Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Healthy Footprints

I mentioned a while ago that I subscribe to a magazine on a monthly basis which I plan to discontinue when my subscription runs out. The magazine is Good Health because I'm a sucker for all things health related. When our crappy Sunday paper, The Sunday Mail - which we buy for the TV guide - arrives I grab the "Body & Soul" section to read all the articles on health. My passion is nutrition. If I'd only been able to understand Physiology I'd be a Nutritionist now.

When I was reading the articles in "Body & Soul" the other day and rehashed, yet again, what are the right foods to eat and how much one should be exercising on a daily basis, it occurred to me that Footprints goes a long way towards putting us on the right track.

The more highly packaged and processed a food is, the more likely it is to be manufactured by a large multi-national company. In fact, the best way to buy food for Footprints is to buy as locally, as fresh and as unprocessed as possible. It just so happens that buying food that way is helpful in preventing us buying unhealthy foods, as well. Furthermore, we try not to buy foods which are overly packaged. Therefore, we tend to fill our pantry with staple foods instead of processed food. Husband and I visit a naturopath regularly and I don't think it's an accident that, since we've been doing this, our health has shown visible improvement.

Exercise is an area where we tend to let ourselves down. In theory, Footprints is also good for that. In theory, we should be walking and taking public transport much more than we're doing. Husband has been working hard in the veggie patch and getting out there and planting, pruning and weeding. It's a gentle form of exercise but a movement he wasn't getting before. It all adds up.

Chag Sameach and Happy Easter.

1 comment:

  1. Other benefits of gardening, apart from the physical exertion and burning of calories are sunlight exposure...not too much that you get burnt, but enough to get vitamin D - vital for metabolising calcium (especially important for osteoporosis prevention and for growing teens to build up their "bone bank") as well as other essential functions. Sunlight exposure and exercise help to minimise depression as they stimulates the release of "happy chemicals" in the brain and body and help to regulate sleep patterns.
    I am a huge fan of gardening as an "all-rounder" for healthy living.
    Wishing you lots of encouragement and motivation to keep on your good ('garden')path to better health.

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