It’s Friday morning and I am holding my prescription bottle, examining the label and gazing at the three remaining greenish 50,000iu vitamin D capsules inside. I am supposed to ingest one this morning, like I do every Friday morning to keep my vitamin D level up. But I’m not going to. A 50,000IU single dose of a fat-soluble vitamin sounds toxic; it has always sounded toxic, ever since I began dutifully ingesting them every Friday beginning in January, because my doctor prescribed it. I told him at the time the dose sounded toxic. He declared it the standard prescribed dose for patients deficient in vitamin D. So I’ve taken my pill, faithfully, every Friday. But, not today. I’m not taking it today.
And I’m totally done buying bottled water. Turns out, any water can be bottled; there are no regulations on it. So you’d better hope that the bottled water you are drinking is tap water, since tap water is at least regulated and tested for contaminants. I’ve heard this before about bottled water, but I’m making a stand today. Just like the folks in Bundanoon, Australia, where the residents have recently voted to ban the sale of bottled water: 350 to 1.
I’m totally done with ‘diets’ too. Because I know what that word does to me. Uttering “I’m” and “diet” in the same sentence jolts me directly into pig out mode, wolfing down whole bags of cookies, or losing track of my right hand only to find it buried in the ice cream. Brain freezes are unrecognizable to me when I’m in this state.
I have a close friend trying to lose weight. She tells me she’s on a low-carb, low fat, and low calorie diet. Now that should do the trick! Because, hey! – they are all bad. Carbs are bad because they taste good and trigger that part of your brain that remembers the word ‘fun.’ Fats are bad because they taste good, trigger your brain and clog your arteries. Carbs and fats are both bad because they contain calories.
Calories are bad because they shorten your life. That’s right. Researchers have proved this after a 20-year study with monkeys. The result: those monkeys subjected to what the average human would consider near starvation, lived the longest. To quote an article about this monkey study that appeared in our local paper:
“A 20-year study found cutting calories by almost a third slowed their aging and fended off death” … “What about those other primates, humans? Nobody knows yet whether people in a world better known for pigging out could stand the deprivation long enough to make a difference, much less how it would affect our more complex bodies…” So we are too complex to stop ourselves from pigging out and so we’ll never know if we’re like monkeys?
Like I said, in my pigging out state, I don’t recognize brain freeze.
If humans are so into pigging out, then why do we need a gazillion supplements? I’ve been washing down fistfuls of pills with my morning coffee for years now, although somewhere I’ve picked up the warning, “vitamins may be useless to improve health and may even be bad for you…” Huh?… But hey, they are good for the economy! Think of all the people who have gotten rich selling supplements and bottled water – all in the name of increasing longevity and improved health. I think of my 96-yr-old mother-in-law. She has NEVER taken supplements. In her old age she takes a daily baby aspirin to thin her blood and a water pill to regulate her blood pressure.
Maybe as part of the stimulus package we could bottle Idaho air and ship it to California. Someone could get filthy rich while reducing the mounds of empty bottles in the landfills.
Should I take the weekly 50,000IU vitamin D supplement prescribed by my doctor? My vit D level was rechecked in April after I took the supplement for three months. It was up in the normal range. It made sense, with summer coming, to get off the pills, get out in the sun and let my skin manufacture my vitamin D.
But, Nooooooo! My doctor advised me: “Stay out of the sun, or use sunscreen, and continue taking the 50,000IU synthetic vitamin D.”
What is he, some kind of monkey? Does this make any earthly sense? How is it that we humans have totally convinced ourselves that sun is bad and taking a 50,000IU supplement of synthetic vit D is good? That bottled water is preferable to tap water? So a bunch of folks smarter than the rest of us can laugh themselves all the way to the bank getting rich selling sunscreen, bottled water and supplements?
I haven’t eaten yet today. I’m too confused. I was thinking about having soft boiled eggs on toast but my human brain knows the eggs are high in cholesterol, the butter is high in fat, and the bread, well, you know, is loaded with those horrible carbs. Maybe I should channel those starved monkeys in that study. Maybe I should pretend I have a monkey brain and purge my thinking of all my ‘knowledge’ of food, diets and supplements. And go out on our deck and lay in the noon summer sun without sunscreen, because it just feels good.
And take some aspirin for my headache.
I am also repenting of my ye-of-little-faith behavior concerning our hitherto not flowering, flowering crab – as you can see it … is flowering! I had to hurry and photograph it in full bloom before the wind kicks up and blows the blossoms to smithereens. Oops! There I go again. I love the wind! Well not really but I heard someone exclaim that last week during one of our incessant 25-mph-wind days. That day pretty much made history of our tulips. Yesterday I planted a few little pinks and zinnias amongst the headless tulips in our back center garden.
The Decompression of a Boomer 