InFlammation!

Exercise: activity requiring physical effort, carried out esp. to sustain or improve health and fitness. Seems simple, right? Jump on a bike, assume the plank position, crawl across the pool, turn some cartwheels, don the running shoes, handle the bars, or take your dog for a walk. It's all fun and games until sore muscles kick in. Is the soreness worth the serenity? You bet, but it is important to know why your muscles get sore and how to lesson the pain in order to get back on the horse or treadmill or yoga ball.

Let's start with muscle movement: adduction and abduction;  flexion and extension; rotation and circumduction.  The human skeleton is strapped with muscles in a way that allows a range of motion limited only by muscle and tendon length, strength and vulnerability.  All muscles are connected, although groups of muscles can be isolated during exercise.  When one group of muscles is worked and others neglected, a size imbalance occurs and vulnerabilities in the system develop.  Equally true, when one action, say adduction, is exercised more often than abduction, muscle and tendon lengths will vary and vulnerabilities will occur.  

When muscles are taxed, they tear or break down.  The body then creates more muscle tissue from amino acids and other nutrients within the body and fills the gaps to lengthen the muscle or build the muscle for strength.  During exercise oxygen in the body decreases and muscles are then used to boost energy by an anaerobic process during which muscle cells produce lactate.   The acidity within the muscle cells then increases. The long and short of it is when you exercise you over use muscle tissue and the process causes pain, both immediate pain that alerts the body stop and recover, an delayed pain referred to as DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness).   

Inflammation is the root of the problem but can be treated in a number of ways.  Water.  Plant based foods (skip animal based foods for they cause inflammation within the body as well).  Sleep.  Message.  Cold compress.  Patience.  Education.  A series of soothing stretches that cover all muscle movements might be the best medicine for a sore muscle structure.  All of these treatments are great after work-out remedies.  Eating fueling, reparative foods before your workout is also good practice.  (Men, this is a better source of information for you.)  A cup of black coffee, a bowl of real oatmeal with bananas, a glass of water and an orange are great an hour before any work out no matter what gender you are!

Eat real food, drink plenty of water, give your vitamins their vitamins and remember to wash your hands.  Then Go get your Work-Out On!

Anna~

Need a source for anti-inflammatory foods?  Check this out!  

How Healthy is Your Well?

Pancakes on the table for breakfast, a whole chicken in the crock pot for dinner, breakfast dishes done, three of the three off to school, a blank calendar this afternoon, and yoga in about 40 minutes.  Mornings like this, when things fall into place without chaos or confrontation, come few and far between in our home but the span is getting shorter as we move deeper into our evolution toward eudaimonia.

Eudaimonia?  A great word to research and investigate, for sure, but for short it means 'human flourishing'.  Physical wellness.  Financial wellness.  Spiritual wellness.  Holistic Wellness.  Well.  The human body is much like a well; everything that comes in contact with it contaminates or cleanses the entire being.  Eudaimonia is a state in which a being is able to appreciate, assimilate or convert all things it comes in contact with into nourishment, positive energy and practical wisdom.  A desirable state indeed.

Our evolution started with simple, conscious changes.  Drinking water in the morning to rehydrate the body and allow the cells to breathe.  Eliminating breakfast cereals was the next step; an exchange of unidentifiable ingredients for oats, eggs, whole wheat pancakes and whole grain breads.  Exercise was next.  Less time watching others participate in life on the television and more time actually participating in life.  Down-hilll skiing, mountain and road biking, 5 and 10k organized running, yoga, hiking, and conscious cooking.  We have also learned to encourage our children to run, to jump, to play, to laugh, to ski and to do it along with them more and more.  Today we are on change number 721, at least.

Change happens over time, not over night.  At times when I feel my evolution has taken a vacation I preform an evaluation of progress (yesterday was one of those days).  Evaluation is born of the beautiful word 'value', cousin to valuable.  I am valuable.  My husband, my children, our finances, our home, and our wellness is valuable, as is our progress toward eudaimonia.  I encourage you all to evaluate how healthy your well is.  You will most certainly find positive change among the mistakes and progress among the set backs;  appreciate yourself for all of your movement in the right direction.

Then celebrate.  Make a beautiful meal of real, naturally occurring food, wash in the goodness with water, give your vitamins their vitamins and, as always, remember to wash your hands.  Be glad in it, reader, for you choose your evolution!

Anna~

A Week in Review: Water

Over the past year I have written weeks in themes, with measured breaks in between.  I have had my eyes on weight loss, vitamin intake, pantry un-stocking, vegetable finding, organizing, motivation and exercise, but some some of you have not had your eye on me long enough to have seen these thoughts. This week I am going to spend in review of some of my favorite (and maybe most important) thoughts. 

From January 15. 2013:

Let's start with Water~ by Anna Burrill

Water.  I don't drink enough of it.  Coffee?  Three cups a day.  Wine?  A few glasses a week, a few more on the weekends.  But water?  As a 135 pound female I am suppose to consume, without any other factors considered (like caffeine and alcohol) 70 ounces per day.   With those other factors involved I am suppose to drink 102 ounces a day just to break even!  Three liters of live giving H2O.

I started trying to accomplish this requirement on the 27th of December, 2012, with my brother while standing at his kitchen sink.  We both were slightly hung over so we were starting in the red, but we agreed;  before anything else entered our bodies we were to drink water.  I filled a two liter bottle, grabbed two glasses from the cabinet, poured equal glasses of water and down it went.  Three and a half glasses of water each, or about a liter, in only a few minutes.  Every day since then I have measured out my liter of pre-coffee water and I drink it!

So, Why Water?  Daily, we breath dirty air, we drink unfiltered water, and we eat food that has been sprayed with pesticides.  The human body not only ingests toxins from the world surrounding it, it creates toxins in the form of metabolic waste.  When we have a cold, more waste.  When we are under stress, more waste.  When we do not get enough sleep, our toxic waste production increases.  Can you guess how we get rid of that waste?

An interesting article gives us a few very simple instructions: take out the trash, pee, poop, and perspire. Without water, none of these things are possible.    The same water that cushions our joints, flushes our liver.  The same water that protects our organs allows our cells to breathe.  The same water that brings oxygen and nutrients throughout our bodies flushes our kidneys clean.  When I looked at water as a solution to health instead of only a solution to thirst, I felt the need to drink.

I learned something else just now about toxins.  Breath is also a detoxifier.  "Breathing deeply and fully, called pranayama, will oxygenate your brain, body, and spirit, transforming your health in the process."  Now, take a deep breath, go, eat real food, take your vitamins, drink oodles of water, and remember to wash your hands.