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AT AGE 92, THE SECRET OF MY FRIEND'S HEALTHY LIFE
AT AGE 92, THE SECRET OF MY FRIEND'S HEALTHY LIFE
https://ift.tt/3gpFWSS August 23, 2020 at 03:42AM https://ift.tt/1R552o9
Flu shots for kids protect everybody, study shows: An increased vaccination rate among grade schoolers in California was associated with a decrease in flu hospitalizations for folks in every other age bracket
Flu shots for kids protect everybody, study shows: An increased vaccination rate among grade schoolers in California was associated with a decrease in flu hospitalizations for folks in every other age bracket
https://ift.tt/2EsYqo6 August 23, 2020 at 12:11AM https://ift.tt/1R552o9
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How Mindfulness Can Reframe Body Image
Please note that this post discusses eating disorders.
Weight — the loss of it, the gain of it, the way our bodies fill out our clothes or take up space in public — is a concept that can completely occupy our thoughts. For some of us, obsessing about weight is a daily reality. The perfect size seems ever out of reach, and I don’t think there’s anyone out there who truly feels their body is the perfect size and shape.
I struggled with an eating disorder when I was in my teens. I never felt thin enough—even when my BMI was in the flashing-red-lights-get-this-girl-a-sandwich-before-she-passes-out range. As long as I had soft flesh anywhere on my body, I felt somehow vulnerable and out of control. The harder and smaller my body was, the safer I felt on some level. I found a way to sublimate hunger pangs into a kind of willpower practice that could make me feel a little high.
I felt strong and in control when I could ignore my body’s most basic needs, but I was neither. It’s hard to be strong when your muscles are disappearing into your body to try to keep your brain functioning, and it’s hard to be in control when your brain is in alarm mode because you are starving. In order to be strong and healthy, to focus on my work, to love my partner and family and friends, I need fuel. I need food in order to think.
It’s natural that during some periods of your life, you put on weight and, at other times, lose it. Hormonal changes, pregnancy/lactation, medications, times of grief, stress, or change—these are all phases where your body might cling to more or less weight. These fluctuations can themselves be stressful, and they can be triggering if you have a history with an eating disorder. Thankfully, even here, you can use mindfulness tools to manage these changes and love yourself all the same.
One tool I use is to continually return to how I feel on the inside, not what I look like on the outside. Bodies can be healthy within a huge range of sizes, and studies have shown that it’s generally healthier to be a little overweight than underweight. Whenever I get into a panic about whether or not I’ve gained weight and how much, I try to focus back in on how I feel in my body. Have I been giving my body healthy movement that it likes? Have I been feeding it nourishing foods? Have I been sleeping enough? These questions remind me that my priority is not looking good for someone else, it’s feeling good so I can live the life I want to live.
Another tool I use is to remind myself of what I’m not doing when I’m obsessing about weight. For many of us, food obsessions allow us to avoid feeling our feelings pretty effectively. I want to be a present and engaged person, to be able to think critically and serve my community. I can’t do this well when I’m busy worrying about how many calories a dried mango has. Food obsession is a kind of internalized oppression. It might feel like power to vanquish my hunger pangs, but true power comes with freeing myself from that internal oppression.
It’s normal for our bodies to be bigger or smaller at different times in our lives depending on what we are going through. When we can return our focus to self-care and nourishment and let go of the external result, we return to a loving relationship with the bodies we do have.
This post courtesy of Spirituality & Health.
Photo by Motoki Tonn on Unsplash.
The post How Mindfulness Can Reframe Body Image first appeared on World of Psychology.
Psychology Around the Net: August 22, 2020
This week’s Psychology Around the Net takes a look at the mental health care treatment barriers LGBTQ teens and young adults face, what business owners can do to cope with the mental stress brought on by COVID-19, how older adults with pre-existing depression are exhibiting resilience during the pandemic and quarantine, and more.
Entrepreneurship Was Tough Before COVID-19. Now It’s Testing Founders’ Mental Limits: Jocelyn Kung, CEO of The Jung Group, discusses the research her company has been doing regarding how business leaders have been dealing with their own mental stresses brought on by the coronavirus pandemic, and outlines five ways they can stay mentally fit during these unprecedented times.
Virtual Care Startup Raises $20 Million to Transform Behavioral Health for Kids: This week, Brightline Health announced $20 million in Series A funding to provide families throughout all of California with a user-friendly option for behavioral health. With the Brightline platform, children can virtually meet with a healthcare team to work on anxiety, depression, ADHD, and other issues. Brightline also involves parents, and provides a liaison with other programs, such as school-based interventions. Although Brightline Health currently serves only Californians, funding will allow the company to expand its geographic reach as well as patient base.
Inspiration Porn: It’s a Thing: Kristin Noreen discusses her brush with “inspiration porn,” what it means, and why — despite the deceptive name — it’s not a good thing.
Breaking Barriers to Quality Mental Health Care for LGBTQ Youth: Earlier this week, the Trevor Project published research showing that while the bulk of LGBTQ teens and young adults want access to mental health care, most of them don’t get treatment due to barriers like parental permission, healthcare costs, and stigma.
The 3 Tools That Help Me Get Through a Day: Could you spend an entire seven days in your home and not even notice? Shannon Cutts did just that, and while she’s not advocating a hermit lifestyle (she was stuck at home on work-related Zoom calls), she does have a few tools that help her make it through each day, especially during quarantine.
Older Adults With Existing Depression Show Resilience During the Pandemic: Researchers from five institutions analyzed older adults with pre-existing major depressive disorder from Pittsburgh, St. Louis, New York, and Los Angeles and found that not only do the older individuals show no increase in depression and anxiety during the coronavirus pandemic and quarantine, but also that they do exhibit resilience to the stresses of isolation and social distancing. Says UCLA’s Dr. Helen Lavretsky: “We thought they would be more vulnerable to the stress of COVID because they are, by CDC definition, the most vulnerable population. But what we learned is that older adults with depression can be resilient. They told use that coping with chronic depression taught them to be resilient”
Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash.
The post Psychology Around the Net: August 22, 2020 first appeared on World of Psychology.
Flu shots for kids protect everybody, study shows: An increased vaccination rate among grade schoolers in California was associated with a decrease in flu hospitalizations for folks in every other age bracket
Turn Your Grill Into a Smoker, Plus a Smoked Pork Chops Recipe
As the summer heat peaks, you probably don’t want to stand over your grill. Luckily, you can turn your grill into a smoker, creating a largely hands-off cooking process.
The taste of smoked meat screams summer to me, especially after spending the last eight years in North Carolina. If you want to try your hand at smoking at home but don’t have a dedicated smoker, you can actually transform your propane grill into a makeshift smoker. The process is fairly simple, but smoking time can be lengthy if you’re smoking a large cut of meat. So, a full tank of propane and some time at home are necessary to make it happen.
In this post, we’ll walk you through transforming your gas grill into a smoker and use bone-in pork chops as our test recipe.
How to Turn Your Grill Into a Smoker, and a Smoked Pork Chops Recipe
Serves: 2-4, depending on size of your pork chops
Time in the kitchen: 55 minutes, including 40 minutes hands-off smoking time
Ingredients
- 2 bone-in pork chops, about 1” thick
- drizzle of Primal Kitchen® Avocado Oil
- 1 tsp. paprika
- ½ tsp. black pepper
- ½ tsp. garlic powder
- ½ tsp. onion powder
- ½ tsp. salt
- optional: ¼-½ tsp. chipotle powder
- 3 handfuls of applewood chips
- optional: your favorite Primal Kitchen® BBQ Sauce
Things to Consider when Smoking Meat
What Type of Wood Chips are Best for Smoking Meat?
- Fruit tree wood: pork or chicken
- Bold woods (like hickory): large cuts of pork or beef
- Mesquite: beef
- Pecan: all-purpose
First decide the type of wood you want to use. Fruit tree woods like apple and cherry are great for pork or chicken. More bold types of wood like hickory work well with large cuts of pork or beef. Mesquite has a distinctive flavor and best for beef. For an all-purpose wood, go with pecan which tastes great with pork, chicken and beef.
Are Wood Chunks or Chips Best for Smoking Meat?
Wood chips are much smaller than chunks and therefore burn more quickly. If you’re smoking small cuts of meat like pork chops or chicken pieces, chips work nicely. If you’re going to smoke a large brisket or pork butt, use chunks instead. I recommend using about 3 handfuls of chips for every ~40 minutes you spend smoking.
Should You Soak Wood Chips Before Smoking Meat?
Soaked wood chips take a bit longer to create nice smoke, but they will also continue smoking for a longer period of time. I recommend soaking here because it keeps the smoking environment moist and the meat is less likely to dry out. Soak wood chips for about 30 minutes.
Do You Need a Smoker Box When Using Your Grill as a Smoker?
Some people buy a smoker box, or their grill comes with a smoker box, but mine does not. I kept costs down by draining the wood chips and placing them in the center of some heavy duty foil. Wrap up the wood chips in the foil and make a few holes in the foil with a knife. These holes will be where the fragrant smoke emanates from the package.
Directions
Once you have your wood chips ready, prepare your meat. Some brine their meat, but I found that a nice dry rub works well for something like bone-in pork chops or skin-on chicken thighs. Drizzle the pork chops with avocado oil and then cover the chops in the spice rub.
Turn your grill on and set all burners to high. Set your packet of soaked wood chips over the left or right-most burner on your grill. If your grill uses 4 heating sections, set it over 1 or 2 of the heating sections. If your grill has 3 heating zones, set the chips over the far left or far right zone.
Close your grill’s lid and let the grill heat up. It will take around 20-25 minutes for the wood chips to begin smoking. Once you see a steady amount of smoke coming from the wood packet, place your pork chops all the way to the left or right side of the grill (the side that’s opposite the wood packet). Turn off the two (or three) heat zones that aren’t heating the wood packet so that the only source of heat still on is the heating zone under the wood packet. Some say that you don’t want grill marks on smoked meat, but I can’t help but love the look of them, so I placed the chops on the right side of the grill when the grates were still a bit hot to get some marks.
Set a meat thermometer with a probe to the desired internal temperature (for pork chops, I like 145 degrees Fahrenheit) and place it through the side of the pork chop so the tip of the probe sits in the center of the chop.
Cover the lid of the grill and let the smoking begin!
Try to avoid opening up the grill while the smoking is taking place, although after 15-20 minutes, you can flip over the chops if you choose. Continue smoking until the internal temperature is reached.
Our chops were about 1” thick and took around 40 minutes to smoke. If you are using a thicker chop or larger cut of meat, consider having a second packet of soaked wood to place on the grill after 45-60 minutes once the first packet burns out.
Slice into strips, and serve with your favorite Primal Kitchen® BBQ Sauce on the side. If you like sweet heat, the Mango Jalapeño BBQ Sauce will make you very happy.
Enjoy!
Nutrition facts (per 1/4 recipe)
Calories: 130
Total fat: 4.5g
Total carbs: 3g
Net carbs: 3g
Protein: 18g
The post Turn Your Grill Into a Smoker, Plus a Smoked Pork Chops Recipe appeared first on Mark's Daily Apple.
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