Everything On It - A Holistic Approach to Health and Wellness

Don't you ever wonder why, despite their effort to eat right,  some  people still get sick?
Here's the thing about staying healthy - everything contributes to it.  You know, not just your food.  It's your lifestyle - your food, your job, your residence, your activities, your relationships, your soap,  your makeup, etc. etc. etc.

Yup.  You heard it right.  Why do I say this?  Because it is the truth.  The decisions you make determine your health.  Thus to me, health is a matter of choice.  Decisions are done every single minute of your life.  When you eat, you decide what to eat, what time to eat, where to eat, who to eat with, to clean the dishes right after or not.  When you walk, you decide to go left or right, go up the stairs or ride the elevator, go to the park or to the mall.  When you work, you decide whether to call someone first or write an memo, to type for the boss or remind him of his next appointment;, for artists,  to draw a dribble line or dribble; for nurses, to give this guy his meds or to check on the vital signs of another.  When you go home, will you ride the bus or a taxi? Will you go straight home and buy Junior's school supplies at a nearby store, or buy them before you go home?   Those are but a few choices we make each day.

For a healthy lifestyle, I constantly remind myself (and bug my family with it) everytime:

1.  Diet - low fat (except for kefir and yogurt), low salt, moderate sugar, high fiber, all natural.  But, I take soda once a month and indulge in some dessert that I love every 2 weeks.  Otherwise, a bite or two of anything sweet will be enough for me in a day. I take a dose each of garlic, papaya and herbalberry capsules every single day 15 minutes before breakfast.  Of course, I take my milk kefir.  2 cups at least a day.  when I don't feel well, I take an additional 2 cups.

2.  Exercise - a few minutes of dancing to my favorite music specially the ones that my zumba instructor plays, house chores, walking the dog,

3.  Work and relations - I choose to make and deliver yogurt and kefir where I get to meet other people.  I feel good when I am able to help others.  When I want to cry, I do.  Crying releases the endorphins which ultimately lessens stress.  The trick is to choose to do what you enjoy doing.

4.  Hygiene  and beauty regimen- the daily bath, kefir on face and body, use of all natural soap, shampoo, feminine wash, body scrub and honeymilk lotion are part of what I do. I use my daughter's lip gloss.  She makes them with vit. E, beeswax, virgin coconut oil and non-toxic crayons.  The chemicals you get yourself in contact with will definitely end up in some part of your body which will most likely give you a not so pleasant reaction.

5.  Home - we recently transferred to a place that has lots of trees, minimal air and nose pollution, with a friendly neighborhood.  How does this affect health?  Well, it's stress free living in a clean environment.

6.  Leisure - watch a movie or go to the beach or just a nice walk uphill with family is what I love doing.  It's is fun and not stressful.  When some people cause me stress, I shut them out for a while and deal with them at a later time when they are calm.  This way, it is less stressful to both of us.

7.  Rest and relaxation - note to self: you need a lot of rest.  You see I am the energetic type of person.  My day starts early and ends late.  Lately though I feel tired and sluggish.  I realized it is because I don't sleep enough.  sleep allows the cells to repair, rebuild and regenerate.  I write my blogs when I have the urge to.  These make me think but they don't stress me out.

8.  Music - I love to hear jazz, mellow, classical, broadway and nature sounds. Those relax me.  When I want to dance though I love the upbeat ones.  But then I revert back to the ones that keep me calm.

9.  Aromatherapy - the scent that we use at home are eucalyptus, lavender, peppermint and green tea or tea tree.  Those according to some have calming effects.

  Even the switch I made with my wifi connection is part of it.  Lesser stress means lesser chance of getting ill.

Now you know my secret.  Mind you I haven't gotten ill for the longest time.  Just a few hours of cold or cough.  But that's about it.  And I'm fifty. Lol.    How about you?

Our Sunday lunch: Tuna Panga and Ensaladang Labanos

Beginning today, I'll attempt to write about some of the food I serve on special days.  This will include sundays when I prepare something nice for the family.

Today I thought of serving something special.  I had bought two packs of Tuna Panga (jaw) from Hypermarket last week and since I want to have nice food every weekend when Ikee is home, I thought of cooking those for lunch.  However, I still needed to serve it with something really healthy.  Instead of the usual labanos ensalada (radish salad) but with yakon and sugar beets to make it really nutritious. To some thinly sliced radish, I added some fresh coriander leaves, julienned green pears and yakon.  To make the dressing I blended sugar beets, apple cider vinegar, water kefir, a bit of sugar, freshly ground pepper and sesame oil.  tossed the dressing into the mixed salad.  For dessert, we had kefir ice cream with mango toppings.  Here are some pics.  So what did you have today?



Note:  if you're in the Philippines, you can buy kefir ice cream from Yoggie's Yogurt Station.

My Yogurt Business

I've been quite busy these days. Not really getting into the yogurt craze because I've been in since more than a couple of years back. It's just that people are now more aware of its health benefits. There's just a lot of things that yogurt can be used for. For this reason, I feel it is time to get my business into full speed and I've had my hands full with the things needed for my store at St. Francis Square Mall in Mandaluyong - the mall between podium and megamall. Yoggie's Yogurt. It's a yogurt station where we will be serving yogurt in its different forms - ice cream, smoothie, greek, fruitied, cheese, cheesecake and others which I will still have to develop. I believe we will be located at the 4th floor inside the food court. However, i'm still awaiting the approval of my food sampling last monday.

Yogurt has now been enlisted in the BFAD as beneficial to the stomach and the digestive systems. Aside from really being good for the gut, yogurt has many other benefits. Recently, we've made some really amazing personal discoveries with yogurt and whey. We've used them as facial regimen and whole body pack and I can't stop telling about the amazing results. Once, I and my friend talked about how we liked putting either yogurt or whey on our face. That our pimples have gone in almost an instant. You put it on in the morning and leave it on. In the afternoon, you'll see how the pimple has dried up. At that, my daughter and my friends daughter told us about how it has made their whole buddy, including their tush, smooth. No wonder the bottles were empty when I needed some. LOL

Family Meals - Hainanese Chicken Rice, Laing and others

These are the pictures of the products that we sell at our Homemade Hainanese Chicken Rice Take Out Counter at Pasig City:

The Arroz Caldo


The Bottled Laing


The Arroz Ala Cubana



We also have Lechon Kawali, California Maki, Bottled Mango Jam, Bottled Pineapple Jam, Bottled Pasta Sauces (Pesto, Tomato Garlic, alfredo) and Spanish Sardines in Olive Oil. Most of our meals are healthy, either low fat or low salt or both. We don't use ang MSG or its variants. Packaging is available upon request.

Payments maybe made thru bank deposit or my paypal. Please email me at janecajuguiran@hotmail.com.

DIY or Buy?

Have you had the urge to make things on your own once you've tried out something? I always have. Like, now, I'm into this project of making my own projector. It's not something new. In fact, there are so many materials to be found on the internet. But, how many people do you think will want to make one? In case you don't know of anyone, here's your surprise - you are actually reading the blog of one such person.

When it comes to food, I am one to experiment on dishes that are either the same as something I liked or something different altogether. I broke my blender 2 weeks ago and now I'm looking for the service center to have it repaired. In the meantime, I'm using a juicer which I recently purchased. Juicing is not something new to me. I've had one juicer in the past which I also broke after some years of use. But I never really realized how much it would be worth to me until these past few years when I started was exposed to healthy diets and all that. I've been trying out combinations of vegetables and fruits. Sometimes, they turn out to be really good. At other times, ummm, let's just say I am the only one who can BARELY take it. hehehe

So far, the best combinations I've had are those with carrots, apples, pineapples, mangoes and strawberries. I've tried to juice bell pepper because I've red about how capsicum is good for the heart. Ah, but alas, even with much prodding and some scientific explanations, I was the only one who drank it.

I'm trying to get my hand on those wheatgrass which is talked about much these days due to the health benefits one gets from taking the juice. I found out about it when I was in Singapore. Oh, i know about the juice drink alright. But what I didn't know about was that it could be grown and juiced at home.

Juicing at home has its health benefits probably more than what we can get from those we find on the grocery rack. These are also good. But you know what? We discovered the Tipco Juice that claims to be 100% natural. Of course I cannot tell you that this is true because I do not have so much information about this. Nonetheless, people have professed that the juice is indeed natural. And you know what else? They have wheatgrass juice! I have been searching for this for a couple of months but i have not found one yet in the Philippines. But, the ones we got are good enough and taste superb that you wouldn't think there's any veggie in it. But, yessirree, good news for those who do not like veggies, you can get them without making your life miserable. My daughter loved it ever since she tried those in Singapore. So now, we buy a few everytime we're in the grocery.

My cousin in law says looks like the Tipco wheatgrass juice really does its work. Her daughter used to be so constipated. But now that she's taking the juice, her bowel movement has changed to become a daily habit.

Wheat Grass and Swimming - Any Connection?

Don't you think it strange to relate wheat grass to swimming? But when you really come to think of it, these two have a common denominator of being able to affect health.

I've heard of wheatgrass for some time now but I came across an exhibit at the Tiendesitas today of a company that endorses the plant as a health drink. Of course I was interested. For one, I'm an advocate of anything and everything that has an effect on health as my profession would dictate. Second is that I'm am currently part of a swimming competition organizing team and I've injected the idea of packaging the sport as part of a healthy lifestyle habit. It would only be natural to me to look into something that would be a potential exhibitor or sponsor.

I became more interested in the product when they had said the magic word (or words) - live enzymes! It hadn't been long since I had told my daughter's team the importance of adhering to probiotics. After all, one of the not so pleasant effects of swimming would be coming from the presence of undesirable bacteria in the water. With probiotics though, the risk of contracting diseases from water-borne microbes would be controlled by taking in bacteria that would naturally fight these unwanted "creatures".

So, I'm hoping that this company would join us during the competition. They seemed interested and excited in my proposal as I had been in both the competition/exhibit and their product.

Diet But Don't Die Yet! - making diet easier

I've always had this weight problem. I'm 130 lbs now but I used to weigh heavier. Thanks to two wonderful diet plans, I get to stay in this weight. Not that I like how heavy I am. I would like to get at least 10 more pounds off. But, as a nurse, I know that I can do it very gradually.

Ok, so the two diet programs I use are the after 6 diet and the sugar-free diet. The most effective for me is the after 6 diet. This is done by taking in food between 6 am and 6 pm and not ingesting anything after that till the next morning which is of course at 6 am. However, I have moodified this to make it work for me. Instead of 6 to 6, I modified it to 8 to 8 which is still 12 hours. I sleep 4 hours after my last meal which is at 12 MN and my next meal is at 8 am. This really makes me lose weight. But it is not applicable during the christmas seas and during parties.

The other diet program I do is the sugar free diet. It simply means taking off all the sugar in any form from the diet. No carbs, no cola, no fat, no chocolates, no fruits, etc. It's rather hard for me being a Filipino whose staple food is rice and really, I don't like it. But I only do this during the christmas season and during parties when I cannot say no to the host lest I offend him and get thrown out of the gathering. I can't imagine myself wearing my favorite black dress in my heels and black stockings being asked to leave the house. No sir, not in my wildest dreams. I don't really lose that much with this diet but I don't get heavier either.

Keeping my self at an ideal weight will help me keep healthy. To see to it that I stick to my weight, I have a weighing scale and a tape measure which I use everyday. Oh, and I cannot overemphasize that drinking plenny a watah (plenty of water) helps keep those pounds off too. so does exercise but you know that, don't you?