Pain, Pain, Go Away!

In my last post, I gave some reasons why Coloradans have a low rate of obesity (assuming they really do, and I think that's true). Here's more evidence that we're less obese, but more importantly, that obesity and heart disease are associated with diabetes. (Everyone say it with me: association is not causation.) No, but looking at these maps makes you go "hmmm...is there a real connection there?" (Hint: type 2 diabetics tend to be overweight, and high blood sugars are hard on arteries and other tissues.) Source: PositivelyAware.com Source: Center for Disease Control Curious about high cholesterol by state? It doesn't look like the other maps, does it? No light, healthy stripe down the Rocky Mountains or ominous dark cloud from the Mississippi Delta up to Pennsylvania and down to Florida. For the first three maps, culture, race and poverty, and maybe even minerals in the soil look like they might be factors. But what do Hawaii, Alaska and ...

And more importantly, would moving to Colorado help you lose weight? A recent study suggested that some people in the northern US may be lying about having a svelte figure by fudging on their height and weight in phone surveys. The abstract of the study didn't mention the West, but all the obesity maps I've seen show Colorado as having the lowest rate of obesity in the US. I don't know whether that's accurate, but I think we're better than average. A few months ago, my employer held a firm-wide video conference where we could see members of all or most of the other offices. We have two offices in Colorado; the rest are in downtown areas of medium and large cities in the South and the Midwest. We all work in the same industry; the employees are mostly white, college educated professionals. As far as I know, the only big difference between all of us is our locations. I'm guessing there were a few hundred people in total on screen; we saw different offices at...

I wish my neighbors' yard looked like this instead of the weed-choked dump they've let it turn into: Jennifer and Jason Helvenston, gardening scofflaws. Photo from the Institute of Justice. The city of Orlando, Florida ordered the Helvenstons to dig up their front yard and replace it with lawn or face a $500 per day fine. From the Institute for Justice (the same nonprofit organization that's defending blogger Steve Cooksey at diabetes-warrior.net ), Jennifer and Jason Helvenston of Orlando, Fla., take their role as responsible members of society very seriously, by choosing to commit their lives to sustainability: They built their home with naturally sourced materials, harvest eggs from their backyard chickens and grow vegetables in their front yard. Not only does their garden provide them with their own food, but it has become a community attraction where the couple teaches local youth about homegrown vegetables. The Helvenstons embody life, liberty and ...

I've never understood the appeal of pancakes: they're dry and tasteless. If you put syrup on them, they're sweet and soggy. Being mostly flour and sugar (if you put syrup on them), they really should be considered a dessert. Crepes are a different animal: they're light and fluffy and moist if you put some butter on them. They're not too eggy-tasting. If you make them with coconut flour and don't drench them in syrup, they shouldn't jack up your blood sugar. In other words, they're real food, not dessert. The recipe is from Cooking with Coconut Flour by Bruce Fife. It took 15 minutes to make these.

Four More Weeks My orthodontist wants to wait four more weeks to take my braces off so that I can get a new crown. Meantime, my insurance is actually considering paying for some of this expensive dental work. Hot dog. Acid reflux, acne, and upset stomach down to flavored coffee I just tried to expand my food horizons and once again, ended up with problems. It took a few months to figure out it was flavored coffee. It's not the caffeine or the acid, since regular coffee and tea doesn't bother me, or anything I put in it (I take it black). It's not any natural flavors, since nuts, vanilla and cocoa don't bother me. It's the chemicals. According to enotes.com , Flavoring oils are combinations of natural and synthetic flavor chemicals which are compounded by professional flavor chemists. Natural oils used in flavored coffees are extracted from a variety of sources, such as vanilla beans, cocoa beans, and various nuts and berries. Cinnamon, clove, and chicory...

Do your best to rein in your desire. For if you desire something that isn’t within your own control, disappointment will surely follow; meanwhile, you will be neglecting the very things that are within your control that are worthy of desire. -Epictetus, Stoic philosopher, and Sharon Lebell, author(1) All week, people have kept asking me if I'm looking forward to getting my braces off. I haven't been anticipating it at all: when I build something up in my mind, the reality hardly ever matches my expectations. Today was a perfect example of why anticipation is a bad habit. I thought I was going to get my braces off today, but all my orthodontist took off was the wire on the brackets, which his assistant replaced with different wire on some of my teeth. Tomorrow, after the second part of my implant is put in, a different wire is going back on. In a few weeks, I'm going to have to get my braces off for my dentist to take a mold for a crown. I don't know what my dentist...

Have you heard the latest scare tactic against wheat-free eating? A wheat free diet will give you vitamin B deficiencies. Since wheat flour is fortified with B vitamins, substituting wheat-free food will make you sick because wheat-free flour isn't fortified, and bread and cereals are such a major source of B vitamins, says Holly Strawbridge, Executive Editor of Harvard Health Letter . Dietitian Kristi King over at the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics agrees . Are they right? Let's look at the evidence. How much vitamin B is in, say, a slice of wheat bread? The yellow row in the table has the answer; the top row is the recommended daily intake of the vitamins. (Click the lower right corner to enlarge) B vitamin table from Lori Miller There's NO vitamin B6 or B12 in the bread, and compared to the recommended daily intake levels, there's only a little bit of the other vitamins.  Fortified cereals have more vitamins, but (as with bread) the B vitamins are ad...