A day at the beach

What's better than a day at the beach? Probably nothing. The part I always hated about a beach day was coming home. I couldn't deal with being so exhausted. I felt completely drained, like I had sweated out every bit of energy and nutrition from my body.

Yesterday was my first beach day of the year. Getting myself ready to go was more of a challenge than in the past. Well, going anywhere is more challenging these days. Understanding how nutrient empty "outside" food is, it's easier to just avoid spending much time going out. If I'm going to the mall I know I can't just stop at the food court if I get a bit hungry, so I have to bring snacks. I always have to think about when I will get hungry and when I will eat. Annoying, but as I'm finding, well worth it.

I packed quite a bit of food for the beach. I chopped up goat cheese into cubes, I had some salami and some hot dogs (my packaged food splurge, but they are hot dogs from grass-fed beef and have no nitrates or preservatives or flavorings), a couple small sheep yogurts, and tons of fresh fruit. Lots of watermelon. I even brought a bottle of water kefir.

My other dilemma was what to put on my skin. I won't use SPF because I don't want to block the rays of the sun - that's where I get my Vitamin D. I usually never did use SPF anyway, but I would usually use a tanning lotion that would help me tan more. But I knew that would be loaded with chemicals and I couldn't do that to my liver. My Mom suggested coconut oil. I went with it. It was messy because in the heat it melted to a liquid and it's hard not to pour it all over the place. But it sure does smell good.

The beach was beautiful. Eating fresh watermelon on the beach was amazing. The simple pleasure of it was unbelievable. I've removed so many modern "luxuries" from my life and have found that these kinds of simple pleasures are so much more enjoyable.

What I didn't expect was the change in how I would feel after the beach. It didn't occur to me that the way I used to feel was wrong. Until I got home and felt amazing. I was full of energy. I felt amazingly happy and fulfilled. It was different than just feeling good after relaxing all day. It was more complete and deep. I have been having a very deep fulfillment when I eat right and do things that are good for me. I can just feel my body saying, yes, this is the way it's supposed to be.

My doctor said that because my diet has a lot of cholesterol in it, when I exposed myself to UV rays my body created Vitamin D. Makes sense. Once again, the way it was all created to work together. My doctor has also suggested adding more sea salt to my diet for energy. The sea salt does something to encourage the adrenal glands. I guess breathing in the sea air also helped my energy levels.

It's too bad I can't start every day by laying in the sun for 4 hours.