Health and Fitness July, 2012

[Nancy]

Yesterday I walked for my exercise before church.
Today we have a showing so I'll be mowing and getting ready for that is my exercise.

[Harriet]

Great job regaining progress from the scale, Kathryn. Yes, water, water.

Lynlee, I drink so little cow's milk already - when I want milk I usually use coconut milk anyway. But do continue cheeses, some desserts made from milk.

Nancy, good job on all the yard work, double benefit.

I got in the Arms workout yesterday.

I've been reading the other acid reflux book as well, lately. Appreciating the different approaches (I had listed these in the Reading thread). The Acid Reflux Solution (2012). Cheaper, but then the other book's profits go partially to charity research. This author is big on practical, daily-life kind of help. Good explanations of keeping things moving through the digestive tract quickly, that sort of thing. He advocates walking after meals, for instance, explaining the action of the body in walking will literally hurry the new meal down. Some of his explanations are the TMI type, but he makes no excuses. He is convinced that it is eating more fiber, without much frying, or fatty foods (in other words, the more "physical" or practical things) that will give the greatest benefit quick. (He doesn't address the healing of tissues so much as getting relief and finding a lifestyle.) He thinks every physician who prescribes an AR med should discuss decisions about coming off the med before the patient leaves with the script.

He, too, is suspicious that the epidemic of GERD is related to poor decisions by business/governments, but his suspicions go more toward insecticides and genetic modification in wheat and corn especially, plus feeding animals in big-business ways. He also sees sodas as bad, the way the Dropping Acid researchers do, but he points the finger as much at their potential for fast expansion of the stomach as their acidity. (He is very worried about expanding one's stomach with a food/meal.) He believes the 6 most important things are: portion size, portion size, portion size, fiber, fiber and fiber.

Oh, he, too, is right in line with Harriet's thinking about water consumption! (So he's WISE, too! ) He just says we are supposed to drink most of it when we are not trying to eat at the same time.

[Twins' Mom]

Have measured our circle as approx 1/3 of a mile so dneighbor's estimate was correct. Macs, Moses and I are up to a mile each evening with approximately 2/3 mile in the mornings. I won't go so far as to call it an exercise habit yet, but I think Macs will keep after me about it. We went earlier this morning - maybe 7:30 when it was still cool.

[Lynlee]

Harriet - I'm finding the more water the better too. Without the benefit of herb tea leaves.
Suffering from my diery indiscression last friday.

Last night on tv there was a report on efexor.
Many people have lost all to gambling while on it.
There was a reference to other links with parkinson drugs that gave many people addictions.
Of course the drug companies just say - proceed under doctors supervision. Like - nothing to do with them.
Guess - I'm just saying - watch out for strange changes in behavour with anyone on these meds.

I was very oddly affected by both ssri's and effexor - though thankfully ??? it was just the crazies rather than losing the house or my morality.

[ellyphant]

I'm finding all this info on acid reflux to be very helpful--must remember Gala apples and not Granny Smith. My library has 2 books I plan to check out on this topic, though they are not the books mentioned here.

My reflux is fine right now, but I know emotions play a role also. I would always have problems with coughing non-stop when the in-laws would visit years ago for 10 days at a time. And the week before DS and DDIL's wedding, I was doing the same thing. Used to tell my doctor that I was coughing and gagging a lot, but never was diagnosed until an episode that sent me to urgent care. That was just 3 years ago. It was such a relief to know the cause of all that discomfort and to finally get it under control. Thought maybe I was allergic to the in-laws!

I mainly try to avoid tomato sauce, onions, peppers, and carbonated drinks. Also have learned not to overeat or I will regret it!

[Nancy]

Thanks Harriet!
I mowed for my exercise yesterday and getting ready for the showing.

[ellyphant]

DH and I didn't walk tonight. His back is hurting from playing golf. Says he feels fine if he doesn't try to move! We have a usual route we walk that is 2 miles. Want to get that up to 2.5, which is what we walked for years every evening at other house.

[Nancy]

I finally got my walk in last evening at dusk.

Did some yard work during the day and helped h. move some things getting the patio expansion ready.

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

Ellyphant: at least your dh got comfort being still, over the last few days my aches wouldn't go away even when still.

It occurred to me that there are the following possible causes:

* No work out on Tuesday
* Biking on Monday (it was the second time on the bike for me this year.)
* All the standing and bending to pack boxes of books at Presbytery before we left (I was aching in the car on my way home from that.)
* environmentally triggered asthma that meant I couldn't talk and walk at the same time and my heart rate was 10 - 20 bpm higher than it usually is with the same amount of exertion.
* half doses of glucosamine/chondroiten (I forgot my daytime pills but still had the night ones.) I was also completely missing my vitamin C (which helps asthma) along with D, half my E, and my multivitamin.

It was (maybe is, I've only been up a short while) bad enough that I was noting the timing of the advil because I knew one wouldn't stop the aching and that I'd have to have it in my system all the time.

I took stress vitamins last night before bed as well as my regular ones. Because we were only going for 2 nights, we didn't pack our usual medicine kit but just the airplane one and was missing the chewable Cs and stress vitamins that we keep in the medicine kit as backup in case we get ill on the road.

I'm 20 minutes into my workout and see my heart rate is where I'd expect it to be so that points to something in Concord. Haven't had as a bad a reaction since Austin, TX.

[Harriet]

Lynlee, we are hopeful that dstepfil's dr can analyze his recent behavior and sudden panic attacks and tie it in to some medication he had started for anxiety, that may have backfired.

ellyphant, hope he feels better. Kathryn, hope you feel better, too.

I am grateful to have handled my backache, I believe (vacuuming in awkward position last evening). I had a 10:00 small meal (bad for AReflux) and put one Exedrin Migraine "on top" of it. Then I waited around a while before going to bed, to hope AR didn't happen. Things seem much better today, and dd can finish the vacuuming!

I had done a floor workout of 35 minutes, but it was so much earlier in the day that I'm certain it had nothing to do with the back pain.

Kathryn mentioned various nutritional supplements and jogged my memory to something I just read. The UK-based Alliance for Natural Health International just completed their 2012 statistical study throughout the European Union and computed that (in the European Union and, by extension, most developed countries) we are 900 times more likely to die from food poisoning than from taking supplements. We are 62,000 times more likely to die from a pharmaceutical drug than from supplements. The probability of anyone dying from taking any supplement at all is less than the probability of being struck by lightning.

So don't let anyone criticize you for taking supplements unless they have a pretty impressive lightning strike story, too.