Welcome to the May 2012 survey of grocery markets in Boulder, Colorado that sell a wide variety of organic items. All prices are for May 2, 2012. All items are organic. The products listed represent the lowest prices we could find for that particular item (including club card discounts). Unless otherwise stated, all produce prices are listed per pound. We realize that very few shoppers purchase only one pound of any particular item (apples, oranges, onions, and so on). That said, price differences add up when you buy 3-8 pounds of fruits and vegetables. This month there were several volume discounts on price-per-pound items, which raised the overall total for many stores, but allowed shoppers the opportunity to get a better deal by spending a little more.

The goal of our monthly grocery survey is to inform our readers, not to bias their shopping decisions. Obviously, the prices for groceries in Boulder may have no reflection on what these items cost in your neighborhood markets—these items may not even be available in your neighborhood. We also recognize that purchasing organic food is a luxury not everyone can afford. Still, we hold locally grown/raised organic groceries as the gold standard.

We are very interested to hear about the cost and availability of these items in your local grocery stores, so please take a minute to leave us a comment about this report.

Live well, eat well, bon apetit!

Click on table to enlarge.

Share this:

4/25/12

Last weekend, Jillian and I attended the Tadasana Festival. Tadasana is a yoga and music festival that happened right on the beach in Santa Monica, California. (“Tadasana” is the Sanskrit name for the “mountain pose”; the first pose in a sun salutation.)  It was a heart-opening, mind-awakening experience—perhaps the longest period of life where I was conscious of the interconnectedness of my life unfolding around me.

Since last December, I have been focusing my attention on networking with like-minded people and taking the next steps along the path of transforming my life into becoming a purveyor of information and inspiration about healing and wellness. So when Jillian recommended that I enter a contest sponsored by Mastin Kipp’s The Daily Love to win a ticket to Tadasana, I did—and won. (Thank you Mastin!) Seeing this gift as part of a universal message to follow my dream, we booked rather expensive plane reservations two days prior to leaving.

Once we arrived in Los Angeles, we caught a Santa Monica city bus that took us from LAX right to Jillian’s mother’s house—and it only cost $1 each. My next move was to find a way to get from Santa Monica to Sherman Oaks so I could meet my dad and step-mom for dinner. We hadn’t taken our shoes off for 15 minutes when my father called and told me that the play they had gone to see that afternoon got out early, so they had some extra time to pick me up. In fact, they broke their dinner date with the friends they had seen the play with in order to have dinner with me in West Los Angeles. Wonderful.

The following morning, with the fog dripping off the street signs, we set out on foot for the festival, thinking was a mere 18 blocks away—it turned out to be more like 15 miles round trip. On our inbound trek, we made friends with Jen Reed from Montreal, who took classes and hung with us on Friday and Saturday. Once we got to the festival, the good people at Tadasana graciously comped Jillian’s ticket, so both of us were surfing the yoga wave on house money. Hallelujah.

The yoga was phenomenal. Amy Ippoliti, Seane Corn, Kia Miller, Suzanne Sterling, MC Yogi & Amanda Giacomini, Lisa Walford… y’all rocked, twisted, pulled, pushed, and lifted us into a completely new space. But this kind of three-day evolution doesn’t come without consequences: Both Jillian and I “hit the wall” more than once as the spirit of awakening took us away from familiar waters and into uncharted seas. The cool thing was we were able to right our emotional ships in under 30 minutes every time. Brilliant.

The speakers at The Daily Love tent were equally inspirational: Jacquelyn Carr, Ash Ruiz, Aykanna, and Mastin Kipp. I took something useful away every time. Thank you.

Even our “big night out on the town” with matchmaker, author, blogger, and public speaker Marla Martenson was a gift. Perfect.

My biggest shift came while listening to Seane Corn at the beginning of her Detox Flow class on Sunday morning. She began telling her story about growing up in rural New Jersey and how the dumping of chemicals into the Passaic River by Dow Chemical and others resulted in skyrocketing rates of breast and kidney cancer. She added her own personal connection between her family’s Styrofoam factory and the deaths of her grandfather and father to kidney cancer. She went on to add the piece I’m most familiar with as a cancer survivor—that the foods we eat, the beverages we drink, stress, unhealthy holding patterns, the emotional baggage we lug around … all steal years from our lives and life from our years. At the end of her talk, I knew I had to give more of myself to my message.

It wasn’t until we were on the flight home to Colorado when Jillian said to me that she could see me up in front of people, like Seane was, that I knew I had to start this blog.

At each and every turn, I could see how the reality of the trip was a manifestation of the love, effort, care, and passion I put into my relationships, my community, my yoga practice, my Web site, and my desire to connect with people who will help me transmit the message of health, wellness, and prosperity. Like I said, it was surreal, and yet, I could see how all the puzzle pieces fit—even as they were coming together.

I don’t know if anyone has ever come up with a formula for how one’s thoughts and actions become their reality (it’s certainly not a linear equation), but this weekend erased all doubts from my mind that all three are inexorably intertwined.

P.S. I also want to give a shout out to Fabian Alsultany and Tommy Rosen for producing such a wonderful festival. My hope is that 2012 is the first of many to come.

Share this:

How do you know if you have found the right one? Your soul mate? Sometimes, we just know it, and it works without a hitch; other times we go through a different process—a series of “near-fits” or “almost-matches.” But that’s okay. When this happens, these experiences can help us clarify our “don’t wants,” so we can turn them into “do wants,” and get that much closer to attracting the right person for us the next time around. It also reveals the importance of seeing that someone is the “almost the right one,” instead of “the right one.” This way you can let go of people who you are really not meant to be with in the long run.

But how do you know when someone is the right one? Well, for one thing, they want to see you again. For instance, when a woman goes on a date with a man and it seems to go really well, there even seems to be chemistry, she will expect him to call her to ask her out again. Days go by, then a week, and no word from Romeo. She will make excuses to herself to rationalize why he hasn’t called. Maybe he is really busy at work, or he’s out of town. Another good one is, he said he was moving, so that must be it, he has been so busy packing that he hasn’t had time to call. Or the one that I used to use when I was single, he must have been in an accident and either in a coma or dead, because he said he would call, and if he hasn’t called, it means that he can’t. But guess what? He was never in a coma and he was never dead. If a man doesn’t call you again, he is NOT for you.

Take my friend Lani. Lani is a divorced woman in her late forties. She looks young, is fit, and has a lovely sense of style. She has three children, two of whom have completed college, and one teenager who is a junior in high school. She has a nice home, a good job, and lots of friends. Anyone would think that she has it all, but Lani sees her life as “incomplete” because she is not married. She says she wants to “find someone,” so badly that it’s become the most important goal in her life. Her friends describe this goal as more of a “mission,” saying that Lani calculates pretty much all outings in terms of meeting a man. When girlfriends invite her out, she suggests they go to a particular restaurant known for attracting singles. If she’s invited to a dinner party, she first asks if any “eligible” men will be there. So far, she’s found no one “great” to date. She often says “all the good men are taken.”

As you might guess, Lani is dangerously close to entering the “zone of settling.” Women that want to be in a relationship so badly that it’s an obsession, give out a desperate vibe that is a huge turn-off.

Lani recently went back to dating an old flame who called her up. He is an emotionally aloof man who only calls her when it was convenient for him. Needless to say, she’s not happy in this relationship, but she thinks it’s better to be with someone than to be alone. In addition to missing out on meeting her life partner, the longer Lani stays in a dead-end relationship, the more it chips away at her soul and undermines the idea that she is actually attracting someone wonderful into her life right now.

While Lani bides her time with this man, she continues to keep an eye on the field looking for a better “catch.” In the meantime, she is losing out on valuable time when she could be putting her attention on manifesting a healthy relationship with the right man for her. Lani is wasting time with a mismatched partner because she has convinced herself it’s “better than nothing.” But is it?

Are You Hoping Someone Will Change?

Another reason we stay too long in the wrong relationship is that we hope the person will change. We tell ourselves, “I’ve found the perfect person for me….If only he or she could change this or that, we would be incredible together.” Listen up. You’re headed for a train wreck! You cannot change anyone. It is very important to realize this. It is so tempting to try to do so when we find someone who seems so irresistible. I have heard too many people, especially women, say something like, “He has such potential. I can change him.”

When you try to change people, you invariably hook up with someone who has qualities you really don’t like: disrespectful toward others, doesn’t like animals, swears a lot, smokes, drinks too much, is into porn, loves heavy metal, is allergic to cats, hunts, has been watching Monday night football with the guys for the past fifteen years, or uses his treadmill as a clothes hanger… And if you think you’re magically going to change any of those behaviors, all I can say is, “good luck.”

Here’s a great tip: don’t waste your time attracting potential. Spend your energy attracting the person who is already right to you. Find someone who already has the qualities that you are looking for. It might take a little longer, but think about the alternative. No one wants to be nagged or disapproved of. If you don’t like the qualities that your partner possesses, either accept him or her the way he or she is or break up and find a partner who already has those qualities that you’re seeking. Don’t deviate from your desire just because you think you might be able to mold somebody to conform to it. Trust me, you won’t!

Share this:

Would you believe me if I told you that by doing three simple exercises for less than five minutes a day you would have a healthier body with a more alert mind, fewer headaches, and greater flexibility? Well, it’s true. Not only have I seen these exercises (what we physical therapists call “cervical stabilization and mobilization”) help resolve my patients’ neck issues, but they also helped me tremendously in my recovery from being rear-ended by a distracted college student who was chatting away on her cell phone and failed to notice that the traffic light had changed.

These exercises are designed to align, mobilize, and stabilize the first three cervical vertebrae (C1, C2, and C3). The exercises improve the alignment of the joint surfaces and help to balance the relationships between the muscles that control the movement and stability of these three key vertebrae.

Before we go any further, I should explain a little bit about what each of these vertebrae do and how they not only control how your head moves, but to a significant extent, how the rest of your spine (and therefore your entire body) does too.

C1 (Atlas)
Named for the Titan of Greek mythology whose punishment for warring against the gods was to support the weight of the heavens (which is often depicted as a globe) for eternity. The globe of the head rests literally right on top this first cervical vertebra (C1), allowing the fine movements of the head on top of the neck. The nerve roots (sensory nerves) emerging from C1 innervate the skin around and above the ear. If C1 is misaligned, you will probably notice pain at the base of your skull and underneath the jaw and the inability to move your head normally. In addition to pain at the base of your skull, the symptoms of a C1 misalignment can include wicked headaches, migraines, felling “fuzzy headed,” dizziness, TMJ pain, even vertigo.

C2 (Axis)
The English word “axis” comes from the Latin word of the same spelling, meaning axel or pivot. The most distinctive feature of the Axis (C2) is its “odontoid process” (a tooth-like protrusion often called the “dens”) that forms a pivot upon which the Atlas (C1) rotates. In general, C2 directs cervical mobility. The nerve roots (sensory nerves) emerging from C2 innervate the skin of the back of the skull. If the Axis is misaligned, my patients frequently report pain at the base of the skull that extends up the back of the head as well as referred pain behind the eyes and in the temples. As with C1 misalignment, C2 misalignment makes it difficult to turn your head left or right.

C1 & C2 Innervation Issues
The upper cervical spine works as a functional unit. So it is difficult, even for experienced therapists and doctors, to discern whether C1 and C2 are out of alignment because the symptoms are so similar. For example, when C1 is out of alignment, it is likely to cause C2 nerve impingement symptoms (pain that start at the base of the skull and extend over the top of the head and lodges behind the eyes and/or in the temples). I see a lot more C1 misalignment. That’s not to say that C2 misalignment symptoms are uncommon, but C1 issues are more prevalent.

C3 (no cool Greek or Latin name)
The third cervical vertebra (third one down from the base of the skull) is similar in structure to the next three vertebrae: C4, C5, and C6. C3 is on the same plane with the mandible (lower jaw) and the hyoid bone (a floating bone that sits above the Adam’s Apple). If you moved your finger back along your jaw line, you would be at the C3 level. The motor nerve root (which controls muscle movement) emerging from C3 innervates the muscles of the face and neck. If this vertebra is misaligned, you may notice facial pain, tingling, or muscle spasms. C3, C4, and C5 also innervate the diaphragm, which is why people who have traumatic upper spinal cord injuries often have trouble breathing.

The relationship between these first three vertebrae is interrelated, requiring the coordinated movement of dozens of muscles, tendons, and ligaments—all of which are about the size and thickness of your little finger. If any of these vertebrae are misaligned or have their normal movement restricted, it often sets off a chain reaction of pain and discomfort that can be difficult to clear.

If left uncorrected, this sort of problem can set up a positive feedback loop that basically shuts down the normal movement and mobility that are critical to daily life such as, nodding your head “yes,” shaking your head “no,” turning your head to parallel park your car, or looking left and right before you cross the street.

Fortunately, the exercises listed below harness the intrinsic intelligence of your central nervous system, which allows you to move your head in all directions.

Once a cervical joint is stabilized and mobilized, these exercises allow the neck to stay in spinal neutral, which is the optimal state of being—your ideal blueprint.

A Word Before You Start
Before you begin the exercises listed below, it’s important that you understand one simple, yet subtle, concept. All three exercises involve an isometric contraction between the palm of your hand and the side of your head. You will receive the most benefit if you focus on resisting the force of your hand against the side of your head—instead of pushing your head into the palm of your hand. Although this difference might sound trivial, it’s not. Cervical stabilization and mobilization occur when your neck actively resists your hand pressing against the side of your head.

Although it might feel like you are doing more “work” when you press your head into your hand, that type isometric contraction recruits many of the muscles, tendons, ligaments, and bones of your neck and chest, which prevent these exercises from working their magic on the alignment of the first three cervical vertebrae.

So relax and allow your head the resist the pressure of your hands.

Exercise 1: Balancing Atlas with Rotation 

Position: Lie on your back with your head in a neutral position (chin in, nose pointing straight up at the ceiling). Do not put a pillow under your head unless you cannot rest your head comfortably without one. Place the heels of each hand on your temples in the natural indentation just above your cheekbones.

Exercise: With your chin tucked in as far as you can, use the muscles at the base of your skull to resist your head being turned to the left by your right hand. Focus on the muscles at the base of your skull, and avoid using the muscles of your entire neck. Recruiting these other neck muscles defeats the mobilization and stabilization of your Atlas (C1). Admittedly, this is a fine line that might take you a few times of figure out.

Resist the force of your hand while keeping your head straight with your nose pointing straight at the ceiling. The force of your hand is stronger than your upper cervical muscles, so gradually increase the force of your hand until it is equal what the muscles at the base of your skull can resist. Applying this type of balanced force helps prevent your head from moving out of the mid-line of your body.

You are attempting to keep your head in a neutral position as you push against it with your right hand. Hold for four seconds, and then switch hands and repeat the exercise using your left hand. Repeat this exercise four times on both sides (4 counts x 4 sets).

Tip: Look in the direction of the hand that is attempting to rotate your head. If you are resisting the force of your right hand, look to your right. Using your eyes brings in a visual component to this isometric exercise, which stimulates your brain and incorporates an element of balance.

Exercise 2: Balancing Atlas-Axis with Side Bend

Position: Lie on your back with your head in a neutral position (chin in, nose pointing straight up at the ceiling). Do not put a pillow under your head unless you cannot rest your head comfortably without one. Place the heels of your hands on the tops of your ears or just slightly above your ears.

Exercise: With your chin tucked in as far as you can, press your right palm against the right side of your head as if it were attempt to block your right ear from moving to where your chin is now. Again, it’s your hand that is pressing against your head, not the other way around. The force of your hand should be equal to what the muscles at the base of your skull can oppose. This equal resistance prevents your head from moving out of the mid-line of your body. Repeat on the left side, using your left hand to keep your neck completely still. Repeat this exercise four times on both sides (4 counts x 4 sets).

Tip: The trick here is to use the pressure of your hand to prevent your neck from side bending at/near the base of your skull. The movement your hand is trying to prevent is a small bird-like tilting of your head at top of the neck. If you recruit all the muscles of the neck, you take away this exercise’s ability to mobilize the Atlas-Axis joint.

Exercise 3: Correcting C2’s Functional Relationship

Position: As with the Atlas-Axis Mobilization exercise you just completed, lie on your back with your head in a neutral position (chin in, nose pointing straight up at the ceiling). Do not put a pillow under your head unless you cannot rest your head comfortably without one. Start with the heels of your hands on the tops of your ears or just slightly above them.

Exercise: With your chin tucked in as far as you can, press your right palm against the right side of your head as if it were attempt to block your right ear from moving to where your chin is now. Your right hand prevents your head from moving. Again, it’s your hand that is pressing against your head, not the other way around. The force of your hand should be equal to what the muscles at the base of your skull can oppose. Turn your eyes to the right as well.

This time, instead of switching to your left hand after you have completed four counts, side bend your head slightly to the right so your ear moves slightly in the direction of your chin —as if you were taking up the slack that the previous set of this exercise created. All the side-bending movement should occur right at the base of your skull—not throughout your entire neck. Admittedly, this kind of selective motion is a little tricky at first, and it takes a few sessions to feel the difference between using your whole neck and using just the muscles at the base of the skull. When done correctly; however, this exercise produces powerful results.

Repeat this exercise four times, doing each set for four full counts, and then side bending your head slightly further towards your chin. Do this a total of four times, and then repeat on the other side.

Tip: As with the previous exercise, the trick here is to resist side bending your head from the base of your skull, while keeping the rest of your neck as steady as possible. Again, The movement you are trying to prevent is a small bird-like tilting of your head at top of the neck.

Congratulations! You’ve just completed the entire cervical stabilization and mobilization workout. The most startling benefit of doing these three exercises is the flexibility, mobility, and stability they create and maintain throughout your body, including your lower back.

Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

Share this:

Welcome to the April 2012 survey of grocery markets in Boulder, Colorado that sell a wide variety of organic items. All prices are for April 2, 2012. All items are organic. The products listed represent the lowest prices we could find for that particular item (including club card discounts). Unless otherwise stated, all produce prices are listed per pound. Very few shoppers purchase only one pound of any particular item (apples, oranges, onions, and so on), so the price difference between stores adds up when you buy more. This month there were several volume discounts on price-per-pound items, which raised the total price for many stores, but allowed shoppers the opportunity to buy more for less.

The goal of our monthly grocery survey is to inform our readers, not to bias their shopping decisions. Obviously, the prices for groceries in Boulder may have no reflection on what these items cost in your neighborhood markets—these items may not even be available in your neighborhood. We also recognize that purchasing organic food is a luxury not everyone can afford. Still, we hold locally grown/raised organic groceries as the gold standard.

We are very interested to hear about the cost and availability of these items in your local grocery stores, so please take a minute to leave us a comment about this report.

Live well, eat well, bon apetit!

Click on table to enlarge.

Share this: