Natural- Anyone?

Well for a few months I had been flirting with the idea of going natural...

However, my hubby was opposed to the idea. A few of my close friends are natural and they had been trying to convince me to go natural... but my excuse was I would need my hubby's support...Well, recently out of the blue my hubby says, "I like the idea of you going natural and just using a hot comb to straighten your hair".......WHAT?! Now what will be my excuse?

I think the truth of the matter is that I know how lazy I am with my hair and the thought of going natural is quite intimidating.....

New Video!

I've uploaded a hair journey video on youtube! You can also find the video on "My photos and videos" tab. It documents my hair journey from above APL to BSL. Enjoy!

My attempt at a Bantu Knot out

 

I was bored with my hair so I decided to try a bantu knot out. I was happy with the result

I put a scarf over my hair and slept just like this.

!

In the morning I untwirled the knots

Here I combed the curls out a bit

I cut two inches off my hair!

I wrote a blog post on hairlista about my thin ends. I said that I was on an experiment to see if they would fill in over 6 months. Well... I failed! I got a big fat F but it feels good! I decided to cut two inches after 4 months. I just could not stand looking at my thin, see through ends... These are pictures of my ugly, thin ends pre- cut....

And these photos were taken during and post cut!

I definitely rid of most of the see through ends and I am very happy. My hair is now grazing BSL which is cool. I have to say that I do miss the length a little but I figure it should be back by December. Moving forward I think I will continue to trim as needed but I will make sure I wait at least 4 months between trims (I need to see my progress to stay motivated ;) ).

I am not completely sure what caused the thin ends. I mean, they were not split... just thin. I think my thin ends are the result of my salon days when I let the stylist over process my hair during the relaxer. When I started self-relaxing, I found that my hair had a little more texture and thickness. I relax straight but not pin straight if that makes sense. I think overtime, the slight difference in textures caused the ends to appear very thin. Well, moving forward I will continue with my regimen and pray that my ends grow and remain thick...

Grassfed Meats and Eating Healthy

It concerns me how uneducated we are about a topic that is sooo important...the dangers of inorganic food consumption. When we do not educate ourselves about what goes into our bodies, we make ourselves extremely vulnerable. We innocently assume that corporations and society have our best interest in mind and this innocent delusion can lead us to an early grave. You are worth more than the few billion dollars in profit. We have to learn to value the temple that GOD gave us. We have to WAKE UP and take charge of our life. Don't allow the greedy corporations to do it for you.

I was browsing the internet and came across the below article. The author describes a study which suggests that the consumption of grass-fed meats can substantially lower the risk of breast cancer. I've included an except here:

 

Summary of Important Health Benefits of Grassfed Meats, Eggs and Dairy

Lower in Fat and Calories. There are a number of nutritional differences between the meat of pasture-raised and feedlot-raised animals. To begin with, meat from grass-fed cattle, sheep, and bison is lower in total fat. If the meat is very lean, it can have one third as much fat as a similar cut from a grain-fed animal. In fact, as you can see by the graph below, grass-fed beef can have the same amount of fat as skinless chicken breast, wild deer, or elk.[1] Research shows that lean beef actually lowers your "bad" LDL cholesterol levels.[2]

Because meat from grass-fed animals is lower in fat than meat from grain-fed animals, it is also lower in calories. (Fat has 9 calories per gram, compared with only 4 calories for protein and carbohydrates. The greater the fat content, the greater the number of calories.) As an example, a 6-ounce steak from a grass-finished steer can have 100 fewer calories than a 6-ounce steak from a grain-fed steer. If you eat a typical amount of beef (66.5 pounds a year), switching to lean grassfed beef will save you 17,733 calories a year—without requiring any willpower or change in your eating habits. If everything else in your diet remains constant, you'll lose about six pounds a year. If all Americans switched to grassfed meat, our national epidemic of obesity might diminish.

In the past few years, producers of grass-fed beef have been looking for ways to increase the amount of marbling in the meat so that consumers will have a more familiar product. But even these fatter cuts of grass-fed beef are lower in fat and calories than beef from grain-fed cattle.

The CLA Bonus. Meat and dairy products from grass-fed ruminants are the richest known source of another type of good fat called "conjugated linoleic acid" or CLA. When ruminants are raised on fresh pasture alone, their products contain from three to five times more CLA than products from animals fed conventional diets.[11] (A steak from the most marbled grass-fed animals will have the most CLA ,as much of the CLA is stored in fat cells.)

CLA may be one of our most potent defenses against cancer. In laboratory animals, a very small percentage of CLA—a mere 0.1 percent of total calories—greatly reduced tumor growth. [12] There is new evidence that CLA may also reduce cancer risk in humans. In a Finnish study, women who had the highest levels of CLA in their diet, had a 60 percent lower risk of breast cancer than those with the lowest levels. Switching from grain-fed to grassfed meat and dairy products places women in this lowest risk category.13 Researcher Tilak Dhiman from Utah State University estimates that you may be able to lower your risk of cancer simply by eating the following grassfed products each day: one glass of whole milk, one ounce of cheese, and one serving of meat. You would have to eat five times that amount of grain-fed meat and dairy products to get the same level of protection

Read the full article here: http://www.eatwild.com/healthbenefits.htm

Data from: Smith, G.C. "Dietary supplementation of vitamin E to cattle to improve shelf life and case life of beef for domestic and international markets." Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado 80523-1171