Wednesday, July 07, 2010

Over-Doing Things...

This morning as I was getting ready for work I happened to be watching GMA and there was a news piece on heat stroke & keeping hydrated during the heat of summer. The big news stories revolved around the eastern states getting hit with a huge heat wave, NYC clocking in at 102 degrees on average & Newark, NJ breaking a record at 104 degrees. There was a doctor on the program talking about the importance of staying hydrated and went so far as to tell people to look at their urine when using the restroom as a tell-tale sign of being dehydrated. She mentioned that a dark-colored urine indicates dehydration and that people want to see a pale yellow color. She also stated that a light yellow or clear urine is symptomatic of over-hydration.

That piqued my interest. Over-hydration. Who knew that you can drink too much water for your body not to function properly. Now I have heard & read about water intoxication where people have imbibed so much water as to cause a "drunkeness-like" state, but never have I heard of over-hydration before. I guess it makes sense, taking or doing too much of anything can become a bad thing despite old wives tales & grandmotherly-type advice.

Reminds me of a story a friend of mine told me about some cyclist he knew. The guy was an avid cyclist, I mean he had the special shoes, the lycra outfits, the expensive bike, he might have been a big racer. My friend told me that he had been hanging out with they guy at the local cycle shop when he pulled a huge plastic bag of pills from his pack. The friend told me it had to have weighed at least a pound by the look of it. Vitamins, extracts, supplements of all sorts - the guy told my friend as he proceeded to down each and every pill in the bag.My friend was dumbfounded. The guy sat there and swallowed a pound of pills one after another. Over-doing it? I would have to point to 'yes' on that one.

I've heard and read articles on over-doing it with had sanitizer and how it's unhealthy to constantly use it because it doesn't allow our immune systems to battle smaller germs and become more developed. I think of the story of Howie Mandel and how his mother & grandmother had a hand in his OCD/germaphobia by being super-neat & clean all the time. He said that his grandmother used to wax & polish her front steps, CONCRETE front steps! Over-doing it? quite possibly.

I've been the "victim" of over-eating, although I really can't say victim since I personally made the choice to eat more than I needed. In talking with a client of mine that is an avid runner & cyclist, we had a conversation about how much has changed as far as portion sizes from the 1950's to today. Our dinner plate diameters have gone from 9 inches to 12 inches, she mentioned a friend had moved into a home from the 1950's and couldn't understand at first why her dishes & cups would not fit in the cabinets. She realized that the cabinets were built for smaller plates & cups. "Super-Size It" has become the norm.

It's hard sometimes to find a happy medium. We are often swinging from one extreme to the other by being stingy with our time or finances to giving it all away. I realize I need to find a balance in all areas of my life if I want to grow & mature. One of those things is definitely hydration, finding a balance in my fluid intake. That may be the cause of some issues in my weight loss journey. The symptoms are there, time to scale back a bit and see what happens...

Yes, Virginia, you can have too much of a good thing...


MattyV
www.iweighedmorethanjared.com

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