It's bulk-up season

Getting healthy isn't just about losing weight. It's not limited to adjusting our diet and hoping for good physical results. It's about recalibrating our souls so that we want to change - spiritually, physically, and mentally. And the battle really is in all three areas.

~ Lysa TerKeurst

In the past, I would naturally start gaining a little weight in August.

I attributed it to indulging in seasonal sweet corn, wild blueberries and peaches. But it's more than that.

Sugar is stored solar energy

Man may be the captain of his fate, but he is also the victim of his blood sugar.

~ Wilfrid G. Oakley

Through photosynthesis, plants combine captured solar energy with carbon dioxide from the air and water from the soil. This process converts raw elements into glucose—a simple sugar that stores the sun's energy in its chemical bonds.

We are solar powered. Every calorie we consume traces its energy back to plants that captured sunlight through photosynthesis.

In a very real sense, eating a meal is just plugging into a biological battery charged by the sun.

August kicks off nature's ultimate bulk-up season, ensuring that mammals have the energy reserves required to survive the harsh northern winter.

As days start to shorten and the chill of approaching winter looms, mammals undergo physiological and behavioural changes to prepare for the months ahead.

The key drivers of August weight gain, in nature, include an urge to eat more and a bounty of ripe foods, like berries, nuts, and seeds.

The gradual shortening of daylight hours also acts as a biological clock, triggering hormonal shifts (such as changes in leptin and insulin sensitivity) that tell the body to stop burning fat and start storing it.

How active daily living has spared me from seasonal weight gain

It is in fact the height of selfishness to merely consume what others create and to retreat into a shell of limited goals and immediate pleasures.

~ Robert Greene, Mastery

Since our grandchildren have started spending the month of August with us at the cottage, active daily living, including cooking, cleaning, lifting, carrying, running, pushing and pulling the little ones has helped prevent my seasonal weight gain. I feel fit and healthy.

Living in alignment with my purpose, to help improve the quality of life for others, serves me well.