Health – Sibo's blog

Addicted to hula hooping

Hula Hooping is not only fun, but also beneficial on many different levels.

Hi! My name is Ginny and I’m addicted to hula hooping.

The best things about hula hooping is that it doesn’t feel like exercise… and yet it is really the most fabulous way to get a work out without even realising it.

It strengthens core muscles and tones flabby bits – belly, arms and thighs. You can do gentle hooping or notch it up a grade and get serious by adding in lunges and arm exercises. You can use weights too.

It’s beneficial for your heart and your mind.

Don’t be ridiculous, I hear you say. One can barely keep that ridiculous little plastic doo-dah up, let along lunge about or wave you arms around the place—unless it’s to help keep the hoop up.

I’m not talking about your general run-of-the-mill kid’s hoop… I’m talking about a large hoop.

Think big.

Then think bigger.

Even bigger than that!

I was first introduced to large hoops by my tiny daughter when she’d come to visit for a few weeks. It boggled my mind. I’d never seen anything so bizarre, let along considered using one for exercise.

Perhaps I should confess, I’m not a very exercisey person. The only Jim I’ve ever had a relationship with was my darling, dearly-departed father, but at the age of fifty-something, I fell in love with the gentle art of hula hooping.

Wait… I hear you say… what in all hell is she blathering on about? How can something that tones and firms be gentle?

Easy!

Ten minutes a day and that weight will take a walk.

Once you’ve lost the weight that was bothering you (and you will) you won’t be able to stop hula hooping. You’ll be addicted.

We are fortunate enough to currently have a large garden and so I walk around the place, gently hooping. Thinking. Planning my day. Writing my novel in my head. Plotting murder. Talking to myself. Or sometimes even just staring into space. It’s currently winter in South Africa so I also hula hoop to warm up.

You don’t need fancy clothes either – I usually hoop in whatever I’m wearing, but if you are going the sweaty exercise route, be comfortable and try not to wear baggy clothing that gets snagged on the hoop.

Buying a kid’s hoop is easy, but it’s not useful. You need a large hoop. The experts say it should come up to your middle when you stand it up in front of you… but mine comes up to my boobs.

The easiest (and cheapest) is to make it yourself.

You need:

4.5 metres of 25 mm irrigation pipe (our local garden shops and hardware stores sell pipe in various sizes, coiled up lengths starting at 5 metres).
1 x 25 mm hose connector
tape (insulation tape is the cheapest, but it only comes in standard colours) – get whatever takes your fancy.

Half the fun of having a hoop is decorating it so that every time you pick it up, you look at it with love. (Sounds sappy but it’s true.)

25 mm black irrigation pipe is easily cut with a sharp kitchen.
Cut a length of 4.5 metres.

DO NOT BE DAUNTED BY THE SIZE OF IT and decide to make it smaller. Just don’t.
Okay.
It is really easy to use a big hoop.

Boil the kettle and stick the ends of the pipe into boiling water – makes pushing the hose connector into either end a doddle.

Voila! You have a hoop.

Wipe it down with a wet cloth to get the dust off and let it dry before you tape it up.

Wind your tape as smoothly as you can, this makes the hoop move freely and prevents it from snagging on your clothing. The tape not only makes it look pretty but it also adds weight. If you find that your hoop gets tatty after time from dropping it on rough surfaces or bashing into things, simply add another layer of tape. (My hoop is currently on its 5th layer of tape.)

There are many videos on YouTube that demonstrate how to hula hoop. This lady is fabulous and has many videos. Remember… you can also do awesome tricks with hoops (not so much the large hoops though.)

I was lucky (I think) and had my daughter to goad me into persevering. Here’s how I really started.

Have to brag – this is a video my daughter, Igz made for me when I organised a hula hoop making workshop as an ice-breaker to a science centre conference a few years ago. We then had a hoop-heats with a hoop-off and the winning three teams had to explain the science behind hula hooping to high school kids. The hoops that were made were then donated to a local school. Except for my friend, Kenneth from Kenya, who took his hoop home to his Science Centre in Kenya and has since taught many a kid to hula hoop.

P.S. I cannot do ANY of this fancy stuff in the video, but it does not stop me from loving the bits I can do.

World Malaria Day

Every two minutes a child dies of Malaria – according to the World Health Organisation.

25^th April is World Malaria Day

You might know that Malaria is a complex parasitic disease that is confined mostly to tropical areas and is transmitted by mosquitoes of the genus Anopheles. There are an estimated 250 million clinical cases of malaria worldwide, causing nearly a million deaths yearly, mostly of children under 5 years of age and generally in sub-Saharan Africa. Malaria-endemic countries are faced with the high cost of prevention and treatment of the disease.

To reduce reliance on potentially harmful compounds currently used for malaria vector control, support is needed for integrated and multi-partnered strategies of vector control and for the continued development of new technologies and strategies as sustainable alternative methods.

Sibo teamed up with the University of Pretoria Centre for Sustainable Malaria Control and the National Department of Health. A story, in our usual Sibo style (wacky rhyme), was written with the objective of trying to help change life-style as far as dealing with mozzies is concerned.

This book not only explains what the symptoms are but also where to go for treatment and how to avoid getting malaria in the first place. Students from the University of Pretoria are planning to use the book as part of their projects to see whether it does make any impact or not. By empowering children (and potentially their parents too) through education on how to avoid the hazards of malaria, it is hoped that lifestyle-altering patterns will emerge which could help to lessen the burden of malaria in malaria-endemic areas and potentially assist in the fight towards the elimination of the disease.

This project is being rolled out in the Vhembe district, Limpopo Province. Certain schools have been selected and permission to work within these schools was obtained from the Department of Education and also from the local Chief and the headmen of the villages where the selected schools are situated.

Sibo Fights Malaria, published by Lets Look Publishers, is the 12th title in the Sibo Series.

This title in the Sibo Series was launched at the University of Pretoria on the 24th April 2014 – the day before World Malaria Day.

Join our Facebook event and read Sibo Fights Malaria free on 25th April.

Did you know that mosquitoes breed in stagnant water?

Believe you CAN!

Henry Ford said: “Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right.”

Have you noticed that some people go out there, do their thing and it works perfectly? Every. Single. Time. On the odd occasions when it doesn’t, they bounce back and tackle it from a different angle. Everything they do looks effortless.

This is often due to having bags of confidence and high self-esteem.

These are the people who feel secure and know that they can rely on their skills and strengths to handle whatever comes their way. They are ready and able to handle what life throws at them.

They think “I can” instead of “I can’t”.

True confidence is embedded in reality. These people know exactly what their strengths and weaknesses are. They don’t pretend to be something that they’re not.

Many people are not so confident, but in actual fact, it’s not that hard to cultivate a sense of confidence. It just requires some work.

It all starts with self-belief and building a confident mindset. Start by thinking “I can do that” instead of “Oh no, I can’t possibly do that”. Shake off any self-doubt.
Compare yourself kindly. We’re not all good at everything, but we are all good at something or have something that we can be proud of.
Make a list of the things that you are good at. Then practise so that you can do them even better.
Feel proud of the things that you do well. You don’t have to boast, but you can give yourself a pat on the back.
Dress for success, whether you are going to the office or to school, feeling confident in what you are wearing plays a part. Iron that shirt, polish those shoes!
Be assertive, not aggressive. Being aggressive turns a person into a bully. Quietly putting your foot down makes you somebody that people sneakily admire.
Take a small risk and challenge yourself to do something that’s just beyond your normal comfort zone. If at first, you don’t succeed, try again. Don’t give up.
Give yourself permission to be the ‘real you’. Instead of trying to fit in and be like everybody else, embrace your quirks and let them shine. Be the individual you are.

Remember what wise old Henry Ford said: “Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right.”

At the end of the day, your confidence is your own to develop or undermine.

Stand tall people.

Sibo

Expo’s are Awesome

It’s not what you know… but who you know when it comes to sponsorship.

Last week Ginny, Lets Look Publishers and I had great fun. We had a stand at the Africa Health Expo at the Gallagher Convention Centre for three whole days. It was an exhibition with loads of fancy medical equipment and interesting products, with people from all over the world exhibiting.

The delegates and visitors (and there were more than 10,000 medical professionals that attended this expo) wandered around, soaking up all the fancy, high-tech displays of technologies, products or services, on their way through the huge halls to the conference venue.

There were many interesting talks and lectures by top professionals from South Africa and the rest of the world during the three days. This is because medical professionals have to continually renew, refresh and update their knowledge when it comes to healthcare.

Informa, the London-based company that hosts this huge annual event, generously donated over R600k from the conference proceeds this year to the South African charity organization, Reach for a Dream.

Hundreds of people passed by our bright, simple, not-at-all-what-they-were-expecting-to-see-at-a-health-expo stand.

They’d stop and read the Sibo banner first. You could just imagine what they were thinking… What the @#$! is this all about?

Then their eyes would wander around the stall and alight on the interesting Sibo book covers or the snazzy wall charts. They’d be intrigued.

Lets Look Publishers have a huge variety of wallcharts on just about any topic that you can imagine, but obviously, we displayed all the health-related charts at the expo – trauma, TB, stress, anxiety, pregnancy, the brain, rape, the human body etc etc etc. You can check out the complete catalogue here.

Then somebody would pounce on the person or group and explain. On occasion, we ran out of people to explain yet the delegates would just hang around, patiently waiting their turn.

But sometimes people would just skid to a halt, shake their heads and exclaim “Tell us about Sibo!”

Turns out the medical community is just as interested in our books as the educational sector. Some nurses moaned because we don’t have titles on general safety, avoiding burns, washing hands, special needs and type 1 diabetes… YET!

The University of Pretoria Centre for Sustainable Malaria Control also had a stand at the expo, which was fabulous, because we worked with them a few years ago and wrote this book together. It’s being used in Limpopo to help bring about life-style change as far as avoiding malaria goes. We could just tell people to go and see for themselves how well Sibo works!

Ginny made fabulous contacts at the expo and we’re hoping that some of them translate into new Sibo titles on health-related topics. As we’ve explained in a previous blog, we like to find funding for interesting new subjects so that the books can be given out freely to kids.

Many children in South Africa do not own a single book.

That’s so sad. Worse, according to a recent survey, over 70% of our children cannot read for meaning in Grade Four. That’s just tragic. We all have to help fix this situation in any way we can.

Sibo’s books appeal to kids. They have bright, interesting illustrations that speak to the text. The stories are written in rhyme with important information gently woven into the storylines.

One of the subjects that also came up was entrepreneurship, something that has been dear to Ginny’s heart for ages. Little people need to learn from a young age that if they want something, they should come up with clever ideas to help turn their dreams into reality. These days there is a culture of expectation. Hold thumbs that we can find a sponsor for this title too.

Thanks very much to Informa for facilitating our stand at the Africa Health Expo.

Stay tuned folks, we’ll be reporting back on all the interesting projects and books that transpire.

Happy days!

Sibo

Write it all down!

Journaling makes one a better person!

Hands up who journals regularly?

“But I don’t have time…” I hear you say. Well people, make time because the only person who will benefit is you. Journaling is awesome for many different reasons.

For starters, it keeps you centred, helps identify your strengths and weaknesses and clears your head. Once you’ve written something down, you can let it go. It gives you an opportunity to reflect on your day, see what you were proud of or what you could have done differently.

But don’t only journal to talk about your day. Write down your dreams and aspirations and then go back and visit them periodically to see how you are progressing. Are you getting closer to your end goal?

“But I don’t know HOW to journal,” I hear you mutter.

It’s not hard. You don’t need a fancy book to write in – you can happily use a cheap school exercise book. It’s best to use a book and not your computer or phone because then you can’t get side-tracked checking social media or answering e-mails quickly.

Find a private place that is free from distractions.

Set a time limit – start with 5 minutes if you are just beginning.

Describe an experience – write down what happened that day.

Write affirmations e.g.

I’m a caring mother/father/grandmother. (Yes! Journaling is for everybody.)
I’m a fabulous cook.
I’ve maintained my body weight.
I’m a great teacher (or whatever).
I passed my test well.

Adopt an attitude of gratitude – list a few things that you are thankful for.

Do a critical self-analysis. Who am I? What did I do right or wrong? What could I do better? What’s holding me back in life? How do I fix this?

Obviously, you don’t have to do all of these every day.

Have fun in the process:

Maintain a log of successes.
Start a journal of selfies.
Write with your non-dominant hand.
Keep a nature diary

Write first thing in the morning or last thing at night (or both). You certainly don’t need to be a great writer to benefit from writing down your thoughts and feelings.

Remember, your journal is private – for your eyes only – be honest with yourself. There’s no point in fibbing because nobody is going to see it.

In a nutshell, journaling increases your optimism, reduces symptoms of stress, helps you advance towards your chosen goals and makes you a better person.

Start writing people!

Sibo

Pecan Surprise

How to make a delicious home-made pecan pie.

Some friends gave us pecan nuts and Mum decided she wanted to make pecan pie. Dad found her a recipe on the internet. She looked at it and groaned. Mum’s not good with fiddly things—remember the cheesecake a few weeks ago?

Luckily for Mum, Dad cracked those nuts because otherwise she would have broken her nails.

The ingredients needed for the pastry were the following:

1 cup of cake flour
a pinch of salt
cup of cold butter (cut into small blocks)
half a tablespoon of caster sugar
1 large egg yolk
1 teaspoon of lemon juice
2 teaspoons of iced water

You had to sieve the flour and salt first. Then, using your fingertips, rub the cold butter into the flour until it’s all crumbly. Then add the caster sugar to the flour and mix in the egg yolk, water and lemon juice. Knead the dough for around ten minutes, then wrap it in cling film and let it chill in the fridge for an hour.

After an hour, you roll out that dough that’s been chilling in the fridge (literally – hahaha) and line a pie tin (or a pie dish). Prick the base of the pasty with a fork and blind bake it in the preheated oven for 10 minutes at 180^oC

That’s just the pastry base people.

For the filling:

3 large eggs,
1/4 cup melted butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
80ml golden syrup
3/4 of a cup of pecan nuts.

While the base is cooking, whip up the filling quick. Beat the eggs (you can chuck in the left over egg white from the pastry too), add the melted butter, brown sugar, golden syrup and vanilla essence. When the mixture becomes sort of foamy, it’s ready.

When the base is cooked, fill it with the nuts and pour the sweet eggy mixture over the top. Bake it for about 40 minutes.

Mum made the pie exactly according to the recipe the first time. It was absolutely divine.

The second time (a week later) she did not bother with any of the fancy stuff. She melted the pastry butter in the micro, mixed all the ingredients up, chucked the dough directly into the pie dish and baked it immediately.

Sometimes you have to make something properly the first time, to realise that you can take short cuts.

It tasted equally delicious!

Sibo

PS – If you’d like to know how to crack a pecan nut – see here.

Breathe Deep People

“I’m going home to watch some TV and de-stress!” How often have you heard this? But lying like a couch potato in front of the television doesn’t lower blood pressure at all.

The easiest way to de-stress is to do some deep breathing exercises.

They recommend around half an hour a day, but actually, even a few minutes help.

What a bargain! It doesn’t cost anything and we all do it anyway. Even better, we don’t need a special place or fancy equipment. In fact, if you catch a taxi, bus or train home, you can do it on the way and be all nice and relaxed and de-stressed by the time you get there.

There are several different methods of breathing to relax but the American Institute of Stress recommends a technique called the “Quieting Response”. It only takes 6 seconds to do and apparently it works like a bomb.

First, you smile inwardly, with your mouth and your eyes. We all know the benefits of smiling outwardly, but this is something different, it somehow makes you relax. (Go on; try it quickly while you are reading this.) Then they tell you to imagine holes in the soles of your feet. As you breathe in (a nice deep breath) you visualize hot air flowing up through your body to your lungs. You relax each part of your body as the hot air hits. Then you breathe it all out again, imagining it flowing down, down, down—back out through the holes in your soles!

Pretty darn easy, right? I’m going to try it next time I’m stressed. Kids get stressed too you know!

True story, often when we are stressed we tense up and it takes a concerted physical act to release that tension.

Did you know?

If you opened up your lungs flat, they would cover an entire tennis court?
In people, the left lung is smaller than the right lung. Why? So that there‘s space for your heart.
The average person breathes around 27 litres of air a minute.
Children laugh about 300 times a day whereas adults only laugh around 15 times. We’ve talked about laughing before – it releases all those good hormones.
Last bit of useless information… when you sneeze, the air comes out of your body at around 16 km per hour!

Take time out to sniff the daisies people!

Sibo

When the chips are down

Potatoes are gluten free! True story.

We were shopping the other day and had stopped at the frozen food isle to get some veggies and chips. Whilst mum was busy agonising over beans or peas, I noticed a dude taking packets of chips out of his trolley and putting them back in the freezer. He had about ten packets. He then rummaged around in the piles in the freezer, picked out random bags of the same brand of chips and placed them in his trolley.

I watched for a while, entranced.

Then I couldn’t help myself, I asked him what was wrong with the chips he had put back (they looked exactly the same to me.)

Mum gave me one of her dirty looks that says “Sibo! Why are you bothering strangers? Oh wait… WHY are you talking to strangers in the first place?”

The man shrugged his shoulders and told me he did not want “gluten free” chips. He pointed to a speech bubble on the top of the packet.

Mum clutched her head, completely forgetting he was a stranger and spoke to him herself. “Oh my word! Whatever next?” Then she checked our chips to see that they weren’t of the ‘gluten free’ variety.

A few weeks later we popped into a different store and mum grabbed a bag of oven-bake chips without thinking. When we got home, she noticed they were gluten free. She moaned to Dad about how they were taking all the goodness out of everything and soon we might just as well eat twigs.

Dad just smiled and gave mum a hug. Then he told her that chips are made of potatoes and there is no gluten in them to begin with. It was just packaging. Some people have gluten allergies and don’t know which foods contain what. So having the information on the package made it easier.

Think mum felt a bit foolish, because she huffed and puffed and said they might as well label them ‘boneless’ too then!

I did some research and according to Medical News Today “Gluten is a family of proteins found in grains like wheat, spelt, rye and barley. Gliadin and glutenin are the two main gluten proteins.”

Apparently most people tolerate gluten quite finely, but some folk suffer from a condition called Celiac disease and gluten is really bad for them.

The bottom line is—potatoes do not contain gluten.

You can have your chips and eat them people!

Sibo

Getting Organised

Stress is a horrible thing. It often sneaks up on a person and causes all sorts of problems. There are many reasons why one gets stressed out but one of the worst causes of stress is being disorganised and finding yourself running out of time, or arriving at a place without important stuff that you need.

Like the homework you left on the dining room table or your PE clothes, or your permission slip to go on an outing.

There’s a relatively easy way to eliminate such stress.

Plan your day.

Ergh! Sibo. I hear you say… that’s so boring.

Not really—if you plan your day, you’d probably have more free time to do fun stuff.

How many times have we all rushed around, looking for something at the last minute, panicking like crazy when we can’t find it—only to find that it’s right there, under our nose. Or even worse, having to leave the house without it.

Use a diary or planner and write down everything that you have to do the night before.

This way you won’t wake up in the middle of the night, think of something you have to do the next day and lay there worrying that you’ll have forgotten it by morning.

Part of planning, is developing a routine.

Try to go bed at the same time each night and get up at the same time in the morning. Set two alarms if you have a hard time waking up.
Have a shower, get dressed, and eat your breakfast (or the other way around if you are a messy eater).
Rather be ready to leave five minutes early than be running five minutes late.
Pack your school things the night before. Make certain all the stuff you need for the next day is in your case before you go to sleep. One less thing to worry about.
Create a routine for yourself as far as your homework is concerned too. Try and do it at the same time every day. Don’t leave it for after supper when you are too tired to think either.
Keep the space where you do your homework neat tidy so that you don’t get distracted.
Lastly, don’t multi-task. While you might think you’re getting loads of things done all at once, usually nothing gets done properly. Do one thing at a time and do it well.

Being organised means being in control.

Sibo

Bloody Business

South Africa is currently running out of blood. That sounds crazy–especially when people are walking around full of blood that they could share. Well… maybe not everybody can share their blood because there are conditions prescribed as far as sharing blood goes. However, it’s seriously scary, because one never knows when you might be in a situation where you need safe blood.

What is “safe blood”?

It’s blood that is free from HIV, Hepatitis B and C and syphilis – these can easily be transmitted through transfusion.

If you are fit and healthy please consider donating – you never know when you yourself might need a blood transfusion.

In South Africa, every unit of blood that is collected goes through stringent testing to ensure that it is safe.

So how much of your precious life blood do they take? Only 480ml. It’s less than 10% of the total blood volume of an adult. Most adults have between 4.5 and 5 litres of blood in their bodies. The lost fluid is replaced in the body within 36 hours. (However, if you weigh less than 50kg you’re not allowed to donate because you don’t actually have enough blood to spare.)

You are, by law, not allowed to give blood more than every 56 days. This means that a person would only give three or four times a year. Not too much to ask really – is it?

In South Africa people between the age of 16 and 65 are allowed to give blood —if they are fit and healthy. There’s a questionnaire that has to be completed, regarding your health and life style. A finger prick test is done to check iron levels before donating. Blood pressure is also checked to make sure that people are actually healthy enough to donate.

Remember – you need to eat and drink enough fluid (not alcohol) before donating.

Or course, if you’ve had flu or have been sick in the last few days you are not allowed to donate because it would be bad for you. Also, if you have been to the dentist or had surgery recently, you could also be excluded. Recent body piercings and tattoos would kick you out of the system too.

Don’t even think about trying to share your blood if you have had malaria—then you have to wait for three whole years before you can donate again.

For more information on giving blood – go to http://www.sanbs.org.za/ .

Give people! It might save lives!

Blood is life.

Sibo.