How about a thread about Health?

I just spent a magnificent weekend at a vegan health spa, The Regency House in Hallandale Beach, Florida. As an author, I spend too much time in front of a computer, editing the written page, reading the written page and keyboarding. I'm lucky I don't have carpel tunnel syndrom.

I nead more exercise. I need to eat better food. I need to think more creatively. I have many needs that would lead to a healthier life than I am presently experiencing. Why don't I just do what's necessary?

I know from the people I met this weekend that intelligent, articulate and fine human beings share a common unhealthy lifestyle. What can we do to improve our lot? What are your experiences, not in your own perfection of the art of healthy living; but in making significant changes that others might emulate to pursue better health?

I find that some days I am sitting from 6:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. except for necessary breaks. With a deadline, I might add some additional hours. This is crazy!

Well, DK, I'll make a quick observation.

Too many times, in the last few years, my health has been hanging on by a thread.

Have you changed anything in your lifestyle to guarantee a healthy future?

Great idea!

I would LOVE a thread about health.

A spa sounds awesome.

Sometimes it can be difficult for truck drivers to maintain a healthy lifestyle. I found yoga is one thing that works well for me: http://www.themodernpagan.net/?p=291

Yep. No more booze, tobacco, wild women, late nights, barbecue, or cheeseburgers. I walk a lot, do push backs, no longer go to honky tonks, and I gave up playing basketball, softball, and the kazoo.

By my reckoning, I should live to be 126.

I have a gym membership, and have had one for half my life. It's money well spent. As sedentary as writing is, physical activity is essential not just to keeping fit but to keeping ideas flowing. I get many ideas for my books while jogging. Exercise even makes me better at video games -I always score higher on Pacman after running on my home treadmill, lol.

Gyms take away the excuses for working out. I don't like running outside -too hot, too cold, too humid, it's raining, whatever. But gyms are always comfortable.

I'm a great advocate of health spas. There was another one in Bonita Springs years ago, Shangri-la. It was a raw foods spa that also promoted food combining. It's an empty hotel now with manicured lawns, just sitting there, ghosts of the past running around with their water bottles, sunning in the men's and women's solariums, pedaling down the little stream for light exercize and doing yoga in the round room. It was not expensive. All inclusive was less than most hotels; and a week was like a new lease on life. The Regency is similar - and has the same physician! Why do I return to such bad habits when I feel so good after a few days of perfection?

I'd recommend reading my blog if you have a spa interest - it talks in more detail about the experience.

The kind of spa you're talking about sounds great, but it's not something you can incorporate in a daily routine though, right? I go to a local spa, but for maintenence stuff (facials, peels, etc.).

I go to the kind of spa you mentioned on family vacations if one is in the hotel. I enjoyed the Canyon Ranch in a Scottsdale Marriott hotel a few years ago.

Alas, I'll need to sell a few more books before Canyon Ranch is on my schedule. There are some truly beautiful places in upscale hotels and stand alone. I've tried to narrow my choice to the best value that I can fit in my present budget.

You're right, it's what you do every day that counts. I described the spa a step through a mirror, leaving everything else behind for a few hours of unadulterated self-indulgence in a positive environment. Whew! I didn't quite describe it that way, but that description works. I went this weekend to try and jump start a healthier approach during the week....

Well, a spa trip is always a good way to jump start things, but as you noted, bad habits return too fast. The gym is good for me because I'm motivated by all the fit, athletic people there. Working out at home by myself just doesn't cut it.

I try to forget my health.
It has forsaken me, so why bother with it?

I used to be a vegetarian, walked 4 miles at least four times per week.
Didn't drink, smoke or do drugs.

Obviously I goofed somewhere.

At least I don't need to worry about losing my health--I already did that. Now I can do something else.

Alice wrote:

I try to forget my health.
It has forsaken me, so why bother with it?

LOL.

Hey, Alice, you'd probably be a lot worse right now without the vegetarian diet and exercise.

LC wrote:

Alice wrote:

I try to forget my health.
It has forsaken me, so why bother with it?

LOL.

Hey, Alice, you'd probably be a lot worse right now without the vegetarian diet and exercise.

I don't know how.

That is almost as funny as telling a homeless person they shouldn't have wasted their last quarter.

Here's an idea--whatever you hate--eat it.
Whatever you love--forgo it.

If you live a second longer you will feel like it has been a thousand years longer.

My FIL was obese for at least the last 20 years of his life. He ate a terrible diet and never exercised. He got PD too, and I wonder if his poor fitness level exacerbated his condition with it. He couldn't travel or do anything and ended up in a nursing home (if he fell, he couldn't get up, and my MIL couldn't care for him anymore. Well, maybe she could have, but that's a whole different story).

He was never offered any of the stuff you've talked about; in fact, the battery thing you have is the first I'd ever heard of it. Maybe he wasn't fit enough to be offered it? I don't know.

Alice, maybe you should have eaten more peas!

LC, the MIL and FIL you refer to are your in-laws, no?

LC,
The procedure known as Deep Brain stimulation has only been offered in the US since about 2002.

Your father in law would have been unable to exercise. PD disrupts movement. The funny thing is everyone says to exercise. Yes it would be great if one could move.

I used to literally laugh about it. My balance was disrupted to the point I would fall. I couldn't move, but, "be sure to exercise." I exercised my spirit and it got a bit feisty.

Another funny one is that they proclaim that exercise will prevent PD. Sure thing-- I climbed mountains , walked miles etc.,

They are finding that it is in the genes. No way to prevent it. A defect in the mitochondria is the culprit.

Of course that is no fun, no fun at all.

We like to blame the victim, makes us feel safer that way.

zadaconnaway wrote:

Alice, maybe you should have eaten more peas!

LC, the MIL and FIL you refer to are your in-laws, no?

Undoubtedly the cause of my difficulties.

E. Don Harpe wrote:

Yep. No more booze, tobacco, wild women, late nights, barbecue, or cheeseburgers. I walk a lot, do push backs, no longer go to honky tonks, and I gave up playing basketball, softball, and the kazoo.

If any of this is true, which I doubt, why would you want to go on living?

In little more than a month I will turn 84. How did I get this far? By never giving up anything I enjoy. By at least four times a week still being in the bar when "last call" is sounded. By including ice cream and chocolate in all meals except breakfast. Limiting breakfast to black coffee or tea and cigarettes or a pipe. Avoid exercise of any variety other than walking to some place you want to be. Don't worry about staying alive because it doesn't matter. I'm not kidding. This has been my way of life. I don't care when the grim reaper comes calling but I have always believed the best way to check out is being shot by an irate husband or a jealous woman.

But here is the one proven way to live for many years: Be very careful in choosing your ancestors. I did that. On the maternal side, beginning with my great-grandfather everyone lived well into their eighties with one exception. One made it to a hundred. On the paternal side, all lived until their late seventies or longer. One made it to a hundred. I don't want to make it to a hundred or anywhere close.

Most of my female relatives made it to their ninety's and one aunt is still going strong at 94. So if the female genes do it for me, I may live past one hundred. ( The aunt is going for one hundred and twenty five she says, so maybe one hundred and fifty for me?)

Alice wrote:

LC,
Your father in law would have been unable to exercise. PD disrupts movement. The funny thing is everyone says to exercise. Yes it would be great if one could move.

I used to literally laugh about it. My balance was disrupted to the point I would fall. I couldn't move, but, "be sure to exercise." I exercised my spirit and it got a bit feisty.

Alice, exercising the spirit is fantastic advice. Last weekend at my husband's fifty year reunion of college graduation, I wore brightly colored clothes and spunky hats, talked with everyone who looked like they might listen, bringing about at least thirty unfinished conversations. Men and women hugged me. They said I looked great. Some knew my real condition. Some didn't. People came up and talked about writing and how much they liked my books, a real boost to my spirit. (Thanks to the college alumni magazine where I had been featured.)

Just before leaving the banquet, a woman came up to me. From my friends' later remarks, she had been looking for me. She said she had been the resident hall assistant in charge of locking the girls dorm when I was a freshman. We were required to be in by 10:00 on weekdays. One night when she came to lock the door, I was outside "saying" good night to my husband-to-be. I said, "I'm not coming in." She said, "You'll get campused." (This was a very serious consequence for disobeying the college rules, sort of like being "grounded for life.")

I said, "I don't care. I'm not coming in." She said at the time she was laughing hysterically. I was known as "Miss Goody Two Shoes Who Happily Obeyed All the Rules." There I was at that moment, "Miss Defiance." She said she waited for a while and then returned and unlocked the door so I could come in. I was not campused. She said it was one of her favorite memories of college and she had to come and tell me.

That's it. Defiance, brightly colored clothes, spunky hats, spontaneous conversation. Maybe with all that I'll make it to eighty!!

Love ya, Carol

I would wager that the spunk you have gained will carry you well beyond eighty, Carol. I am thrilled that you had such a good time, and look forward to more tales.

zadaconnaway wrote:

Most of my female relatives made it to their ninety's and one aunt is still going strong at 94. So if the female genes do it for me, I may live past one hundred. ( The aunt is going for one hundred and twenty five she says, so maybe one hundred and fifty for me?)

Don't have a sex change operation and you should be OK.

Carol,
You have to do better than your mother. She was 93? You have years to go.

Love ya,

Alice

A Maxine cartoon goes something like this, "I don't want to go to the grave with perfect health; no, I want to slip in sideways with a broken down body that's worn out from living, a box of chocolates in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other." I misquoted awfully, but the point is there....