Street Resilience Fuel

The feedback sensation I felt from them was soft and crackly. It took about 15 minutes for them to stop moving and begin to lower their heads. One of the twenty-odd animals began scrabbling at the ground with his forelegs, which suddenly bent, sending him to the ground. The twitching feeling in my palm grew stronger. These are individual foods that have extraordinary amounts of antioxidants, phytonutrients, phytosterols, chlorophyll, and healthy fibers. I can't help but offer a preview here of one super food, but in a way that will allude to some of the points about sugar, an additive that often appears in sheep's clothing. One super food is the goji berry, whose complete profile will appear later. You can purchase bags of freeze-dried powdered goji berries, and in this powdered form it might be stirred into the health drinks served by health-food stores. But beware, the drink may also contain cane sugar, counteracting the health-giving effects of the goji. Very few people ever eat any goji plain. Instead, it is sugar-coated, as it were. For instance, when you eat a goji bar, the goji part of the bar is miniscule and, in most cases, virtually insignificant to your health. The number one ingredient in that health bar is fructose. That's at the top of the list (since ingredients are listed so those that contribute the most are put first). Top Emotions in Transitions I then asked how people coped with or overcame these emotions. Their answers were practical, poignant, and quite inventive. Let's examine the top three. Fear clearly terrorizes people--and paralyzes them with indecision. Fraidy Reiss told me that after living with her abusive husband for fifteen years, and finally escaping with her children, she was overcome with fear.

It wasn't fear of failure, she said. It was fear of the unknown. I just didn't understand this world, and now I had to raise two kids in it. On top of that, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. One after another, the topi before me pawed the ground and then fell. After 30 minutes the healing space was complete and most of the topi had fallen down. Then, from far off, several zebras approached, passing right in front of me as they entered the healing space. They began rubbing their bodies against nearby trees as they entered a state of relaxation. As my showdown was now over, the driver brought the car once around the group of topi. Although some did stand, not a single one attempted to run away. Within the group there was also a fox-like gazelle that was lying on its side, fast asleep. All of them were completely relaxed. The local area coordinator who saw this was so moved that he declared he'd changed his outlook on life. Before I'd started transmitting Ki to the topi he'd assured me that topi are always alert and vigilant. Goji will appear near the bottom, if not being the last, on the list. The end result is that manufactures have marketed an unhealthy product in a deceptive manner. It's the equivalent of a bait and switch: focus on goji in advertising the bar--Eat a Goji Treat--but provide the consumer with what is largely a sugary supplement. As an alternative, as you will see in the power foods section, you can incorporate these foods into your diet yourself. One good way is by making a protein shake in the morning. By adding rice milk, Noni powder, a teaspoon of goji powder, some fresh blackberries, and a scoop of non-genetically engineered rice powder, you will have created a drink that is low in calories and very low in sugar, but high in nutrients, with a heavy emphasis on antioxidants, phytonutrients and polyphenols.

However before turning to super foods, we have to look at super liabilities to your diet, in particular, many forms of sugar. Before looking at how sugar consumption has been growing by leaps and bounds (or should I say leaps and pounds) in the United States, let's clarify what sugar is since it comes in a number of sub-varieties. In 2002 statement the American Heart Association (AHA) and the USDA provided a broad, succinct definition of what constitutes sugar: Simple carbohydrate (sugar) refers to mono- and disaccharides; Common disaccharides are sucrose (glucose + fructose), found in sugar cane, sugar beets, honey, and corn syrup; When I went into the hospital for surgery, I had to list my next of kin. That's when I realized I didn't have a single person who would help me out in a crisis. At its root, fear is positive. Being afraid triggers a series of physical reactions--rapid heartbeat, flushed skin, adrenaline--that help save us from peril. Face-to-face with a lion, we know we must fight or flee. Fear is good, said the screenwriter Steven Pressfield. Fear is an indicator. Fear tells us what we have to do. But not all fearful situations are as clear cut as staring into the eyes of a four-hundred-pound predator. Many involve emotional adjustments, financial insecurities, or just plain dread about facing an ordeal with no guarantee of success. There's no way they'll fall. It must have been hard for him to believe his eyes as those same topi fell down one after another in comfortable bliss. My next encounter was with zebras. As our car sprinted across the great plains, we saw in the distance a group of about thirty zebras. I positioned myself about thirty meters away from them and began to transmit Ki. Five minutes later, the hand feedback sensation in my palm began to grow stronger.

Twenty more minutes passed. The zebra had grown still. Suddenly, two fell down, stuck their four legs up in the sky, and began to rub their backs against the ground. They were playing in the sand. The most common naturally occurring monosaccharide is fructose (found in fruits and vegetables). Intrinsic or naturally occurring sugar refers to the sugar that is an integral constituent of whole fruit, vegetable, and milk products; The sugar in that definition that is the most concern to the health conscious is added sugar, which can also be termed sweeteners, (ie, something added to a food to make it sweeter than it already is). These are the sugars that are adding so much to American consumption. As a recent report from the USDA notes, per capita consumption of caloric sweeteners increased by twenty-eight pounds, or 22 percent, from 1970 through 1995, and has continued to increase since 1995. A similar sugar explosion was detailed in a separate USDA Report on Food Consumption, Prices and Expenditures, during the period 1970-1997. Instead of using pounds, the report's authors broke consumption into teaspoons, pointing out that their figures, translated into such terms amounted to more than 53 teaspoonfuls of added sugars per person per day in 1997. Meanwhile, the USDA's Food Guide Pyramid suggests that people consuming 1,600 calories limit their intake of added sugars to 6 teaspoons per day. The guide suggested those who consume 2,200 calories a day limit themselves to 12 teaspoons while those eating 2,800 calories keep their consumption down to 18 teaspoons. In other words, Americans are consuming close to three times the maximum of 18 teaspoons recommended by USDA food guidelines for even the highest calorie diets! Fear escalates during transitions precisely because it nags at these kinds of doubts. In 1986, the psychologists Hazel Markus and Paula Nurius introduced the idea that all of us keep a running catalog of possible selves. These imaginary selves represent our hopes for what we'd like to become, our dream selves, and our worries for what we're afraid of becoming, our feared selves. In times of change, our dream selves retreat and our feared selves become more looming. And yet, humans are remarkably adaptive. As fear has metastasized in our nonlinear age, our coping mechanisms have grown.

I heard a wide array of ways people push back against their fears. Compare Down The most frequent tactic is that people create a mental equation under which fear of the future, as great as it may be, is still less than fear of the present. The equation looks like this: Having been sent Ki, their blood flow had improved, making their bodies itchy. As there were no trees around, they had no choice but to fall down and rub their backs on the ground. My third encounter was with lions. Traveling across the great plains, we encountered a male lion. Recognizing the danger, I put about forty meters between him and myself and began to transmit Ki. This was the animal I had most wanted to meet while in Africa. After two to three minutes of transmitting, the male lion stretched out his front legs and promptly fell asleep. It was all over so fast that it felt a bit unsatisfying. Not soon after, in another area, we came across a family of two parents and two cubs. All four of them yawned quickly went into state of relaxation and laid down on their sides. As I mentioned, it is the sweeteners that are really hoisting up the consumption figures, and these sweeteners are particularly found in soft drinks. The USDA report just mentioned showed that the steep rise in caloric sweetener consumption since the mid-1980s coincided with a 47 percent increase in annual per capita consumption of regular (non-diet) carbonated soft drinks. This soared from 28 gallons per person in 1986 to 41 gallons in 1997. Carbonated soft drinks provided more than a fifth (22 percent) of the refined and processed sugars in the 1994 American diet. All this sugar consumption is closely related to a spectrum of increased disease. That's why I have often commented while these sodas are called soft drinks, they are certainly hard on your body.