AN APPLE A DAY - 365
DAYS TO A HEALTHIER LIFESTYLE.
(Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf)
(Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf)
Today gives birth to a new
section of my blog. In case you haven’t
noticed there are many varied sections that I blog about according to the day's subject
content. The most popular section has
been COME AS A CHILD ( An every Thursday blog of walking through the bible –
we are now in Exodus), but I also have sections called SEASONS (about Holidays and Holy Days), THE HOUSE DOCTOR (about making a house a
home), OH THE PLACES WE WILL GO (Travel Articles), FOOD FUN (Recipes and
cooking tips), PEN ART (Poetry and Short Stories, both by me and other guests
to the blog, also articles of literary interest), AND PIECES OF THE PUZZLE
(Theology). Now I’m adding AN APPLE A
DAY! This section will be about maintaining a
healthy lifestyle. I hope you find it
helpful, interesting and inspiring. I’ve
enjoyed doing the research for it. Of
course there is a story to tell about how the idea all started:
Every year I try to
make an offering to God for the year I’m living through. I guess it is very similar to the way some people observe
Lent; only I make mine in relation to the day of the Offering of First Fruits
which was originally given by the ancient people of God before they partook of their
harvest each year. It is a sincere self-imposed offering to God
that I try to consciously keep throughout the year. I have been surprised to find that this, like
most offerings, has taught me the truth of the fact that it is more blessed to
give than to receive.
I really do think
God requested that we bring offerings to Him in order to teach us about life. He really needs nothing; except our
hearts. It is through the desire of our
heart to please Him that we bring of our best. Through the things that I pray about and agree to do with
God, I am able to learn and grow, so much more than in the years that this thought
of the first fruits offering never even crossed my mind as something I wanted to
do.
In pondering the story of Cain and Abel, I’ve set standards for myself for doing this. The offering needs to be something that changes my lifestyle, something which would show my sincerity to draw closer to God by reaching for more of Him and His ways and less of me, something that would cause me to become a better person. I might pick something that I have neglected and try to improve it; or I might pick an area that I’m talented in and offer to share it; or I might find something that I can do without and try to give it away. No year is the same; each year is different, and I pray for God to show me what He most desires from me for the current year that I am living through.
In pondering the story of Cain and Abel, I’ve set standards for myself for doing this. The offering needs to be something that changes my lifestyle, something which would show my sincerity to draw closer to God by reaching for more of Him and His ways and less of me, something that would cause me to become a better person. I might pick something that I have neglected and try to improve it; or I might pick an area that I’m talented in and offer to share it; or I might find something that I can do without and try to give it away. No year is the same; each year is different, and I pray for God to show me what He most desires from me for the current year that I am living through.
I can’t tell you
how this simple process has totally changed my life. Things that I could never achieve on my own
have become possible, even simple and easy after I consciously made them an
offering to God and just followed through with prayer and offered my best.
One year this offering was about making my home a place of peace and love; a daily sanctuary. One year was about renewing relationships with old friends and many people I had lost touch with or long forgotten. One year was about using the talent God has given me to write for His glory. You get the picture.
Usually the inspiration for my offering comes from random scriptures that God places on my heart as I study and contemplate His word. This year was no exception. One day I was reading a scripture that I had heard a million times before; but it suddenly felt all new to me for some reason. I began to ponder the words deeper and to study the different meanings of that scripture.
One year this offering was about making my home a place of peace and love; a daily sanctuary. One year was about renewing relationships with old friends and many people I had lost touch with or long forgotten. One year was about using the talent God has given me to write for His glory. You get the picture.
Usually the inspiration for my offering comes from random scriptures that God places on my heart as I study and contemplate His word. This year was no exception. One day I was reading a scripture that I had heard a million times before; but it suddenly felt all new to me for some reason. I began to ponder the words deeper and to study the different meanings of that scripture.
The scripture I’m
speaking about is found in 1 Corinthians 6:19; “Or do you not know that your
body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God,
and you are not your own?”
Suddenly it really hit home with me that I was walking around and breathing in a body from which God’s Holy Spirit resided. My body no longer belonged to me; but it belonged to God! I felt sure I had to take better care of it!
I thought of all the things that I did in a typical day, and pondered just where my physical body was carrying this Holy Spirit of God as I went about my daily business. Suddenly I was questioning just how much respect, reverence and attention I was giving to the fact that I was never alone! God’s Spirit was living inside my body! It was like getting hit by lightening, and maybe even similar to what it must feel like when you first find out you are pregnant. Nothing is ever the same again! All things are different from that moment of realization.
I was awakened to a whole new sense of awareness. I was suddenly so much more conscious, and so much more aware of what I did and said. I was embarrassed and ashamed of many of the scenes that my mind remembered from the past, where I did not regard the fact that God’s Presence had been right there among everything that I was doing every day of my life. I had to have a whole huge prayer session full of confession.
Then my eyes were opened even a little wider.
It was as if God was saying to me “Begin to pay attention to what you do and what you eat. Everything you put into your body and everything you do with your body affects something about your life.”
Suddenly it really hit home with me that I was walking around and breathing in a body from which God’s Holy Spirit resided. My body no longer belonged to me; but it belonged to God! I felt sure I had to take better care of it!
I thought of all the things that I did in a typical day, and pondered just where my physical body was carrying this Holy Spirit of God as I went about my daily business. Suddenly I was questioning just how much respect, reverence and attention I was giving to the fact that I was never alone! God’s Spirit was living inside my body! It was like getting hit by lightening, and maybe even similar to what it must feel like when you first find out you are pregnant. Nothing is ever the same again! All things are different from that moment of realization.
I was awakened to a whole new sense of awareness. I was suddenly so much more conscious, and so much more aware of what I did and said. I was embarrassed and ashamed of many of the scenes that my mind remembered from the past, where I did not regard the fact that God’s Presence had been right there among everything that I was doing every day of my life. I had to have a whole huge prayer session full of confession.
Then my eyes were opened even a little wider.
It was as if God was saying to me “Begin to pay attention to what you do and what you eat. Everything you put into your body and everything you do with your body affects something about your life.”
Now that is just
common every day knowledge and it makes basic good sense, I know; but I had never felt the
weight of the importance of that knowledge before. I knew I had a lot to learn, because frankly;
I had not been paying attention to such things.
My Father, like every good father, was reminding me of what was important.
Food and nutrition had always seemed rather boring to me. Talk of natural cures and exercise programs could put me to sleep in a hurry. The most exercise I had ever wanted was to walk up to the teller and use my debit card. Now though, I had this jarring awakening from God that kept pointing me in the right directions and telling me to pay attention; where before, none of it seemed relevant to my life at all.
Food and nutrition had always seemed rather boring to me. Talk of natural cures and exercise programs could put me to sleep in a hurry. The most exercise I had ever wanted was to walk up to the teller and use my debit card. Now though, I had this jarring awakening from God that kept pointing me in the right directions and telling me to pay attention; where before, none of it seemed relevant to my life at all.
Wow! Had I been wrong!
As I began to accept these holy nudges and study and pray more about
them, I also began to realize that finding natural remedies and understanding
how different foods affect your body could be exciting and even fun. I especially began to realize this when all
the chronic little things that had troubled me for years began to disappear and
go away once I began to implement the things that I was learning. Daily I offered my body up to God. Daily I felt more and more healing. I asked Him to pour any knowledge into my
brain that I needed to know so that I could keep the temple I was walking
around in healthy and functional in order to do His work for His Kingdom.
That was the
beginning of this unlikely journey that I started 100 healthy days ago. I chose to make the journey 365 days long altogether,
because I try to make a new offering for each each year. The length of a year seemed to fit what I needed to do, though I knew the facts I was gathering would stay with me from here on out. I began to count every day that God showed me something new as one of the days for the year's offerings. I wanted the
whole offering to add up to 365 healthy living days. If I didn't live healthy in a day, I didn't count it. I listed each new thing that I learned as I went along. I
knew making this list was going to be tough.
I considered the fact that you needed to do something for 15 - 30 days in
order to make that thing become a permanent habit in your life.
I wondered how many things I could do that consistently. None, without God’s help, but for each day that I
got out there and tried; God came through for me. I began to see that it was possible to make drastic changes in my lifestyle and my health awareness. I thought it would be impossible to come up with
more than twenty things for this list, much less 365 health changing new habits. I never dreamed I would make it to 50!
When I hit 100 it
occurred to me that the things we can implement into our lives for daily health
are probably endless. There is always
some new discovery out there on the horizon. No one could be more
surprised than me!
By the time I had reached naming 100 new health changing habits I could implement into my daily life; I realized I had only covered a few of the basics, and that would be a good basic foundation that I could build on for the next 265 days. I definitely wanted to go deeper into this experience. I was feeling the benefits and wanted to know more.
By the time I had reached naming 100 new health changing habits I could implement into my daily life; I realized I had only covered a few of the basics, and that would be a good basic foundation that I could build on for the next 265 days. I definitely wanted to go deeper into this experience. I was feeling the benefits and wanted to know more.
I decided that I
should keep a journal of the rest of this life-changing experience; least I
forget something. I would have my
journal to refer to and look back on whenever I needed to refresh my mind. I also wanted to record the biblical and scientific proof for a
lot of what I was seeing. So many
scripture passages were occurring to me each time I discovered a health topic I
had not delved into before. I wanted to
tie these things together and examine them closer. I also wanted to share what I was discovering
with others, hoping that they too would find it helpful in their own
lives.
So; let’s let the
stories began – the stories of the rest of the 365 Days to a healthier
lifestyle. I think we will start on Day 100 with the
awesomeness of the health benefits of Apples and call the blog section AN APPLE
A DAY. With 265 more days to go we have
a lot of exciting discoveries ahead!
AN APPLE A DAY –
DAY 100 OF 365 DAYS TO A HEALTHIER LIFESTYLE:
"AN APPLE A DAY CAN KEEP THE DOCTOR AWAY"
If you are like me, you have heard that expression all of your life. I'm not sure where the quote originated from; but I am sure it has been repeated for generations. Is it true?
Yes! EAT MORE APPLES!!!
People who are over fifty (like me) tend to have digestion issues. They go to eat and feel like they are choking, or they can't swallow as well sometimes. When they lay down to rest they sometimes have horrible acid reflux and this interferes with their sleep patterns and makes them feel awful the next day. There are a lot of factors that contribute to this, such as the fact that as we age we must learn how to chew our food slower and more, and not to eat our meals in a hurry. Some of this though, is totally out of our control. It is simply a fact of growing older.
There is hope though; with many new health techniques for fighting this annoying stage of life. We can counteract a lot of this simply by learning to eat the right nutrients. It is so easy to grab an over-the-counter drug to treat these symptoms. That is what most people do; but that would only treat the symptoms. Why not get to the cause of the problem and cure it? The proper nutrients seem to be the answer to the cure.
A good place to start with getting the proper nutrients is by adding apples into your daily diet. Apples are a great aid to digestion. They come in their own handy container (the peeling) and they are easy and portable to take with you on the run for a quick filling snack when ever you get hungry. If you eat an apple before a big meal, it helps to get the digestion process jump started and any other food that you take in during the rest of the day goes down smoother.
I love to cut an apple up into thin slices (leave the peeling because it has the most vitamins) and carry with me to nibble on as I sit at my desk at work. They fill you up and keep you from over-eating later when you sit down for a regular meal. They are so much better for you than the unhealthy packaged sugary treats that people tend to carry with them and nibble on the go.
So what else do we know about apples? Well, apples might have received a bad rap right from the beginning because of the story of Adam and Eve. The fruit of The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is often pictured as an apple on an apple tree, and the apple is said to be the legendary forbidden fruit. Maybe that is how the science of apples got its name; "pornology." I kid you not, that is really the name of the science of the study of apples!
Guess what? The bible never really says the forbidden fruit was an apple! The word apple is not used in the scriptures even one time. The word that the scriptures actually use is "fruit." So we don't really know that it was an apple that was used to tempt Adam and Eve to sin.
I was so happy to find this out, because I love apples! Many people see this story as symbolic and metaphorical and think that the forbidden fruit was something that represented sin and The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was a tree full of the things that contradict the Tree Of Life. Hence, God did not want our eyes to be opened to it. It was the knowledge that brought the realization of sin and shame into the world and eventually led to the fall of mankind. I'm sure glad to hear that this probably was NOT by way of the apple!
Then there are the fairy tales. Fairy tales often borrow their messages from real biblical truths. Fairy tales have done nothing for the reputation of the apple either! Remember Snow White? She was tricked by the witch who tempted her with a luscious red apple. I'm glad that this story is only a fairy tale because the more I studied apples, the more I realized how healthy and good for you they are! Too bad things went south for Snow White, but in the real world, the apple is your best bet!
It may surprise you to learn that apples are a member of the rose family of plants. Apples are fat-free, sodium free and cholesterol free. They taste delicious! Apples are a great source of fiber. Apples help to improve your memory. They quicken your mental alertness and the electrical activity going to your brain. Apples have been known to boost estrogen levels in menopausal women. Apples have antioxidants, including quercetin, which is found to help our skin.
Eating apples has been linked with reducing diseases such as heart disease, cancer, asthma and diabetes. Eating the peelings of apples inhibits the growth of colon cancer and liver cancer.
Apples are full of vitamins. The Vitamin A is full of antioxidants that increase vision, heal skin problems and promote good bones. A whole host of B vitamins are found in apples. These vitamins provide us with extra energy, provide niacin that aids the gastrointestinal tract and nervous system, increases red blood cells that transport oxygen through our bodies and improves circulation, strengthens the immune system, breaks down carbohydrates and fats, reduces mood swings, increases sex drive, reduces depression, muscle cramps and headaches.
Some of these B vitamins produce folic acid which promotes cell growth and cell reproduction. (Just the B vitamins alone would work wonders for us, much less adding in the other vitamins found in apples!)
The Vitamin C of apples is good for stopping skin from wrinkling, healing of the eyes and promoting good health in pregnancies. It boosts immunity too, fighting heart disease and cancer.
The Vitamin E found in apples is good for your skin and hair and protects them against the effect of aging.
The Vitamin K found in apples promotes healing, fights osteoporosis, cancer and heart disease.
If you take this good advice and make apples a part of you daily diet; be careful to be sure to buy organic apples that do not contain pesticides. Even if you wash your apples well these chemicals often linger in the skin of the apples. It is always best to buy organic fruits. Apples store well in the crisper section of your refrigerator and will last longer than most other fruits.
"AN APPLE A DAY CAN KEEP THE DOCTOR AWAY"
If you are like me, you have heard that expression all of your life. I'm not sure where the quote originated from; but I am sure it has been repeated for generations. Is it true?
Yes! EAT MORE APPLES!!!
People who are over fifty (like me) tend to have digestion issues. They go to eat and feel like they are choking, or they can't swallow as well sometimes. When they lay down to rest they sometimes have horrible acid reflux and this interferes with their sleep patterns and makes them feel awful the next day. There are a lot of factors that contribute to this, such as the fact that as we age we must learn how to chew our food slower and more, and not to eat our meals in a hurry. Some of this though, is totally out of our control. It is simply a fact of growing older.
There is hope though; with many new health techniques for fighting this annoying stage of life. We can counteract a lot of this simply by learning to eat the right nutrients. It is so easy to grab an over-the-counter drug to treat these symptoms. That is what most people do; but that would only treat the symptoms. Why not get to the cause of the problem and cure it? The proper nutrients seem to be the answer to the cure.
A good place to start with getting the proper nutrients is by adding apples into your daily diet. Apples are a great aid to digestion. They come in their own handy container (the peeling) and they are easy and portable to take with you on the run for a quick filling snack when ever you get hungry. If you eat an apple before a big meal, it helps to get the digestion process jump started and any other food that you take in during the rest of the day goes down smoother.
I love to cut an apple up into thin slices (leave the peeling because it has the most vitamins) and carry with me to nibble on as I sit at my desk at work. They fill you up and keep you from over-eating later when you sit down for a regular meal. They are so much better for you than the unhealthy packaged sugary treats that people tend to carry with them and nibble on the go.
So what else do we know about apples? Well, apples might have received a bad rap right from the beginning because of the story of Adam and Eve. The fruit of The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is often pictured as an apple on an apple tree, and the apple is said to be the legendary forbidden fruit. Maybe that is how the science of apples got its name; "pornology." I kid you not, that is really the name of the science of the study of apples!
Guess what? The bible never really says the forbidden fruit was an apple! The word apple is not used in the scriptures even one time. The word that the scriptures actually use is "fruit." So we don't really know that it was an apple that was used to tempt Adam and Eve to sin.
I was so happy to find this out, because I love apples! Many people see this story as symbolic and metaphorical and think that the forbidden fruit was something that represented sin and The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was a tree full of the things that contradict the Tree Of Life. Hence, God did not want our eyes to be opened to it. It was the knowledge that brought the realization of sin and shame into the world and eventually led to the fall of mankind. I'm sure glad to hear that this probably was NOT by way of the apple!
Then there are the fairy tales. Fairy tales often borrow their messages from real biblical truths. Fairy tales have done nothing for the reputation of the apple either! Remember Snow White? She was tricked by the witch who tempted her with a luscious red apple. I'm glad that this story is only a fairy tale because the more I studied apples, the more I realized how healthy and good for you they are! Too bad things went south for Snow White, but in the real world, the apple is your best bet!
It may surprise you to learn that apples are a member of the rose family of plants. Apples are fat-free, sodium free and cholesterol free. They taste delicious! Apples are a great source of fiber. Apples help to improve your memory. They quicken your mental alertness and the electrical activity going to your brain. Apples have been known to boost estrogen levels in menopausal women. Apples have antioxidants, including quercetin, which is found to help our skin.
Eating apples has been linked with reducing diseases such as heart disease, cancer, asthma and diabetes. Eating the peelings of apples inhibits the growth of colon cancer and liver cancer.
Apples are full of vitamins. The Vitamin A is full of antioxidants that increase vision, heal skin problems and promote good bones. A whole host of B vitamins are found in apples. These vitamins provide us with extra energy, provide niacin that aids the gastrointestinal tract and nervous system, increases red blood cells that transport oxygen through our bodies and improves circulation, strengthens the immune system, breaks down carbohydrates and fats, reduces mood swings, increases sex drive, reduces depression, muscle cramps and headaches.
Some of these B vitamins produce folic acid which promotes cell growth and cell reproduction. (Just the B vitamins alone would work wonders for us, much less adding in the other vitamins found in apples!)
The Vitamin C of apples is good for stopping skin from wrinkling, healing of the eyes and promoting good health in pregnancies. It boosts immunity too, fighting heart disease and cancer.
The Vitamin E found in apples is good for your skin and hair and protects them against the effect of aging.
The Vitamin K found in apples promotes healing, fights osteoporosis, cancer and heart disease.
If you take this good advice and make apples a part of you daily diet; be careful to be sure to buy organic apples that do not contain pesticides. Even if you wash your apples well these chemicals often linger in the skin of the apples. It is always best to buy organic fruits. Apples store well in the crisper section of your refrigerator and will last longer than most other fruits.
