Why I Rarely Wear Makeup

When I was younger, I asked my mom why she wore makeup. She said when I was older I'd understand. Well now I'm older, but I still don't get it. The most I do on a daily basis, besides wash and moisturize my face, is wear organic powder and curl my eyelashes. I feel this makes me "vaguely presentable" for work. I'm not sure if it's my inherent laziness with a touch of feminism or what, but I know that I will never wear makeup every day.
Here are my reasons:
1. This is what my face looks like. Get used to it.
2. I am not looking to impress anyone or hide behind anything.
3. Makeup is expeeeeennnsive.
4. Makeup is generally full of yummy chemicals. As a rule, I like to keep crap like that off my face - especially around my eyes! (check out the Environmental Working Group's Myths on Cosmetic Safety)
5. I'm gonna wager a guess that since makeup is made in tiny containers and contains yummy chemicals (see above), the production and subsequent associated waste products are not all that great for the environment.
6. Raccoon eyes.
7. My skin breaks out less when I don't wear makeup.
8. One less thing to worry about. I get to skip over the makeup section of magazines!
9. Lighter bag on weekend trips.
10. On that rare "nice occasion" that I do decide to use organic mascara (Not really that great - sacrifice performance for organic I guess.), eyeshadow and blush, you can actually see a difference. "wow you look really nice" is the reaction I'm looking for - not "oh you look the same as you always do." This way, I don't have to try very hard to look extra-special.

Babies induced early at greater risk

Check out this crazy article: Doctors Reccommend Mothers Wait All 39 Weeks, which was featured on NPR's All Things Considered. It's about women who are choosing to be induced (to deliver their babies early) for no medically sound reason. Being born even a few weeks early can be dangerous for a child's health and development.

Article author Gretchen Cuda Kroen writes:

"From 1990 to 2006 the percentage of women who induced labor more than doubled, and nearly a third of women were having cesareans. The increase wasn't because of emergencies, says Jay Iams, a specialist in maternal fetal medicine at Ohio State University, but rather because women and doctors began scheduling deliveries for convenience.

... when it comes to the arrival date of your bundle of joy, experts now say that planning too far ahead can do more harm than good. A full-term pregnancy lasts 40 weeks, but elective deliveries are often planned for two or three weeks earlier. And even though 37 weeks is also still considered full term, studies show that babies born even a few weeks too early are at greater risk for health problems than those who are born later. That has some doctors campaigning to curb the trend of scheduled labor and delivery."

A healthy example

This week I have renewed my efforts to lose weight. I am very sick of being a few pounds overweight, and as a health writer, I feel a certain obligation to be an example of health. I like to think I eat pretty well, but I must be eating too much of it. Since getting a part-time desk job almost a year ago, I've gained about seven pounds. Not to mention that I was already about 15 pounds heavier than was healthy for my height. I was down to a great weight at the height of my son's breastfeeding at around 18 months. But as he weaned, I started slowly gaining it all back. By the time he was done nursing at 2 1/2 I was back to the same weight as when I got pregnant. So here's my goal: Lose 2 pounds a week until I've lost 30 pounds. The addition of two gym trips a week a few months ago have yet to have an impact, so I either need to go more frequently or step up my workouts. I'd love to start dancing again, but until I lose the first few pounds I'm too embarrassed to go anywhere near a studio. Finding time to get exercise as a parent can be tricky, and I'm thankful to have a hubby who doesn't mind that I run to the gym in the evenings. I just need to find some fun exercise we can all do as a family (that doesn't involve too much outdoor time since I'm at increased risk of skin cancer) so I can help my hubby get healthier too. Any suggestions? 

Dangers of Diet Soda

I rarely drink soda. When I do, it's never diet. I cringe at the flavor of artificial sweetener. Now, I'm even more glad I do. At the recent American Diabetes Association Scientific Sessions conference, researchers from the School of Medicine at The University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio warned that diet sodas might be free of calories but not of consequences. Their research points to artificial sweeteners being linked to increased waist size and increased risk of Type 2 diabetes.

They presented two studies: The first looked at diet-soda consumption among 474 older adults in the San Antonio Longitudinal Study of Aging (or SALSA) over a period of 10 years. The results were rather startling: Diet-soda drinkers experienced 70 percent greater increases in waist circumference than non-drinkers. Those downing the most diet sodas (2 or more a day) saw 500 percent greater increases in waist circumference than non-consumers. Researchers adjusted their results for factors such as diabetes, physical activity level, and age.


The report didn't explain why diet soda plays a role in weight gain. It could be that people feel like they are allowed to eat more because their drink is calorie-free. Other research has shown that your brain expects you to be taking in a lot of calories when foods taste sweet or fatty, so when diet foods don't fulfill that promise, your brain gets confused, which can lead to your body storing more calories as fat or eating more to finally feel satisfied.

The second study the researchers presented found that diabetes-prone mice given aspartame and a high-fat diet for 3 months had higher fasting-glucose levels (an indication of a pre-diabetic or diabetic condition) than mice on the same diet high-fat diet not given artificial sweetener. 

Personally, I drink a lot of water, home-brewed green or herbal tea, coffee, and unsweetened seltzer water. I don't feel like I'm missing anything without soda. Except maybe a few more extra pounds.  

As hippie as I want to be

Photo my son took of me being domestic

I’m not, that is, as hippie as I want to be. In my daydreams I am in an old cabin in the woods, tending my large garden of vegetables and fruits, writing books about health, tending my chickens, hanging out my laundry, and having a grand ole time with my family (in this parallel world we rarely watch TV and I am 30 pounds lighter, of course). But this is not the reality I’ve created for myself – at least not yet. Instead I am renting a condo outside DC, enjoying a well-paying part-time job in the mornings, and afternoons with my preschooler. Evenings and weekends are for homework, going to class or the gym, or catching a moment with my husband. This leaves me with little time to devote to all the homemade/from scratch/money-saving/environmentally friendly/non-screen-based activities/crafts/cooking/baking, etc. If I make dinner from scratch two days a week I’m lucky. It’s not like we’re ordering out, we just have leftovers or quick meals like a Newman’s Own pizza or microwave steam-able veggies and rice. I love sewing and baking – when I was a stay-at-home mom I baked fresh oatmeal bread every Sunday and dinner from scratch nearly every night. I had a veggie garden (that was unfortunately too shady to produce much more than tons of sugar snap peas.) But I was also depressed, unfulfilled, and resentful. I know I need to work, for everyone’s sake. I am a much nicer person to be around if I have time to converse with adults and feel like I’m contributing something to society.

Maybe it’s also that I wasn’t very good at some of the hippie things I tried while I stayed at home. My attempts to make homemade yogurt, freezer jam, and Indian cheese cubes all failed miserably. My garden didn’t have enough sun, and my hanging strawberry baskets were all cleaned out by critters before we ever got to them. I did make some darn good fresh pesto with the herbs I grew, though. My sewing machine is glitchy, so I avoid sewing as much as possible. I sometimes feel bad that I’m not the hippie of my dreams, that apparently I’m interested in modern homesteading as a hobby or appreciate it as an ideal, not as a way of life. It’s something to live up to, like when after my husband leafs through Mother Earth News he’s convinced he can build us our very own dream cottage from found wood, stone and packed earth insulation. That would be awesome, but it’s not going to happen.

No matter what my situation, I always aim to live simply, eat organic as much as I can afford, reuse things or extend their lifespan, and frequent the thrift store. So I occasionally “think outside the bun” and enjoy watching TV – I’m going to try not to beat myself up over it. I’ll be a better hippie one day. For now, I’m as hippie as I can be.