Monday 31 October 2011

My head is all better


The bump is almost gone but some blood has gone down to my eyes. It's much better now though!

Finally a runner again!!

How I missed running! I've been sick for about 2 months so I haven't been able to run much at all but now I am finally back on track. I can not explain how much I love running. It's amazing that something like that can make me sooooo happy!

I ran a half marathon in the beginning of the summer so maybe it's time to do a whole marathon next summer? Who will join me? The thought of a marathon is scary but I know I can do it.
I have a friend from work that had problems with his knees for a long time but still started running a little bit in May this year and then ran his first marathon a couple of weeks ago. I know that if he can do it when he even had troubles with his knees, then I can also do it.

Sunday 30 October 2011

Americans in sweden + more people on the swedish lessons

I have started to have swedish lessons for bibleschool students who wants to learn. Last week there were 4 students but from now it will be 8!

I also just want to mention that there is a show on SVT now that is about americans that has swedish roots but never been to Sweden. In the show, they are coming to Sweden to found out more about their inheritage and about the country. It is 8 parts and you can see the first part here:

http://svtplay.se/t/167318/allt_for_sverige

As it is about americans - they will almost only speak english in the program, with only a little swedish. I think it's always fun to see how americans react when they come here as it is pretty different from what they are used to.

Saturday 29 October 2011

Things I miss

My favourite country - Israel

Snowboarding

My favourite place on earth - the western wall in Jerusalem

Paris

Having long blonde hair

Snow

Texas

Updates

I skipped 2 lectures about protein in school yesterday.. I knew that if I only slept 2 hours then I wouldn't be able to concentrate anyways so I slept 4,5 hours instead and went to my afternoon lectures which was really interesting.
And then Whitley and our friend Jake came over and I got flowers and sushi from them :) They were so sweet and then we tried to study all together but me and Whitley couldn't stop talking so we decided to read one sentence out loud each and go round like that instead. That was a great way to study! Maybe not very productive but it was fun :)
One other thing happened yesterday; two girls came by from one of our supermarkets and gave us a big bag of free food! So random but fun!

My exam is on thursday and I have now missed 1,5 days of studying because of that I fainted and all that. I always study on saturdays but because of this, I will have to study a lot more today.. I feel that I know a lot for the exam now but there's still so much to learn..  I don't want to learn only for the exam anyways but because it's all so interesting.

Friday 28 October 2011

Yesterdays good news

I ended up at the hospital yesterday and stayed there until 4.20 am.. They took so many tests including a CT scan because of the cramps I had right after passing out. I'm all good though! :) My neck had also been hurting a lot but I prayed to God about it when I was there and when I left all the pains were gone!

I found out that my resting heart rate was 45 (!!) and the doctor even asked if I work out a lot because of the low heart rate. I was very surprised as I haven't been able to work out that much since July but I guess all that running I have done before still payed off! That defently makes me so much more excited about start working out again more properly!

And now to another subject. Me and dad went to a lecture two days ago in Stockholm. It was a doctor that was talking about vitamin D and all the new research conserning this. I must say it was the most interesting thing I have heard in a while and I will soon write a summary here on the blog for you. They also recorded it and will put it up online in a week so when I find it then I will give you the link.

Thursday 27 October 2011

As I said when I was a kid when I got hurt - I'm glad I got hurt because it never happens anything otherwise


You know how much swedish people like to be in a sauna right? I'm one of them.
Today I was in a very hot sauna for a little bit longer time than I should have. After an attempt to take a shower I passed out in the changing rooms and hit my head so I got a big bump on my forehead and cramps in my hands and legs for 15 minutes which felt a bit scary.
Now I'm feeling much better but my neck and head hurts more and more so we'll see if I go to the hospital later on. But hey, it was good it happened because the gym (where the sauna is) gave me a free water bottle, an ice pack and free dextrosol! Defently worth it :) 

Wednesday 26 October 2011

Pretending to be a rangers fan today


Rumors says that the baseball team Texas Rangers could win the world champinonship (or whatever it's called) today. I don't really care alot but I pretend to care by wearing my rangers shirt.

Tuesday 25 October 2011

Our tomato plants


Is it normal to have 15 big tomato plants in the kitchen?

Housewifes

One of our biggest newspapers asked women if they want to be housewifes and 56 % said yes. They also asked the men if they wanted a housewife and 50 % said yes.

I think that is pretty interesting as it's so rare that you see a housewife here. I only know of one here in Sweden.

Monday 24 October 2011

The last fat-soluble vitamin - Vitamin K

As usual, there are plenty of different Vitamin K that are divided into two groups, K1 and K2.

We get half of our need from our food (we absorb about 10-70 % of it) and the other half is produced by the bacterias in our intestines.

The vitamin is needed for the bloods coagulation and thats why it's also called vitamin K - after the danish word koagulation (it was a danish person who discovered this).

Newborns does not have a funcional intestinal flora so they can not produce vitamin K. Therefore the babies usually get a single dose of vitamin K to prevent bleeding conditions.
You can get Vitamin K deficiency when you take antibiotic as that destroys the bacteria flora.

You can find vitamin K mostly in dark green vegetables and vegetable oils.

Swedish lessons


We have now started to have swedish lessons at my house for 2 americans (on the left) and one girl from Russia and one guy from Holland. My sister is sitting there on the end on the table as well eating apple pie.

Saturday 22 October 2011

I know you've been waiting :) --> Vitamin E!!

Vitamin E can also be put into different groups (8). They are good antioxidants as they react with the free radicals. They also “protect” vitamin A and D and polysaturated fats for the same reason I just mentioned (free radicals) – but then the vitamin (E) gets destroyed. This is the reason why they are having vitamin E in hand creams – to protect it from getting bad… so the vitamin is not there to “help your hands” in some way, its only purpose is to be a preservative for the cream. 

We absorb about 50-89 % of the vitamin and it absorbs in the same way as fat – which means that you need bile acids for it. We store about a couple of grams in our bodies.
We need vitamin E for our cell membranes (the “walls” of the cell), immune system, nervous system and much more. 

Our intake needs to increase as we increase our intake of polysaturated fats – but things that contains this fat normally also contains more vitamin E.
It is not very common that people get an overdose of vitamin E – but it can happen as it is a fat-soluble vitamin. 

You can find this vitamin in (for example) vegetable oils, nuts, fruits, seeds, sprouts and more. 

Sources: Näringslära för högskolan

Pills for exam anxiety


My next exam is the 3rd of November.. I got sick and was sick for 2 weeks, which made studying a little bit harder so now the nervousness for the exam is starting to come more and more. And my sister has a big exam in less than a week so my dad made us some pills against "exam anxiety" or tentaångest as we would call it in swedish.

Friday 21 October 2011

Other options

I know I'm at the right place.. I've said that many times.. But I feel that I want to study more physiology then what is included in the program I'm going.. It's so amazing to learn about how the body works..

And then I would also want to learn more about toxicology.. And some middle-eastern courses maybe?

I've been looking at other courses as well and I found courses that are called things like human physiology, clinical nutrition and nutritional status, nutritional epidemiology, public health nutrition, nutrition toxicology, molecular nutrition, microbiology etc etc.. Gaaah!!! If I read everything I wanted to read, then I don't think I would ever be done.. 


Thoughs of a master and doctoral studies and doing research makes me so excited.


But I guess I should focus on where I am at the moment. Which is carbs, fats and protein!

Wednesday 19 October 2011

I'm going to Rome!

I normally book trips spontaneously.. This spring/summer, I woke up one day and thought; I'm going to Dallas. I booked those tickets the same day.
This time my friend asked me last friday if I wanted to go to Rome with her and a few other girls in January. I decided 3 days ago and today we booked our tickets.

We (6 of us) are going 1st thru 5th of January so it will be a perfect way to start the new year :)
My sugar free year will also end the day before we go so I will need to get some italian ice cream when I'm there.

What the world eats

Our teacher showed us a few pictures yesterday of families in different countries and their food intake in one week. I thought it was really interesting so I googled it and found them..

They also show how much the food expenses are in the different countries.

You can find the pictures here: http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1626519,00.html

Tuesday 18 October 2011

Vitamin D

This vitamin has recieved a lot of attention lately. The recommendations we have for it today are probably too low and especially here in Sweden and other northern countries.

There are different types of this vitamin. We can only get D2 from the food. The D-vitamin we get from the sun (and food) is called D3. The vitamin is a prohormone; which mean that it will turn into a hormone in the body. The hormone is called calcitriol and it participates in the regulation of the calcium and phosphate levels in our body - which is obviously very important for our bones.
Due to the phosphate regulation, Vitamin D also has an indirect effect on the blood sugar. And ofcourse many other things.


You can find vitamin D in oily fish and some lean fish, egg yolk and in sweden they add vitamin D to the milk products with lower fat. That is because this is a fat-soluble vitamin so if they take away the fat, the already existing D-vitamin will also go away, so they need to add what they lost. 


You never get enough through the food though and it's important to be in the sun so your body can store what it needs. If you shower and wash yourself with soap before sunbathing, then you have taken away some of the fat on your skin which means that you won't get as much vitamin D as if you didn't.


They are coming with new recommendations next summer so it will be very interesting to see if they will change the recommendations or not. It seems like a lot of doctors think they should higher it and especielly here in Sweden where we don't get enough sun during the fall/winter/spring. I personally take supplements of D3 during the winter and I feel a big difference when I do that.

Sunday 16 October 2011

Vitamin A facts

Vitamin A is one of the fat-soluble vitamins, which means that you will absorb it better if you eat it with some fat. It also means that your body stores it in a different way than the non fat-solubles so there is a risk for overdose which wouldn't good. It can for example give birth defects so pregnant women should stay away from (example) liver as that contains a lot of this vitamin.

There are different types of vitamin A that I won't go to deep into here. We get most of our vitamin A in a form called esterified retinol and from the provitamin β –carotene.

Carotenoids (for example carotene) turns into vitamin A in the body. That is the red/yellow pigment you can find in green vegetables (they are hidden by the green chlorophyll) or for example carrots. You absorb about 10-20 % of β –carotene and it then helps if you heat it up a little bit - the chemical structure will then change so you will be able to absrob it (to put it simply). That means that some vegetables are better to heat up then eating raw when it comes to carotenoids.

We have a protein in us that our liver produces itself that transports the vitamin to the different cells that needs it. A lack of this specific protein would give us a vitamin A deficiency as the transport of the vitamin wouldn't work. We also need zinc for the release of the protein from the liver. When the protein has released the vitamin then it will go to our kidneys to be destroyed - the liver always have to continue produce this specific protein.


90 % of our vitamin A storage are in the liver.


We need it for our vision, reproduction, epithelial tissues normal differentiation (very simply translated - for the walls of our intestines) and our immunsystem.


You will find it in (examples) organs, fats, vegetables, root vegetables.

If you heat it up too strongly or a long time then the vitamin will be destroyed as the chemical structure changes so we won't be able to use it. The same thing happens in prolonged storage at room temperature. It is also affected by light, oxygen and low pH (in a bad way).

It has been shown in studies on animals that it has prevented cancer, but if you are a smoker and eat β –carotene supplements then there is a higher risk for lung cancer.

Source: Näringslära för högskolan (Nutrition for higher studies)

Friday 14 October 2011

Superfoods - recommandations

We have a book called superfoods that is written by a doctor called Helena Nyblom. She talks about a few different things that is good to eat often. She also writes recommendations about how often and how much you should eat the different foods.

She talks about eating food from all colours;
  • Blue ( for example blueberries)
  • Dark red (cherries)
  • Red (tomatoes)
  • Yellow (oranges)
  • Green (broccoli)
  • White (onion)
It's important to eat from all colours as they contain many different vitamins etc.

About a year and a half ago, I wrote down all her recommandations and tried to eat like that. I can't remember for sure but I think that was when I started to get much more healthier and also started running alot.
I forgot about it for a year or so but now I will start with it again. Here are the recommandations:

  1. Oranges/citrus fruits - One every day
  2. Avocado - A half 3-4 times a week
  3. Legumes (peas, beans, lentils etc) - 3 portions a week
  4. Blueberries - Some every day, but also other berries
  5. Broccoli - 3-4 times a week
  6. Dark chocolate (at least 70 % cocoa and one that hasn't been heated up) - 10-20 grams 4-5 times per week
  7. Pomegranate - Eat/drink one (not with added sugar) twice a week
  8. Oats - One portion a day + 1-2 more portions of something with whole grains/fiber
  9. Salmon - Eat fat fish 3 times a week (not farmed but wild)
  10. Flaxseeds - 2 tablespoons (30 ml) per day, crushed (but don't buy crushed, you need to crush them yourself and eat them within 20 minutes and non heated)
  11. Onion - Different types of onions 3 times a week
  12. Nuts and seeds - one handfull per day (walnuts are the "best" but variation is even better)
  13. Oliveoil - 2-3 tablespoons per day (30-45 ml)
  14. Green leafy vegetables - Daily
  15. Spinach - 3-4 times a week
  16. Tomatoes - eat fresh tomatoes twice a week and heated (but not overcooked ones) tomatoes daily about 2 tablespoons
  17. Red/blue/black grapes - twice a week (darker the better)
  18. Yoghurt - 2½ dl (a cup) per day (non sugar or sweetener!)
  19. Apples - one every second day
 Personally I'm trying to avoid the yoghurt as its from cows which isn't the best but I would eat probiotic powder/pills instead. And I will also start eating the dark chocolate and not count that as sugar as I'm on a sugar fast this year. I believe the health benifits are worth that little amount of sugar that contains.

Wednesday 12 October 2011

The mondays lecture - very interesting!


It was a great lecture two days ago with the nutritionist I always speak about. It was a pretty simple message but still good. He is one of the top swedish nutritionists and has done a lot of research himself so I know that he knows alot. He had two lectures with a total of 1400 people, Im guessing ours were around 900 ppl. Here are a few things he mentioned:

There are a lot of hidden nutrient shortage (is that how you say it?). Mainly because:
  • We don't drink enough water
  • We eat an unbalanced diet (mostly eating the same things all the time) with too little vegetables and fruits
  • The diet is often not containing the vitamines and minerals it had before (im guessing around 50 years ago or so)
  • Irregular meal times
  • Bad function of the stomachic-intestinal canal
  • Not enough knowledge about dietary supplements and wrong advices
We need to eat:
  • Good ingredients
  • Avoid prefabricated food and white sugar (sucrose)
  • Variated food with lots of fruit, vegetables and berries
  • Chicken, turkey, fish and eggs are good protein sources
  • Use cold-pressed vegetable oils
  • Eat nuts - walnuts are the best
  • Use salt, bought cookies/pastries etc with moderation
  • Eat both raw food (vegetables) and cooked food
  • And then there was something more that I missed...
  • Don't skip meals!
A few other things:

  • No chain is stronger than its weakest link - if you are lacking for example one vitamine (or something else your body need), then that will affect other parts of how your body function with other vitamines etc
  • Our free radicals - should be between 200-300.. Oxygen is a double edged sword - both essential and toxic. Things that highers your free radicals are for example; smoking, alcohol, radiation, physical work out (temporarily, thats why we shouldnt overtrain as well but to do it with moderation so the body can recover between), sunlight, prolonged inflammation etc.. Things to get to number lower are things like antioxidants mainly. I have tested this 3 times and as I have had struggled with my health quite a lot in my years, the numbers has not been good.. I will do the test again very soon and that will be interesting to see if it has improved or not since I took it about 3 years ago.
  • Maybe you already know this but he also mentioned about eggs and cholesterol.. It's all a myth that it will higher your bodies cholesteral so that is nothing to worry about and eggs are very good as they (mostly the egg yolk) contain so many vitamines and minerals.
  • We need to eat more omega 3 fatty acids! It's very important with the balance between omega 3 and omega 6.
He also mentioned many other things. I'm getting so inspired hearing things like this and it really makes me sure of that I have chosen the write thing to study! 

    Tuesday 11 October 2011

    My exam results

    Yesterday we found out what we got on our physiology exam and today the chemistry results came. I passed both so it feels great now! I have also started to understand more about the carbohydrates but now I've started to read about fats and that is so much more difficult. Which means that I guess my social life have to wait some more.

    I was at a "lecture" that a nutritionist had (Magnus Nylander) yesterday.. I mentioned about it the other day. It was great and I will write more about that later on today.

    Saturday 8 October 2011

    Iron

    We are now studying carbohydrates and iron in school. I have at the moment decided not to write about carbohydrates here because most of what I've learned about it the last days has been chemistry - how they look like in molecules, which might not be very interesting for you to read. So here are a few facts about iron instead:

    Iron deficiency (lack of iron) is one the most common deficit in the world. They say about 15 % has it.
    There are different types of iron and you can measure it in different ways through blood tests. People with a lack of iron are often very tired and studies (for example, a study by Dr. Ann B Bruners 1996) shows that it will also give bad memory and makes it harder to concentrate. People who are in risk are mainly pregnant women (especially the last trimester), teenager and women who are menstruating or if you loose blood in another way.

    When I was a child, they took a blood test and tested my hemoglobin. They saw there that I had enough iron but then my dads friend (the nutritionist who is having a lecture on monday, open for everyone) told my dad that we should check the serum ferritin which shows more the bodys storage of iron. The doctors didn't understand why and didn't think that was important but they did it anyways and that test showed that pretty much all my storage of iron was empy and I was extremly close to be put in on the hospital for sever iron deficiency. So that's a tip for you, always ask you doctor to test both.

    Men on the other hand tends to absorb too much iron and this can also be very dangerous. There are even hypothesis about that this can be a big reason why men don't live as long as women do. Finish studies has also shown that the risk for thrombosis (blodpropp) in the heart increases for every mg of iron men absorbs.

    People with high iron storages also have a higher risk for other diseases like atherosclerosis (åderförkalkning) and cancer. High iron stores are actually on nr 2 (smoking is first) on the list of factors of things that increases the risk for cardio vascular diseases (hjärt-kärlsjukdomar) for men. To put it in a perspective - high cholesterol is nr 17.


    It is hard to absorb iron though and we only absorb about 10 % of the iron we eat and in general, the body adjust the absorbtion pretty good.


    Sources: Näringslära (Magnus Nylander) and Vitaminrevolutionen (Knut T.Flytlie)

    Thursday 6 October 2011

    Sweeteners and weight gain. Is it healthy or not?

    You don't get cavity in your teeth of sweeteners, nor does your body absorb it and gives it energy (calories).

    But, your body still believes it gets sugar so it tells the pancreas to produce more insulin into the blood to lower the blood sugar even though it doesn't need to. And what the insulin does is that it blocks out (temporary until the insulin level goes down again) the fat burning system. And it will also make you crave more sugar as a result, but sweeteners will not satisfy that craving because it never gives the blood any sugar.

    There are studies (not sure where I read this) that shows that people that drink/eat things with sweeteners (for example diet coke, most sugarfree products (like gum) etc) are still gaining as much weight as the people that instead choose the sugar options like "real" coke.

    So please don't drink 44 oz of diet soda and believe that it's healthier for you.
    Personally, I think I will stop chewing gum every day. Maybe chewing gum can be more like a treat I can get on saturdays :D

    Come and listen and learn about nutrition on monday!

    If you are interested in nutrition and exercising then you should come and listen to Magnus Nylander on a free lecture he is having here in Uppsala on monday. 900 people has already applied but there is still room for more. And if you are not very interested then maybe you could still come and get inspired and learn about it.

    Magnus Nylander is a medical doctor, nutritionist and a dentist. He received a doctorate at the Karolinska Institute and worked in Professor Karl Folkers vitamin research group at Texas University. He is extremly good at what he does and has worked with many famous athlets like Peter Forsberg and whatever the guys name is that won Wasaloppet a couple of years ago and many more to help them reach their goals with the right nutrition and more.

    The lectures are going on for 1½ hours at either 5.30 or 7.30 at Uppsala koncert och kongress now on monday the 10th. It is, as I said free to come, but you still have to apply and if you apply and don't show up then you would have to pay a fee on 300 kronor.

    Here is a link with more information:
    http://www.prevas.se/train_and_eat_like_a_champion

    And here you can apply:

    Wednesday 5 October 2011

    Carbs are difficult

    I'm starting to understand more and more how complicated food are. And that it has so much to do with chemistry.. I've been reading about carbohydrates today and it's so hard to understand.. I decided to learn it in the next few days though so after that, maybe I could teach you something about it.

    I also got a cold at the moment.. It's not very bad but it still keeps me resting and still makes it much harder to study and concentrate. Hopefully that is the reason what I can't seem to understand carbohydrates right now. But I should be happy because this is my first cold since November last year.

    When I was about 18-19, then I had a really bad cold every month and every time it lasted for 3 weeks, which means that I was somehow okay for one week before I got a really bad one again... And that means that I was stuck in bed and couldn't do anything for 3 weeks per month. It was like that for about a year (if I remember right). I was about to start bibleschool so I asked a pastor to pray for my healing as I didn't want this colds to ruin my bibleschool year, and I also started eating vitamines and after that I have only had 1-2 colds per year and never as severe as before. Prayers works and vitamins works.

    Monday 3 October 2011

    Next part of the course has started

    Today we finally started with the part that I've been waiting on since I applied for this program. We will now start learning about carbohydrates, fats, proteins, iron and the fat soluble vitamins.
    I'm super excited! First up is carbohydrates and iron!

    The whole point with why I wanted to have a blog from the first place was because I wanted to write about what I learn about nutrition. Hopefully I will start more serious with that now when there will be more nutrition in school.. So the only thing I need now is time to write the posts :)

    Sunday 2 October 2011

    Sätra brunn with mom


    The weekend is over and I feel refreshed and ready to start studying again tomorrow.

    Me and mom took a weekend trip to a really nice place called Sätra brunn to celebrate my birthday a little bit more just the two of us. It couldn't have been a better timing as I had my exam on the friday and tomorrow the next part in school will start. It was so nice to get away and relax.

    Sätra brunn is a place with over 100 houses, most of them from the 1700's. The place has a lot of history and it was a place where sick people went to get treated, with different baths. But now it's a spa (a few of the houses), but most houses are too old to be used at this moment. Most of them looked like the traditional red swedish house with white corners (which I love so much). It felt like walking around in one of those older childrens movies I watched when I was a kid that showed Sweden for about 100 years ago.. Like Emil i lönnerberga :)

    The forest was so beautiful with the red and yellow leaves.. It all really made me wanna move out to the countryside, wear a cute apron, have a big vegetable garden with chickens (and kids) running around and bake all day.