Five Fingers of Pure Delight

I am reveling in my latest “try-it you might like it” Five Finger Vibram’s. However, this recommendation comes with a warning: you must keep a very open mind and have a willingness to try that which your mother would not approve of (or possibly your spouse) walking in the woods in your bare feet.

What are Five Finger Vibrams? They are a clever little pair of shoes that you can wear anytime and anywhere. They are defined by the company as “barefooting: the exhilarating joy of going barefoot without leaving yourself exposed; 2. any activity requiring unconventional foot wear offering the protection of a thin flexible Vibram skin; 3. an intelligent way to deepen your connection with your natural surroundings. …Our customers report an increased sense of balance, an expanded range of motion, and visibly improved posture.” I have to say that at times I found myself thinking this is deliciously naughty because I would never walk this trail in my bare feet yet it felt as if I were doing just that.

My test for my FFV shoes included shopping this morning for about 2 hours with the Injinji socks on my feet as well as it is 45 degrees here in Minnesota today. Since that worked just fine for me, I donned them again and took them out on rougher terrain for a 45 minute hike. They not only went through mud and over rocks they handled holes, pine needles and even the hard surface of my paved driveway. I am more pleased than I can say because taking this same walk on Wednesday in conventional walking shoes (Merril trail shoes) I actually turned my ankle more than once due to the uneveness of the walking path. Today my feet gripped the earth and other than the slippery feel of the occasional muddy patch they came through everything with flying colors. I can feel a little stress in my calves  but otherwise my feet don’t hurt and better than that the one toe that always screams after a long hike has no comment today other than “ahhhh!!”

I must be complete in my review of my FFVs and mention the cons. They were not the best in mud as it felt slightly slick underfoot. However, that said, I never fell or even slipped it was just the feeling of mud on your “barefeet” that was off putting. I occasionally looked down to see little flowers between my toes or a piece of straw but I never actually felt the flowers. The straw was poking me in the leg thus caught my attention but even that made me smile, so not much of a “con”.  Another possible negative is they are a bit hard to put on the first few times as you must assist each toe in to its finger but that is getting much easier and I have only put them on three times now.

Sizing was pretty true to your shoe size but you need to know what size you would wear if you bought a shoe that was made in Europe. For instance if you wear a woman’s 10-10 1/2 you need to order a 41 and the socks will fit if you buy a medium.

All in all, the shoes get a “thumbs up” from this nascent FVV wearer. It felt so good to exercise “barefoot” that I almost felt like dancing, only a certain amount of modesty held me back.

Feeding Your Thyroid

My latest update on Facebook from Janie Bowthorpe was basically a continuation of her disagreement with Forest Pharmaceuticals and their changing the formulation of Armour Thyroid and Janie’s successfully getting many people to switch to Naturethroid and Westhroid. It is all getting old to me and I will apologize right now to any readers that offends and tell you that I am grateful to Janie Bowthorpe for her very informative book Stop The Thyroid Madness. I have a different take on the subject of the new formulation causing relapse in everyone and I will share it with my readers.

Early this winter I finally talked my very open minded doctor, Rob Bruley, in to prescribing Armour Thyroid instead of my compounded pharmaceutical T3 and T4 because we were not resolving my hypothyroidism issue after more than a year of constantly increasing my dosage. Admittedly he reluctantly did it, but he did it and told me I had to take a 3 grain dose of Armour Thyroid which by the way had to be special ordered at Target pharmacy (I tell you because it is useful information). 3 grains was equal to the T3 and T4 I was taking that wasn’t working very well although we had corrected several aspects of my thyroid malfunction. At that time I also started a bio-identical testosterone cream and progesterone tablet because those hormones were low in a recent hormone test I had taken.

I don’t want to quote exact times here because it is all a blur of history but approximately 6 weeks later I was having heart palpitations and sudden jolts that would awaken me in the middle of the night. I started taking half a 3 grain tablet at that time and when I called Dr. Bruley he agreed that this was the right thing to do, so he prescribed a blood test  which showed my T3 was now too high, T4 was okay and the TSH was within range although on the low side. I continued on 1 1/2 grains and when I had the next blood test I didn’t take my Armour the morning of the test as it will affect the T3 reading according to Janie and I was not in the mood to take any higher dosage. I was now feeling rather hyper at times and for instance if I was writing something it would almost look scribbled because I was writing too fast (my own test) so I knew I was a little over medicated but the test would tell.

That test came back with both T3 and T4 within range but my total TSH was .3 which indicates suppressed thyroid. I have since cut my half tablet in to half which amounts to 3/4 grain of Armour Thyroid. I will need a blood test in a few weeks but I can tell you that I still feel a little hyperthyroid. On 3/4 grain my heart palpitations are almost non-existent but at times I feel agitated like I need to run a marathon but I don’t run anymore.

Now to my point, the newly formulated Armour has seemingly corrected my thyroid problem greatly reducing my need for thyroid stimulating hormone. I don’t take it sublingually anymore because most of my digestive issues are resolved by not eating grain of any kind and drinking kefir every day. Swallowing Armour allows for slow release of the thyroid stimulating hormone. If and when I did what Janie suggested and took the tablet sublingually I would get a jolt in the morning that was uncomfortable and if I took some early afternoon when it had worn off I was too hyper to relax by bedtime. Swallowing it with my morning tea works perfectly for me I have sustained energy during the day and I am ready for bed at night.

I am now taking Alpha Lipoic Acid (300 mg) twice a day (with breakfast and supper) as well as a B-Complex vitamin for energy and liver health. If you take ALA you must add a B Complex as the ALA lowers your levels of the B vitamins. I also take 200 mcg of a sodium selenate/selenomethionine supplement. When I feel an energy lag I have a great B12 supplement called ProBoneO by Life Enhancement (Dr. Wright). I eat a diet free of gluten, with lots of greens, fresh eggs, avocados, grass fed meat, etc. My conclusion is that by balancing my hormones and taking the right supplements (no excipients or fillers), following a gluten free diet and staying away from excititoxins I am healing my thyroid.

Instead of complaining about the reformulation of Armour Thyroid I would tell you to try it. If it doesn’t work or you start to experience hypo symptoms again follow this advice before you change to Naturethroid or Westhroid:

Balance all your hormones not just your thyroid hormone.

Eat a gluten free diet full of greens which can be from Barley grass and Alfalfa grass or greens from the garden that are raw or lightly steamed. Add homemade kefir with no sugar added for a health gut.

Throw away supplements that have excipients and fillers as they negatively affect your immune system and create a bio film that keeps you from absorbing the supplement.

Judiciously stay away from MSG which means making your own fresh food with no boxed convenience foods and reading The MSG Myth.

Exercise using the T-Tapp method as she concentrates on cleaning your lymph system and allowing your body to heal itself.

If you do all these things and still suffer from hypo symptoms then it is time to try something new. If you choose not to try these steps first don’t cry foul on Forest Pharmaceuticals point your finger at the real guilty party, you.

Cycling and PACE

If you enjoy Al Sear’s PACE exercise, cycling in the Stillwater, Minnesota area has to be one of the best ways to do PACE. If you aren’t going down hill you are going uphill and every change in topography is a change of heart rate and exertion.
If you happen to be in the area and want to PACE yourself Stillwater proper has plenty of challenge and fantastic river city scenery. When you want to just cycle with no particular exertion or rest hit the Gateway Regional Trail and enjoy the ride through forest and open prairie or even in to the city of St. Paul and beyond.

Keep up with the T-Tapp PACE

Yes, you read that right PACE, I am commenting on PACE again but some may not like what I have to say.

I was T-Tapping (the coined phrase for exercising with Teresa Tapp) to Total Workout Slow the other day and I finally heard Teresa say what I had been thinking. The idea behind the Progressively Accelerating Cardiopulmonary Exertion (PACE) is not a new idea at all it has just been well promoted by Al Sears and I will give him credit for that as not all of us are clever enough to advertise well. I have felt for sometime that several people actually do the PACE program including, as many have noticed on this blog, Kathy Smith and now Teresa Tapp. This adds a lot of variety to your exercise program and variety is after all the spice of life.

Teresa at one point in her morning long seminar (that she recorded for people like me to exercise to) said that she designed T-Tapp exercise 10 years ago (with the help of Dr. Ken Cooper) with the idea that you elevate the heart rate for a minute or two and then let it come down (she called it sprinting), elevate, let it come down. What does that sound like to you? To me that is PACE in a nutshell and in addition to the cardio workout you will work muscles you didn’t know existed and sweat like you have never perspired when working out. Your posture improves, bone density increases and you just feel perkier. Doing lunges the T-Tapp way I have been able to lunge with none of the knee pain that I always experienced in years past. The Total Workout even includes a T-Tapp chiropractic adjustment called T-Tapp Twist. When you do it with the precision she requires (rather like the discipline involved with traditional Qi Gong) you can actually feel your vertebrae fall in to position, you sleep better at night and you don’t have stiffness.

I’m not really promoting any one of the T-Tapp exercise programs in this article but I did want to address PACE because I think there are many different ways to do PACE and some are better than others. T-Tapping is a common sense approach to PACE that I can vouch for its effectiveness and recommend it. Al Sear’s program is useful and promotes good health it is just not a new idea and also not the only progressively accelerating cardiopulmonary exertion program out there.

T-Tapp for a New Body

You read that right, T-Tapp, and it is a form of exercise that was developed by Teresa Tapp. My initial impression was that it looked ridiculous and I thought it had ruined my back, so I rejected it. However, there was something about it that made sense and kept calling me back.

First, I found out about T-Tapp from Mary Shomon an expert on thyroid disorder. She recommended T-Tapp for anyone with autoimmune disorders. Then I bought Teresa Tapp’s book “Fit and Fabulous in 15 Minutes” which I found interesting but not very helpful. It was filled with testimonials and I just didn’t get much out of that and I found her exercise instruction difficult to follow. Buying the book was not a complete disaster as it provided me with the ability to get one DVD and a sampling of products very reasonably. I chose “Walk Away the Inches” as my DVD and despite my harsh review of her book I do refer to it and have loaned it out to help others learn about T-Tapp form.

The first time or two I followed the exercise on my newly purchased T-Tapp DVD I found myself with serious back problems which I naturally felt the DVD exercise had created, so I set it aside and went back to Kathy Smith. I think having done exercise with Teresa Tapp and her very specific instructions left me feeling something was missing and that coupled with realizing that it was the Kathy Smith DVD that had started my back problems brought me back to the T-Tapp DVD. I was a bit bored by the “Walk Away the Inches”, so I ordered the Total Workout and that brings me to the present state of being totally hooked on T-Tapping.

Teresa Tapp has a rehabilitative approach to fitness, so even with bad knees you can successfully use her DVDs, your weak and achey back will become stronger and hurt less. I cannot speak to losing weight (I do not weigh myself and that is another blog) but I have lost inches and my back fat is all but gone. I was ecstatic yesterday when I looked in the mirror and noticed that the crease in my back that I thought was a permanent feature was disappearing (which is why I thought I had to let you know about T-Tapp). I stand taller and straighter, my shoulders are no longer rounded and my knees feel great. I am excited to purchase her “Breast Health Package” because I feel prevention of breast cancer is the real key not curing it once someone has it. Teresa is donating $10 of each package purchased to the United Breast Cancer Foundation and she has partnered with that foundation to develop programs to help women with breast cancer and to help the rest of us “prevent” breast cancer.

T-Tapp will remind you of yoga, or Qigong as it is very form specific. The exercises are done with no music and I guarantee you will not miss it as her constant reminders are imperative. You will find yourself “tucking butt” and pushing your knees out to little toe every time she says “KLT”. You exercise from the core out and when you are done your muscles are fatigued, your heart is pumping and your lymphatic system has been purged. Check it out and read all about T-Tapp at http://www.ttapp.com

PACE with Kathy Smith

I have had Kathy Smith’s DVD called Functionally Fit Peak Fat Burning (FFPFB) for sometime and enjoy working out to it immensely. It had occurred to me sometime ago that it fit very nicely in to the Progressively Accelerated exercise program that Al Sears devised and I thought it was worth a mention to those who like PACE.

Kathy Smith does it with a bit of humor as she does occasionally make mistakes that are not edited out but I enjoy a smile when I am exercising, so that is alright with me. She takes you through a stretch and warm up and then in to the exercise itself quite effortlessly. The exercises are accelerated for 2 minutes at a time for 6 different segments and following each accelleration there is a cool down that she uses to work your lower body. The total workout is 45 minutes ( longer than Al Sears suggests you need) but it flies by and you feel energized when you are done.  At the very end you can do her stretch or your own stretch. I happen to like the stretch she does on her DVD titled Power Walk for Weight Loss, so I choose to do that when I am done.

I do FFPFB every other day and mix it up with the Power Walk because she works your upper body in that program and it is shorter for those days when you don’t want to spend lots of time getting fit. It also does have you work out at different levels but it is not a PACE type of exercise.

If you  mix this exercise with 5 minutes in front of your Vitamin D sunlamp three times a week and 20 minutes in your Sunlight FIR sauna almost every day you have done everything a body needs to be healthy and you will feel fighting fit.

The Pace Continues

I would like to briefly touch on my PACE again. I am still using the general principle and I don’t think I will ever go back to long, back breaking, exercises. They just don’t make sense to me anymore. I seem to have more endurance now than ever should I want a long hike up the mountain side in Idaho or just around my hometown of Stillwater, Minnesota which is full of stairways and hills to climb. I can run when I want to and not find myself struggling, biking is a breeze and jumping rope is finally not a horrible way to get my heart beating.

I like to work out to a simple exercise program by Kathy Smith called Power Walking. It is done inside with weights and a television, simple as simple can be. You primarily march in place and then add weights for your abdominals and upper body. She has two big push interludes and I pick up my jump rope and jump as fast as I can for the time allotted which does increase my heart rate and make me breath deeply. it is not strenuous but when I am done I am sweating and my heart is pumping.

It is criticized on Amazon.com for Kathy Smith’s blunders and for being too easy but I find the blunders entertaining and easy is as easy does, if you don’t put any effort in you will get back just what you put in to the workout. I suspect that Al Sears would not give this DVD the PACE seal of approval but I would like to share with my readers that it is a good workout for those times when you are in a hurry and it does generally follow the principles of PACE.

Mercola, my health guru

I am ruminating today as I am want to do now and then but Joe Mercola has been on my mind lately and I want to share some thoughts with you the reader.

Several years ago I, quite by accident, came upon Mercola. No one pointed me to this site I was not solicited online but it popped up when I “googled” a health issue I had, namely high cholesterol and a high lipoprotein reading on some blood work I had done. My practitioner was telling me I had to go on statins or die of a heart attack even after I had emphatically told her I was not interested in statin drugs due to their side affects.

I got busy “googling” sites with answers, albeit their answers, but the one site that offered a possible solution and proof to back it up was Mercola.com. I read the research and read and read (because he and his staff of researchers have endless studies for one to look at). I finally tried Mercola’s protocol at that time which involved high doses of Vitamin C, non-flushing Niacinamide and two amino acids. I went back three months later and my readings were within acceptable margins and no talk of heart attacks.

I have tried other recommendations on his site and honestly more often than not he is right on. I say the proof is in the pudding and I have learned countless things from experimenting with his “far out” suggestions and those very ideas are now being proven to be correct by even the mainstream researchers and promoted by our pitiful media. I researched raw milk and found the people who sell it because of Mercola’s site. I have pursued medical professionals who are better than average because of the information on his site. I have pursued alternative practitioners because of evidence on his site. We eat healthier as a result of the plethora of articles dealing with that subject on his site. My family is healthier and wiser, so I guess you could say we are an example of what one can be if you just read all the information that he provides on his site and act on that which makes sense to you.

Now, you might ask why I am going on and on? Many people I talk to are very turned off by his site and I may or may not understand their reasons. One person said he was “schlocky” and that his face represents a disturbed person. Another health care practitioner stated that he had gone overboard on selling products and his message was therefore lost on her. I will admit that I nearly quit reading his online site last year when he went to Hawaii and then told me in every newsletter that I was a fool to stay in the northern climes and risk dying (or something like that). I could hardly stand one more day of seeing him in his Hawaiian print shirts, so I get that he can be annoying BUT…………..

If you want to form your own opinion, if you want to know what is going on with our medical paradigm that is really, really wrong and then find out what you can do about it you really must start reading what he has to offer. It is not untruthful, it is not deceitful, you don’t have to buy anything or read any of his self promoting articles, just read and learn and you will find yourself disgusted and ready to make a change. It won’t be the change that the mainstream media preaches, or that our government promotes but you will have educated yourself and made your own decisions as painful as that may be. Go ahead check out Mercola today and be amazed at the knowledge you glean from reading just one article and then let me know if you think I am right or wrong.

PACE-ing again

I admit it here and now. I am exercising to the Al Sear’s PACE program again. I finally gave in and ordered the E book and so far I have no regrets. I thought $27.95 was rather steep for an E Book but I weighed the options and felt I came up the winner.

Weight loss aside, my stamina has increased noticeably. I can jump rope as fast as possible and really not feel worn out and it takes pretty extreme exercise to feel like I am gasping for oxygen which is the point at which you know you have exerted enough. I only “exert” for 1 minute or less but on the Schwinn Airdyne I can get the level up to 10 for one minute and that has never been possible before.

The other noticeable improvement is that my heart beat can quite quickly go from 173 to 138 and down from there. While I am exercising I never get below 100 beats per minute but it always drops 30 or more points in a short period of time. I feel much better about the 173 as Sears feels going above the recommended heart rate is only possible if a person is in good physical shape. I am becoming addicted to the “oxygen deficit” that occurs when you are pushing your physical limits and I love getting all the exercise I need in 20 minutes or less.

Let’s see, I said I wasn’t going to post on this site anymore and I said PACE didn’t work for me. That just shows you can never say “never” and it is a woman’s perogative to change her mind. I happen to think that my infrared sauna business is a big part of my improvements as I use the Sunlight sauna at least three times a week but whatever the cause the effect is I am much more robust than I was 6 months ago.

PACE up to date

I am once again flexing the creative lobe of the gray matter occupying my skull. My creative partner, HP Pavillion, decided several weeks ago that it needed a change. Why it chose its hard drive for this apparently necessary life changing exhilaration we will never know. What I do know is I am so lucky to have a computer geek in my life and I thank him profusely for being back with my creative partner. Thank-you, thank-you, thank-you. For HP, you need to improve your product this is the second failure of my laptop in as many years.

What that all means for my experiment with the PACE program is I have been following it for longer than I intended before making an entry again. It also means that I have had time to discover that while I think it is the most beneficial way to exercise it is hard for me to follow on a weekly basis. I can follow the basic formula but exercising for only 20 minutes only works for me once in awhile as I actually like to exercise.

I am one of those sickos ( Michael Moore does not get to claim any rights to that word) who enjoys breathing hard and sweating. My spousal unit awoke me to this fact the other day on the bike trail as I was complaining that everyone seemed “so crabby”. His response was “not everyone gets a high from exercise”. I guess that spoke volumes to me and I quit smiling at every poor soul that met us.

ANYWAY, I have thus far resisted buying the full on book about PACE but it is inevitable that I will (even though I think it is horribly overpriced) as I really don’t understand how you work the program in to a lifestyle that has included exercise for the last 30 years. 20 minutes or less does not even take me to the regional trail on my bike much less the 20 miles we like to ride. It barely allows for a couple of miles on the trail on foot and few if any of my exercise videos are that brief.

What it does allow pretty easily is a workout with Kathy Smith called Power Walking. She has a 20 minute segment of walking and weights that fairly closely duplicates the PACE regimen. The weight lifting segments slow your heart rate some and then she has you push yourself for a minute before returning to the walking routine which is fun to do and even more fun when she loses her count or forgets her routine (I bet she is 50-ish just like me). You repeat that general pattern several times and then cool down and stretch which takes you to about 30 minutes of exercise and stretching.

I did make up several routines where I just jumped rope for a minute or two or used the Schwinn Airedyne to a level 5 or 6 for a minute. I also walked the regional trail with 3-4 minute runs interspersed with very slow walking to lower my heart rate but my Carver trait made that slow part really hard as I was embarrassed to be walking so pathetically in front of other people. Crikey I have to admit that it probably just doesn’t work very well for me on a day to day basis.

That said, I am still following the basic premise and I do feel my lung power has increased and I am more fit. I just returned from the Idaho mountains and for the first time in my life I did not feel the altitude when out for mountain hikes. It was amazing. It may be due to several changes I have made in my life but I believe that exercising with the basic PACE tenets has improved my lung capacity and my ability to go from a resting heart rate of 68 to a working heart rate of 150 and back down to a heart rate of 100 and I will continue to forge ahead with the routine.