Ahhh! Maybe you can
tell I am behind since I am writing this on Sunday rather than on
Wednesday. Well, I need to post on the
weekends instead since I am likely to have a bit more time for leisure and
thoughts about health when I’m not constantly running to and from work.
So, over the past ten days, what has gone well with my total
health year?
Well, first of all, I have really been true to keeping my
Sabbath, EXCEPT with shoveling snow!
That is serious work, and it must be done, so I am out there slogging
through usually on Sunday afternoons or evenings. It’s OK, and I count it as part of my
exercise and I listen to music and sing out loud, so everything’s good in the
world.
Also, I have been doing well with staying away from the
sugars this past week, after my birthday treat of a beautiful cupcake purchased
at Sweet Bliss in Chicago. Otherwise,
I’ve been steering clear from the white stuff, cooking healthy, eating green
smoothies nearly every day, and just feeling pretty good.
What hasn’t been going well, I dropped my contemplative
prayer practice for a few days because I was so busy, but it’s back on track
now. Wow did I feel the absence of that
in my life all of a sudden. I couldn’t
figure out why I was feeling so stressed all of a sudden, and then I realized I
hadn’t taken that 20-30 minutes of meditative contemplation each day, so the
second I began doing it again, the inflammation of my life was relieved a bit.
Inflammation is a serious problem because of the western
industrialized diet, because of environmental stressors, and because of the
lack of meditative practice. I would
encourage you to make this contemplation a part of your life. If you need a good place to start, Lent is
just about upon us and my friend from church, David Muyskens, has written a
beautiful book about starting a contemplative practice. It’s called 40 Days to a Closer Walk with God:
The Practice of Centering Prayer. He has another book too, but I
think this first one is the best. Here’s
a link to it. Available in paperback and
for kindle:
One other element I wanted to write about this week is
drinking water. Many people I know
lately have been trying to give up sodas or pop, cokes, whatever you wish to
call it in whatever region you live.
Water is the best replacement for these and if you can give up anything
that is making your life unhealthy, it would be cigarettes and sodas (diet or
regular). They are just so bad for you
and are just chemical upon chemical.
After I gave up diet soda, I had one about three months later and it
just tasted so awful. Try sparking water
or unsweetened caffeine free teas like Rooibos red tea which is naturally
sweet. You will be able to do this and
it will help you in your life.
How much water should you drink? This has been up for and under considerable
debate over the past five years. For
starters, you should always begin your day with eight to ten ounces of water to
replenish the fluids lost during sleep.
Then, you should always consume as much water as you sweat out when you
exercise. For me, that’s about 16 ounces
of water per hour of exercise, unless it’s hot and that might take me up to the
need for 20 to 24 ounces. While there is
some debate as to whether drinking a ton of water is good for you, water cannot
hurt you unless you practice water loading which can really hurt you because it
depletes the electrolytes from your body.
Water loading is a bad idea. Body
builders do it along with a low-carb diet for some days in order to get that
“hard & lean” look. It’s an unsafe
practice and can lead to heart failure.
I am not kidding. Your heart
needs electrolytes to function well and if you deplete the salts, magnesium and
potassium from your system, you could cause the muscle of your heart to
fail. So, how much water? Well…it is certainly safe to drink your body
weight in ounces of water. I weigh 138
pounds, so I can drink 138 ounces of water per day safely. I could even go higher in high heat and
exercise conditions, but it is probably not necessary. The great Kenyan runners don’t even drink
when they run long distances, but then they drink tons of bush tea (red Rooibos
tea with milk) after and through the evening hours. Here is a good article I found on drinking
water…or drinking fluids generally. It
is linked up from the Mayo clinic’s site and the science in the article is
accurate:
My advice this week, drink plenty of water. Get into a contemplative practice. Those are two easy places to begin to work
toward total health.
Cheers!
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