Week 2 Finished - 8 Weeks to Optimum Health

Here is how week 2 panned out:

• Check your water.  Contact your water company for contaminates or have it sent off to be tested.  Do not drink chlorinated water.  Drink filtered water or bottled water only.  We get a report yearly about our water and it is okay.  I don't like the taste of chlorinated water so we have been filtering our drinking water for years.  Would love to have a home system, but they are expensive.
• Eat salmon once this week and broccoli twice this week.  Choose wholegrain breads or cereals.  Try something made with soy.  Try to substitute green tea for coffee.  I finally found the Wild Alaskan Salmon at Sam's this week.  It came marinated (I prefer plain because of sodium).  I scraped a good part of the marinate off  when I prepared it and it was wonderful...very moist.  Broccoli was eaten twice this week.  Once as just a side dish and once with tofu in a stir fry.  The tofu stir fry did not turn out well.  I used a recipe I had made in the past.  It called for a non-stick skillet and I found a non-stick skillet is absolutely necessary to prepare tofu in this way.  I don't have one anymore and will wait to try that again when I do.  Wholegrain breads were not a problem.  I had been to the Whole Foods Market the week before and had purchased several of their loaves.  They are so good!  I do normally have green tea every morning.  I am not a coffee drinker.
• Add mixed carotenes to your supplements of Vitamins C & D3.  Take 10,000 to 15,000 IU of beta-carotene with related compounds such as alpha-carotene, lutein and zeaxanthin.  The mixture must contain lycopene to give the full benefits.  Still waiting for a talk with my doctor on this one.
• Walk - 15 minutes.  Add some hills, if possible.  I walked 4 times this week instead of the recommended 5.  We are having 100 degree temps so I am still walking on the elliptical.  15 minutes is really tough for me...I know, I'm out of shape!  The elliptical is like walking in deep sand, so I feel it is a harder workout than just walking for 15 minutes.
• Visit a park.  Try a one day news fast - don't watch, listen, or read any news for a period of 24 hours.  Continue with the breath observation for 5 minutes each day.  For 1 minute, practice beginning your breath cycle with exhalation and ending with inhalation -- concentrate on this while you do the exercise.  I did not have time to visit a park this week though I did visit a friend's farm with my husband to load hay.  Don't know if that would count!  I am not a big news person...generally it makes me nervous.  I don't read the paper unless a particular story is pointed out to me and the only news I watch is the weather, so a news fast was easy.  I absolutely love the breath observations, but tend to forget to do them until bedtime and then I fall asleep!
• Pay attention to mental imagery.  What has strong emotional impact?  How can you adopt them for healing visualization?  Still thinking on this one!   

Rules for Week 3 will be up soon.  Getting a little tougher!

Judy :)