Yesterday I woke up with pain when I blink my right eye and tenderness under the bottom lash line in the outer corner. There wasn’t anything visibly wrong with it to the naked eye, (or to the fully clothed eye either, for that matter), but by day’s end there was a little redness where I had been feeling the pain under the bottom lid.

I remembered that a year ago my niece had a serious tissue infection around the eye that required a strong dose of antibiotics. Her infection had also started with pain and minor redness. I called my sister who lives out of state, to find out what the infection was called and determine whether I should get in to see the doctor. The girl in the video puts it best. Eye infections suck; and I wanted to make sure this little problem didn’t move into my eye.

My sister is not a doctor, but close to it. She’s a mom. That’s damn near equivalent to having an MD! I normally fare pretty well with solving my own health matters, but I’ve had very little experience with eye issues, so being that my sister tends to four little sets of them plus her own, she pretty much corners the family market on eye infection knowledge. 

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  Have you heard of FitFlops? Oprah had them on her favorite things show, apparently, and many of my friends are debating whether to get a pair.

They are supposedly some high tech, fitness flip flops that sound too good to be true, because the structure of the shoe is supposed to tone legs just by walking in them. Call me a doubting Tomasa, but isn’t that what plain ol’ walking does for your legs, anyway?

I can imagine the board meeting strategy session behind the product: I got it! Let’s make people think the toned legs they get from walking around a lot is due to the magic powers we put in our shoes. They’ll forget the fact that walking a lot in any shoe will tone legs!! Genius.

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It’s time for the famous female f.a.t.ty pick of the week! What is a f.a.t.ty you ask? It is a Fit After Thirty hotty. It is a f.a.t.* chick we admire because of her ability to stay healthy and fit, and whom, overall, seems like a cool person to have made fitness such a priority. Fit After Thirty declares Sarah Palin as the famous female f.a.t.ty of the week!

Regardless of which side you are on politically, you have to hand it to her for looking the way she does after five kids! And considering that she just had a baby four months ago, she looks unbelievable!

I can’t begin to imagine finding the time to stay healthy and fit while juggling life as a Governor with raising a large family. I don’t claim to know her fitness regime, and for all I know she doesn’t have one and relies solely on shivering in the bitter Alaska cold to burn calories. Throw in some good genetics, and Alaskan Salmon and you’ve got a hockey mom who gets our vote for f.a.t.ty of the week!!!!

It is really no coincidence that I choose Hump Day as the day to introduce my new, weekly ritual of announcing our famous male f.a.t.ty selection of the week. What is a f.a.t.ty? No, it’s not a stogie, it’s a Fit After Thirty Hotty. Here at Fit After Thirty, we love men, and what better way to show our admiration than to pay tribute to the dudes who fit my criteria to win this esteemed title!

What’s my criteria for a Fit After Thirty dude selection, other than being over 30, you ask? Well, Wednesday is hump day. Use your imagination. If you’re offended by that, think of it this way: men talk about women in terms of how “do-able” we are, all the time. So, let’s just be equal opportunity players in that game. Or, I’ll be the lone player and you gals be the spectators. Here we go!

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When I was little and my grandma visited from out of town, my mom made a point of buying a special kind of milk for her. When my siblings and I would go to the refrigerator to get milk to pour on our cereal, my mom would say, “don’t drink grandma’s acidophilus milk.” My sister and I jokingly called it poisonous milk.

As a kid, not only could I not pronounce it, but it just sounded gross, so my siblings and I steered clear without ever truly understanding what acidophilus was.

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One of our readers sent me this, and I thought it was too funny not to post.

Subject: top nine comments made by NBC sports commentators

Here are the top nine comments made by NBC sports commentators so far during the Summer Olympics that they would like to take back:

1. Weightlifting commentator: This is Gregoriava from Bulgaria. I saw her snatch this morning during her warm up and it was amazing.

2. Dressage commentator: This is really a lovely horse and I speak from personal experience since I once mounted her mother.

3. Paul Hamm, Gymnast: I owe a lot to my parents, especially my mother and father.

4. Boxing Analyst: Sure there have been injuries, and even some deaths in boxing, but none of them really that serious.

5. Softball announcer: If history repeats itself, I should think we can expect the same thing again.

6. Basketball analyst: He dribbles a lot and the opposition doesnt like it. In fact you can see it all over their faces.

7. At the rowing medal ceremony: Ah, isnt that nice, the wife of the IOC president is hugging the cox of the British crew.

8. Soccer commentator: Julian Dicks is everywhere. Its like they’ve got eleven Dicks on the field.

9. Tennis commentator: One of the reasons Andy is playing so well is that, before the final round, his wife takes out his balls and kisses them… Oh my God, what have I just said?

Written by: Jen Brown
History of Ayurveda: The term “ayurveda” comes from two different Sanskrit words- ayus and veda. Ayus means “life” while veda means “knowledge” or “science”. Therefore, ayurveda is the science of life. Ayurveda is a science that is at least five thousand years old. The ideas behind ayurveda come directly from a group of ancient texts from India, called the Vedas, which means “Books of Wisdom”. There are four main Vedas, called Rigveda, Yajurveda, Atharvaveda, and Samaveda. There is some discussion about whether ayurveda comes from the Rigveda, or the Atharvaveda.
Two main ayurvedic texts that were written between the 5^th to 3^rd centuries, B.C spell out the main ideas about ayurveda and lay out how modern ayurvedic practioners treat their patients. In the Charaka Samhita, the author offers the earliest descriptions of diseases like diabetes, multiple sclerosis, and Parkinson’s disease. Many of these early diseases written about in this ancient text still plague us today. In the Sushruta Samhita, the author writes about surgical techniques, many of which have formed the basis for our modern plastic surgery!

Ayurveda differs from Western medicine most significantly in it’s efforts to treat the individual while they are still healthy, in order to keep them healthy. In the Westernized world that most of us have grown up with, we treat a disease, but up until the time that an illness manifests as a disease, we don’t do anything. Therefore, we end up treating symptoms, rather than the root cause of the condition. Is it any wonder why we continue to feel sick, or continue to suffer various health conditions long after our prescription has run out! 

Ayurveda believes that the secret to maintaining health is to maintain mind, spirit and body through healthy eating, meditation, exercise like yoga, and herbs. By maintaining our health, we are able to prevent disease. 

The Three Doshas: In ayurveda, there are three doshas, which roughly means” constitution”. These three doshas are called: Pitta, Vata, and Kapha. The three doshas are comprised of the five elements, earth, ether, air, fire, and water. Everything around us is made up of these five elements, from the food we eat, to the climate we live in, to the houses we sleep in.  Every one of us has elements of all three doshas in our genetic make-up, and the secret to staying happy and healthy is to manage to your dosha type!

Ladies, Since my post about my left Saggy Maggie I’ve gotten emails from enough of you about all of your misshapen mangos that I feel that I am in good company with my own tata deformity, not to mention, happy that I am not nearly the genetic mutant I thought I was.

But the article brought to light some other concerns. I learned from a lot of your emails that many of you are not even wearing sports bras at all when you exercise, let alone a quality one! I had no idea that there were still women bopping through aerobics class with their flimsy  $8.00 sale bin special from Marshall’s. Nothing against Marshall’s. I love the store. But ladies, what are you thinking?  Even Marshall’s carries a good sports bra or two. No excuses!

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I love it when competitors come together and join forces for a good cause. And that is exactly what is happening tonight when the three major networks, ABC, NBC, CBS, are simultaneously airing a fundraising special to raise money for the fight against cancer. The one hour show is full of celebrity appearances and performances and will educate viewers on various issues surrounding the cancer topic. 

With this special, Katie Couric continues to try to spread awareness on the cancer topic, after her late husband’s lost battle with colon cancer several years ago.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the other two network anchors,  Brian Williams, and Charles Gibson have also lost family members to cancer. You can read the full article here:

If you have some pounds to shed, it’s easy to get discouraged and beat yourself up about your physique. As ridiculous as Affirmation Girl seems, I happen to like her, because she epitomizes the entire premise of Fit After Thirty, which is to reprogram your brain to think of a new meaning for fat (f.a.t.*-Fit After Thirty), so that you can begin to visualize yourself with the new definition instead of the old one!

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