15 Musts of Exercise Prosperity

Because I'm so happy with my results of exercising consistently for the past 11+ months, I decided to share my 15 musts (thoughts) that create exercise prosperity in our lives! :)

1. When we're wholeheartedly committed to exercising consistently, we must create an exercise plan, environment and lifestyle that allow us to be successful. We must pick the types of exercise we know we will continue throughout our lives. (See number 11 for clarification.) We must schedule exercising into our calendars and view that time as especially important! We must not let any calendar item get in the way of our exercising! Okay, urgent or emergency situations obviously take precedence over exercising—but if it's not truly urgent, we must do whatever it takes to keep our exercise appointments!

2. We must daily acknowledge that having a healthy body is vital to our life missions! Everything we do in life is made possible by our bodies! Thus, we must keep our attitudes happy towards exercise. :) Exercising our precious bodies must be a top priority!

3. We must drink a lot of water! I'm sure you've heard way too much about the importance of drinking water, so I won't bore you. But I must share that when I drink a lot of water daily, I have more energy, improved brainpower, and my muscles are less sore. The best way I've found to get enough water is by drinking a large tumbler (16 ounces) of water every time I finish using the bathroom. That might be TMI, but it totally works for me and my body is healthier because of that wonderful habit!

4. When beginning an exercise program, we must take it slow and easy. Don't overdo it, but don't be a wimp, either! :) We simply need to consistently exercise, no matter what. Then, when our bodies have become used to our beginner-level exercising, it's time to ramp up our efforts! We can continue ramping up our exercise routines for as long as our body can take it...but again, we mustn't overdo it.

5. We must get a good amount of sleep every night, so our bodies can recover, repair and improve themselves. Without adequate sleep, our bodies are depleted of energy, become rundown, and risk injury or illness. Don't ever skimp on sleep! Plus, if we get enough sleep, we'll look younger, too...yippee!

*For more information on the vast importance of sleep, please watch Dr. Sanjay Gupta's CNN video "How important is a good night's sleep?"—it's amazing!!

6. We must never become discouraged with our exercise progress. It's true that some people progress in their fitness goals more quickly than others. We must remember that creating our best bodies takes patience, diligence, consistency and time! If we can internalize that exercising our bodies is a lifetime journey, we'll be much happier and more patient with ourselves. We could look at exercising in the same way as eating: we must do it consistently, otherwise we'll become unhealthy and eventually die! Although, one of those scenarios would obviously cause death more quickly than the other. ;)

7. We must not burn ourselves out by exercising intensely six to seven days per week. If we want to train really hard, three to four times per week will suffice. Unless we're professional athletes or fitness trainers, taking a break every other day really is okay! Don't believe me? I'll be writing another post in the future to sustain my stance.

8. We must walk. Walking is so good for our bodies and minds, it can't hurt us if we walk for exercise every day of the week! That said, I don't recommend walking long distances in addition to intense training/exercising on the same day—unless it's absolutely necessary...or you're superhuman. ;)

9. We must do whatever it takes (within reason!) to not become bored with exercising! Randomness in exercising, i.e., mixing it up, is essential to achieving our fitness goals. But at the end of the day, just like we might not enjoy the monotony of repeatedly cleaning bathrooms, exercising must be done no matter how we choose to do it!

10. Our first and paramount exercise goal must be "I want my body to be fit and healthy for life!"—not just for 90 days, or until the next 10k! Don't get me wrong, for it's very good to have short-term fitness goals, but we must fully internalize that we will never be done exercising—just like our laundry piles will never completely disappear as long as we are alive! ;) Creating a healthy body is a never-ending, priceless endeavor!

11. We must utilize the types of exercise that bring us joy and keep us healthy, and not compare ourselves to anyone else! If we have medical conditions that prevent us from exercising at the same level as someone else, we must not let their amazing feats defeat us! Similarly, we don't know what health issues others have, so we also should not judge their exercising habits. :)

*I, for example, have hypothyroidism. If I over-exercise, or don't get enough sleep, my body doesn't do well, and it takes me a day or two to recover. (It can sometimes take longer depending on what else I have going on in my life at the time.) I attribute this annoyance to the fact that my body simply can't make more thyroid hormone whenever it needs it; I have to wait for my thyroid hormone to be replenished through a daily pill. If my body's need for thyroid hormone exceeds what it has in reserves, I pay the price for my actions and I'm left with exhaustion. :( (Medical professionals might disagree with me based on studies, etc., but I live with my body's issues every day and this is totally what happens to me!) That sad fact bothers me, but I've come to accept it as my unfortunate truth—I've learned to work around it and live with it. Yes, even though I dearly wish I could exercise intensely every day (I love exercising!), I know my body's annoying limits. I take breaks when I've overdone it, and I don't feel guilty about resting if the need arises! :)

12. We must listen to our bodies! If we're injured or feeling ill, we should lighten or eliminate our exercise routines until we've fully recovered. Believe me, it's not worth pushing through the pain and/or exhaustion—and possibly injuring or sickening ourselves further—just to save face! Bottom line? We must take good care of ourselves in every way possible, and that includes resting when needed.

13. We must not ever get caught up in the numbers on a scale! Instead, we must pay attention to the following numbers:

• our heart rates—which indicate if our hearts are getting stronger (Yeah yeah!)
• how many repetitions we can do of any particular exercise—which also indicates our increasing strength
• the amount of weight with which we are able to perform any exercise, i.e., higher equals better/stronger (as long as it isn't too heavy)
• our bodies' inches—are they diminishing (at the waist) and expanding appropriately (arm, leg, chest and back muscles)
• the length of time we're able to exercise—again, longer equals stronger and healthier
• how many days/months/years we've been consistently exercising—the more time that passes, the healthier our bodies become

14. We must never feel like failures if we stop exercising for a time. Remember? I don't believe in failure, I believe in choices! We just need to start exercising again whenever and wherever we can. :) Besides, the past is in the past! As we learned from Rafiki in "The Lion King," we can either run from the past, or learn from it. Yet in regard to being fit, we should do both learning and running! Ha ha.

15. We must always remember how magnificent we feel after exercising! There will most likely be days when we won't want to exercise, but we must push through whatever is keeping us from working out and just do it! :) The wonderful mental health benefits of exercise have been proven time and again—we literally become happier and less anxious when we exercise! And I'm pretty sure everyone wants to feel triumphant every day of their lives!

Long story short: exercising makes me feel awesome, and I simply want everyone to join in my fun! :) I am living proof (from my exercising experiences) that my 15 musts really do work! If we keep our exercise mindsets continually positive, we'll absolutely be healthier in every way possible! Additionally, we can handle life so much better when we're healthy and fit—regardless of what's thrown our way! :)

How Safe is Your Food? How Clean is Your Kitchen?

Tonight I went on a Google Quest (I coined that phrase! As far as I can Google, no one else has said it previously! Yeah yeah!) because I wondered if my chrome shelving unit in my kitchen was safe for storing dry, canned, or packaged foods.

You see, my lovely 70s kitchen doesn't have enough cabinets to store all of my dishes, small appliances and food. Plus, we don't currently have the funds to redo our entire kitchen, so I lined one of my kitchen walls with two chrome shelving units. One is wide, one is very skinny! They're your basic Target-brand chrome shelves (I totally love them!), but they aren't NSF-certified. Thus, I wondered if there is a safety issue in storing my family's food on them??

These are not my shelves, this is a Target photo. My shelves are jam-packed with a lot of food and a few miscellaneous kitchen items. :)

As you might guess, I'm a little nervous when it comes to food safety. I'm already very concerned about avoiding gluten cross-contact, so I didn't want to add to my family's food problems with metal-shelving-contamination too! Ha ha. Thankfully, when I did umpteen Google searches of chrome-shelving-safety, I couldn't find anything on the dangers of using non-NSF-certified chrome shelving units. Yay for that good news! :)

After researching, I've come to the conclusion that it's okay to store dry/canned/packaged goods on metal shelving units as long as they aren't rusted or corroding. I'm guessing it's okay to make your own shelving units out of wood, as well. By the way, be sure not to store any chemicals on your food shelves or anywhere near your food. (*Please don't sue me for my statement if something goes wrong with your food storage—I'm not an expert. If someone else knows of information about this topic, please share.)

All of that said, I will state that I absolutely feel it's best to use NSF-certified shelves if you can. I was just curious about the safety of my chrome shelves that didn't have the nifty NSF stamp on them—did I need to buy new NSF-certified ones? I'm really happy I don't have to buy new shelves, or transfer all of our stuff onto said new shelves! Whew!

While perusing many documents I found on food storage safety, I came across a gem of a jewel! This 97-page PDF, "food PROTECTION TRAINING MANUAL", is authored by New York City's Department of Mental Health and Hygeine. Here's its opening paragraph,

The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene has the jurisdiction to regulate all matters affecting health in the city and to perform all those functions and operations that relate to the health of the people of the city.

I read most of the manual (I couldn't help myself, I wanted to know more about food safety!), but skimmed some parts of it. Granted, this manual is for commercial/public food establishments, but the PDF shares great tips for keeping all kitchens and food storage areas clean and free of unwanted problems—which ultimately leads to safe food and healthy people. Thus, I had to share—and I highly recommend reading it! :)

I think every kitchen (and food storage area) in America should be as clean and safe as any public food establishment in New York City—ready to be inspected by employees of The Inspector General's office at any moment! Ha ha. But really, if we expect restaurants, cafes, diners, food trucks, grocery stores, etc., to be so clean and safe, why would we expect anything less from our own homes?! I mean, most Americans spend more time eating at home than anywhere else! Well, maybe not everyone. I'm assuming a lot of people eat-out for most of their meals. Because of my children's celiac disease, my family eats 99% of our meals at home—or when we do eat away from home, our food is from our kitchen.

Full disclosure? When I wrote that previous paragraph, I was totally thinking of myself. Yes, my kitchen has been known to hold dirty dishes for a few days in a row. Don't get me wrong, I'm so completely safe when it comes to food preparation (and my dishes are always perfectly clean when preparing food), but kitchen cleanup is a different story. (See my post "Downton Adrie" for illumination.)

I can pinpoint the cause of my kitchen-cleanup habit back to when I was working through hypothyroidism after my daughter was born. I was simply too exhausted to finish the dishes after making dinner. I would get around to doing the dishes when I finally found the energy. Throw in the fact that, at one point, my husband and I had three children ages four and under, and we moved 11 times in 16 years of marriage, and you have neglected dishes in our kitchen. And it became a habit.

Don't blame my husband for our dirty dishes problem, either. For he was busy working 10-14 hour days and getting his Master's degree (he almost finished), and then his MBA (he graduated)! He did the dishes whenever he could. Yes, we were busy and worn out!

These days, our kitchen is much improved! :) It's clean more often than not. Yay us! But, would it be ready at a moment's notice if The Inspector General knocked on our door? Not always. Thus, I'm going to make a concerted effort to clean our kitchen after every meal. I refuse to have OCD tendencies about it because I know there are times when life happens and the dishes will simply need to remain dirty for a while, but I will do better. :)

Lastly, here's another great article on food safety "Safe Food Handling Fact Sheets" by the United States Department of Agriculture, Food Safety and Inspection Service. It has numerous PDFs that will pretty much answer any question you might have about food safety.

The good news is, I'll continue being thrilled with my space-saving happy-shiny Target shelves! I'm relieved knowing I'll sleep soundly tonight, for I won't worry one little bit about my family's food safety! :)

Super Strong Souls

Two of my favorite scripture verses are found in 1st Corinthians 6:19-20. I love reading those verses so much that I decided to create my own typographic design of them. Yes, I've been doing a lot of creating lately—I can't seem to get enough of the designing process! :)

I've always loved this scripture, but I have come to love it even more over the years as I, and the people I love, have struggled with various physical ailments.

I sincerely try not to get frustrated when I watch other people disregard the sacred nature of their bodies, but I admit it's hard for me to do. It's one of my biggest pet-peeves to see someone take their special body for granted and treat it poorly.

Do I perfectly treat my body like the sacred, heavenly temple that it is? No, I don't. But I truly try my best every day. (And now that my basement is completely unpacked and organized {Hip hip hooray!!!}, I'm absolutely going to get back on a regular exercising schedule. Seriously, I feel so happy now that my house is totally organized after our big move! Hey, it only took nearly seven months to finish, but now I'm done! Wait, back up. Actually, I need to hang pictures on the walls and go through our paperwork so we're ready to file our taxes, but everything else is complete—which feels unbelievably great!!!)

But you see, I know what it feels like to be ill for a long period of time. I know what it feels like to live inside a body that isn't able to do everything I want it to do. I have hypothyroidism that was difficult to deal with for nine years. I thought my body's hypothyroid state was just the way I was going to live the rest of my life...until I moved to Texas. Thankfully, through speaking with four wonderful souls (two Texans, two Utahns) who convinced me it was safe to do, I switched medications and feel so much better than I used to. I'm now on the fantastic Armour Thyroid and can't live without it!

Still, I will never forget those feelings of extreme fatigue, lethargy, brain fog, cold hands and feet, brittle hair/nails, and numerous other side effects of an under-treated thyroid—even though blood tests always showed my thyroid levels were in the correct range. I still occasionally feel those feelings if I've done too much in one day (because my body can't just make thyroid hormone—I have to wait for a pill to replenish my reserves), but I never want to experience those feelings on a regular basis ever again! And now that my body feels so much better, I have that much more of an intense desire to take good care of the temple that I have been given. :)

I remember a great scene from the epic movie "Out Of Africa" where Meryl Streep's character said to Robert Redford's character, "I've paid a price for all I own."

He replied, "What is it exactly that's yours?"

She didn't respond, so he followed up with,

"We're not owners here...we're just passing through."

I fully agree with his statement! I think so many of us forget (it's easy to do) that e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g. on this earth belongs to our Heavenly Father (God)—including our own bodies. I also happen to wholeheartedly believe what The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints teaches: that one day our spirits and our deceased bodies will be reunited in a glorious resurrection.

Thus, I feel like doing whatever I can to "glorify God in my body and spirit," because I truly belong to Him. And I will never forget that I was "bought with a price" through our Savior, Jesus Christ. How could I ever take advantage of His wonderful gift? No, I could never take advantage of His sacrifice because that would be like slapping His face. Yes, I want to spend my days following the promptings, inspirations, and revelations of the Holy Ghost—for He tells us what our Savior and Heavenly Father desire for each of us to do with our lives...all we have to do is listen to Him.

Indeed, I want to show Heavenly Father that I've been a good steward of the gift He's given me on Earth. :)

I feel that one of the best ways we can glorify our Heavenly Father is by never ingesting anything into our precious bodies that would interfere with our spirits and our bodies coming together as one. Obviously, there are endless products available in our world like alcohol, drugs, tobacco, caffeine, even excessive amounts of refined sugars and overly processed foods, etc.—that totally hinder our spirits' abilities to connect with our bodies in the way our Heavenly Father intended. I also refer to those vices as masks. I think those worldly products mask our bodies' functions to the point that our spirits are held captive—then our spirits are unable to control the body in the way they were designed to.

Additionally, it would be wonderful if all of us were exercising regularly, sleeping well as often as possible, and not participating in activities that would be detrimental to our souls.

Basically, I believe all of us should really study and pray about what is best for our bodies. Then, we should only do those things which will aid in our spirits' abilities to connect with our bodies—so we become super strong souls! If our spirits are fully able to connect with and control our bodies, then we are capable of fulfilling our special missions on Earth. And each of us truly has a special mission to fulfill before we leave this earthly life!

Lastly, I included the cute little bird in my typographic design to illustrate the fact that—as the scriptures state in Luke 12: 6-7—every sparrow is important to our Heavenly Father, and yet we have more value than many sparrows! :) Also, when we take good care of our bodies, we are free from the problems and addictions that could afflict us. Thus, we become free as a bird! :)

I know to some people my views may seem too idealistic, but I truly believe what I've written. I hope everyone can see the eternal value of their precious bodies and treat them like the beautiful temples that they are!