Maybe you’re one of those folks who can just decide to switch and never look back, but I sure wasn’t. It took me a long time to get used to the taste of stevia.
It’s so sweet that it is easy to overdo it and it tastes almost bitter when you’ve got too much in your tea or coffee. The flavor is strange, and it doesn’t have any hint of those caramel overtones you get in honey, or the body and depth you get from sugar. Still, I made the switch, and I’m glad. The trick is to start adding a little stevia to your drinks or food. Just a drop or two, so you don’t even notice it. Once you do that for a week or so, up it by a drop or two per week, while starting to cut back on your usual sweetener. Eventually you’ll be ready to stop the old sweetener completely. Now, if you stall out halfway and can’t bring yourself to make the final leap- that’s cool. Celebrate your successes rather than beating yourself up for your supposed failures. Think of how many calories you’re saving each time. Think of how much less the bacteria and yeast in your mouth and digestive tract have to feast on. It’s all good. I’ve used stevia in a lot of foods and I can tell you it’s great with milk products like plain yogurt or kefir and also to sweeten almond milk (can you tell I have a sweet tooth?) I’ve used it on sweet potatoes and liked it a lot. The only thing I’ve not liked it with is sesame paste (tahini). For some reason it seems to immediately taste bitter with sesame. This little plant is pretty amazing. Just be patient with yourself while switching over and you’ll have a lifetime to enjoy its sweetness:-)
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As someone with PTSD, I have always lived in fear of my emotions. The mind has been compared to a rider (the conscious) and an elephant (the unconscious), but my mind has always been more like a trainer and a rogue orca. Slightly doomed. Not that the doomed part has ever shut my trainer up any… Learning to meditate began to change that. Very quickly, I realized that I didn’t have to be a victim any longer. Emotions were like the weather: ephemeral. Better yet, they could be processed and let go. The orca stopped going rogue so often. Writing classes started out hard, because when you write from the heart, it stirs up strong emotions. Meditating allowed what came up to be accepted, observed and treated with compassion. I still had Fibromyalgia and IBS, though. At first, you notice you’re in pain, but the pain is so all-consuming and terrifying that you can’t notice any connections. Over time though, you realize the pain is worse when you feel bad about something. Scared. Angry. If you notice this too, be sure to check out my next post, “Just what hurts when you have back pain?” When I added in dietary changes and yoga, things started to turn around. Nice:-) Around this time of year I wonder if I’ll ever be warm again. Thanks for the tips, Oprah! Here’s the link and quotes from the article below:
http://www.oprah.com/health/How-to-Be-Happy-In-The-Winter-Winter-Happiness/2#ixzz2H1mRiAFL “Transcend the Cold Really, it’s possible to feel less cold than you are. When asked to plunge their hands into a bowl of ice water, people who practiced spiritual meditation during an experiment at Bowling Green University had a much higher tolerance for the cold than their peers who practiced relaxation exercises. (They were also more upbeat and less anxious.) In the two weeks prior to the experiment, for 20 minutes daily, these hardier, happier, hotter-blooded souls had meditated on a spiritual mantra--God is great, God is joy, God is peace, God is love (or, like them, you can use a term instead of “God” that best suited their spirituality—e.g., “Mother Earth” or “the universe”). Return to a Brighter and Cozier Time If meditating isn’t your thing, try remembering. Nostalgia is a heater, finds a new study at the University of Southampton in England. In five different experiments, people who invoked sweet, sentimental memories felt physically warmer than those who were asked to recall ordinary events. When the nostalgia group sat in a freezing cold room, they perceived the place as warmer. What happens when you focus on fond memories? Your mind, blanketed in bright and cozy times, tricks your body’s nervous system into thinking you’re more comfortable. This winter, if you find your thoughts drifting back to your Caribbean honeymoon, the sleep-away camp of your childhood, or another bend on Memory Lane, it’s your brain’s way of taking a retreat from the cold. Surprisingly, even feeling a freeze can fire up old memories.” …I feel warmer already! |
AuthorElizabeth Morse, author of Your Best Health by Friday. Archives
January 2015
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