It's called the anti-mosquito self-flagellation workout. You take off an article of clothing while out on a run/walk, and begin swinging it about your uncovered skin. Covered skin, too. They can get through t-shirts. Yes, you hit yourself with the T-shirt or track pants in my case, looking like a maniac but hopefully using more muscles AND at the same time, thwarting off the mosquitoes!

I know I have to quit writing about mosquitoes but they are such monsters!

Speaking of monsters, we went to the zoo yesterday for Father's Day and were sure to include the bears. Several months ago, I had a dream about a bear sleeping in my house and everyone would tip-toe about to avoid rousing the beast. The only place where there was noise was in the indoor pool (no, I do not have a pool in my real house! LOL) where a bunch of Asian families were happily splashing and "swimming along." The next morning, I recognized that the sleeping bear represented cancer in my life, and the Asians represented green tea and shiitaki mushrooms which I had just added to my diet as a cancer deterrent.

So, this bear at the zoo was kind of asleep, just on the other side of one of those Plexiglas viewing areas. I didn't remember ever seeing a bear sleep so restlessly--I thought that the jerks and pawing done by the bear in my dream was invented by my brain. When I saw this real bear "sleeping" just like the bear in my dream, I felt real terror rising through my body again, just like the dream.

I stared at that bear, suddenly remembering my dream and all that it meant, unbelieving that the bear was real and here and now. It brought back the fear of cancer recurrence and all the tip-toeing around that we do to keep from "waking up" the cancer, to keep our health-care practitioners happy, to get my "numbers" safely in the correct range, to be sensitive to others who may be at different stages of disease (themselves or loved ones).

It reminded me again that there are things I can do, and somewhere my conscience knows this, and to go against the "right" thing will be detrimental to my psyche, I just know it would.

When we avoid doing the right thing, we put ourselves through all kinds of stress. Not only is doing the right thing helpful to my health, but doing the right thing is helpful to my stress which is also helpful to my health.

And it reminded me that I decided that I was not going to be tip-toeing around that bear of deseases. i was going to tame that beast. I am committed to turning it out of my house and will not be bothered by it again! I'm so glad we went to the zoo and found my bear.

Kris Carr (Crazy Sexy Diet) tells me that cancer likes an acidic environment, and that meat contributes to that acidic environment. So I am also contemplating reducing my meat consumption. I have started by really trying to limit myself to one deck of cards worth of meat at dinner. So far so good.

*one deck of cards-worth of meat at dinner, but also the soup at lunch was fairly meaty. Probably a bit too much overall.
*got my 5 fruits and veggies.
*no obvious sugar except the 1" square of 85% chocolate (thanks tenacioustiger for the tip)