Tag Archives: health

The Comfort Crisis: Embrace Discomfort To Reclaim Your Wild, Happy, Healthy Self by Michael Easter

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Here’s another of the self-help genre I’ve been reading lately: The Comfort Crisis: Embrace Discomfort To Reclaim Your Wild, Happy, Healthy Self by Michael Easter. These books pump me up for exercising and following other habits that are healthy for me, but that I don’t naturally gravitate toward, and that’s exactly what this book is about–doing the hard but healthy things.

Some of the best ideas in the book had to do with healthy movement and being outdoors. Like many, most of my exercise is not necessarily natural, and while not completely ideal, it’s still better than nothing. The book reminded me why yard work, harvesting, and shearing sheep feels so good (afterward). This kind of work can be hard. It can be annoying. It can be uncomfortable, but I always feel better afterward. The impact is tangeable.

I don’t necessarily know what to do about the increasingly sedentary life that I live and/or what it will mean for my kids or society, but for now the book reminds me to get outside, go for walks, and continue to prioritize the seasonal rituals I grew up doing, even if and when they become obsolete or inconvenient.

The 5 Types of Wealth by Sahil Bloom

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The 5 Types of Wealth by Sahil Bloom landed on my tbr list after reading a slew of self-help, optimization, and investing books. I like reading these on the side, especially when I’m deep in routine (exercise, skin care, meal prep, work goals, etc.) and benefit from the encouragement these books can offer.

However, I started this book because I thought it was about investments. I unthinkingly thought it would offer some deep analysis of five different types of investing. I was wrong. This book is actually more of a self-help book. The emphasis is that you will die. So, you might as well optimize your life to achieve what you want while you can.

Overall, this book offers that good self-help pacing. And, there is information about one of the types of wealth, which is financial, and there is a good overview of that included. However, much of the book is about other types of wealth, like personal health and deep, rewarding relationships.

pumpkin, flax & walnut muffins

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For the past few months, I’ve been throwing away and donating clothes and household items that I no longer use. I’m beginning a new era of my life, and so suddenly a lot of things feel like garbage. While this is a normal process to go through every year or two, there was a certain frantic emotional energy to my process—like a “Hey, shit that I don’t want, get the fuck out of my life” kind of energy. And I’m not done yet either.

In this process, I also reorganized this kitchen cupboards. Which is where I found an enormous can of pumpkin puree. Bygone plans for making a pumpkin pie a few years back, I guess. The can was nearly expired (sounds delicious, doesn’t it?!), and so I decided to make pumpkin muffins, which I’d never done before. And, I’m not going to lie. I don’t love pumpkin. Or squash or sweet potatoes, but I took one look at that can of pumpkin puree, and my body said yes. Maybe it was just saying yes to the Vitamin A. Warning: these muffins turn out sort of…sticky. I used a lot of pumpkin puree (for the Vitamin A). Maybe you want to use less. Maybe you don’t want to make these at all.

I have to make my own recipes because, in a breakfast muffin, I pretty much just want palatable high fat, high fiber, and high protein, with enough gluten (or equivalent) to hold it all together. Other recipes use way too much of sugar and only dollop of the good stuff (walnuts, flax seeds, pumpkin, etc.), and so I have to make my own goddamn recipes my own goddamn self.

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pile of decent pumpkin muffins

Here’s what I did:

Pumpkin, Flax & Walnut Muffins
Preheat oven at 350. Mix together dryish ingredients. Mix wet ingredients separately. Then, combine the two. Lastly, fold in walnuts ingredients. Spoon dough into muffin tin. Bake at 350 for about 25+ minutes or until done. (Insert and remove toothpick. Muffins are done when the toothpick comes out clean.) Let cool for 15 min. This recipe made about 16 large muffins, weighing in at something like 212 calories apiece.

Dry ingredients:
1½  cup gluten-free flour blend
1½  cup oats
1 cup shredded flax
¼ cup flax seeds
1 teaspoon of baking soda
½ teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon of fine sea salt
Lightly sprinkle in ground ginger and ground cloves, cardamom, ginger, and nutmeg to taste.

Wet ingredients:
2 cups pumpkin puree
1 large egg
½ cup sugar
½ cup of brown sugar
½ cup vegetable oil or butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Chunky ingredients:
1½ cups walnuts

Enjoy!