catapult magazine

Okay.
Here goes.
Does anyone else out there just want to scream at the overabundance of conflicting information about being healthy and the absolute in-your-faceness-of it at every turn?
I am painfully aware of our obesity/sedentary lifestyle crisis here in the states…so when one sets out to do something about one’s own state of being in this area, what do you do with all the conflicting advice?!
A can of worms I know. I think I even know that one has to use common sense, moderation, and “know thyself” principles but I’m so tired of trying to find helpful info and stand my ground when others have oodles of advice.
So, my own tactic has been to include more real foods, whole grains, lessen portions (yes, even of chocolate) and to increase my activity with walking the beach (had to throw that in for you northerners!) and doing a weight/exercise routine regularly.
I don’t take vitamins and am not dead yet. I like wine and Baileys. And if I don’t have my morning Dunkin’ Donuts coffee light and sweet the day just doesn’t seem right.
Moving towards a more healthier lifestyle…hoping not to be derailed!

amen, sister Alice! we are hopelessly searching for the fountain of youth! and it has gone to the point where we are not completely healthy until we LOOK “healthy”—even if looking healthy involves subjecting yourself to ironic tanning and fasting. i was wondering just the other day if excercise equipment and diet formula companies give away free passes to the tanning salon with their product samples to their advertising guinea pigs. we’re pressured to pluck and whiten and minimize and maximize and hide and paralyze and eat and don’t eat until we’re so stressed out trying to achieve “health” that we all have ulcers and heart disease.

but in spite of all this, it sounds like you’ve got a good attitude about it.

i think the human body is incredible in its purpose and ability to work and we’ve lost some sense of this. with our changing society, the inclination to physical labor is less. but i think the way our physical labor has been freed up is a gift! we have a group of people from our church who go out to chop wood for people who heat their homes with wood stoves. we can offer to do a planting in our community parks. we can pick up trash along the highway. we can help build a Habitat house. even biking/walking instead of driving is an incredibly noble way to use the work potential of our bodies and contribute to our overall health at the same time.

as far as fads and obsessive advice, i think we can only depend on our common sense. and my common sense tends to say that God made the earth to provide perfect food for us, so getting as close to what he naturally intended must be a good thing. and God also made our bodies for work, so finding the best way to use our bodies actively must be a good thing, too.

but i don’t know if any of this applies to your issue of finding a balance between self-control and indulgence.

sorry about the long and tangential post. i haven’t had much time to post lately and i think i’ve forgotten some of my discussion etiquette…