One Reason You Still Have Bacne

Bacne and I go way back. I believe it was the end of middle school when my bacne, chestne, and face acne were in full swing. They stayed that way through my college years. My face eventually cleared except for that time of the month. My chestne cleared without a trace but my bacne hung around for a while.

So, for the people who have never been to this blog--Hi! I'm Kayla! I have long, thick coily hair that I wash and style in the shower once a week. What does this have to do with bacne? Well, I decided to return to my "black girl roots" and wash my hair in the kitchen sink. I had just grown tired of getting in and out of the shower and being limited in when I could do my hair.

After just a short period of sink washing my hair, I noticed a clear spot developing on my back. That spot has spread and now 95% of my back is bacne free! Correlation isn't necessary causation but I believe that the products I use on my hair were prolonging my bacne's stay. For others, shower washing may be the cause of bacne.

If you are not too keen on sink washing, try washing under the stream with your head upside down and your body out of the water or get a sprayer attachment for your tub and "sink wash" at the tub.

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Video | Grow Healthy Hair - From The Inside Out

We often focus on the outside when it comes to our hair growth. The amount of creams, potions, and elixirs on the market are endless. Let's take a step back and focus on our health first. The hair growth will follow.

Watch the video: https://youtu.be/thxYfpksj_M

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Strengthen Your Hair From The Inside Out

Vitamins are great for ensuring that your hair is growing as it should. I have said it before in previous posts and videos that you can't really speed up your hair growth but you can make sure that your body and scalp are healthy. Vitamins are also great for general health. Your body will take what vitamins it needs first and send what's left to your hair and nails anyhow. The following vitamins are great for hair health.

Vitamin C is said to increase hair growth and improve iron absorption. This is great because iron is also said to help the health of your hair. Vitamin C can be found in citrus fruits. It is also in some non-citrus fruits like raspberries, pineapples, and kiwi.

Niacin is said to increase blood flow to the hair. Many claim that niacin supplements have caused their hair to grow faster. Niacin can be found in meats (fish, turkey, chicken, pork, beef, liver) and peanuts. I may need to supplement this one being a pescetarian!

Biotin helps reduce hair loss. You can find this nutrient in salmon, almonds, peanuts, oats, eggs, onions, etc. The list is long for this one and I already eat my fair share or biotin daily. This is probably why I found that biotin supplements did not do anything special for me.

Zinc is another vitamin that reduces hair loss. It can be found in meats (seafood, beef, lamb, pork, chicken), spinach, mushrooms, and beans. 

I'm pretty confident that I get a lot of these in my natural diet. I do see a need to boost my niacin through other means as I do not eat most of those meats listed. Woman can not get Niacin from peanut butter and the occasional fish alone!  

What are your thoughts on strengthening your hair through diet? Comment below! 

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Lifeway Kefir: Raspberry Peach Green Smoothie

I put green smoothies on the backburner for a while, but these past two weeks they've come back! Today I'm going to share my newest concoction featuring Lifeway Kefir.

What's in it:

Nearly 2 cups of Lifeway raspberry kefir

Half the blender of kale greens

1 banana

1 huuuuuge peach

Yield: 2 16oz smoothies

I couldn't quite get two cups of the kefir because I had been drinkin it straight and putting it in cereal. lol. If I had a fresh bottle, there would have been two cups in this smoothie! The keifer was replacing my usual cup of water and cup of oatmeal because it is basically liquid yogurt, has around the amount of calories of the oatmeal, AND *takes a breath* has a boatload of protein and protbiotics. 

If you don't sweeten your smoothies like myself, this one will be a bit more sweet than you are used to. The peach really hyped up the raspberry. The huge peach had me singing "My name is Jaaaaaamessss." 

See another smoothie from me here. 

 

The Lifeway Kefir was profided to me free of charge from Influenster and Lifeway. I'm not being paid to review the item and this post was done because...I like smoothies.

                               




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Q & A: Pescetarianism and Assumptions

I have posted a few times on What the Kink about my Pescetarianism diet. These other posts are Tips: Switching to a Pescetarian Diet, My Pesce-Versary, and Two Year Pescetarian Anniversary. I am still going strong and never hesitate to share my diet with anyone willing to listen. This sharing--of course--brings out questions and assumptions that others have of low/no meat diets.

(source)

So, you must not eat out often?
I eat out where-evah! My family does not eat a lot of fast food but when we do go out, I never really worry about what I'm going to eat. Some examples are as follows: Taco Bell-Sub beans for meat on whatever I want to order, Any burger place- Order the burger w/o the meat patty, Any country fried restaurant--vegetable plate with the veggies they've marked as not cooked w/ meat (almost all country places mark this). Also, seafood is always an option because I'm a Pescetarian!

You eat a lot of fish, huh?
Um...no...not really. Being a pescetarian means that I am WILLING to eat fish. Most of my meals are Vegetarian.

Does it get boring eating all of those vegetables?
I eat so much more than vegetables! I get my serving in but I like other stuff too. Take a look at my day.

• Breakfast: Overnight Oats w/ Raisins & Coffee
• Lunch: Veggie Burger, Fruit Gel Cup, Chipsssss
• Dinner: Broccoli, Yellow Rice, Chik'n Nuggets
• Snacks: Fiber Bar or Popcorn or Fruit Snacks or Apple

I'm usually a fruit and breads before dinner kind of girl. At dinner I have half a plate of veggies. Not the vegetable filled day you imagined, huh?

Have you lost weight?
Nope. The first year I stayed exactly the same. I lost a little weight last year by cutting back portions and exercising. Pescetarianism made little difference though.

You must be protein difficient!
Peanut Butter, Eggs, Cheese, Yogurt, Milk...these are all protein filled and I eat at least two of these a day. Even a bag of chips has 2 grams of protein! lol.

So, what things do you assume about low or no meat diets. I couldn't have covered them all.

Two Year Pescetarian Anniversary

Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/f10n4/

 "What she order? Fish Fillet!" If I didn't know any better I would have thought Kanye West was talking about me in he and Jay Z's song "N***s in Paris". The month of February marks my two year anniversary as a Pescetarian--someone who eats fish but no other meats. I would have never thought that I would make it so far. I'd tried low and no meat diets in the past without so much success. 

Check out my other posts on Pescetarianism:

Tips: Switching to a Pescetarian Diet  

My Pesce-versary 

Check out my interview on The Good Health Diva's Blog:

Switching to a pescetarian diet-Interview with Kayla

Feel free to ask me anything!

Find: Sanford Bennett

Last week, I was perusing some of my blog subscriptions and I came across an awesome post over on Relaxed Hair Health about a 72 year old man named Sanford Bennett who, at the age of 72, looked way younger and healthier than he did at 50. Relaxed Hair Health pointed out how Sanford got his hair to grow back through a series of scalp massages and hair tugging. Looking beyond his hair regrowth, I was fascinated with the man period!

He developed a series of exercises to be done in bed that he did everyday. Unfortunately, Sanford was killed in an accident at the age of 80--my brother wondered how long he might have lived if not for the accident. Being that it is more than 50 years after his death, both of his books are available on Google Books 100% free. I went crazy and read the first book on my phone in two days. lol. His second book serves as more of a clarification of the first and contains a series of pages devoted to pictures of his exercises.

RELAXED HAIR HEALTH'S POST: What I Learned from a 72 Year Old Man's Regimen 
SANFORD'S 1ST BOOK: Exercising in bed: the story of an old body and face made young

SANFORD'S 2ND BOOK: Old age, its cause and prevention

How to Switch to a Pescetarian Diet

Maybe you are more concerned about your health.Perhaps you are looking for a stepping stone to vegetarianism or veganism. Whatever your reason, I've compiled this list of tips to help you transition to pescetarianism.


























1. ESTABLISH WHY YOU REALLY WANT TO DO THIS

When I first modified my diet, I was a flexitarian or someone who still eats meat--any sort--at times. After a while I forgot why I was even doing this and fell off. If you don't have a strong connection to why you are changing a big part of your life--and eating is BIG, then you too will fall off.

2. TAKE IT ONE STEP AT A TIME

If you know you can do it in one big step, do it! However, some people find it more comfortable to glide into change. Start with cutting out one group of meat, then another, and another until you reach your goal.

3. CHANGE YOUR MINDSET

If you think of the things that you are no longer eating as "stuff you can't eat" then you will feel like you are missing out. Change that statement to "stuff you don't want to eat". It sounds small, but it is a big deal. Trust me.

4. START READING LABELS

Just because something is meat free doesn't mean that is animal free. Learn all about animal based ingredients and keep an eye out for them in your favorite foods.

5. DON'T ELIMINATE, SUBSTITUTE

You don't have to never eat chicken again, there are "chik'n nuggets". You don't have to never eat marshmallows again, there are vegan/vegetarian ones. You get the picture. 

6. YOU CAN STILL EAT OUT

I always order something meatless or make a meat dish meatless by ordering it specially. Restaurants are totally okay with me ordering their burgers without the meat patty.

7. DON'T TRASH YOUR RECIPES 

I still cook all the same things my mom does, just without the meat. *shrugs* Tastes about the same.

 ♥ KAYLA


UPDATE!! Check this post out on:  Good Health Diva!!

My Pesce-versary

Last Tuesday marked the one year anniversary of my being a pescetarian. I am so excited and proud of myself. I know that this was a good decision and I hope many more years follow. Here I'm making a post about the background to my decision and a little about my thoughts. Later, I'm going to make a tips post because it seems as though many people have questions about switching to a low/no meat diet.

WHAT IS PESCETARIANISM?
A pescetarian is someone who does not eat any meat other than Fish. A lot of people are confused by this term because they may have believed that Vegetarians eat fish. Well, they don't because Vegetarians don't eat meat and fish is indeed meat. Also, people try to stuff me with fish whenever I eat at their house. lol. Pescetarian just means that I am willing to eat fish. Most days out of a given month I am completely meat free.

MY THOUGHTS ON ITS CLASSIFICATION...
People like to classify pescetarianism as if it were a type of vegetarianism. I just can't understand that. If you want to classify something under an umbrella, that something must meet the criteria of the original umbrella. So, if vegetarian is the umbrella and vegetarians do not eat meat, it makes no sense to put a group who does eat meat underneath that classification. For all intensive purposes, Pescetarianism is a type of omnivorous diet. I've seen people throw omnivore out as if its supposed to be an insult, but it is what it is.

WHY DID I CHOOSE TO BECOME A PESCETARIAN?
I am not an animal rights person. I'm not so much concerned that people consume animals. I think that's pretty natural. What I have a true issue with is how we take these animals lives. It's pretty unappetizing. The death of the fish wasn't enough to make me sick. I also have an issue with all of the artificiality involved in the meat making process...hormones, chemicals, etc... 

For more info, including videos, visit meat.org.

♥ KAYLA