Postcards from the Funny Farm

This is a guest post by Chelle from It Might Be Love.

It’s pretty easy to find yourself completely overwhelmed with a seemingly never ending to-do list. We’ve all been there at some point or another, and many of us are there most of the time. I probably have at least 2 or 3 dozen things I “have to do” on any given day.

The other day I was at my “That’s it! I’ve had it!” point. I was yelling at the kids for no good reason and complaining to my husband about everything. There were a million things I had to do and no time to do anything I wanted to do. I was having one of those terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day kind of days.

That’s when my husband reminded me of something very important: You don’t have to.

Those 4 little words couldn’t be more true. What could be so important that you absolutely HAVE to do it? The dishes will stay in the sink. The laundry will wait. The kids will not suffer any severe nutritional consequences if you let them eat ice cream for dinner. You can cancel your morning appointments. You can call in “sick” or skip out of work early. You could quit your job and find a new one. You could pack up and leave for the Bahamas tomorrow and never look back if you really wanted to. Life still goes on.

Our lives are filled with thousands of things we can do and choices for us to make each and every day. No one is standing there with a proverbial gun forcing you to to do anything. Doing (or not doing) things like chores or errands or going to work on time are not typically life and death stituations for most of us.

We spend so much time thinking about the things we “have to do” we get sidetracked from the good parts of life: enjoying a favorite hobby, visiting with an old friend, watching a sunset, fulfilling our dreams. Think of how many times you’ve thought to yourself “I wish I had more time for this” or “I would love to do this more or that more.” We blame everything and everyone else for why we can’t do the things we love. We convince ourselves that it’s everyone else’s fault our dreams and hopes and wishes never become a reality.

Ironically it’s NOT everyone else’s fault. We are ultimately the ones in control of what we do and don’t do. For some reason we create our own invisible expectations for ourselves. We become people pleasers. We feel guilty about doing the things we enjoy. And we inevitably miss out on the important things that actually make life worthwhile.

So next time you find yourself stressed out and overwhelmed by all the things you think you have to do, just remember: You don’t have to. You are in control of what you do and don’t do. As Damien would say take your troubles and Push them to the sidebar of life.

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The blogger from In Good Taste asked me to write a guest blog for his clean and impressive Wordpress.com blog. It was no stretch with Sarah’s help. She does a lot of recipe/nutrition type stuff on her blog. Anyway, together we made a pretty good presentation (if I do say so myself). If you are interested in reading my guest blog “recipe” there, the url is linked below:

url: ingoodtaste.wordpress.com/2008/03/25/healthy-tasty...

If you are interested in having me guestblog for your blog for free, read the page explaining the process and contact me. Thanks! I hope to hear from you. Guest blogging is a fun and great way to assist bloggers in practicing writing, networking, and affiliate marketing.

My wife has been telling me for the longest time I need to drink less soda. She’s right, but I didn’t come to see that until I did a little research on the health effects of soda on the body. Remember this lovely ad I posted a few months ago as a joke? Well now that I’ve educated myself it’s funny for a different reason … irony.

You can read the many pages about this topic I bookmarked on de.licio.us, I couldn’t summarize everything here, but to put it all in a few words, here are my findings:

Many sodas, diet and sugared, contains needless “phosphorous.” In excess, this has been shown to cause side effects in people. There is nothing nutritional in sodas: caffeine, sugar, carbonation, phosphorous and other chemicals all serve to cloak a very acidic quality. In other words, you don’t know how sugary it is because of the acids and the acids are cloaked due to the excessive sugars. In short, you’re better off drinking water.

Another detractor I read about was the tooth decay caused by sodas. One article said it starts 8 hours after drinking a soda. Wow. Think about how many sodas you’ve drank through years. How are your teeth going to treat you when you’re older? Does this image tempt you as much now? But let’s chat a bit more …

I’ll leave you with a blockquote from the nutrition research center. Suffice it to say, I’m not drinking much soda any more.

When somebody drinks a Coke watch what happens…

• In The First 10 minutes: 10 teaspoons of sugar hit your system. (100% of your recommended daily intake.) You don’t immediately vomit from the overwhelming sweetness because phosphoric acid cuts the flavor allowing you to keep it down.
• 20 minutes: Your blood sugar spikes, causing an insulin burst. Your liver responds to this by turning any sugar it can get its hands on into fat. (There’s plenty of that at this particular moment)
• 40 minutes: Caffeine absorption is complete. Your pupils dilate, your blood pressure rises, as a response your livers dumps more sugar into your bloodstream. The adenosine receptors in your brain are now blocked preventing drowsiness.
• 45 minutes: Your body ups your dopamine production stimulating the pleasure centers of your brain. This is physically the same way heroin works, by the way.
• >60 minutes: The phosphoric acid binds calcium, magnesium and zinc in your lower intestine, providing a further boost in metabolism. This is compounded by high doses of sugar and artificial sweeteners also increasing the urinary excretion of calcium.
• >60 Minutes: The caffeine’s diuretic properties come into play. (It makes you have to pee.) It is now assured that you’ll evacuate the bonded calcium, magnesium and zinc that was headed to your bones as well as sodium, electrolyte and water.
• >60 minutes: As the rave inside of you dies down you’ll start to have a sugar crash. You may become irritable and/or sluggish. You’ve also now, literally, pissed away all the water that was in the Coke. But not before infusing it with valuable nutrients your body could have used for things like even having the ability to hydrate your system or build strong bones and teeth.

What do you make of my recent “soda epiphany?”