Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Health Tips from Reader's Digest

As I sat waiting for my eye appointment today, pupils dialated to the size of quarters, I happened upon a great article in Reader's Digest called something like "14 things the experts wish we would all do," as near as I can remember. I will try and recall as many as I can:

 1. drink coffee...the antioxidants prevent strokes and help against dementia...cool!

 2. Eat orange veggies for skin bronzing...ones high in beta carotene such as carrots, tomatoes, yams...I think the eyes turn yellow too though...not so super attractive!

3. Sunlight in the am is way less damaging to skin than afternoon rays, because our skin in the morning is more resistant to UV rays.

 4. Eat protein in the morning for weight loss-I guess if you don't, the body compensates by getting hungry earlier after breakfast and craves crud: the expert recommended high protein chia seeds, which I had never heard of...apparently you can get them at health food stores. I guess they're good soaked and mixed with blueberries. Also greek yogurt and eggs are good sources.

 5. Eat Quinoa...a magic food apparently. I have never eaten this either.

 6. Go to bed early and get up early. People who do this eat less and thus keep trimmer than night owls. Don't get more than half your sleep after 5am, and don't eat after 8pm. I guess those who work graveyard shift are screwed.

 7. Wear blue lens glasses if you are watching TV or at a computer screen at night before bed. Apparently unfiltered emmissions from both stimulate our brains and keep us awake. Where the heck do you buy blue lens glasses-and how will they work over regular glasses?

8. Eat chocolate in the morning-wakes one up with a caffeine-like substance but doesn't have the caffeine crash later. I can dig it!

 9. Take lots of standing/walking breaks a day...as little as a one minute stand/walk every hour at a sedentary job helps tons with weight loss.

 10. Cool your head off before bed. Not by sticking it in the freezer (too many tempting ice cream treats) but by going to bed in a cool bedroom and having lots of covers...keep your head out. Or take a hot bath 30 minutes before bed and your body will naturally cool your head??? This will promote sound sleep, apparently. Sounds hokey, but who knows?

 11. Walk 45 minutes a day, 3 times a week. Tons of health/weight loss benefits, even if it's at a slow pace. Now that I believe...plus it gives me time to THINK!

12. The 20 second rule. Apparently we procrastinate mostly because of the 20 seconds it takes to begin a project. If we make that 20 seconds easy or eliminate the inertia, we will get lots more done. For example, if we want to exercise first thing in the morning, we should set our workout clothes by our bed at night, or if we need to write thank-you's, keep a stack of thank-you notes on our desk so we easily can send one or two. Not sure how this relates to health...maybe procrastination causes stress and this will alleviate said stress?

 These are all I remember, but I thought they were interesting...I plan on trying the Chia seeds and Quinoa...could always use more protein at breakfast, but if they taste like crap, I will default to waffles...

Thursday, February 2, 2012

Mawage

"Mawage. Mawage is wot bwings us togeder today. Mawage, that bwessed awangment, that dweam wifin a dweam… And wuv, tru wuv, will fowow you foweva...so tweasure your wuv.”

This "Impressive Clergyman" speech from the "Princess Bride" movie never fails to cracks me up, but within the humor lies two true messages: "bwessed...er...blessed arrangement," and
"treasure your love."

Obviously, in our culture of rampant divorce, we (collectively speaking) are NOT listening to The Impressive Clergyman! We don’t seriously consider the word, “blessed,” and we definitely don’t treasure our love. We fall in and out of "love" capriciously, as if our feelings were the measure of love. We have swallowed the pill of self-centered infatuation and called it "love at first sight," or some other such nonsense. I probably shouldn't even write this blog today; I'm far too irritated with our culture's view of love, marriage, divorce, and second, third, fourth, etc., marriages, not to mention the innocent victims: our children. Seriously people; why bother? Get a roommate or even a pet!

Most of us enter into marriage fully planning to honor our vow “until death do us part,” but when the hardships and conflict come (which THEY will, guarantee you that), we bail. We live in a disposable world, and our marriages have become just another item to chuck if it doesn’t “work out.” So why don’t marriages work out? There are lots of reasons, but the main one, I believe, is lack of understanding what the word “vow” entails. From the Bing online dictionary, vow equals: a “solemn pledge: a solemn PROMISE to perform an act, carry out an activity, or behave in a given way. “And promise is defined as: to”vow: to assure somebody that something will certainly happen or be done.” Hmmm…something is rotten in Gotham…

So essentially we are a culture of promise BREAKERS. We have our reasons of course, and I totally support divorce in the cases of abuse and incurable infidelity (and some of us have been abandoned by wayward spouses against our will), but in most cases, we need to learn to persevere. To prepare and dig in for the long haul: to honor our promise of commitment to our husband or wife.

Most of us who are married or divorced have or had a “blessed arrangement.” We promised “for better or WORSE” inside a church building, in front of a minister or priest and our family and friends. Therefore, this vow involved not only the bride and groom, but also the witnesses. We spoke our vows in the presence of others as a sacred promise-not something to break lightly even if every pore of our being cries out to be released from our pledge.

The phrase, "treasuring our love” indicates that WE treat our marriage as a precious covenant, unconditionally loving the person we married. We can choose to act in love, even when our spouse is behaving like an idiot. Not an easy task, but one we CAN do, with the grace of God. Just as witnesses testify in court to tell the truth, “so help me God,” our vows can be upheld with the help of God. So the next time you’re tempted to bump your spouse off a nearby cliff, remember you PROMISED to love him/her until “DEATH do you part”... which, however, doesn’t include murder! :)