Healthy Me

After a few days of feeling discouraged, I exercised tonight and I feel wonderful! I did TURBO JAM DVD by Beachbody tonight. It includes several workouts. I grabbed a bottle of water, squeezed some fresh lemon juice into it, and put the 20 Minute Workout in. I like the boxing and the music. It's actually fun to do (and I usually hate exercising). You can choose whether you want to do high impact or low impact. It really gets your heart pumping. I love the way I feel after I exercise! It's just the "getting motivated" part that has me stumbling but once I do it, I really enjoy how I feel afterward. Now that I'm sitting still, I can feel it through the abs! Yeah! This is supposed to work the abs without having to get on the floor with the usual sit-ups.

Here is what's on the Turbo Jam Beach Body DVD (taken from Amazon):

Turbo Jam's Chalene Johnson packs each workout with calorie-blasting kickboxing, body sculpting, and the hottest dance musicall guaranteed to give you jaw-dropping results, no matter what your fitness level. INCLUDES 3 WORKOUTS ON 1 DVD:

• WORKOUT 1: LEARN & BURN (25 minutes) - Start blasting pounds and inches right from the start as Chalene leads you through her signature "Elite 11" moves. Also includes an amazing 15-minute ab routine.
• WORKOUT 2: 20 MINUTE WORKOUT - Pump up the volume with this calorie-burning workout featuring some of the hottest music around. You'll see fast results that will keep you motivated and coming back for more.
• WORKOUT 3: TURBO SCULPT (40 minute) - Tighten and tone your muscles using Chalene's signature moves. Get sculpted abs and glutes, strong arms, and lean legs with this fun and innovative workout.
  

I haven't done too well the last couple of days. I haven't binged on anything...nothing like that. I just didn't do anything to make my health better.

I asked my husband the other day if it was better to do MORE sit-ups and hold them for less time or LESS sit-ups and hold them for more time. He said less. OK, that's what I thought. So I only did 15 sit-ups the other day, holding them for a count of ten. I thought that was pretty mild stuff. Hubby said I was overdoing it and was going to hurt myself. *pick up chin off the floor* I only did 15! That's discouraging to me. I think I know when I can feel that I am hurting myself and believe me, I am the last person in the world that is going to push myself so hard, fitness-wise, and cause damage. I'm lazy! I didn't think 15 was that big of a deal. I was actually going to do a set of 15 a couple times a day, every other day, but I didn't tell him that after I got a lecture after only doing the first set.

The last time I started exercising, he thought ten minutes of Turbo Jam was too much and I was going to hurt myself. My face gets red easy so maybe that's why he's so worried. He sees that as over-exertion. I am very pale so ANY change in blood flow is going to show. A couple of our kids are the same way so you'd think he'd realize? *sigh* I got discouraged and put it away. I didn't want a lecture every time I took the DVD out or talked about it. He was overweight as a child and his family thought it was "cute" - - you would think he would be the one person who would understand the need for encouragement?

It just gets discouraging. I am not a fitness buff. At all. I need encouragement! I don't think he wants me to remain 20-25 pounds overweight? I don't know. Maybe he likes the extra weight it brings to my chest, lol. Just kidding. Maybe.

What I don't get is this: Why are 15 sit-ups too much but he has no problem with me shoveling snow. My husband knows I won't leave it (like he would leave the snow...he just four wheel drives over it)? Boy if he could have felt my heart rate this morning! I went out there today and only got a small section shoveled, big enough for the mail car, so the mail could be delivered today (about 3 ft. deep that the road crews pushed into our driveway) before I felt like my heart was going to explode and felt nauseous. I had to stop before I sent myself to the ER with an asthma attack. Shoveling snow is a lot harder on my body than 15 sit-ups!

I don't understand. I just get discouraged.

I've added a weight change ticker to my blog so I can track where I am in relation to my goal weight loss. I've also decided that instead of just keeping a daily blurb on my sidebar to the right about what I did that day, I'd also leave up several previous days' worth. Maybe it will encourage me to build on what I put up the day before. (Here's hoping anyway.)

What I should do is take some measurements so I have a starting point. Will have to think about that one - if I want to go there!

Have you ever thought about the cows milk that we drink and how we are the only species that drinks another species' milk?

Kind of gross when you think of it that way.

I am up in the air about the necessity of drinking milk everyday. I know it hurts my stomach and the doctor says I am not supposed to be drinking it. I also know when I stopped drinking it for several days, I saw very noticeable improvement in my asthma. It makes me wonder.

Then there is the whole pasteurization thing. I did a post about the controversy over raw milk last year.

I wish there were some concrete answers as to whether once we go past the breastfeeding age, if it is healthy for us to continue to drink the milk of another species or if we should be getting the nutrients we get from milk from other sources.

Think about this: How many babies have been allergic to cow's milk as infants? Two that I know of personally within the family alone. Now, how many babies have you heard of that were allergic to their mother's milk? Perhaps we aren't supposed to drink cow's milk. ? I wonder.

~*~*
While I'm posting, my "once a day health booster" for today was sit-ups. Ouch. Those didn't feel very good. I guess that means I should be doing more of them.

According to an article in USA Today and the Chief Medical Editor of WebMD, 80% of infections are transported by touch. What does this tell you?

YOU HAVE TO WASH YOUR HANDS!

It's amazing (and kind of gross) how many people don't do this.

According to this article:

"Here's the drill: Scrub vigorously with water and soap until lather appears, making sure to get between your fingers and fingernails. Use a nail brush if you have one. Briskly dry with a towel.

Do it often and you'll stay a lot healthier — 24% less like to get a respiratory illness and 45% to 50% less likely to get a stomach bug, the World Health Organization says."

Not only should you wash your hands after using the restroom, you should wash after handling anything that others have handled for at least 20 seconds vigorously with lots of friction.

We don't have nail brushes and I'd hate to see what kind of germs would be living on those after four kids got done with using it once. That leaves a new issue of how to keep nail brushes sanitary in a bathroom environment - far from the most sanitary room in your house. Each person would have to have their own plus have some type of sanitizing procedure for each brush after it was used. I can't imagine how many kids we'd be able to get to do that! I also can't imagine how many busy moms would be hitting the bathroom after each child to do it for them. Then there is the "dropping them on the bathroom floor" like kids do, etc.

I hope vigorous washing is enough because there's no way I can see us having six nail brushes used and regularly kept sanitized in our bathroom.

My once a day health booster for myself was a big salad for lunch. Seriously, it was HUGE. There definitely had to be at least a few veggie servings in that salad.

I also bought some more Acai juice today and will have some later.

A not so healthy thing today - I broke a glass thermometer this morning and am waiting for the health dept. to get back to me on anything else I need to do to make sure it is all cleaned up. I can imagine when these glass thermometers were all families had to take temperatures, they were broken a lot. Now with all the environmental concerns and worries over mercury toxicity, I figured I'd better call them to make sure what I did was enough or what else I need to do so it's cleaned up right.

Big Salad and Acai juice today - YEAH!
Mercury toxicity - Not Yeah.

I have a moderately severe case of asthma. Without my daily preventative (Advair), I'd be having asthma attacks regularly. Actually, I believe I'd be dead by now. No doubt about it. My last ER trip due to asthma, before this medication, almost killed me. When I asked my doctor how close it came, he held his index finger and thumb together with barely a space in between. Too close. I can't escape the respiratory distress in the winter months so Advair is a must.

I despise having to take daily meds but if it means the difference between living and the morgue, well, I choose living. Duh!

In the course of a diet I started (and didn't finish...sigh) last year, I found out that if I cut dairy out of my diet, the need for my daily preventative wasn't urgent. My asthma symptoms improved SO much. I didn't have any milk or cheese for a week and in terms of my asthma, I hadn't felt so good in years.

So you'd think I would've cut dairy out of my regular diet? I didn't. I like cheese too much. Sad huh? What is even more sad is that I am lactose intolerant. Even more incentive to stop ingesting dairy but I didn't. I just don't drink it in the morning when it hurts my stomach (cramps). What does that say? I have more incentive for gratification than for my health. Somebody give me the dunce cap!

My "once a day health booster" for today is to not have any dairy and to take a multi-vitamin to make up for any vitamins I'd be missing. I'm going to go do that right now!

I've been hearing a lot about the Acai (ah-sigh-ee) berries from Brazil as being some superfood, increasing energy, and weight loss hype. If the hype is to be believed, it sounds like a perfect food. Is it?

I tried Mona Vie Acai juice a couple of weeks ago when somebody gave me a sample when I went to the meat market. The Rep. claimed all kinds of benefits from it. The taste was ok and the benefits I was told about seemed promising if they were true. I'd like to buy some of the Mona Vie to give it a try, more long-term, but at $40/bottle, I can't afford to spend money we don't have on what may just be hype. One claim was that a small cup a day of Mona Vie was three daily servings of fruit/veggies. It was also talked about on Rachael Ray. I did pick up a small bottle of Acai juice (different brand) mixed with Mangosteen from Wal-Mart for a couple bucks but I doubt it's the same quality as some of the others.

I am aware of people's seemingly unending quest to fraud people so I don't want to take one person's word for it. I found on Oprah's site statements that it is full of antioxidants, amino acids, and essential fatty acids. The problem with juice is the added sugars.

How do you know what is hype and what is documented truth? Is this worth the money or are you better off getting the needed nutrients from more readily available foods?

As a work-at-home mother and wife, it's easy to get so busy or distracted that I forget to take care of myself. I have been reminded many times that I don't take care of myself enough. I don't take the time to exercise or eat right, usually picking from whatever I am making for the kids at the time or just scrounging up something quick to eat instead when the kids aren't here. It doesn't help that my husband is on a funky shift at work because it leaves us with different body time clocks so we eat at different times. That leaves the idea of sharing a good meal with my husband just an idea...very rarely does it happen.

When I get stressed, it can get the best of me. I don't eat when I am stressed but it affects me in different ways. I have TMJ in my jaw from clenching my jaw constantly when stressed. I've done a good amount of damage to my jaw (if that tells you how much stress this stepmother has had in the past 14 years). I'm sure it hasn't been good for my health. I've heard that stress can cause illness, autoimmune disorders. I'm not sure if that's true but I wouldn't be surprised it if it were proven. Between my asthma and thyroid disease, I have about all I want of life-long diseases to deal with. I don't need anymore.

So, I have decided to start putting me first once a day. That means once a day, I have to do something healthy for myself. Whether it is eating a fruit or vegetable (which isn't a daily occurrence right now sadly), dealing with stress in a healthy way, exercising - - whatever. It has to be for me and healthy.

Let's see how it goes.

All moms should try to do this for themselves! Who wants to join me in putting oneself first once a day for our health?

Why am I writing a blog about my health? Because I've let it (my health) go.