Author: Christina Bruni

Christina Bruni is the author of the new book Working Assets: A Career Guide for Peers. She contributed a chapter "Recovery is Within Reach" to Benessere Psicologico: Contemporary Thought on Italian American Mental Health.

Thoughts on Popping Pills

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I’m thinking of how I want to live my life when I get older. In light of a milestone birthday coming up.

The choice a person makes to take pills to be well is a personal choice. No one should attack you or me for taking pills.

The conundrum faced in old age is the advent of taking medication. I read that ninety percent of old people are in poor health.

Could it be the luck of the draw that ninety percent of old people—nearly one hundred percent—has health problems. How could only ten percent of Americans be well when we reach retirement age at 65. What accounted for who was in this minority.

Googling the ninety percent statistic brought up an American Psychological Association article that verified this fact. Ninety-two percent of old people had one chronic condition. Seventy-seven percent had two medical conditions.

I have experience seeing a person who is 87 take 5 or 6 pills every day for heart, cholesterol, high blood pressure and other ailments.

This is not how I want to live should I be lucky to get to my eighties. I’m not keen to rely on pharmaceutical intervention for health issues I’m creating via my lifestyle choices.

This is the real deal: If you want to buy half gallons of ice cream every week and polish them off in that time you’ll likely be required to take a pill to be able to do so.

In my life I’m going to have the affogato 2x per month as a treat. I would rather not take any extra pills. The fact that lifestyle choices require a person to take medication is hard for me to swallow.

This was why the MD author wrote the book Metabolical that I reviewed here a while ago. About how the current U.S. medical model is predicated on treating disease not preventing illness in the first place.

Today you and I must act as our own healers. Take pills if it will keep us healthy.

Yet I say: Consider scaling back on sugar, trans fat, saturated fat, high fructose corn syrup, natural flavor, and the other ingredients in food or drink that ARE making us ill.

We cannot control external factors like an inherited risk for disease. We often cannot prevent getting ill should we have any kind of breakdown either mental physical or emotional.

What is within our power is how we respond to what happens to us. The enormity or severity of a setback doesn’t determine our fate. How we respond to this obstacle is what matters.

I call creating a baseline of health “establishing the floor.” So that if we’re treating ourselves right and taking care of ourselves as a matter of course it will be easier to thrive after we get ill.

I say: each of us has the choice. A person might want to have ice cream every week. They’re likely OK with popping a pill to do so.

Th ex-governor of Tennessee easily 15 years ago wrote a book titled Fresh Medicine about what’s ailing the healthcare system in America. The governor’s primary care MD told him: You can either eat healthy or choose to have the cheeseburger. You can eat the cheeseburger when you take a statin.

What kind of credible advice is that? This is what’s not right with medical care in America. It’s almost like healthcare professionals are in collusion with pharmaceutical companies.

Food is making us sick. I want no part of making myself sick.

In no way am I going to take an extra pill just so that I can eat food that would make me ill otherwise.

In the future I’m going to post a blog entry about Acting As Our Own Healers.

Coming up new recipes that are quick and easy to create. With the weather getting warmer day by day I’m going to share no-oven required recipes that are tasty.

Pistachio Ice Cream Affogato

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The recipe calls for high-quality pistachio ice cream. I found this in the spring issue of Magnolia Journal. Again this photo is not as pretty as the one in the magazine.

The Van Leeuwen ice cream doesn’t have the chemical additive of natural flavor. In this regard I will buy the product again.

Alas, ice cream of any kind is high in saturated fat and added sugars.

As an every so often treat though I think this recipe can’t be beat.

Use short glasses.

_______________________________________

One scoop premium-quality pistachio ice cream.

Espresso poured on to taste.

Sprinkle pistachios on. Drizzle honey atop if you’d like.

New Recipe Posting Soon

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Coming up soon the recipe for Pistachio Ice Cream Affogato that uses espresso. To brew the espresso you can use a coffee maker like the one above. I recommend the Bialetti.

This coffee maker with the Dolce & Gabbana logo I bought even though the designers were in a controversy a few years ago over comments they made. Though I wouldn’t wear their clothes I ordered the machine because of the design.

Plus, it’s at a reduced cost this week with a code on the Macy’s website. You could order another Bialetti for only $50 that is just as good.

Before the first use you add water and heat up the water solo without ground coffee. After that you use the maker 3 times with ground coffee in it to lock in the aroma of coffee. Then you can use the machine to brew a cup to drink.

The machine will sound off when it’s getting too full. Shut it off before coffee bursts out. You pull out the safety valve before using it. Position the coffee maker on the stove so that the safety valve is not facing you.

Parts should be stored separately to let air circulate. The leaflet doesn’t tell you that you should use the machine with white vinegar and water every so often so that your coffee doesn’t get saturated with coffee oil from repeated brewing. A Google search will bring up how to do this.

It takes only about 5 minutes to use the coffee maker.

The flame shouldn’t extend beyond the rim of the bottom of the machine.

Affogato is my new favorite every-so-often treat. Not an everyday indulgence as ice cream is high in saturated fat and added sugar. Yet I love affogato so I’m glad I can make it at home. Instead of paying $10 for it in a restaurant.

Creating a 10-Year Plan

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I’ve always thought a person should give themselves 10 years in which to achieve a goal. If you study and practice numerology you will follow along in a 9-Year cycle. Either way this entails giving yourself what I coined decades ago a lifeline not an impossible restrictive deadline to accomplish an outcome.

My take as an optimist is to take the long view. In terms of expecting that when you turn 60 or 65 the best is yet to be. Why give up in one year or worse 2 months when you don’t get what you wanted?

Expect that you can have a better life. Having something to look forward to can keep a person going. What if we could envision that 10 years from now our life will be extraordinary beyond how it is today?

As I’m fond of saying in Italian: “Creo nell’impossibile”–I believe in the impossible. I’ve always thought that what others said was impossible was indeed possible.

Far healthier to give ourselves the gift of a lifetime to carry out our goals. Break into one-year each sub-goal to bring us to the end goal.

This is about all I want to write about serious topics.

Coming up: a recipe for pistachio Affogato–a cool treat for spring and summer and really any time of the year.

Wait Lifting

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I learned everything about health fitness and nutrition by checking books out of the library, talking to a health coach, and trainers at a gym.

Decades ago, I was appalled to see on the cover of a women’s magazine the come-on: Drop One Dress Size by Tuesday.

Why is this kind of advice given to women and not men? Why aren’t men scared to weigh 200 pounds?

Either way if a person is not willing to invest 4 years to get healthy when they have the rest of their life to live, they’re setting themselves up with unrealistic expectations for how quick they should see results.

It’s possible that most of us will live to be 65–retirement age if we’re lucky. Why the fixation on quick results if you’re 30 or 42 or 50? Far better to give ourselves 4 years to see lasting change not the typical 2 months then quitting with a yo-yo outcome.

The waiting is the hardest part. Only nothing worth having comes without effort. The goal is not to set the bar high for our health. We simply must set the bar. Reaching higher takes time.

In the coming blog entry I’m going to write in more detail about what I originally wrote about in 2007 when I was the Health Guide at a website: My idea of formulating a 10-Year Plan for achieving a goal.

Risking Change

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About five weeks ago I attended a Zoom event that the Roadmap Coach Christina Bryan hosted. She talked about her method of creating your Personal Brand. In my view it’s the simplest most effective way to sell yourself.

Her pitch to obtain clients was that she helps women succeed despite their fear. Fear of change is a big issue for everyone of any identity. So too internalized shame stops us in our tracks. Feeling shame keeps us stuck and unable to change.

The writers given a platform in the media who attack readers I call the media darlings. A person who is made to feel guilty won’t be motivated to change their behavior. Attack someone and their natural response is to get defensive.

I’m struck with how fear and shame prevent us from reaching our potential. Our old habits might have served a purpose. In the light of today when we know it’s time for a change we can be afraid of making the change(s). Since the old way of life has become comfortable.

This has implications not only for our health and wellbeing. It prevents us from having the confidence to express who we are and what we stand for. This is where internalizing the shame others impose on us keeps us afraid to speak out and celebrate our worth.

I don’t know about you followers however I’m done with making myself small so that others will approve of me and feel better about themselves.

The media darlings–and any others who hate judge fear and shame us as a way of life–would be out of business if we stood up straight and stared them in the eye and said: “Look in the mirror not at me.”

The Personal Brand I want to sell is linked to the goal I have that peers can establish and sustain health, wealth, and happiness after facing illness, trauma, or injustice.

I’m not going to cut people down. My aim is to give everyone a shot in the arm of confidence to go after our goals with gusto.

The way to conquer the fear is through action. To act despite the fear. To keep taking action. Especially when the naysayers shoot down what you want to do. Tell you that it’s impossible. Or that you should stay where you are because you’re full of yourself and too big-headed.

Be proud of yourself. That’s what I say. It’s no sin to have pride.

Coming up my ideas on how to sustain change after you’ve gotten the courage to risk doing this.

My hope is that through my blogs I can create a Beautiful Community of followers. To entertain readers not just educate and empower you.

We’re going to live on earth too long in reality to harbor ill-will towards others. Too long to castigate ourselves for imagined faults too.

Change and Motivation

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I was known as the Salad Girl at my job because I consistently had salads for lunch in the staff kitchen.

Suddenly after 23 years of having salads for lunch I was done with having salads at noon time. The buying of the lettuce and other food, schlepping it to work, and preparing the salad nearly every day took its toll.

I remembered what my trainer at the gym told me a year ago after I lamented to him that I wondered what particular kinds of food I should eat to be healthy.

He responded to my granular ethic thus: “Eat food. You just have to eat food. Whatever kind of food it is just eat.”

That said it got easier when I changed up my weekly routine this winter. Buying organic lettuce and organic salad toppings in my weekly grocery order. Prepping salads for DINNER three or four days a week. Having the salad with a side of steamed shrimp one night or a can of Cento tuna in olive oil with the salad on another night. With slices of avocado.

The curious improvement was that when I started having salads for dinner I felt good in the evening. The food you eat can improve your mood. Feeling good was the motivation I had for continuing this new dinnertime habit.

In keeping with what my trainer told me I found other food to have for lunch at my job. Though I’m not a vegetarian and I have chicken I eat chicken only once or twice a week. Buying organic chicken to have as a meal for one dinner with an organic vegetable from a frozen bag.

My old friend the deli counter is where I buy a baked salmon filet to heat up on one other night. With regular Brussel sprouts or a beet salad from the friendly deli counter offerings.

Like I said it’s often when we decide “Enough is enough!” that we’re motivated to change our habits or our routine.

Turning 60 in the spring I’m going to create a 20-year plan in which to achieve my goals and resolutions. A person like me isn’t supposed to live to 80. We die 20 years earlier than the regular population according to naysayers who parrot this claim.

This simply isn’t true when you take care of your health the best you can with what you were given. Any of us with a disadvantage–popping pills we need to take to be well; having a genetic medical issue; whatever it is–we can choose to do what’s in our control to improve.

The things we can’t control we should accept. Focus instead on what’s in our power to change. Know that there’s no shame regardless of our fitness level or lack of fitness.

Perfection is a myth because it implies there can be no growth. What I’ve learned and have come to accept is that I can have other food and maintain my health.

In coming blog entries I’ll talk about the epiphanies that hit me in recent weeks re: achieving and sustaining wellness.

Buying Boycott

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This was sent to me in an email yesterday:

People’s Union USA Calls For National Boycott In A ‘Feb 28 Economic Blackout’

Pamela N. Danziger

Senior Contributor Forbes

Pam Danziger reports on retail, focused on the luxury consumer market.

Follow

Feb 25, 2025,07:06am EST

Updated Feb 25, 2025, 10:47am EST

Topline

 A consumer-activist group founded by John Schwarz has launched a grassroots campaign to halt spending online or instore and not use credit or debit cards for 24 hours on Friday, Feb. 28, in an attempt to disrupt the economic order and “take back control of our economy, government and future of our country,” reports CBSNews.

Key Facts

The People’s Union boycott calls for no spending on fast food, gas or at major retailers – “No Amazon, No Walmart, No Best Buy” – beginning at midnight on Feb. 27 through midnight Feb. 28.

Purchases deemed essential, i.e. food, medicine, emergency supplies, are permitted but only in cash and with small, local businesses.

After the single-day spending pause, People’s Union plans week-long protests against specific retailers, including Amazon Mar. 7-14, Nestlé Mar. 21-28 and Walmart Apr. 7-13.

In an unaffiliated protest, Black faith leaders are calling for a 40-day “fast” or boycott of Target to protest its dialing back DEI initiatives to run during Lent starting on Ash Wednesday, Mar. 5.

Thriving After a Setback

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This Michael Jordan quote paperweight I bought in a museum gift shop a long time ago.

It gets at having the courage to risk change to get what you want in life. Everyone living on earth experiences pain heartache and loss.

Adversity is our friend. When we struggle and can see the light of day afterward we can be proud of ourselves for overcoming whatever the setback was.

What if the hardship won’t go away? That’s when we go with Plan B: handling what goes on to the best of our ability. More than this doing what comes easy to us that we enjoy can help us live through the challenge.

However long it takes to emerge on the other side we can get there wiser, stronger, and in a better position to create that new world and life for ourselves.

Our personality powers us through. The beauty and benefit of experiencing a setback is that we realize “enough is enough.” No longer can things go on the way they were before.

Creating a new routine does take courage and perseverance. It takes time to bounce back. We’re not Wild West cowboys falling off a horse getting back on and galloping into the sunset right then.

Wanting a quick outcome will set us up to feel like a failure when we can’t meet the restrictive deadline we set for ourselves to achieve something. Decades ago I coined the term of giving yourself a lifeline not an impossible deadline to carry out a goal or plan.

To rush cut corners or take shortcuts often results in a half-hearted outcome. Who can be proud of that? Far better to give ourselves gentle affirmations as we go about each day taking on the new habit or routine.

The new routine I created after the arm injury has been “so far so good.” Seeing a positive difference after 3 weeks has motivated me to keep on keeping on.

It’s often repeated that it takes 21 days for a new habit to form. You can use the book Changeology: 5 Steps to Realizing Your Goals and Resolutions. It’s a guide to a 90-day Action Plan for replacing a negative behavior with a positive one.

What if we don’t need to replace an unhealthy habit? What if we’ve been living our lives and we’ve simply come up against the reality that our old lifestyle is unlivable today?

That’s when asking Why you want to change something and What you can do to begin the new routine is the first step. Also to figure out: When you should do the new thing and How to do it and Where.

For the little old blogger that I am this was a fairly simple strategy: I changed what I ate each day and when I ate the food. I began to lift weights again 2x/per week as often as I could.

Coming up the details. I’ll end here with saying that rewarding yourself along the way for your little victories as well as milestones is called for.

It’s not often easy to change what’s not working. This is often because we feel like a failure if we don’t see improvement quickly.

Instead each of us should Enjoy the Process. Which is exactly why practicing mindfulness is called for.

Giving ourselves at least 3 weeks to create a new habit is the way to carry on. I’m giving myself those 90 days that is 3 months to see what happens.

The Joy of Ritual

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In this blog entry I want to inspire followers to make a positive shift when our life has been derailed on the old track. It was synchronicity not an accident that I checked the above book out of the library. Liking it so well that I bought a new copy from an Amazon reseller as it’s out of print.

The guide The Joy of Ritual teaches readers how to create and use these rites. The subtitle is Spiritual Recipes to Celebrate Milestones, Ease Transitions, and Make Every Day Sacred.

Struck I was by how a workout can be a ritual. An exercise routine is a sacred act not just an expression of physical prowess. Creating a new weightlifting ritual eased my transition into working out again after the arm injury.

As a form of prayer, I wear a cross around my neck while lifting. Not a Catholic cross–I think it’s a Celtic cross. Saying an actual prayer before I lift the first dumbbell. To invoke the ministration of God to “Bless my body. Give me the energy to go about my daily routine and the health to achieve my goals.”

Intertwining the sacred and the spiritual into everyday life with the commercial and material aspects of living our lives benefits us. Though this kind of daily devotion can seem “woo-woo” it’s a dose of positive mental medicine.

Creating a ritual or two can help us heal and recover. This I found out when I started to lift weights again. Redesigning how I exercised was the gateway to better health.

The idea of using a ritual appeals to me as a form of practicing mindfulness. To enjoy each moment before it goes by.

In fact going in a slow and steady rhythm is called for. Rushing around engaging in nonstop busywork every hour of every day is not the way to live.

It can be hard to change what’s not working even when the change would be positive. My goal in here is to encourage and motivate followers to try. Simply try. See what happens. Like me you might be surprised at how well things turn out.