Something inspirational:

"How you think when you lose determines how long it will be until you win."

GILBERT KEITH CHESTERTON

We may never have peace of mind when we're concerned with what other people think. When we continually worry and lose sight of what is important, we may never have peace.

When we can’t focus, when we have little self-confidence, we may also struggle. However, when we can begin to understand and look at the bigger picture and know that it really doesn’t matter what other people think, when we stop worrying and we learn what is important, we can have peace.

There may never be a time where we are completely free of conflict, but removing some of the issues that are causing conflict, can help us have more peace.

Although it’s often difficult for those of us with health issues to plan ahead, planning ahead for me primarily depends on how well I’m dealing with my health, whether I'm eating the right foods, whether I eat at the right times, or whether I go too long between meals.

It also depends on what I’m dealing with at the time. On a more positive note, I feel as though I am beginning to understand the correlation between the foods that I eat and the foods that are making me ill. I’m getting better at saying no when it comes to the food I know I have a problem with.

We all know that high cholesterol increases our risk of heart disease and heart attacks.

Whilst it is possible to reduce cholesterol with medication, we can also make changes to our lifestyle to help reduce it too.  Here are five healthy lifestyle changes that individually and combined, can contribute to improvements in cholesterol levels.

Lose weight

Being overweight contributes to high cholesterol and losing as little as 5 to 10 percent of your body weight can help significantly reduce cholesterol levels. Balance calories consumed to calories burned. Go for a walk instead of snacking, eat fresh fruit or munch a carrot instead of eating chips and pack fresh food from home instead of buying food from the work place.

Eat heart healthy foods

Making a few changes in your diet can reduce cholesterol and improve your heart health.

Daily Exercise

Exercise can reduce cholesterol and moderate physical activity can even help raise high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, the ‘good’ cholesterol. With your doctor's approval, work up to at least 30 minutes of exercise a day. Physical activity, even in 10-minute intervals several times a day, can help us begin to lose weight.

Drink alcohol only in moderation

Moderate alcohol intake has been linked with higher levels of HDL cholesterol, but the benefits are certainly nowhere near strong enough to recommend alcohol. If you do drink alcohol, do so in moderation as drinking too much alcohol can lead to serious health problems, including high blood pressure, heart failure and stroke.

Quit smoking

If you smoke, try and stop.  The facts around quitting smoking are staggering. Stopping may improve your HDL cholesterol level 20 minutes after quitting, your blood pressure decreases and within 24 hours, your risk of a heart attack decreases. Within one year, your risk of heart disease is half that of a smoker. Within 15 years, your risk of heart disease is similar to someone who never smoked.

I am pleased to announce that The CP Diary and United Cerebral Palsy (UCP) have linked to each others websites and would like to invite everyone to check out their site at http://ucpworkinc.org/

They do amazing work for people who have cerebral palsy and other disabilities.

Each life phase is hard. Being a child is hard. Being an adult is hard. Being a parent and parenting small children is hard but their issues are small. It’s not as hard as parenting adult children.

The security we put in place for our children when they’re small, has to change as they grow into adults. It is inevitable that we will be faced with our children wanting to make their own decisions. It’s the uncertainty and the apprehension that comes with them being responsible for themselves, when we have very little say.

I have never bought into the idea that as parents we should control our children. Being a parent isn't about control. I am more than happy to stand back so that my children get to make their own choices. Parents will always be vulnerable and feel apprehensive, as they mentally and emotionally begin to let go.

It’s a selfless act, but one that makes parenting adult children difficult on so many levels. In some cases, it can be very scary.

Something inspirational:

“We cannot live for ourselves alone. Our lives are connected by a thousand invisible threads, and along these sympathetic fibers, our actions run as causes and return to us as results.”

HERMAN MELVILLE

Tofu cheesecake

'This is an alternative recipe which replaces cheese with Tofu and coconut cream'

Ingredients:

200g/7oz digestive biscuits, crushed

75g/3oz butter or margarine, melted

1 lemon, zest and juice

3 tbsp agar-agar or 1 10g sachet of vegetarian gelatin

400g/14oz firm tofu

2 tbsp cream cheese

400g/14oz coconut cream

Few drops vanilla essence

1 vanilla pod

115g/4oz caster sugar

Fresh berries or berry sauce, or drizzle with passion fruit to serve

Method:

In a bowl, mix the crushed biscuits with the butter or margarine

Press the mixture into the base of a 20cm/8in round

spring-form cake tin

Leave in the fridge while preparing the filling

Add together the lemon juice, a splash of water and the agar-agar or vegetarian gelatin, in a pan over a very low heat

Stir until the agar-agar or gelatin has dissolved.

Add the vanilla pod seeds

In a food processor, combine the tofu, cream cheese, coconut cream, a few drops of vanilla essence and pod seeds, sugar and lemon zest

Blend until smooth

Pour the tofu mixture over the biscuit base and smooth the surface

Chill in the fridge for an hour until set

Serve with fresh berries or a berry sauce

In the last 7 years, I have been faced with many challenging decisions that I liken to a fork in the road. A crossroad if you like.

A fork in the road reminds me that I have choices to make, it reminds me that I have lessons to learn that life isn’t all that it seems and that sometimes I need to make difficult choices.

A fork in the road also reminds me that sometimes I may need to stand back. It also reminds me that sometimes I need to re-assess. But even if there is a fork in the road, there is no reason why it will continue to go that way.

We have choices to stay where we are and work on ourselves, or we have the choice to do nothing, but spiral down because we’re emotionally weak, or we can find a way through our circumstances. I am choosing to find a way through.

Something inspirational:

"The most basic and powerful way to connect to another person is to listen. Just listen. Perhaps the most important thing we ever give each other is our attention.... A loving silence often has far more power to heal and to connect than the most well-intentioned words.”

RACHEL NAOMI REMEN

Something inspirational:

“Love what you have. Need what you want. Accept what you receive. Give what you can. Always remember, what goes around, comes around…”

UNKNOWN

We all need positivity in our lives. Over the next couple of days I’ll be putting out more feature page quotes...  I hope you like them.

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