Categories Health

Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans

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Chances are you’ve heard about the Dietary Guidelines for Americans–or if not that, at least you’ve heard of MyPyramid. But you probably haven’t heard of the newest governmental health recommendations: the 2008 Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans.

The Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans were released for the first time ever this last Tuesday, October 7. For adults, the main recommendations are 1) to accumulate 150 to 300 minutes of moderate intensity aerobic exercise in intervals of at least 10 minutes over the course of a week and 2) to perform strengthening activities that impact all parts of the body on two days per week. Children and adolescents should do even more: an hour of moderate intensity physical activity accumulated every day and vigorous and strengthening exercises at least three times a week each.

By meeting the recommendations for physical activity for adults, you can decrease your risk of early death, heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, bad blood cholesterol, metabolic syndrome, and breast and colon cancers. By meeting the recommendations, you can also prevent weight gain, lose weight (if combined with a healthy diet), improve your cardiovascular and muscular fitness, prevent falls, and reduce depression. Evidence also suggests that you can decrease your risk of osteoporosis (and the accompanying risk of hip fractures), improve your sleep, and lower your risk of lung and endometrial cancers. And that’s just the health benefits.

Let me confess right now that I DO NOT meet the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans. I don’t even come close. I probably average 30-60 minutes a week in moderate intensity aerobic exercise. But that doesn’t mean that I have to stay that way–and neither do you. Amazingly, health benefits can be obtained from ANY increase in physical activity. So let’s get up and move around.

As for myself, I’m going to set a goal of 60 minutes of moderate activity this week. That means 10 minutes a day on 6 days over the next week. I dare you to join me in setting a goal and going after a healthier life!

Categories Faith, Health

SAD Promise

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Seasonal affective disorder. SAD. The acronym is fitting. SAD happens when light dwindles as winter approaches, causing some people to slump into a depression.

I’ve fought subclinical levels of SAD for a good portion of my life. I remember how awful it was the year I took my PSAT for real. When I got my scores, I was sure SAD had lost me the National Merit Scholarship. In the throes of the worst year yet, my score had dropped eleven points from the previous year. I remember my senior year of high school, suggesting to my roommates and housemom that I should just lay on the floor and die. They were worried–they should have been, and they shouldn’t. I didn’t actually want to die. Not enough to be suicidal. I just didn’t know if I could go on living. I remember college years, when I didn’t emerge from my room for weeks on end except to go to the bathroom. I didn’t want to do anything, just sleep.

Last year, I was officially diagnosed and began medication to treat the depression. I had actually been dealing better than normal. I still went to classes. I still maintained what looked like relationships. I maintained such a good facade that no one even realized that I was depressed. It took an awful, awful day to convince me that I needed treatment.

Treatment began and things improved almost immediately. I could cope. I didn’t feel disconnected. I was living life instead of just watching it pass by. I didn’t like taking medication for it, but the benefits were just too great.

Spring came and I started to discontinue the antidepressant–and suddenly another health problem flared up beyond control. It seems the medication had been doing more than one thing–it wasn’t just treating the SAD, it was controlling my blood volume too. Without it, I was graying out with alarming regularity–several times an hour. My PA and I decided to continue with the medication over the summer.

But now, with winter approaching again, I’m scared. I’m scared for it to start all over. What if the meds don’t handle it this time? I’m starting to gray out again more frequently. The lack of oxygen to my brain producing the grayouts is only a metaphor for what depression does to my soul. The gray begins, I brace myself to keep from falling. Dots swim before my eyes and I see nothing. Nothing but gray. I feel nothing but the queer lack of thought, the inability to reason. Terror. Entrapment. I can’t do anything about it. I can’t fight it. I can only brace myself for it and hope I can pick up the pieces once it’s over.

I’m scared, but by God’s grace I’m hanging on to a promise.

This is Isaiah 60. Check out verse 20: “Your sun shall no longer go down, nor shall your moon withdraw itself; for the Lord will be your everlasting light, and the days of your mourning shall be ended.”

When I read this a couple of months ago, it jumped out to me as a promise for SAD. My sun won’t go down–no winter–God is my light and he doesn’t hide. The days of my mourning will end.

Hope. That’s what this verse is. SAD won’t last forever, because God is my light and He’s going to be my light forever. He doesn’t change with the seasons.

I was sobbing on my bed last night, scared and helpless, when God reminded me of this Scripture. It took me what seemed like forever to find it. I was frantic, hanging on to the very last string of hope. When I found it, it was a floatie for my drowning soul to cling to.

I read the whole chapter. It calmed me a bit. Then I wrote it out, the whole chapter. “Arise, shine….darkness shall cover the earth…but the Lord will arise over you…then you shall see and become radiant and your heart shall swell with joy…”

It’s a promise for me. A promise for SAD. A promise that, really, there is hope. I am not bound for the abyss. I am bound for heaven, a place of unceasing joy, in the presence of my ever-bright Sun.

Categories Everyday Life

I’m ready for winter

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In Laura Ingalls Wilder’s The Long Winter, Pa notices that the muskrats are building very thick walls for their homes. He worries that the coming winter is going to be hard.

Creatures of all sorts do different things in preparation for the winter. Some grow fat in preparation for a long hibernation period. Some store up food in preparation for a long dearth of fresh food. I am one of the latter. When the weather starts getting cool, I start thinking of storing up food. Of course, once the days get too much shorter, I’m going to enter hibernation as well–when my average sleep needed goes from a little less than eight hours to something well over ten. But I digress.

My local grocery store had a sale this weekend–sections of meat for reduced prices. So when I got off work at eight this evening, I went grocery shopping. I got a 14 lb beef bottom and a 10 lb tube of hamburger–oh, and several pounds of beans, a 15 lb bag of potatoes, a five lb bag of carrots…you get the picture.

This meat (and probably the potatoes too) should get our little household through Christmas at least (my sister thinks ’til next spring, but I’m not so sure). As of right now, my mother’s deep freeze (which she is so gracious to let us make use of, our little freezer being STUFFED full) now contains 2 roasts, 2 packs of steaks, about 10 packs of stew/stir fry/bbq beef meat, 8 bags of ground beef, and 2 bags full of meatballs.

Winter can come, my house is ready. We have beef enough to outlast it.

Categories Thankful Thursday

Thankful Thursday

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Today I’m thankful…

For mints in the mail
The kiddos told me I had some mail at Mom and Dad’s. Scandalous mail, they thought. One side showed a woman putting on lipstick in a rearview mirror and said “REKINDLE YOUR INNER GLOW with life’s little luxuries.” The package sorta rattled a bit. Thinking the worst, they came up with the idea that it was condoms. Sorry, scandal seeking siblings, it turned out they were breath mints from Vocalpoint advertising Ford’s new vehicle.

For gas at $3.37/gallon
Yes, I know it still seems high. But remember this summer? We were at or above $4 a gallon when I left for Mexico.

For free admission to the ADA update
I liked not having to pay the $75 normal ADA members had to pay, or even the $25 normal students had to pay. There are some perks to being a dietetics intern.

That I don’t have TB
I skipped out of the update early to get my TB skin test read. I don’t have TB, big surprise. But that means I’ve got my immunizations/tests in order for rotations next semester. While I was back in the nurse’s office, I asked when they’d have the flu shot in–she said they had it now, although they were only giving it to at risk individuals this early. But then she grabbed the medical history I’d just handed her and said, “You’ve got a history of asthma. That counts.” So she pulled out a vial and gave me a flu shot right then and there. Yay for not having to go back and wait in line for a shot! I suppose there are also some advantages to exercise-induced bronchospasm.

That I got to spend an hour chatting with the interns between classes
Shanna invited me back to the grad assistant’s office for the hour between our classes today. I enjoyed chit-chatting about politics and lunch and movies and professors and grading papers. I think I’ve missed out on a bit of bonding because I didn’t get an assistantship–but I know that God has a good plan for what He chose for me. So all is good.

That I caught Dr. Jones
We’ve needed to nail down my project for an age and a half (okay, five weeks), but have only seen each other in passing. Research Methods got out early today and I ran down to Dr. Jones’ office to see if she was around. She was just locking her door to leave. But I caught her, and we set up an appointment. So we’re good.

That my camera is fixed
The LCD screen on my digital camera broke about a week ago and I chose to order a replacement screen instead of throwing out the camera and buying a new one. The screen was dropped off by UPS today and I spent the next several hours attempting to install it. Installation was easy until I put the back of the camera on and started screwing it together. Then the screen got all wavy and kaleidescope-like. But, after fiddling with it for what seemed like forever, it’s all put together and working–and I only lost one screw!

For my roommate who made dinner today
It’s so nice to sit down to a home-cooked meal–especially one that you didn’t prepare. Thanks Casandra.

There’s lots more I can be thankful for, I’ve been blessed enormously. But my post runs long and I’m working towards sleeping a bit more (I know. Imagine that. I’m actually taking up sleeping as a hobby. Thanks, Dan, for continually reminding me to do so.) so I best go.

Categories Following Christ, Missions, Reflections

Song stuck in my head (Missing Mexico)

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For the past several days, I’ve had a song stuck in my head. It goes something like this:
///Si tienes problemas, dile todo a el///
Cristo esta en la linea hoy

///Llamale, llamale, dile todo a el///
Cristo esta en la linea hoy

Rebekah and I spent a fair bit of time singing that song. She was teaching me some Spanish songs out of the old rancho songbook “Alabanzos el Rey.” It’s easy to learn and easy to get stuck in your head.
“///If you have problems, give them all to Him///
Jesus is the way today

///Speak to Him, Speak to Him, Give them all to Him///
Jesus is the way today

I went on a walk with John and Casandra this evening. It made me miss Mexico. I miss looking up and seeing the Milky Way every night. I miss Rebekah. I was remembering the walk we all took late one night. Elizabeth and Luis were walking the track as well, but it was mostly just Rebekah and Tonio and I.

It was dark and there weren’t streetlights like we have here. It was truly dark, real dark that you can almost taste. Rebekah and I were walking along hand in hand when Tonio jumped at us out of the brush in the center of the track. I was too surprised to react, but Rebekah jumped and squeezed my hand tighter. We all three walked on together–and Tonio decided to tell stories to pass the time. Of course, it was all in Spanish. The stories lost something in translation I think, but Rebekah (who was translating for me) was obviously getting a bit frightened. She might have been just starting to relax her grip when he got to another scary part, then she’d grab hold of my hand again.

I startled them a bit that night–singing and dancing in the dark. I can’t help it that I felt so free, so alive walking around that darkened track.

I miss it. It took me a while to get really Mexico home-sick, but it’s setting in now. I miss singing with Rebekah in the schoolroom. I miss family devotions and prayer time. I miss Tonio. I miss homemade tortillas. I miss the sky and the air. I miss the boys from the rehabilitation center. I miss hearing Spanish all the time.

My experience in Mexico seems to have faded into the background as I’ve dived back in to grad school and work. Nothing “momentous” occurred in Mexico. Just lots of moments–moment after moment. Talking with Rebekah in the schoolroom. Trusting God for how to teach. Flirting with Berto (just the tiniest bit). Getting ice cream at the plaza when I had no idea what I was buying. Trying out my Spanish on some unsuspecting person. Teaching and being translated. Hugs and “hermanas”. The heat of the day and the cool of the night. Tunas from the peddler that goes door to door. Visitors daily, new people to meet. Girl talk. Dressing up to go out on the town.

I miss those moments. I miss Mexico. Maybe someday, I’ll go back.

Categories Rants, Reflections

If you have a problem with me, please talk to ME

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Apparently my clothing is an issue for certain women in our congregation. Unfortunately, they don’t tell me themselves, so I can’t really correct the situation.

I thought it somewhat unusual, but didn’t think much on it when the first words out of her mouth when I opened the door were “Oh, you’re still wearing that dress.” The comment registered as odd–I almost never change out of my church clothes on Sunday–but since I sometimes don’t know what to make of her, I just smiled.

Then as I was hustling everyone out the door so I could get to my study session, I commented that I was a bit overdressed for a study group. Mom concurred and asked some of the other ladies if they’d wear my dress to a study group. When she got to the one woman, she said “Of course, you wouldn’t wear that dress for anything.”

The lightbulb clicked on. Apparently, she had a problem with my dress. And apparently she vented it to my mom (and probably my dad and all my siblings, as well as her own children) on the way home from church.

Unfortunately, the one person she failed to talk to about it was me. So I have no idea what she found objectionable about my outfit and whether her complaint was valid. Since she still has a hard time putting off her scarves, I don’t have any guarantee that she isn’t just reacting out of the Islamic culture she’s still coming out of. But I don’t know for sure because she didn’t talk to me about it.

Was it that the dress was sleeveless? Or maybe the back was too low for her taste. Maybe she didn’t like that it was knee length. Maybe she doesn’t like the fact that I have curves, and nothing short of wearing a bag (which she does but I’m certainly not inclined to) could conceal them. Maybe she doesn’t like the color red. Or maybe it was a really legitimate complaint. Maybe you could see straight through the skirt because I wasn’t wearing a slip with it. Maybe my bra straps were showing in the back and it looked awful. But I don’t know if it was any of those things–or something else entirely–because she didn’t talk to me about it.

I’ve had this happen before, where someone complained to my mom about my clothing. Mom mentioned it to me later. That “correction” was hard to submit to because I was so hurt that this woman, with whom I have a fairly good relationship, would go to my mom instead of me with a complaint about my clothing. At least I know that she spoke to Mom about it privately.

This time, I’m not sure what to do. Do I ask Mom to clarify? Do I ignore the criticism since she didn’t come to me about it? Do I ask my brothers about what they heard? Or maybe I should ask my Dad. Do I seek to deal with whatever she had a problem with in the name of “not putting a stumbling block in a sister’s way”? Or should I even bother trying not to offend someone who’s gossipping about my clothes to my family behind my back?

Please, if you ever have an issue with my clothes–or anything else concerning me–come to ME. I can’t promise that I’ll immediately agree with what you say, that my pride won’t rise up and make me try to defend myself. But I can promise you that I’ll consider your correction, and pray about it, and attempt to work on it. I did when a sister mentioned her concerns about my inattentiveness while driving. I did when a brother pointed out that I was filling my plate too full. I want to grow, I want to receive rebuke. Just please, talk to ME.

Categories Reflections

Vision

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Sometimes I get so busy that I lose my vision. That’s when I find myself thrashing around wildly trying to accomplish something, only to realize that I really haven’t accomplished anything.

My vision is to glorify God by growing in daily relationship with Him, being conformed to the image of Christ; by growing in relationship with others, taking time to invest in their lives; and by growing as an individual, always learning and practicing what I’ve learned.

In summary, my vision is to Glorify God. My mission is to grow. My roles are to an image bearer, an ambassador, and a steward.

Growth (my mission) requires TIME and TRANSFORMATION. I must take time with God, cultivating conversation with Him–and I must be transformed through emulation and obedience. I must take time with others, cultivating heart to heart friendships–and I must be transformed through sharpening and being sharpened. I must take time for myself, cultivating my body, mind, and soul–and I must be transformed as I put into practice what I’ve learned and know to do.

I am an image-bearer.
“For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.” (Romans 8:29)
I am an ambassador.
“We are therfore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making His appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf. Be reconciled to God.” (2 Corinthians 5:20)
I am a steward.
“Moreover it is required in stewards that one be found faithful.” (I Corinthians 4:2)

Words stuck in the front of my notebook. Vision I lost sight of. I’m waiting for my eyes to adjust to the light. My heart yearns for the goal, but in the dark I’ve built obstacles to achieving that vision.

I slowly pick my way through the labyrinth. Glorify God. Grow. Image bearer, ambassador, steward. Fix my eyes on the vision. I see. Lord, shed light on my path.

Categories Thankful Thursday

Thankful Thursday

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I’m thankful–that some days I actually can get something accomplished!

Other than that, I’m thankful for (in no particular order):

  • Classes that don’t start until noon
  • Jode, our computer guy, who taught me how to install Lotus Notes at work (so I can actually get into my e-mail there–Yipee!)
  • A B on my first Food Chemistry exam (Have I mentioned that it’s been years since I last took a chemistry class?)
  • more apples from my parents’ tree
  • the worms that came in the mail today!
Categories Education

The Woman for the Job

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We received our internship assignments today. I, as student “G”, was assigned to Community Nutrition at the Health Department first, then to Management at Bryan East, then to Clinical at Madonna. I didn’t have any specific places I really wanted to go and I didn’t have any problems with where I’d been assigned, so I smiled, nodded, and didn’t think much of it. Then Dr. K said “I’ve assigned Rebekah and Zainab to Madonna because they’re going to be really busy with getting all the state and federal paperwork ready and all that, so they really need highly-motivated self-starters with some experience. They’re pretty much going to train you a couple of weeks and then for the rest of the rotation, you’ll just handle a normal caseload. So I thought Zainab and Rebekah would be good matches for that facility.”

I was certainly honored to be thus singled (doubled?) out among my peers, but what gave her the impression that I’m that good? I haven’t had a lot of interaction with Dr. K so far–I wasn’t a PeerNet student and I’m not one of her advisees. I met her twice before entering the program but didn’t really talk with her much. And even now, all she’s really seen of me is at our weekly meetings (and I don’t really feel that I’ve put forth my best side at those either.) So what makes her think that I’ll be qualified for such a thing?

Did I misrepresent myself somewhere on my application for the internship? Or maybe one of my references said more about me than I would say for myself. Or did my lengthy resume give the impression that I’m more experienced than I really am? I don’t know.

It’s not that I don’t think I can do it. I’ll study hard this semester and rise to the occasion. I’ll make Dr. K and the program proud. But why should I somehow be more qualified or experienced to jump into independent work in clinical dietetics than the rest of my classmates? That’s what I’m not sure about.

Well, one way or another, I have been chosen. So now, I have the opportunity to rise to the challenge. I now have even more impetus to practice my enteral and TPN calculations, to learn and memorize those lab values, to develop effective reference materials for myself. I have a reason (or more of a reason) to practice going through the nutrition care process and charting material. I now have even more of a reason to learn to speak (and read and write) medical terminology as second nature. Because I’m going to prove that I AM the woman for the job.