8 Ideas For Chasing The Winter Blues Away

Depending on where you live you may be affected by seasonal affective disorder or depression.

It has been unbelievably and uber gross. It has been raining for weeks and it's not going to let up anytime soon. Now I understand why some people get seasonal depression. Short days, dark days and cold days don't make for a great recipe. Some times I even wonder why I bother getting out of bed. The thought doesn't last long as I have responsibilities, like many of us do.

Continued negative thinking sours your mood even more and makes your day longer and gloomier. You can't alter Mother Nature, so stop fighting it and join it!

Here are some ideas to help you avoid seasonal affective disorder.

1. Take up knitting, crocheting or some other craft
2. Baking
3. Exercise
4. Go for walks or join a walking group
5. Meet up with a friend for coffee
6. Join a winter sport for example, curling
7. Eat a balanced diet
8. Go south - take a vacation

Some of these things may be hard to do especially leaving a warm house in cold, wet weather. Even a short walk to a nearby library will make you feel better and get your blood flowing.

Keep moving and keep busy. The busier you are, the faster time flies and soon enough the days will start to get longer and there'll be more light.

Turkey Dinner Recipes and Dessert

I follow Juan @FitCoach2007 and @TheHungryCuban (mind you they are one in the same) over on Twitter.

I love that he is so passionate about living healthy each and every day and his recipes are fabulous. He also include videos for many of these delicious dishes.

If you strive to eat healthy and be healthy every day, I recommend bookmarking or subscribing to Juan's blog or following him on Twitter.

Here's his yummy The Complete Thanksgiving Dinner Recipes. Don't keep it just for Thanksgiving. Christmas is around the corner.

Plantar Fasciitis: Update

It's been about three weeks now since I made my self-diagnosis of plantar fasciitis and I'm so happy to report the pain in my heel is at 98% no more. I say 98% because now and then I get a twinge of pain.

The second day after I found the exercises, I was doing them like 20 times a day and I was amazed when I did my very first calf stretch how much it eased the pain. Someone described the pain like walking on a very badly bruised heel and they were dead on when they said it. It was exactly how it felt.

They are several types of exercises that would help and I chose to do only one and that was with the arms slightly outstretched, facing a wall, chair, table, counter etc. and with one leg back, heel down to feel the stretch in the calf. I would stretch my calf with the painful heel first for about 30 seconds to a minute and switch over to the non-painful heel so both legs would benefit from the stretching.

Since it's so much better, I now stretch the calf muscle several times a day as I don't want the pain to come back.

Pam of A Pain In The Heel has a blog dedicated to plantar fasciitis. There are a lot of great information and video exercises that can help cure plantar fasciitis.

A recent blog post I read from her asked Are Crocs Rx good shoes for plantar fasciitis and sore feet? Find out on her blog as I'm sure you will find it interesting.

Plantar Fasciitis: A Pain In The Heel

One thing about the Internet is it's too accessible at least it is for me. One little achy spot and I'm there trying to diagnose myself. While it's probably normal behaviour because afterall who really wants to make a trip to the doctor's office if you don't have to? I'm one of those people.

Obviously I'm NOT a doctor and I shouldn't really diagnose myself and you shouldn't either, but I also know my body. Is it a good enough excuse? Most likely not.

What I did find when I woke up one morning last week, I could barely walk because the bottom, near the heel of my right foot was hurting. I needed sponge slippers because I couldn't put any pressure on it. I wracked my brain trying to figure out what I did to it and I have absolutely no idea. The pain eased up a bit during the day, but would go back to hurting every morning I woke up and stepped out of bed.

From what I've read it's possible (strong possibility as that I have the exact same symptoms) I could have plantar fasciitis, the most common of all heel pain. (Looking at the diagram, I'm nodding and saying "YES!"). Plantar fasciitis is an inflammation of the fibrous tissues that runs along the bottom of your foot from your heel to your toes.

What causes plantar fasciitis?
If you're overweight (that's not me)
If you're pregnant (again, that's not me)
If you're a runner (maybe...)
If you have inadequate support in your shoes (that's not me)

What causes the inflammation?
Repetitive stretching and tearing can cause the fascia (fibrous tissue from heel to toe) to become irritated and inflamed.

I'm glad there are exercises that can correct this pain in the heel. This all involves stretching the calf muscle, Achilles tendon and fascia. Applying an ice pack can also reduce the pain and inflammation. It's also good to know you can still workout, but modify your work outs with low impact exercises. Add arch supports or orthotics to give more support in your shoes.

With the foot exercises, I'm hoping this heel pain will disappear as quickly as it mysteriously appeared.

Versatile Pasta Dish with Garden Vegetables and Fresh Basil

I really like this dish. It's so versatile in that you can add as many vergetables you like or to jazz it up a bit include some protein like chicken or chorizo...maybe add some prawns or scallop or some other seafood.

It's not really for the weight conscious person because of the cream.

Rotini Pasta with Garden Vegetables and Fresh Basil

3 large garlic cloves, chopped
1 sweet onion, cut 1/2 inch chunks
1/2 each green, red, yellow pepper cut 1/2 inch chunks
2 large tomatoes cut in chunks
25 snow peas, cut in half
10 basil leaves, rolled and diced
500 ml whipping cream
White wine
*Rotini pasta or fusilli or other similar sized pasta
Parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper to taste

*Depending on how you will have this, side dish or main dish you can make as little or as much pasta as you want. I used 2/3 cup dried pasta to serve three people. (There were leftovers)

Cook pasta to your liking. Microwave peppers and snow peas for about 1 minute and a half.

Saute garlic and onions, add salt. Add peppers, snow peas and tomatoes and continue to saute. Add salt and pepper to taste; add white wine. Add whipping cream and let it reduce (you may not want to add this all at once in case you reduce it too much). It will reduce fairly quickly so watch it. You want enough liquid in there so when you add the pasta and parmesan cheese it won't soak it all up and become dry.

Once reduced, add pasta, parmesan cheese and basil. Mix well until pasta is coated.

You can serve it with cracked pepper on top and/or sprinkled with more parmesan cheese.