Blogging with a Head Cold
September 27th, 2007. Published under General. No Comments.
At least that’s what my head feels like. Everyone at the office has seemingly had a cold with this hacking cough for over a week now. I fear I’m catching it because I woke this morning with a sore throat and a stuffy head.
Although, I don’t think skipping the gym and instead having Papa Murphy’s (veggie delite) and 4 beers (Schell’s Oktoberfest…mmm) didn’t do me any favors either.
Tonight: the gym and some healthy living.
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Speaking of healthy living, I’ve given up drinking diet soda. More specifically, I’ve given up drinking anything that has an artificial sweetener in it. My mom had problems with joint pain and ever since she got off the artificial sweeteners, her pain has gone away for the most part.
I have problems with my left hip and my right foot - and if either one (or both) are bothering me, I’m not able to run. Since running is my main form of exercise, I need to be able to run. So back at the end of July, I cut out all diet soda and beverages with artificial sweeteners in it. I really hadn’t paid attention to how my body was adjusting to it - but I didn’t have problems with my hip or foot. Then I got salmonella poisoning in the beginning of August, was laid up with that for about 2 weeks, then when I could start eating real food again, I went back to the diet soda. Slowly, my hip started to bug me again and it got to the point recently that I had to stop my run because of the pain.
It was then that I put two and two together and thought “hmm…maybe it was the soda”. I’ve not had any for a week and a half now…and my hip is starting to feel better.
I think we, as consumers, really don’t know what all these chemicals are that we put into our bodies every day. The first thing I ever “took out” of my diet was margarine years and years ago and have used butter ever since. “But Carolyn…it’s so full of fat!” Yeah, but with butter, at least I know where it came from and I can pronounce all the ingredients on the side of the package. I use it moderately, along with olive oil, to provide the main fats for cooking and such.
Lately, I’ve been trying to not use as much processed foods in favor of making it myself. Granted, I’m not perfect in that respect as I still like those instant butter and herb mashed potatoes and my new favorite, instant sweet potatoes. I still use cream of mushroom soup (the less sodium/reduced fat version) and I don’t think that I’ll get coffee creamer out of my diet (unless I start making my own coffee instead of drinking the swill at work - that’s why I need the creamer) either. But I can make a choice as to the other things I eat. I’ll try to eat more vegetables and more unprocessed foods. I’ve always bought wheat bread, but now I buy natural peanut butter and locally made jams for my PB&J.
It’s little changes that will eventually make the difference. So now I drink sparkling mineral water, home brewed ice tea (plain, no sweetener) and water instead of soda. So far, it’s done me a world of good.
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Pownce is down. This makes me sad.
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