“I believe human body, if well taken care of, was determined
to endure 80 years”
--Dr. Andrew Neil
Did I always stick to healthy life that I had pledged 1,5 years ago? Honestly, too
many times I compromised my health by making decision I always regret: mindless
eating with not enough water, veggies, and fruit intake. I had several out of
town duties that forced me to stay awake until midnight (not so me, in that
sense). But when I was at home, I also slept very late some nights a week only
to watch TV series (including crimes episodes I have watched before. Duhh?).
I also preferred
being a potato couch on weekends rather than delivering
valuable items for me and the family like I used to, e.g. trying new recipes,
practicing yoga, or cleaning up things. At the office and in the street, I let
myself drowned by constant requests, problems, and people’s dissatisfaction
about almost everything on earth.
Melancholy
yet (wanna be) perfectionist by nature, it gets me frustrated to see how things
not going the way they should, to witness people so irresponsible and
ignorance, to know that most of the time I can only wish I could make the world
better, to see that some part of my to-do-lists were carried over to the new
ones.
The result
was I got very sick without getting any notice. During May 2014, I had swollen
gland, prolonged menstruation, abnormal fatigue, unwanted weight-lost, puffy
eyes, and very dry skin. I knew
something was wrong yet I chose to not listen to my body and thought everything
would be alright with couple days off at the end of the month. WRONG. Next
thing I knew, I was in hospital for 5 days due to some infections that caused
severe inflammation and abdominal pain.
It gave me
sort of warning to see if there are things I should consider to change. I
believe it’s more about my attitude towards recent development in our days; not
so much about the absent of strong fundamentals
needed for my family’s health and well being. Our parent’s illness, family matter, Miss K’s schedules, and
our continuous work
activities seemed to exponentially pile up our life since New Year.
Before I
got really sick, I read books, online
articles and social media posting. I observed and talked to people with healthy
and happy life style. It’s all true, what they said. No matter what kind of
approach these people committed to, their life has been better after they
accepted themselves, and also accepted the rest of the world. So maybe I should
do it (again), too. Maybe it’s not too bad to be a little sluggish, to be
behind schedules sometimes, to be a little demanding for quality to others, to
say “No, I’m sorry, not this time”, to spend time and energy (and money) for
myself once in a while, to see people and things with new eyes. Maybe it’s good
to be home before my kid in the evening once
or twice a week. Maybe it’s time to let go of
the world with its pain. And maybe I need eyeglasses as well (I’m serious, it started to trouble me when I’m speed-reading).
It took a lot to remind me that balance high-quality intake, enough
sleep and rest time, regular exercise (plus medical checkup, too) and high doses of laughter plus optimism
were essentials to our health. With that in mind (and some antibiotics support),
I got better.
After dwelling into “Eight
Weeks to Optimum Health” by Andrew Weil and watching a lot of cooking shows
during my hospitalized holiday (“The Food
Truck” and "The Eat St." with juicy hamburgers and hotdogs and
tacos certainly had to be excluded, though), I took some of their simple advice
that suit me and well expected to make me be and
feel better:
- Trying to cook and eat more fish and grass-fed beef, take more fruits (the berries are the best) and veggies (carrots and broccoli are best with light cooking);
- Considering garlic, ginger, and rhizoma and green tea seriously as material for natural remedies;
- Starting breath exercise as I continue yoga session and build up my walking and jogging activities gradually;
- Having sauna/steam bath once a week to help my body expel some toxic (alhamdulillah, we had small facilities in my office complex that I barely use);
- Being only with people I like and have positive impact on me –as much as I could;
- News and TV fasting (no more Kardashians, child abuse and corruption cases! Only news about the good-looking and high-achiever CR7 and cooking shows are good enough for me right now). What a coincidence that our 10,4 years old TV was shut itself down and refused to operate since last week :p sigh....;
- Buy myself some flowers (or in my case, skincare and fragrance to satisfy my sense and skin).
- Doing only things I love for my spare time (reading, running, writing, easy [not business] travelling and cooking, and shopping...upps *mouthshut* )
Some family and friends
suspected running was the culprit of me being sick. Only few (okay, three
person to be exact) noticed that it was the other way around. @vindras tweeted
me that there was imbalance between the meetings and running. Babeh
said that what I did when I was not running might be the dominant factors. I
confessed that in the past month, I was not as discipline with my intake,
sleep, and morning runs as before. I missed a lot of them for various reasons:
ignorance, works, and merely ‘don’t feel like doing it’.
The doctor
said I can restart my training by walking and jogging easily 2 weeks after
released from hospital. Not hard since all my
running were in easy level, anyway. But it means I
have to give up 10K at MAPALA-UI “Run for River” on June 15th. It will be held
in Babe’s campus at UI-Depok, so it’s kind of big reunion for him and his
friends. Also a chance to show off a glimpse of his life during college years to me and Miss
K. It’s like a homecoming party for us. We are really excited about it. Miss K
will take 5K route and if everything is fine with me after 2 weeks, I plan to
walk the course behind her just to feel the air.
It’s time, babe. It’s time to cool down a bit, be bored, and enjoy the recovery time.
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