The Long Run - a book on recovery and the power of the human spirit

Last weekend I read Matt Long's The Long Run and I teared up dozens of times. The book is about Matt Long's recovery after a 20-ton bus hit him, sucking him under it. "In the 18 months before the accident, he had competed in more than 20 events including several triathlons and marathons and had qualified for running’s most prestigious race, the Boston Marathon. After the accident, his doctor told him he’d be lucky if he could even walk without a cane. The Long Run is an emotional and incredibly honest story about Matt’s determination to fight through fear, despair, loneliness, and intense physical and psychological pain to regain the life he once had. The book chronicles Matt’s road to recovery as he teaches himself to walk again and, a mere three years later, to run in the 2008 New York City Marathon."

My scar

 I've been reflecting on why this book had such an impact on me. I think it's because it hit WAY too close to home, though a much smaller scale than Matt's trauma. In 2009 my appendix burst but a negligent doctor sent me home with a UTI diagnosis. Days of me living with a ruptured appendix without knowing it resulted in doctors having to take out not only my appendix but parts of my small & large intestine as well. I couldn't eat anything for several days. They couldn't close me up because the infection was so severe (hence the scar). And I was in the hospital for 11 days. When I was discharged I could barely walk without assistance. It took me months until I could run again.

I remember those dark days where I thought I would never be able to run at a "fast" pace again. I remember the depression I felt at just being in the hospital for 11 days. So while reading this book I was taking the emotions from my ordeal and then magnifying it by 20x to begin to understand what Matt overcame to run a marathon 3 years after he almost died......amazing what the human body and spirit is capable of!

All runners and anyone who has ever had to overcome a physical challenge should definitely read this book. And while you're at it check out Matt Long's I Will foundation.

Mission: The I WILL FOUNDATION is a non-profit organization established to help people, with the will to work hard, overcome adversity and challenges caused by life altering illness or traumatic injury. Our primary goal is to provide motivational and inspirational support through hands on training, coaching, and financial support when necessary. We believe the will to survive and accomplish all tasks, great and small, is present in all of us whether we recognize it or not. If you have the desire to live your life to the fullest, we can help you.

Housing Works: donating books

As a frequent user of NYC libraries, (I read 2-5 books a week so I'm there a lot) they were the first place I thought of when deciding to donate 10 books I had. The books had only been read once so were in excellent condition. However, when I went to the library books in hand I was turned away. Supposedly it is often cheaper for the library to buy new books then to process them....

"Donated books and other materials incur costs and additional time to process. Before they can be shelved with the larger collection, their condition must be evaluated, followed by cataloging, processing and transporting. These materials ultimately have a shorter shelf life. It is more cost-efficient to purchase new books and media, which are delivered "shelf-ready."

Luckily Brooklyn's library website has some recommended places that take book donations. And even luckier one of Housing Works' locations is a block away from the library I visit weekly. The thrift store is really cool, lots of stuff I could see myself buying... like a rocking chair I keep day dreaming of. Plus it's all for a good cause....."Housing Works is committed to ending the twin crises of AIDS and homelessness. We believe that all people have the right to a rich and empowering life. Since 1990, we have provided the highest quality services for homeless men, women, and children living with HIV and AIDS in New York City and beyond."

Happy donating!

How to Save the World?

No, seriously….how do you save the world? When I was a Peace Corps volunteer living in Tanzania people back home in America would say “She’s off saving the world”. When I decided not to join the corporate world and do non-profit work they’d remark “Good for you, saving the world.” However, every week I read The Economist, watch The Daily Show and read Foreign Policy’s daily morning brief…..it’s quite clear the world is not doing much better.

There are so many ills going on in the world. The US continues to disappoint me as the rich become richer and the poor poorer. The government denies 9/11 first responders covered cancer treatment. So many countries are experiencing wars/fighting. The current famine going on in Somali continues to stay on my mind. I read things like “29,000 Somali children under 5 dead in famine” and I want to do something to help.

How do people who want to help make sure they are actually helping? I almost wish I could go back to my pre-Road to Hell ignorance. The time where I thought just donating some money every month would help fix things.

I stay firm that education is the way out. If everyone gets quality education they can help themselves and their country. Corrupt governments will have a harder time bulldozing their citizens. Although I cried through most of the book Half the Sky, the common theme for happy endings involved education.

How do you help?

getting off 'the road to hell'

This week I read The Road to Hell: The Ravaging Effects of Foreign Aid and International Charity by Michael Maren. From the first few pages where Maren paints a negative picture of Peace Corps volunteers (I'm a returned Peace Corps volunteer, Tanzania 06-08) I was torn between wanting to throw the book out the window and being really captivated. I'm glad I read it because it forced me to really think critically about foreign aid. Moving forward I will only donate to an organization if I have detailed knowledge of their projects/operation.

Most of the book features Somalia aid work by Save the Children and CARE. To give a really brief summary..... the book claims the aid work is making things worst, keeping evil governments in power and making slaves of those in refugee camps. Maren basically says aid workers/orgs care most about attracting funding. They don't care if their projects fail or if most of the "free food" goes to rebel army groups etc. Plus they often lie about where money is going.

After reading the book, I was left feeling cheated by all the ads I have viewed throughout my lifetime calling for my donation. I started to wonder if my past donations to UNHCR, CARE and the Red Cross etc. were wasted. So I enlisted Facebook for help. I posted "To anyone who has read 'The Road to Hell'. The book was written in 1997, are NGO/charities still this bad?" and the universe answered.

I forgot I have a lot of friends in international development. Watch this video about the importance of learning from failures and read some of their thoughts below.

• Not all aid orgs are evil, some believe in accountability, openness and innovating: Engineers Without Borders publishes failure reports annually
• EWB also created Admitting Failure inviting others to admit their failure so everyone can benefit and not repeat mistakes.
• One friend works for CARE now and says they are much different now. Plus the picture Maren painted of its employees is not accurate.
• When faced with the problem: give food to people who need it but some rebels will get some of it OR give no food whatsoever and chance people starving to death...what would you do?
• We do need more oversight/regulation of the whole field. Also more follow through and maintenance (Pumps and pipes fail within months of installation, but the installing NGO or GO never goes back to make sure things are still running smoothly.)
• A lot of people out there make their livings off of criticizing aid/development (Bill Easterly, Dambisa Moyo and Mahmood Mamdani) while seldom offering solutions for fixing what's wrong.
• NGOs are dependent on donors for funding, and donors often give money for specific purposes. Everyone wants to give money to help build schools and all of the other high-profile projects. But where's the money to increase protection for aid workers in conflict situations, for example? There are so many areas that are underfunded by donors because they aren't attention-grabbing, but they may be equally important as other stuff. NGOs often push for unrestricted donations, but ultimately that's the donor's choice.
• There's still too much focus on providing basic necessities (food/water/shelter/medicine) in refugee camps and not enough on psychosocial support and livelihood support. "We're so concerned with how people are dying, but not with how they are living".
• Aid absolves African govs of accountability to its citizens and cuts the african entrepreneur out of the decision making process. Why should the govt sit with its people to find ways of increasing revenue yet they can do that with the IMF? Africans don’t want handouts, we want opportunities to trade, just like everybody else. There's more poverty in India and China than continental Africa combined in terms of absolute numbers, and yet you don’t see images of their children requesting aid. Instead, their govs astutely figured out that wealth is a function of income-generating jobs, not donations. The entire framework of aid must change from POVERTY ERADICATION to WEALTH CREATION: there's a big difference. Instead of handing out mosquito nets, give small loans to African entrepreneurs who want to set up a mosquito net manufacturing store. Check out kiva.org, its brilliant.
• Overall, I think the development "industry" is headed in the right direction. There is also now actual science being done and submitted in refereed journals looking at and comparing different aid techniques. I think the next decade will be a good one for development.

Picture: This picture is from Engineers Without Borders. It summarizes how it might not be as "sexy" to sponsor spreadsheets/maintenance/a teacher's salary as it is to help build a new school or water well, but we need less "hardware" (building/installing) and more "software"(people with skills)

Thrive: The Vegan Nutrition Guide to Optimal Perfomance in Sports and Life

2011 will be the year of my first marathon (Insha'Allah). I'm going to hold off on serious training until after the Baha'i fast this March. One can't seriously train when abstaining from food and water sun up to sun down. In the mean time I've been researching what it's like to train for 26.2 miles as a vegan.

Most vegan athletes have heard of Brendan Brazier. He's a vegan Ironman triathlete and runner. Brazier won two Canadian 50 km Ultramarathon Championships (2003, 2006) and was regarded as one of Canada’s top endurance athletes and among the world’s best ultramarathoners.

I decided to read one of Brazier's books this week "Thrive: The Vegan Nutrition Guide to Optimal Perfomance in Sports and Life" to get tips on how to tweak my diet so I have the energy to run 20+ miles.

Thrive is a well researched book. Brazier includes numerous ideas for things to add to my diet and the general concept of being an active vegan. It's a great read for any runner/athlete. The book has tons of recipes and in-depth info. Added plus if you like a raw vegan diet. Some summary notes from the book:

• Acidic foods can lead to numerous health problems. Try to eat more highly alkaline forming food. The goal is for your body to have a pH of 7.35. Most non-vegan items are highly acidic (cow's milk, meat etc.)
• "One-step nutrition", eating foods already in a form usable by the body is the key. Complex carbs have to be converted to simple; fat converted to fatty acids; protein converted to amino. It's more efficient to eat things already in the converted form -> less energy used breaking the food down etc.
• Good amino acids sources: hemp, leafy greens, sprouts. Fatty acids: seeds like flax, hemp pumpkin, walnuts and oil.
• How to fuel your body before exercise depends on the degree of intensity. High intensity but shorter duration: 3% protein, 7% fat, 90% carbs (A mix of dates and coconut oil is recommended). Moderate intensity: 5% protein, 35% fat, 60% carbs. Low intensity but long duration (ie marathon running): protein 10%, fat 70%, carbs 20%
• For workouts longer than 3 hours you must train your body to burn fat efficiently and preserve glycogen stores. Otherwise you will tire easily and need to take more breaks to refuel. Easy long exercises like bike riding for 5 hrs at leisure pace will train the body to burn fat.
• Eat a lite carb within 45 min of a workout so muscles can absorb it and aid recovery (no fiber and less than 20% protein)
• Eat an easily digestible meal an hour after the workout with protein. (If the meal is hard for the body to digest blood flow increases to the stomach instead of working to clear out lactic acid and aid muscle strain
• Power foods: Dinosaur kale, sea vegetables (10x the calcium of cow's milk), yellow peas, flaxseeds (high omega 3 and 6), sprouts and quinoa/amaranth

Happy reading and eating :)

Eating Animals

I finished reading Eating Animals last week in effort to strengthen my resolve against eating fish (the only thing I miss after being vegan). Also it was highly recommended (for example by a favorite veg celeb, Nathalie Portman).

It didn't help with the fish thing. I feel like most of these books spend 20 pages helping me feel outraged against killing pigs/cows etc but only 2 pages on fish. The main thing I got was that over fishing is hurting the environment and many other species are being killed in tuna nets etc.

There were other helpful tidbits.... I didn't realize how far we have gotten away from "normal" chickens and turkeys to the point where most can't even procreate naturally, fly or move. Another thing that stayed in my mind is the amount of chemicals and "fluids" injected in slaughtered animals to try to beef up the priced weight and help them survive their unnatural life. Especially when compared to the amount of antibiotics illegal in Europe but allowed in the US = gross.

If you have time why not read this book....if you only have time for 1 pro-animal/pro-food health book I still think Skinny Bitch is a better read.

Vegan: The New Ethics of Eating by Erik Marcus

I finished reading 'Vegan: The New Ethics of Eating' by Erik Marcus this week. The book includes studies where vegan diets have helped those with cancer, heart disease, high cholesterol or just those looking to lose weight. It's a good read for those who want more scientific and environmental reasons to be vegan. The clincher for me was learning that by drinking milk one contributes to the veal industry (i.e. evil incarnate).

Favorite quote: "Some people like to tell me that the way I eat is radical. Well, I think it's radical when they take you into a hospital on a gurney and decide you need a $40,000+ operation. I think it's radical when they saw your ribs open and then take pieces of your artery from your legs and sew them onto your heart. That's radical! Eating beans, delicious vegetables and grains is not radical." ~ Robert Siegel

Notes on the book

• Vegans have cholesterol levels 35% lower than average (vegetarians 14% lower than average)
• Dr. Ornish's diet program for reversing heart disease shows that people who had previously had a heart attack were able to lower their cholesterol 100 points after 1 year (250 points after many years). Dr. Ornish's diet program was so efficient some people were able to stop taking their daily heart/cholesterol medications. Even WebMD has a great review for his diet and research detailed in the book "Eat More, Weigh Less"
• The China Project, which studied the dietary lifestyle patterns and health of numerous villages/cities in China, found that Chinese who ate the least fat and animal products had substantially lower rates of cancer, heart attack and other chronic degenerative diseases.
• Vegetarians/Vegans have less colon cancer risk. Vegetarians/Vegans have lower concentrations of carcinogenic bile acids and lower pH levels in their colons. Vegetarians/Vegans eat more fiber.
• Diary is not the answer to osteoporosis. America has one of the highest rates of hip fractures in the world, yet we consume the most diary. Studies hint that high protein diets can actually cause calcium loss.
• The body produces its own cholesterol. It's essential for all animal life. However, the body doesn't need the excess cholesterol we get from eating meat and diary.
• 38% of the world grains goes to feeding livestock. It takes 4.5 pounds of grain to produce 1 pound of beef. Vegans consume 2,500 calories of crop production, people who eat 30% of their food from meat require 9,000 calories of crop production.
• Eating eggs contributes to the killing of millions of male chicks. Soon after chicks are born they are divided by sex. The males are not as efficient in producing meat and don't lay eggs, so they are killed. They are either suffocated in a bag, gased with carbon dioxide or grinded.
• Consuming diary contributes to the veal industry. To keep milk yields high dairy cows are kept constantly pregnant, giving birth on average every 13 months. This produces a surplus of cows. The extra calves are sold to the veal industry.

Next on the food reading list "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" by Barbara Kingsolver

Let the Vegan Revolution Begin!

So I did it. I made the decision to live vegan.

After being a pescatarian for 13 years (vegetarian 2 of those years), I've extended the cut to include seafood, milk and eggs etc.

For those of you wondering why..... I've always based my dietary beliefs on "I won't eat anything that weighs heavy on my soul." Growing up I only felt guilty/bad/sad eating things that could walk/fly. I never felt anything when I thought of killing fish. So I ate accordingly. However after reading numerous books The Omnivore's Dilemma and Skinny Bitch, watching documentaries like Food, Inc. and Super Size Me I've had enough....If you haven't seen these movies or read these books please do. The amount of deception going on in our food industry is scary. Food, Inc. was the worst kind of horror movie, one that's true.

Things that weigh heavy on my soul:

1. By consuming diary products I was contributing to the death of cows (Female cows must continue to give birth to produce milk. Most male offspring of diary cows are killed for meat)
2. Most cows are overmilked by machines so that puss comes out from their udders.
3. The fishing industry is throwing the marine ecosystem off balance.
4. The form/type of calcium obtained from milk is NOT the kind that helps our bones etc. (Some studies even tied high milk consumption to osteoporosis)
5. In many farms chickens are abused and mistreated. By eating eggs I was giving money to that industry. Though the jury still out on "range free" or "cage free" eggs.

It's only been a week. I've given up everything except butter (which I will give up as soon as I buy vegan margarine). It's been hard and easy. The more I read about being a vegan the happier I am with my choice. But milk by-products are in everything. Even my favorite veggie chi'kn nuggets :(

This blog will be about my conversion to veganism, living a pure life and whatever my guest bloggers have to offer.

Ask yourself, how much do you trust the F.D.A. to keep your food safe?