Water, Water Me Well!

Yes, it's a goofy title; but the point is that water is so important to our health I wonder why we must remind ourselves so often to be sure to drink water.

Helpful hint: If you are accustomed to drinking coffee with your meal, try drinking hot WATER instead. Not only will your palate be fooled but your digestive system will avoid the caffeine (and 3000 other compounds in coffee).

Better than drinking coffee or hot water: Soup! Soup has nutritional value while also helping you feel full sooner so you reduce your caloric intake.

My favorite WATER SOUNDS:

The Roar of White Water rapids
A Babbling Brook
The gentle Lapping on the Lake shoreline
Rain on the roof of my car!

Here is a link to one of my favorite bloggers, Family Health Avenue, and an article on WHEN TO DRINK YOUR SIX TO EIGHT GLASSES A DAY.

Diet and Exercise are NOT Enough

We know that the basics for a healthy lifestyle include diet and exercise.

A good diet means an "appropriate" number of calories in the proper proportions of protein, carbs, and fats, with necessary vitamins and minerals. ("Appropriate" for our age, gender and activity level.)

The exercise part means burning calories for aerobic and anaerobic fitness, to maintain or enhance endurance and muscle tone.

There is a third part to a heathly lifestyle and that lies in knowing our body and maintaining its systems. This aspect includes annual physical examinations and tests or procedures that monitor the body's condition. Just like an automobile, the body has critical parts that need a checkup or tuneup from time to time.

Here are my top Five Health Maintenance Recommendations:

Dental Care. Regular x-ray exam and cleanings. Dental control program with brushing and flossing. New research has connected many diseases to poor dental health; some of these can be fatal.

Blood. An annual physical exam includes blood work that can reveal an incredibly large number of conditions and afflictions that you MUST catch early to avoid costly treatment later, as well as possibly painful and deteriorating health leading to death. This includes abnormalities and imbalances in blood chemistry like cholesterol levels that will result in an early death.

Prostate and Mammograms. One for the guys and one for the ladies (depend on your physician for recommended testing ages and frequencies).

Bone Density. Having a quick and simple bone density checkup can alert you to osteopenia before osteoporosis. This is for men and women. I, a male, discovered that I had thin bones and was diagnosed with osteopenia when I was 55 years old. A simple ankle bone density test led to a complete bone density scan for femur, pelvis, vertebra, etc. My advice is to catch this early.

Supplements. Regular medical examinations will enable your physician to recommend appropriate food supplements. For me, it was calcium and vitamin D. Much of our food simply does not carry the nutritional value that we expect. Most of us do not eat enough of the correct food. Few of us could maintain a diet that would provide ALL of our needed nutrients, and as we age, those nutritional needs change. Keep your doctor in the picture.

We can't put all of our physical health efforts into just any one aspect of fitness. Diet alone, Exercise alone, or Physical Examinations alone, will, in the long run, mean a shorter run.

Women's Health - Struggle for Equality

Women in the World still live at a great disadvantage, and often at great physical risk. For girls and women in MUCH of the World, there is no equality.

Here in the United States, we have make great strides, although the work is far from complete.

President Obama has created a top level panel on Women's issues to work with him on ensuring that women are afforded the same opportunities as men in the United States. The members of the panel, including some cabinet members, will coordinate the government's efforts across all departments.

 
As a father of two daughters, he has expressed not only great interest, but great concern about their future, and therefore, as President, the futures of all young girls and women.

 
As a son and grandson, he observed the struggles experienced by his mother and grandmother in raising a family as single parents and in an adverse and unfair work environment.

 
During the signing ceremony for the Executive Order creating the panel, President Obama noted that women still make only 78 percent of men's salaries.

Women are the primary victims of violence, domestic violence particularly, with 25% of all women in the United States experiencing domestic violence at some point. 

It is estimated that one-third of all girls will experience sexual abuse before they are 18.

March is Women's History Month. There are some terrific web sites with observances of the roles of women, including the U.S. Government Library of Congress site at Women's History Month, the Smithsonian, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

This blog is about Healthy Living, and that can also mean Living with a sense of Safety and Security, with Equality and Equal Access to services, Equal Pay, and Equal Opportunity for Advancement.

International Women's Day is March 8th

International Women's Day has been observed since 1911.

Many historians have cited the advances of women in society as the single biggest World-wide development of the 20th Century.

Indeed, the focus of International Women's Day (IWD) has shifted in just the past few years to a celebration of the great strides made, rather than the lack of equality and outright discrimination that marked most of these first 100 years.

In the background is always the reminder that the work is not done, and the struggle to avoid going backwards is ongoing.

Interestingly, IWD is recognized as a national holiday in many countries (sort of like an equivalent to Mother's Day in the United States). The countries that observe IWD as a national holiday might surprise you too: China, Armenia, Russia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Moldova, Mongolia, Tajikistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Vietnam!

There is a very good website you may want to look at, called, naturally, International Women's Day.

Congress also designated March as Women's History Month and the U.S. Government provides an EXCELLENT web site on women's history at Womens History Month.gov

To see an article I recently wrote on powerful women, including Oprah Winfrey, Barbara Walters, Meryl Streep, Ellen Degeneres, and Dara Torres, see my Retired and Restless blog post Powerful Women to be Admired.