Blood Pressure: High in potassium, this tropical fruit is extremely low in salt, making it the perfect way to beat blood pressure. In fact the USDA allows the banana industry to make official claims for the fruit's ability to reduce the risk of blood pressure and stroke.
Heartburn: If you suffer from heartburn, try eating a banana for soothing relief because of the natural antacid effect in the body.
PMS: The Vitamin B6 in this fruit helps regulates blood glucose levels, which can affect your mood.
Depression: Because tryptophan is an substance found in the banana they are helpful for depression. Tryptophan helps the body by converting this protein in serotonin. This action helps with relaxation and can stimulate feelings of happiness. So another benefit of eating bananas is mood enhancement.
Anemia: Bananas help with the production of hemoglobin in your blood and are high in iron which helps with symptoms of anemia.
Brain Power: Research has identified that the potassium in bananas help brain power. A middle school actually had 200 of their students eat bananas to get through their exams this year. They ate bananas at breakfast, morning break, and at lunch which helped them stay alert and proved to help in test scores.
Constipation: Because fiber is good for our digestion, including bananas in the diet can help restore normal bowel action without resorting to laxatives.
Hangovers: Now this is a wonderful way to quickly cure a hangover. Just make a banana milkshake, sweetened with honey. This fruit calms the stomach and the honey helps builds up depleted blood sugar levels. The milk also soothes and re-hydrates your system.
Morning Sickness: Pregnant women often get morning sickness as their blood sugar bounces around. Snacking on bananas during the day between meals can help bring relief.
Mosquito bites: Yes, bananas have natural anti itch properties so try using the inside of the skin on mosquito bites to reduce irritation and swelling from these annoying insect bites.
Nerves: B vitamins are known to help calm the nervous system and Bananas are high in them.
SAD - Seasonal Affective Disorder: The tryptophan in the banana is an natural mood enhancer, which can help reduce feelings associated with SAD.
Smoking: Because bananas contain B6, B12 along with magnesium and potassium they help the body recover from the symptoms associated with the withdrawal of nicotine.
Stress: Because the mineral potassium is a nutrient that helps balance the heartbeat, sends the brain oxygen it is useful for helping alleviate stress. When we are stressed out the body raises our metabolic rate which uses our potassium reserves. Eating a banana helps us rebalance.
There are small amounts of pectin contained in bananas. This is a food fiber that prevents the absorption of fat, which may help in lowering cholesterol levels; however pectin should not be consumed at the same time as foods that contain essential fatty acids that the body needs, such as fish. [Darn it. I'm gonna miss my daily banana-fish snack.]
A day of sun with wind and waves. I spent the afternoon and evening at the beach, fueled by my usual morning peach-spinach-strawberry-banana smoothie, a mixed greens salad with campari tomatoes, the joy of learning chemical reactions a la physiology, a banana, water and a veggie steamroller as pictured.
Bed time!
And some cookies.
Today, I've had the same meals as yesterday, but not so much of the stuff in the pictures.
Today I eschewed most forms of social activity (except for dancing to the radio in the bathroom while eating sunflower seeds) to complete Unit 1 of my stats course. My plan was a success. Hallelujah.Throughout the day's intervals in minutes, I enjoyed my breakfast, snacks, lunch and dinner (which are categorical a.k.a nominal variables, to which I assign these values): a spinach smoothie for breakfast, cashews and assorted seeds and a peach for snacks, water and some Thai mixed veggies with yellow coconut sauce for lunch and dinner.
Tonight I biked to North Van (for the first time since the jumper incident) to get the blood flowing through my legs. [If I don't engage in physical activity at all during the day, then I often have an abundance of energy-turned-inward that prevents me from sleeping until 4am: I get a distracting, deep, tingling sensation where my femur meets the pelvis -- my leg feels itchy in the bone marrow (feels as though the sensation originates from there...) and there's no way to reach inside my bone to scratch that. Are you bored yet? Okay.]
New personal record over the Lions Gate Bridge and back: 11:42pm-12:22am (and I had to wait at intersections this time, plus I stopped on the bridge lookout for a minute.) Inflated tires roll like a dream. That was the best workout I've had in months. Ordinal value of whatever the highest is out of N on the best workout scale.
(Only 5 units to go.)
And I forgot to mention that yesterday as we were leaving the Lynn Headwaters, I spotted Brendan Brazier going for a solo run in the rain towards the park. I thought it both funny and interesting that I recognized him immediately -- I've seen him only a few times, on the internet and on promotional materials featured in local health food store windows, as I've walked by with my pizza and beer. No. I saw a famous elite vegan triathlete, people!
Today's menu was spartan and nutritionally deficient. I ate 5 (five) oatmeal chocolate chip cookies for breakfast, some water, and a handful of roasted cashews just now for dinner. And that's it! I have no excuses. Also, on my long walk around the seawall I snapped this gem of a group of friends playing volleyball. I'm curious -- why are they all dressed head to toe, but for the one guy who's in a speedo? I don't get it. There's always one guy in a speedo playing volleyball. Every time. What's more curious to me, is that it's not even the same guy wearing the speedo each time that I walk by and notice what there is to notice. Does someone lose a bet?
After the Lighthouse Park walk and salmonberry sampling, we checked out the bustling Whole Foods Market at Park Royal. Goran observed that the purchase of anything at the overpriced Whole Foods carries with it a proportionately high Chump Factor. Vive la West Van Living! Being the adventurous souls that we are, we decided we wanted a piece of that. I chose a bowl of self-serve veggie Indian food and a snack pack of tabbouleh and hummus (I spell that word a different way every time). Fittingly, the experience of feeling like a Chump was overrated. Plus, I live in Vancouver which boasts its own Chump Factor to which I am too well accustomed, so the rush was shortlived. I'd do it again but probably only with friends.
My life is so good.
What happens in your brain when you visualize doing something well? The same thing as when you actually DO the something well. Your brain doesn't know the difference between something real and something repeatedly and vividly imagined. [I meant to post studies about the physical effects of mental causes but I don't have time right now to find 'em. Remind me later. For now I'm going to go and play on the seawall in the rain.]
More anecdotal evidence that visualizing an aim and practicing it = results. From Running Raw's blog:
On a wet and slippery track and without blocks to aid our start, there was little hope of breaking any speed records. I was really looking for another excuse to test out my Usain Bolt imagery that I had practiced on some very successful 200 meter repeats several weeks earlier. In the early 1980’s as I was learning how to cross country ski, I had the privilege of being on the same team as one of the greatest skiers in US history – Erik Vigsnes. He was poetry in motion. I was a lame duck trying to perform ballet. Whenever I got the chance, I would watch Erik ski… I would feel his rhythm… Feel his strength and relaxation… I would imagine what it felt like to ski with such grace and with such little effort… I would then put that feeling into my body and posture and try to emulate it… Not how he looked, but how he must feel. That practice has been one of the greatest gifts I’ve ever given myself. I’ve used it time and time again in many disciplines in my life – taking on another person’s feelings and moving inside of that experience. During the 2008 Olympics I sat awestruck as I watched Usain Bolt demolish the 100m world record with the most relaxed form I have ever seen. Since that time, I’ve watched that race over and over again, as I admired his form. I now had another model to emulate.
“Go” I shouted, and Michael and I took off. My arms and legs were shooting about furiously. It was not a pleasant experience nor a pretty sight. I clocked a 13.9, which was quite surprising under these conditions… But I wanted more. On the second repeat I remembered my Usain Bolt model and “bolted” into a much more powerful, and much longer stride… controlled and smooth. It felt fabulous. My speed increased throughout the 100m and I crossed the line in the fastest time I’ve ever run – 12.9 seconds. Twenty minutes later I used Mr. Bolt again to run a very comfortable 29.1 second 200 meters. I can’t wait to bring him into all my of workouts now.
Improve Your Sport Performance with Visualization Techniques
Thursday morning began with the largest yield of smoothie yet: banana, spinach, peach, grapefruit, cayenne pepper and water. I sipped at the deliciousness for an hour, but for half that time it was no longer deliciousness. Too much smoothie.
The rest of the day: pad thai, mixed veggies in a yellow coconut curry, a peach, oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and ginger snaps from Caper's.
Hey, this is an improvement compared to what I'd eat in my highschool and university days -- I'd fry some sliced potatoes in olive oil with some 'spike' herb mix (no MSG at least), or eat three slices of pepperoni pizza or french fries with ketchup and mayonnaise for lunch. Washed down with PEPSI all summer. I had the worst eating habits (unless someone made food for me), so I applaud my efforts now, as sporadic as they seem, to take better care of myself. Woohoo!
Also this evening, I had the privilege of another sunny seawall bike/blade with Goran. That's all I'll say about that. And that following too closely to the person blading in front of you while passing a line of bicycles (and one wide recumbent) on the narrow part of the wall is never a good idea.
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For breakfast and lunch, I made two of my tastiest smoothies thus far: a banana, handfuls of spinach, a peach, some strawberries, a pinch of cayenne powder and a cup of water.
My two smoothies were delicious, but way too sugary if all that you're (I'm) doing is sitting at a computer all afternoon reading about how imbalances in insulin levels correlate to cellulite formation, fatigue and loss of libido. Excess estrogen does even cooler things!
Anyway, I'm coming down from today's sugar high. Speaking of sugar again, I checked out True Confections for dessert tonight with Mike. I had the fruit-topped cheesecake, oh yes I did. Didn't touch the whipped cream, though.
Before that, a masala wrap and 3 oatmeal-chocolate chip cookies from Capers, then a seawall walk at sunset. We watched two separate couples pose for stereotypically romantic "long walks on the beach" engagement/wedding-type photos. I don't get the appeal (of weddings and of shoreline photos. Aren't engagement photos supposed to epitomize the couple and what they value -- as in, show something of what they actually enjoy doing together, often? Instead, they have their photos taken on a beach they'd never normally stroll through dressed like that, to make promises about love and appreciation they've never kept to themselves as individuals, let alone to another person. It's all very strange. I'm assuming and projecting a lot and yeah yeah, I get that it's the symbolism and dreaminess of the ocean that they like or whatever, but! I'm still going for the fun of the parody in the disparity. Rant over). And I wonder if this paragraph will still make sense to me tomorrow once I've sobered up, as it were.
Also! We stopped for a Santa Fe salad at Panago pizza, as it was the only place open at 22:16.
I enjoy Dr. Marian Diamond, Professor at Berkeley (Integrative Biology Dept.). I like her lecturing style and that she takes good care of herself and cares about her students. I gather that she cares, anyway. I could hug her all day.
Optimism About the Aging Brain - the article is from 1998, but I recall the surprise (and my relief) at research that showed the brain's plasticity (as a kid I'd been told that the brain 'stops learning' and its functioning begins to decline after 18 years of age... or maybe that was just the observation in my hometown). Use it or lose it, mmhmm.
Online lectures - I appreciate the oldschool blackboard teaching method and the act of immersing one's senses by doing or at least by taking notes by hand, I say, as I sit passively at my computer.
A return to my morning spinach-banana-grapefruit-strawberry-banana-cayenne powder and water smoothies today. For dinner, I made the same smoothie with double the spinach and zero of the grapefruit, just to deviate from the norm.
The rest of the day: an apple, a mango and a peach, while learning anatomy and physiology via various forms of online functions. Naturally, I've selected fitting habits to adapt my behaviour to yield optimal results. I don't know what I'm saying anymore. And I like it.
Also, for lunch I scored two sandwiches from Baguette Time: :-O The breakfast panini with sundried tomatoes, roasted red peppers, egg; and the brie on whole wheat with cranberries. By score I mean I exchanged money for them.
Breakfast: Leftover pad thai from last night's seawall power walk (power walk to make it back to Davie Street before sundown @ 9:30pm, a.k.a the time all the stores in the West End close up shop).
This writing is on the door of the seabus I was riding from North Van to downtown. I enjoy the thought of doors opening unexpectedly and opportunities flooding in from all over the place. Scary and exciting.
[Also, I 'fixed' my card reader by finding a spare usb cable. Mmmhmm!]
Friday: Steamrollers for breakfast (tried the veggie 'curry in a hurry' -- it was okay), plus my staple smoothies, then seawall-sunset walkage finishing off with a veggie delite sandwich and pale fries from Hamburger Mary's. There is some ingredient in Hamburger Mary's' sandwiches that just doesn't sit well with me. I don't know what it is, but it's unsettling. Literally. I think I've just said the same thing twice. That doesn't sit well with me either. Yet I continue to do it, too.
Saturday: Smoothies and some seawall walkage, then a masala wrap, followed by the I'm-kidding-myself-that-this-is-healthier version of desserts (chewy ginger cookies and oatmeal chocolate chip cookies) from Capers.
Sunday: Spinach smoothie before and after baseball. WATER! Oh, how I thirst for thy wetness. Goran was downtown so we went for a dehydrated stroll on the seawall around the entire Stanley Park, where I took many a photo of tourists taking many a photo. Unfortunately, I still haven't had any incentive to buy a new card reader, so no pictures are forthcoming. Tomorrow!
handmade gnocchi - with local mushrooms & gremolata
