Eat a Rainbow

Now that cooler temperatures are here, I can’t help thinking of the coming winter. I dread the frigid temperatures, but I no longer have to worry about the depressions I used to get, because I discovered a way to minimize the effects. I steep myself in color, using bright comforters and afghans, set out large bouquets of silk flowers, and spend time outside to get the benefit of the natural full spectrum light. But mostly I eat a rainbow every day.

Eat a rainbow? Impossible, you’re thinking. But what is a rainbow? Refracted light. Color. Energy. Color is energy, so by eating color we eat the color’s energy. And the best way to eat a rainbow to eat a salad. Not a few wimpy iceberg lettuce leaves with a few croutons sprinkled on top, but a robust salad full of color and life and energy.

Edible Rainbow:

Red: tomatoes, radishes, red bell pepper
Orange: carrots, orange bell pepper
Yellow: yellow squash, yellow bell pepper
Green: leaf lettuce, zucchini, broccoli, green bell pepper, olives, celery, avocado
Purple: red cabbage

Blue is missing, but if you serve your rainbow on a sky blue plate, you will have your rainbow, a rainbow that nourishes the body, nourishes the mind, nourishes the soul.

Purple, Menopause, and You

After menopause, many women begin to favor the color purple. For some, it might be a rebellion against the conformity in dress they had to adhere to during their younger years, for others it represents a move to a more spiritual time in their lives

Purple is associated with spirituality, enlightenment, and transcendence of ordinary reality. As young adults, we all — men and women alike — tend to avoid purple, suggesting a lack of spiritual dimension in our lives. As we get older, our minds turn to thoughts of life and death. What is it all about? What is coming? Did our lives have meaning? And with this new spirituality often comes a fondness for the color purple.

Besides this spiritual aspect, people who like purple are intuitive, imaginative, and highly creative. They have a greater sense of the intangible than most people; they don’t have to see it to believe it. Purple people are easy to live with and hard to know; sometimes their friends don’t even understand them. These characteristics often show up in older people, especially women after menopause. Their families are grown, and they have time to indulge their inner lives. They begin writing that novel they always wanted to write, take up painting or other artistic ventures, read books that help them find the answers to life.

It is this striving for meaning and purpose that gives us an affinity for purple.

There are two faces of purple. When it as on the reddish side, it embraces sensuality; when it is on the bluish side, it embraces spirituality. Trying to balance those opposites is one of the reasons purple people are so enigmatic. Just when someone thinks they have the exciting red side of them figured out, the tranquil blue side colors their lives. It has been said that because of this balance, purple is the ideal color. If so, then purple people are at the pinnacle of life: sensual and spiritual, exciting and tranquil, warm and cool.

So, if after menopause you find yourself gravitating toward purple, embrace it. You earned it.

Melatonin, Menopause, and Insomnia

Recent research indicates that melatonin supplementation is safe, but that except in rare cases such as the blind or nightshift workers, it is not an effective sleep aid. Controlled trials showed no difference between melatonin and placebos. (Isn’t it interesting how placebos work at least in a small way for so many different ailments? Maybe scientists should stop perfecting drugs and start perfecting the placebo. It would be safer, cheaper, and perhaps more effective than many of today’s drugs.)

I found the study interesting because I take melatonin, and it does help me. I suffered from insomnia for many years. I’d toss and turn, sit up and rearrange the pillow, and then toss and turn again. I don’t know if it was the nightly exercise or the lack of sleep that exhausted me, but either way, I was tired all the time. Then I heard about melatonin and decided to try it. To be honest, I took it as an immune system enhancer because I seemed to get more than my share of colds. Interestingly enough, it didn’t help noticeably with my immune system, but I started sleeping better.

Melatonin does not work like a sleeping pill. Basically, it sets the biological clock and lets the body know when it’s time to sleep, which is why it’s good for jet lag. I take it an hour before bed, and it helps me fall sleep, but it does not promote deep sleep. Although I still wake up often, I can lie comfortably and eventually fall back asleep. I would not recommend melatonin in place of a sleeping pill for those who need it, but it does work for me, at least most of the time.

Melatonin is a hormone, and like all hormones, it diminishes with menopause. The decrease in melatonin in turn increases the effects of aging. The body repairs itself during sleep, and if there is not enough sleep, the body can’t repair itself, and so the body ages. And the more the body ages, the more melatonin and all other hormones diminish. The cycle of life.

So, even if melatonin works for me because of the placebo effect, I’ll continue taking it. I need whatever sleep I can get.

 

A New Moon Rising — Again

This morning, before the snow and sleet, it rained; a timorous promise of spring. 

Spring doesn’t speak to me the way it did when I was young. The winds blow away the gentle voices of hope and rebirth, leaving only the harshness of a world struggling to overcome the ravages of winter. But this year, I am looking forward to spring — the winter has been long and bitter, and I feel as if my new life has been on hold.

A friend told me that the worst thing about aging was the people you lost on the way to getting lost yourself. I thought “getting lost” was an apt way of describing the aging process. Everyday, it seems, vital parts disappear or begin to fade out, and you no longer know who you are.

After I went through menopause, I felt as if I were reborn, a new moon rising after the old one had set. Those missing parts no longer seemed to matter; they belonged to someone else, someone I could barely remember. Now that the cocooning winter is almost over, I am again wondering who this new person is, the one I am becoming. In the youth of my old age, in this spring of a new year, I realize that there is still some hope left in me. Perhaps success will still come my way. Perhaps new friends are on the horizon.

Perhaps my moon is still rising.

Do Childless Women Have a Harder Time With Menopause?

I don’t have the answer to the question posed in the title; I was hoping you did. Menopause has been fairly easy for me, but perimenopause (the years preceding menopause) was horrendous. The depression, the painful vaginal itching, the bouts of tears that continued for hours at a time made wonder if nature was punishing me for not having done my genetic duty.

I’m certain the handful of supplements I take every day help with my menopause symptoms, and so does walking, which is a great way balance hormones. Also, once the depression lifted and the tears dried up, I felt so good that anything would have seemed easy by comparison. But the question still rises: is my easy menopause a result of my efforts, or did nature finally realize that I was past child-bearing age and give me a break?

Nine Health Foods That Aren’t and Never Were

I came across a bizarre article on msn.com entitled “Nine Health Foods That Aren’t.” The foods? Bran muffin, chicken Caesar salad, tuna melt, chicken wrap, turkey burger, fruit smoothies, granola bar, pasta salad, and yogurt with fruit on the bottom.

The original health foods — foods formulated and sold to promote health — were corn flakes and graham crackers. A century later, they can barely be called food, let alone healthy. Bran, granola, and unsweetened yogurt are all health foods, but bran muffins, supermarket granola bars, and fruit on the bottom yogurt are the cornflakes of our generation. Perhaps a bran muffin made with whole-wheat flour and a minimum of honey for sweetening could be considered a health food, but the great tasting ones sold in coffee shops, bakeries, and grocery stores never were. Perhaps even a granola bar at one time was a health food, but supermarket granola bars are one step away from being candy. The same can be said of yogurt — especially the kinds without active probiotics.

But chicken Caesar salad, chicken wrap, turkey burgers, and pasta salads were never health foods. And tuna melts? Are those even food? (Didn’t you see the movie Three to Tango?)

If the article had been entitled “Nine Foods You Think Are Good for You but Aren’t,” I would have had no objection. But I know health foods. And these never were.

Fat People Deserve Better

The commercials this time of year are even more tiresome and relentless than the Christmas ones. First the bacchanalia, then the dieting. Admittedly, most of us would like be less cushioned, but the simple fact is that diets don’t work except to put money in corporate pockets.

I get tired of all the thin folk who feel as if they have a right to an opinion about the rest of us. They think they know what type of person we are just by looking at us. Sure, some overweight people overeat, but so do some thin ones. Not all thin people got that way by diet and exercise; a great percentage of them are proud of being able to eat whatever they want without gaining weight, forgetting that it’s an unearned genetic gift. And not all overweight people got there by overeating; their weight is also an unearned genetic gift.

I have been sad all my life over my own genetic gift of being short and fat, partly because of the way I look, but mostly because the way I look does not reflect the person I am. I look self-indulgent and lazy, though I am self-disciplined almost to the point of asceticism. I eat properly and exercise, but until menopause, I never lost weight. Nor have I been a regular in a doctor’s office. When I broke my ankle a few weeks ago, that was the first time I had seen a doctor of any kind in more than three decades. (Though I have to admit that has more to do with my dislike of the breed than because I enjoy perfect health.)

I know fat isn’t beautiful, but neither is thin. I remember my disappointment when I first saw nudity in the movies – all those bones jutting out was unsightly to say the least. Whether fat or thin, ninety-nine percent of us aren’t beautiful. In fact, some of those considered to be the most beautiful women in the world are downright unattractive. Dare I say ugly?

Fat is still the one allowable prejudice, perhaps because thin folk believe we brought it on ourselves. I have to grit my teeth every time I see an actor in a fat suit. Blackface is no longer acceptable, and neither should be the mimicking of fat people.

We have our own problems, we don’t need your attitude.

Life is a Pain . . . In the Ankle

I broke my ankle a couple of weeks ago just before my mother’s funeral, and I am still stunned. I have never broken a bone before, so that alone was cause for shock, but the worst of it was the crutches.

I remember seeing, when I was young, other children swinging along on their crutches (a badge of honor or at least of wealth, because most of those broken bones were the result of skiing accidents). I always wondered what it would be like to use crutches, and now I know: defeating, debilitating, depressing.

The emergency room people didn’t adjust the crutches properly, so I was overbalanced and kept falling. Even after they were properly adjusted, I still fell once or twice. It’s amazing I didn’t break the fiberglass cast or even the other ankle.

When I was down, I felt totally helpless, and this feeling of helplessness was exacerbated by my brothers and sisters-in-law trying to pull me to my feet. I understand they wanted, perhaps needed to help, but what I wanted was to be left alone so I could figure out on my own how to lift myself up using only my hands and one leg.

It’s a good thing the hotel where we were staying had a wheelchair, because those crutches totally defeated me, especially when it came time to lift myself up a curb. I could not do it. I do not have great upper body strength – I’ve never been able to do pull-ups or chin-ups — but I have been working out with thirty and forty pound barbells, so I do have some upper body strength. Just not enough.

That first night was rough. I had driven by myself to California for the funeral (which I missed) and I was nine hundred miles from home. I had visions of being stuck in that hotel for six weeks until I healed, because how would I ever be able to get back? I knew the driving part would be okay (love that cruise control!) but what about bathroom breaks and gassing the car?

I was lucky. The next day I went to the bone specialist the emergency room people had suggested, and he took off the fiberglass cast and put me in something called an aircast, which allowed some movement of the foot while keeping the ankle immobile. He also said I could put weight on it as soon as I was able. What a total relief! I still needed the crutches for a few days, but as long as I could use the bad foot for balance, I could get around fine.

I did get home all right, and my ankle is doing better, though it is still painful. What I will never get over is that feeling of total helplessness. As I’m heading into old age, I am afraid this is a feeling I will be meeting again, and I don’t like it. As soon as the ankle is healed, I will resume my walking and weight training. I will continue to take calcium supplements. Though I do not believe my break had anything to do with being newly post-menopausal, I do know that after menopause our bones do weaken, and I want to give myself every benefit I can. Beyond that, I guess I have to just leave it up to the fates.

I learned one other thing — handicap accessible ramps and bathrooms are not all that accessible.

A Tonic for Menopausal Blues, Hot Flashes, and Weight Gain

Call me dedicated, determined, or demented, but I went for my walk today despite the sleet and frigid wind. Okay, so I didn’t walk as long as I normally do, but I still was out there. That’s how much I believe in walking as a cure for menopausal blues, hot flashes, and weight gain. Nothing else I have ever heard of does so much with so few side effects.

There are side effects, of course, but they are all good ones: more stamina, a healthier heart, stronger bones, less body fat. I realize that a pill, or even a handful of them in the form of nutritional supplements, takes less effort and might actually do some good, but nothing beats old-fashioned walking for an all-around tonic. It’s also free, requires no special clothes or membership contracts, and can be done anywhere. It doesn’t even take much skill or effort. If you have two good working legs, all you have to do is keep putting one ahead of the other and momentum will carry you forward.

What are you waiting for? Good weather? There’s no such thing. It’s almost always too hot or too cold, too wet or too dry.

So brave the streets of Peoria or wherever it is that you live. Your body will thank you for it.

Welcoming Hot Flashes

Like most women, I feared menopause and the resulting hot flashes. Then I read an interesting comment from an older woman. She said she didn’t know why it was a problem for so many women; she loved them. She’d always been cold, and the hot flashes warmed her up. After that, I lost my fear.

Now that I’m going through menopause myself, I too welcome the hot flashes. Though, to be honest, I keep my house so cold that all I ever get are warm surges.

So, for those of you who are suffering with hot flashes, here is a bit of advice: turn down the thermostat. The temperature should be low enough that you need to wear a sweater or two; that way when a hot flash starts all you have to do is remove the sweaters.

If your family complains about the cold, let them. You have taken care of them all your life; now you need to take care of yourself.