Eating is an official sport in Oklahoma

By Lissa Wohltmann

It’s become a national pastime to nosh around the clock. No, not rock around the clock, but nosh as in eat your way through the day. Finding the best combination of tasty vittles, good atmosphere and fun staff at restaurants, seems to score points and excites the fans. One thing that misses the mark in a number of eateries is the health factor. There are plenty of places with lovely atmosphere, yummy food, and maybe even fun staffs. However, if I want to eat out with my friends, I have to order some horrible salad made with near-white lettuce, cardboard-tasting tomatoes, and maybe something green that resembles cucumbers shipped from Brazil three months ago.

Brazilian food is good, of course, but I think we grow cucumbers in Oklahoma that would be a little fresher. Be that as it may, there is a great Latin American/Mexican restaurant in Edmond that I tried over the weekend. If you have ventured down Broadway, you would have seen what might be considered a little “hole in the wall” near 7^th Street, called Zarate’s. If you haven’t been there, you must. Yum, yum, yum and since I’m writing about it in this blog, it has healthy menu items. Plus, an added (great) bonus is that everything is made right there so if you want to change something from white rice to red rice, for example, all you have to do is mention it to your very helpful wait staff.

I ordered the vegetarian platter filled with plantain, linguine, two or three yucca fries, an assortment of vegetables, rice and a side of sauce. The party atmosphere was filled with fun music; I really wanted to get up and dance, but my husband would surely slide under the table pretending he doesn’t know me. Now, not everything at Zarate’s was healthy. There’s plenty of dishes with your fat laden cheeses, super fried fajitas, nasty double fried beans, and desserts made with sugar, salt and fat. So, if you want to go out with a group, there’s something for “them” and there’s something for “us” who want to stay healthy and away from the cardiologist. I didn’t taste any of the drinks, but maybe that should be something for you and then you can tell me about it in the space below.

Another bonus: hablamos español. Comer feliz!

You too can be über productive at work

By Lissa Wohltmann

I know I haven't blogged in a while, but I have a real excuse; I got a new job and have been settling in. There are a lot of details to learn and I haven't had the time to discuss efficient nutrition or preventive medicine here. Now that I have some semblance of what I’m doing at the new job, I want to get back to discussing mental health, happiness and a stress-less life. Notice the words “stress free” are missing from that last line? You don’t want stress free because that would mean you are dead. You just want enough stress to keep you alive but not so much as to make you miserably unhappy. One part of life that makes some people hate living (at least for 40 hours a week), is their job. They have a boss that needs some prompting on how to treat others. Plenty of evidence unmistakably shows when employees have a lack of control over their work, or lack the ability to participate in decision making, and/or have no support from management they tend to stay home more—or they wish they could stay at home and are not über productive at work. Whether they are physically ill, mentally exhausted, or just plain tired, they call in sick. I was one of those people who could not call in sick to my last job for a variety of reasons, but I often felt like it. The people were very nice, but management needed training in dealing with subordinates and getting the best from their people. Of course I have lots of stories of those days, and will probably write a book some day, but this blog is about health and maintaining or improving it, not about a wonderful misery.

Having a great job is probably one of the best ways to alleviate stress. You like your work, your colleagues, your boss; these are the things that help with sanity. If you have a less than optimal job, there really are things you can do to help with stress. The best, of course, is to move your body. Don’t worry about form or if you are doing things correctly, just move and have fun. If you like to run and/or walk, you can go to http://www.edmondrunwalk.org/ and check out the schedule for events or daily training “experiences.” Other things you can do are on the motivation page of www.edmondHEALTH.org. And, of course, my favorite page to surf through is http://www.zenhabits.net/. These are the places you can go to counter or neutralize stress. You just don’t want to let your dreadful boss get the better of you. After all, you’ll need that extra pep in your step to get away from him or her and get another job.