H is for Hale and Hearty Health.

Day 8 of Blogging from A to Z.  Today’s letter is H

H is for Hale and Hearty Health.

hale walks hand in hand

hearty steps up the walk’s pace

spring hopes winter waits

There is nothing so limiting to personal freedom as ill health, and in this land of the free, the personal freedom of a truly healthy body is eroding at every turn. 

Some may consider the phrase Hale and Hearty somewhat redundant.  I do not.  Although they both allude to the health of a person, their meanings are subtly different.  

I think the sum says more than the parts about a person’s Health.

·         Hale – free from disease and

·         Hearty – strong, exuberant, vigorous.

·         Health – the general condition of the body or mind with reference to soundness and vigor.

I’ve known more than a few people free from disease, who were not hearty.  Without the Hearty (strength, vigor…) there cannot be total health.

© Perle Champion

When did Diet become a verb and a dirty word?

When did Diet become a verb? I always considered it a noun.  My diet is what I eat day in and day out.  It was never a dirty 4-letter word; a verb for the torture du jour of odd food combinations, deprivations, and blatant lies of the perfect body you will have if only you follow their plan, whoever they are. 

I’ve seen friends diet on and off their whole lives.  I know the many diets they tried didn’t work, or it worked for a while.  But for most of them, the moment they started eating their ‘normal diet’ they got bigger than they ever were.  

I blithely, and I admit it, went my own way wondering what the big deal was.  I’ve never dieted a day in my life; I never had to.  I was always on the go, ran or walked every morning, did weights at the Y, practiced yoga 2-3 times a week - yes, even when I had a job, a husband, and an exceptional child at home.  

But as I said in yesterday’s blog, I let go and I’m not happy with the result.  I still refuse to embrace diet as a verb, I just need to remember myself and reinstate all those good things I used to do just for me.  I know I’m still in there somewhere.