Thursday, September 6, 2012

Blogging Around: To Your Health!

Jenny and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Bike Ride

Full disclosure: I know Jenny. You can trust her to tell it straight. She's level-headed, an engineer, and tells a hilarious story, which makes a point we should all keep in mind.
And while I hate to admit it, I'm pretty sure that my company's desire to certify the new headquarters as LEED Gold is the only reason that we have locker rooms and gym facilities. Don't get me wrong, I love that we have a gym and locker rooms, but other than the occasional yoga break during lunch time, I've never used them. I'll occasionally see someone in there when I'm passing through on the way to the parking lot, but it's mostly vacant. It's a nice perk, but sometimes I wonder if it was worth it. But by far, one of the easiest ways to get extra points towards certification is by installing bike racks on the property. It doesn't matter that my office is in the middle of a highly industrial area. It doesn't matter that it's surrounded by highways and other high-traffic roads, rife with unruly 18-wheelers, with no shoulders and few sidewalks**. It doesn't matter that these bike racks never get used (I've been at this office for a year and a half and have yet to see one bike), we have them now because we needed them for our LEED Gold status (I assume). I even tried to make them useful, once, but even though I live extremely close to work now, my one attempt at biking there was fraught with terror and was disastrously unsuccessful.

That's right, that entire rant of an intro was just a super long, rambling segue into an anecdote about a terrible bike ride.
Go on, you know you want to. Click through and read the whole thing at Pound by Pound.

Is Food Intolerance Testing For Real?

It can be, but listen (or read) as the Nutrition Diva serves some common sense with that blood test.
The first thing we need to do is distinguish between food allergies—which are quite specific and readily diagnosable—and food intolerance or sensitivities. A food allergy, such the type people commonly have to peanuts or shellfish, is what we call an IgE-mediated reaction. For whatever reason, your immune system has decided that a particular protein is a threat—a threat so dangerous that it has developed a special reconnaissance agent (the IgE-antibody) to be constantly on guard for it. Should that protein turn up in your blood stream, those IgE antibodies are going to sound the alarm and your body is going to react—sometimes quite violently.

[...]

But the type of blood test David saw advertised at the pharmacist’s is quite different. These type of tests claim to reveal food insensitivities or intolerances. According to promoters, most people suffer from undiagnosed food intolerances, which can be a hidden cause of everything from fatigue to acne to weight gain. The test, they claim, will reveal which foods are secretly to blame for whatever ails you. Avoiding these foods will clear up the problem. Magic!

Bootstrapping the Interior Life

Will Duquette at The View From The Foothills has begun a series of meditations upon the interior life. Meaning ... a life of holiness and connection with God. These are short and easy to absorb while giving us (or me anyway) some good food for thought. Begin here.
I’d simply say that my interior life is my life with Jesus. Being a Christian isn’t simply a way to live or a set of things to believe; it’s learning to live with Jesus. And by the nature of things much of that is inside, where it can’t be seen.
If you like those then poke around and read more of Will's pieces. He does lots of book reviews, but just before this interior life series he began one pondering marriage. It is excellent.

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