My Body
Aimee Raupp on Sleep, Soy, and Skinny Bitches
- Aimee Raupp (via aimeeraupp.com)
Aimee Raupp is a licensed acupuncturist with practices in Manhattan and Nyack, New York, and the author of Chill Out and Get Healthy.
The most important part of being healthy is being in touch with yourself on an emotional and physical level. Being in touch with your reactions to situations. How they make you feel, how you express your emotions, what are you using to manage your stress? Then it's sleeping and eating sensibly, as wholesome and clean as possible. We're losing touch with our physical and emotional selves. Be in your body. If you're not in touch with yourself, good luck with that. Check in with yourself. Notice that you feel like crap when you eat that Snickers bar.
I wasn't a very healthy girl when I found my way to Chinese medicine. I was just out of college. I still had an eating disorder, I drank way too much, and I was in a tempermental relationship. I was a runner, but just because it kept me skinny, not because it felt good. What studying Chinese medicine makes you do, you're taking these psychology courses with a focus on yourself, because you can't heal anyone until you heal yourself. So then you work on you and then through that... Obviously I'm still working on myself, but I grew a lot.
I really try to get my seven or eight hours of sleep. I try to live my life so work is done at 10:30 or 11:00 and then I sleep till 7:00. Your phone goes off, the TV goes off, the computer is shut. If you don't sleep, your body can't recover from that day, and sleep deprivation is a huge cause of illness. If you don't sleep, you're never going to feel good.
I always have breakfast in my house. I pretty much make two eggs every morning with spelt or whole grain bread. I try on Sundays to make batches of food. Soup or chili or chicken. If I'm in a major pinch, I'll get an Odwalla Juice and a Lara Bar or a banana or a Stonyfield Farm yogurt. But it really is about preparation. I don't allow myself to go to the bad places. And it's not too hard in Manhattan. In Manhattan you have so many good choices. There's Josies, there's Better Burger, there's Le Pain Quotidien.
It's not so healthy to be a complete vegetarian. The Skinny Bitch Diet is not the way to go. I don't think they meant any harm, but there's just no scientific data to back up those claims. Everything in moderation. There's so much misinformation about soy out there. Everyone thinks it's this major healthy substance, and it's not. The biggest issue is that it's processed. And there's this whole phytoestrogen nonsense. The processing changes enzymes. It's an anti-nutrient. It leeches nutrients from your body to digest it. In typical American fashion, we just took something that was one way and made it into an overprocessed industrialized product that we think has the same properties as it did when it was traditional in Asia. There are layers and layers of issues with it. I'm becoming more of a conspiracy theorist as I get older. It's just a shame. Maybe they want to make us sick.
- Charity D.'s blog
- Login or register to post comments
Email this page
Comments
Soy is such garbage - I think it's gonna replace corn soon as the thing that's making everyone so fat. Try going corn and soy free and see how difficult is it to find food - they grow so much of it because of farming subsidies and that's terrible for the soil. I'm totally becoming a conspiracy theorist about this stuff lately, too.
Submitted by erikka on 11.19.09 at 05:47.
YES! what erikka said.
there's some terrible terrible research out there about what happens when you eat too much soy.
the saddest part is that American industry sells it as an Asian product, but they don't eat nearly as much as tofu makers want you to think. But now it's "healthy" in America, and the manufacturers are selling tofu to Asian countries, who are suffering from the nutrient leaching effects of soy.
rant finished, now I need to go buy her book.
Submitted by sandyliz on 11.20.09 at 08:27.
also, (because of the phytoestrogen, I think) soy can bring on migranes in people prone to them. friend of mine went on a health kick a few years ago and his migranes got so much more frequent and painful until someone thought to ask if he'd swapped in soy milk for cow milk.
Submitted by seshat on 11.20.09 at 10:23.
ditto, erikka, from a fellow consipiracy theorist.
Submitted by syrupandhoney on 11.20.09 at 12:08.
there's a great documentary about the corn industry if you haven't seen it called "King Corn" that came out a few years ago.
Submitted by starry04 on 11.20.09 at 06:03.
I have a burning question:
I have been a consumer of large amount of soy for about 7 years. Though I am a recreational bodybuilder and was always on a thin side, it was very hard to get 'ripped'. My fat was always at about 20%- not good for a bodybuilder or for a budding actress. And it's only after I started eating a lot of soy I became as thin as I wanted to be- I didn't even need to do any cardio anymore, only heavy weights. I achieved weight of 115 lb at 5'5" with only 17 % of bodyfat. A few months ago, searching for ways to increase my natural estrogene levels (to increase the thickness of my skin which creates a youthful appearance) I stopped eating soy. Sure enough, my face changed for the better- but alas! I started gaining weight. I gained almost 5 lb in 4 months and my body fat is back at 21%. I increased my exercise intensity, and I feel pretty good physically. But I hate how my body looks. I know it sounds strange to some, but I was the envy of all my friends by looking like a girl at my age- I stood out. Now I am just another fit chick. It undermines my film career- I am fit for action films but I look like 'drama'. Does soy burn body fat by driving thyroid to produce more?
Submitted by healthjunkie on 04.14.10 at 12:17.