Category: Health

Many people use soy sauce in their cooking and at the dining table without thinking much about it. It is so common in Asian cuisines that it is assumed to be safe for everything. Well, it is not.

Soy sauce is a fermented product. We know very well from Chinese medical point of view that a person with any form of injury or internal inflammation should avoid fermented food at least until after the wound is closed up or that the inflammation is gone. However, many people would not notice that they are eating fermented food when they prepare their food with soy sauce. That’s one of the reasons why it takes so long for some people to recover from a simple shoulder injury (or post exercise stiffness) even if they cautiously avoiding food that is known to keep the inflammation staying longer. The most common form of reactions to soy sauce due to internal inflammation is bloating.

There is also this growing issue of soy sauce allergy. There are more and more cases of allergy reactions to soy sauce that were unnoticed before. Only until after some people actually go for allergy testing due to allergy reactions to other allergens like gluten that they discover that they are allergy to soy sauce as well. If you do have such problems, try switching to organic non-GMO soy sauce to see if the problem goes away. Many people I talked to actually have no allergy reactions since they switched.

Dining out at a non-Asian restaurant no longer guarantee that you are safe from soy sauce. Many Western restaurants prepare their food with a hint of soy sauce to improve the favour. So telling your server at the restaurant that you don’t want your food prepared with soy sauce can often help. One classic way to reduce the soy influence on our bodies is drinking green tea. If you find you are very bloated several hours after dining out at a Chinese restaurant, and that drinking green tea right after can bring you back to normal, you know you need to avoid or reduce soy sauce in your diet.

Finally, just try using simple sea salt or going fancy with Himalayan pink salt instead of using soy sauce for favouring. If you have never tried that, you will discover a whole new dimension of taste from the original ingredients that were masked out by soy sauce.

Seriously, putting soy sauce on everything is kind of boring, isn’t it?

Picture Source: Wikimedia.org

It is very interesting how divided people are in terms of taking health related supplements. Many older people hold the belief that these supplements are just snake oil that the big companies created to grab more money from gullible people. Some other people, especially those whose health are compromised, keep on seeking for better supplements to relief their pains, insomnia and other ailments. The big question boils down to one thing though – are you knowledgeable enough to make the right decision for yourself whether you need supplement or not.

Many Supplements Actually Work

Many classic supplements, especially the ones made with natural ingredients, work. And most of us actually eat them in one form or another. The very flavourful soup you drank when you were young, the traditional fermented food from your home country and those special cocktail of stuff in your herbal tea for treating your cold are all functional supplements, in a way. The old ways in making these digestible stuff to augment our health still work but it takes time and lots of effort to prepare them. Technology and medical science has taken on these tasks, resulting in readily available forms of these supplements.

However, we have a new issue to deal with as it gets much easier to access to these health supplements. Namely, there are so many kinds of supplements and so many brands to choose from. It is very difficult to figure out which one to take and what is actually suitable for your situation.

Everyone Needs Some Form of Supplements to Stay Healthy

Once a person has reached their prime of 30 years old, the ability to absorb nutrients declines. This belief comes straight from traditional Chinese medicine and is confirmed by Western medical science with better details. This very simple fact contributes a lot to the aging process. Think about this. When you cannot absorb the same quantity of nutrients from the same amount of food you eat, you are starving your body from what is needed to maintain it in top healthy state. Slowly, the deficiency in certain types of essential nutrients will cause sickness in you without you knowing. It is exactly like the story of boiling a frog.

One good example is vitamin D deficiency which was told to me by a nurse managing research cases on patients with long term illnesses. Tons of people living in Canada and other regions of the world where sunlight is not there for the better half of each year rarely get enough vitamin D. Worse yet, as one ages, the ability to absorb sunlight to convert that into vitamin D declines quickly. It takes an elderly much longer time under the sun to get the same benefit like a young adult. One can eat to get enough vitamin D but one has to be aware of the issue in the first place to make sure their diets taking care of that.

The surprising issue with long term mild vitamin D deficiency is feeling depressed. When someone feels down they tend to stay home which in turn further reduce their exposure to sunlight that is essential in generating vitamin D themselves through their skin. Another form of the mild depressed state is the increase in anxiety. I can keep on going of the problems one will get from this one simple issue which can take forever to write. The main point is that we can become very ill from causes we are not aware of, even though you may consider yourself having a relatively healthy lifestyle.

To help patients with long term illnesses that keep them bed ridden, vitamin D is often prescribed now to keep these patients out of mood swings and improve their recovery speed. It works wonder and the approach is adopted in many places in the world.

But if you can keep yourself healthy in the first place by taking vitamin D supplement, why not?

Know Yourself for Real

People often take supplements when they feel something is not right with their bodies. Other times, it is recommended by the family physician after regular body check up. One common recommendation by physicians is taking calcium supplement for women that are 40 years or older as a preventive measure. But can you do more to help yourself?

In fact, yes you can figure things out before it gets to the point it is affecting your health. You can ask for comprehensive checking on your blood profile on both essential nutrients and hormone levels. In Canada, such tests can be ordered by our family physician without extra costs. In many other countries, it will cost you but I think it is well worth it.

One reason why supplements are getting so many bad reps is that people are taking them based on observed symptoms. But many symptoms are common among many kinds of ailments you may be having. In other words, you are guessing what your actually underlying issue is without the proper scientific background nor the complete picture of the situation like having your blood profile on hand. Your pick of supplements will likely be whatever last pop science article or video suggested instead of well informed decision.

So, in fact you can use trial and error method until you find the supplements you need. It takes a long time to get the right combination. Just be patient and learn to study yourself by recording how you feel over time so that you can eventually figure out what you need.

Or, you can use the more scientific approach with blood profile and other biometric measures (i.e. blood pressure, oxygen concentration level, etc.) to see what you need and target those deficiencies right from the beginning.

Personal Preference

I prefer taking supplements that are basically food over the highly refined pills coming from these brand names that have very expensive price tags. It is not because I do not believe that they work. In fact, I know many of these brands work very well. The main concern is that from my background in Chinese medicine, I know these highly concentrated dose of nutrients or stimulants would overdrive the liver (not just the liver as in Western medical science, I am talking about the liver system as in Chinese medicine) over time. In other words, continuous usage of such supplements may eventually cause your liver problems years down the road as suggested by Chinese medicine theories. Again, it is just my personal opinion so if you do not agree to what I say here, move on.

I treat taking supplements similar to taking medicines for sickness with same kind of care. I make such I know what I put into my body but I am also willing to experiment with different supplements to see the effects first hand. Sometimes things just do not workout the way I expected. I certainty hope that whatever I am doing now can help me staying fit and active by the time I am at my 80s.

If you are getting to middle age or older like me, and interested in maintaining good health in years to come. It may be the right time now to educate yourself about health supplements so that you can make informed decisions yourself. In this era of chronic diseases everywhere, safe guarding our health is a challenge we should all take very seriously.

Many middle aged and older people do not exercise regularly. When they do think of getting in shape, the usual choice has always been going to the gym in Westernized societies. Interestingly, from my personal experience helping people to gain back their fitness, going to the gym is actually counter-productive and often leading to unnecessary injuries. To get in shape, it is more about proper planning than the short term drive to look and feel better.

Doing a Little Here and There

When I am asked by others on how to get in shape, they always focus on a particular type of activities. Here are a few good examples.

“I like to get in shape. I heard that you practice Tai Chi. I learned that Tai Chi is good for health. Can you teach me Tai Chi?”

“What exercise you are doing to stay fit? I like to try that.”

Being someone very thorough with whatever I do. I usually ask a lot of questions to see the fitness level with these individuals. For those who are really out of shape, my suggestion has always been “doing a little here and there” is enough for the first few months.

Younger readers will probably think that I am messing with them. No, I am not. For people very out of shape, there is no one type of exercise that can improve their health quickly. The best choice is to integrate more activities into their lifestyle as oppose to having specific training sessions.

First, just one 15-minute training in the gym will usually drive 90% of these individuals away. It can be the humiliation. It can be the hard reality of huffing and puffing after very mild exercise. It can be many other things as well. But the theme is the same, the experience is so discouraging that they likely resent doing it again.

Second, scheduling oneself to go to a gym is creating the pre-condition to not going there. All the extra efforts needed to get to a gym provided so many possible excuses in the future to skip the sessions. In other words, it is an idea that is destined to failure for most people with the rare exception of those with very strong will and determination.

How to Get Started

It can all start from waking up in bed. Instead of getting out of it at once, you can simply tighten your stomach 10 to 20 times while still lying on the bed. Many people struggle to open their eyes anyway before they can get out of bed, that time window is perfect for simple stomach tighten activity.

While doing the morning routine in the washroom, or at the kitchen, adding a few squats here and there does not hurt. It does not have to be perfect. The goal is not training for very strong muscles. The goal is to wake the muscles up and get them more active in general.

Walk a bit more instead of sitting all day in front of the work desk helps.

Keep an alarm to tell yourself it is time to take a break from your desk and do some mild stretching also helps.

Repeating my point – to get better health, it does not have to be going straight for the hard core exercise with sweat and pain. It can come from just a bit more active to get things started. Key to success in transforming a life without exercise is to add them in a way that is stress-free with positive feedback.

The Power of Doing Just a Little

So the next question people usually ask is whether doing just a little helps. My observation is that it makes all the difference. Usually people who started integrating micro exercises in their lives will have more energy and more alert in just couple of weeks. In about a month, they would have built the foundation to do more as they have achieved minimal fitness needed for more rigorous exercises.

The most interesting thing though, is that there is really no need to do extra exercises at this stage either. All it takes is making the micro exercise activities harder. For example, there is no need to do stomach tightening many more repetitions. Just tighten and hold a little longer each time will do. Doing squats follow a similar upgrade path by doing it in better forms and dropping lower each time.

This cycle of upgrading the efforts can take a few months. Once the optimal level is reached, it is really up to the person to see if they want more in terms of physical fitness. Some people desire the body of an athlete. Some people don’t. Having an active lifestyle can be enough for majority of people whose intention is to become healthier and feel better.

Stress-Free Approach Takes Planning

What I suggested here is no difference from helping someone with traumatizing injuries or post surgery conditions. Physiotherapists know that it takes time to rebuild someone with weak body conditions. But normal people do not know how out of shape they are until their physical finesses being challenged. By understanding what to aim for, as I lay out the approach and overall progression method, there is really no excuse not to help yourself to get in shape.

Seriously, no money in the world can replace our health.