Pain, Pain, Go Away!

What the world needs: more dancing, more cooperation and conversation, less agitation. Such was the scene after protests in Lincoln, Nebraska that were "hijacked by bad actors and agitators," according to the mayor.  Rioters threw rocks, bottles and razor blades at police, injuring several of them. Vandals and arsonists did tens of millions of dollars in damage and the National Guard was called out. Scores of people were arrested--some some of them were from outside Nebraska. It's an hour's drive from Lincoln to the nearest state. The nearest major cities outside Nebraska--Des Moines and Kansas City--are three hours away. The mayor issued a curfew that, it seems, enabled the police to get the bad actors out of the way. They started having "difficult and necessary conversations," and agreed to continue those conversations with the community every month. I hope it works. In any case, it looks like the people who want to defund the police--yes, that...

Coconut in a Can This can of Natural Value coconut milk from Natural Grocers (fka Vitamin Cottage)... ...looked like this... ...and made a gloppy, eggy mess out of a custard dish I've made successfully many times. (I added 3T lime juice to the custard, which I hadn't tried before, but I don't think that would have ruined it.) From now on, it's Thai Kitchen coconut milk or Sprouts premium organic. Thai Kitchen coconut milk (full fat). Sprouts premium organic is similar. Kale Chips Today I ruined a bunch of lacinato kale making kale chips. 500 Paleo Recipes says to cook the chips at 375; some recipes on the web call for 300 degrees when using lacinato kale. They're probably right; at 375, the chips filled the kitchen with smoke and tasted exactly like you'd expect burnt leaves to taste. Red Russian kale has worked well at at the higher temperature, though. With some salt and dip made of mayonnaise, chives and lemon juice, they were way be...

I knew my exercise program was failing when I got depressed from, well, lack of exercise. I'd been lifting weights and doing lindy hop (an athletic American partner dance from the late 1920s). But after ten years, six of which I lifted weights three times a week, I was bored with weightlifting. Even though Slow Burn doesn't demand much time, I wasn't making enough time for it. And there are so few men in Denver's lindy hop scene that I only got a few dances a night. When you subtract the people who only dance with their date or stand around in a huddle with their friends, the ratio of women to men is probably three or four to one. Why not crossfit--it's all the rage, it's a tough workout and there are several places to do it close to home or work. Mostly, I don't need to throw up from working out. Google "crossfit vomit" (without quotes) and you'll get 95,100 results. I also don't need the snooty attitude I've heard so much about. I...

Jeff Sun, a dancer with Shen Yun Performing Arts, was so moved by the meat culture in Argentina that he wrote a poem about it using chengyu (Chinese idioms), with an English translation provided. To wit: "芳香四溢 (fāng xiāng sì yì) I drown in your fragrant balm." What salad could have inspired this? Or fueled performances like these ?

If I haven't posted much lately, it's because I've been resuming a normal life after a month spent getting well and getting by. I've weeded the yard, filed all my papers and amended my state tax return. I took my computer in for repairs and having lost all my data, reloaded my music and found a free home accounting program (mint.com) to replace Microsoft Money. My lindy partners have given my right arm some exercise (dance partners in lindy use one another's weight), my favorite stock screener brought up a promising company to research (Global Payments Network), and fold.it came out with a streptococcus puzzle and a "quick frozen" puzzle that have kept me busy.  My best effort at the new quick frozen puzzle folding proteins. I'm sheerbliss at #17, and my team is Go Science.  Something that seemed to help push me back into feeling well was resuming my GNC Hair, Skin & Nails vitamins. I always felt good taking those, but got nervous about ...

You're out on New Year's Eve dancing the night away in your glamorous new dress and stiletto heels. You feel something soft under your foot, and a woman behind you shrieks: you stepped on her foot with that stiletto heel. She gets your name and address before heading to the doctor. Two months later, a bill for her $3,000 emergency room visit arrives in your mailbox. You argue over the phone, and a year later, a judge yells at you for five minutes before handing down a judgment for the plaintiff's pain, suffering, medical expenses, and lost wages. Don't let this happen to you! If for no other reason than the spirit of good will towards men, leave the stiletto heels at home when you go dancing. They really can break a bone if you step on someone. Flats, wedgies and cuban heels , in my experience, cause a bruise at worst. The way you dance can help, too. A common newbie mistake is to take high, wide steps. Drag your feet just a little, and the worst you'll do is bum...

A friend and I got into a discussion today about the benefits of exercise. She believes you have to exercise to stay thin and have muscle tone. I partly agree with her. A few years ago, I was eating what most doctors and nutritionists would call a healthy diet: lean meat, cottage cheese, lots of "good carbs," low-fat. I exercised hard six days a week. And I was gaining weight! That weight wasn't muscle, either--unless gaining muscle makes it hard to button your pants. I stopped eating wheat and started slowly losing weight. Then I went on a low-carb diet--about 50 grams of carb a day--and the fat fell off. I ditched the six-workouts-a-week plan because I didn't need it to stay thin. I'm not alone. Cookbook author Dana Carpender wrote that she gained weight on a low fat diet while taking an aerobics class.(1) Dr. John Briffa often writes about clinical studies showing that aerobic or cardio exercise isn't effective for losing weight (see this , this , th...

Merry Christmas! It's the second anniversary of Pain, Pain, Go Away! Thanks to fellow bloggers, researchers and authors, this Christmas I'm feeling a mile better than I was two years ago. (See my posts on root canals if you're interested.) I hope all my readers are well, too. My polite responses were put to the test when my mother gave me a box of chocolate covered cherries for Christmas. This, from the woman with a serious case of diabetes, who complains about Dad always pushing high-carb food at her. Me: "Um, I really shouldn't be eating these." Mom: "But I've always gotten you those for Christmas." I left them at a party later that night. No, I didn't have any. Everybody danced at the party, and I was anxious to see the teenagers' hip hop moves since I've decided to learn the dance. The teenagers did the Charleston, suzie Qs, and a bunch of other 90-year-old African dance moves I already know. Maybe that will make it ea...

Tonight at my party place I was standing at the dessert bar when an old guy came up and started loudly asking for service. He spoke to me and I told him I indulged in a gluten-free cookie once in a while (it would have been the first time since I started the cavity healing diet). I didn't mention the cavity healing diet because I just wanted to get a snack and go back to the dance. Nevertheless, Mr. vegan preacher made his spiel. Stuff this dude said: "I came all the way up from Cherry Creek [one of Denver's high rent districts] to get a half price dessert." (He said this twice.) "We've been eating wheat for tens of thousands of years without a problem." "Japanese eat plenty of soy and they don't have a problem." "Fruit isn't acid." "What's acid reflux?" "What do you eat for protein?" (Answer: meat. Unspoken answer: we've been eating meat for millions of years.) "I wish I could help you." ...

A couple of unexpected consequences have occurred with my new, (mostly) lacto-paleo, high-nutrient diet. My TMJ has almost disappeared. Let me tell you how my case of TMJ came about. It was a Sunday night in November 2006. I was on my way to a dance when an SUV came flying out of the Walgreens parking lot and broadsided my car on the driver's side. Once I stopped my car (which was totaled), the teeth on the right side of my mouth felt like they'd shifted from being clenched so hard. A few months later, the pain in my jaw was so bad that it kept me up nights. I couldn't fall asleep on my right side. Splint therapy helped, but as recently as last October after a dance workshop weekend , my jaw was painful for weeks afterward. So, why didn't I just stop clenching my jaw? When I realized I was doing it, I did, as far as I was able. But it's kind of like telling someone to stop having a tension headache. Things like relaxation, pain relievers, massage and a...

I love it when I solve two problems in one stroke. Tonight, I got rid of the knee pain I've been getting when I dance. How? I danced in my socks. During the first dance, while I was wearing shoes, sharp pains in my right knee made me imagine having to retire from lindy hopping one day. But having read about runners correcting their foot and knee problems by running barefoot or in minimal shoes (see this and this ), I tried an experiment: I took off my shoes. Since you have to be able to pivot without sticking to the floor, I kept my socks on. My first impression was that I could feel the floor. Years ago, my dance teachers, Dan and Tiff, talked about the floor being the third partner in the dance. I finally understood what they meant. My heels, toes and especially the balls of my feet felt every step, slide and tap on the wood floor. But the pain in my knee didn't return. One partner was concerned that I'd slip and slide in my socks, but it didn't happen in socks any m...

What a wonderful day to live in Denver. The ground might have been covered with snow, but it was sunny and seventy degrees (about 20C) and hundreds of people and dozens of dogs went walking or running in Washington Park (left). My dog, Molly, even played in the snow to cool off. It was warm enough to wear a t-shirt, drive with the windows down and flirt at stoplights. When the sun goes down, another great reason to live in Denver is the swing dance scene, if you're into that. You can lindy hop four nights a week in Denver; more if you're willing to drive to Boulder or Colorado Springs. Of course, it takes energy to enjoy long walks and lindy hopping on a school night. My best suggestions for increasing your energy if it's flagging: stop eating sugar and flour. Start eating a high-fat, adequate protein, high-nutrient diet. Eat when you're hungry, rest when you're tired. If there's still no wind in your sails after two weeks, look into which vitamins and minerals ...

Merry Christmas! In a little while, I'll be with my family, celebrating with a low-carb Christmas dinner. We'll be snacking on the low-carb goodies I made for them yesterday: low-carb chocolate peanut butter cookies, pate, roasted almonds, and some goat cheese I bought. Why low-carb? Because in the past year, cutting down on carbs has solved so many problems for me and my mother. A year ago today when I started this blog, I was eating a high-carb (~180 grams per day), low-fat, adequate protein diet. I was scheduled for a root canal. I needed acid blockers, four-hour naps every weekend, frequent meals, and visits to the chiropractor. I was also anemic and putting on weight. This, even though I ate so-called "good carbs" and worked out six days a week. In January, I cut out wheat and began slowly losing weight and feeling less bloated. In February, I cut way, way down on all carbs (to around 50 grams per day) and the fat fell off fast. My need for the naps, fre...

The second most painful thing that ever happened to me was turf toe. (The worst was an infected tooth.) It's a common injury in football, wrestling and rugby; I managed to get it while dancing in my dining room. I was practicing a Charleston move called hacksaws when my right foot didn't clear the floor. It was like pounding my fist into the floor, except it was my foot. Basically, I sprained the metatarsophalangeal (MTP) joint of my big toe. For the next few weeks that winter, I shuffled around in my sandals, the only shoes I could get on my swollen foot. At least it wasn't snowing. A few things helped my foot feel better. My doctor gave me a shot in my foot and put a dressing on it. (The dressing was another reason I could wear nothing but sandals that adjusted across the toes.) The shot took away some of the pain and swelling. Another thing that helped was acupressure. After a few minutes pressing points K3 and K6, especially, I could walk without pain. (I used the book ...

What would you expect to learn in a day of dance workshops? In four hours of dance classes today, I learned new rhythms, ironed out a few glitches of the lindy basic step, and got some valuable pointers for following. As a bonus, I saw some theories about diet and exercise illustrated. The classmates I had lunch with were physically fit dancers who brought sandwiches or got a burger. The sandwiches had the grainy nuts-and-twigs style bread. Some of the sandwich and burger eaters remarked after lunch that it would be a good time for a nap. I'd had a low-carb lunch of coffee, sausage, egg and cheese and some raw, home-grown vegetables kindly shared by some classmates. Earlier, I'd had a homemade protein shake with olive oil and a piece of low-carb pumpkin pie. I felt relaxed and alert after lunch--very different from how tired I felt towards the end of a day of balboa classes in 2003 and a day of Charleston classes in 2007. The difference is, I think, because I didn't have a...

"I'd rather hold a girl in my arms than a football." -Joe DeCicco, friend and dancing fanatic Have you heard that it takes a woman 77 hours of exercise to lose a kilogram of fat? (For us Americans, that's half a pound.) That's according to a study cited by Dr. John Briffa .(1) The women who huffed and puffed three hours a week for a year ended up 4.4 pounds lighter than the sedentary women. That doesn't surprise me: my own weight loss involved a lot less exercise than what I'd been doing. I did no cardio workouts, just strength training . I had more time and energy for dancing, which is a stress reliever, helps keep me in shape, and it's a ton of fun. It's not expensive to dance (as long as you stay away from the studios). I've found excellent lessons at clubs where the teachers really care about the students getting it. Here in Denver, there are dancing clubs that are run by nonprofit organizations, where the prices are reasonable and...

If there's anything that will make my knee flare up, it's dancing for hours on a sticky floor. The floor I danced on last night was the stickiest dance floor I've ever danced on; it was as if it were coated with epoxy. The shoes I wore weren't sueded on the bottom, either, which would have helped. And this being a big dance weekend, I had partners who really put me through the paces. Yet after a few hours of dancing, I had no knee pain. None. I attribute this to a few things. First, after I started a low-carb diet, a lot of my joint pain disappeared: I believe the carbs were inflammatory; my doctor thinks I may have had a wheat allergy. Second, I've been doing a new strength training program (Slow Burn) that has strengthened my legs. Having lifted weights for six years and danced for eight, I thought I had strong legs. But the single-leg, slow-motion doorknob squats have strengthened them further without hurting my knees at all. I noticed something similar a year or...

If I had any doubt that sugary or starchy carbs give me acid reflux, my experience yesterday removed them. I felt fine except when I ate high-glycemic foods. I ate some lentil salad, berries and oat bran in the morning and got acid reflux. I ate about 10 blackberries last night and got acid reflux. The rest of the time, the only carbs I ate were cabbage and cauliflower--two supposedly gassy foods that didn't give me gas or reflux. Dr. Robillard is right about high glycemic foods causing reflux, and I can't wait for his book, Heartburn Cured, to arrive. Yesterday, Day 2 of my low-carb experiment, started with a workout I couldn't finish: I didn't have the energy. But after I showered and got dressed, all those Saturday chores--shopping, sorting papers, mopping the floor, clearing out clutter, putting away laundry--got done easily. I normally hate, dread, and often put off those chores. I noticed the same thing the day before: I was flying through my work. Last night, th...

Normally, four nights of lindy hopping, two lower-body strength workouts and three cardio dance workouts in the course of a week would make my knees sore. But they felt better near the end of the week, after three hours of enthusiastic dancing, than they did at the beginning. Here's an example of lindy (the dance I did for four nights), demonstrated by two of my teachers, Tiff and Kenny: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aF98_Fru90I&feature=related Tiff and Kenny did a show-stopping dance on Thursday that inspired me to dance better on Friday. Instead of doing the same few styling moves (foot and leg movements in this case), I pulled out all the stops and did every one I could think of--and I think that doing several movements instead of repeating a few movements dozens of times was what kept my knees from hurting. My partners enjoyed the variety, too! Another dancer and I were talking about workouts. I mentioned I had stopped doing squats a few years ago, and she said she didn...