Pain, Pain, Go Away!

It may not be fashionable in the low-carb world, but I like to snack. I feel better when I snack. I don't feel good when I eat big meals and don't know how people put away three-egg bacon-cheese omelets with a bullet-proof coffee. The good thing about low-carb snacking is that by definition, you avoid eating junk like potato chips and fruit pies. The bad news is that low-carb snacks from the convenience store are expensive. Time was when the only two kinds of coffee I drank were free and home-brewed. When I realized cream gave me problems, I started taking it black and then realized that the office coffee was terrible. But the little shop on the first floor made a wonderful cup for $2.11. An equally wonderful home-brewed cup is about 12 cents. Sleeping in an extra ten minutes, the time it takes to brew a 12-cent cup of coffee, is costing me almost $500 a year. I've set my alarm earlier. The convenience store sells Kind bars for around $2.50 and large diet Dr. Pepper fo

Readers may be familiar with the Tao Te Ching , a classical Chinese text of philosophy. It has some common themes with stoicism--to live in harmony with nature, to not be concerned with things outside your control. It reminds me of Bible verses about a soft answer turning away wrath and the meek inheriting the earth; of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's work on flow . Maybe that's as dull as watching the grass grow, but I'd rather do that than bang my head on my desk. From Verse 38. The Master does nothing yet he leaves nothing undone. The ordinary man is always doing things yet many more are left to be done. Or as we say here and now, the faster I go, the behinder I get. My own experience is that once I started low-carb, I spent a lot less time exercising and cooking and got better results--twenty pounds of fat and a bunch of health problems, gone. From Verse 58. Try to make people happy, and you lay the groundwork for misery. Try to make people moral, and you la

Have you seen the trailer for That Sugar Film ? It's funny and smart, and I'm glad the film is being made, but it talks up reducing or eliminating added sugars. If you're going to try this at home, how do you know how much added sugar a product contains--unless it doesn't contain any? For example, the almond butter I buy lists as ingredients dry roasted almonds, honey powder (sugar, honey), palm oil, sea salt. My 80% dark chocolate is made of organic chocolate liquor, organic raw cane sugar, organic cocoa butter, organic ground vanilla beans. They both list total carbohydrate and fiber content, but how in the world are you supposed to distinguish how many carbs came from the sugar and how many came from the other ingredients? Without knowing the amounts of all the ingredients, you can't. By the way, at nine grams net carb per half a chocolate bar and five grams net carb per two tablespoons of almond butter, these products with sugar added come in at a fraction of

Weston A. Price must be spinning in his grave. Why are Japanese women paying hundreds of pounds to make perfectly straight teeth look crooked and fang-like? The look, known as the 'yaeba' look, is well-liked by men who find it 'childlike' Cosmetic procedure involves attaching mini-fangs to canine teeth So cute...if you're ten years old. Image from the Daily Mail . On the upside, Japanese people who can't afford braces are right uptown now. Hat tip to Allure magazine. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2271585/Japanese-women-paying-hundreds-pounds-crooked-fang-like-teeth-latest-cosmetic-craze.html#ixzz2dYgR0aIo

This past month or so, I've had TMJ headaches in the morning, along with some mild stomach issues and acne the past week or so. I think it's muscle memory from years ago, back when I wore a night guard for TMJ pain. Since getting my braces off and getting dental implant in early June, I've been wearing an upper retainer at night. When I wear it to bed, it reminds me of the old upper retainer I used to wear when I was grinding my teeth some years ago after a car wreck. I think I've started grinding my teeth at night again. I wasn't grinding my teeth just before I got my implant, when I was wearing a retainer during the day. I'm not grinding my teeth now, wearing my retainer after dinner and before bed, as my orthodontist recommended. Since I haven't worn my retainer for a few nights, my headaches and neck pain are gone. My skin is clearing up, too. (Inflammation can become systemic and affect other parts of the body.) ***** The toe I stubbed a month

Living in the city presents some problems with housing chickens. Chicken coops are expensive and yet so tiny that they seem like six-chicken CAFOs. Electric fencing is forbidden. Regular fencing is hard work to build, and it's permanent. If the chickens don't work out, you're stuck with a fence you probably won't need or want. Living in the city presents some advantages, though. The biggest, toughest predators are dogs; aerial predators like owls and hawks probably don't hang around your place. And the city itself can be a source of inspiration for solving your problems. Like free-range chickens, festivals and construction sites have to be fenced off. Around here, we use portable chain link fencing. Taking a cue from that, I built a six-foot by four-foot freestanding fence panel out of scrap wood and wire fencing. I used 1/2" x 3s to make a 6' x 4' box, joining the pieces with metal angle braces that sit on the edge (see top photo). I fli

Someone asked me today what I used on my skin, saying that it looked good and that she'd like to improve her complexion. It's a question I never thought I'd hear back when I was trying everything available for acne, a time that covered most of my life. Partly, it's good genes. Except for acne, we have good skin in my family and tend to look younger than we are as long as we don't smoke. In my case, I had to change my diet and take supplements to (mostly) clear up my skin and make it softer and more resilient to abrasions and sunburn. I don't get razor burn now. Even with my fair skin, I don't use sunscreen anymore. It took a few years on the diet, but now, except for my shoulders, my skin doesn't burn under the Colorado sun. My diet is mostly low-carb paleo and I take vitamins D3, K2, and GNC Hair, Skin & Nails vitamins. I also eat half a pound of liver and two cans of sardines per week. Why this regimen? I started this a few years ago to stop