What does a drinking straw have to do with health?
Sometimes ideas come to mind and oversimplification occurs. What if the analogy of a drinking straw would be all you need to improve your health?
The reason for using the straw is simple. When your cholesterol is too high your body can build up blockages in your arteries which can slow blood flow throughout the body. This can lead to complications such as heart disease, heart attack or stroke.
Have you ever tried to drink coffee out of the stirrer that they put in your coffee to mix in milk, cream, or sugar? It would take you long time to finish a twelve ounce coffee with that. Now think about a milkshake straw (much larger circumference), if you wanted to you could finish a twelve ounce coffee in seconds. (Cold brew or iced)
So what’s the point?
Think of your muscles, arteries, veins, & capillaries while you are walking, running or lifting weights; would you rather have that blood flow being supplied with the milkshake straw or the coffee stirrer straw? The milkshake straw is going to give you that oxygen rich and nutrient dense blood flow in abundance and allow you to work at your peak levels. Meanwhile the coffee stirrer straw is going to give you 1/16th the oxygen rich and nutrient rich and nutrient dense blood flow which will cause you to work at sub-optimal levels which will include fatigue, tiredness, and potentially other problems.
How do we keep our cholesterol in check to prevent this?
I think it is important to get yearly bloodwork as mentioned in previous blogs along with monitoring your blood pressure to see where you are at on a regular basis. Then you will know if your numbers are beginning to creep out of the desired range.
Some basic tips include; eating five servings of fruits and vegetables daily, daily movement, managing stress, taking fish oil or eating omega-3 rich fatty fish a few times per week & keeping up with your needed nutrients in your body.
This article would be incomplete if I didn’t add a tip for using the straws in general. If you have an issue with overconsumption of sweetened drinks such as soda, tea, or coffee one way to reduce your consumption would be to simply reduce the size of your drinks or better yet reduce the size of your straws circumference. By doing this you will slow down your consumption of those beverages. Also if you are drinking something with sugar it is better to drink it out of a straw anyway because it will produce less decay on your teeth because the sugar will sit on the teeth for a shorter period of time. Less cavities is always a good thing!
Lastly I will touch on sustainability, pollution and the issues straws can cause on the environment. As the ocean continues to fill with plastics from all sorts of things (straws included) perhaps it is time to invest in some metal straws and stirrers which you can rinse and reuse or paper straws. This doesn’t even touch on the fact that I think plastic isn’t good for your health anyway! A metal straw and stirrer packed in your bag each day will reduce 730 pieces of plastic waste per year. Now if one million people do that; 730 million less straws and stir rods in the trash each year. Love your environment and your environment will continue to love you!
Something to think about!
Onward and upward always!
~Mike
Michael Hartman
My mission is to give personal training participants a safe and effective workout designed specifically for their goals. Dealing with many sports injuries over the years taught me how to come back stronger every time. The competition is with yourself... Strive to bring out your best self and get better every day!
