Less is Many Times More Effective
Less is Many Times More Effective
I have found that my posts from previous years are periodically posted and recycled. My writing has evolved over the years, and I have found that less is many times more effective – however, I must add words to meet the minimum count – so much has changed in our media world.
Seventy-Eight Years on Earth
This is the final chapter in learning what is best for my body. I take myself in hand and subject myself to do my best to regain all my flexibility and live my end years vigorously and productively. I was never the child to be daunted by size or sex. This has been my way throughout life.
Now that I have arrived at the autumn of my life, the major problem that has plagued me for twenty-nine years has been tamed, and I will endeavor to keep it subdued.
My profile has changed as I have again added poetry into my line of writing and expanded into short stories in most genres.
It has been six and a half years since my first husband went on to be with God. My transition started, and somewhere in a medical file I read, the body renewed itself in seven years. We are constantly sluffing off dead cells eaten by microbial gatherers. And the cells within our body, if appropriately fed, continue renewing themselves. In that is hope, as my body is ridding itself of all the trauma it had heaped throughout the adult years.
Healthy Elderhood
Overcoming is the name of the game if we are to see ourselves in a healthy elderhood. Most active people look around, wondering how I got here so fast. If we look back, our lives were jammed full of activities. Each moment was spent in doing, very few in watching others do. And in that, regrets are few.
I have been chronicling my walk back into wellness, learning to treat my body as the holy vehicle in which I was sent to earth to learn.
For years, I was overly busy burning the candle on both ends, hoping the middle would stay intact. I obviously had divine intervention in my carelessness to pick me upright and push me forward. Four hours of sleep, nor even six hours, is adequate for our bodies to run effectively, and now that I get eight, sometimes a bit more, my brain is more efficient.
I will concede I keep losing my glasses, but they are lightweight and, when put down, seem to melt into the holding area, so now I put them in a general place, and I know where they are.
Elemental Diet
My food choices are healthy, and I eat more of an elemental diet without additives other than spices. I eat homemade bread without yeast. And cheese is a treat no longer a staple.
I had gained forty-five pounds in the last five years of Paul’s life, but a total of sixty-five started when I became Paul’s full-time caregiver and advocate at the VA, and that was eighteen years ago – we were constantly on the go to doctors who added rather than subtracted chemicals, which eventually led to his
hospitalization, then rehabbed, which led to hospice and death.
During that time, I ate food at gas station stops or fast foods and allowed sugar back into my diet – not a lot consciously, but in fast foods, there is sugar and salt content that will stagger and cause much damage to the body. I was too bereaved to eat at his death – again, a bad thing for our bodies. When we do not eat unless we go into a deliberate fasting mode, the body says to hold on to anything we get. They are starving us. I had already been at one hundred and sixty pounds, so packing another sixty-five was terrible news. Not eating was bad news.
Coping with Grief
While walking through the grief, I had some horrible and wonderful friends in the media world. The wonderful ones are still in my life. Several loved to cook, and I started to make meals with my spices and better food choices, but I still needed to clear the diet of all albeit healthy food, which was not for me.
Having thirty-eight lymph nodes removed during two bouts of cancer left Lymphedema behind. And in that, I had to understand that a particular meat or vegetable is a healthy choice but has too much purine for my body to handle. And, of course, they were all my favorites.
However, my life has been one of letting go if I was faced with a no choice or a continued horror story if I persisted. So, all my favorites are on my no-eat list. Period. No fudging on once a week or, month or year. I watch others eat, and that is as close as I get. God has provided such an array of food I can eat that I am never hungry.
I have lost One Hundred and eleven pounds, but I still have some fat Lymphedema deposits, which I need to exercise. But I am happy to say the Lymphedema is under control after my conventional doctors told me to learn to live with it. One does not learn to live with gout in happiness.
