Take Your Vitamins… Maybe
Hello friends, I’m your Vitameatavegamin girl.
Are you tired, run-down, listless?
Do you poop out at parties?
Are you unpopular?
The answer to all your problems is in this little bottle. VITAMEATAVEGAMIN.
Remember “I Love Lucy” and this hilarious episode? According to an article in the NY Times, Americans love vitamins too, to the tune of about $23 billion dollars a year
Vitameatavegamin contains Vitamins, Meat, Vegetables, and Minerals.
Yes, with Vitameatavegamin, you can spoon your way to health. All you do is take a great big tablespoonful after every meal.
Mmmmmm…. It’s so tasty, too! Tastes just like candy!
We want it easy, to “spoon our way to health.” The best way to get your vitamins is to make healthy food choices most of the time. Fruit will satisfy a sweet tooth, you’ll be surprised. Choose vegetables, whole grains, and try to eat a diet lower in red meats and unhealthy fats. The best way to get your vitamins is from the food you eat.
However, if you choose to take vitamin supplement, buy them from a place that actually sells vitamins and restocks regularly. Vitamins lose their potency when they sit on the shelf or are exposed to warmth and light. Believe it or not, according to the NY Times article, the Wal-Mart brand Equate Mature is as good as the premium brand Centrum Silver, and cheaper to boot. Remember dusty bottles are not a good sign.
Bottom line, buy and eat good food and you won’t need vitamins, however, if your eating habits can stand some improvement, just one multivitamin a day is all you need. Really.
So why don’t you join all the thousands of happy peppy people and get a great big bottle of Vitameatavegamin tomorrow!
That’s Vita-meata-vegamin! (wink)
- Aunt B
Be Happy, Everything Else Can Wait
I’m going to be very, very, very happy, and then do everything I have time to do after that.”
— Chekov
I love that quote. How often do we think of being “happy” before we do everything else?
Here’s a conversation I had with another soccer mom:
Me: If you don’t mind me asking, what do you do for a living? I like to bring professionals in to talk to my students about the “real world.”
Her: I manage major accounts for (insert name of large multi-national company here), I’d be happy to talk to your students.
She paused, and then continued.
Her: You know what I’d tell your students? I’d tell them, you have a long time to work, and you spend a lot of time doing it. Do what makes you happy.
She paused as if to imply she didn’t exactly love her job.
Let me be frank, I don’t make a lot of money but I really enjoy the work I do.
But what does it mean to be “happy, happy, happy?”
For me, it means that the dishes can wait. The cat box doesn’t have to be cleaned right this second. It means the kid goes to bed early and I get to crochet a scarf in peace. It means feeding my soul, so when someone needs a soothing hand, a patient ear, I can be there.
Happiness is a choice you know. Everything else can wait.
- Aunt B
Knocking on Hope’s Door
Andrea Ivory goes door to door to sign up uninsured women for FREE mammograms.
Eating disorder: my struggle to stay alive
Every Tuesday Mama shares a personal story.
This week’s story was written by Kristen
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My name is Kristen, I am 15 years old. If someone were to describe me they would probably say something like she’s nice, funny, and crazy. But people who know me better would not go with those words at all. Maybe that’s what I was two years ago, but now I’m far from those things.
I am suffering with an eating disorder. Over these two years that I have been struggling with this, they have been the most depressing, terrible years of my life. The problems started when I was in the 8th grade, that’s when I started puberty. I would notice things about myself and other girls that normally, I would have never paid attention to.
I was comparing myself to other girls and wishing that I could have what they had. But in 8th grade, I was so thin. I started to question that. I became obsessed with watching what girls around me would eat. I would go online and look up pictures of girls who were thin. I would hang out with my best friend and just admire the great things about her that she had that I didn’t. I would watch her eat, notice how much she would take-in and I would try to control what I ate but I would always out-eat her. But, what I couldn’t see, was that I just had a larger appetite.
As time went on, I would routinely be checking my calories. I didn’t even understand what was too much and what was good for me. I became obsessed with looking at myself in the mirror and criticizing myself and tearing myself apart. I began dieting, taking diet pills. Checking my weight many times a day. When I couldn’t lose the weight I started to become really down on myself thinking I couldn’t do anything right. I would hate myself for not being able to lose weight.
That’s when I started making myself throw up, not too much, but at least once a day. I didn’t lose weight, but it gave me a little bit of relief. At some point between the 8th and 9th grade, friends would tell me I was looking really thin. But, that was because I was thin to begin with and loosing three pounds was noticeable.
Towards the end of 9th grade, my best friend and I would start fighting a lot because she hated my boyfriend. I loved him, but this caused a lot of problems with me and her. This put so much stress on my shoulders and I stopped eating. Before summer me and my boyfriend went on a “break” and things were a little better, but things with my best friend were still not the same.
She went away in the summer to go to her beach house. I was alone at home and I started hanging out with different people, because I didn’t really have anyone to hang out with.
One day I was hanging out with one of my old friends, and she looked really thin, she told me that she was taking some new diet pills that had made her lose a lot of weight. I asked her what they were, she told me, and I went out and got them. They worked like magic. I swear I lost a pound every day. I was never hungry. It surprised me so much, because never have I ever been able to restrict food so much.
I went days without food and I felt amazing. I saw the change in my body and I loved it. I lost eight pounds and I thought it was pretty noticeable, but what really bothered me was that my mom didn’t say anything to me. She didn’t care, and she didn’t worry. That’s what I was working on, and I don’t know why, making my mom worry. For some reason I wanted her too. And when she did we began to clash. My mom was so worried, and so were all my friends and family members. I hated it, everyone would try and make me eat and I just wanted everyone to leave me alone. No one could control me, I didn’t eat and everyone knew I wouldn’t.
After about a week of my mom nagging me about eating, my family went on a vacation to New Jersey for a week. It was with my cousins, my family, and family friends. I was so excited, I thought it would be fun. It was a disaster. No one could be around me Everyone was mad at me. People were worried, and crying, hating me, and criticizing me. While in New Jersey, I fainted almost three times. I couldn’t move without everything in my vision going black. My body felt like it was heavy and dying.
When I came back from New Jersey, I immediately went to my best friend’s house, who was now home. One look at me and her eyes filled up with tears, she looked at me with surprise and fright. We sat on her couch and just talked and cried. She could feel my pain, and I could tell. But being with her made me feel comfortable.
We all decided to go out for dinner (me, her, her mom, and her sister) we got there and as I was about to order, I started crying. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t eat. I hadn’t noticed that I had got to the point that I was afraid to eat. I could not force myself to eat anything. I was scared, and I knew that I was in serious trouble.
I slept at her house that night and the next day my mom came over and told me she wanted to take me to the hospital. I laughed in her face and said no way. But, I went because everyone was insisting that I go. On the way there, I knew that this wasn’t going to be good. I knew even thought I denied it, I was not okay. We got to the hospital and they admitted me into the ER.
I had lost over twenty pounds and was less then 80 percent of my recommended body weight. I was 5′5 and I weighed 97 pounds. The doctors told me I almost died, that my pulse was so low that if I hadn’t come to the hospital that day I would have had heart failure.
I was on feeding tubes for three days untill I was moved to the rehab in the hospital. There I stayed for three weeks and I gained 6 pounds. I had to leave because my parents insurance wouldn’t pay for it anymore. I went home and the first meal I had in front of me I cried. I cried and cried for the next month.
School came and I thought people were going to think I was fat, but they didn’t. It’s been a month and a half since summer and I weight 103 pounds.
I go to therapy twice a week and to a nurse practitioner where they weigh me and check my heart and everything else. My eating disorder has almost destroyed me; it has almost killed me and I have lost almost all my friends. It is a battle everyday, but I still fight.
Oh no, please don’t let it be the flu
This morning I woke up with a tingle in my throat. My first thought was, “Oh no, I hope I don’t have the flu”. Had my diet of organic vegetables, organic fruit, organic meat, fresh squeezed juice, popcorn, and the occasional french fry or two failed me? I hoped not. As I gulped down a potent elixir of fresh squeezed lime and lemon juice and a few echinacea tablets, I wondered how I would make a Thanksgiving dinner for 10 people while fighting a sore throat and fever.
Much to my delight, the tingle in my throat turned out to be a simple dry throat. My lemon and lime elixir wet my whistle enough to make the tingle go away. My diet of organic food had not failed me. I’ve waged a preemptive strike against the cold and flu.
Join me in my War Against the Cold and Flu Season.
- Mama
My name is Mama and I have an addiction
When it comes to food, I am totally addicted. A bad mood, or even worst, a bad day can be completely erased with the right mixture of meat, veggies, potatoes, and a colorful drink.
Friendships have been made and lost over food. I still remember the time I thanked a ‘distant-relative’ by taking her out for lunch. She did the unthinkable and ordered soup, salad, a martini, a lobster dinner (market priced) and dessert. I was a mere college sophomore and could barely feed myself, let alone pay for a seafood feast. Needless to say, she doesn’t get much love around the holidays.
Today, one of my biggest obsessions is Carrot, Apple, Beet juice from the Whole Foods Juice Bar. I know, it sounds awful. Who in their right mind would want to drink carrot, apple, beet juice? Me. It is actually quite tasty. Oh, and the health benefits are amazing. It is an energy booster, colon cleanser, and immunity booster all rolled in one.
What is your addiction?
- Mama
Fighting Lupus: My personal story
Every Tuesday Mama shares a personal story.
This week’s story was written by an Anonymous person
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I’m a 38 year old single mom with a 17 year old son. I was diagnosed with Lupus 15 years ago and have had it come and go in and out of remission.
About six years ago it came out with a vengeance. We have tried every known medication, treatment, chemo all to no avail. Now my only hope is that a stem cell transplant will work, or that God will come and heal me. I don’t feel that my work here is done and I have been unwilling to give up the fight. But it’s been hard.
I went from doing all kinds of volunteer work with kids every day and working two jobs for me and my son, to being pretty much sentenced to a chair. I have been unable to do much, especially in the past year. The fatigue and pain gets unbearable. I cry over stupid things and wish that this was one big nightmare. But it’s not, it’s real and it doesn’t want to let go.
It’s hard on my family, especially my mom, to see me this way and I fight for all of them. But, what I do now isn’t living, especially when I used to be so active.
I pray all the time and I don’t understand why my prayers haven’t been answered. At first I said, I’ll go through this if it means one person could be helped. I still mean this, but with each passing day it gets harder to say that.
No one in my family has Lupus and I thank God for that every day. I would gladly take the pain for any of them. I spent most of 07 and 08 in the hospital. I was Lifeflighted eight times that year and they nearly lost me twice.
There are no support groups, not that I could get out anyway’s, in my area. I happen to stumbled up on this web site. If I can say one thing is that you can’t give up. You have to find that one thing in life that means everything to you and fight for it. Someday, someway, they will find the right answers to Lupus, and I hope I’m around to see and receive them.
- Anonymous
Mama Wants to Help: List of homeless shelters, food banks, and winter resources
Mama wants to help: A list of food banks, homeless shelters, WIC program, and winter resources.
