The Things I Think About...

Yes, I've been negligent. My deepest apologies...

Because I've been in the midst of moving my life, I haven't been doing a lot of cooking. Seriously. Like none. It's bad. Anyways, though I haven't been cooking Paleo things, I've been thinking a lot about Paleo-ish things. In particular, I've been thinking more and more about how I should care about my surroundings and my treatment of my body externally as much as care about the food that I'm ingesting. I think this is a pretty common trend among us Paleo followers.

Here's the things I've been thinking about:

1. How to make my OCD cleaning habits more Paleo-friendly. Why on earth do I think that spending 30 minutes inhaling the fumes from my Lysol with Bleach bathroom cleaner is okay? It's being inhaled INTO my body, meaning that my body has to process it in some way. Sure, I'm not drinking the stuff and rushing off to the hospital for ingesting something poisonous, but my body still has to deal with the impurities/toxins that I end up inhaling. I've found this website which gives recipes for homemade household cleaners for various different services such as oven cleaner, tub/shower cleaner, dishwasher cleaner, etc. I've already talked to my roommate about switching over to the natural cleaning methods, and once I use up what I've got (yes, I'm frugal like that), I'm making a run to Sam's club for white vinegar, lemons, and a giant bag of baking soda. And borax if I can find it.

2. Paleo skincare. As I had mentioned the other week, I managed to get a staph infection from rowing camp. I went to my dermatologist (who I hadn't seen in two years) a week later just to make sure everything was healing well. And while I was there, we started talking about my history and continuing breakouts. In general, as long as I'm eating well (i.e. following Paleo), my skin tends to stay in decent shape in comparison to what I used to have back in college. However, I do still have little blackheads or whiteheads that pop up on my nose and jawline. It's not something I usually stress about, but sure, I'd like it to be gone. So my dermatologist convinced me to get these antibiotic wipes that I can use to remove the bacteria from my skin. She said it'd be good for clearing up the last of my staph infection, and would work for the breakouts on my face as well as for any heat rash I may get (my body does not handle heat rash well - it must be all of the Scandinavian blood in my family). So I gave it a try. I started using the wipes on my face once a day for about a week. The result? Not so pleasant. My face really broke out. In addition, it dried out my skin, so not only were my cheeks and jaw covered with red splotches, but also it was starting to flake and scab, even without picking at it. Pimples developed. I kept with it for a few more days, because I know that a lot of times things get worse before they get better (Such as stomach aches, headaches, etc. associated with starting Paleo - sometimes called the carb flu. Almost all of the paleo/primal blogs/books/dietary challenges out there tell you to be prepared for some immediate negative side effects.). After about a week and a half of this, I stopped and went back to just doing the oil cleansing method using a castor oil and grapeseed oil mixture, with apple cider vinegar + water as a toner, and either coconut oil or jojoba + rose hip seed oil as a moisturizer. And what happened but my skin started to heal and clear up within two days. What I'm taking away from this is that while medicine is indeed good for killing off bacteria/viruses that shouldn't be in/on your body, such as a staph infection, it may be best to allow your body to take of itself, but not stressing it out with bad food or unnecessary medicines.

3. Natural makeup. Since I've been thinking about skincare so much, I also started thinking about making the switch to natural makeups, meaning minus the toxins. Makeup gets into my pores (and probably causes part of my skin problems), and can get into your system via your eyes or your nose. I'm not quite ready to make the switch to much more expensive products that don't necessarily stay on as well, but I imagine it's going to happen at some point in time. And the funniest thing about all these thoughts about makeup is that Mark's Daily Apple just put up a post yesterday about it as well.

4. Motivation. I've been lacking motivation lately. That void mixed with a combination of work stress and moving stress has led to me snacking on sweets a lot and not working out as much, which in turn has led to me gaining weight. Yeah, the number on the scale isn't everything, but I do want it to be less. Overall, I feel pretty healthy: I still eat less sweets than some people I know, I exercise via rowing, I have decent physical endurance, my blood pressure is in the healthy range, etc. Though I'm sure the doctor would say that I could lose weight, it's not a major health concern from an organ-functioning standpoint. However, I've been having more and more joint pain lately. My ankles and knees tend to give me grief for any physical activity that I do, and I'm tired of going for a run and then limping my way downstairs to the freezer for ice packs for my knees (this happened Tuesday night). And usually that leads to me wallowing and eating sweets. Not exactly a cycle I want to be in. Anyways, I've been thinking that I need to refocus my goals to something that is more important than just my self-image. And what do you know, I've found it... Reducing joint pain. As a soon-to-be 26-year-old, I should not be having such frequent joint pain. Though I do remember my mom telling me even as a teenager that I seemed to have more aches and pains from soccer injuries than she did. According to an article on about.com, "Even small weight changes make a big difference because joint forces in the hips and knees increase about 3 times that weight with normal walking. This means that 15 pounds of extra body weight is felt by the knees as an extra 45 pounds." Ah, there's the rub... Motivation and will-power isn't everything, but I'm hoping that this can help me re-focus on my health goals.

5. Ergonomics. I am most comfortable sitting cross-legged. I do this at my desk at work. Or I sit with one leg folded up with that ankle resting under the opposite leg. It gives me nice large red marks on my legs, but I'm comfortable that way. As I mentioned above though, my joints have been hurting more lately, and I've been experiencing more pain after sitting at my desk for a long time, so I'm trying to force myself to sit like a normal person. It's difficult and uncomfortable, but I'm trying.