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It’s time to go back to school and shops that specialize in school uniforms, stationery et al are doing brisk business. Daddies and mummies are digging deep to pay the outrageously exorbitant fees that pass for school fees these days (please forgive me if you own a school. I’m actually ‘seriously’ considering starting one myself :D). Anyways, as they say, ‘better soup, na money kill am!’ For the benefit of my ‘aje-butter’ friends, that means that (the) quality (of a soup) is determined by the funds committed (or in the soup case, the funds that went into procuring the ingredients). Okay…certainly long winded, but I kinda guess the meaning came across, yes? Stay with me (and bear with me :)); I’m aging so I tend to use 10 words where 2 could have worked! 😀

The weather appears to be changing too…it appears the rains are upon us again. I am so muddled up with the seasons these days.  When I was growing up, dry and rainy season were so clearly defined that you always knew what to expect at any time…not anymore. Kudos to global warming and climate change! With the changing of the weather usually comes the sniffles.

Do you have a child who appears to catch anything that just moves around in the air? They go to school and will catch a cold provided another child has it? They will get measles, just by looking at a child that has one…even from a safe distance (okay…that’s an exaggeration that was meant to make you smile :D). I had one of those; my daughter would pick up any virus that was making the rounds! My constant prayer everyday was, ‘lord, don’t let this child die’

And so I decided to take things personal. When she was in a crèche, I led the campaign to ensure that children who had the sniffles were kept home and not dumped on unsuspecting caregivers in school. It would amaze you how many mothers do this. I am not passing judgement here because a lot of parents have to work and so staying home to look after a sick child may not be an excuse that is readily understood by bosses. But, the child risks having a medical emergency in school that cannot be handled by caregivers and of course poses a threat to other children who were previously uninfected. If the roles were reversed, you certainly don’t want your child going to school and picking up other people’s germs. I worked with the creche to ensure that all hand held toys were disinfected every morning and after use by the children as their use of the hand held toys (at the crèche stage) simply involved dipping the toy into their mouths and sucking for dear life! Flu and other droplet infections are spread by contact with droplets from someone else who has an infection.

At the primary level, anytime I am invited to give talks, I focus on droplet infections and how they are spread. I teach the children how to wash their hands, for at least 20 seconds, preferably under running water and hot air drying.

The steps to effective hand washing in the ‘perfect’ situation are:

• Wet hands with clean running water and apply soap.
• Rub your hands together to make a lather and then scrub between fingers, under the nails and the back of your hands.
• Continue to scrub for at least 20 seconds.
• Rinse your hands under running water.
• Dry off with a clean towel or hot air dryer.

Okay, not every convenience has a hot air dryer or even running water; if you’ve got one of those toilets, just ensure that you pour the clean water on to sudsy hands and scrub for 20 seconds…the time it takes to sing Happy Birthday twice.

Remember to teach your children that germs hide in every single nook and cranny, especially in shared toilets. They are on the toilet handles, the tap knob, the tissue dispenser etc. Thus, after using the toilet, wash your hands last after you have cleaned yourself up and flushed. Okay, I heard that snigger…’yeah right! Like anyone has to be taught that!’ Well, actually, quite a number of people have to be taught as we have realized that quite a number of children are not taught this early enough and would have come down with some diseases before this is realized.

Buy them hand sanitizers. Alcohol based sanitizers reduce the number of germs on hands. The children can use these even after hand washing and leaving the toilet, in cases where there was insufficient water. In addition, this is a handy tool for all those times they come in contact with ‘eewy eeckies’ and don’t have the luxury of washing their hands; when they have been shaken by someone they just observed sneezing into their hands etc. The small handy packs of sanitizers fit well into most pencil cases. The sanitizer should be applied to the palm of one hand, both hands rubbed together and product rubbed over the surface of hands and fingers until the hands are dry. Sanitizers that contain at least 60% alcohol are most effective, especially when water and soap are not readily available.

Teach them to sneeze into the crooks of their arms and not into their palms. With this, we will be building the next generation of people who do not go around sneezing (rendering thousands of germs homeless) in people’s faces (finding alternative homes for these germs) or into their hands and then subsequently shaking other people’s hands (ensuring that these germs hit their mark).

Back tracking to toilet training again, teach the children especially the girls, to clean from the front backwards. Many an infection has been caused by faecal matter deposited in places where they have no business being! Girls should also be taught to clean up after urinating as early as possible. This can also aid in prevent infections that thrive in warm and moist places like candida.

So, beyond the books, stationery and inevitable school fees, let’s ensure that our children have the right health and wellness tool kit to survive a new term and come home with those amazing grades we all look forward to!

Here’s to healthier family…and a healthier you!

The good old days! It is just mind boggling for me whenever I realize that I’ve known some people for more than 20 years! Whhaaaat!!! Am I that old? I still remember the shock on my face and the way I looked around in confusion the first day someone referred to me as ‘ma’. Who, me? But I’m certainly no spring chicken no more (sob, sob). I belong to the generation when TV stations started by 4pm and before they did, we all excitedly gazed at the colour bars on our television sets waiting for them to start the day’s business (assuming you had adequately done your home work). Beyond TVs, there were the VHS video machines which our parents may allow us to turn on over the weekends…again, only if homework and house chores had been completed. The only other source of distraction which was acceptable to our parents and could be practiced at all times, was reading. As a child, I read voraciously starting from ladybirds to Pacesetters and, yes, Mills and Boon! Uh! That tall, handsome and rich guy who was to come sweep me off my feet!!! From there I moved on and explored other worlds of books and eventually arrived at the stables of John Grisham…the master story teller, with wit, sarcasm and suspense. I find myself screaming out with laughter whenever I read any of his novels….till today. My driver always steals surreptitious glances through the rear view mirror…almost as if he were wondering when it would be appropriate to scream for help (Help! My boss has gone crazy!) J

Speaking of novels, have you ever wondered how many children we see these days reading a book? They absolutely hate the idea of that, what with television on from morning till forever, with all manner of programs, newer and ‘better’ video games coming out every single day. These children are well versed in spoken English but cannot correctly write down this grammar they so eloquently speak. They do not know synonyms, antonyms, verbs, nouns, adjectives, collective nouns and all those stuff they made us learn (and boy, did you have to learn?!) every single day. These children have lost…scratch that…never even had the opportunity to learn logical reasoning. And so, we are bringing up children who are intellectually and mentally lazy: Unable to think for themselves and certainly not able to think outside the box.

Now, before you al l (or maybe some of you) crucify me for being a party pooper, let me explain that I love the Generation Z children (can we shorten this to Gen Zeezers…just thinking); those children born between 1995 and 2012…I mean, I really have no choice. I’ve got three of them and I love them to bits!  I also do not have anything against these games and I certainly love my TV shows over the weekends. BUT, these activities should not become the focal point of our existence. Younger mothers plop their children down before the television as a babysitting ploy. Our children are beginning to find it difficult to think for themselves, reason a problem all the way through or even make the effort to reflect on anything. They want quick answers and they want it now. They get it from the internet…which is a good thing, but they’ve got to be able to even think about the issues they want to research before getting the easy answers.

The problem has moved beyond the homes to the work places. You interview tens to find one and hundreds to find ten. These young men and women cannot answer the most mundane of questions and sometimes, look around almost like they are looking for hints from somewhere.

What’s the solution? Let’s get these children busy with other stuff. They have to read a book for at least 2 hours every day; where they fail that, withdraw some privileges…and don’t let the puppy dog face fool you!  When they come to you with a problem, get them to think it through and try to figure out a solution before you even offer an opinion; Homework and projects are meant to be done by them. You are only to provide strategic support in terms of asking questions that lead them to question what they have done. We used to play a game when we were young, where we would have a very long word and the contest was to find the person who would make the most words out of that long word. This helped us think of all the words in there and better still, we never looked at a word ‘ordinarily’. We were always trying to figure out how many words could be formed from any word we saw…long or short. It was fun and it is still fun today…at least my children ‘pretend’ to enjoy it…path of least resistance, I guess :D. Remember to try and explain the reasons for these activities you’ve planned for them. Much as it is so cool (I think J) to say, ‘just because mummy or daddy said so!’, it is probably better and helps with building their mental health to explain the benefits of what you are asking them to do. They probably would want to do it without much persuasion subsequently. And, this is a different generation from ours when we did ‘exactly’ as we were told without asking questions….I’m still trying to figure out if this is a good change or not. Oh, the good old days…..What do you think?

Get children to play scrabble…in fact play with them. It builds their vocabulary…even those crazy, I-don’t know-what-they-mean words! Get them to play monopoly…it teaches them the rudiments of financial management and don’t be too quick to solve life’s problems for them. They’ve got to learn that life is full of curves and be prepared to handle what life throws at them. This is called tough love and builds mental health as well as develops their character. We see so many people today who stand for nothing…a man has got to stand for something!

Remember that the more time they spend in front of the television or playing all those games, the less time they also spend outside…playing football, riding bikes, chasing after each other, playing lawn tennis, skipping etc. In fact several studies have linked excessive television watching and by extension all those handheld and computer games playing with a high incidence of obesity and the resulting medical conditions that go with that including Diabetes and Hypertension. This has to stop. Imagine a child who is born into a family of hypertensives and already has to deal with the burden of knowing that he is pre-disposed to same, living a lifestyle that clearly pushes him into that condition. He could have side-stepped this if we, as parents, take the right steps to get them to do the right thing. Please note that playing outside is also a function of neighbourhoods: If safe, pull out all the stops. If not, find other means of getting them to exercise…maybe enrolling in a swimming class in a club, dancing class, organizing play dates with their friends that live in safer neighbourhoods etc.

Please note that children should actually be making about 12,000 steps per day. Do I see you nodding your head and assuming that they must rack this up…what with all the activities they manage to invent per day? Or when they get to school? Get them pedometers…the result will shock you. They don’t!

We’ve got to do something, people, to improve our children’s mental and physical health by giving them more recreational activities than television and game consoles. Let’s safeguard the next generation. They’ll thank you for it at some time in their lives. I once came across the saying,’ by the time you are old enough to know your parents were right, you probably have children who think you are wrong!’ So, maybe not today, but…sometime in the very fuzzy future, there will be an ‘Ahah’ moment and you’ll be glad, you made that happen.

Here’s to a healthier generation of children…and a healthier you!

So you’ve had breakfast, lunch and dinner and you really want to get on with this ‘healthy living stuff’. BUT, you keep getting the munchies…those green monsters that make your tummy growl and hunger for food even when you’ve had a pretty sufficient meal a few hours ago. How do you keep it going? Maybe, it is impossible to actually keep with this whole stuff.

Well, you’re wrong. It is so possible to keep with it.

I am going to give you practical examples of fruits and vegetables in our environment that can take the edge off your hunger and still keep you healthy.

Ever heard the saying, ‘an apple a day keeps the doctor away?’ Well, it is true. Eat them raw and include them in smoothies. Same goes for bananas, mangos, oranges and carrots. Water melon and pineapples are also very nourishing and their health benefits are best experienced on an empty stomach. Blue berries, black berries and strawberries contain lost of anti-oxidants that are effective in preventing cancer.  All these can be eaten on their own or added to smoothies.

 Smoothies are fruit juices extracted in a smoothie maker. ..almost like blending the fruits; the smoothie maker goes a step further by removing the pulp so that you are left with the pure fruit juice. Traditionally, yoghurts are added but be sure that be sure that they are then low fat and no-added sugar variety. To be extra sure you are not being fed ‘hidden’ sugars, you could make yours (a cup of milk to four cups of water. Leave in an airtight container overnight. You can add a little amount of ready made yoghurt – unsweetened – to this and then refrigerate).

These fruits and vegetables also come packed with vitamins, minerals and lots of other benefits:

Apples are known to be anti-cancer health promoters and also helpful in reducing blood pressure

Bananas help to keep hunger pangs away as they bring about a slow release of energy

Mangoes mop up free radicals and stimulate the immune system. (By the way, free radicals are produced by the body as part of the natural process of converting food to energy; they can also be extracted from the air and generated by the sun’s action on skin and eyes. These toxic substances can start off a domino-like chain reaction leading to malfunctioning and dead cells and ultimately, a lot of diseases in the body). I’m sure you need a breather here just to digest this 😉 Take a deeeep breath……

Oranges aid the destruction of free radicals (again) that cause skin aging

Carrots promote healthy skin and eyes

Water melon is refreshing and helps reduce blood pressure.

Pineapples aid digestion and help dissolve mucus

Blue berries, blackberries and strawberries destroy free radicals (yet again!) and slow down the signs of aging

Talking about smoothies, do you know you can live on a diet of raw fruits and vegetables made into smoothies for days? Okay, just before you decide on the particular (unpleasant :D) name you want to call me, perhaps starting off with a day and then graduating to three days is a better idea.  Away with the face that says ‘Yuck and all manners of Eew’ . The smoothies do taste good and more importantly are good for you. You come away after three days feeling light and absolutely refreshed PLUS, you will see that tummy bulge reduce…bearing in mind that the quantum of reduction has to do with the initial size. The more the paunch (afo ukwu in Ibo or beer belly in ordinary parlance:D), the less visible the outward effect ( but the inward cleansing and detoxification is constant). Fruits and veggies like celery, beetroot, apples, pineapples, black berries, blue berries, avocado pears, pumpkin leaves (ugu), lemon (with its rind), avocado, cucumber, ginger, cucumber and carrots are some of the ingredients used in their raw state to make different smoothies for the three-day period.  The vegetable, green (as known by ‘us’ Okoros) or efo tete (as known by my Yoruba peeps) can also be added to the blend. Check for these fruits and vegetables  in the fruits and vegetable sections of major supermarkets. Truth is you can mix and match any of the ingredients. My favourite smoothie ‘brew’ is pineapple, water melon, bananas and some mangoes when in season. The pineapples and water melon go in the smoothie maker. Then the smoothie (fruit blend) is added to the bananas and mango pulp in the blender and it’s all whizzed up….Scrumplicious!

For those with a sweet tooth, you can still take a teensy weensy bit of chocolate. BUT, focus on the dark variety.

Lemon has vitamins and possesses cleansing properties. A slice of lemon in cold or hot water is a great energy booster. Taking  a cup of warm water with a lemon slice is a great way to start the day.  A slice of lemon in cold water or blended in a smoothie maker with beetroot with water added to it, is a healthy detoxifying brew for all times. Coconut water is also a good way of preventing dehydration and I have always been baffled by people who break the coconuts and pour away the water. As children growing up in my home, we devised all sorts of schemes to prevent the loss of any drop of the coconut water including using corkscrews at the bottom part that has three indentations and positioning it right over a cup etc. Those were the days (sigh)!

Green salads without all the fatty dressings are also great. Balsamic vinegar is better as salad dressing as it is derived from vines and rich in anti-oxidants. Be wary of the plastic packed varieties of fruit/vegetable salad hawked by fruit vendors which is really a mix of fruit and vegetables and has good intentions at the root of it. But those fruits and veggies spend so much time baking in their plastic packs in the sun such that when they are eaten, they pose more of a health hazard than benefit! Avocado pears with their heart healthy oils can be used as a spread on wheat bread sandwiches and also in salads.

Nuts are also a good way to snack. Almonds, cashew nuts and pistachio nuts are good examples of nuts with fiber, protein and omega 3 fatty acids (the good fatty acid). These nuts are available in all major supermarkets either as mixed nuts or one-nut packs. A small handful of peanuts( or groundnuts) will also not go amiss due to its high content of unsaturated fats and protein. Be sure to go for the unsalted and dry roasted varieties of all the nuts as opposed to the oil roasted ones. Walnuts are healthy and are pretty cheap when in season. They are called ukpa in Ibo and Asala or Awusa in Yoruba. In fact, there some evidence that this could boost fertility in men.  You are absolutely allowed to go nutty here J

Final tip, try eating your food slowly. Make a conscious effort to chew every bite and savour every single bit of it. This gives your tummy enough time to realize that it is actually full and reduces the amount of food you eventually eat and by extension, how often you get the munchies.

So….no more excuses guys. On the go, at home….you’ve got healthy snacking options. Go for it.

Here’s to a healthier you!

It’s Easter! Time to eat, drink and be merry. Every shop I happen to pass through has Easter eggs and Easter bunnies? Funny, I keep trying to remind myself to research this whole Easter bunny thing…origin et al, but I never seem to get very far. So, I still don’t know the origin of that. My children have been on my case to create some Easter traditions, just like we have for Christmas, centered around the Eggs and bunnies. Okay, so I love holiday traditions but…I do like to understand them before we start them off! But I digress…..

This piece is about healthy eating. The best of us would leave our good senses behind and ‘pig’ out during celebrations and then suffer through the next couple of weeks trying to lose all that weight. Ever heard of ‘a second on the lips, a lifetime on the hips?’ Well, that certainly describes this.

There are all sorts of diets and eating regimens available, most of which impose the most amazing restrictions to our diets. But, these more often than not result in yo-yo dieting…I’m on today and off tomorrow. I am skewed towards a more realistic, conscious lifestyle modification that stands the test of time, involves things that are inculcated into everyday life decisions of what to eat, that is more sustainable. What does this involve? Here goes:

Eat more fruits and vegetables.  Eating them in as close to their natural state as possible is, of course more beneficial. We fall into their temptation of wanting to do the right thing but doing it on our terms; this would involve dousing these vegetables in oil and frying them. These vegetables are rich in Vitamin C which is water soluble and so unnecessary cooking strips them of this nutrient. If we’ve got to cook them at all, add them at the final stage of cooking and cook for the barest minimum time: a minute or two. Some of the veggies are of course delicious eaten raw: carrots, lettuce, cabbage etc. These can be used in a salad with a dressing of balsamic vinegar or olive oil as opposed to all the fatty salad dressings out there. The leaf of the garden egg, called akwukwo anara in Ibo and efo gbagba (I hope I got that right?!) in Yoruba is also delicious when eaten raw as a major part of the meal.

Talking about fruits and vegetables leads me to the question, ‘how much of these can we  realistically have in each meal?’. Well, the answer is probably not what you’d love to hear but happens to be true. For a standard dinner plate, half of it should be filled with fruits/vegetables, a quarter devoted to carbs and a quarter devoted to the protein component.  The rule of thumb for the carb is that it should not be more than the quantity in the cupped palm of one hand! I hear your groans J. For the petite people like me (this is more politically correct than saying, ‘short’ or one of the funniest ones I’ve heard, ‘vertically challenged!’), this is a BIG problem! Close your eyes and visualise the tiny portions that can be accommodated in those tiny palms…sigh!

It is tough going initially until your tummy adjusts to this portion…which is in little or no time. For the carbs, it would be great to focus on the complex carbs: brown (or ofada) rice etc. This all boils down to portion control.

We talk about healthy oils: Olive oils, canola oils etc. But really, even these contain pure fat with about 120 calories in each tablespoonful of olive oil, be it light or extra light. To put this in context, consider how much time it takes to burn off 100 calories at the gym and the relative ease with which a tablespoon of oil goes onto our food. Or, remember the Johnny Walker blog where we talked about 10,000 steps per day? If you do those 10,000 steps in a day, you burn between 300 to 400 calories per day and less if you walk mainly flat surfaces! And yet, with one spoon of oil, more than a quarter of all that ‘amazing hard work’ has gone down the drain! SO remember your screams of ‘oh no! 10,000!’ and compare that with the calories burnt and then how much you gained by just adding a drop more oil. If this doesn’t convince you to go easy on the oils, I don’t know what else will! If you come from the Yoruba tribe (please be sure not to tell them I said this :|), then traditionally, cooking involves ladles and ladles of oils like palm oil (which has a high content of saturated fats associated with high cholesterol levels). I remember the first time I was exposed to stew from the Yoruba race, it had so much oil that I couldn’t see the tomatoes! Being a ‘kobo kobo’ girl who was born into a race where we live a diet of vegetables (in as raw a state as possible) and little oil, that was a culture shock and I never quite got used to it (Please don’t let my in-laws know that all that time I pretended to love those stews, I was actually just suffering through them ;)). It was almost as great a culture shock as learning to kneel down to greet. I developed waist pain the first time we travelled to the village what with all that kneeling which my ‘okoro ‘knees were not used to 🙂 Again I digress!

Another bad customer is coconut oil … so if you love your coconut rice, go easy on this. The point is: Use very little oil to cook…you really don’t need more than a spoon or two depending on what you’re cooking. I hear you groaning and wondering how this will taste? But hey, here’s another project: re-training your taste buds. Let them get used to less oil and less salt.

Talking about salt, are you one of those who routinely use the salt shaker in their food even before they taste it? Well that is a habit that’s got to be tossed. Salt has been implicated (in different studies at different times) in hypertension. The rule of thumb is, ‘if you can taste it, it’s probably too much!’

Does this blog mean to send you to that existence that is focused on just being alive and not enjoying life? As a couple of my friends would tell me, ‘na something go kill person’. So live in the moment, enjoy it and go out with a bang! Well, that’s certainly an option but consider this: I hear you thinking (don’t ask me how I hear people think. I’ve got psychic powers like that!) the food that I get to eat using these suggestions are definitely going to be bland! Nope. They don’t have to be. Use spices to add that extra special zing to your food. Thyme, curry, garlic are some good examples of some body/heart healthy spices to use in food and give it a little something extra.

Remember not to skip meals because when you do, you compensate for this later and binge. So for breakfast eat like a king (buttressing the importance of breakfast), for lunch, eat like a prince and for dinner, eat like a pauper! Breakfast could be a nourishing bowl of oatmeal. For those of you who hate it, like my children, some cinnamon (which has amazing health benefits including lowering cholesterol) makes it tastier. Lunch could be wheat meal with vegetable soup and fish; Dinner could be something light like moi-moi.  Remember to keep with the cooking instructions and portions…a handful. An acceptable way of circumventing this or increasing the portion available is to grow taller and of course increase hand span. He he he! Let’s see you try 😀

Here’s to a healthier you!

Dear Diary, you’re probably the only one who really understands how very busy the past few days have been. So, as I race through Lagos traffic towards the airport, I’m actually looking forward to catching up on some much-needed sleep on the plane…

I know quite a number of people who tell me they can’t sleep when they are in a bus, on the plane or in a car. They can’t sleep when there is even a bit of noise, when the curtains are not drawn, when the lights are on or the lights are off! Different variations! Well none of these define me! Once I’m tired, I can sleep anywhere…in the middle of a room filled with noisy children, in a squashed cramped car on a long trip, in the squashed space of a bus, in the tiny economy space of local and international flights and I daresay I can sleep on top of a trailer filled with sacks (I haven’t had this dubious pleasure yet!). In fact, I rather look forward to these trips sometimes because it presents an opportunity to sleep undisturbed. Provided I am travelling alone and not with my family, I am sure that I am unlikely to be disturbed for bathroom breaks, hunger, any sort of telephone call or work emergency. Oh bliss! (Just in case you wondered, I totally, absolutely and completely love my family :D).

So that’s my story. If you’re like me, you would stock up on some good novels to read at some point (when you open your eyes briefly) but if not, you are dreading the 6 or 12 hours (or perhaps even more) flight.

So, plan for it. Whether you’re travelling first, business or economy class, you don’t have to be worn out when you arrive at your destination. If you’re travelling economy, enquire at the booking desk if the flight is full. If it’s not, you could get a seat with empty seats beside you. Almost like flying in business class….albeit devoid of the personal touch, but who cares, right ;). Get comfortable…take off your shoes and….nothing else, please :). This should help minimise discomfort especially if foot swelling occurs. Pressure stockings are also a good idea. Get a travel pillow…those U-shaped pillows they sell at the airports. They are pretty comfy and prevent you from getting a crick in your neck during that long flight. Take walks round the cabin every hour or so to help circulation and stop you arriving at your destination with swollen legs/feet. You could use these walks to network and/or catch up with friends/colleagues/business associates who happen to be on the same flight. For the sleepy heads like me, try some ankle rotation exercises during those small intervals when you are conscious :). Lay off the coffee and alcohol. And drink a lot of water. Yes this may increase your visits to the bathrooms which you really don’t want, what with the long queues of people waiting to use them; but it is much better than getting dehydrated as the air in the cabin is pretty dry and could dehydrate you.

As for the food…perhaps you’re one of those who hate the ‘plastic’ food and laugh at the oyibo’s attempt at jollof rice (I’ve tried explaining to them that the art to cooking jollof rice is only in the gene of Nigerians and jambalaya is not even a close substitute! Please note that the study about the jollof rice-gene interaction has only been carried out in my head…so this is clearly proprietary material right here! :)), then you have no problem because you probably ignore the food. But you could stock up on some nuts (almonds, cashew nuts etc), granola bars, fruits and water to take with you. They are useful during those long lonely hours when you’re waiting for the flight to board and to take onto the plane if you’re going to ‘dis’ (code for disrespect, my son tells me) the food! It’s also most certainly cheaper and healthier than the over-priced airport food which you may be tempted to indulge in. However, if you’re going to indulge, you might want to book online and order the lower calorie options.

Pack some breath mints in your bag. There’s nothing as thoroughly embarrassing…no scratch that! There’s nothing as humiliating as trying to discuss with a business associate who you happened to meet on disembarking from the plane, while trying not to come too close because you know you’ve got morning breath! So be a boy scout! Be prepared!

If you’re, perhaps going for a conference, resist the urge to indulge in all that free food (close your eyes and visualise banquet tables groaning under the weight of all types of food: chocolate fountains, pasta, all kinds of gravy, pastries of different shades and colours, fish, chicken and beef dishes of all kinds!) and look for those healthier alternatives (fruits, salads…not soaked in dressing, quinoa, grilled fish, vegetables etc). Load up on all these…loads of beautiful colours on your plate!

You know all those free books they give you at the conference? Take only the ones you really mean to read. This way you’re not tempted to trash them at the airport when ‘they’ tell you, you’ve got excess luggage! This is becoming a huge ‘international’ joke!

I am actually on my way to a conference and so this advice is as much for you as it is for me! 😉

Here’s to… a healthier you!

The election/selection (forgive me…I am not sure what the ‘spiritually correct’ word should be) of the new pope got me thinking of spiritual health? What comes to your mind when you hear this? Whether you are born again? A pastor? An imam? A worker in church? Whether you’ve got your pastor or imam on speed dial? Well, I mean none of those things…though I am sure it is perfectly appropriate to do or be one or more of the above. This is something a little different. Something that we do not readily ascribe to health…our feeling of being at peace with ourselves and the world!

The bible tells us that as much as possible, we should live in peace with all men and I oftentimes wonder at the conditionality of the ‘as much as possible’. Now I am not a pastor and would not dare to start a religious dissection of this bible verse…there are others who are better versed at this than my poor ordinary self. However, I would go as far as suggesting that the conditionality in this sentence perhaps implies that irrespective of our very best efforts (which sometimes includes bending over backwards, walking on our heads and sometimes shedding blood!), there are just those who would never see anything good with anything we do! It could be a neighbor (who just doesn’t like you because you generally mind your business and don’t stop over to chat and discuss the other neighbours); it could be your former customer in the market (who has decided that 3^rd world war isn’t about to happen fast enough and needs some help coming up earlier, just because the last time you came to the market, you purchased fruits from someone else); it could be someone who just thinks ‘your own is too much sef’ because you like to carry yourself in a particular way or speak ‘properly’ (we shall gingerly step over the exact meaning of ‘speaking properly’); it could be your in-laws, boss in the office, colleagues or even (horror of all horrors), your co-workers in church!

Now how do you handle this? Remain at peace with yourself doing nothing to provoke them but generally being yourself knowing that whatsoever good you do, you shall reap. Understand that the only person who can really ruin your mood or peace within yourself is anyone you give the permission. If you do not give the permission then they do not have access. Whenever they get under your skin and you are threatened to retort or retaliate, listen to your heart pounding, feel your tummy tighten and an ache start there ,watch your hands trembling and your body getting ready to move in whatever direction you wish to propel it. All these are the results of substances released into your blood stream by that loss of peace and resultant anger. These combine to give you stomach ulcers, hypertension, diabetes and other disease conditions that have long term effects.

So, as difficult as it may sound, when you ignore these people who upset you (for the purpose of this post, we shall call them irritants! Just because I think it’s easier and quicker to write that, and not because I am being mean and classifying people in a derogatory way…I think! Anyways, hopefully my pastor does not get to read this and call me in for deliverance!), you’re really doing it for you and not so much for them. You want to live long and healthy and so any activity (legal, of course) that takes you there is a good one. Remember, we are enjoined to love our neighbor as ourselves…not more than ourselves! (Now my pastor must really be squirming!!!). Take for instance this story. I was driving out of my house one day and wham! A bus from nowhere just appears…and hits me! I sat down in my car minding my business, telling myself that it didn’t really matter, to ignore him and move on. I had convinced myself that this made sense when all of a sudden I heard quite a bit of noise. Looking up, I realized that during my period of meditation (in a bid not to lose my peace and ‘click ignore’) this bus driver kinda got the impression that I was a JJC and thus started raining abuses on me, the details of which I shall not burden you with! The summary though, was that I was a woman who did not think she should use a driver because she wanted to show the world she could drive myself and that I should go and park that thing (!) and stop blocking people on the road!  That was it! In one split second, all that peace disappeared! I became a seething raving mass of human! I came out of my car, went to the bus and ordered him to get out and do something about my car. In the meantime, traffic had built up behind both of us on both sides. (Did I see you cringing? Well, if you live in Lagos…you’re kinda used to this sight L).

From somewhere behind me, I heard the voice of the head teacher of my daughter’s school call out to me. That was like a bucket of cold water dumped over me. My heart slowed down, my tummy ache reduced and all of a sudden, I saw the light! What on earth am I doing in the middle of a road screaming at a bus driver…who by the way, at that time was prostrating, begging for mercy!

Lesson in this, let it all go…put it in a bubble, blow it away! You can’t win with the bus drivers. They start off abusing you, they end up, prostrating before you. At the end of the day, you are left with chronic ailments and a battered car…which still has to be fixed! In the spirit of spiritual health…I reject it in Jesus’ name on behalf of all of us!!!!

Here’s to…..a healthier you!

Yesterday was mothers’ day…for Anglicans /Pentecostals and the social media was awash with tributes, messages, pictures and display pictures of mothers from the world over! Some of the messages were emotional, some were funny and some just took you…way back! It certainly took me on a journey…to a time when I felt that  the age ‘30’ was ancient, when I thought grey hair was ‘cool’ and when I was a custodian of all ‘cool’ lingo…now I struggle to keep up with my children! Those were the days….(sigh!). Mothers’ day for me, then, was spent at my grandmothers’ house with all my cousins, aunties and uncles congregating to eat, drink and be merry (naturally!). Gifts were exchanged at some point…I think! My ‘older’ mind races to recall….

But I digress! It is established…actually has been forever that mum is special! But…how many of us know what mum is dealing with these days? Those headaches she keeps complaining about, that just won’t go away.…are they symptoms of something else? Would you have an idea of any chronic condition she suffers from, if asked? Hypertension, Diabetes, arthritis? Does she have a blood pressure monitor? When was the last time she got a medical checkup? If she has a chronic ailment, have you ever bothered to ensure that her drug refill is continuous? Questions! Questions!

The aim of these questions…is not necessarily to evoke guilty feelings (though it may not be a bad place to start…especially if it is effective! ;)) It really is about the health of these precious people (and daddies are not left out!) In terms of emotional health, our mothers were there when other people were too busy…to heal our hurts, nurse those damaged limbs and fragile teenage egos! They kept our secrets and told nobody of those excruciatingly embarrassing moments that we wish we could just wipe away from history (have I got some of those!!!!)

So, to celebrate these special women, what would be a good mothers’ day gift? A car? A house? A new dress/lace fabric/aso-oke? A new phone? Blackberry Porsche perhaps? Am I getting warm? But going back to my trusted book, the bible…all these shall pass away. These things are not meaningful if mama/mum is not around. Yep! It won’t make sense to see all these stuff lying around when the person we bought them for is not around. Or the most ridiculous of all! Spend tons of money that, perhaps, poor mum never knew we had when she was alive, for her burial! It is so senseless!

Is there an answer in here somewhere, I hear you ask? Actually yes! Please visit mum often…this improves her emotional health. Go with your family and just say hello…not just on mothers’ day! Call her up from time to time. Buy her a BP monitor to check her blood pressure at home. Get a doctor/nurse to do house calls and check on her. Buy her a health plan that registers her in a hospital next door to the house and ensures that she is covered for all manner of medical care from the basic to the esoteric and even covers the supply of her drugs on a monthly basis. This takes away the pressure of remembering to send money down for the drugs, takes away the pressure of trying to figure out how to fund mum’s surgery (should there be need for one) and makes mum know very clearly that she is firmly on your mind despite the fact that you may not really be near her all the time.

The boost to her emotional health adds more years than drugs can and makes her a happier woman. For those who have children, you just might be teaching them how you would like to be looked after in your time! So, don’t waste time…call up an HMO today and get mum’s health plan started. Please get one for dad too…I don’t want to be accused of gender insensitivity! And while you’re at it…one for you and your family!

So, here’s to a healthier mum…and a healthier you!