Reclining Big Toe 2

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ARMS Place  your hands in the strap, palms facing each other, and extend your arms above your head. Lift your head, gently drawing your arms backwards. Don’t hike your shoulders.

LIFTED LEG  Press your lifted leg into the strap and away from your body. Gently move the femur of your raised leg to the back of your thigh so that you feel space in the groin. You can then draw that leg as close as possible to your core as long as you maintain the space you’ve created in the groin.

GROUNDED LEG Keep the thigh on the ground moving downward (grounding your femur) and press that foot into a wall, real or imaginary.

FEET Make sure they are parallel, not turned out. Keep both feet active, toes spreading. Imagine you have toes in your heels, and spread them, too.

Reclining Big Toe 3

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Open the leg to the side of the body, keeping the center of both knees in line with the center of the toes. Keep the other thigh pressing into the ground. Try to keep both sides of the sacrum evenly pushing into the ground, although that will not be easy. Imagine that the hip bones, where Angi is touching, are moving in towards each other. Spread the toes, and imagine  your feet are pushing through walls.

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Very gently bring the raised leg to the opposite side. Keep your other thigh pressing into the ground. Pause at various spots along the way that feel they need releasing and gently sway your leg, drawing it towards and away from your shoulder, to lubricate the hip joint. Then hold the position and breathe into the sensation.

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When the sensation softens, you can move your leg further, into the next layer of tension. You don’t want pain, just “delicious discomfort”—Angi’s signature expression.

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Roll over on your hip a bit towards your extended leg, and rest your foot on a block or on the ground.  Imagine that both feet are pushing into walls.

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Turn your head towards the other side. Keep your shoulders on the ground, although that’s not always possible. You can always place a blanket o

Legs Up the Tree

This posture is good for stretching hamstrings, releasing the back, calming the nerves and improving  sleep. Don’t do it on your own if you have high blood pressure.

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Bring one hip close to a tree or a wall.

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Swivel the legs up, and lie on the ground.

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Keep the feet active.  Push through the heels and spread the toes. To stretch all three hamstring muscles, keep your legs straight.  Straighten the knees by drawing your femurs towards the tree, but don’t strain the hamstrings. If need be, move further away from the tree.

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You can do this with or without a block under your sacrum. The sacrum should be evenly pressing into the block to build stability and a strong foundation in your sacral area.

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You can also do this with straps, placing one around the tops of your thighs, one a little lower and one just above or below your knees.

Constipation

Tips on how to get your bowels moving:

• Water

•Foods with fibre: oat bran, ground flax, dried prunes and figs, soaked overnight in water, nuts and seeds, leafy greens, brown rice, veggie and fruit skins

•Chewing gum (helps move the bowel)—Choose brands sweetened with xylitol

•Aloe Vera juice

•Probiotics

•Magnesium oxide—200 to 400 mg/day, not taken with meals 

•Epsom salt baths (also have magnesium in them)

•Castor oil compresses applied to the belly.  Massage the oil in a clockwise direction (See a diagram of the bowel, if you’re unsure), then put a warm cloth and hot water bottle on top.

•Exercise

Broccoli Puttanesca

A tasty meal in 15 minutes max

Forget the pasta. It’s loaded with carbs, which wreak havoc with your blood sugar–and you probably know by now that sugar metabolism is linked to heart disease, diabetes and even cancer growth.  Here, broccoli stands in for pasta and gives you cancer-fighting nutrients to boot.             

Ingredients:

•Broccoli– 1 head, stems cut on diagonal

•Olive oil– 2 T, for sautéing (Use regular, not extra virgin, which smokes too easily.)

•Onions– 2 medium (or more), cut into quarter moons

•Garlic–2 cloves, chopped

•Anchovies (optional)– 1/2 to 1 tin, packed in olive oil. Pat off oil, cut into pieces.

•Cherry tomatoes– 5 to 6, cut in half

•Capers– handful, to taste

•Kalamata olives–6 or more whole, without chemical preservatives. Cut in half.

•Tomato sauce–1/2 jar. Buy your favorite. Look for glass jar, without sugar.

•Salt–to taste

Prep:

• Steam broccoli in steamer with a pinch of salt and a little bit of water until bright green and crisp. Then quickly spray cold water over broccoli to stop the cooking process.

• In a large pan, saute onions in olive oil on low heat. (Don’t let the oil smoke. If it does, throw it out and start over.) Add garlic, sauté briefly, then add anchovies and olives. Add sauce and heat it up. Add capers and tomatoes. Cook slightly, until tomatoes start to wilt.

• Take sauce off heat. Pour over broccoli. As always, chew well.

Got Wind?

We’re here to help.  Get down on the floor and into the yoga position our carrot friend is in– affectionately known as “the wind-relieving posture.”  Hold knee to chest, first one knee, then the other, and take deep breaths. Ah, relief.  Try chewing cumin, fennel or caraway seeds; they’re anti-flatulents.  Add Beano to problem foods.  And chew foods well.  Ironically, many of the foods that give us gas are really good for us. The better you chew them, the more you avoid their incendiary after-effects.  

Aches and Pains

Pick up some Tiger Balm at your local pharmacy, and rub it into the sore spots. It will seem to lift the pressure right off the problem area. I use it often for tension headaches–at the nape of the neck and around the temples. But take care and avoid getting it into your eyes!

Greek Lima Beans

Beans are not just good for your heart, as the saying goes. Their high-fiber content helps control your blood sugar and moves foods through your gut. That makes them good for preventing other chronic conditions, such as diabetes and cancer.

Montreal cook/blogger Holly Botner has a great recipe for Greek lima beans, inspired by the wealth of great Greek restaurants in Montreal.I like to add some oregano for extra flavor as well as its cancer-fighting properties.(Scroll down to the last post called “Eat Your Avastin.”)

Of course, beans can leave some incendiary after-effects. Once upon a time, many of us cooked beans with kombu, a Japanese seaweed, to mitigate this problem, but sea vegies soak up radiation so that’s probably not a good idea these days.  Try some Beano instead.  Chew foods well, and do as the Indians do–Chomp on some fennel or cumin seeds at dessert time. Ironically, many foods that give us gas are also good for us.

p.s. If you have a healthy recipe you want to share, please send it to me at hsugarmill@sympatico.ca.

Perfection or Excellence?

Perfection or excellence?  Those are your choices for the coming year. After I gave birth to a child with challenges, the answer was obvious.

Perfection is impossible. Sure, it might be a worthy goal, but if you try to keep perfecting whatever it is you’re trying to do, you’ll never get there.  Take Hillary Clinton. Some say she got so bogged down perfecting details of a universal health plan that she missed her chances.  Or blogging, for example. For the past three months, I’ve been researching a story for you on what’s the best kind of salmon to buy, but have you read the piece yet? No. That’s because I’m still studying—and could go on and on speaking to authorities and never have a perfect answer.  There just isn’t one.

“Perfection is disastrous. Excellence is triumphant.” Somebody else said that, but do I really have to make this piece perfect and locate the source?