BA specific health tips
Thought I'd share what I've learnt now I'm off again.
- leave the top off drinks container in the fridge; the cholrine evaporates, tastes better as a result. Am I right? Love to be sure this isn't a placebo
- traffic fumes reduce massively only 5m and then even more at 30m away from the road. Bicycles get less fumes than being in a car
- a bicycle is really handy for getting around, faster than anything else a lot of the time. Alternatively there's rollers. Both pretty leathel of course but not as bad as I thought it would be. Bike thread: http://baexpats.org/expat-life/14685-cycling-ba.html
- housebrot do great bread, seeds and grain. There's one on alto palmero and easy/jumbo by the mosque. The bread can be freezed for toast and chilled to last longer
- `american` gyms have oxzone cleaned water; nice
- the supermarkets are expensive... best really to stay away if possible but that means learning to cook. And I mean learning to cook; making sauces from scratch. Try to do everything from a verduria one day. Try tomatoes with albacha as a start for a sauce as a start. Make extra and freeze and chill stuff, stuff like soups can be thawed out the next day easy.
- you can get a load of interesting stuff from china town including fish and everything to make sushi. Again, forget the 80peso sushi supermarket kits... affordable every week?
- the dieticias vary in price a lot. Go for loose and raw things, avoid anything imported. They sometimes make thier own things too, for example nicer tartas than teh supermarkets
- don't forget the pull up bars in the parks. find some with shade
- sugar is in nearly everything, that's something to watch for
- all the multivitimins I could find have copper in, which can effect hormones if you already got too much. The only vitimin source I could find without this was baby milk; cheap but wierd with sugar
- 'off' is the probably best moquito repellent. lemongrass would be nicer if we could get it?
- can always grow stuff in window boxes, get stuff that way instead you can't get here
- buy stuff in bulk and share with expats
- pretty spoilt for classes; pilates, yoga, circuits, spinning... tai chi, martial arts...
- you can get sea salt in dieticias. Very handy for replacing salt in the heat but keeping the electrolyte ratios balanced
- sea food thread: http://baexpats.org/expat-life/14686-good-fish-bad-fish.html
- going along the same line sea food is probably going to make a difference and if there was one thing that makes a difference it would be some sort of algae. A little of that can sedate the craving. That makes a big difference to what one eats in a day. As do eggs in the morning. With a bit of search you can pay to get protein in the morning, like a tuna empanada... rather than resorting to a McMuffin.
Handling the attitude to health here:
First of all bear in mind that a chill out attitude can achive more than knowing. That is, yeah avoid traffic fumes are a problem but the argentine attitude of not seeming to care about anything... there's a lesson there. Worry can cause more problems than the thing we're worrying about. Build that into an attitude. This was something I thought about as I tried to explain why using the handbrake on a flat surface at traffic lights is a good idea...
As you know there's a distrust of practically everything here. There's rip offs everywhere.
Of course health related stuff is no exception. I've heard dieticias come out with stuff plenty of times when they know it's rubbish, just to sell a few pesos of seeds, and I'll bet the same happens with Dentists and private doctors. Bear that in mind. I'd love to know the history on this.
But there's still an interest in proactive health. It's just that when they see you doing this stuff they think `There's an idiot who fell for that advert that said xxxxxx`. You got to bear that in mind.
Argentines trust natural stuff - raw leaves rather than pills. It's all about trust.
Look at the beefy guys everywhere. It's not possible to be that big without attention to health! And no, steroids are not enough without the fuel to drive it.
You can walk into the private medical places like swiss health and pay as you go for the treatment you want and as you want. However, getting tests done in a proactive rather than reactive way does confuse things. `What are you getting the test done for?` is a typical response. I'd like to know what steroid users say when baseline testing before a cycle. The possibility that there is no problem and you are simply running a routine check as you would on a car is outside the range of thought. However, it is possible. You just might have to pay unnessessarily to get a GP to make a referral for something when actually it's just a case of going through the system. However, it depends who you see. Sometimes you can just get a blood test done straight away, other times they insist on a referral, depends who you get. You can always try another place, there's some choice in the matter.
There are also the semi public hospitals like Alemania. Take a ticket and you can pay the bill yourself too.
Just be clear about what you want before you go in.
re: Cosmetics. I'm a guy so I don't really feel the need other than toothpaste, soap and sometimes sun screen. Of those, the sunscreen I can't find one without chemicals and the toothpaste, well I never found any of the natural solutions (like baking soda & salt) to really work... would like to hear of some answers from women here dealing with it
Hope this helps
-j
Thought I'd share what I've learnt now I'm off again.
- leave the top off drinks container in the fridge; the cholrine evaporates, tastes better as a result. Am I right? Love to be sure this isn't a placebo
- traffic fumes reduce massively only 5m and then even more at 30m away from the road. Bicycles get less fumes than being in a car
- a bicycle is really handy for getting around, faster than anything else a lot of the time. Alternatively there's rollers. Both pretty leathel of course but not as bad as I thought it would be. Bike thread: http://baexpats.org/expat-life/14685-cycling-ba.html
- housebrot do great bread, seeds and grain. There's one on alto palmero and easy/jumbo by the mosque. The bread can be freezed for toast and chilled to last longer
- `american` gyms have oxzone cleaned water; nice
- the supermarkets are expensive... best really to stay away if possible but that means learning to cook. And I mean learning to cook; making sauces from scratch. Try to do everything from a verduria one day. Try tomatoes with albacha as a start for a sauce as a start. Make extra and freeze and chill stuff, stuff like soups can be thawed out the next day easy.
- you can get a load of interesting stuff from china town including fish and everything to make sushi. Again, forget the 80peso sushi supermarket kits... affordable every week?
- the dieticias vary in price a lot. Go for loose and raw things, avoid anything imported. They sometimes make thier own things too, for example nicer tartas than teh supermarkets
- don't forget the pull up bars in the parks. find some with shade
- sugar is in nearly everything, that's something to watch for
- all the multivitimins I could find have copper in, which can effect hormones if you already got too much. The only vitimin source I could find without this was baby milk; cheap but wierd with sugar
- 'off' is the probably best moquito repellent. lemongrass would be nicer if we could get it?
- can always grow stuff in window boxes, get stuff that way instead you can't get here
- buy stuff in bulk and share with expats
- pretty spoilt for classes; pilates, yoga, circuits, spinning... tai chi, martial arts...
- you can get sea salt in dieticias. Very handy for replacing salt in the heat but keeping the electrolyte ratios balanced
- sea food thread: http://baexpats.org/expat-life/14686-good-fish-bad-fish.html
- going along the same line sea food is probably going to make a difference and if there was one thing that makes a difference it would be some sort of algae. A little of that can sedate the craving. That makes a big difference to what one eats in a day. As do eggs in the morning. With a bit of search you can pay to get protein in the morning, like a tuna empanada... rather than resorting to a McMuffin.
Handling the attitude to health here:
First of all bear in mind that a chill out attitude can achive more than knowing. That is, yeah avoid traffic fumes are a problem but the argentine attitude of not seeming to care about anything... there's a lesson there. Worry can cause more problems than the thing we're worrying about. Build that into an attitude. This was something I thought about as I tried to explain why using the handbrake on a flat surface at traffic lights is a good idea...
As you know there's a distrust of practically everything here. There's rip offs everywhere.
Of course health related stuff is no exception. I've heard dieticias come out with stuff plenty of times when they know it's rubbish, just to sell a few pesos of seeds, and I'll bet the same happens with Dentists and private doctors. Bear that in mind. I'd love to know the history on this.
But there's still an interest in proactive health. It's just that when they see you doing this stuff they think `There's an idiot who fell for that advert that said xxxxxx`. You got to bear that in mind.
Argentines trust natural stuff - raw leaves rather than pills. It's all about trust.
Look at the beefy guys everywhere. It's not possible to be that big without attention to health! And no, steroids are not enough without the fuel to drive it.
You can walk into the private medical places like swiss health and pay as you go for the treatment you want and as you want. However, getting tests done in a proactive rather than reactive way does confuse things. `What are you getting the test done for?` is a typical response. I'd like to know what steroid users say when baseline testing before a cycle. The possibility that there is no problem and you are simply running a routine check as you would on a car is outside the range of thought. However, it is possible. You just might have to pay unnessessarily to get a GP to make a referral for something when actually it's just a case of going through the system. However, it depends who you see. Sometimes you can just get a blood test done straight away, other times they insist on a referral, depends who you get. You can always try another place, there's some choice in the matter.
There are also the semi public hospitals like Alemania. Take a ticket and you can pay the bill yourself too.
Just be clear about what you want before you go in.
re: Cosmetics. I'm a guy so I don't really feel the need other than toothpaste, soap and sometimes sun screen. Of those, the sunscreen I can't find one without chemicals and the toothpaste, well I never found any of the natural solutions (like baking soda & salt) to really work... would like to hear of some answers from women here dealing with it
Hope this helps
-j
