Learning and Growing: Health

This post/re-post is a resource list designed to aid in the education of women in homemaking and womanhood lines, particularly in keeping with the purpose of The Hope Chest. You can always find all of my resource lists in the sidebar.

I don't necessarily endorse these sites in their entirety. In fact, some of them I may not endorse at all! They are here because I believe they are useful for educational purposes.

Center for Science in the Public Interest ~ watchdog organization. New!

CSPI Canada New!

FDA (US Food and Drug Administration)  New!

Northern Lights Health Education ~ a few recipes and LOTS of good health information.

Three Angels Broadcasting Network ~ they have some healthy cooking shows. You can watch online or print the recipes.

Nutrient Database

The Ministry of Midwifery New!

Uchee Pines ~ Lifestyle Center, Training Programs, and Health Resources

WebMD  New!

United States Department of Health and Human Services New!

USDA.gov - United States Department of Agriculture New!

Meeting the April Motherhood Challenge, part 2

So, what am I doing for points #1 and #2. I don't know. It's always easier to just challenge other people and let oneself off. *smile* Let's see what I can do

#1 We can clean up our bodies. We may be clean on the outside but maybe not on the inside! We might have too much cholesterol, too much sugar in our blood, or a variety of toxins in our bodies, for example. Or we might have health conditions that could be reversed or completely removed from our bodies if we made some changes in our lifestyles.

Hmmm. . .
. . . Hmmm. This is hard! Nothing is jumping out at me. Oh, I thought of something . . . but I'm going to keep it to myself (that's certainly allowable!).

#2 We can clean up our habits or our lifestyle. We may need to change some of our habits that have put us into a diseased condition or are moving our bodies in that direction, or perhaps have made us physically weak. We may need to increase exercise and “clean out” inactivity from our life., for example.

Physical fitness. No question about this one!

I have been working in the garden nearly every day with good weather. My back is complaining a bit about the load I put on it forking weeds out of the ground. It will recover though, and, hopefully, get stronger.

I need to work, particularly, back strengthening and arm strengthening into my routine, whether through work or exercise. This is going to be a hard clean-up operation, I'm afraid, because, obviously, my ordinary routine, no matter how much physical work I'm doing, just isn't giving me the strength I need. You know what that means? CHANGE!

Meeting the April Motherhood Challenge

Specific things I'm doing . . .

For area #3 The Diet I'm eating more vegetables. As a vegetarian I eat plenty of vegetation but it is in the form of beans, grains, and grain products more often than it should be and in the form of fruits and veggies less often than it should be. I'm working on vegetables right now. I've been eat lots of cabbage lately!

For area #4 The Environment my focus has been fresh air. My brain and body work so much better when I get enough fresh air. Sometimes it's a bit hard to get to my bedroom windows to regulate the air flow (and I can't just leave them open because it isn't warm enough consistently yet). My project (which took me only a few seconds to do!) was to move some stuff that had fallen in the floor in front of one of my windows that was making it harder to get to the window to open and close it. Such a simple thing. lol Sometimes the things we need to do ARE simple.

Still need to do something for those other two areas before then end of the month.

Motherhood Challenge of the Month: April 2010

This month's motherhood challenge has to do with spring cleaning ~ spring cleaning our bodies, that is, or our physical health. The goal is to put our bodies in better health in order to make us better prepared for motherhood.

So how can we “spring clean” our physical health?

#1 We can clean up our bodies. We may be clean on the outside but maybe not on the inside! We might have too much cholesterol, too much sugar in our blood, or a virety of toxins in our bodies, for example. Or we might have health conditions that could be reversed or completely removed from our bodies if we made some changes in our lifestyles.

#2 We can clean up our habits or our lifestyle. We may need to change some of our habits that have put us into a diseased condition or are moving our bodies in that direction, or perhaps have made us physically weak. We may need to increase exercise and “clean out” inactivity from our life., for example.

#3 We can clean up our diet. That is, what we eat and drink, and how we eat and drink it. Can you think of any eating habits in your life that aren't exactly what they should be? Is it time to toss something out?

#4 We can clean up our environment. I don't mean “the environment” but our own personal environment: our home, the environment that surrounds the home in which we choose to live, and the places we choose to work and to go for whatever reason.

To meet this challenge:

Firstly, look at the above four points and brainstorm some ways in which you need to clean up for each separate area.

Secondly, make some research goals ~ several items you want to know more about or areas in which you want to learn more about what kind of cleaning up you might need to do. These goals should be planned for the next few months.

Thirdly, make some goals for how to continue to clean up after this challenge is over. Focus on one or two very high priority clean ups.

Fourthly, do at least one specific thing to spring clean your physical health in each of the four areas: your body, your lifestyle, your diet, and your environment.

Fifthly, please share what you have done (or a part of it) as well as some of the things you plan to do in the futu

Womanhood Challenge of the Month: March 2010

Choose to live healthfully, and particularly in what you eat and drink. 

Why? Here are a few reasons.

#1: Your body belongs to God. If you intentionally hurt it you are damaging God's property.

What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.

~ 1 Corinthians 6:19 and 20 

#2: It's your "reasonable service".

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
~Romans 12:1 

Notice it says living sacrifice. Not one your personal habits have made sickly and half dead. You may not have perfect health in this world, but give God your best.

#3: Thou shalt not murder. That includes yourself.

#4: Thou shalt not steal. When you abuse your body you rob your family of your service and maybe even yourself. You also rob God.

#5 A lifestyle of self-gratification is degrading to womanhood. Satisfying one's wants is a good thing, within reason. Making the satisfaction of one's desires paramount is disgraceful and beneath the dignity of a true woman of God.

#6 The results of an unhealthful lifestyle interfere with a woman's ability to do what she has been called to do.

The challenge? 

Choose to live a healthful lifestyle. For God. For your family. For yourself. For your future family.

In particular, choose to eat and drink healthfully.

Do something this month to improve your eating and drinking habits.

Do something this month to set the stage for further improvement, or for the maintenance of good health practices, in eating and drinking.

Share what you are doing to meet the challenge. You may share here or leave directions to your blog posts.

About Cooking . . .

There are but a few things on which health, and happiness depend more than on the manner in which food is cooked. You may make houses enchantingly beautiful, hang them with pictures, have them clean and airy and convenient; but if the stomach is fed with sour bread and burnt meats, it will raise such rebellions that the eyes will see no beauty anywhere. The abundance of splendid material we have in America is in great contrast with the style of cooking most prevalent in our country. How often, in journeys, do we sit down to tables loaded with material, originally of the very best kind, [which] has been so spoiled in the treatment that there is really nothing to eat! . . . . How one longs to show people what might have been done with the raw material out of which all these monstrosities were concocted!

By Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
American Woman's Home: or, Principles of Domestic Science; Being a Guide to the Formation and Maintenance of Economical, Healthful, Beautiful, and Christian Homes, chapter 7, Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe.

Knowledge of the Human Body and of the Laws of Health is Essential

There is no really efficacious mode of preparing a woman to take a rational care of the health of a family, except by communicating that knowledge in regard to the construction of the body and the laws of health which is the basis of the medical profession. Not that a woman should undertake the minute and extensive investigation requisite for a physician; but she should gain a general knowledge of first principles, as a guide to her judgment in emergencies when she can rely on no other aid.

American Woman's Home: or, Principles of Domestic Science; Being a Guide to the Formation and Maintenance of Economical, Healthful, Beautiful, and Christian Homes, chapter 7, Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe.

The Role of the Cook

The person who decides what shall be the food and drink of a family, and the modes of its preparation, is the one who decides, to a greater or less extent, what shall be the health of that family. It is the opinion of most medical men, that intemperance in eating is one of the most fruitful of all causes of disease and death. If this be so, the woman who wisely adapts the food and cooking of her family to the laws of health removes one of the greatest risks which threatens the lives of those under her care.

American Woman's Home: or, Principles of Domestic Science; Being a Guide to the Formation and Maintenance of Economical, Healthful, Beautiful, and Christian Homes, chapter 9, Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe.