Ulterior Health

In the middle of moving a dinner invite came. The dinner included three small glasses of wine. Then came the 98 octane coffee.

I am one who says coffee does not keep me awake. Funny thing, my usual 5 hours of sleep was only 3 1/2 hours. Awake and unable to go back to sleep and a long day scheduled was not fun.

Then at 5 AM it was brought to my attention that my lips looked dry. Very dry at that.

Wine may help you go to sleep faster but it will not help you have a good nights sleep. Actually the opposite is true. Now add caffeine and with the dehydration from that alcohol, you have a perfect storm to keep you awake.

Simple lesson here about medications, drugs, and chemicals we expose our body to. The more dehydrated we are the more potential to react or not. We are so complex in our make up, sometimes one thing that may have no effect can have greater effect depending on that balance.

Even 12 hours later the imbalance is still being felt in my being thirsty. Bringing the balance back could take a few days.

If you drink, remember to compensate with increased water intake prior to sleep.

Oh yea, one more thing. People often wonder why Beer passes though you so fast. A urologist I once worked for shared the reason why this is.

It seems that it does not have to stop to change colors.

Good health to you.

One of the simplest things we can do to lose weight is so simple, you probably will not do it. As a matter of fact, it is so simple and we are so busy we will often forget it.

It does not cost any more. It requires no special foods. It will not only help you lose weight, it will possible cut your food bill (because you will eat less and enjoy food more).

What is it?

It starts with putting your fork down. Or putting your food down. Every time you take a bite, put down what ever your eating. Then chew your food. Chew it until it is not there.

Some will advocate chewing 30 times. Go ahead and count but do not limit the chewing to 30 times. Rather, chew until the food no longer will stay in your mouth. Some foods may take 50 chews to fully masticate.

Think what happens when you have water in your mouth. It is hard to hold it there and have a chewing action going on. Likewise once the food is chewed so sufficiently that you can no-longer hold it, it will go down naturally.

Food naturally has chemical reactions to when chewed. The less chewing, the less nutrients we get from the food. Evidence has shown that taking a supplement cannot always provide all the benefit of real food.

An excellent example of the way this works is the melatonin found in Montmorency Cherry Concentrate which is used to help people who cannot sleep. As a supplement, once your body recognizes the increase, it de-compensates and the pill becomes ineffective. However, when taken in as natural cherry juice, it does not seem to have the problem.

So chew your food, get the maximum nutrients, lose weight, and enjoy.