Words Have Power

A lot of younger people have no idea what aging actually looks and feels like, and the reasons behind it. That ignorance is so dangerous. If you don’t want to “be old,” you aren’t talking about a number of years. I have patients in their late 80s who could still handily beat me in a race—one couple still runs marathons together, in their late 80s—and I lost someone who was in her early 60s to COPD last year. What you want is not youth, it is health.

If you want to still be able to enjoy doing things in your 60s and 70s and 80s and even 90s, what you want to do, right now, is quit smoking, get some activity on a regular basis (a couple of walks a week is WAY better for you than nothing; increasing from 1 hour a day of cardio to 1.5 will buy you very little), and eat some plants. That’s it. No magic to it. No secret weird tricks. Don’t poison yourself, move around so your body doesn’t forget how, and eat plants.

If you have trouble moving around now because of mobility limitations, bad news: you still need to move around, not because it’s immoral not to, but because that’s still the best advice we have. I highly recommend looking up the Sit and Be Fit series; it is freely available and has exercises that can be done in a chair, which are suitable for people with limited mobility or poor balance. POTS sufferers, I’m looking at you.

If you have trouble eating plants because of dietary issues (they cause gas, etc.) or just because they’re bitter (super taster with texture issues here!), bad news. You still want to find a way to get some plants into your body on a regular basis. I know. It sucks. The only way I can do it is restaurants—they can make salads taste like food. I can also tolerate some bagged salads. On bad weeks, the OCD with contamination focus gets so bad I just can’t. However, canned beans always seem “safe,” and they taste a bit like candy, so they’re a good fallback.

If you smoke and you have tried quitting a million times and you’re just not ready to, bad news. You still need to quit. Your body needs you to try and keep trying. Your brain needs it, too. Damaging small blood vessels racks up cumulative damage over time that your body can start trying to reverse as soon as you quit. I know it’s insanely, absurdly addictive. You still need to.

You cannot rules lawyer your way past your body’s basic needs. It needs food, sleep, activity, and the absence of poison. Those are both small things and big asks. You cannot sustain a routine based on punishment, so don’t punish your body. Find ways to include these things that are enjoyable and rewarding instead. Experiment. There is no reason not to experiment—you don’t have to know instantly what’s going to work for you and what won’t, you just need to be willing to try things and make changes when things aren’t working for you.

You will still age. Your body will stop making collagen and elastin. Tissues you can see and tissues you can’t see will both sag. Cushioning tissues under your skin will get thinner. You’ll bruise more easily. Skin will tear more easily. Accumulated sun damage will start to show more and more. Joints will begin to show arthritis. Tendons and ligaments will get weaker and get injured more easily, as will muscles. Bones will lose mass and get easier to break. You’ll get tired more easily.

But you know what makes the difference between being dead, or as good as, in your 60s vs your 90s? Activity, plants, and quitting smoking. And don’t do meth. Saw a 58-year-old guy this week who is going to have a heart attack if he doesn’t quit whatever stimulant he’s on. I pretended to believe it was just the cigarettes, and maybe it is, but meth and cocaine will kill you quicker. Stop poisoning yourself.

Baby steps; take it one step at a time; you don’t need to have everything figured out right now. But you do need to be working on figuring things out.

If you are opposed to eating plants for various reasons, there are a few things you can try (do we still call them "lifehacks"? you can tell I'm an Old).

(1) Put vegetables in a smoothie with fruit, particularly berries. My experience is that berries will cover the taste of any vegetable, so if the taste of veggies is offputting, go the smoothie route.

(2) Melt cheese on cooked vegetables and/or eat raw vegetables with dip. Throw them in a quiche or frittata or soup. Adding something that makes the veggies yummier does not in any way take away from all the good stuff you get with the veggies.

(3) Do you hate the taste of cooked cauliflower/brussels sprouts/whatever? Try roasting them. Holy shit, roasting veggies is life changing. They are so fucking good when they're roasted.

(4) If your problem with veggies is gastrointestinal, try GasX or Beano. And definitely don't go from zero veggies to 7 servings a day all at once, because your system will be super unhappy with the sudden dramatic increase in fiber. Add them in 1-2 servings a day and work your way up. It's not a race.

Your basic green smoothie recipe:

1 cup of milk (or yogurt or dairy-free alternative) 1 cup of greens (spinach is good because you don't really taste it) 1 banana 1/2 cup of frozen fruit (strawberries, cherries, mangos, blueberries, etc.) Additional things you can add for taste: coconut oil, peanut butter or peanut butter powder, vanilla, almond extract, sugar-free flavored syrups, brown sugar, cinnamon Additional things you can add for health: flaxseed, chia, hemp, protein powder

Workout For Daily Life

Reblogging for the neck pain ones… whoa Nelly, do I ever get the most killer neck pains.

When I was in rehab for a broken hip, my physiotherapist taught me to do the hand/wrist, feet and neck exercises as well as leg extensions etc.

‘It’s all connected,’ he’d say. And he’s right :) I still do those exercises regularly and they help. They help a lot.

Transcript:

"Remember when disabled people were trying to warn everybody that the politicization of the CDC and the complete erosion of public health would impact everyone eventually? Well, news just came out that the CDC guidelines have been updated so that students with lice no longer need to be sent home early.

…......

Right?

The CDC is ACTIVELY weakening its guidelines on lice so that students with lice can remain in school. Now, why would they do that, right? 'Cause children missing school in a vacuum is not necessarily a bad thing, particularly when they're trying to prevent the spread of something like lice -- or COVID but hey, YOU all don't wanna talk about that anymore, right?

But it's because you all work and they don't want you staying home from work, so they'll expose your children to lice in order for you to stay in work, for you to make those ducats, right? For corporations and billionaires.

If this is something you can tolerate -- feel free, right? But these loosening guidelines don't just stop with lice. They are running down the list of things, so that it harms and impacts your children, your families and your communities, and disabled people have been saying this from the beginning -- that it won't just stop at COVID because disabled people are "disposable", but it'll impact every single thing.

And now, we have a rise in monkeypox, 'cause there's another variant going around, and that has a 10% fatality rate."

There's a post going around Tumblr about how if you're post-menopausal and have bleeding, you should get it checked by your doctor. I brought some minor bleeding I'd had up in a doctor visit earlier this year, prompted by that post, and this week, after a biopsy, I found out I have cancer. It's early stage and the survival odds at 5 years are 99%. I have an oncologist appointment and we may have caught it early enough that surgery alone will be sufficient treatment (no radiation/chemo).

So that post may have saved my life and it may have made my treatment a lot easier too.

If you get into menopause and then start bleeding again, really, get your reproductive innards checked out. The life you save may be your own.

I honestly believe the whole “adults require less sleep” thing is honest to god probably a myth created by capitalism

It is.

i honestly believe that sleep deprivation is the biggest ignored/neglected root cause of health dangers that prematurely kill adults

ask me sometime about the role of sleep in the leptin ghrelin cycle and how its interruption destabilizes weight homeostasis

or about the new research showing that heart disease is not caused by fat, like we thought for years, but by inflammation in the circulatory system whose root cause is unknown but one of the prime suspects is, you guessed it, sleep deprivation

but nobody wants to hear that lack of sleep is killing people. employers don’t want to hear it. and god knows that having sold their waking hours to capitalism to survive workers don’t want to lose the only time they have left to them to live their lives, mostly stolen from sleep

i mean even i don’t want to do anything about it and i love  sleep, i just love overwatch more

this this this this this

our society places almost zero value on sleep

on enough sleep

on uninterrupted sleep

on regular, predictable, cycling sleep

all the evidence we have suggests sleep is really, really, really important to the processes of the human body, including both mental and physical health, and yet when was the last time you heard somebody suggest that people had a *right* to sufficient, regular sleep?

Reminder that 

- Humans are not meant to sleep for extended periods of uninterrupted sleep. 

By this I don’t mean “humans shouldn’t have 8+ hours of sleep a night”; I mean that we are supposed to sleep for four to five hours (ish), then get up and do something relaxing like reading for a half hour to an hour, then get another bout of four to five hours. This is what our bodies were designed for. 

Sleeping the whole night through was a fad started with the advent of the lightbulb. Sleeping the whole night through is so recent (and artificial) that First Sleep and Second Sleep are mentioned in Dickens’ novels.

- Lack of sleep for even a single night severely compromises your immune system.

If you’re planning on getting little sleep or pulling an all-nighter, make sure to eat lots of fruit and veggies/take vitamins that day. Or even better, get yourself some bee propolis. It’s a natural remedy used for thousands of years in Latin America and is insanely good for boosting up compromised immune systems (if you get the drop kind, put 3 to 4 drops in a spoonful of honey and mix well with a 2nd spoon to mask the strong taste). It has no side effects and is all but impossible to overdose on.

- According to several government bodies around the world, chronic lack of sleep is literally tied for 1st place as the worst kind of torture (the other is solitary isolation)

- Expecting a teen to get up for 8:30 classes is the equivalent of expecting an adult to be at work at 4 am.

After babies, teens are the age group that needs the most amount of sleep. Puberty is exhausting, and the body needs time to recharge. Ideally, a teen should be getting between 10 to 12 hours of sleep at the bare minimum. Most teens are lucky if they manage to get 8. And that’s a gigantic problem; not only does lack of sleep affect mood (which is extra significant when your hormones are already riding a rollercoaster to begin with), but also has massive effects on growth, which is kinda what the whole puberty thing is supposed to be about.

- According to research “starting work before 10 a.m. is tantamount to torture and is making staff sick and stressed”

- Humans were not designed to have the same sleep cycle across the species. Much the opposite in fact.

Night owls and morning people are an actual thing. Because we’re pack creatures, Nature came up with a clever way for our ancestors to always have someone on the lookout for predators and threats: make people naturally alert at varying times so that there’s always someone alert to keep watch. 

Forcing night owls to follow morning people’s sleep cycle means night owls live with what researchers have referred to as “permanent jetlag”.

(points my shaking fist at high school) WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME 

In one powerful tweetstorm, this woman demolishes the hypocrisy of fat shaming

I thought this tweet was important to include too

this is body positivity that’s like actually important lmao 

When we talk about being fat-positive and we say, “weight is not an indication of health,” I will reblog it. But I want us to also say, “health is not an indication of value.”

I could be at any weight and I will never be healthy, because I am chronically ill. Someone might be chronically ill and fat, or they might be chronically ill and not fat, and it really doesn’t matter.

When you make it about health, you’re saying health is the pinnacle of human achievement, and you’re shitting on those of us for whom health will always be a pipe dream.

We’re saying we don’t to die at 32 from obesity, diabetes, or simply that fat sitting on top of your important organs.

Other people’s VALUE doesn’t come from how LONG they live.

Other people’s health is NONE of your fucking business unless they ask you about it.

Either way, shut the fuck up.

Well what if we care enough to want to help them?

Unless someone wants your help and you are their doctor then it’s none of your fucking business. They could live until they are 108, a skinny person could die of health issues much younger. If you love them and value them then don’t insert yourself into their personal shit unless asked.

When they don’t have insurance or expect social services and welfare because of bad choices it is my business. 

Obesity is 100% a choice. 

If you use more calories than you intake, you can not gain weight. It’s impossible. Do hormones/biology/medical issues make it more difficult? Absolutely. 

But the laws of physics can not be broken. 

A society that glorifies bad decisions and expecting me to pay for them is my business. 

Nah. If you don’t want to live in a society that pays for some of the costs other people accrue then don’t.

We ALL have some of our money go towards shit we don’t want or need, like expensive overseas invasions that cost more than an army of chubbos eating like they do in your imaginations.

Mind your own body. No one is monitoring what you eat, drink, smoke or any dangerous hobbies you have ALL of which could possibly cost money. There are things you do that are potential expenditures and you would say it’s no one else’s business.

Mind your body, mind your business.

Isn’t it interesting how nothing ever changes and we never become more enlightened as a species?

“That person is fat, therefore they must be lazy and lack self-control” is simply the 20th/21st century equivalent of “that person is a hunchback and therefore must be cursed by the devil” or “that person has numerous prominent moles and must therefore be in league with Satan.”

It’s the 21st century and we still see not meeting the cosmetic physical “norm” as a moral failing.

Do! 👀 NOT!! 👀 Double!! 👀 Bind!!!

Double!! 👀 Bind!!👀 If!! 👀Needed!!👀For!!👀Flat!!👀Chest!!!

um or don’t because it’s unhealthy and can mess up ur body a similar way as an ace bandage?

Guys please dont double bind!! I know it sucks to not have a flat chest, trust me im a triple D and im not a big dude..im rather small. I. Know. It. Sucks. But. Please! DONT! DOUBLE! BIND! It can heavily damage your body! Its way too risky and not worth it… believe me its not!

Hey fam, double binding now severely impacts your ability to have a healthy enough body for top surgery (if you want it), exercise, or even basic respiration in the future. So, even though not being flat right now sucks (I hear you. I’m with you. I’m sorry.) right now will not last forever, and right now is not worth all of the things double binding will make you not be able to enjoy or even experience. 

There are so many awesome things about you that deserve more room to breathe and flourish than double binding will allow. 

Your validity is not determined by how flat you are.

Your worth is not measured in the circumference of your chest.

You deserve to breathe. You deserve belly laughs, and the ability for your lungs to expand enough to sing really bad karaoke or blow out birthday candles or take your dog for a walk. You deserve oxygen, and unbroken ribs, and unpunctured lungs. You deserve to live like the bad ass you are, and you can’t if you can’t breathe (I know this from experience!). 

By double binding you are restricting the glory of who you are and all you can be to this idea that validity, joy, and worth are only for guys with flat chests. It’s a lie. You don’t need a flat chest to be valid. You don’t need a flat chest to own your truth and be true to it. The idea is a lie. You don’t deserve its consequences (physical and emotional). The truth of your validity and awesomeness is so much better, so please bind safely and keep breathing into the bad ass that is you.

No flat chest is worth a flatline.

Thanks, @transboysunited <3

Sorry for the spam guys, but really, I’m reblogging these because no one talks about double binding and the first reblog really shocked me. The only reason I am mentioning this is because I’VE done it, and it’s not ok.

Thankfully, I stopped double binding before breaking any ribs, despite doing it for a quite a long time, but I know that double binding has damaged me INSIDE.

I used to double bind almost daily because of dysphoria and it got to the point, I really did need to have a break. I couldn’t bind at all and thankfully, at this time I was going through mental health issues so I didn’t leave my house in need of having to wear my binder, but I was in pain; my back, my chest, my ribs, everything hurt. I remember for about 2 weeks I stayed in bed but I remember even lying down would kill me. I’ve never been to a doctor about it, but I have eventually healed.

However, even now, my back, chest and ribs can still hurt if I bind for about 1-2 hours. My body really can’t take it any more and there will also be times that even without binding, it will play up.

Just because you’re not using an ace bandage, or tape, does NOT mean that double binding with a chest binder, a small sports bra, a small binder or a mixture of both is safe and won’t harm you, because it’s far from safe.

Bind safely, one binder is enough and remember that chests are not 100% flat.

You really need to listen if you are doing this because I know that if I saw a message like this sooner, I probably would have stopped.

-Caleb

Note from a biologist and EMT

Your rib cage isn’t really a system of bones the way any other bone is. Its not anchored to other bones through joint systems. Its connected by a series of elastic cartilage segments or fused to your sternum or spine.

This elasticity is great for your lungs because it means your ribs can expand so you can take deeper breaths, but it also means your ribs are extremely vulnerable to warping under continual pressure.

Over binding, especially when you’re still growing (so from puberty typically until your mid 20s), will permanently deform your ribs and back. I assure you binding safely now will not only insure you can have top surgery, but will save you from chronic, often dehabilitating and life threatening injury.

For any of my binding nb peeps. Keep yourselves safe.

theres a huge difference btwn panic attacks and anxiety attacks. i keep seeing people use panic attack to refer to anxiety attacks and as someone who experience panic attacks it’s just not cool to see it being marginalized in that way.

the difference is:

Source: Cathy Frank, M.D., Director, Outpatient Behavioral Health Services, Henry Ford Hospital

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