Domestic Geek

I had planned to do this post about the dangers of artificial sweeteners such as Nutrasweet and Equal, but I am finding opinions, not facts. From my own personal experience, anything with "fake" sweeteners gives me a pounding headache.

If you really want to be healthy, you need to stop putting artificial and chemically modified substances in your body.

Along the same lines of putting your needs first, find a hobby that interests you and really take time to enjoy it. Better yet, make sure it's something that your spouse or SO (significant other) is NOT interested in. Everyone needs private "me time" and sharing all the same interests as your partner is not healthy.

When you're doing your hobby, though, don't get hung up with perfectionism. This is supposed to be something fun, not another chore that will add more stress to your life. Life is too short to just work and live up to your responsibilities. This should be an activity that will blow off some steam and make life worth living.

I totally would not have thought about this topic, but Marisa reminded me of how having toxic people and toxic relationships in our lives can be extremely detrimental to our physical and mental wellbeing. It makes sense since I already wrote about how stress negatively affects our health.

Just like the Dementors in the Harry Potter series, negative/angry people suck the life right out of you. They are miserable so they do everything in their power to bring everyone else down with them. If you're really set on living a healthy life, keep these type of people out of your life.

*Only 4 more hours and I can crawl into bed. Yay!!!!

If you've heard anything at all about The Secret (watched the dvd, saw it on Oprah, etc.), you know that what you think about and dwell on manifests in your life. If you are constantly thinking or worrying about illness, you'll get sick. If you obsess over being fat, you'll stay fat. If you're like me and have lived an extremely unhealthy lifestyle, concentrating on past acts that you can not change will not bring new results in the future. I wrote in the last post about using your mind to keep it sharp, but there is so much more to the power of our brains that we just don't yet understand. To really begin to live a healthy lifestyle, you have to change your thinking or you'll continue to be as you are right now.

OK, one more and I'm moving on to a different subject matter.

The body needs iron to make the oxygen-carrying proteins hemoglobin (found in red blood cells) and myoglobin (found in muscles). Iron also makes up part of many proteins in the body. Iron from meat and egg sources seem to be the best for the body as it can be absorbed more readily, however, you can get it from dried fruits, vegetables, greens and grains, too.

While the body can store some iron, the symptoms of iron deficiency anemia are lack of energy, shortness of breath, headache, irritability, dizziness or weight loss.

As I wrote earlier, you also need vitamin C in your diet to be able to absorb iron properly.