More Healthy Living

It’s amazing how as you age, you just can’t take your body for granted like you did when you were younger. I remember not giving a second thought to the things I ate or how much, and even as a young adult, I took my health for granted. Sure, I regret it now, and even though I’m not necessarily suffering outright from the things I did, there’s still plenty of time to suffer the consequence of my stupidity. If anything, that time may be happening as we speak.

Either way, it’s never too late to do the right thing, right? I can’t take back the years of physical abuse that I put myself through, but I can at least live a healthier life in the here and now. There are three main aspect to this new approach to life, and the beauty is that they all involve things we promote in our kids. The wonders of parenthood and wanting to set a good example, or at least not be a hypocrite.

First off, get more sleep. I’ve always worn sleep deprivation as a bit of a badge of moronic pride, as if it was cool that I could function on little to no sleep. How dumb is that? Not only do I feel tired and crappy all the time, but an increasing number of health experts now recognize the importance of sleep, not just for feeling better, but for mental, emotional, and physical health, not to mention living long. Oh, and let us not forget avoiding feeling like hell all the time. It’s a running joke in this house that I feel tired all the time, and my kids give me constant grief over this. At some point you just get tired (no pun intended) of being tired, and things have gotten better since I stopped sleeping on my back and don’t try to get up at 4:00 AM every day. I’ve also found that using those nose bandages that help you breathe are helpful, as well.

On the dietary front, and this was the hardest thing to do, is cutting back on my sugar intake. If anything, I thought this would be impossible, but you realize that nothing is impossible if you really just try. I used to eat at least a half bar of chocolate (not small bars, but those big Hershey bars) or a seven or eight cookies every night after supper. In my heyday, I could easily put away a pint of ice cream, even two if it didn’t make me feel so guilty. I have R there to remind me of my health, and gradually I decided that maybe I should take heed of her advice. She never lectures, and never insists, but she sure knows her stuff, and since I had some health episodes, I decided to give it a try.

It wasn’t even as bad as I thought it would be, and at first, I took it as a challenge just to see if I could pull it off. The beauty is, after a few days of reduced sugar intake, when you do eat a couple of cookies or a candy bar, you sure feel the negative effects. It makes me wonder about when I used to eat tons of sugar. For full disclosure, I am still eating chocolate, but have limited myself to dark chocolate, only. I usually go for the 70%, but will drop to 60% if necessary. Nothing lower, and for that matter, nothing higher. The wonder of all this is that I’ve always hated dark chocolate. It was either milk chocolate or nothing, but after cutting back on sugar, dark chocolate sure does taste better. If anything, milk chocolate is too sweet for me now, which is completely amazing in light of my past. Plus, I think of dark chocolate as being good for you, so I don’t feel guilty eating it every day, sometimes twice a day. It’s more expensive, but I eat a lot less of it.

Okay, final piece of health news is that I switched to lighter coffee. Again, R never lectured me about this, but she is aware of the negative effects of burning food. Darker roasts result from roasting the beans longer, resulting in greater oxidation products. No studies have been done on coffee, but it’s true that as you cook things longer, the by products of cooking are not always good for you. Coffee could fall into this category. Whatever be the case, I’m drinking lighter coffee, and it’s fine. Good coffee still tastes good, even if it’s lighter, and it may be healthier. I used to drink the darkest roast (French), and black with no sugar for full effect.

Now I don’t necessarily feel like a new man, but I do feel better overall. I think it really boils down to getting more sleep and cutting back on sugar. There are some health advocates that want sugar classified in the same category as alcohol and tobacco because of all the negative health effects. I think this is a bit extreme, but am also aware that we, as a culture, eat way too much of the stuff. I know I did.

That’s it on the health front. Until the next time, thanks for reading, and thanks to michael.seth for the pic.