Recovered In One Week!

Well, I thought I would be recovered in a couple of days, but I was wrong. I recovered in almost a whole week! Still, it's good to get recovered, though my energy is not bad up to 90% yet.

Diet Changing & Stopping completely Walking and Biking

After almost one month relapse, my energy is getting back gradually. I have been feeling quite good for about  one week. What I did this time, by "listening to my body", are: 1, cutting off white rice, coffee. This helped me with constipation problem; 2, very importantly, I almost quit walking and biking completely for over a week. This helped resting my heart, so I don't get crash; 3, doing lots of stretches, which helps keeping my blood circulating without burden my heart.

So far, it works quite well.

Free From Too Much Cooking

Foto de una carretera en la cual se destacan anuncios de los restaurantes de comida rápida KFC, Wendy's y Taco Bell entre otros. Picture of a highway in which fast food ads are featured:KFC, Wendy's and Taco Bell among others. Taken in Bowling Green, KY. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I think my condition is improving, though not so obviously. One big change recently is my diet, I started eating out. My stomach seems to be more tolerant and I could eat lots of different foods from restaurants, especially fast food restaurant. Eating many "junk foods" doesn't seem to be bad at all. Actually I feel better, due to the diversity of foods I ate. Another good thing about eat out is, I do not need to stand up too much like I did before when I had to cook. I realized, since cooking requires lots of standing up, cooking too much also means to burden my heart. That could be one reason my recovery was so slow.
This change gives me lots of free time, I feel so much happier to be able to get away from kitchen. But still, I need to watch closely about what I eat. If my stomach demands, I will

Biking

I have been enjoying biking. Had to slow down a lot recently due to several minor crashes last week, but still, I could bike a little once another day.

I used to complain about the local geographical condition but no more, because I found the up and down slopes are good for me to exercise and when going down hill, I would literally experience an ecstasy of "flying".

This is going to be my life time hobby.

Biking - An Improvement and An Enjoyment

Finally, after purchasing a bike for over a year, I am able to do some biking.

I bought a bike last June. Just after a couple of times riding I had some quite serious relapses followed. I realized that biking (for me) requires more heart strength. Since my heart is my major problem so I quit bike for long time. However, after feeling more energetically recently, I decided it's time to try biking again. Last Saturday, after one of parents of my students pumped air into tires of my bike (I had some difficult to do that and he was so kind to help me), I started riding bike again. Since then, I biked about 5 times, averagely once per day, and each time about 25 to 35 minutes, and I found myself not only "survived", but also feeling better. It helps my metabolism tremendously.

I don't remember it's been how long I have not enjoyed biking. The last time I really biked was over 10 years ago! Still I cannot ride bike all the way from beginning to end, because I had to stop to walk whenever go uphill (the neighborhood is not perfectly flat), even those "hills" that are not steep at all. Today, when I walked along street a lady stopped car and asked if I was alright. I thought that was very kind of her. 

Anyway, after being tired of recording the progress or declines of my chronic condition, this, truly is a major improvement that is worth for me to write down!

Vegs From Backyard

 It seems ages ago that I ate sweat-potato leaves. Earlier this year I planted some sweat potatoes. For a while I thought them dead, but later they grew up, strong and healthy! I made salad (scald them in hot water first) with some of them today and they were delicious!

Water spinach? They grow fast. I usually make salad with them or stir fry.

Life on the mend

Loch Lomond (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

After a serious relapse which lasted almost two months (February and March), I am getting better this month. The symptom mostly was my heart malfunction, it immobilized my body for the most of February and part of March. The second symptom was stomach weakness which prevent me to get enough nutrition, and consequently affect my heart's recovery.

I did terrific in the second half of last year and I thought I was on the way out of trouble. What triggered this major attack? By looking back, my answers again, is "multiple causes": The first one I would think was my thinking/writing hobby, which made my body lacked exercises, hence my heart suffered; the second cause I would say it was "coffee". I drank 2- 3 cups of coffee almost every afternoon last year. It overburdened my heart. After these two, there were some other trivial ones, like diet, rest, etc.

Lesson learned again in a tough way. I was demanded to change my lifestyle: thinking/writing as less as possible, engaging in physical activities as much as I could (the problem is that I could not do "too much" physical activities either - right amount of physical activities is beneficial, too much would be the worst nightmare, and the line in between is almost "invisible"!). This pretty much means to change my personality. But I have no choices. Without a healthy body, I could not enjoy my colorful mind. So while my body is on the mend, i hope my life is also on the mend.

Lifestyle

Image via Wikipedia

(Current energy level: ~70%)
In a Chinese forum an online friend said that all diseases are just warnings that our bodies giving us,  telling us that our LIFESTYLES DO NOT WORK! I think this is a very true (Except the "all" part)! For my own case, I am fully convinced that 90% of my health problems are caused by my bad lifestyle. So changing life style is just what I need. Even after I recovered completely, I shall still keep in good life style: never sit down for too long! Always keep enough physical activities!

Winter - a season for storing energy

Since a middle scale relapse over one week ago, I realized the most important regimen for me during the season is REST. I have been doing well on following this rule, no exercise except stretches or simple housework. I started feeling quite good for a couple of days.

I am convinced that during my past several of years "exercise" was my primary cause of all problems. "Exercise" became a "faith" since almost 10 years' ago, when I first realized walking helped my heart. However, my health situation changed along time but my "faith" did not catch up. Now, mentally I have completely come down and able to put all of elements together, I seem to find the simple solution, which was there always, but never truly appear to my observation until I was ready.

However, the past year was a major progress, mostly due to my careful diet. This year, I certainly look forward for a more completely improvement. 

Regarding "Diet", Humans Are "Opportunistic"

Image via Wikipedia

By John McArdle, Ph.D.:
www.vrg.org/nutshell/omni.htm
I really like this part: "They are basically *opportunistic* feeders (survive by eating what is available) with more generalized anatomical and physiological traits, especially the dentition (teeth). All the available evidence indicates that the natural human diet is omnivorous and would include meat. We are not, however, required to consume animal protein. We have a choice."
However, I tend to believe we only have a choice as a "whole" (humans), individually speaking, some are more adapt to these or those (carnivores, herbivores, frugivores, etc.) and a counter account: ecologos.org/mcardle.htm

Wellness

Image by Getty Images via @daylifeI have been feeling pretty well for a while and this morning, I do feel 100%!

My last serious relapse happened one year and 2 months ago (August 2010). Since then, I believed that I found the "last" cause for my problems and believed that I would be on a right path to get well and it's only the matter of time. Looking back, I was right. I reached 80% over half year ago, reached 90% about half month ago (after I equipped with vitamins). And this moment, I do feel completely 100%. I have not felt like this for years!

I know I would not be feeling like this 24 hours a day 7 days a week straight from now on, but this is a milestone on my recovery. It proves that I am on the right path and I only need to hold on tight, continue to do what I have been doing, and eventually, even better than that "original" me - the person who always got sick sine very young.

Yes, I feel very happy and I do also believe, that the true happiness would not be possible without a good health.

Tobacco Trail - My Heavenly Free "Gymnasium" (1)

 I went to Tobacco Trail this afternoon to have a walk, and I had a wonderful time with nature!
It is a trail made for biking. This station is only 2 and half mile away from where I live. Since I still feel riding bicycle would be too much to me, I decided to go there for walk.
I am glad I did! It was so beautiful! However I still wish soon I could ride bike so I could go further.

I

Pork Leg Bone Soup

I found "pork leg bone soup" is extremely health! Lots of calcium and other nutrition factors. And it's so easy to digest.
I was feeling quite fatigue several days ago but this soup changed my energy level almost immediately. This was also because I felt I wanted this soup! My body was telling me what it wanted (and this made things so easy!).
This soup as matter of fact is popular among Chinese people (that's why I can only get it from Chinese supermarket), but somehow I did not make it often before. Now I acknowledged its "power" and will make sure to include it in my regular diet.
I learned several "tricks" to cook this soup:
1. cook it for hours until it turns white;
2. after water was boiled put some sliced ginger roots and little vinegar (vinegar can make calcium dissolved quite thoroughly into soup).

3. right before the water was boiling, clean those floating stained stuffs carefully to make the soup clean.

Donut Peach

I found this "donut peaches" taste exactly the same as one type of peaches from my home town, except the shape is different. They are truly the best peaches in the world!

Delicious Discovery

Image via WikipediaSoon it will be Full Moon Festival, a holiday celebrated in China by eating "Moon Cake" (and watching full moon at night, better with some romantic companies, of course). I was in Chinese grocery store yesterday and found there were many kinds of moon cakes already. What's even better was I found my favorite one: Five Nuts. I bought two boxes (each boxes contains 6 of them, each of them is quite small size but elegantly made) and tried some already. My God! It tasted good!

For long time I stopped the "hobby" of having snacks. And I was learned (where? healthy magazines?) that most snacks were not healthy. So for years I had been keeping myself in very "healthy" diet" which eventually brought me into big trouble. Now, time to get my life back!

This 5 nuts moon cake is best to go with tea!

Cold Feet & Red Meat

Now, after my taking red meat regularly for over half year, my "cold feet" symptom pretty much disappeared. And these couple of days for the purpose of detoxification I cut off red meat again from my meals, I found my feet started feeling cold again. So I learned this connection almost for certain, that red meat was a necessary ingredient of my meals because they have something to do with my blood circulation or anemia (if cold feet was due such causes).

Cilantro From Backyard

I planted cilantro last year and did not do a thing this year, it grew up by itself! I can get this much once a couple days! How loving the mother nature is!

New Vegs in Back Yard

This is one of my favorite vegs: green peas.

The Magic Honey

Image via WikipediaI heard "local honey" can cure allergy all the time but never get chance to local farmers' markets. Early of this year, I bought a bottle of organic honey from Food Lion. It was produced somewhere about 100 miles away from where I live. So I gathered it might do some good for me. Having been taking this honey for over two months (mostly I put it into drink) pretty fine during Spring. I even walked outside like I never did in past years.

So I think it really worked!

P.S. I must point out that my overall diet changes also helped my immune system.

Fish Head Soup

I was terribly tired yesterday and realized that I had not been eating well for over just ONE day. During afternoon I suddenly felt the need of fish soup. So I pulled up a tilapia head from refrigerator and made my favorite fish tomato soup. It really restored my energy instantly!

I did not mean that this soup can work on any fatigue condition but it indeed worked for me at the moment.

Here is the recipe:

Fish head (I used one piece of Tilapia which was big enough), ginger root shreds, green onion, tomato, mushroom, tofu (optional)

1. Stir fry fish head with veg oil, until the color changes;

2. Add water and wait until boiled, then add ginger shreds, rice wine(optional), green onion; turn stove from high to medium;

3, About 5 - 10 minutes add sliced tomato, mushroom,

4. Boil the soup for another 20 - 30 minutes then it's ready to serve!