A Health Writer's Notebook

I’m on a quick trip to New York, and popped into Duane Read the other day only to discover to my delight that they carried a full range of products by natural beauty line 100% Pure.

I discovered 100% Pure thanks to Gillian Deacon’s book There’s Lead in Your Lipstick (you should read it) and had ordered a few items online at one point but didn’t find any I loved, partly because some of their scents can be too strong for me. So I came back to the hotel with a selection of new products to try, including the blood orange-scented body lotion (key as I’d forgotten to pack any. There’s always one thing.).

And I’m in love. It’s a nice summer-friendly lotion that moisturizes well without feeling greasy, and the fragrance is pleasant and not overpowering. And it’s got an ingredient list I’m happy to rub all over my body. (See their FAQ for more information.)

I confess: I’m a grocery store snob. And yes, I’m judging you on what you’re buying. (Plus, do your bananas really need an extra plastic bag?)

So when I’m buying produce, I tend to go straight for the fresh and organic section, which at Toronto’s amazing Fiesta Farms, where I do much of my shopping, is right in the middle of the store, not off in the corner. (As an aside, I was there Sunday afternoon and it was about as busy as on the day before Thanksgiving. I think they need to open a new location.)

Anyhoo, a little while ago a rep from frozen-food company Cookin’ Greens got in touch with me and asked if I’d like to try their products, which include frozen spinach, kale and rapini plus a couple of frozen-veg-and-green mixes. I said yes, of course - who would turn down free groceries? - but honestly, it’s been a very long time since I’ve bought frozen spinach. That said, has anyone else noticed that the baby spinach in the plastic boxes isn’t the same quality it used to be, and goes bad pretty quickly? And I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s super lazy about washing bunches of spinach.

Besides all that, you always hear about studies saying that frozen vegetables are more nutritious than most fresh because they’re frozen right after picking, whereas the spinach that comes from California or Mexico had a long trip before making it to store shelves. Cookin’ Greens says that its greens go from farm to freezer in under six hours, which is faster than I can get here from California, anyways.

Today I finally dug the bag out of the freezer and set about making their recipe for green hummus - a pretty standard hummus recipe with the addition of a full 500 g bag of spinach. I had to cook the greens first - I did it over the stove with a bit of water - then added them to the food processor with the other ingredients and served with some whole wheat cheddar biscuits. And you know what? It was really good. You would have to like spinach, or reduce the quantity otherwise - there were just about equal portions of spinach and chickpeas - but it felt like another awesome way to get in more greens. (Mine was a lot greener than the photo I liberated from their website.)

And given my huge green smoothie habit, I’m thinking that the frozen greens - which, I should note, aren’t in one big lump like classic frozen spinach, but easily separated so you can use just some of the bag - will be a fantastic standby for quick smoothies when I run out of fresh. And I’m inspired to try more frozen vegetables.

Have you tried Cookin’ Greens? What are your tricks to get more greens?

When the green bin (biodegradable waste) program started years ago in Toronto, I was thrilled. With no access to a compost I felt guilty throwing food waste into the garbage, and I thought it was smart to have an alternative. And I thought they were so clever designing the kitchen bins to fit grocery bags – after all, who didn’t have piles of them around?

But then, of course, the plastic bag ban came in, and we all cut back. I’d been pretty good about bringing bags anyways, and I got even better. And then it got to the point where I’d request a bag from the store on purpose and pay the five cents because I knew I needed it for my green bin. Which is wrong in a lot of ways.

I was thinking about trying paper bags – apparently some systems, unlike Toronto, won’t let you use even biodegradable plastic, which isn’t necessarily actually biodegradable, though that’s a moot point here as it all gets filtered out – and then Glad contacted me and asked if I’d like to sample their Odorguard compostable bags (nope, no Canadian spelling here) in my kitchen bin. I agreed – it was a problem I was trying to solve anyways – and they sent me pretty much a lifetime supply. Check it out. The box is huge.

We’ve been using them for a month or two now and I’d say for the most part I’m happy with them. It’s certainly convenient to always have bags available and not have to invent a trip to Sobeys when we suddenly need them. And unlike unreliable grocery bags, these don’t leak gross garbage juice. The anti-odour part is kind of irrelevant because they go outside as soon as they’re full (and when they’re not, the top is open). The only downside to me is I do miss the handles that grocery bags have, as they’re easy to grab and close when you get lazy and let the kitchen bin get too full before you empty it. (It’s not just me, right?) I’d love to see an update with handles or ties.

What do you use in your green bin?

Some of you might think this is the most ridiculous thing ever. Because it kind of is. But despite growing up in the Okanagan Valley, home of some of the country’s best ski hills, somehow I managed to make it to 29-for-the-somethingth-time without ever having tried downhill skiing.

I also dislike winter. Could there be a connection?

But in an effort to find a use for snow and be a little more Canadian, I decided recently the time had come, and last month made my way to Silver Star Mountain Resort up the hill from Vernon, BC, also conveniently where some of my family happens to live. The resort was kind enough to host me and a special guest for a few days so I could (in theory) learn the ropes and enjoy some proper winter.

In theory.

I have kind of a bad habit of thinking of myself as brave and adventurous (I’m from BC, after all) in a lovely kind of denial right until I actually have to start trying something. Then I remember that new things can be scary, especially when they involve wearing slippery things that make you go fast down hills on your feet *on purpose*, and I freak out a little.

Day one wasn’t so bad, though I’m a slow and cautious learner. My amazingly patient instructor, Glenn, led me up and down the kiddie hill (I mean the one the toddlers learn on) and then to the bigger kiddie hill. After a few runs on that I felt somewhat confident that I could input instructions to the skis, but at his suggestion of going on a “real” ski hill (what, the bunny hill isn’t real?!) I got hyper nervous and decided to stay on the little hill some more. I really felt like I mastered that hill, and its moving sidewalk-like lift to the top.

On day two we were ready to conquer a real, honest-to-goodness, marked-on-the-map ski hill. So after a decadent breakfast at Bugaboo’s Cafe of melty Brie on a croissant (what? it had spinach too!) I got on my skis and discovered that my muscles and brain retained no memory whatsoever of the day before. Is this normal? In any case, I couldn’t stop or turn and didn’t particularly want to move forward, either. Glenn coaxed me back on the little kids’ hill and I managed to make my way down that a couple of times without bowling over the two-year-old playing red light green light with a hula hoop between her and the instructor. (I have to be honest, I really liked the look of that hula hoop.) Then all of a sudden we were on a chair lift and I was too distracted by the amazing view of the mountains on a sunny day to realize that we were going high, high up and would have to come down again.

Long story short, we came down slower than molasses as I snowplowed my way down a green run in panic and terror. I’ll spare the gory details, but it was a long, long morning, I spent a lot of time on my backside and my knees were killing me. And Glenn is a saint for not killing me. Lesson learned: If you feel like you’re not ready to move a step ahead, you might not be. I should have gone back to the bunny hill first. (Also, that’s a fake smile on my face in the photo.)

At dinner that night, we discovered that there is in fact a second-stage bunny-hill-like hill at Silver Star that’s labelled a green run but short, wide and forgiving. The next morning we made our way over there and my amazingly patient significant other helped me regain some of the first day’s confidence and then move beyond. I actually – miracle of miracles – made my way down the hill without stopping or falling, and with a smile on my face. And then, of course, we had to leave.

It turns out that skiing is kind of fun, once you’re able to stop and turn on command. It’s a very useful skill and if you’re learning how to ski for the first time, I do suggest mastering it before getting on a proper run. And I’m hoping to get in some more practice this winter so everything I learned isn’t lost forever.

Are you a skier? Any tips for me for next time?

Maybe my memory’s deceiving me now that we’re back to a West Coast Winter™, but I think it was cold last week. Right? In any case, when it came to my scheduled hot yin yoga class at Iyashi on Saturday afternoon, I was thrilled to have a chance to relax and soak up the heat.

Iyashi is a fairly new spa on Yonge between Eglinton and Lawrence, right across from the big Sporting Life store. And it’s a spa with a focus: hot rock bathing, a trend that they say started in Japan about a decade ago.

As you can see in the photo, the smooth raised platforms contain black stones – these are black silica, said to release infrared heat and negative ions to help the body sweat. The “stone beds” are kept at between 42 and 44 degrees C and in a rock bathing session you spend 15 to 20 minutes at a time lying on the beds (with a towel or two underneath you) and five-minute sessions in the cool-down room, which is at room temperature, for up to four times. The dividers in the photo weren’t there during my visit, presumably because we were doing a yoga class.

The hot yin yoga sessions are a little different – they start with half an hour of rock bathing, then the yoga teacher lets you know when it’s just five minutes till class so you can cool down for a bit. The hour-long yoga session is split into two halves with a cool-down break in between. Students are encouraged to drink lots of water before and during the class, and at breaks, to stay hydrated.

So how did it feel?

I loved the rock bathing, for starters. I can find standard saunas and steam rooms somewhat claustrophobic, but while the treatment room at Iyashi was certainly hot, the heat comes from the stones, so you feel like there’s a bit more air circulation. It feels amazing to lie on the rocks – think of them like a giant hot water bottle. A giant rock-hard hot water bottle, but you get the picture. Staff encourage guests to try different positions to let the heat penetrate different muscle groups. My favourite was on my back with my knees bent so that my lower back was flat on the floor. Let’s just say I’ve been glued to my desk lately.

And the yoga class was really interesting. I take yin classes occasionally at YogaSpace and what I was always taught was that yin poses, which are held for a long time, should be done with a cold body, because the goal is to move beyond muscles into connective tissue, and that when the muscles are warm poses shouldn’t be held for long periods of time. I asked the instructor at Iyashi about that and she said that while the poses can be held for a few minutes in her hot yin session, they weren’t held nearly as long as in a cold yin class and – I think – that the heat helped the stretch move from muscles to connective tissue faster. (You’ll have to forgive me, I was hot and sweaty and sans recording device when I spoke to her.)

In any case, I felt awesome after, and the session went by really quickly. All participants seemed healthy and happy during and after the session – the break really makes a difference in how the body handles heat compared to your standard hot yoga class – and my only regret is that Iyashi is such a trek from my house.

I like to eat. Regularly. Those people who claim to have skipped meals because they “forgot” to eat are foreign to me. I’m pretty sure I’ve never, ever forgotten to eat a meal.

So maybe it’s logical that I’ve always been curious about fasting. And I don’t mean the no-red-meat-on-Fridays kind of fasting, but actually taking a day or more to voluntarily not eat. Seems bizarre, right?

But over the past few years, juice fasts – where you consume nothing but juice for a set period of time, say one to three days – have popped up everywhere. And while it’s easy enough to make your own juice (albeit somewhat time-consuming), there are tons of services that will deliver a day’s worth of juice to your door, making the process effortless if not painless.

In Toronto, one of those services is from the company Belmonte Raw. So in honour of the New Year, I sent them an email and signed up for a one-day juice fast.

Yesterday morning, I woke up to find a bag of juice bottles outside my door. (Good thing it wasn’t today – they’d have frozen solid pretty quickly!) Two red juices, two green juices, a lemonade, a cashew milk and a shot of “liquid chlorophyll”, as well as a liver cleanse tea, all in numbered bottles and with an eating drinking schedule attached.

As recommended, I started the day with a litre of water mixed with the juice of a lemon. Not hard for me – I always wake up thirsty. Then, every couple of hours, I started with a new bottle. The red juice was a blend of apple, carrot, beet, ginger and lemon – one of my favourites – and the green was apple, spinach, lettuce, lemon and ginger (it usually has cucumber, which I can’t stand, so I substituted).

The first two juices were delicious, and despite a bit of a cold, I felt energetic and had a productive morning. By midday I was feeling hungry and the cashew milk was a welcome source of fat and protein and caloric density. By midafternoon my energy was starting to flag, though I enjoyed the refreshing lemonade (lemon, agave, cayenne) – I went for a walk and was glad I hadn’t done something crazy like go for a run. As for the evening two juices (another red and green) – well, I was kind of tired of juice. I drank them, of course, but I had to tell myself to do it.

Did I crave food? Not really. The delivery service seems like a luxury, but psychologically it’s really useful as your juice is preportioned and scheduled for you – there are no decisions to be made. It also means a lot more time in the day as you don’t have to prepare any meals or do any dishes.

As for how it made me feel, it’s hard to judge because as I said, I have a mild cold, and I also decided to take a break from coffee this week so I had a caffeine withdrawal headache too. I definitely felt tired, which is understandable when you’re eating less calories than usual – and I spent much of the afternoon and evening on the couch, reading a book and then watching a movie. I think it would be hard to do this on a workday, especially for your first time.

I’m also accustomed to the flavours of vegetable juices and nut milk. If you’ve never had a vegetable juice before (and V8 doesn’t count), you might find this tough. I would recommend building up to it before committing to a whole day – you’d be unlikely to enjoy the juices.

I’m of two minds about detoxing or cleansing. On the one hand, I think our bodies are designed to just work, provided we give them good-quality fuel. But on the other hand, nowadays we overload them with stuff to deal with – toxins from the environment (think air pollution, water pollution and whatever might be offgassing in your home), not enough sleep, too much stress, nutrient-deficient foods and too much sugar, alcohol, refined foods, salt, etc.

I like to think of it in email terms (because really, my job title should be email wrangler). There are days – lots of them – when the email just pours in and you can barely keep up. Think of how exhausted you’d be if we didn’t also have the days and times with little to no email, so there’s time to catch up on reading and replying.

But besides the physical benefits of taking a break, there are also the psychological ones. It’s not good to feel like you’re depriving yourself when on a cleanse or detox – you’ll just rebound into terrible eating habits again. The attitude has to be positive. But it was nice to remove myself from the food drama in my head for a day, and to take a break from regular eating habits as a chance to reassess them. Belmonte also does raw-food deliveries, and I’m getting a day’s worth of meals on Friday, which I’m looking forward to.

Would I do it again? Yes, I think so. Now I’m getting curious about a three-day juice cleanse. The challenge is to find the time to take it easy for three whole days.

Have you ever done a juice fast? What was your experience?

Given that I love fruit and am totally the type of person to buy random things at the market or store then take them home and ask Google what to do with them, it’s kind of shocking I’d never had a persimmon before. But the other day at Fiesta Farms, true to form, I picked one up on a whim as I browsed the produce section – then came home with no idea what to do with it.

Turns out, according to a number of sites I found, I’d picked the acorn-shaped Hachiya type of persimmon, which has to be very soft and ripe before it can be eaten (it’s otherwise quite astringent). The other kind, which is more tomato-shaped, is called Fuyu and can be eaten crunchy or soft. (There are more, according to The House of All Knowledge aka Wikipedia, but these two are what you’ll likely find in grocery stores.)

Based on advice from this blog, once my persimmon was ripe I tossed it in the freezer for a couple of hours for a natural sorbet. When I pulled it out again it wasn’t quite at the “slushy” stage but I was too impatient to put it in for longer. I sliced off the top and dug a spoon into the innards. Persimmons are supposed to be high in glucose and true enough, they taste almost like a Medjool date in that regard – in any case, it was very, very sweet and somewhat tropical tasting (meaningless, I know, but let’s just say it’s far from an apple). The texture was almost jelly-like – partly from being in the freezer, I suppose – and I can see using it in a variety of dessert recipes as well as eating it plain. (Actually, what I can really see is a smoothie. What a gorgeous colour it would be.)

As you’d suspect from the bright orange colour, persimmons are high in vitamin A and also contain lots of vitamin C and fibre – though according to this site, most data is for the Fuyu, not Hachiya. But hey, it’s fruit, and it’s probably got some kind of nutrient that you can’t get in other foods. Embrace variety and pick up a persimmon next time you’re at the store – they’re in season for a little while longer.

Photo by bluestardrop on Flickr

I was lucky enough to be invited to spend this past weekend at super-awesome “experiential hotel” Travaasa in Austin, Texas. Travaasa offers a resort-style environment – that means you can park the car and leave it, and not have to go off-site for anything – with a fantastic restaurant, a gorgeous spa and tons of activities to take part in, many of which are health-related. (Think yoga, meditation, hiking, riding lessons, juicing and a core conditioning class that still has me sore days later.)

But perhaps the coolest and definitely the most out-of-the-ordinary thing I tried this weekend? Well, I rode a mechanical bull.

Seems silly – and maybe it is a little – but it’s a lot harder than it looks, especially when your core, legs and butt are sore from the previous day’s core class and riding lesson. And they bill it as a good workout for inner thighs and core – provided you can stay on long enough. But to be honest, I only managed for one go, though it was a pretty good one.

Here’s what happens: In the off time, the bull’s corral is deflated (see above) and the whole thing seems a bit scary. But when it’s time for a bull-riding class, fitness instructor Jillian turns on the pump and the whole apparatus turns into more of a fun house. She brings out the hats, cranks the country tunes and everyone takes turns trying to bring the bull into submission. (There are multiple speeds, but we didn’t get up too high.)

The hardest part? Well, the bull doesn’t exactly move steadily – and it tends to fall to the side rather abruptly, meaning you’re gripping your thighs and hanging on to the one rope for dear life, hoping it will move again before you slide off. And the whole time you’re laughing uncontrollably, which probably makes for an even better core workout.

But the secret, which I didn’t learn until the end of my turn? It’s actually fun to fall.

Tell me in the comments: What else should I try?

You know that moment when you think you’re getting sick, but it’s not for sure, and you want to do everything you can to try and fight it off? My go-to tricks are a combination of ginger tea, Emergen-C and as much sleep as possible, but I’d been hearing a lot about oil of oregano lately, too.

Oil of oregano is meant to be a strong natural antibiotic, and a lot of people swear by it. My Twitter friend Ana Manao, for instance, says “At the very first signs of a sore throat or a cold I take some oil of oregano and it kills whatever is brewing in there.” And one of my yoga teachers recommends it too, so much so that she sells it in her studio. So I picked up a bottle and took it home. And put it in the cupboard.

The thing about oil of oregano is this: it doesn’t go down very nice. I had heard all sorts of nasty stories and seen someone take it during yoga teacher training, and the other thing is, I’m pretty wimpy. “It burns your mouth a bit,” holistic nutritionist Meghan Telpner told me the other day – and that doesn’t sound like fun.

But then, the other day, I was feeling a little off – too much work and too many late nights. A little extra congestion (though admittedly I have allergies) and a slight tickle in the throat meant it was time to try an extra remedy. So I sucked it up one morning before breakfast (Telpner recommends taking the oil on an empty stomach), put five drops in a spoon and slurped them back.

Yes, it’s hot and it burns. And it did trigger a bit of a gag reflex, though I suppose you’d get used to taking it. But those sensations go away fairly quickly. What completely surprised me, though, was the overwhelming flavour of oregano. I know, it sounds dumb, but I hadn’t really considered that oil of oregano would actually taste like oregano.

The question is, does it work? Well, the brand I bought at the studio – it comes from Denman Island, B.C., and please excuse my cheesy windowsill shot above – lists a number of uses on its website, a lot of which make sense since the oil is supposed to kill bacteria. As for colds and flu, I think it’s hard to say. There’s no research either way that I can find. And colds are so much more complicated than just exposure to a virus – if you really run yourself down, you’re going to get sick no matter what.

If you are going to take it – and I think I will when I’m run down, as it never hurts to have an extra weapon in your arsenal – Telpner recommends doing it in the short term, for up to five days in a row, and not taking it over a longer period of time.

And hey, I’m not sick yet. *touches wood*

What else should I try? Tell me in the comments.

My back’s been a mess lately. I sit too much, I travel too much and I haven’t been doing enough yoga, as hard as I try. I recently splurged on a laptop stand and external keyboard (thanks, Black Friday!) to lessen the amount of leaning-over-laptop-at-desk that I do, but it’s pretty obvious I need some better self-care. (Now that I’m freelancing, massages have become so much more expensive – sigh.)

So when Toronto chiropractor Michael Cohen invited me up to his office near Lawrence West station to test out his Acuball, I was more than ready. Cohen developed the Acuball as a sort of upgraded version of rolling on tennis balls for relief of muscle tension. It’s a pretty cool little device – the small one is a couple of inches in diameter and softly spiky all around, while the larger one is like two semi-spheres stuck together with an extra band (which makes it easier to roll on your spine, something tennis balls won’t do.) The coolest part? The large Acuball can be heated in the microwave and will stay warm as you use it.

Cohen showed me how to use the Acuball in a number of different ways. First, he recommends placing it behind the lumbar spine as you sit at work (see picture) in order to preserve the natural curve of the back. (Did you know your spine is supposed to curve when you sit and stand?) Second, the small Acuball is a yummy self-massage tool for feet (roll it on the floor with the sole of your foot and some weight on it), arms and back (place between the sore body part and a wall and roll against it).

Best of all, the large Acuball – warm it first – makes lying on the floor a whole new experience. We started with it under the neck (another natural curve of the spine) while lying on our backs, with the knees bent and feet flat into the floor. At first, the Acuball seems invasive – the body kind of tenses against the pressure of the ball. But then, you release and sink into it, and the heat starts to penetrate the muscle. Cohen recommends lying in each position on the Acuball for three minutes before moving so that muscles have time to properly release. (Under the lumbar spine, as in the diagram, is another good position.)

After the session, I definitely felt my muscles were more relaxed, especially my glutes, which are constantly tight and hard to release in any way other than massage. There was a bit of residual pain in my upper back that I attribute to the fact that that’s my problem area right now – those muscles must have been especially tight.

You can buy the Acuballs individually or as a kit for $60 that includes an instruction book and DVD. They’re available from Cohen’s website or at various retailers and yoga studios. I for one will be heading to Noah’s or the Big Carrot asap to pick up a kit and give my back some more TLC.

What should I try next? Tell me in the comments.

I’ll go for runs by myself – and even run up and down stairs until I’m bright red. I’ll go to yoga classes as often as possible. But do you think I can do a single biceps curl at home, even though I have free weights, fancy Lululemon exercise bands and a yoga mat perpetually rolled out on the living-room floor? Nope. Doesn’t happen.

I just can’t self-motivate when it comes to strength training.

So when I was invited to join a backyard kettlebells class with instructor Deborah Brewster, I couldn’t say no. My muscles would have preferred that I say no, but my brain overruled them. And that’s how I ended up swinging a kettlebell around at noon on a Saturday until my entire body wanted to collapse on the ground.

I’m kind of lazy, but not generally in front of a group – my pride tends to keep me going. (If you believe in astrology, you can blame it on my being a Leo.) So group classes have always been my go-to for strength training. Not only do I not have to think, but the motivation’s built in – and unlike personal training, you don’t have to suffer under your instructor’s undivided attention. Best of both worlds.

And Deborah’s class was a good one. Since a few of us were new to the bells, she had us switching around for different exercises so that we used the perfect weight. We worked through drills with upper body, lower body and abs, along with some high-knees running in place and a few “suicide sprints” (don’t they sound like fun?). While some exercises involved moving the kettlebell around, like swinging it in circles from left hand to right hand around your body, others had it held in place as we did exercises like V sit-ups (the kind where you back doesn’t touch the ground) and lunges. Okay, we were meant to be pressing the kettlebell up as we did the lunges, but all I could do at that point was hold it at my shoulder and hope not to let go.

After about six months of not lifting a single weight (other than my body weight in a few light climbing sessions and in yoga classes), it’s not surprising that this workout completely wiped me out and had my muscles screaming the next day. As for how kettlebells compare to free weights, I think the biggest thing for a beginner is that you’re learning new moves, which challenges your muscles in new ways – meaning it’s definitely a better workout. The bells also allow you to do different kinds of exercises than you can safely do with free weights. And most important, they let you know how weak you really are, which is why I’ll be back for more punishment.