Author Archives: Katie Robles

Eating To Prevent Cancer Video and a Joke

Angiogenesis is your body’s ability to grow new blood vessels (think repairing wounds). In a TED talk, William Li explains how angiogenesis can also allow cancer tumors to grow out of control and how angiogenesis inhibitors can help slow or reverse tumor growth. It’s fascinating and I’m mentioning it here because there are many delicious foods that inhibit angiogenesis JUST AS WELL or BETTER than the drugs being developed to fight cancer through angiogenesis inhibition. If you’re short on time, the food part comes in the last five minutes.

Here’s the joke:

A guy goes into the doctor’s office. He has a banana stuck in one ear, a cucumber in the other ear, and a carrot up his nose.

The guy says, “Doc, I feel terrible. What’s wrong with me?”

The doctor says, “Well, first of all, you’re not eating right.”

Joke courtesy of Mikey’s Funnies: www.mikeysFunnies.com

Images courtesy of cisncancer.org (tumors), forum.lowcarber.org (chart)

Posted by Katie Robles. Categories: Interesting Tidbits. Tags: angiogenesis inhibitors, William Li. 1 Comment

Mar. ’15

Eat Your Goal

Losing weight can be a mathematical headache. How many calories do I cut to equal one pound of weight loss? How many pounds per week before swimsuit season? If a train leaves the station at 10am and you race it…. The Weight Loss Bible walks you through pages of caloric math and then offers a simple alternative: eat your goal.

The concept is simple: if your goal weight is 140 pounds, then eat what a 140 pound woman eats. I love this idea! After all, the goal here is not only to lose the pounds, but to change your lifestyle; not only to reach your goal weight, but to maintain that weight for decades. So don’t play diet games. Eat like a thinner, healthier person and you will become one.

Look around you and take notice of the healthy people in your social sphere. Do the healthy people exercise? Then so should you. Do they eat vegetables? So should you. Do they drink water? Limit junk food? Sleep 7-8 hours per night? It’s so simple! Just move and eat and drink and sleep the way a person at your goal weight moves and eats and drinks and sleeps!

(A quick word of caution here: slim does not always mean healthy. Before you emulate a person’s lifestyle, observe them closely and critically. She may be thin, but does she eat? I’m talking healthy meals, not diet shakes. Is she overly obsessed with food or exercise? It’s possible for a perfect body to become the central priority of one’s life, but that’s not actually healthy.)

Eating your goal is simple, but I never said easy.

Brian Wansink, a professor of consumer behavior and nutritional science says that we make an average of 200 food related choices each day, many of them subconsciously. Even if we’ve got it half right when we start our health improvement journey, that’s 100 choices to be made differently each day, and that’s potentially overwhelming.

So keep it simple in your mind. Picture yourself at your goal weight or your goal level of health. Act like that version of yourself starting today. Eat your goal. Drink your goal. Move your goal. If you focus on your goal, your subconscious will adapt and those 200 daily decisions will be made for your benefit.

If you need a cheerleader, wave your arms around a bit and chant along with me:

I choose to be

A healthy me!

I’m eating wise,

I exercise.

It’s my new role:

To eat my goal!

“So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it.” 2 Corinthians 5:9

Posted by Katie Robles. Categories: Putting It All Together. Tags: goal weight, healthy living, Losing weight, low calorie diet, The Basics, Weight loss. Leave a comment

Mar. ’15

Recipe: Spiced Coconut Kale with Avocado

When I saw this recipe yesterday, I was hungry and craving greens. “Looks good,” I thought. “Probably has a few ingredients I’ve never heard of.” But, as I read the list of ingredients, the clouds parted, a beam of sunlight shone down upon my computer, and an angel chorus sang a melody from my pantry. I had everything I needed.

It was easy to make, delicious, and, 24 hours later, it’s almost gone. Also, I thought it was cool that the lemon juice “cooks” the kale.

Here’s the recipe with my notes in italics. If you’d like to see Julie Montagu’s original post, including the health benefits of this salad, click on her blog here: The Flexi Foodie. (The photo is from her blog.)

For the salad:

A bunch of kale, torn into pieces and chunky stems removed (I used about a half pound of bagged kale)

40g of coconut flakes (1/4 cup)

1 avocado, peeled, pitted and diced

A large handful of almonds, toasted (Threw my nuts in the toaster oven; 4 minutes should do it – mine burned a bit at 6)

For the dressing:

1 shallot, finely chopped (I only had red onion: I chopped about 3 Tb, then rinsed it in cold water)

Juice of 1 lemon

2 Tbsp. of olive oil

1 Tbsp. of apple cider vinegar

1 tsp. of dried chilli flakes (I only had red pepper flakes; they’re the same, right?)

1 tsp. of maple syrup

This is a really quick and easy one to make! First you have to do whisk the dressing ingredients together in a small bowl. Once it is combined, put the kale in a large serving bowl and pour half the dressing over the top. You can then use your hands to massage the dressing into the kale for a few minutes in order to soften it. (I massaged my leaves for one minute and they softened, but remained fluffy. If you want your kale to match Julie’s picture, massage longer. And no, I never thought I’d type the words “massaged my leaves”.) Next, add the coconut flakes, avocado and toasted almonds and mix together well. Finally, pour in the rest of the dressing and serve. YUM!

Posted by Katie Robles. Categories: SOUP: Water and Vegetables. Tags: greens, healthy living, kale, recipe, Vegetable, Weight loss. Leave a comment

Mar. ’15

Diet Dictionary: TV Reception

When I sat down to draw this cartoon, my eight year old son sat down and drew one of his own. This is an accurate portrayal of our boys hearing the ice cream truck.

Posted by Katie Robles. Categories: Cartoons. Tags: actress dress size, female self image, humor, media portrayal of women. 1 Comment

Feb. ’15

Gimme My Gummies

I have a sweet tooth with roots so deep they touch my tongue. After every meal, I crave something sweet. Eating fruit is a great idea, but if I’m not hungry, just craving, I don’t want more than a bite or two, and unless I have five other people to share an apple with me, it becomes work to not be wasteful. Chewing gum is great too until my kids eat it all and I forget to buy more and turn to option three: one bite of chocolate or ice cream.

Ha ha! One bite? For me, that’s an “I need a drop of water; go ahead and open the floodgates” type of bad idea. My dilemma is this: how do I satisfy my craving for a taste of sweetness without adding 100 calories or more to my meal?

What’s that you say? Why don’t I ignore my craving? That’s the best idea yet! And it works for me when I’m out and about, but I’m a stay at home mom which means that 98% of my waking hours are spent within twenty feet of my kitchen. I try to ignore my sweet tooth, but I often lose. I lack the will power of the Green Lantern.

The solution that’s working for me is gummy vitamins. I’m talking about gummy vitamins for grownups, my kids’ Spiderman and gummy bears shaped vitamins, or Juice Plus which is a gummy version of fruit and vegetable juice.

I started taking gummy vitamins a few years ago during the first trimester of one of my pregnancies. Because of first trimester nausea, the prescribed vitamin horse-pills my doctor recommended were not going down without causing something to come back up. I started eating my sons’ gummy vitamins; better than nothing, right? And I never looked back.

Now when I crave sweets after a meal, I take my vitamins. They satisfy my craving without opening the floodgates of Sugar Dam, and each gummy is only about 7 calories. It’s a strange concept, gummy vitamins as dessert, but like I said, it works for me. Besides, I’ve never been so consistent about taking my vitamins in my life.

“A longing fulfilled is sweet to the soul.” Proverbs 13:19a

Images courtesy of blog.scratchmenot.com (gummy bears), and me.

Posted by Katie Robles. Categories: Interesting Tidbits, TWO FISTED EATING: Portion Control and Enjoyment. Tags: Diet, gummy vitamins, healthy living, humor, low calorie dessert, Weight loss. Leave a comment

Feb. ’15

Put Your Back Into It: Posture and Weight Loss

God created the female form to be best displayed with good posture. Want to see what I mean?

Stand up and either go to a mirror or imagine yourself in front of a mirror. Slouch a little. Your boobs look smaller and your belly looks bigger. Now stand up straight and square your shoulders. Whoa, careful now, don’t over extend! If you push your shoulders back too far, your love handles (IF you have them) get handier. Okay, so we’re straight and square and relaxed.

Your silhouette looks great: breasts are front and center, belly looks slimmer, buttocks looks tighter. But more than that, how do you feel?

A little more confident? A little more in control? A bit more determined?

When I slouch, I develop a bit of the “poor me-s” and the “why bother-s”. Poor me, I blew it diet-wise and it’s only 10am. Poor me, I’m tired, I’m grumpy, and I haven’t accomplished what I thought I would today. Why bother exercising? Why bother putting ice cream in a little bowl instead of snarfing it straight from the carton? Why bother going to bed on time?

But if I stop and make myself sit up straight, stand up straight, it’s like my brain snaps to attention. My eyes are lifted up, my head is held high, and I feel more powerful. I blew it, but the battle is not lost. I have a fresh batch of choices facing me and I have a goal to reach. I’m sure my chiropractor would say that good posture allows my nervous system to operate uninhibited and what I feel is neurons communicating efficiently up and down my spine. Whatever, Dr. Leary. I’m going to call it “Queen Syndrome” because I feel like one.

How do you stand up straight without looking Victorian? Hang your arms at your side. Make a thumbs up sign with both thumbs, then turn your thumbs out away from your sides. You should feel your shoulders moving back, your vertebrae, collar bone, and the stars falling into alignment. You are a queen with a goal. Get to it.

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 1 Peter 2:9

Images courtesy of tuningpp.com (standing woman), achesawaytoronto.ca (sitting woman)

Posted by Katie Robles. Categories: Interesting Tidbits. Tags: Diet, God, healthy living, humor, posture, stand up straight, Weight loss. Leave a comment

Feb. ’15

Exercise Tip of the Week

Two days ago I slipped on my icy front step and hurt my back. Thankfully I didn’t break anything, didn’t hit my head, had my cell phone in my pocket to call my husband, had a neighbor home across the street to watch my kids while I went to the hospital for x-rays…I have plenty to be thankful for. I’m walking slowly with a cane and sitting ALL day because when I sit, nothing hurts.

So, your exercise tip of the week is: Don’t fall on ice. The only exercise left for you will be curling your toes!

“The law of their God is in their hearts; their feet do not slip.” Psalm 37:31

Image courtesy of http://massrealestatelawblog.com/tag/massachusetts-snow-removal-law/

Posted by Katie Robles. Categories: SEX: Sleep and Exercise. Tags: fall on ice. 4 Comments

Feb. ’15

Recipe: Shrimp in Green Tea Curry Sauce

This recipe comes to us from Prevention.com. It caught my eye because it combines our final two cancer prevention foods: green tea and curcumin (curry). Like I said last week, the curcumin in curry isn’t plentiful enough to kill cancer tumors in one meal, but it sure is delicious.

One final note: when my husband and I first tried this recipe, we thought it was okay. Then my hubby squeezed some lemon juice over our plates and BAM! So delicious.

INGREDIENTS

1 cup boiling water

1 tablespoon green tea leaves (I cut open a tea bag)

8 ounces dried linguine (or whatever pasta you have in the pantry if, like me, you’re too lazy to make a special trip to the store; see photo)

1 tablespoon canola oil

1 pound large shrimp, peeled, deveined, and rinsed (would also be good with chicken, I think)

1/4 cup finely chopped scallions, white and light green parts

2 teaspoons minced garlic

1 1/2 teaspoons hot or mild curry powder

2 tablespoons sake or dry white wine

1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil

chopped cilantro and sliced scallions (dark green parts)

fresh lemon juice

DIRECTIONS

Cook the linguine according to the package direction, subtracting 2 minutes of the cooking time. Drain and return to the cooking pot to keep warm.
In a heatproof container, combine the boiling water and tea. Cover and steep for 5 minutes.
Meanwhile, heat the canola oil in a large nonstick skillet or wok over high heat. Add the shrimp, scallions, garlic, and curry powder. Cook, tossing, for 1 minute. Add the sake or wine. Cook for 30 seconds. Add the tea and half of the tea leaves. Cook for 1 minute, or until the shrimp are opaque. With a slotted spoon, remove the shrimp and set aside.
Transfer the linguine to the skillet or wok. Reduce the heat to medium-low. Cook, tossing, for about 3 minutes, or until the linguine is al dente and the sauce has thickened. Return the shrimp to the pan. Drizzle with the sesame oil. Toss to combine. Garnish with the cilantro and scallions.
Drizzle with fresh lemon juice and salt to taste.

Posted by Katie Robles. Categories: Health, Interesting Tidbits. Tags: cancer prevention, eating for cancer prevention, green tea recipe, healthy living, recipe, shrimp curry. Leave a comment

Jan. ’15

Eating For Cancer Prevention: Curcumin

“Kirk, coom in, it’s Scotty in Engineering!”

“Kirk here. What’s the matter, Scotty?”

“Captain, it’s Security! They’ve been brainwashed!”

“Brainwashed!”

“Aye, Captain. Security deployed to arrest an invading alien, but now they won’t stop! They’re arresting the crew.”

“Just fix it, Scotty. And curry!”

“Curry, Captain?”

“I said hurry, Scotty, hurry!”

Inflammation, like the Starship Enterprise’s Security force, is essential for keeping your body safe from invading microorganisms; inflammation helps to kill the invaders and start the healing process. But chronic inflammation, when the body ends up attacking itself, can lead to a galaxy of problems. Inflammation has been linked to cancer, Alzheimer’s, heart disease, and metabolic syndrome (which can lead to stroke and diabetes).

So what’s a Scotsman in outer space to do? Hit the intercom and say “Curcumin!”

(Not laughing? Re-read the first line of this post. Still not laughing? I blame your Scottish accent.)

Curcumin is a compound found in turmeric, a root that gives curry and mustard it’s yellow color. Curcumin is both a very strong anti-inflammatory and an antioxidant. (A green tea toast to that!) The bad news is that turmeric (and therefore curry) doesn’t contain a whole lot of curcumin; most medical benefits are seen from taking curcumin extracts, not from eating Indian food 24/7. That’s a bummer, because I was hoping that hitting our local Indian buffet could be considered “fighting cancer”. Sigh.

A bottle of curcumin extract will run your anywhere from $15-30. I’m not usually one to take extracts; I barely remember to take my daily multivitamin. But I also like the idea of giving my body a Star Trek spring cleaning.

First there’s Kirk. He seeks out new life and new civilizations and, if they’re evil, he squashes them. He prevents evil empires from spreading to other planets, fights the enemy in hand to hand combat, and roots out injustice all over the galaxy. Curcumin stops cancer tumors from spreading, stops tumors from growing, and even reduces pre-cancerous lesions. Best to let Kirk coom in.

Then there’s Spock. Logical to a fault and owner of the coolest ears this side of Vulcan, Spock increases the knowledge of everyone around him. Curcumin raises the level of BDNF (Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor) in our brains. BDNF is what allows your brain to keep learning and growing throughout your life, and decreased levels of BDNF have been linked to depression and Alzheimer’s. So, curcumin makes you Spockier.

Last of our Star Trek spring cleaners is Doctor Bones McCoy. McCoy has a big heart and curcumin improves the function of the lining of the blood vessels, which affects blood pressure, clotting, and other important stuff that you need McCoy’s medical tricorder to observe properly. In short, curcumin helps prevent heart disease because “Darn it, Jim, McCoy’s a doctor, not a chef”.

If you do try curcumin, please talk to your doctor or at least google the side effects first. They don’t sound bad unless you’re taking certain kinds of chemotherapy or trying to get pregnant.

“Scotty, is Security under control? The Ambassador from the Planet of Beautiful Bipedal Females is due to arrive any minute.”

“Aye, Captain, we’re all set. I’ve got the curry.”

“I said hurry, Scotty.”

“I did, Captain. The Ambassador has just beamed aboard.”

“I’ll come greet her in person. Kirk coomin’ down.”

Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean. Matthew 23:26

Images courtesy of: www.comicvine.com (security officers), www.worldtechtoday.com (Scotty), dejareviewer.com (Kirk), bigbangtheory.wikia.com (Spock), www.thezone.fm (McCoy), www.precisionnutrition.com (curcumin)

Posted by Katie Robles. Categories: Health. Tags: cancer prevention, curcumin, curcumin and cancer, eating for cancer prevention, Food and Related Products, healthy living, humor, Star Trek. 3 Comments

Jan. ’15

Eating For Cancer Prevention: Green Tea

I propose we answer two questions today: What is Green Tea? and Why do we care? The answers are: Tea and Molecular weeding.

All tea (Black, Green, Oolong, Ooshort) comes from the same plant; the way you harvest the leaves gives you different kinds of tea. Green Tea leaves get a steam bath instead of a sunburn, so they’re thought to have more cancer-fighting antioxidants, although a few researchers believe that all teas are created equal.

Green Tea is loaded with antioxidants which have been shown to help fight cancer. Antioxidants are just what they sound like if we all spoke Greek: “anti” means against and “oxidant” means oxygen, so antioxidants are against oxygen. That sounds kind of evil, doesn’t it? But oxygen can be evil if you’re a wrench in the rain.

When oxygen reacts with chemicals in the body, it creates useful chain reactions. Your body needs some of these oxygen chain reactions in order to, you know, live, but too many chain reactions lead to free radicals and cell damage.

Oxygen chain reactions are like mint plants in a garden. One mint plant is great; delicious leaves, lovely flowers. But mint plants spread aggressively by the root and can take over your garden in weeks. Antioxidants are the hands that pull extra mint plants out of the soil so you can make Mojitos, but still grow beans.

I’m not a tea drinker. I’ve tried. I have about twenty pounds of tea in my cabinet to prove how determined I was to become a tea addict. But I can’t help loving coffee, and maybe that’s not such a bad thing.

Green Tea has up to 10 times the antioxidants compared to fruits and vegetables, but coffee has 3 times more antioxidants per cup than Green Tea. If I’m not thirsty enough to drink 9 cups of Green Tea per day, then 2 cups of coffee gives me more microscopic meds for my mug.

Of course, tea, coffee, fruits, and veggies all provide us with different antioxidants, so perhaps eating the full spectrum of antioxidants is wise. The best advice I found was actually in a comment on a medical website; the woman said that she consumes coffee with breakfast, tea in the afternoon, and red wine and dark chocolate after dinner. Does she have all of her oxidants covered or what?

Green Tea is worth including in your diet, but if you’re not a fan of drinking it, try hiding some in foods you do enjoy. Mix Green Tea with Black Tea, add a cup to your smoothie or soup, or sprinkle the leaves into pasta sauce like you might with dried parsley flakes.

With the variety of things that can go wrong in our bodies, it makes sense to dose ourselves with a variety of antioxidants to clean up microscopically. Raise your glass of a plant-based beverage, be it bean, leaf, or grape, and let’s toast to our health!

“Those who trust in their riches will fall, but the righteous will thrive like a green leaf.” Proverbs 11:28

Images courtesy of fitnessandhealthadvisor.com (tea), greenteaforweightlosstips.com (tea plant), www.lookgreatnaked.com (antioxidant chart), bloomfieldbathblog.com (awesome antioxidants)