty outside reflected in the smallest leaves and blades of grass. A little fresh air and sunshine can work wonders.

Think. If you feel resistance to being positive, think about that. Ask yourself, why don’t I want to feel better? Do I perhaps think I don’t deserve to feel better? Then ask yourself why? Engage your mind, get out of your emotions, and watch peace and calm return.

Do you have other tips? Share them in the comments, and I’ll add them and credit them!

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/gate/

None will be spared from safety features

Healthy Living

I love my car. It’s battered, it has 163,000 miles on it, and it was built in 2006. It’s put up with minimal maintenance, a paper route, a drive across the country while carrying heavy loads, and done it all with minimal breakdowns. It’s a Hyundai Elantra with a standard transmission. Even as old as it is, it can still go from zero to sixty in six or seven seconds.

Driving around in my responsive little car, the windows open to the world, I notice big differences between my car and others around me. I see the newer cars, with their higher stances, their taller doors, their smaller windows, their wide doorposts. My car is fairly low to the ground with big windows. It makes situational awareness easy. There is no navigation system, just a radio/cd player, and that leads to far less distraction.

I drove a rental a couple years ago. It was some kind of compact Chevy. Driving it, I felt so insulated from the road. It was harder to see my blind spots, and the thick door posts were also difficult to see around. The high doors, caused by the side impact airbags, further reduced visibility. The suspension system made the road hard to feel. I felt insulated – which is good, if you aren’t hurtling down the road at forty five miles an hour in heavy traffic.

Ironically, “safety features” cause most of these problems. In fancier cars, there are also lane warning systems, backup alarms, camera systems, GPS of course, and many other distractions. There are also automatic braking systems. As much as I love technology, I don’t trust a computer to know when to brake better than I do, or know when I should or shouldn’t change lanes. Do I need an alarm beeping at me, when I’m already in a crisis? No, I don’t.

The more control a vehicle takes from you, the more dulled your skills become. The harder it is to see and hear the world around you, the less situationally aware you are. I’ve seen enough traffic accidents to know that improved situational awareness would save many lives every year. For example, knowing that I have somewhat bad eyesight, I purposely avoid distraction when driving – not using the phone or texting – to give me more brainpower to devote to looking around me. I have avoided so many accidents that way!

The key to being a good driver is improving your ability, not relying on a bunch of safety features that may or may not work. Modern cars often give up real safety in exchange for increasing the driver’s perception of safety. So if a government ever tries to force me into a modern vehicle with all the bells and whistles, then I’ll develop a sudden interest in historical pieces, or build my own!

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/none/

via Daily Prompt: None

A Painful Symptom: Treating the dreaded leg cramp

Healthy Living

Whether from exertion in the heat or a night time charley horse, cramps are no fun at all. Just the other night, I was nearly crippled by a nasty cramp in my ankle that seriously threatened my ability to walk and drive. Luckily, I knew what to do and the painful spasm was cleared in just a minute or two. You can do the same!

Prevention

Stretch your legs before bed and/or lightly massage them.

Don’t tense your muscles or point your toes in bed.

Supplement with calcium – tablet style antacids like Tums work great for this.

Eat enough potassium. A banana is easily absorbed and cheap too.

Magnesium is also said to help. This can be found in nuts as well as other places.

Drink enough water, especially if you’ve been exercising in the heat.

Treatment

When the cramp first hits, flex your foot if it’s in the leg. If it’s somewhere else, relieve the tension on it and try to work the muscle around. Massage the muscle.

Stand on the foot if possible, but take it easy – you don’t want to strain your muscle.

Stretch the muscles gently. The pain will go away eventually – breathe through it.

Drink some potassium bearing substance right away.

Gatorade, Powerade, Pedialyte, or any generic sports drink.

Coconut water is also great for potassium replenishment.

The Ultimate Cramp Fix

This last remedy deserves a section of its own. It might sound strange but it really, actually works. When I have a very nasty cramp, I drink a couple ounces of pickle juice and the cramp is usually completely gone within just a couple of minutes. If you don’t have juice, eat a couple of plain dill pickles. This is actually science based. Even for stubborn cramps, this remedy works faster than anything else.

via Daily Prompt: Symptom

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/symptom/

Minimalism is a Mindset

Healthy Living

A person can donate all their possessions to charity and still end up with a cluttered home within a year unless they change their mindset.

I have had to give up most of my things several times in my life. More than once, I’ve had to fit everything I owned into a carload. I was good at finding things at good deals, so I’d always end up with twice as much stuff within a few months! A lot of my security came from having stuff.

This started to change when I had to drive across several states with only the things I could fit on and in my Hyundai Elantra and it’s home made roof rack – including bedding, tent, sacks of dried rice and beans, clothes, spouse, and two cats. After that I never wanted to have too much stuff again.

The stuff crept in again but not as quickly as before. I started to focus on quality rather than quantity. When I had to move one more time, I had better resources for moving everything but used that move as a reason to rid myself of more dross and replace it with more good quality items.

I can see the effect of my mindset changing – smaller spaces look larger as I have less furniture. I have more time in my day because I don’t have to organize things. I can find everything easily. Once, I was famous for always losing things. Now, I know where everything I need is, right away, and I find it the first time.

Life is a bit more satisfying as I move from plastic to glass and metal and get rid of disposable things around my home. I feel more settled. As the things I use grow fewer in number, but more beautiful, my life feels more like art rather than common drudgery. I haven’t had to spend a lot more money to do this, but I have had to be intentional about my purchases and choose quality over convenience or quantity. I still have a long way to go. However, my changing mindset has brought peace to my life and home!

via Daily Prompt: Minimal

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/minimal/

Avoiding Controversy: Advice for Transsexuals

Art of Womanhood, Healthy Living

I was at a public event recently and saw several transgendered people. I shouldn’t have been able to spot them so easily but they made it really obvious. It made me think. Two in particular made very little effort to pass as female. They drew attention to themselves, stuck out like sore thumbs and sadly, looked like drag queens rather than women.

A transwoman is a real woman – according to her brain structure, that is. She’s trying to make her body and public image match how she feels inside. At least, she should be.

Too many transwomen seem to think they need to make a spectacle of themselves. Apparently certain individuals feel a need to be “loud and proud” about their transition. They often make little to no effort to truly pass as female.

They speak with loud, deep voices, they stand facing the toilet in the bathroom, they wear eye catching, loud clothing. They wear high heels even when six feet tall. They use vibrant, often badly applied makeup. Sometimes, some transwomen will think they can still wear jeans and traditionally masculine clothes. They try to wear a dress while they are sporting five o’clock shadow and no make up. All these things catch the eye and make their status obvious, when a little effort would avoid these problems.

Unfortunately, there are very serious consequences to their actions. Transwomen who don’t try to pass aren’t just making decisions for themselves, they are affecting many other people too. To put it bluntly, irresponsible transfolk draw negative attention to the community, and may even cause people to be beaten or murdered.

Consider the following scenario: There are several people who were born male but are making their best effort to fully become women. They work hard to pass as women. They moderate their voices, they dress in a feminine way, they act in feminine ways. They simply want to live their lives quietly, as women, and give no one any trouble. They don’t call attention to themselves, spending their time working, playing, and being normal people.

Picture now, in this scenario, what might happen if a masculine looking person who is six feet tall with a deep voice walks into a room with them. This person is wearing high heels, bright makeup, a badly stuffed bra, and is looking like a drag queen. She’ll probably freak out those who are intolerant, hateful, or fearful. She might even incite violence. At the least, she’ll inspire plenty of nasty comments. She’ll also draw attention to any person around her who is also sexually ambiguous.

Hypervigilance toward gender differences can lead to tragedy. It causes masculine looking women to be beaten and thrown out of bathrooms, as you can see if you’ve followed the news. A very poorly passing trans woman sensitizes bigoted individuals, pushes the issue into everyone’s faces, and frightens the intolerant into even more hypervigilance.

A transwoman who is busy “following her own bliss” and doesn’t take care with her appearance or actions not only puts others in danger, gives the entire community a bad name. They make people think all trans folk are drag queens, clowns, or circus side show acts. It’s very hard for someone such as myself to say “trans folk just want to live normal, civilized lives and blend in with society,” when there are so many six foot tall, inconsiderate, poorly passing “women” who think that it’s all a lark and figuratively jump up and down shouting “look at me! I’m trans! I’m trans!”

For women who truly are trying to transition, it isn’t a game for them, nor is it a joke. It’s a deadly serious choice between a painful, difficult, expensive process and inevitable suicide. Transwomen who make it all the way through gender transition have gone through more struggle and heartache than almost anyone else in the world. It takes tremendous courage and determination to be successful. The public perception of transition as a simple surgery is woefully inaccurate, in actuality it takes at least a year, including intensive counseling and hormone treatments.

If you’re trans, I cheer for you. If you support trans folk, I’m with you all the way. That’s why I wrote this article. I care about the trans community and I want everyone to be whole and free to achieve their own goals. We will never be free of hateful people, they’re everywhere, so why not do what we can to help each other and help ourselves at the same time?

Helpful tips:

For any transfolk who want to pass more successfully, I’d like to offer the following advice. I got it from friends of mine who are successful transwomen.

For the successful transsexual, the goal is to blend in to society.
The more gender cues you can display, the better. This is true no matter what direction you are going in, whether male to female or vice versa. Sometimes someone might spot you for one thing, such as a deep voice, but still decide you are bio female for other reasons – presence of breasts, wearing a skirt or dress, well applied makeup, etc.

Stay neat and clean. Bathe, groom yourself in a way that is appropriate.

Choose good role models. If you’re a man, don’t try to look and act like a low class thug, if you’re a women, don’t try to act like a cheap hooker. Transmen: Don’t be Al Bundy. Transwomen: Don’t be Peg Bundy. Instead, why not emulate people with real style and class?

Dress appropriately. Wear clothes that are classically masculine if you are a transman, or classically feminine if you are a transwoman. Don’t bother with loud designs or ambiguous clothing. No skinny jeans or stretch pants for a transman, no blue jeans or sloppy sweat shirts for a transwoman. The idea is to give people a good impression, with clear indications of what gender you are. Avoid loud, clashing fabrics or extreme styles. Go for a sylish but somewhat conservative look. Avoid extremes. Strive to be a lady or a gentleman.

Speaking of style and class, try always to be courteous and respectful to others. Not only will you be treated better, but even if you are spotted as trans, you will be a good ambassador for the rest of your community. Also, being polite doesn’t mean being a pushover. It means being assertive without being aggressive, and respectful of others.

Learn the skills appropriate for your gender, even if it’s a bit stereotypical. People sometimes rely on stereotypes to guide them though ambiguity. While a transwoman can retain any skill she had before transition, she should at least know how to talk about subjects regarding cooking and homemaking for example. A transman would do well to understand something about fixing things, building things, how a car works, and enough about sports so as not to appear a fool. In either case, research the things that everyone in your gender seems to know, and know them too. Besides, it can be a great deal of fun!

Do things the way others do, especially in the bathroom. If you’re a transman, don’t leave tampons around. If you still need them, be discreet. If you’re a transwoman, don’t face the toilet, but sit down to pee. If you have a hard time doing that, spend some quality time at home with a case of beer or other diuretic beverage and train yourself.

Never be a caricature. Stay balanced. When possible, take your cues from bio men and women, not other trans folk.

Alter your voice to match your gender, but don’t go overboard. Transmen, just deepen your voice a bit and use masculine word choices. Transwomen, don’t go falsetto. Instead, soften your voice, raise the pitch a bit, not the volume, and strive for smoothness. Always pay attention to what you are doing and how you are doing it. It does get easier with practice.

To all transwomen: I can’t emphasize this enough. You aren’t transitioning to become a transwoman or a drag queen – you’re transitioning to become a woman, in body as well as mind. Since you have the chance to remake yourself, why not be a lady, not a diva?

via Daily Prompt: Controversy

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/controversy/

Turmeric works for this world traveler!

Healthy Living

I’m sure, if you have Facebook, you are subjected to all sorts of links that Facebook algorithms insert into your feed. I just whizz past all the wrinkle resolvers ( too late I think), most of the Foodie porn things ( I really can’t afford weight wise to drizzle chocolate, cheese and fat, I’m trying […]

via Is this root really working for me…Turmeric. — Travels in the Middle East and beyond

A Centered View on Healthcare

Healthy Living

Afraid of losing the ACA? It’s not a disaster.

I work in the pharmaceutical industry and help people with their insurance. As the ACA passed, I saw premiums go up, sometimes more than doubling, I saw copays go up, I saw prices go up in general. Yes, it’s true, women had free contraceptives and free preventives.

I’ll tell you a secret. Those contraceptives and preventives were usually the ones you could buy for less than $30 a month without ANY insurance. If you think about how much more the premiums cost, though, you are easily paying for more than the value of the “free” items you are getting.

There are a few who were helped by the ACA, whose premiums were subsidized by the government. That means they were subsidized by your higher premiums, by the way. Meanwhile, millions of working families saw their insurance costs double, saw their deductibles skyrocket, and could no longer afford care – or much of anything else, for that matter.

I could tell you story after story about people who were making a several thousand dollars a month, had a good plan with fair copays and coverage, and saw their premiums go up by hundreds every month. They didn’t get better coverage either. Their cost increase came with a corresponding loss of coverage! Many of the examples I have seen were low income people, who had either a self funded plan or one they had through an employer, and lost with the ACA.

Before the ACA, I could have chosen to buy insurance. Now I can longer afford good coverage. If I had an ACA plan, I could afford to learn what was wrong with me but couldn’t afford to fix it. The claim that millions now have insurance coverage who never did before, really means nothing if they aren’t substantively helped by it.

Free preventives? Most of them could be gotten for four dollars if you just use an in-house pharmacy discount plan. Without insurance, mind you. They’re available at several of the major pharmacies. The people who drafted the ACA knew what they were doing – most people seem to turn their brains off when they see the word “Free.”

I will not be sad if ACA goes away. A single payer health care system isn’t the answer. Countries who have it tend to have long wait times and substandard care. There’s a reason why Canadians used to come to America for their medical care – even though they had a single payer, universal coverage healthcare system.

Except for in a few isolated situations, you’re better off exercising, watching your diet, and avoiding high fructose corn syrup than shelling out money for an ACA health plan. Meditate, learn about the medicine of food, and stay centered.

On the bright side, there’s no reason to fear the ACA being repealed.

via Daily Prompt: Center

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/center/

Beyond Meow – How to Talk With Your Cat

Healthy Living

Sometimes, we all wish our cats could talk. Then they could tell us where it hurts, where the annoying bug on the wall is, and what flavor of cat food they REALLY want for dinner.
Though we’ll probably never get cats to use more than a few words of human speech, we can talk to hem – and encourage them to communicate in return. Awareness of their communications styles can go a long way.
The number one thing you can do is talk to your cat, meaningfully. Cats are very intelligent and pick up on words fairly easily. At the same time, pay attention to their body language and look for signs of understanding. Make a fuss over them when they show they understand. Use relevant words when you are doing things – like talking about the kind of food you are setting down, pointing out the brush and talking about it when you are about to groom them, pointing out different body parts when you are petting them. “Here are your paws. Here are your ears. Here is your pretty tail.” Cats can be trained in much the same way you’d teach a baby.

Whenever possible, give your cat opportunities to communicate back. Demonstrate to them that they can make a difference in your behavior by communicating. For your part, pay attention – sometimes cats are very subtle. Look for significant glances, postures, gestures. Cats communicate a lot through body language.

I knew someone who encouraged her cat to communicate – she was in chimp language research and used the same techniques on her cat as she had with the chimps. By teaching her cat that communication mattered, and he could get what he wanted by communicating, she achieved a remarkable level of understanding. He even had modified sign language “words” he would use to talk back.

For example, my own cat will lick her lips and stare at me when she is hungry. That means “dinner.” So if I say “Are you hungry, Nezumi-chan?” and she doesn’t lick her lips at me, I know she doesn’t want to eat.

She’ll also reach up and pat my shoulder (from the surface of a table) when she wants my attention. Or she’ll boop my nose when she’s feeling playful. Sometimes she’ll gesture to things with her tail, using it like a finger. She’s learned more and more signals as she’s gotten older.

Rules of cat communication

Pay attention to behavior and non verbal cues – be aware in general.

Talk to your cat frequently, and listen.

Be creative and encourage the use of gestures.

Name things when you do them.

Let their communication make a difference in your behavior.

When you can, give them choices. Help them see that communicating properly will get them what you want.

Soon, you’ll find that there are many fine shades of meaning beyond “meow!”

via Daily Prompt: Aware

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/aware/

A Clean Sweep – low cost minimalism

Healthy Living

You already know all the benefits to minimalism. Health, a cleaner home, less time spent reorganizing, less stress, etc. Sometimes it seems like you have to be rich to be minimalist. You really don’t, though. Not if you do it right. In fact, you can even save money. Here’s how.

Right now, this very moment, is a fantastic time to live in if you are interested in minimalism. Data storage is tiny and cheap, multi-function electronic devices are common, and almost every book, magazine or song is available for download. What once could only be stored in stacks and stacks of boxes or on shelves, can now be fit into a small pocket. That’s a real benefit for someone who is trying to be more minimalist.

I have been able to fit nearly my entire library into one SD card, and my music collection consists of four or five CDs plus several hundred songs in an 8 GB Mp3 player that cost $5 including shipping. My eReader cost $50. My computer maybe $300 and I’ve had it for about four years so far.

What has this done for me? Simplicity, even the basic level that I practice, allows me to support two adults in fair style on one income, even though I barely make over minimum wage. (Of course, I own my car, allowing low insurance rates, I don’t pay for cable, I found an apartment that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg, and my phones are $25 a line. That helps a lot. Even so, the principle is sound.)

My point here is that minimalism is easier to achieve with some of this modern technology and it can save you a bundle, in time, in storage space, and in money. It can be a great feeling when you walk into a neighbor’s house and think “wow, they have something on EVERY wall, and things stacked on EVERY surface. I couldn’t live like that!” Then you think “wait, I did live like that. I love my new life.”

I see it as freedom. Freedom from this:

You don’t have to turn your home into a monk’s cell to embrace minimalism.

Also, I won’t advocate getting rid of certain spare items. Sometimes stuff breaks, and you will be better off if you don’t have to buy a replacement right away. That’s what poor folk often do, poor folk like me, because we don’t have a spare wad of cash lying around. When you do keep spares, though, keep them in good order and keep them out of the way, such as in a labeled box. Know what you have, why you have it, and where it is. I have a few extra cooking knives in my drawer, and also my trusty (and old) eeePC in my desk in case the main PC has something happen to it. It doesn’t take up much space.

I took a hard look at my appliances and got rid of my food dehydrator, my juicer, and my printer. Print jobs are ten cents a page at the library on a high quality full color printer. My printer takes thirty or forty dollars to fill with ink, and then it expires before I even use it halfway. With the juices I drink, it would cost more to buy the fruit than just buy the juice. The food dehydrator was poor quality.

That brings me to another good guideline – if you buy something, buy the best quality you can afford. Ultimately, it costs less to buy better quality then to have something break. That saves money too, as well as headaches.

With these tips, and modified ideas from the innumerable other minimalism articles out there, you can save money and have a better life. The key is not to go ultraminimalist but simply be mindful in what you buy and why you buy it.

By contrast to the clutter I left behind, each bit of minimalism I find feels like this:

via Daily Prompt: Clean

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/2017/02/02/clean/