Monday, July 4, 2011

Dying of Thirst.......

I've been reading this weekend about The Water Cure by Dr. F. Batmanghelidj.  My sister had suggested it to me before and then again recently after I had a bit of a scare.  Two weeks ago, my blood pressure went sky high and pretty much scared me to tears. 

Or hopefully, scared me into a process of better health! 

So, I'm going to focus on this for a while and see what comes of it. 

I do not drink enough water and never have.  Until now.

In the past, I've actually been 'proud' of my ability to not have to go to the bathroom for hours on end.  How foolish I have been.  Hopefully I have not done extreme, irreversable damage to my body. 

After this weekend, it makes a LOT more sense to me as to why we all should be drinking more water.  I am not an authority on this at all and my reading on water is currently limited to Dr. Batman's book.  But I do read about health and fitness and am kinda connecting the dots in relation to recent diet fads and poor health.  As I glanced through several other books today, none of them focused on the amount of water we should be drinking.  So, for me, I'm going to look at weaving in all the bits and pieces and see how it fits for me. This will be my forum and if it helps someone - then wonderful!  If it only helps me - then wonderful!  

I've also been reading Jillian Michael's "Master Your Metabolism" and am pretty impressed by it as well.  Going to go back and take a look at what she has to say about water....I know I've seen them really pushing "The Biggest Loser" contestants to drink more water.  And haven't we all heard that forever - drink more water.  Reading Dr. Batman's book has really offered me some powerful insight as to WHY we should be. 

And, it's made me think about my clients and wonder about their water consumption.  *Just to be clear.....I am NOT a physician and will NOT be suggesting to anyone that they stop any medications in favor of just drinking more water!*  As the years pass and I continue to practice as a Marriage and Family Therapist, I've had to stop and consider, be curious about, the physiological aspect of the brain in therapy.  I'm intrigued by what we have going on up there....brain development is amazing stuff and I often will assure parents that much of what is going on with their kiddos is absolutely appropriate for their development stages - body and brain!  So now, I'm thinking that if we're all so very dehydrated, as I believe myself to be, then how is this affecting our brains, our mental health?  If pharmaceuticals approach/alleviate a SYMPTOM and not the source, then isn't this an injustice to helping our clients?  Our friends?  Our families? 

I may be all over the place with this so far.  If you have found me and have been reading this, I hope you are tracking and haven't given up on me.  I've never considered myself to have ADD-like tendencies until recently.  Over the course of this holiday weekend, I've found myself repeatedly going from one task to the next without completing anything!  Aaarrgghhh!  Crazy-making!  This is not me!  And, it's probably not you either!

So, for now, suffice to say that I've got a lot of thoughts about this and want to focus on it more.  I'm going to use me as an experiment and hold myself accountable by recording it here.  I've always wanted to write, so let's get on with it. 

I want to lose weight.  Not for a number but because I want to maintain the level of health that I've always believed myself to have.  (My one and only hospitalization was for an appendectomy in 1966-67?)  I want to eat healthy, unprocessed foods with ingredients that I can pronounce and know from whence they came!  My mom was a wise woman back in the early days of low-, non-fat food craze!  She always said that she'd prefer a smaller 'dollop' of real sour cream than more of something chock full o'other stuff.  Young thing that I was, I thought I surely knew more than her.  So, maybe I'm wiser now.  So, I'm going to chronicle the coming weeks here and see what happens. 

I'm going to drink water throughout the day, per Dr Batman and his Water Cure book.   I've 'got an app for that' on my phone and I've been tracking all weekend. I've already got an 'A' for today's consumption!  Yay for me!  I'm going to eat good food, 3 meals a day and one snack per Jillian.  I'm going to incorporate the right kind of salt (Himalayan Crystal salt or Celtic Sea Salt) and good fats into my diet (Coconut oil, olive oil and sparingly, real butter) in moderation. 

I'm going to pay attention to my attention span and ability to organize and keep myself organized.  I'm going to pay attention to my sleep and to my moods and feelings and how I respond to challenges that I face.  I'm going to become healthier. 

Join me?

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