Support Lifeline's Stress Down Day. 07/20/2010
 Help this great cause and even help promote it to your friends. My facebook friend, Briony, says, "All donations appreciated, Lifeline do an awesome job and every single dollar will help them to reach out to more people in need. Thanks everyone!" Allen Consulting Group - Canberra Office www.gofundraise.com.au Stress Down Day is Lifeline's only national fundraising event, register now at www.stressdown.org.au so you can help Lifeline raise much needed funds to sustain its 24 hour crisis support service- 13 11 14 so they can continue answering calls from Australians in need of support.    Fine Gourmet Food, on a Weight, Management, Diet? Why Not? The French can do it, can’t they? Can you lose weight without dieting or without exercise? Can you really eat all the fatty and unhealthy foods that you love and still lose weight? Some claim the French seem to do it, right? Well, the secret for the French and a number of other countries in general is actually portion control and more exercise. They do not count calories or just eat healthier foods. They eat less and exercise, which is something that the average Australian and American citizen does not recognize. No food is actually, fattening, it is when you eat and how much that makes the difference. The secret of weight control is in portion size. Those French who do worry about their weight do not need to search for best weight loss supplement they can go and see a nutritionist, courtesy of the French health service.  Nutritionist Dr Francoise L'Hermite says the French secret to staying slim is to do exactly as Clemence and her family do - make sure you sit down with friends or family for a meal, eat three times a day at regular intervals, don't snack, don't eat in front of the television, and finally - eat slowly and savour both the food and the company.  Platter for Sharing. See picture. "For France, a meal is a very particular moment, in which you share pleasure, the food as well as the conversation," she says. "From an Anglo-Saxon point of view, food is just fuel to give energy to your muscles. If you have no pleasure in it, you are breaking all the rules of eating." But what about all those French who tuck in to steak and chips, with lashings of red wine, followed by cheese and crème caramel for lunch? British chef Richard Robe, who works at Taillevent, a Michelin three-star restaurant in Paris, says the secret is all in the portion size.  Did you know that heart disease kills more women than breast cancer and is largely preventable? My mum had her first heart attack at 52. A best friend of mine who was slim and played tennis had her first heart attack at 52, both of these heart attacks could have been prevented if they had both known they had the warning signs and had known what to do and done something about it. The Heart Foundation is helping women by raising awareness, educating and doing research to help us help ourselves. Let's help them and other women by raising awareness of heart disease in women and raising some funs for the Heart Foundation to enable them to keep helping us. Here is the deal :- Go Red for Women day Grab the girls on Friday 11 June, Go Red for Women day and join the Heart Foundation’s campaign to raise awareness of heart disease as a women’s health issue. http://www.heartfoundation.org.au/SITES/GOREDFORWOMEN/GET_INVOLVED/Pages/GoRedforWomenday.aspx In an nusual move for me, for me, I have written a blog post about Chocolate, next. One reason I have never been keen on chocolate was because it used to give me acne and I would be looking up acne solutions like, www.bestacnetreatment.net instead of looking up information about the chocolate I like, to show you.If you have tried the chocolate I discovered today, (see my next blog post), I would love to hear your opinion of it. Depression or Grief. 05/24/2010
 Best wishes to those suffering depression. My heart goes out to you. I have been lucky, only known short duration feelings of having 'the pip' as I call it. 'House work blues', when the house mess, got me down, when I was younger. I have never known full-blown depression though I have seen others in my family with it. I know you cannot 'just snap out of it', I understand the often chemical component of it, and how you cannot manage depression entirely alone; you need to talk about it and seek advice. Self-medication for depression and trying pick me ups and hgh, does not reach the heart of the issue if it is body chemical or environment, caused. The Beyond Blue website is an excellent place to go to as a start, if you know someone who needs help or if you yourself need help with depression. I suffered badly from grief as I gave up a life’s passion something I thought I would do until I died, never thought it would be taken from me. I have created substitute interests. That will never be the same thing but they are compatible with my lifestyle and give me a satisfaction. For me, this is important. Attending to my inner needs helps me be capable of attending to my other, nutritional and exercise needs, it all goes hand in hand for me so the scale I most often focus on is the life balance scale, not the bathroom scales. Talk to people about how things make you feel, express grief and frustration and life does become manageable, enjoyable, sooner. You are not weak if you suffer depression and those who understands this condition do not expects you to 'snap out of it'. Start by talking to someone who cares today, but do share your feelings, it can lighten the load.  The evil, :-) leg of lamb that triggered the stress overlaod, exhaustion, attack. I have decided to talk more often and more openly, in my blogs about dementia care as it is a big part of my life and a big part of my blogging, is as a creative outlet for an artist who put aside my carer at her peak and making sure I have other creative releases to replace that. I can hope that the journey I share may help others as I plan it to be as positive a journey as we can make itJ. Yesterday Reg and I had a wonderful day meeting friends that only I knew and Reg was fine, helpful, and happy, enjoyed the dayJ. My friends had very young daughters and they too were happy and a joy to be near...until they became overtired. Then it took a lot of parenting skill and powers of observation, as they were not expressing in words that a casual observer, (me), could understand, what their needs where, but the clever and attuned mums were able to decipher. These clever mums knew at what moment, their children’s needs suddenly needed to be nurtured, the children were getting tired, and we all know how a very young child's smiles will turn to a grizzles if we don’t identify the signals fast and slip back into carer mode. This is what I have been learning to do. As a carer, I am mostly on observer duty, most of the time, even allowing my man out of my sight when I feel he is well and in familiar environments (the park with his dog), and just needing to be there for him, when the child/man becomes overtired. When he is overtired, physically or mentally, he cannot express to me what is distressing him, because he is not sure himself, I need to watch and prevent this degree of exhaustion setting in. Yesterday, it was not our visit to meet friends it was my adding the overload to his brain, when I bought a side of lamb that he was sure would not fit our oven, ordered a smart phone including an internet connection package that will only cost me an extra $5. month. I bought myself a $20 sale priced pink sun hat to wear with my good pink clothes when he could not understand why I will not wear a red one I already own with them. Then I mentioned the next meet up with friends on our trip and I went out of my free hour phone call time into my pay for calls time, while ordering my phone through Telstra. All those things may sound like ‘life’, to anyone else, but try involving your toddler in all those events and they would no doubt, go into overload. I broke the carer rules and threw him into high stress exhaustion. It was a total emotional and physical melt down for him. I did all I could to settle his mind, and get him to bed after dinner reassured that life was going to be simple again.. I woke up this morning to the sound of the morning TV program and an advertorial about something like acnepril reviews, and Reg sitting there as happy as can be, doing familiar routine, having his breakfast watching TV then he took the dog for a walk. I asked him how he was this morning and he said, (surprised too, as he could also remember his become so unwell last night), that he was fine (sounding very happy), this morning. He beamed with pleasure. J. I think that my friends from yesterday will be his friends too now and I learned from them that dementia care at my husband’s stage of frontal lobe dementia, is just like caring for a toddler. My new understanding of that fact may make it easier to try to explain to people, ‘what I am able to do and what I am not able to do as my man is no longer Peter Pan, the man boy, he is the man toddler now’. My friends helped me recognise this change and I found the understanding comforting. It seems normal and easy enough to manage. I’ve had toddlers before; I should have recognised toddler stage as different from ill’. The toddler similarity is all there, unsteady gait, loss of control of function, gagging on food and mumbled speech, when exhausted and absolutely charming, loving and a joy to be around when physically and mentally, rested. I just need to explain and think ‘toddler’, and I ‘have it’, and understand, what to do, how to plan our life from now, for now and how to explain this condition and what engagements I can and cannot accept, to others and why I may need to change arrangements at a moments notice. His is rested today, back with the familiar, comfortable and my man/toddler is happy, as is the mum/wife. I have a new, understanding of the balance I need to keep in our life, his needs and my own.  Familliar souroundings while out meeting friends yesterday, a park with his dog and a view, made for a beautiful stress free, enjoyable day :-) The "Heart Brain", Theory. 04/02/2010
 There is a theory amoungst many scientists and researchers today, along with neurocardiologists, who consider the heart, which maintains a constant two-way dialogue and relationship involving many processes with the brain may contain a brain in its own right. There are so many new interesting, theories and treatments that are a renewal of old beliefs proved to have some basis in modern experimentation. Using light to cure was an old medicine and tit has come back in many forms including, blue acne light. The heart and brain actually influence one another’s functioning, and though not commonly known, the heart sends a great deal more information to the brain than the other way around. The information it sends includes heart signals that can influence a person’s perception, emotional experience and higher cognitive functions. You can read more about this interesting theory, here:- The "Heart Brain"  I have osteoporosis and as a result, I went straight to a bone health specialist, dietician, for advice. I now understand a lot more about nutrition and understand about the pH balance of foods and its effects on the absorption of minerals into our bodies and I have since achieved my own bone health nutrition qualifications. In my opinion the food plan that Michelle Bridges, Crunch Time cookbook and 12 Week Body transformation, suggests, is a wonderful balance between the ideal healthy diet and one that is not too fanatical or extreme. I am finding working with an on line trainer, to be one of the best fat burners, I have had, in a long whileJ and I am loving that the nutritional guidance and the exercise recommended by the 12WBT program is all in keeping with good bone health information. It is interesting that in the US where women have about 1200 mg of calcium in their diet but eat a lot of animal products 50% of them by my age have osteoporosis. In cultures where the calcium in the diet is only 600 mg a day and food is more plant based, with some animal product but not a lot, there is very little osteoporosis in the population. Osteoporosis is sometimes, called the ‘slimmers disease’. All those high animal protein, low carbohydrate diets are raising the PH in our bodies and that forces the calcium we consume to be used mostly to try to maintain the correct pH balance in our blood and cells, and there just is not enough over to do the work of maintaining bone density. In fact, if we eat too many acid forming foods and drinks we actually leach calcium from our bones, You do not have to go to the extreme of being a total vegan to have a balanced pH, all things in moderation. The western diet had gone well past moderation, just Google the incidence of osteoporosis and you will see this. Then Google the relationship of pH balance in your diet and osteoporosis and you will see that no amount of popping vitamins and minerals will help if you do not eat a balanced diet of all food groups without an excess of one type of food. The average Western diet is not balanced it is animal products at the expense of non-refined carbohydrates. Sorry for the waffle, but finding out I had a degree in nutrition and had never, been taught, a thing about pH and I ate what I thought was a healthy diet yet developed a deficiency disease, came as a whammy shock to me. I just feel passionately about this. With my recent bone health knowledge, I believe Michelle Bridges has designed a balanced diet for her clients or I would not be using her 12WBT program. I have made a lifetime study of nutrition, though still not an expert. I believe the information about a balanced diet, should be being taught loud and clear to everyone. It is not breast cancer or heart disease women should be fearing the most it is the one that gets most of us women and it’s the one most of us neglect protecting ourselves from, or think that taking a bit of calcium is all we have to do. If you don’t learn early enough, how to prevent it, osteoporosis is not going to give you the figure you want, and can result in slow painful degeneration and death from the non recovery from the broken hip, what finally ‘gets’, most women and those who suffer this earliest and worst are the ‘dieters’, who lose weight following the diet pushers rather than a sound nutrition plan. Gawd, that sounded like a lecture :-(. I apologize for how heavy handed that sounds but I CARE about my fellow women and the bone health message has to be heard or more women will become slim at the expense, of having brittle bones and bulging bellies, as the gut pushes forward as your spine, shortens and you will do all this low carbohydrate, high animal protein, slimming work and can end up with a worse figure, for it eventually. Don’t believe me, then do some web searching, well away from those low carb diet sites though. You might not like my post but I hope I shocked someone out of getting osteoporosis. The images are of flower art works I painted and have turned into fridge magnets, which can,be ordered, through this site. You can join my Kathy Shell, fan page and get updates, on nature, eco therapy, weight management, lifestyle, travel, healthy aging and art, plus you can enter to win unique art related competitions.  How Much Is A Head Of Beautiful Hair, Worth? 03/12/2010
 OK, I know we all groan when we are asked to donate money, but my friend Mel Knight is donating her hair for the fundraising cause for the Leukaemia Foundation, tomorrow. PLEASE don't let her do this for not enough funds raised. If you can't donate much then donate a little as I have, if a lot of us donate just a little, Mel will be able to raise a lot of money and make this a very rewarding day for her, :-). So PLEASE, get behind someone involved in this great cause. If you haven't already sponsored someone, there is still time to become involved and sponsor my friend. Mel. From her fund raising website.. Melonie Knight Amount Raised: $200.00 [10 % of goal] Fundraising Goal: $2,000.00 My Message I'm taking part in the Leukaemia Foundations Worlds Greatest Shave 2010. Please sponsor me! The funds we raise will help the Leukaemia Foundation to provide practical care and support to patients and families living with leukaemias, lymphomas, myeloma and related blood disorders. If you can't donate or come watch the hair grow, please pass this link onto others that you think would be interested in donating. Help raise us much as we can for this great cause For more information and to make an easy secure on line donation :-http://my.imisfriendraising.com.au/personalPage.aspx?registrationID=315701&langPref=en-CA Walk In Bath. 02/22/2010
 I found the website of mobility compare when I was searching for some, mobility products for a friend who is helping her mother remain independent. My friend is helping her mum with her day to day bathing and she has developed a repetition strain injury while helping her mother take her bath. Knowing I have had some past experience in caring for my own mum, when she became unable to do everything for herself without assistance, she asked my advice. I suggested she find different ways to do things, arrange for a visit from the district nursing service, for the purpose of, showing her some safer, ways to help her mum stand up and sit and I suggested she stop trying to help her mum use a conventional bath. I showed her some of the equipment designed, to help people with disabilities lead an independent lifestyle. Trying to climb in and out of a high sided, bath or step into a sunken bath when you lack a high degree of mobility, is dangerous. Trying to help someone do this, on your own, without some, assistance is risking an injury. I love, the concept, of a walk in, bathtub, they are a fantastic idea. You enter and exit the walk in bath while it is empty. The mobility bath door is best opening inward so the pressure of the water against the door assists in ensuring a tight seal with no leakage. You can also purchase a bath lift, to overcome the need for even a small entry step into your mobility bath. I wish I had had one of these mobility baths, back when I cared for my mum.  Safe Art Materials for Children. 01/19/2010
 Pastels are one of the easiest art mediums to work with but because of the binding of pigment into talc and binders they are amongst the most toxic of art materials and they are not something I would recommend for use in a clean healthy home environment. In 2000, a leading manufacturer of children’s oil crayons and artist’s pastels, were found to have asbestos in many of the products. This was confirmed by independent studies. A family home is a place where our children create and learn. It is vital that we keep this place safe for kids. Some play items contain hazardous materials. In particular, art supplies can pose a threat to your child's health. Existing government regulations can only protect from known dangers. Many products sneak in from countries where the words ‘non toxic’ on the label has very little significance within the country of manufacture. Companies often base their companies in India and China where mal practice lawsuits bring pathetically low compensation payout for poisoning. A mesothelioma lawyer would have a good result in a genuine compensation claim against companies based in the US, Europe or Australia and this is a guide to me, to only believe the words ‘Non Toxic’, on a label, if it is manufactured and owned by a company based in a country where human life has a high financial value. Where it is in a manufacturer’s financial interest to use cheap though dangerous products to manufacture goods, there will always be a risk that they will do this. Talc is sometimes contaminated with asbestos.. In 2000, tests in a certified asbestos-testing laboratory found the tremolite form of amphibole asbestos in three out of eight major brands of children's crayons (oil pastels) that are made partly from talc. Overall, 32 different types of crayons from these brands contained more than trace amounts of asbestos, and eight others contained trace amounts Tests by the United States Mine Safety and Health Administration found asbestos in all four talc samples that it tested in 2000 | Kathy Shell on Facebook Kathy Shell
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