3-Point Guide to Mood-Boosting Food

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I have developed a 3-point list of what I think makes sense when choosing what food to eat:

Eat well–you’ll feel better.

East mostly food that comes from God’s green Earth.

The best stuff on earth truly comes from Earth.

Not a bottle or frozen box. Pass on chemical-laden drinks and foods with unnatural “natural flavors.”

Nix sugar.

Remember: sugar is sugar wherever it comes from. Refrain from drinking chocolate milk–it has 33 grams of sugar in an 8 oz glass. Not good if you take an atypical medication for schizophrenia or bipolar that can increase the risk of getting diabetes.

Bonus point:

If memory serves it was Michael Pollan who wrote: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”

A friend is now going on an eating plan geared to a person with diabetes even though he doesn’t have diabetes. This could make sense as a possible plan for individuals with mental illnesses to adopt.

Lastly: I do NOT endorse drinking sugary sports drinks or Power-Ade type drinks. Not at all. Nor do I endorse drinking Red Bull or other type energy drinks. I DON’T endorse eating power bars of any kind except every so often in a crunch when you have nothing else available. And the shakes available at gyms aren’t the most healthful option either. I only have a shake once or twice a month.

The goal is to remember that when you eat light and healthful there’s almost no restriction so you’re not depriving yourself: you can then have a pastry every so often.

The 80 Percent Guide

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Pamela Peeke, M.D. in her book Body for Life for Women talks about her Mind-Mouth-Muscle trifecta for obtaining optimal health through the four Milestone periods of our lives.

Her foolproof advice is to follow her eating plan 80 percent of the time. That’s right: you can eat healthful food 80 percent of the time and that’s perfectly okay according to Peeke.

I don’t follow her eating plan to the letter because you have to remember the right combinations of food to eat. If you photocopied the pages with the eating plan and committed to reviewing it every day so that you could choose from it: you might start to remember the plan without looking at the pages.

Stellar advice she gives is that eating too much of any food even healthful food is not good. If you eat better food and choose quality over quantity you will also save money because you’re not buying as much food.

I don’t eat a lot of food. I try to switch up: eat organic Fuji apples when they’re available, pears and raspberries and other fruit when it’s in season (because in-season fruit IS cheaper.)

Buying seasonal produce is cheaper so it makes sense to do this. Yet I buy organic bananas year-round and I do eat bananas.

The 80 percent guide makes sense to me. I can’t resist the macarons at a hole-in-the-wall coffee shop. Or every so often I will have a chocolate crepe. There you go.

Keeping a food log and writing down what you eat for two weeks is a great way to keep track of what you’re eating if you want to lose weight. The equation is simple: burn more calories than you consume.

Life isn’t always easy and doesn’t always go as planned. That’s when it makes sense to forgive ourselves and move on and recommit to healthful eating.

I want to quote an advertisement in Women’s Health magazine. Jillian Michaels the trainer is pushing Krave jerky in it. I don’t recommend eating any kind of jerky or beef or meat at all. If a person does only one thing, not eating meat would be the one thing to do.

While I don’t endorse any products at this time the advertisement is right-on about the reality of life. I didn’t read the rest of the advertisement because as soon as I saw the word jerky I didn’t think the product could be healthful.

Here’s the tag line:

“I’m going to do the best I can given what I have today. I’ll never settle.”

I’ll end here with those words. They’re so apt for what happens when our lives take a turn and we have to ride out a hard time:

“I’m going to do the best I can given what I have today. I’ll never settle.”

The Mediterranean Table

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I want to return to talking about nutrition. I recommend buying or installing on your device The Mediterranean Table cookbook-and-nutrition guide.

Right now I consider it the best book of its kind ruling over any of the others I’ve reviewed. Angelo Acquista, M.D. shares detailed info about themost healthful foods in an engaging, simple, easy-to-read fashion.

Read only this Mediterranean Diet book if you read no other–it’s that good. I can’t help be proud–after all, I’m Italian.

Circa 1993 I bought and read the original Mediterranean Diet book. This so-called “diet”–actually a sane eating plan–has been around forever.

With this time-tested way of eating I ask you: why do most people go on any of the fad or extreme diets outlined in the endless glut of diet books at the library?

Have some filet of sole oreganata with a side of broccoli rabe. Keep the portions slim.

That’s the secret right there: you don’t need to eat meat and [white] potatoes.

You want to impress an Italian [or other] woman on a date: cook a simple meal of pasta with tomato-basil sauce and a salad of kale and cherry tomatoes with a squirt of olive oil and vinegar or olive oil and lemon.

Perfetto.

Mourning and Moving Forward

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The stages of grief can happen at any time. There’s not always or often a quick start-stop to bereavement. The reality of this ongoing nature is what’s so unconscionable about leaving older adults and senior citizens with mental health conditions in the dust when their elderly parents are gone.

The Stages of Grief

I will use the diagnosis as an example–yet mourning any kind of loss is likely at any time in our lives. The day our loved ones are gone is possibly the most sad time of all. The stages of grief can happen at any time.

Shock:

You’re not fully conscious of what has happened.

Denial: You cannot believe that the loss is real.

Anger:

You wonder: “Why this illness? Why me?”

Bargaining:

You attempt to maintain the status quo even though it is no longer possible and you can’t go on the way things were before.

Depression: You can no longer deny the truth of the loss.

Acceptance: You have had time to work through these stages and it is here you come to terms with the loss. You take action to move beyond it.

Grieving is a natural and healthy response to your diagnosis and the circumstances of your changed life. It is by mourning the past that you clear the way to a brighter future.

Living in anger for the rest of your life is no way to live. Anger takes a lot of energy to maintain. It keeps you stuck. Working through your anger can motivate you to make positive changes.

It’s truly possible to have a better life after some of us get sick than we had before.

Like any loss we have to mourn there’s also not always a quick start-stop to the hard time we experience after we get a diagnosis.

“Move along” we must as the All-American Rejects sing in their modern rock song.

Moving along often takes time. It’s often a long and winding road we go down.

Yet remember this: our loved ones will always be with us even after they’re gone.

An Appointed Time for Everything

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There is an appointed time for everything,

and a time for every affair under the heavens.

A time to be born, and a time to die;

a time to plant, and a time to uproot the plant.

A time to kill, and a time to heal;

a time to tear down, and a time to build.

A time to weep, and a time to laugh;

a time to mourn, and a time to dance.

A time to scatter stones, and a time to gather them;

a time to embrace, and a time to be far from embraces.

A time to seek, and a time to lose;

a time to keep, and a time to cast away.

A time to rend, and a time to sew;

a time to be silent, and a time to speak.

A time to love, and a time to hate;

a time of war, and a time of peace.

 

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

Love and Loss

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Other things you can add to a salad are walnuts or almonds. I used to use chick peas in a salad too. You can used blue cheese like in a Cobb salad. Olives of course can go into a salad. Onions too.

We need to eat well to keep our energy up when we’re going through a hard time.  We need to continue a bare-bones yet consistent and regular fitness routine when we’re going through a hard time.

Life can be hard and present us with challenges. We can return to our full-steam activities when we’re able.

It can be hard most of all when our loved ones have a hardship or an illness that we have to cope with.

It is most of all the hardest when a loved one is at the end of their lives.

I’ve written in the blog and elsewhere that mental health agencies universally fail their older constituents who are now living alone after their parents / caregivers have died.

I wrote at HealthCentral for our family members about doing succession planning and creating a Special Needs Trust instead of a will for a loved one who collects SSI for the rest of their life.

Not ordinarily do I like to give details in the blog about my own life. I will though say this: no one should be faced with terminal cancer at the end of their life like one of my family members is now.

I will write in the future about grief and bereavement from information in the pamphlets I picked up at the 2014 APA convention.

For now I will end here with this thought: we could benefit each of us from reaching out for support when our family members are in their seventies and eighties and won’t be around for a lot longer.

I will do my tiny humble part by writing about grief and bereavement in the blog. Mental health agencies should no longer avoid talking about this. I’ll talk about this since they’re not.

Chockfull of Salad

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I tend to have a lot of salads. You can buy Earthbound Farms organic kale on the cheap and it will last for four days of servings.

Here’s an easy simple recipe:

Cut kale or other greens up. Peel and chop carrots. Use olives. Cut tomatoes into wedges. Slice an onion. You can also slice bell peppers.

Toss into a salad bowl. Add olive oil and vinegar or olive oil and lemon. Squirt onto the salad to your taste and toss.

I add grated parmesan on the salad after I use the dressing on it.

Here’s a handy secret that I really shouldn’t be giving away:

You can buy pre-made salads and place them in individual salad bowls to serve to guests at a dinner party. You can find store-bought salad dressing to use that is a healthful option like Cucina Antica organic salad dressing

Fresh Direct is an online delivery service in New York City and Philadelphia. Peapod is available in a lot of other places online. Either way you get groceries and household supplies delivered right to your front door.

I buy Greek salads this way and found a Fresh Direct olive oil-and-sundried tomato vinaigrette dressing to use on the salads.

Bobbi Brown the famous makeup artist in her book Living Beauty describes how to make what she calls a “chopped kitchen salad.”

Whether it’s her version or mine I make the case for having more salads and other greens for lunch or dinner.

You can get a CSA box delivered from Fresh Direct–a community-supported agriculture box of 8 to 10 items of produce from June through end of December. It comes from a local organic farm.

The $30/box has enough produce to make a variety of meals or side dishes. I received butter leaf lettuce and created a salad for dinner one night along with a recipe for lemon-and-thyme carrots.

It’s true I’m obsessed with eating mostly only real food that comes from God’s green earth not a laboratory.

Get the cookbook Vegetables Every Day by Jack Bishop. I find myself running to this book every week to cook the produce I buy. The recipes are simple and easier to cook because they don’t often take up a lot of time.

Happy eating!

 

Fall Into Winter Favorites

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I want to return to talking about nutrition.

The fall through early winter is my favorite time of year for eating well.

One recipe that is easy and healthful is for butternut squash soup:

Cut squash in half and remove seeds. Roast in 400 degree oven for 25 minutes.

Take out and scoop out squash and blend in a blender with vegetable stock. Add about half a container of stock and add more to suit your taste if you’d like. I buy the vegetable stock boxes.

Pour soup mixture in saucepan and add 1/2 cup heavy cream. Simmer until heated.

Serve with a couple slices of cheese and some whole grain bread. I like the organic whole wheat sourdough bread you can get from Bread Alone in New York City.

Hearty! And oh so filling!

Up next I’ll talk about my kind of a garden salad that I call a chockfull of salad salad.

New Year’s Resolutions

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It’s coming up on the time when people make New Year’s resolutions. I think it’s more helpful to plan in terms of setting a goal you can achieve in three months / every season / and a goal you can achieve in one year.

The reality too is fare more real: fitness is forever. Allowing the number on a scale to dictate how you feel about yourself is most likely all too common. Thus the mad frenzy to join a gym on January 1st.

I say: examine your motivation. Ask yourself “Why do I want to do this __________________(lose weight or whatever you want to do)? Be clear that you’re setting a goal that is specific measurable achievable relevant and time-sensitive.

Remember too that planning in terms of a life-line instead of a deadline is the strategy that has helped me and might help other people and stop us from quitting or getting upset if we don’t do what we set out to as quickly as we hoped.

Case in point: it takes time to get fit–whether you’re striving for physical or emotional conditioning.

What I find helps is to think of the long-term outcome you want to achieve instead of berating yourself for not doing what you wanted to do in one week here and there.

The cumulative effect to me counts more than any temporary slip-up along the way. I’m living proof: I’ve gotten here–to 50–even though I have a diagnosis.

We each of us need to remember that the grass isn’t greener over there–we’re responsible for watering our own grass and planting the seeds of goals and tending to our own beautiful green and glorious garden.

This takes time. “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” Just Do It. And Keep Doing It. Whatever “it” is that is sustainable for you in terms of a lifestyle.

Chances are not everyone is an Athlete archetype. This explains why not a lot of us are taking spinning classes five days a week and competing in marathons. That’s OK.

The point is to set a S.M.A.R.T. goal not chase after a New Year’s Resolution. I prefer to set goals in the fall and in the spring.

I joined the gym in March when I was 39. You see: it’s not ever too late to make a positive change. Investing in yourself at any age is the gift that keeps on giving.

During this season that is supposed to be of good cheer and peace to all on earth I wish that readers of this blog can find pockets of joy and happiness inside the challenges we all face living our lives in whatever we’re in recovery from.

Happy Thursday!

Psychiatrist Questions

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Here now I’ll list the questions you can ask your psychiatrist either when you’re first diagnosed or at any point in your recovery.

Psychiatrist Questions

If I need to call you, how long do you usually take to respond? Do you have another doctor on-call if you’re on vacation?

If I ask you questions, will you give me detailed information about why you think I need a certain treatment? I need to know the rationale behind your suggestions.

What drugs do you frequently prescribe to your patients? Have you had success with these drugs?

How much experience have you had with atypicals?

Will you prescribe drugs “off-label” if you think it will benefit me?

Will you discuss any side effects of the medication you’re treating me with, and do you have a plan in case I develop a side effect?

Is your focus on mental illness treatment and recovery, or do you have a general clientele? Are you willing to be creative in custom-tailoring solutions to my treatment needs?

If my parents or a third-party person needed to speak on my behalf or talk to you about my treatment, how would you handle that?

What would a typical session with you be like?

Do you have an area of expertise with certain illnesses?

Where did you get your degree? Are you Board Certified? How long have you been in practice?

What do you feel challenges and inspires you as a doctor? [This could tell you a lot about their personal work ethic.]

What hospitals do you have admitting privileges with?

Are you willing to coordinate my treatment with my primary care doctor or get the results of blood work or tests from this doctor to integrate my whole health care outlook?

Do you have evening or morning or weekend hours?

Do you test for tardive dyskinesia? Have you ever had a patient who developed this, and what has been your experience with treating TD?

Do you take my insurance? Will you bill my insurance company or do you expect me to pay up front and then submit my own claim form for reimbursement?

What is my diagnosis and how did you come to that conclusion?

What medication do you propose to use? (Ask for the name and dosage level.)

What is the biological effect of this medication, and what do you expect it to accomplish?

What are the risks associated with this medication?

How soon will we be able to tell if the medication is effective, and how will we know?

Are there other medications that might be appropriate? If so, why do you prefer the one you have chosen?

What are the side effects of the medication? How long should I “wait out” any side effects before calling you?

Are there other medications or food that I should avoid while taking this medication?

How long do you expect me to be on this medication?

How often will I be seeing you until the medication takes effect?

If I’m taking more than one drug, when and how often should I take each one?

How do you monitor medications, and what symptoms indicate that the dosage should be raised, lowered or changed?

Are you currently treating other patients with this illness?

What are the best times and what are the most dependable ways for getting in touch with you?

What do you consider an emergency if I have to call you after hours?

Do you believe someone can recover from a mental illness?

[This question is the gold standard. If at all you get the idea that this doctor doesn’t believe recovery is possible it will benefit you to keep looking until you find a professional who is interested in seeing his or her patients succeed in life.]