Scott Desgrosseilliers

Is It OK for a Vegetarian to Eat Fruit?

Cutting edge fruit research has discovered that fruit spoils depending on how well it breathes. Our fruit is alive people! Ignoring the obvious oddity of people devoting their lives to fruit respiratory research, the news of fruit breathing has to put vegetarians and raw foodists in a moral quandary. The definition of something being alive could fill a thousand blogs. I think that something that breathes is alive in some respect. How can a vegetarian cope with breathing fruit?

I don’t believe in dwelling on the problem. I prefer to envision outcomes and solutions. Here is my advice to vegetarians on how to deal with killing these helpless breathing fruit.

1. Wait until the fruit has started to rot. This appears to be the safest process in which to insure that the fruit is dead before eating it. However, it will taste like shit and possibly cause intestinal distress.
2. Have a meat-eating friend suffocate the fruit first. I am not sure how this one would work, because I put my fruit in a plastic bag and tie it when I buy it at the grocery store and it seems to still be alive when it gets home. This option will involve further research or perhaps you can contact the fruit respiratory researchers to help.
3. Stroke the fruit and explain you appreciate its sacrifice before eating it. Perhaps your conscience will be put at ease if you tell your soon-to-be-sacrificed apple that you wish it the best in the next life as you rub off its dust. Of course, you can’t hear the apple scream back at you in protest.
4. Only eat the bruises on the fruit. Each morning could turn into a treasure hunt for edible fruit parts. Imagine a big barrel of fruit that you sort through looking for discolorations and bumps to scrape out with a knife. Don’t cheat and bang around the barrel causing fruit bruising if you’re hungry!

I was a “vegetarian” for about 4 years. I put the term in quotes because vegetarian has many interpretations within social circles and different parts of the globe. When I traveled in third world countries vegetarian meant no beef, but any other meat. I forsake anything on 4 legs and anything with feathers. This lasted until I moved to Chicago and kept catching the scent of Hackney Tavern burgers on my walk home from work each day. One day I said screw it, walked in and ordered a burger without breaking stride, and haven’t looked back since.

Until research can discover how to talk with breathing fruit, the decision will be morally ambiguous for vegetarians in regards to fruit eating. Please proceed with caution.

Adele Vydra Massage

The bodywork and massage fields are seeing explosive growth in popularity. There is a very simple reason for this – It’s great. Regular quality massage is extremely beneficial. It reduces stress, clears the mind, and works out muscle tensions. Like all health care fields, there is a wide variety in the quality of masseuses. If you are in Chicago, I’d like to recommend Adele Vydra at www.adelemassage.com.

Adele uses a technique of inner observation that is unique to her. She connects with her inner Spirit during each massage. Rather than following a standard massage routine, her hands are literally guided by her intuition. This integration of spirit-massage can be felt by the person lying on the table. I entered a deep meditative state of silence while remaining aware.

Adele refers to her techniques as stress management therapy, or whole body-mind integrated therapy. Whatever you call it, I was able to have a completely clear and stress-free mind. This state is extremely energizing, I felt on top of the world when the session was over.

Adele is offering Chicago area readers of my blog a $15 discount. Just go to her website for contact information, and mention you heard about her on scottdblog.

Allergy Testing

Imagine getting scratched 280 times on your forearm and looking for spots.  If any spots show up, you know you have 100 shots in your future.  That is what you are committing to if you decide to undergo an allergy scratch test. 

I always felt an allergy test to be the holy grail of medical testing.  Find out what you are allergic to, eliminate it, and health-free bliss would be the result.  How I miss that illusion.  The results of my allergy scratch test left me puzzled and still looking for the elusive perfect health regimen.

When you take the allergy test, the doctor makes 140 pen dots on your forearms.  You then receive a drop of 140 different weed, tree, animal, mold, and food oils on your skin.  Each drop is scratched a few times and you wait to see if it turns red or starts to itch.  If it does, you are allergic.  If it doesn't, you are not allergic.

I got all my drops and scratches and sat for 10 minutes waiting for the results.  The results came pretty quickly.  I had a couple of rapidly expanding red blobs on my left forearm.  My right forearm did not react at all, was this a placebo arm or something?  Come to find out, my right forearm had all the food allergy testing.  I did not have any food allergies at all.  Meanwhile, my left arm had approximately 10 red blobs that itched or were inflamed to some degree.  It was determined that I am allergic to cedar, birch, maple, and oak trees.  A couple of random molds and dust mites were also on the allergy list, along with dog hair.

These results puzzled me.  How could I not have a food allergy when my stomach gets achy and bloated at least one meal a day.  I had long operated under the assumption that my stomach problems were to a food allergy that I just needed to determine and avoid.

Then the allergist mentioned cross reaction allergies.  A cross reaction allergy occurs when a particular weed, mold, or tree is in season.  Breathing the allergen into your body causes it to mix with the foods you eat.  Certain foods don't mix with certain trees and molds.

I was initially elated to find this out.  I anxiously awaited the doctor's advice on my cross reaction allergy diet.  The dietary holy grail was finally mine!  Avoid the foods listed and I would be super healthy!  I received a one-page fax with the diet instructions.  It said that tree season was February to may and that I needed to avoid carrots, celery, and apples because they would mix with my tree allergens and cause problems.

Uhh.....yeah...that's great.  I had barely touched any of the 3 food items over the past couple months.  Actually I had maybe ate a salad once a week, which never has celery in it because Melissa doesn't like celery, and I haven't had an apple this year.  The cross reaction allergy diet would provide no relief!  So as much as I loved the theory, I am once again back to the dietary holy grail search.

Aromatherapy

I was dismayed and irritated to read that one of today’s google news top headlines was “Aromatherapy Falls Short”.  Under the headline it showed that almost 200 news outlets were already running the story that you can read here.  I read the article and had to shake my head at this pathetic attempt at a study and how badly it tested aromatherapy.

Aromatherapy involves using essential oils to facilitate healing.  There are a wide variety of treatments that fall under the aromatherapy umbrella.  A therapist can call something aromatherapy when they put a certain scent in the air.  Aromatherapy might involve a massage where the therapist mixes essential oils with the massage oil.  Or Aromatherapy could involve using essential oils with prescribed methods of inducing them into the skin.

The test of aromatherapy in this study involved repeatedly putting on and ripping off a piece of tape.  It seems to me these study authors have not experienced a true treatment, because there is no relevance between how a patch of skin feels after you have smelled a certain scent, versus how you feel after a true aromatherapy treatment.  And yet it is headline news that aromatherapy doesn’t work after this study!

Last Saturday I learned how to give a raindrop essential oil aromatherapy treatment.  The best part of this lesson was being the recipient.  There is a prescribed set of pure essential oils, spread on the body in specific places, in a specific order, with specific strokes and massage moves.  The effect on the body is pretty significant.  I showed up for the treatment feeling somewhat tired from a long weekend of moving.  After my 45-minute raindrop essential oil aromatherapy treatment, my head was extremely clear and lucid.  My energy level had skyrocketed and I was in a great mood.  There is little doubt that my body and wellbeing was significantly better after this treatment.

I admit my experience does not negate a study.  But the details of the study were so far off from a true aromatherapy treatment, I don’t see how the authors could use it to debunk aromatherapy.  Trust me, you want to check out an aromatherapy treatment yourself.  There should be little doubt that your experience will leave you better off than before the treatment.

Dentists. Get a second opinion!

“Always get a second opinion” is one of the many pieces advice that people hear and rarely follow.  Life is too hectic and time-consuming to perform the necessary diligence on every decision.  When I go to the doctor’s, I will usually take their opinion and course of treatment, but not always.  On trips to the dentist, I have always followed the dentist’s advice – Because I had never been in need of a filling before.

I had a tooth that was a pain in my…well I was going to say pain in my ass, but it was actually a slight pain in my mouth.  Nothing I couldn’t endure, but the enamel was wearing off the top of a tooth and occasionally a stray herb or spinach leaf could get caught in it (it looks real hot when that happens).  I got a flyer in the mail with what appeared to be a nice, mom-like dentist that was within walking distance of my condo. 

I walk in there and something was off with the vibe of the place.  I realize that is a very vague statement, but you either understand what I mean by “the vibe” or you don’t.  I sit in the chair and the hygienist pulls out this thin black instrument and sticks it in my mouth.  Hmm, I don’t recall seeing this thing before in any previous trips to the dentist.  As it passes over my teeth, more often than not I hear this loud EHHHH noise, like the sound on family feud when the family guesses wrong and a big red X flashes up on the screen.  “That means you have a cavity” the hygienist tells me.  My heart sunk, I had gone 36 years without a cavity, getting old sucks!  I was also perplexed, because the cavity detection machine she was using seemed to be making loud angry noises on half my mouth! 

The dentist comes in, looks over the cavity detection machine’s readout, and tells me that I have 11 cavities!  I refused to believe it.  “How could I go from no cavities in 36 years to 11 cavities over the past year?” I exclaimed incredulously.  Her hypothesis was that perhaps I was drinking a lot of Gatorade. 

I walked out of their determined to prove this dentist wrong.  After 2 months I went to see another dentist from a friend’s recommendation.  I had only one cavity!  It still was a buzz kill ruining my perfect dental health streak.  But ten cavities had somehow disappeared from my mouth.  I told the dentist about my eleven cavity diagnosis and she was mystified and re-checked my mouth.  “I don’t know what that dentist was talking about” was her response.  I’m glad I got a second opinion on my dental work.

Water on the Elbow

Whenever I need information I google it.  I may be looking for the nearest bar, oil change, convenience store, doctor, whatever – Googling saves time and allows me to quickly get up to speed on whatever topic I am interested in.  Well – I came down with water on the elbow, and despite my proficient search skills, there was virtually no information to help me out.  So I’m posting this to help the next googler that has a freakish blob of unknown contents hanging off their elbow.

Water on the elbow is very similar to water on the knee.  Somehow your elbow got banged up and its response is to sprout a blob off of the joint.  Look at the picture of my elbow – Yikes! 

I was having dinner Wednesday night and my elbow itched.  I went to scratch it and felt this blob on the elbow.  My first thought was either a sock or a racquetball had somehow got stuck in the sleeve of my shirt and miraculously settled at the elbow spot.  I rolled up my sleeve expecting the foreign object to fall out and nothing fell out.  That is when I recoiled at the UEO (Unidentified Elbow Object) protruding from the elbow joint.

I immediately used my UEO to freak out both my girlfriend and my waitress. The waitress reacted like she was in a Halloween house of horrors and I was a menacing ghoul.  Showing my doormen later on produced winces and exclamations of fear.  But the elbow didn’t hurt at all, so I decided not to spend any time worrying about it.

At the doctor’s office the next day I kept my cellphone on.  I figured I could get some gruesome pictures of water on the elbow drainage to share with my faithful readers.  Unfortunately both doctors refused to pierce the elbow bubble.  With water on the knee, treatment is most commonly having your knee drained.  I know this because I got my knee stuck in another player’s football helmet once, and another time I fell off a couch flush on my knee.  Both times I had a tennis-ball size sac of fluid that required a HUGE needle piercing and squeezing to drain out the fluid.  It was like popping a ginormous zit. 

Draining water on the elbow is not usually a course of treatment because it greatly increases your chance of having the elbow get infected.  If you get water on the elbow, take a bunch of advil and compression wrap the joint.  That was the prescribed treatment.  I did both of these for 2 days, but it stopped being fun rather quickly, plus my stomach did not need advil while I was coordinating and participating in my brother’s bachelor party.  The swelling will go down and everything will be fine as long as the joint pain doesn’t increase.  Hopefully my elbow will look normal again soon.  It is now magically half the size after a week, hopefully I do not re-injure it playing football tonight.

Update post UEO-dispersal: I am updating this 8 months later because I realized I never concluded the story on my UEO disappearance. At football that evening, one week after my water on the elbow appeared, I made a diving interception which caused me to land on my UEO. It felt a little sore but nothing out of the ordinary. I got home and took off my wrap. The water sac had exploded internally and I had a very gross bruise. There was almost no pain. My bruise cleared up over 10 days time and my elbow was as good as new.

Things I've Learned After One Week of Triathlon Training

My anxiety over the triathlon reached its peak last week.  I had 5 weeks until the Accenture triathlon at the end of august and I hadn't been doing much.  In fact, other than twice a week bike rides and gym visits, I hadn't done anything.  Visions of me floating at the bottom of the lake were starting to occur on a regular basis.  I kept holding out hope I could think of a valid reason to bail out of the event but none were forthcoming.  So I bit the bullet and ramped up triathlon training last thursday.  I'm going to try and complete my training in 5 weeks.  I am hoping that I can use mind over matter to complete the event.  After a week of training, a few observations on training:

1. Swim googles are the worst.  When I get done swimming in the pool my eyes make me look like satan.  They are uncomfortable, don't keep eyes from getting red, and a little bit of water gets in, just enough to drive me slowly insane with each swim lap.
2. Brick training leaves your body shot the next day.  A brick is when you ride your bike and then jog afterwards.  Your legs feel like bricks that can't get blood flow, almost like they have fallen asleep and you have to try and run with them.  I figured there was no better way to ramp up training then to crank out a few bricks.  I biked 14 miles and ran 3.5 miles twice.  It is a pretty good feeling when you are done, but the next day I feel 75 years old.
3. Swimming is tough.  My body gets really hot and I feel kinda sapped when I am done swimming.  I am more worried about the swim to bike transition than the bike to run transition.
4. Not all triathletes are morning people!  I checked out the Accenture triathlon website.  I was hopeful of going to a Dave Matthews concert the night before.  Triathlons have what is known as the transition area.  This is where you grab your biking gear, or ditch your biking gear when its time to run.  I have to get all my gear situated in the transition area, NO LATER than 545am on the day of the race.  This single fact has me most irate about the whole tri deal.

The swim heat details are a little intimidating.  Starting at 6am, waves of 80-130 swimmers enter the water every 4 minutes.  Sounds like chaos.  Apparently it is very common to get kicked in the face a few times.  And someone on my dodgeball team informed me that one of the law partners at her firm drowned at a triathlon last year.  I have decided to become very strong on the swimming over the last 4 weeks, and then take my sweet time on the bike and run.  The goal is to finish with no worry on time.

The mind over matter part...I'm starting a daily visualization routine of how fun and satisfying the triathlon is.  I've noticed that I have been associating dread and pain with the event.  This is a bad thing to do, because that is exactly what I am going to get if I keep this up.  When I ran the marathon, it was a great time until the last 90 minutes.  I keep thinking of the last 90 minutes when I view the triathlon.  That ends today.  I am now picturing feeling strong and peppy after the swim, enjoying the bike, being relaxed and happy during the run, and elated when I cross the finish line.  Wish me luck.

Chicken Is The Devil

Hong Kong is non-stop energy and excitement that gives the city its own pulse.  The myriad of street vendors along the city streets hawk anything and everything they think might sell.  Esoteric food offerings include crickets on a stick, fried snake, and almost live sushi.  I decided to play it safe and order my chicken from a storefront; After all, the store had running water and paid a much higher rent, so these factors could translate into better quality food.  When my chicken dish arrived the exotic surroundings of Hong Kong streetlife became a blur as I slowly realized I was chewing a gum-like substance rather than the chicken I had ordered.  My jaw flexed and throat constricted as I frantically scanned for options on how to eject the grotesque bird-like contents that were in my mouth, and possibly many additional contents of my stomach.   I managed to avert a puke-fest and cut open my chicken, it was all soft and gooey.  My stomach turned and I was suddenly not hungry.  I resolved not to eat chicken again while in Hong Kong.

Later that week there was a database crisis back in the states at Motorola that required me to get online at 3am.  From my hotel room I flicked on Hong Kong television while working, only to discover repeated soccer highlights on virtually every station.  I finally settled on some sort of documentary on of all topics...the chicken industry.  Have you seen how chickens come to the market?  I stared in horror at my screen for a number of reasons.  The chicken coops were displayed with the birds are packed into cages barely bigger than their bodies.  There were tubes affixed to the chickens so they could be pumped with food.  They squawk and peck and crap all in the same 2 foot by 2 foot cage until they are ready to get harvested for the market.  I hate zoos, cages, restrictions, rules, containment of any kind.  I have always thought that if you look a bird in the eye, you can tell that it would gladly peck you to death if given the chance.  Combining the close-up look at their constrained, filthy lives, along with my general dislike of birds, and my bubble gum chicken dish, I decided I could do without chicken for the foreseeable future.

That future without chicken is still going.  Chicken has ceased to become food to me.  It is more of a novelty to watch other people eat it.  It doesn’t gross me out to watch, it just seems like people are eating a piece of paper or a handful of dirt…my mind processes it the same way “Why are you putting that non-food into your mouth?”  I have no scientific evidence to prove this, but I no longer get headaches, have a lot more energy, and require less sleep, all since I have stopped eating chicken.  And yet still, I tried several times to eat chicken wings again because they were a big hit with me back in the chicken eating days.  Each time I have to either spit out the first wing, or after about 5 wings my stomach starts to turn.  Perhaps I no longer produce the enzymes to process chicken meat.  I think my body is trying to protect me from eating the devil’s bird.

Anabolic Diet - 2 week progress

How do you judge a diet?  It has been confusing for me to evaluate the anabolic diet properly because my metrics have been giving me conflicting results.  Pounds lost is a generally acceptable way to judge a diet.  I've gained half a pound in 2 weeks.  So that would make it seem like the anabolic diet sucks.  However, this past sunday I was brain-dead from a weekend bachelor party in new orleans.  Rather than stick to the diet plan last night, I inhaled a huge quantity of chinese food.  So I cheated for sure. 

I also decided on a loose interpretation of the word "day".  I decided a day of a diet was any 24 hour period.  Therefore, my 2 days of carbs were thursday 8pm until sunday 3am...basically 2 days and 7 hours, but spread over 3 nights for the inevitability of chicago nightlife drinking.  This could be a factor in why I have gained a pound.  Perhaps your body and its carb processing rely on only having 2 waking days where you are eating carbs, who knows.

Another measure of a diet is your body composition.  I have been inhaling protein and lifting weights at the gym every 3 days.  That is not a lot of gym time.  But there is defintely an improvement in muscle composition, so this diet has helped there.  It might be wishful thinking, but maybe I have not lost any weight because it has been re-distributed as muscle.  I can't believe I typed that one with a straight face.

The last measure I use for a diet measure is how I feel while on the diet.  I have to tell you, this diet is good for me in that regard.  My stomach never seems to bloat or feel like crap.  At least not until carb day, when it then bloats like i'm on my first trimester.  I'm beginning to think my body has a strong aversion to at least one of the things that I wolf down on carb day.  Also, I very rarely feel sluggish after eating, the anabolic diet is almost like a refueling.

The jury is still out on the anabolic diet.  I seem to drop 3-4 pounds in 4 days and then put it right back on during carb weekend.  I'm going to give it 2 more weeks to see what happens.

Acupuncture

I hate pills.  The whole premise sucks.  I take a pill to mask the pain that is actually a signal by my body that something is wrong.  I still will take pills when necessary, but it just doesn't work for me to pop a pill when I have a significant ache or pain.  That thinking led me to try out acupuncture and I have never regretted it.

I never thought acupuncture would be a polarizing topic.  When I casually mention a recent visit to my acupuncturist, people's reactions often have little to do with acupuncture itself.  Open-minded or adventurous people say "Cool, I've always wanted to try that."  Cynics say "Jeez, what is wrong with western medicine?" and roll their eyes.  Others might wonder out loud "How can needles sticking into my skin make me feel better?" in disbelief.  Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, I am not out to convince anyone they should drop what they are doing to go get stuck by needles.  But perhaps some education and information are in order before you rush to judgment when you hear someone utter "acupuncture".

The crucial decision point about whether you can accept acupuncture as a viable medical treatment rests with your opinion about your body and its makeup and composition.  What do you think of your body at its core?  For me it seems pretty clear that people are energy.  I don't see how that is not obvious.  Bodies have physical compositions that are manifestations of energetic compositions.

At this point, half my friends will tune me out.  "Energy, hahaha" I can hear a few say in my head as I type this.  Something about discussing energy and the body causes people a lot of discomfort.  To me this is a sign that the topic has hit a nerve with the person; Perhaps they have always felt wondered about human's relations to energy but were too nervous or embarrassed to discuss it.  Maybe they mentioned something about meditation or yoga once and got made fun of.  I don't know.  I do know that when I mention acupuncture, and then say how it heals and removes energy blockages, 50% of my conversation mates at that point start to look at me with a mixture of bemusement and skepticism.

Let's say you are still with me at this point.  You think it is perfectly viable that energy within the body is a prime factor in your physical health.  We are not alone.  In most Asian countries acupuncture flourishes as a standard medical practice.  How does a typical acupuncture session work?

The acupuncturist starts with a thorough interview of the reasons you are visiting.  This is nice, because you get to discuss all your symptoms.  Some (not all) western doctors assume they know what is best for you before you even get done explaining your situation for going to see them.  I get so ticked when that happens!  After the interview process, the acupuncturist looks at your tongue.  The tongue stays internal to your body the majority of the day, so the practice examines the signs of your most internal body part that can be viewed easily.  Heavily coated tongues or tongues with random unique textures give the acupuncturist signs of your health.

Next comes the needles.  The Chinese have mapped out the energy flow throughout the body.  These maps are your energy meridians.  Certain points on your body correlate to specific areas.  For instance, I saw the acupuncturist for treatment of my sciatic nerve.  She would put needles in different spots of my left wrist and hand, in order to clear up pain and trauma in my right hip and butt.  It literally showed dramatic improvement the moment she put the needles in.  Before the needles, when I would lean forward to touch my toes, I could only get to mid-shin until the pain and tightness were too much.  And this is from someone who was able to stand on their palms prior to injury.  After the needles got put in my wrist, I could bend forward significantly further because the pressure and pain had lowered substantially.

When all the needles are in all the spots, it is time to lay back and relax to music.  I generally have about 25 needles in various spots on both hands and wrists, feet and shins, and a bunch on the crown of my head and in my ears.  Sometimes every pin prick hurts initially, sometimes I don't even know they are in.  Once I am left by the acupuncturist to zone out for 30 minutes, that is when the mind trip can occur.  The energy starts whirling around your body for the first few minutes.  Make no mistake about it, there is "something" that I physically feel, zooming all around.  It can be quite intense, once or twice I thought I was going to blast out of my head...which is interesting yet startling.  Other times your body gets a rhythm going, where the energy keeps swooshing up and down from head to toe.  Or maybe I click out and have to get woken up by her re-entering the room.  It is never the same experience, but something is definitely happening because of the acupuncture.  I am not sure entirely how it happens, but all of that energy movement leaves me with improved symptoms of whatever it was that ails me.  And if it is all just in my head, who cares, it is my psycho-somatic trigger and still works.

Acupuncture is not some new agey science where the benefits "manifest themselves in the future" and not immediately noticeable - far from it!  I have used it to heal my sciatic nerve.  It has improved my digestion significantly (no further detail needed on that). It has made me more calm, focused, and energized.  If you are in Chicago, you can check out my acupuncturists by viewing her site and setting up an appointment.  Otherwise google acupuncture and whatever city you live in and you'll find someone.  Next time you have a recurring headache, muscle or nerve spasm, or just need to chill out, I suggest giving acupuncture a whirl rather than a pill.