Grandma Gertie Knew Her Stuff

This past Wednesday I attended a group session at the local community college, conducted by New Life Hypnosis. I'd decided it's time to shed the weight I've piled on over the past few years through Ken's illness and after his death last June. I should have been comforting myself with apples. Instead I'd favored toasted cheese sandwiches and late night chocolate truffles.

But now it's spring and Easter week, time for rebirth, resurrection, reconciliation. Rather than missing Ken's Parmesan garlic bread and barbecued rib eyes, I want to concentrate more on healthy rather than yummy. I intend to shed enough flab that I'll fit again into those cute outfits I bought back in 2006 when I was to be honored at UCLA.

Though it's far too soon to tell, I do feel more relaxed after the two brief hypnosis sessions our therapist conducted. And I'm devoting twenty minutes twice daily to the tapes I bought for reinforcement.

Here's the bright side of this gloomy weekend that even has snow predicted for Easter Sunday. Since I'm home alone I'm not faced with having to refuse second helpings of glazed ham and candied sweet potoates. Instead I'm going to bake some tarragon chicken and steam some cruciferous vegetables.

Grandma Gertie always claimed tarragon made things better. And she always urged me to eat my veggies. So I was delighted today to find this on the web:


If your grandmother ever nudged you to eat all your veggies, she was giving you better advice than even she was aware of. A new study published in the journal "Gynecologic Oncology" has found that a substance found only in cabbage-family veggies -- cabbage, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and bok choy -- represses cancer cells in the pre-invasive phase of sex-hormone related cancers of both men and women. The substance, nicknamed 13C, seems to work on the metabolism of estrogen sex hormones. More expansive studies are in the works, but in the meantime, follow granny's advice!

Happy Easter and happy New Life!