Bottoming Out

I came home after a ten hour work day, followed directly by a church engagement that ran late. After coming in the door, I tried to put my stuff away and head for the shower, but my husband stopped me. He wanted to talk. I didn't think I could. He insisted that we sit down and try. I did. I tried to take deep breaths. I work to get my thinking brain to engage. I tried to get calm. I absolutely could not. After a few minutes of sobbing, I just went to the shower as planned. As the warm water of the shower fell over me, I realized that I had bottomed out. I was tired, hungry, and absolutely running on empty. There are times when life just takes everything out of us, and this was one of them. I needed to do a better job of filling myself up so that this would not happen so often.

What do we need to fill ourselves up? I think we need to start with the basics: food, water, and sleep. Our bodies require these to function well, but we often deny ourselves of them. We live in a busy culture and it is easy to mismanage our nutrition, fail to adequately hydrate, and cut short our sleep. These things seem expendable, and they are, to an extent, until they are not, until we reach a crisis level of need and bottom out. Our livers empty of fuel about five hours after we eat (Brady, 2021). Yet how many of us go longer than five hours between meals? Or forget to eat all together? That sets us up for failure, especially people like me who get hanger, or my self-dubbed "Chicken Little syndrome" ("The sky is falling"/anxiety) when blood sugar gets low (Hartley, 2019). Low level dehydration may manifest as headache or other malaise that does not adversely affect overall functioning, but may contribute to agitation and then crisis when compiled with other contributing factors. Sleep. We are supposed to get seven or more hours a night (CDC, 2017). Yet how many of us fall short of this? I am raising my hand here. My sleep cup is constantly low. We cannot perfectly control or food, water, or sleep, but we can rethink them and reconsider how we prioritize them.

What empties us? Many things besides lack of food, water, and sleep: Work stress. Family stress. Cultural stress. Weather stress. Emotional stress. Factors behind our control, or at least factors further beyond our control than our own basic needs.

Have you bottomed out lately? As evidenced by the example above, I obviously have, and this has not been the only instance. My bottoming out points me back to my basic needs, needs I need to tend to in order to be more full, and to have more tolerance for those things that empty my cup, those things that are out of my control. My husband was trying to help me the evening I melted down. He had something in his cup to give, and to allow him to tolerate my big feelings. I want to be able to do the same for him, and for others. That means getting back to the basics, back to the basics so that the bottom of my cup might not appear quite so often.

References:

Brady, K. (2021, September 21). 12 mindless habits that are secretly exhausting you. Huff Post. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/habits-exhausting-you_l_61489344e4b0175a18347a6f.

Center for Disease Control [CDC]. (2017, March 2). How much sleep do I need? https://www.cdc.gov/sleep/about_sleep/how_much_sleep.html

Hartley, R. (2019, August 1). Four types of hunger in intuitive eating: Physical hunger, emotional hunger, taste hunger and practical hunger. The Joy of Eating. https://www.rachaelhartleynutrition.com/blog/four-types-of-hunger-in-intuitive-eating). 

Khatri, M. (2021). What is dehydration? What causes it? WebMD. https://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/dehydration-adults#1-3

Seven "Healthy" Habits I No Longer Practice

Those of you who have been around me for awhile know that health and wellness are kind of important to me. There's the fact that my body is God's temple (1 Cor 6:19-20), but there's also the truth that I'm a perfectionist and want to do everything exactly right. I've been pretty rigid about following health and wellness recommendations in the past, but over the past few years of living in Arizona and trying to live more intuitively, I've realized that some of those habits aren't healthy for me anymore. Here a few of the habits I've recently ditched:

1) "Clean" Eating: I used to avoid buying "processed foods" in an effort to simplify my life and stay healthy. But living at home with my family, I have regular access to convenience foods and treats. So when cereal, candy, ice cream, a granola bar,or pizza call to me, I have them. Often times this convenience food is healthier for me because I eat when I'm hungry, rather than slaving away in the kitchen to make something from scratch when I was already starving.

2) Vegetarianism: It worked for me for awhile, but it does't anymore. My family eats meat, so I had to start eating it, at least for dinner, when I moved home. When I started my new job and found my stress levels higher and my energy levels lower, I added some additional animal protein into the breakfast and lunch meals that I prepared. It hasn't seemed to hurt me and I've maybe gained a little bit of muscle.

3) Avoiding bottled water: I freaked out about BPA in plastic bottles when I was in college. After that, I tried to avoid bottles of water because of the environmental impact. But in Arizona when you're thirsty, you've got to drink! I try to refill my BPA free CamelBak water bottle when I can, but when I can't, I can't. The dangers of dehydration far outweigh the negative consequences of disposable water bottles, at least in my opinion.

4) Exercising when I'm dog tired: Some exercise is good, but too much is too much. I've been sick quite a bit this year and am learning to take days off or engage in lighter exercise. And some days there just isn't time to exercise. My 5K pace might be slowing, but exercise is a privilege and at least I'm still able to do it sometimes.

5) Eating low fat: I've had high cholesterol in the past and I avoided eggs, cheese, and full fat dairy. But lately I've been craving more protein and even butter (which I previously disliked). So I've been eating whatever calls to me. We'll see how my blood work turns out this year, but for right now, I'm trying to eat what make me feel good.

6) Skipping the salt: Too much salt can be bad for you, but I started craving salt more when I began cooking from scratch. Maybe it was because I ate less processed food. Maybe I just liked the salt. I don't know. Now I live in Arizona and need the electrolytes, so I salt my food liberally. I try not to overdo it, but sometimes it happens. Salt is one of my lesser worries.

7) Avoiding hand sanitizer: I truly believe in the power of soap and water and washing hands. I know that killing 99.9% of bacteria can bread an 0.1% bacteria monster, BUT I work with kids and they have SO many germs. Hand sanitizer and bleach wipes are my new friends, and I have still been getting sick. I wash my hands when I can and use more natural cleaning products at home, but at work, instant sanitizers are my friends!

Has anyone else ditched some "healthy" habits in the past year? Please share in the comments section.

This post was inspired by Catherine's blog post and I'm linking up with Amanda at Running with Spoons for this Thinking Out Loud post. 

Hiking in Arizona

I took myself for a hike last Saturday. At 79 degrees in November, I couldn't resist. Along the trail, I encountered and talked to several individuals who had not hiked this trail before. Both mentioned things that made me think they were not from around here. Those conversations led me to this post about hiking in Arizona. This is more of a how-to post than a review of the trail I hiked. (If you want more about Arizona trails, head on over to my friend's blog at The Neurotic Wanderer.)

1) Go to the bathroom before you leave. Due to lack of water at the trail heads, most trail heads either don't have bathrooms, or only have porta-potties. Hiking while needing to go to the restroom is miserable. Just go before you go!

2) Take water! I often break this rule, but Arizona heat is dry and you get dehydrated fast.

3) Sunscreen and/or a hat. The sun is bright and you will burn fast. No use suffering for a good hike!

4) Wear quality shoes. I learned the hard way that hiking in running or other athletic shoes does not work. Arizona soil is rocky, and those rocks bruise your feet, even through shoes. My mom recommended Hi-Tec hiking boots, which we buy from Big 5 Sporting Goods. I add insoles to my shoes and am good to go!

5) With your shoes wear heavy socks! I got blisters the first time I wore my hiking boots. Then Mom got me wool socks, and voila, no blisters! The wool socks wick away moisture from my feet, which also helps prevent blisters from forming.

6) Bring along a jacket (even in the summer). Temperatures in Arizona fluctuate up to 50 degrees due to the desert climate. Every year, many hikers get stranded and ill due to inadequate clothing. Yes, it's a pain to tie a jacket around your waist or put it in a backpack, but it's worth it in case of emergency.

7) Consider a backpack. If you're going to have all the supplies you need, you might as well have a backpack to stuff it in. I linked to my favorite backpack in my travel post.

(Saturday's trail)

There you have it: my recommendations for hiking in Arizona.

Fellow Arizona hikers, what hiking recommendations would you add to this list? Please post below.

Bread and Water: Reflections on Lent

To preface this blog post, I should explain about Lent. Growing up in nondenominational churches, I never practiced it. Then, in college, my resident director introduced me to this period of the church calendar. It is a time to deny oneself, a time to sacrifice in memory of Jesus' sacrificial death on the cross to save humankind from their sins. Sometimes people fast from food. Sometimes people fast from a habit. As the Director of Spiritual Formation at my alma mater used to say, it's a time to put things back in their proper perspective. I've fasted from many things since then: radio, Facebook, blogs, eating out, chocolate, gluten. And some years I've fasted from fasting, like during graduate school when I just did not need to add one one thing to my plate.

This year as I thought about Lent, I decided to fast from oatmeal, drinks other than water, and chocolate? Why? I like to find biblical support for my fasts, and since Jesus is the bread of life and living water, I thought making these foods my focus would help me focus on Jesus. I could wax eloquent about how I thought about Jesus when I ate whole wheat muffins for breakfast instead of oatmeal, or toast instead of granola for snack. I could tell you I thought of Jesus every time I drank hot water instead of coffee, hot chocolate, or tea. But that's not the truth.

The truth is that this fast was hard. It felt more like a diet than a spiritual discipline. I found myself thinking more about food because of the extra intentional effort I needed to put into meal prepping (making muffins ahead of time, asking Mom to make more bread, making peanut butter muffins instead of brownies for dessert, etc.). I constantly found things I couldn't eat without breaking my fast: Mom's pancakes, granola bars, Clif bars, coffee cake, etc. Mom went out of her way to accommodate my oatmeal fast particularly, but people at work still offered me chocolate. Bible study offered chocolate cake. The chocolate oatmeal Mom made for herself smelled so good. I often wanted coffee or tea as that final step of a meal. I frequently felt unsatisfied.

So did this fast do what it was supposed to? I believe God used it, but not maybe in the ways I expected. I realized how much I rely on oatmeal, chocolate, and hot drinks as staples of my diet. I recognize the satiation and even comfort they bring. I've gotten more conscious of my nighttime snacking. I've enjoyed trying some new recipes, I guess. Not consuming oatmeal, chocolate, and hot drinks has become habit, part of life. In some ways, though, this is not a positive thing. I find myself wanting to continue this fast, to continue to tell myself, "No." To prove my self control. To be ascetic. And that's not godly.

So what now? It's Easter, and He has risen! It's time to reintroduce these foods to my diet, to appreciate them as God-given gifts, to let my taste buds have a resurrection of the pleasure these foods bring. I'll be honest and say that I'll probably struggle with self-control, but I'll work at it. I'll practice self-forgiveness. I'll ask God for forgiveness. After all, that's what Easter is all about.