A-Z Challenge - 'L'

Like 'J,' 'L' was another tough one to find a topic that fit with the theme of my journey to wellness. I think that I was trying to be too specific. What I finally came up with is 'liquids.' Proper hydration is a key to wellness. Often we hear the recommendation to "drink eight 8 oz. glasses of water every day." That is not the easiest thing to do.
While it may be a valid recommendation, drinking that much water every day is not as important as consuming enough liquid. My point being that the liquid that you ingest does not have to come via an actual glass of water - milk, juice, and other liquids present in foods do count toward your total. Additionally, the signals produced by the body indicating dehydration are often confused for hunger pangs so proper hydration can prevent overeating and can be a factor in weight loss.
It is important to remember that not all liquids are created equal when it comes to hydration. One reason why water is recommended is because it doesn't carry any unwanted calories. Beverages that include caffeine or other diuretics can cause the body to eliminate more liquid than they provide so coffee, cola, and tea may not always be the best choice to quench your thirst.

Personally, I almost always have a glass of water within reach. We installed a faucet-mounted water filtered several years ago and it has turned out to be a major savings over bottled water. You can check out my analysis of it in an article I wrote 3 years ago - The PUR Vertical Faucet Filter with Three-Stage Filtration.

Light My Fire

Light My Fire is one of my favorite songs by The Doors.  Given the topic of my last post, can you guess what the link to the title of this post is?

I dehydrated some peppers overnight last night.  I also made some salsa (we went grocery shopping right after I wrote the post, so I got the needed ingredients).  The peppers were done drying this morning.  I pulled off the dried husks that remained of the stems and put the peppers one at a time into my mortar and ground them with the pestle.  After all was ground, I ended up with about 1 oz. (dry measure) of 'pepper powder.'  I only call it that because I can't remember the variety of peppers that I used...  I blended both types of pepper together as well.

I am still fasting to this point, so I haven't even tasted the salsa.  However, I wanted to see how hot the pepper powder was.  Tasting the pepper wouldn't break the fast so I simply ran my finger on the pestle that had some residue on it and gave it a lick.  Wow!  It was pleasingly hot but not overpowering.  I felt the heat from even a small taste but I didn't feel the need to guzzle a glass of water.

For the fast, I am mostly just drinking water but have had about 8 oz. of fresh squeezed orange juice -  squeezed 'em myself.  Of course, I also had my VidaCell this morning.  Since dinner on Tuesday night, the only 'solid' food that I have had was for dinner on Wednesday and that consisted of a yogurt smoothie.

Today, I will be breaking my fast around dinner time.  Oddly, I am not doing it because I am at all hungry.  I just don't want to take it too far.