december_solstice | (no subject)

6/16/17

I tried to write 2 articles today, but it just didn't happen. After trying to get started for 30-45 minutes, I figure I'm just wasting my time. Plus, if I *force it*, I'll only have to spend even more time editing. So, forget it. I'll try again this weekend. The only thing I want to do for sure before the end of the day is follow-up with MyAccount (tuition balance) and the library (fees).

Ideally, I'd like to pump out 5 more articles for Hubpages between now and the end of next week. Again, I already have the 2 planned (Benefits of Kefir and TESO: A First Look at Horns of the Reach and Clockwork City <-- time sensitive because it's a recent announcement, therefore I want it up Sunday at the latest. I've also noticed that I get the most traffic/profit from TESO articles. LMFAO.), and I have some ideas for 3 more.

I'm also going to have 16g of WiFi again starting Sunday, so I'm super excited for that. I'll be getting a lot more work done. I don't mind going to Starbucks to work, but honestly, it's already getting old. Plus, it requires me to buy something from Starbucks, and they don't have anything healthy on the menu (they have like ONE smoothie, and it's not even made w/ fresh fruit...) - not to mention everything that isn't straight black coffee costs an arm and a leg. I don't want to become dependant on caffeine again. Sigh. Even the tea is pricier than it should be, IMO. It's just water and a tea bag, why would it cost almost $3 for a small?

Last night, I picked up a sizable container of kefir and consumed it slowly over the course of 5 hours. AND HOLY SHIT, I am feeling so much better since I drank it. I would drink it every day if it were possible, but if I'm unable to drink it all, I can't store it. Not to mention, it's expensive. So, I'm going to try twice a week. I'll buy another on Sunday. This stuff works incredibly quick for stomach/digestion ailments. I've been having a lot of digestive issues since we moved here. There are so many benefits that I wasn't even aware of (that would be particularly beneficial to me - stomach problems, weak immune system/getting sick often, lactose intolerant, some sources have even suggested it's good for fertility - not to mention it's a million times better than store-bought yogurt) and it seems it's incredibly easy to make. I wish I could make it myself. Once we're settled in an apartment, or transferred someplace with a kitchen, I want to try so many things including making bone broth.

I've been really interested in ways I can improve my reproductive health with dietary changes, but haven't really executed anything until recently. I'm taking a prenatal now, with added folic acid, which is extremely important in pre-conception (because folic acid, specifically can prevent early miscarriages (1 in 4) that may have been otherwise preventable if the mother were taking a prenatal prior to getting pregnant, and/or had any kind of family planning...) And, since I already have both miscarriages and stillbirths in my family, I want to do the best I can, as early as I can, within my means, to prevent the same from happening to me.

It's recommended before, during, and after pregnancy - so more or less, if you're at breeding age, or have young children, you probably should be taking it. I am also taking 600mg of calcium each day, which is only 60% of your daily value, but I figure it's better than nothing. I'm lactose intolerant, and now that we're living here, it's even harder to get calcium into my diet.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Wow that's great if it helped you feel better!! I mostly notice that it helps my eyes (less/no eyestrain) and skin (softer).

Kefir's already fermented, so (assuming you didn't find some pasteurized kind, i don't know how that works but you CAN ferment pasteurized milk still so maybe it's fine) you don't actually have to store it in the fridge. It'll get more and more sour and split into liquid and whey, but you can just mix it back together and if it's too sour, eat it with fruit or something. Alternatively you can keep letting it go until it REALLY separates and you can press the solids together, and those solids will be cheese. So I'd just try buying some small amount of milk, plopping a spoonful of storebought kefir into it, letting the milk sit out overnight and see what happens. It's not the real way to make kefir and isn't so sustainable (as buying the "grains" and actually making it for real) but you should at least make yoghurt which is cheaper and more healthier than the storebought yoghurt. People might scare you about it getting moldy or going bad and stuff but i've never had a problem aside from when i actually mixed things i was going to ferment with utensils that i'd already eaten off of. And when making nattou, when i had the wrong temperature and too much air (it didn't go moldy, it just didn't work and was gross).

Yeah the reason why most people are lactose intolerant is due to the pasteurization of the lactose, not the actual lactose... hopefully that's the case for you too. I can tolerate kefir made from pasteurized milk way better than normal pasteurized milk, but it still got to be too irritating for me. If I had more money I'd definitely figure out a way to order unpasteurized milk from a farm and make kefir that way though.

From all my reading, it seems like birth problems, no matter what they are, always have to do with the mother (some people say both mother and father though the mother's more important obviously) having a lack of nutrition. Ignoring getting 100% of your daily recommendation, we're really supposed to be getting like ten times the amount --- not coming from supplements, but from real food. I think our standards of nutrition and what a "normal, healthy" mother and baby are have fallen so low that we don't know what's good anymore. I mean like, I read that there's actually no reason for you to get fat when pregnant. Your belly might get fat, sure, but there's no reason for the rest of you to get fat - that's due to your bad diet. I haven't looked up any more about it so I don't know if it's true or not, but it very well could be, and instead we're all like "becoming obese when you're pregnant and then never gaining the weight back is normal lol!".

Yeah, yesterday was the second time I bought kefir and I've had solid bowel movements for nearly a week (TMI lol) and no gas, no upset stomach - I mean, I haven't felt this well for a really long time. That lingering cold has finally left. What sucks is I noticed that the store I'm buying it at - which is the only one I've seen it at in the area, is out stocking them for some reason (to replace it with more Latin American yogurt smoothies I believe) :/ I did manage to buy a completely plain, no sugar added version and it was really nice. Difficult to drink on its own, but I tossed in some fruit and honestly, it makes it more than tolerable. I like it. I want to be weird with it, and see how it turns out if I leave it in the room, but since the inspections are random (and occur regardless if you're home or not), I don't wanna chance it.

I believe for the most part, like, aside from weak sperm (swimmers are too slow), it's all female.

I believe it's like 20% of all pregnancies end in miscarriage in the U.S. I don't know for sure if that statistic is actually lower elsewhere. More so, most of them happen within the first 7 weeks. And, sometimes you don't even know it happened.

From what I've learned and been told by my physician, your chances of a loss are low IF you were healthy before you got pregnant and also at the very veryyyy beginning, like in the first few weeks. Most miscarriages happen in the first trimester, and from the looks of it, it's often because you're already super unhealthy/ have medical problems/ are obese and/or simply the fact that you didn't give your body the nutrients needed to support that fetus when it needs it most. Just the folic acid alone is like a make it or break it situation. And, you're right. So, yeah, diet. That's more or less what it is.

Women think since I'm taking this prenatal, I can eat nothing but cake and cookies for 9 months, but that's not the case. That prenatal is only there to make up for those vitamins that are harder to come by and give you that extra boost..but you're still supposed to have a nearly immaculate diet....

That's completely true. Like, I'm already overweight, so I shouldn't be gaining more than 7-15lbs or so. If you're normal weight, you can gain a little bit more - but this idea that it's OK and NORMAL to gain 50+ lbs is just not true. And, yeah, you'll gain weight around your middle, and it's normal to look pregnant still for several weeks after the birth, but that all goes away on its own.

BASICALLY, if you did it right you shouldn't have "baby weight" to get rid of.