At least he didn't hit me...

 ...until he did.

October is Domestic Violence Awareness month, and I have tried different methods to raise awareness the past on social media with very little response or none at all; are folks generally not interested or is it simply the algorithm of social media interfering with my efforts? This is the first time I have written about it in my blog; probably it will have the same outcome but if my story is here, perhaps someday someone who needs it will happen upon it. This is a topic close to my heart for personal reasons, which I will talk a little about, but first some statistics.

According to Domestic Violence Hotline, in the US:

• About 24 people a minute are victims of abuse from an intimate partner. 
• 29% of women and 10% of men are victims of domestic violence, and about half of those have been injured physically, most of them seriously.
• About 50% of both men and women have experienced "psychological aggression" in an intimate relationship.

Reasons victims fail to reach out for help: 

• Fear of being able to make it on their own or fear of retaliation from the abusers. After experiencing years or decades of terror, fear is not easily overcome.
• No one has believed them in the past, or the abusers have isolated them so much from friends and family that there is no one they can trust. Few people know what is really going on, and often those around them believe the abuser is a wonderful person.
• They have no self confidence and have been mentally beaten down to think that they can't really leave nor that they are worth it. Emotional turmoil, self-loathing, belief it is their fault and brain fog hinders their decision to take action.
• The lingering hope that things will change and the violence will just stop. 

All this information is true because I have lived through this myself. I don't plan to drag the reader through the hell of my experiences nor do I want to relive them in the telling. But I hope I can share enough to impress on those who are listening the seriousness of this subject.

I had a mentor once who told me that we "teach people how to treat us." I can see how this played out in my life, except for my childhood where I was powerless to teach anyone anything, however I learned a great deal, including that my worth was dependent on how good I could be, then told how bad I actually was.  I am not a professional but it seems to me now that my controlling rage-oholic mother suffered from an undiagnosed mental illness, and my dear sweet daddy went off to work every day leaving 5 little kids in her care. I don't think he knew exactly what went on when he was gone, because none of us dared to say anything to even him but surely he had a vague idea that she was unstable; denial is a powerful force in these families. Physical abuse was not our mom's thing but she was very clever with verbal, emotional and even psychological abuse. I remember, when I was about 16, wishing that she would just hit me so I had evidence of what she was doing. Otherwise I had no way to process my childhood experiences; no way to explain suffering. At this point I would like to say after years of recovery I came to terms with my mother and understood that she didn't withhold love from me--she was too broken to give it. It was not my fault; she would have been that way if I had never been born.  By her end of life, I was at peace with her. But this revelation didn't come in time to prevent the dysfunctions in my adult life.

I left home and soon got married. I jumped from the frying pan into the fire. Running my life based on unhealed damage of my upbringing, set me up for teaching others to treat me the way my mom did.  I operated under the illusion that if I was good enough, worked hard enough, pleased others enough, could lose enough weight, and tamp down my needs and personality, that I would be treated with love and kindness in return.  I am here to tell you that strategy did not work and lead me into a toxic, volatile relationship with my husband, increasingly exacerbated by his alcoholism. While he became mean, controlling and verbally abusive, at least it wasn't physical.. until one night after 17 years marriage, it was. I got up the next morning and went to work and told no one. After that I managed to dodge trouble for 5 months, knowing in my heart that it would happen again--terrified that it would and still scared to take action. When it became more and more obvious that we were heading for a disaster, I followed the advice of a friend and called the number she gave me and made arrangements to go to a safe house. And asked someone to give me a ride when Hub was out of town for the night. IT WAS THE HARDEST THING I EVER DID! I was terrified, my self-esteem was in the sewer, and I didn't think I had the right to do that.  I prayed for days begging that I would stick to my decision and not give in.

My four month stay in the shelter was transformative. I learned strategies to avoid conflict and how to get away if there was trouble. When I returned home, I communicated to him abuse was unacceptable, and felt stronger in my faith, and in my confidence that I could take safe action when I needed to, even while was shaking in my boots.  He sobered up 5 years later; during that time I left temporarily 3 times when I thought it was unsafe. When he entered into recovery he told anyone who would listen, that by leaving when I did, we stopped the downward spiral of abuse in our life.  I still had lot of learning to do. I am grateful to God that our story didn't end in tragedy, but many stories do.

My prayer, while I write this, is that it will help someone take tiny steps towards freedom.

Where to find help if you are experiencing abuse or violence of any kind.:

Locally, if there is not an actual safe house, you can find help or information from your medical team, hospital, the health department, the local Community Action agency, and even local law enforcement. Or you can contact national hotlines.:

• 1.800.799.SAFE; 
• TEXT "START" TO 88788
• Online help: https://www.thehotline.org/ where you can chat with a live advocate.

For those who fear that their loved ones are involved in dangerous situations, I can share thoughts on that also--what the warning signs are and what, if anything you can do, but it will be in another post; meanwhile you can reach information at the contacts above. 

God bless everyone.

Maxie

Avoid the Alphabet News

The one function that TV news performs very well is that when there is no news we give it to you with the same emphasis as if it were.  David Brinkley

I started out as a television news anchor but I wasn't very good at it. I think I was too positive. I wanted to begin every newscast by saying, 'Good evening, in the news tonight...everything's great! Go to sleep. We'll let you know if anything important comes up.'  Bob Burg

I say prayers of thanks for the fact that I have reached this great age with fairly good health and a mind still intact. I can still think, reason and remember.

I remember the ways things were--I'm just not referring to the nostalgic musings about a childhood lifestyle that we see on social media, but things like real history playing out in the living room on the evening news. TV news, a new medium when I was a kid, was serious business and not to be missed; dinner time was planned around it and adults didn't go to bed without watching the nightly broadcast.  News was presented in an impartial responsible way and TV anchormen such as Chet Huntley, David Brinkley and Walter Cronkite, were almost deadpan in their delivery, not wanting to influence viewers even with their expressions.  Information was delivered in the similar format as newspapers:  News, Editorial, and Commentary and never should the three be mixed. 

As time went on, the news sets became more appealing, the newscasters more personable, and we liked how the new was presented to us and we trusted it.  But by the 1980's I began to notice the television news axis begin to subtly shift away from its original standards. Not only the national news but the local news as well. Twice, in two different states, I was aware of difficult neighborhood issues. When the local news stations reported the conflicts, they used creative video images, and clever dialogue editing to present a story that wasn't even close to the truth. I remember a stunned neighbor, who had been interviewed, saying, "But that's not what I said!" This was a profound letdown. I continued to watch the news on a national level but I didn't trust it anymore, but my interest in local news diminished.

By the 2000's, it appeared to me, that the main stream media axis was so tilted, the sphere was about to spin off into space... or maybe it already had.  I watched FOX news for awhile and it was better, but I eventually stopped watching it all. Mistrust of the news sources and emotional overload from the 24 hour news cycle of terrorism, shootings and disasters brought me to a point where I stopped watching. I had reached a saturation point. I was going through some other stuff in my life and just didn't need the stress. I don't even have cable anymore. I've streamed TV for years and I am vigilant about what I let into my living room. I get the news the old fashioned way, by reading it--online or in an occasional newspaper. I don't even need headlines; all I have to see is "thoughts and prayers" posts on social media and I go look it up.  That's worked for me for a long time.

Eventually, I became more interested in the news again and started exploring alternate news streams. Mainstream media is everywhere, even on YouTube, but I generally ignore them, digging deeper --even into underground news. 

What has brought me to telling this story in my blog are the events of the past few months. While I was watching coverage on the disastrous floods in Texas, I came across a video reporting the President's visit to the area and I wanted to see what he had to say. The newswoman played a very bad soundbite of his speech and then... heaved a sigh and rolled her eyes and made a derogatory comment. This is far from the way news reporting should be. I looked where video came from and it was  CN & the other N. Oh yeah. It was them. 

And then there's the news of the Charlotte NC murder of Iryna Zararutska, a young Ukrainian woman, by Decarlos Brown, a black man; this news was severely under-reported. The story actually appears to have been suppressed, it didn't reach the rest of the country for two weeks. Why would the powers that be do that?  Were they afraid of a reverse Ferguson effect? Riots and city burnings? Or were the authorities embarrassed that they missed 14 opportunities to get a dangerous man off the streets? The under-reporting of the death did an injustice to Iryna's family and loved ones, and simply added another reason not to trust the media.

And finally, we come to the murder of Charlie Kirk.  It seems mainstream media personalities have been removed from the air, at least for a minute, for their negative comments soon after his death. I can see where they thought that as unfair, because they have always had carte blanche to speak ill of anyone they wanted without consequence.  However, traditionally in the news industry, one didn't speak evil of the deceased until after the funeral, while respecting the grieving family and followers of the departed. Perhaps that item should be included in the employee contracts.

TV news will never be the same, and I am not the same either. I want to be informed but I no longer take things at face value any more; I don't want to keep them buried inside until I melt down, either. I am  a skeptic and I intend to dig for the truth, while keeping a sane balance of news intake in my life.  However, I am done with CN & the other N, and all the other alphabet channels; I believe their outlook is biased--the thing that the pioneers of television news didn't want--for good reason--it's detrimental to all of us.

If you made it this far, thank you. If you disagree, I hope it is respectful; there is a big hole in our society needs to be filled with love and kindness. Maxie

Tred carefully, ignoring the paper tigers, but keeping your eye out for the sleeping dragon.

 "Paper Tiger-one that is outwardly powerful or dangerous but inwardly weak or ineffectual."  Wshakes  

"I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve." Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto on the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.

In my younger life certain people had a great deal of power over me.  I feared them and, in an attempt to placate them, I believed their deceptions, worked to please them and complied to their demands.  I have since learned that their power over me was an illusion. I was the one who was giving them permission to control me.  They were only paper tigers--fragile and easy to shred; I had the power to break free from the tails of the tigers I had been tightly gripping. I had to face my fear. Doing that was the hardest thing I ever had to do, but I am free of them today.

However, these tigers can be dangerous if we fail to break free from them.  They may even lead to death.

The ideologies we attach ourselves to can be paper tigers, also. We become entrenched in our dogma or opinions drenching with them anger and fear; they become our obsession, blinding us to the truth. These tigers have no more power than what we give them but sadly they can also lead to destruction. They can make a person into an assassin.  

There are legends of sleeping giants in folklore and it is a term often used for volcanoes. Giants dozing in our society, when rudely awakened by attacks, assassinations, and catastrophes, account for drastic changes and unforgettable historic events we have witnessed or read about in history. 

I wonder what the results will be of the Sleeping Giant that was awakened on September 10, 2025. 

"Here Kitty Kitty"  8 x 10 Colored Pencil Reference from Pixabay

Exercise will NOT make you lose weight.

I dieted myself fat ~Amanda Salis

Disclaimer: I am not against exercising; in fact I have exercised most of my adult life and I believe it is the reason I am healthy today.  It is good for the blood, brain, skin, mood, hormones and all the vital organs. It gives us physical strength, tones muscles and helps us fight disease.  But it is not designed to make us lose weight.  

I confess that I take up more space on this planet than other people--something that I've struggled to change, without success, using a formula that I know today is flawed.  Really it was a simple plan if it had worked: Calories in and calories out.  We all have been taught that if we watch what we eat and exercise we will lose weight.  Burn more calories than you eat and voile! You get skinny! Right?  This philosophy is so ingrained into society that people still believe it and invariably someone will counsel me to just take a walk; the best form of exercise, right?. That happened to me today.

A lovely well-meaning lady tried to convince me that I need to started walking even though I told her I have exercised all my life and WALKED 3 - 5 miles a day for 8 years.  All that did was wear out my knees so that they both had to be replaced (remember heavier people are harder on their knees), and it never made me lose weight. I've always hated walking and had to force myself to do it; I believe  now that my body was telling me "This is not good for you, Maxie!" yet I ignored my intuition, following the advice of others: doctors, Oprah, diet gurus and lovely well meaning ladies.  Today my new friend, after hearing my story, persisted and asked me if I would walk if she went with me.  I told her no.  I don't like to take walks. This was so FRUSTRATING!  CAN'T ANY ONE HEAR ME? 

I was a chronic dieter and an obsessive exerciser for most of my life. In the end I realized that dieting only slows down the metabolism so that when I returned to a more relaxed eating plan the weight came back with reinforcements, which was devastating to my self -esteem; I felt like such a failure.  I did this over and over again.  The truth is that the body is designed to save your life when there is little food, and that fight to survive kicks in when we put ourselves in starvation mode so all that hunger and deprivation only made me fatter.

I saw a Fitbit ad showing a fat cartoon character getting skinny in three months by walking 10,000 steps a day.  That is such false advertising.  Certainly if a sedentary person starts an exercise program or goes to work as a mail carrier she might lost some weight initially, but the human body doesn't want to waste away to nothing, so it slows down its metabolism so that it stops losing weight.  That is a truth of it.  

God didn't use a cookie cutter when he created us.  If you like to walk and feel that it benefits you then by all means walk! But don't insist that it is the best way for everyone. And perhaps you have been blessed with a strong metabolism and a daily routine seems to keep you in good shape, don't assume that your routine will work for everyone.

I still exercise, but I do my own routine which is a combination of yoga, dance and a little weight training, concentrating on core and leg strength and balance. I exercise 15 to 20 minute several times a week and don't even try to do cardio. I am still researching and learning how to get healthier and stronger.  After years of disability I am super grateful for the gift of being able to move freely, but I still don't take walks.  

Learn more about it starting with this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3ghP-26CLg

https://www.aarp.org/health/healthy-living/info-2018/metabolism-myths-weight-loss.html

Heath Nut My story part 4 Saturated Fat

Fat is your friend. The brain thrives on a fat-rich, low-carbohydrate diet. David Perlmutter
Your levels of cholesterol are primarily dependent on your own body's production rather than the result of eating animal fats. Moreover, some forms of cholesterol are heart healthy. Harley Pasternak
Thin people are beautiful, but fat people are adorable. Jackie Gleason

Note:  This post is not meant to be medical advice.  It is only my experience with and observations about saturated fat.  Always include your doctor in the discussion before you make changes.  

     I was going to write one more post about my food journey in this Health Nut series, but when I was watching a documentary about diets and saw a doctor deriding folks who put butter in their coffee--thereby endangering their lives with saturated fat, I got a little angry. The Low Fat Diet is such an old story that doesn't hold water--it never did and I get tired of hearing it. I decided that saturated fat needed its own post.

     So where did all this hoopla about cholesterol and saturated fat come from?  Not from a distinguished research team who did studies and trials on the effects of fat on people, but from only one man, Ancel Keys. Certainly one man can have a good idea that changes the world, but one person can also be totally wrong and use the power of his or her personality to persuade others...cult leaders are an example.  By studying eating habits in different nations, Mr. Keys became utterly convinced that the epidemic of heart disease was caused by saturated fat and cholesterol.  He wasn't a doctor but a an aggressive and persuasive scientist who pushed his findings until he got the ear of the World Health Organization and the American heart Association.  Once the medical community was on board Ancel's ship, the government changed its diet guidelines and food pyramid while the food industry was revolutionized, totally changing our heath and our way of eating.  Opposing opinions to the saturated fat theory were silenced or ignored but today there those who dispute Mr. Keys' findings saying that he cherry picked his data, while others still defend him. However, I will leave that for now and focus on my own experiences with and observations about saturate fats.

     I have questions.  Since heart disease was a rare condition in the early 1900's and became the number one killer by 1950, why did Mr. Keys blame the fats?  While there were big changes to the American diet by then such as an increased intake of sugar, white flour and processed food, the dietary fat intake was pretty much the way it had always been.  Why was it suddenly the culprit? If we look at our ancestors--and I don't mean the paleolithic cavemen types--but our immediate ancestors, what where they eating during the decades of virtually no heart disease?  I know that my grandparents and beyond were mostly farmers.  Farmers ate food they raised themselves and most weren't vegans.  They ate bacon and butter, red meat and lard.  Have you ever been to a hog butchering? I have.  While the men dressed out the meat, the ladies took care of the lard rendering.  We cut the pork fat --and there was a lot of it-- into little pieces and placed it in a large cast iron kettle over a fire in the yard, where it was cooked down.  It took a long time and required a lot of pot stirring and gossiping, but in the end we wound up with a pot full of lard and a bi-product of "cracklin's (think pork skins.) which was considered a delicious snack.  The lard was packaged up and put in the freezer along with the meat and it was used to cook with.  When I got married and moved South near my husbands people, you could buy lard in the grocery store and every kitchen had a canister for bacon grease that had a special straining lid. No one threw away bacon grease!  And everyone ate bacon...except for maybe me.

     Then all of that started to change after Ancel Keys research. Doctor's prescribed low fat diets. The food industry heavily advertised low fat.  It was suggested that you drink 2% milk with your low fat cake--cake made with applesauce instead of butter.  Butter had to give way to margarine; to cut back further on fat there was diet margarine. Lard was replaced by Crisco and vegetable oil. They even made turkey bacon! No one considered it harmful to remove fat from foods, increasing the carbohydrate content or that margarine contained a myriad of strange  ingredients including trans-fat. 

     Since I was a chronic dieter I got 100% on board with the low fat movement. I bought the vegetable oils but used them sparingly; I cooked stir fry in chicken broth. I used low fat salad dressing (salads will make you skinny, right? No. They only made me hungry for cheeseburgers!) I ate diet margarine, and bought skinless, boneless meat and cut back on eggs. I used low fat coffee creamer and anything else I could get low fat. Oh yeah! low fat cheese! (yuck!)There was no grease clogging up the stove vent in my kitchen!  The main thing I remember about those decades was that I was always hungry. Always. Hungry. I have never forgotten the hunger and every time I see a misinformed doctor or diet guru talk about low fat, I still get a clutch in the gut.  

     So what did all that low fat dieting do for me? Lose weight? No. Create delicious food? No. Satisfying meals? No. Improve my mood and energy? No. Lower cholesterol? NO! Really, the answer to that one is no.

     I started rebelling in small ways in the early 90's while at a weight watcher's meeting the leader said we should eat the egg whites and throw away the yolks because the whites have a substance that lowers cholesterol.  What? Really? I had an epiphany. I looked around the room at the others listening in rapt attention and realized that they didn't get what I just got. The egg white cancels out the cholesterol in the yolk! GOD DONE TOOK CARE OF THE EGG! I started eating eggs again.

      Not long after I gave up on weight watchers, I was scolded by a doctor for high cholesterol. I couldn't believe it. This is when I was on a plant based diet, eating a lot of rice with a little fish.  She put me on a statin which caused side effects I couldn't live with so I stopped taking it.  Then I reread Dr Adkin's Diet Revolution (I read it once before the low fat era).  He said that you don't get cholesterol by eating it. I had another epiphany!  Wait! Beef has cholesterol.  What does beef cattle eat?  Other beef? NO! Grains! Carbs! Beef are fed grains! To fatten them up! Do you get it?  I hope you're getting it.  That is when I stopped the diet margarine and started...eating... butter!  Then about 7 years ago I learned that the vegetable oils that were low in cholesterol are too high in Omega 6 which are dangerous to the heart and they were heavily processed to boot.  I was a faithful canola oil user!  Well, I knocked that off and bought some olive oil.  Later I started using coconut oil (a super food with healing properties) and now I mainly use avocado oil--lots of it. Yes I hear you. That is SATURATED FAT!  Yes'm it is.

      So what has saturated fat done for me?  My cholesterol is normal--really it is.  All the time. I stopped gaining weight and started very slowly losing.  I eat healthy, yummy food. I actually cook avoiding fast or processed food. I have good moods and energy. I AM NOT HUNGRY!  I repeat! I am not hungry!  So I eat less.  I don't get up starving so I can skip breakfast.  I never liked to eat in the morning and I no longer listen to the misinformed push the idea that breakfast is the best meal of the day.  

      So that is my spiel. I am only one woman who's not a scientist or doctor, so I don't want to push this on anyone.  I just hope this makes you think or check out the links below or open up discussions with your doctor and love ones.  

      Then again, feel free to dismiss all this and just enjoy the picture.

      And yes, it's true. I put butter in my coffee.

It happened in Mexico Pencil 3 x 4

https://www.amjmed.com/article/S0002-9343(14)00354-4/fulltext
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancel_Keys
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/saturated-fat-good-or-bad#section2
https://www.makelifenatural.net/superfood-coconut-oil-30-uses-benefits/

                                   

Health Nut My story Part 3 Exercise

Too many people confine their exercise to jumping to conclusions, running up bills, stretching the truth, bending over backwards, lying down on the job, sidestepping responsibility and pushing their luck. Unknown
If it weren't for the fact that the TV set and the refrigerator are so far apart, some of us wouldn't get any exercise at all. Joey Adams
Physical activity is an excellent stress-buster and provides other health benefits as well. It also can improve your mood and self image. Jon Wickham

Note:  This post is not meant to be medical advice.  It is only my experience about diet and exercise.  Before you try anything new or stop what you are doing, check with your doctor first.                                                                  

This is post # 3 in my "Health Nut" series and tonight I want to talk about exercise and what a part it had in my life--what I expected from it, benefits I did and didn't get and even harm I may have done to myself.

I have exercised since I was young. I don't remember exactly when I got the idea that if you want to lose weight you need to exercise, but I believed it wholeheartedly. Every time I tried to lose weight I developed an exercise program to go along with the low calorie, low fat eating program I was on. For 30 years I was a chronic dieter--and exerciser. I would starve myself, following an eating plan given to me by the doctor or that I found in a magazine. (In the early days it was believed that one should reduced their calorie intake to 800 a day.)

When I was young and healthy I would take the weight off fairly easily. Little did I know that I was slowing down my metabolism a little during every diet. The body is designed to do that to preserve one's life in a famine. So when I would resume eating normally the weight would come back with reinforcements along with the guilt and insurmountable self loathing. I eventually reached a point I couldn't continue with the diets but I continued exercising hoping that it would magically do the trick.

I have learned something very important. Exercise will not make a girl skinny. Certainly a person can see an initial weight drop of 10 to 20 pounds when they start an exercise program but it rarely goes beyond that. The body puts a halt on the weight loss to protect itself. It's like.. if slightly pudgy office clerk takes a job bucking hay, even though he ate well, he might tone up and lose some flab right away but he won't continue with that because if the hard work made him lose weight continuously then he would waste away, so his body adjusts the metabolism to to stop the fat burn. In that light I realize that my excessive exercising also contributed to the demise of my metabolism.

I believed in the simple formula of calories in and calories out. Many diet gurus and even doctors still believe in that today. Fitbit shows how many calories you burn in a day like that is important information. All I had to do is to line up how many calories I eat with how many I expend in exercise and like magic I will get skinny, right?. It's is not that simple. If the calories are a chocolate bar it will spike the insulin level; to get rid of the high glucose the body turns it into fat, but if the calories are a handful of almonds the body treats the calories differently. Our complicated bodies are always adjusting hormones and metabolism to protect itself and keep us as healthy as possible. It's like the body fights weight loss on every corner.

Over the years I did calisthenics, isometrics, jazzercise, biking, swimming and walking as well as exercise machines and exercise classes and gym memberships, And aerobic dance-- I loved that but hated walking--I hated walking so much I forced myself to walk more! After all the doctors and Oprah said it's the best form of exercise for us, right? I had two total knee and one hip replacements because this heavy girl forced herself to walk; (I believe today that my body was telling me that the walking was harming me, that's why I hated it.). Before the surgeries, I was unable to stand so I exercised on the floor or in bed or in a chair. To not exercise was unthinkable and to do any less than an hour 5 times a week was cheating.

I am not anti-exercise. I still do it today but some days it's just a few stretches, and other days it's working in the garden. Or I may go after the punching bag or stair stepper. Heck heavy house work counts as exercise! I no longer believe that a 90 minute routine benefits me in any way. Exercise is very good for your whole body--brain, heart, lungs, skin, muscle, mood and bones. I believe the life time of exercise I practiced is one of the reasons for my good health with low blood pressure and resting heart rate. In fact, not exercising can send a person down the road of ill health. Perhaps exercise can aid weight loss by supporting a healthy and strong body, but IT WILL NOT MAKE US LOSE MEANINGFUL WEIGHT over the long haul! Anyway it didn't for me. So Exercise because it's good for you and because it makes you feel good. But be kind to yourself and don't expect it to do what it wasn't designed to do..

Petunia Oil 8 x 10

Sorry. To console you I am going to share my baby pig! Stay tuned for more installments in Health Nut.

Health Nut My Story Part 2--The Herbs

And God said, “See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food."  Gen. 1:29

Everyone has a doctor in him or her; we just have to help it in its work. The natural healing force within each one of us is the greatest force in getting well. Our food should be our medicine. Our medicine should be our food. Hippocrates.

You don't have to do something exotic to enjoy the benefits of natural healing agents. So many things in your kitchen - common spices, common herbs and foods - have powerful healing agents as well. Chris Kilham

Note:  This post is not meant to be medical advice.  It is only my experience--in all cases I sought medical treatment first and the nutritional information I received was secondary. Before you try anything natural check with your doctor first. 

My previous "Health Nut" post was about the circumstances that led me to start taking vitamin supplements and the benefits they brought me.  Over the years I have been so healthy my doctor accused me of being boring. However, as I grew older, I experienced more health challenges. Research revealed to me that God has provide us healing in nature--mainly herbs.

I'd like to make clear at this point that I am not opposed to medicine and doctors. I have a wonderful doctor I respect and who has been a great help to me. I also believe main person responsible for my health is me.  

The first critical health issue that came my way after I passed age 40 was arthritis in my knees and hip, leading to chronic pain and poor mobility.  That's when I started taking more than just a multi-vitamin.  I took MSM and glucosamine.  While it wasn't a magic cure, it did help.  If I didn't think it wasn't helping all I had to do was stop taking it to find out that it really had been.  I eventually had two knees and a hip replaced which transformed my life, so I no longer needed to take these supplements.  However they were useful when I needed them. So was exercise.

About the time arthritis came along, I started having serious acid reflux and found out I had a haital hernia and a damaged esophagus, which led me to taking prescribed drugs--Proton Pump Inhibitors such as Previcid.  I took them for 17 years and they worked great but I wondered if they might cause long term problems or hamper my ability to lose weight. After a time, not even this drug worked--I'd take a pill for a few years and suddenly it was like I had gotten a bad batch and I would need to switch prescriptions. The last time it happened there were no new drugs on the market, and the doctors were unable to present a solution, with exception of one ER doctor who told me that melatonin could help close the sphincter to the esophagus.  This sent me back to prayer and research.  

There are a lot of herbal remedies for digestive issues that I tried but didn't work for me. Ginger is good for the digestion but the capsules didn't give me the results I was looking for until I started eating a slice of raw ginger with every meal.  Caraway seed crackers really helped too.  I also took the melatonin and it helped--not only at night but all day.  I am no longer taking any over the counter or prescription drugs for acid reflux and I rarely have any trouble with it, especially after I changed my diet.  I think that I needed time to get the drugs out of my system before I could get better, because I am beginning to believe that some medicines create a need for itself in the body--kind of like an addiction.  There are always side effects to consider taking long term prescriptions.  I have had anxiety and severe depression because of stomach drugs.  I am grateful that I no longer have to take them.

On that note, not every doctor is open minded to alternate methods to healing.  When I told my gastrologist, about the ginger and melatonin he said they haven't been proven but if it works keep on doing it.  He probably thought it was all in my head, but if enough people tell him that he might be willing to research himself.  Doctors are not taught about nutrition and herbs in medical school.

When I started having surgeries, I came home from the hospital with a souvenir--staff infections.  These were powerful germs that required powerful antibiotics,  which I had to take every few months; I was told by a doctor that I would always have trouble with them.  Not wanting to go down the path of antibiotic resistance, I prayed for answers.  While my primary doctor told me focus on general health practices like water, exercise, sleep, taking extra vitamin C and good nutrition--I wanted the magic pill.  In this case I actually found one! One lovely day, I was on Facebook and saw a post about curative powers of black cumin seed and I knew intuitively that was the answer.  I found it for sale online and started taking it twice a day and infection episodes dropped off dramatically.  I found that there are many anti-bacterial and anti-viral inexpensive herbs on the market if I need them such as cloves, Oregon grape root, cat claw, echinacea, golden seal and oil of oregano.   Daily I take cumin, garlic, cayenne and turmeric --a microbiol (fights infections) and anti-inflammatory.   It's been a couple of years since I have taken an antibiotic.   Like Chris Kilham said above --our simple cooking herbs are powerful medicine.

I was spending more than I wanted to on supplements and herbs, so when I saw a two pound bag of organic turmeric on sale I bought it on impulse and then wondered...What am I going to do with this?  Fill capsules of course! I bought a gizmo for filling the capsules on Amazon for $20 and 1000 empty gel caps are about $8 (links below) and I have enough turmeric for a long time. I also fill cumin and cayenne capsules and some other herbs I found on sale I thought I'd try.  I spend an hour or two every few months filling capsules and have saved a lot of money. I think this truly makes me a health nut. lol

I am not finished with the natural healing discussion, I still want to talk about health problems that were fixed by changing my diet and about

Poppy Stepping Store 12 inches Acrylic on Concrete

 exercise, however this is enough for now. I hope you enjoy the art.

Capsule Filling Gizmo https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B078V7YNYT/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_image_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&th=1

Capsules https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000ACUJRW/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&th=1

Black Cumin Seed https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0048DO0JM/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&th=1