OLUFUNKE FROM THE PUNCH
I want to say a big thank you to you all for the reception and feedback on the discussion about intermittent fasting. I keep getting text messages on the subject. A reader said, “I think this your teaching on fasting is one of the best”. Another reader confirms that the Ramadan fasting period is the time his blood pressure always reads 120/80. What will make me happier is if more people try it. Trust me, your health will thank you.
A feeling of reluctance always envelopes me each time I have to pass a message across and it involves the use of religious anecdotes. However, I am happy that I have understanding readers who know that whatever is said is to ginger us all to take our health seriously and not that I am preaching religion. Please, permit me to share a story with you.
I have a friend on Facebook who is a lady evangelist and we have been friends for about six years. She got married after we became friends. Sometime last year, she posted her picture and my eye caught the hair growth on her chin and I said to myself that this woman was suffering from polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). I was sure of this because apart from the hair on her chin, she was also overweight. The two symptoms (overweight and hair growth) are part of the symptoms you identify in a woman who has PCOS.
So, about a month ago, she posted another picture of herself heavily pregnant and announced that she just had her baby. I was extremely happy. Day after day, she posted all she went through to achieve conception. It was a terrible experience because she had several miscarriages and even for the pregnancy she carried to term, she went through a lot and was even on insulin during the pregnancy.
Now, for anyone in her position and even some people around her, except her doctor, they will see everything as a spiritual attack. But the truth is that everything she went through is all that a PCOS patient will go through. With PCOS, it is difficult to achieve pregnancy and even when it is achieved, miscarriages do occur. PCOS sufferers also have insulin resistance, which explains why she was on insulin during the pregnancy. This is also the reason PCOS sufferers are placed on a popular diabetic medication.
While we were on foods and herbs to manage some diseases series, I talked about PCOS briefly when it was the turn of female infertility; it is a hormonal disorder. In women with PCOS, the hormonal imbalance interferes with the growth and release of eggs from the ovaries (ovulation). Someday, I may discuss it fully.
From the foregoing, what I am driving at is that your spirituality does not guarantee immunity against diseases especially when such diseases are caused by wrong lifestyle choices and over-indulgence in unhealthy diets. Your spirituality and obedience to health rules are like two parallel lines that can never meet. There are always consequences when health rules are broken. If your health challenge is caused by being overweight, for example, prayers will not do anything. What will work for you is weight loss! In life, some principles cannot just be broken.
On a lighter note, how have you been coping with the rise in the prices of tomatoes? Tomato dearth is a yearly occurrence and the truth is that tomatoes and the rainy season are sworn enemies. Apart from this scarcity, there are people who are allergic to tomatoes. So, let us look at tomato substitutes.
