Packing for Key West

When we went to Key West the last week of June, I packed following the OneBag.com One-Page Checklist.

When we got back, I jotted down the items I wish I had brought along.

• tea bags (mainly because my mother came along)
• bug spray -- it's on the checklist, but I didn't pack it since we hadn't needed it for Key West summers before
• aloe gel for sunburn
• a bike lock for the double stroller
• a small package of salad dressing -- it's hard to find allergy-friendly salad dressing, and a small amount from home would have been tastier
• a very small packet of oil -- I've got these at home, and it would have helped the pan!
• headphones for iPod to listen on the plane

The irony of that last item is that I packed headphones for the next trip two weeks later, and didn't have any chance to use them: either the kids required too much attention, or I was so exhausted I just wanted to doze.

Most of these items are specific to the travel companions (tea for mother, bike lock for stroller for kids) or to the location (bug spray and aloe for tropical climate, cooking supplies for small kitchen), so I'd have to say the One Bag checklist was great overall!

Fish Oil vs Flax Seed Oil

I've seen a number of variations on Fish Oil versus Flax Seed Oil, and I think the most best answer is to use whichever one (or neither, or algae) suits you best. However, looking at this metabolic pathway chart, I agree that

fish oil is a superior source of omega-3's since it is already in an active form upon ingestion.

In fact, that metabolic chart explains both of these "contradictory" results: ALA is the left side with all of the inflammatory agents (hmm, needs COX2 inhibitors), while flax is upper right (fish lower right) with the anti-inflammatory agents.

Me Time

About two weeks ago, during a rare bout of heartburn (I had it once as a kid for overeating, as an adverse reaction to naproxen, and during most of both pregnancies), I wondered why I had such fond, rosy memories of my pregnancies. I mean, morning sickness kicked in before the fourth week, before the positive pregnancy test even, subsided around the 20th week, and kicked back in once I was really large. Add in the unaccustomed bulk and the every-movement-is-arerobic-exercise from week 24 on, and it's no picnic. I figured it out, though. I relished the free license to be selfish about taking care of myself. Of course I have to eat this, it's the healthiest choice on the menu that doesn't make my stomach churn at the thought. Time to get ready for bed now so that I have time to do my static flexibility stretches to keep me from aching. No, it's not breakfast time yet, I have to do my strength training first!

Post-partum, the rules change to keep the baby happy.

But since I noticed what I liked, I'm making more time for exercise. (I've always preferred healthier food, although I was falling off the wagon for sweet snacks more often before I noticed this.) I like it. I think I'll go stretch now and enjoy my own oasis of luxurious, self-indulgent exercise. I've done this routine before bed so many times, I can't stop yawning for the last third of my static stretches. Great way to take care of myself. I'm headed for the floor!

tempt

And now for an update on allergy-friendly foods. New name ‘tempt’ on the hemp milk, but it still tastes good. However, the nutritional specs seem to have dropped: less protein, more sugar. The Purely Decadent line of coconut milk ice cream tastes great, too! Whole Foods has vegan rella (the cheddar tastes icky but I only ever liked the mildest of mild cheddar ... and the mozzarella flavor is tasty melted), ume plum vinegar (in place of soy sauce), and so many more allergy-friendly choices at 50¢ to $1 cheaper than I had been paying before.

New Toilets

The American Standard Cadet toilet comes in far too many varieties, and I don’t just mean colors. So what we got just works but it seems like it might want to run, and I might need to depress handle a second longer. Now that all of the original toilets in the house have been replaced, I saw Sam's Club has a HET with dual flush for $100! I longed for dual flush, settled for 2:3 HET instead. These seemed expensive even before I saw the no-name model at Sam’s that got a rave review on Amazon, but I would've tried at least one given a chance.

Better Vitamins?

I have a reasonable diet (I love salad!), but as I mentioned yesterday, I love my prenatal multivitamins too. Since I probably get most of my trace minerals in my diet, I prefer that my multivitamin is low in vitamins with accessible toxicity (Vitamin A, I'm looking at you) and low in the heavy metal sort of trace minerals (selenium linked to infertility). I don't like B vitamins from GNC because most of those have thousands of percents over the USRDA, and that sounds like overkill in the unhealthy direction to me. Once again, my "current" brand of prenatals went unavailable, so I've been trying other brands that meet my desire not to do over-do certain items while still bumping up the B's.

The first one I tried was a pretty traditional women's multivitamin. It lacked the slightly higher levels of B vitamins, but there weren't any prenatals at the store. Back to sprue (especially about 30 minutes to an hour after I drink a cola), back to the search. The next one I tried is OneADay Energy, although I wouldn't've bought it if I had noticed then that it has caffeine. (Most of the others that were high on some B vitamins were low on B6 and B12. Which would be one way to test which one helps me!) Although I drank tea for years, coffee gives me sweats and shakes, so "contains the caffeine of about 1 cup of coffee" isn't reassuring. It's even higher on those B vitamins than prenatal multivitamins, so I might alternate days with the standard women's. New discovery! With those B vitamins generally at 200% (but not an unacceptable 6000%), my weight seems to be stabilizing! I was having annoying cyclic weight gain, a little loss, then back to the gain grind. How much I ate didn't seem to affect the cyclic pattern much (so why starve).

Extra B vitamins beyond prenatal multivitamin levels, and (#1) I'm back to being in control of my weight and I like to be in charge of my own destiny, and (#2) for the first time in absolutely years, I'm not facing afternoon doldrums with a severe urge to snack on something sweet! Wow! I can probably learn to live with caffeine for that, but I notice that the OneADay Teen mixtures look similar but without the caffeine. In fact, the only amount I disagree with on those is the Chromium since it can affect appetite too. I think I like the Teen Boy formula best because it's lower in iron and some weeks I average 3x USRDA for iron ... I don't need to take an iron supplement unless I like brittle hair and nails. I even think the RDI for iron is high since, at least for blood hemoglobin, the elemental iron is usually recycled into new hemoglobin: it's a fairly closed cycle for iron in hemoglobin, not much loss. I think iron loss is 20 mg for childbirth, and most other times much lower than that ... so I don't think I need it. I do remember what anemia feels like (that lethargy, particularly in my elbows: my elbows felt weak) and I would know to take moderate levels of iron.

I really like that the US RDI tables are available online because these tables include the suggested upper limit too. There you can see that while the RDI for sodium is 1500 mg (a big drop from the old USRDA values), the suggested upper limit is 2300 mg! I think the old USRDA for sodium was 3500 mg. Yeah. So the suggested limit works out to about 3/4 teaspoon of salt ... per day. Since fruits and veggies contain some natural sodium, it's possible to get enough sodium with very little, if any, added salt.

So I used to think that prenatal multivitamins were the gold standard to balance my body, but I learn new things all the time. This time it seems to be that even a little bit more of those B vitamins is a better thing.

Bursitis

I have had hip bursitis since January 2001, and it hasn’t gone away. The general recommendations are to think about what caused it, and don’t do that any more. Hip bursitis can often be caused by a tight piriformis muscle. Tight muscles respond well to exercise (that doesn’t exacerbate it - listen to your body). I take 500 mg of glucosamine daily for osteoarthritis in my knees; if I stop taking it, my knees start to ache about a week later.