Health
I did a little experiment. OK, maybe a big experiment. Maybe a little experiment over a long period of time.
I read a blog article about a woman who drank a gallon of water a day for a month. The article talked about the life-changing effects this had on her like clearer skin, more energy, fuller hair, and more friends (just kidding about the friends).
So, not one to take a challenge lightly, I decided to drink a gallon of water a day for 18 MONTHS. That’s right, a year and a half. I thought I might share some of the results of my experiment and let you know if I’m going to continue or just go back to “normal” water consumption.
Here’s what happened.
Loads of pee. The beginning was difficult. I peed all the time. I peed when I entered a building and when I left. I interrupted lots of conversations to pee, and I couldn’t sit through a TV show without getting up to go. It was like being in constant “flush”mode and the pee just kept coming.
Very challenging to get it all down. In the beginning, there were nights where I stayed up late just to finish my gallon. I remember sitting on the couch until 11:00pm, with a big water baby in my belly, just trying to get that gallon down. I wasn’t used to drinking so much and it didn’t seem natural to be guzzling glass after glass all day long. Now I usually drink my last glass at dinner, no problem. The advantage to this is that I’m getting out of bed to pee in the middle of the night much less.
My allergies are much less severe. I didn’t read about others experiencing this, but I sure noticed. Less sneezing, less red nose, and less itchy eyes. They didn’t go away completely, but improved greatly.
Blemishes are less frequent and go away much faster. Clearer skin is nice, and a more even complexion is nice too. I’m not going to claim that I took on a “glow” like some have, but I will say I’ve noticed smoother, healthier looking skin. Bonus.
No more antibiotics. During a typical year, I’ll have to visit the doctor once or twice for a sinus infection and/or bronchitis. Over the past 18 months, I’ve been infection free, haven’t had the flu, or missed a single day of work for being sick. If I feel something coming on, it’s usually gone the next day before it’s had a chance to grow into something that knocks me out of commission for a few days. This has been one of my favorite benefits.
Maintaining a healthy weight is easier. Hey, when your stomach is full of water you get hungry less often. You also get full faster and you snack less. I used to struggle to keep my weight under 170 lbs. Now I hover around 165 without much effort. I know that doesn’t sound dramatic, but it makes a huge difference in how I feel physically and about myself.
I would say, that out of all of the decisions I’ve made about my health over the last few years, a gallon of water a day has been one of the best. It’s been easy to implement, and stick to, and it doesn’t really cost anything. You can buy a gallon jug of water at the grocery store for a buck and refill it from your kitchen faucet until you feel the need to replace it. I replace mine every other month or so. I’m definitely going to stick with it!
How about you? Have you tried the gallon a day challenge? What kind of results did you get? Have any questions? Feel free to comment below.
Media
It’s been seven years since I started this website. SEVEN YEARS!
During that time, I’ve written about everything from social media to prayer to parenting. I’ve written about ministry, I’ve ranted about the church, and I’ve shared proud moments about my kids. In short, this has been an incredibly random journey.
That’s why I need your help. I’m making a concentrated effort to narrow the focus of my life and of my writing.
How could this website be a greater blessing to you? What types of posts do you receive the most from?
Would you please leave a comment below with the types of articles that you would benefit most from? You can share more than one. I’m just narrowing things down a bit.
Here is a list of categories that I’ve used over the past five years. You do NOT have to choose from the list. It’s just there as a refresher in case it’s been a while since you’ve visited.
Autism
Christ Following
Speaking/Communication
Values
Culture
Social Media
Family/Parenting/Marriage
Fathers
Health
Leadership
Ministry
Social Justice
Writing
Church
Thank you for helping to shape the future of leebezotte.com! I hope to add value to your life and be a resource that you’ll come to for help and advice (or just a smile during your week)!
I look forward to reading your comments!
life
Vacation season is rapidly winding down for the summer. Facebook is flush with back-to-school pictures of every variety and, to my disapproval, the drive-in theater is now only open on the weekends. Not that it matters. I’m lucky if I manage to get myself out to the drive-in once a year. I just like to know it’s available to me should the stars align and I’m able to go.
Every summer I take three weeks of vacation to rest, have fun, and catch up on assorted home projects that I tend to neglect during the rest of the year. I like to take all of my vacation time for the year at once because I have the tendency to think about work for the first few days, and the last few days, of my break. The hope is that I’ll spend a few days, in the middle of my three weeks, not thinking about work. I’m not always successful.
The problem with working in ministry is that you never really clock out, at least not mentally. Sometimes you lay awake at night wondering how your going to fill the nursery volunteer holes, pay the rent, and get that darn coffee counter fixed. Imagine working a job where you’re never really off-duty, you don’t get paid much, and your nearest family is 150 miles away. Welcome to ministry! The irony is that I love it, which probably means I have a defect in my DNA, but that’s another story.
The point is, since I’ve been in ministry, I’ve discovered that I’m horrible at taking a vacation. Rest does not come naturally to me. I touched on this a bit two years ago when I burned out bad. The good news is that I’m learning (sometimes the hard way).
A funny thing happened during this year’s vacation. OK, not really funny, but excruciatingly painful, but it might seem funny to me one day. One of my biggest pet peeves, and a problem I suffer terribly from, is being stuck in-between. Let me explain. I’m supposed to be resting, but I have a sick need to always be productive, so I do some needless busy work. I end up stuck in-between. I’m neither resting, nor accomplishing anything worthwhile. It’s a sickness that ends up robbing me of truly enjoying my time off. In this instance, I was cleaning some things around my home office. (Not really working, right?) I had some DVDs that I wanted to put in storage so I went into the crawlspace to put them in a box. When I bent down to put them away, my back revolted in the most painful, relentless spasm that I’d ever experienced.
I dropped to my knees and couldn’t stand up. I had to crawl backwards out of the crawlspace, each leg movement shooting more pain through my back. When my wife found me, I was paralyzed, on all fours, trying to move, but in too much pain to do so. She practically carried me to the bed where I laid for the next several days.
I finally had no choice. Resting was my only option since I was in too much pain to do anything else. You know what? Not including the pain, it was one of my favorite parts of my vacation. I took naps, I read books (FICTION), and I watched movies, all with no feelings of guilt or the sense that there were more productive things I should have been doing. It was great!
Anyway, I’m learning a couple things as I recover from this injury and enjoy the last few days of vacation.
Rest is a discipline. I know I’ve mentioned this before, but I need to remind myself. If I’m not disciplined about scheduling, and committing, to rest, then someone else, or an unplanned circumstance, will lead me to some form of draining activity. Find something that’s restorative for you, put it on the calendar, and stick to it so that you’re not sucked into the in-between.
Diligently plan out your vacation time months in advance. This is where I get into trouble. I mention the need to sit down and plan our vacation, with my wife, but I never really pull the trigger, put the planning session on our calendar, and do it, leaving us to scramble for something fun to do with the kids, and ending up playing it by ear. Playing a vacation by ear stinks.
Practice resting regularly throughout the year. Unless you’re a lazy slob, rest is an acquired skill. Practice at it, at least weekly. There’s a reason why my Instagram feed isn’t filled with holiday and fun-time photos. I’m not good at that sort of thing. Get good at resting throughout the year and you won’t need a back injury to to motivate you to stop moving!
Well, August will be over in a week. I pray you make the best of it. Now that the kids are back in school, maybe you can get some rest 😉
Son of the Age, Writing
I’m super excited to announce the release of my first novel, Son Of The Age!
It’s taken me three years to get it done and published and I couldn’t be happier with the way it turned out. Just in case you’re not sure what it’s about, here is the description:
Set out on a journey of courage and transformation!
Abandoned by his father and forced to grow up fast, 12-year-old Son makes the brave decision to trek across the land of Aun to be reunited with his mother. As he travels, he finds the road to be a perilous place as he stands against heartless bandits, defends a helpless orphan girl, and encounters the mysterious man from the north. When what little he has is taken from him, he must stand up and fight for himself or never return home. It’s do or die in this powerful coming-of-age tale.
Son of the Age is the story of modern boyhood set in a medieval fantasy world. If you like page-turning storytelling, exciting adventure, and lots of heart, then you’ll love this captivating debut novel from Lee Bezotte.
It’s been such a great experience putting all of the ideas and stories, that have been rolling around my noggin all this time, into a book that others can enjoy and be blessed by. The book has a quality that appeals to young and old readers alike and the early feedback has been wonderful.
Personally, writing this book has been a real healing journey for me as parts of the story were inspired by my own experiences. My prayer is that readers will find encouragement and healing, and enjoy a great coming-of-age fantasy adventure.
To get your copy from Amazon, click here.
If you prefer Apple iBooks, go here.
Everywhere else, click here.
Let me know what you think! I value your feedback!
Autism, Family
Recently, it was my son’s 18th birthday. It really doesn’t seem real that I now have two adult children. Both of my adult children are on the autism spectrum, which poses certain challenges when it comes to leading them to a life of independence. Let’s just say, it’ll be a while before I get to turn one of their bedrooms into a man-cave. To be honest with you, they’re both great guys and I really don’t mind having them around a few extra years.
My middle son (the one in the picture) is the one who just turned 18. I vividly remember gazing at him, when he was born, and imagining all of the wonderful things he would do when he grew up. I still believe he is going to do wonderful things, it’s just that the road to Wonderfulthingsville is going to be more like a winding, speedbump-laden path than a straight-shot expressway.
Now that the boys are both considered adults, I figured I’d share a few things about what it’s like to raise autistic children. With an estimated 1 in 10 children on the spectrum, chances are you have a child, or know a child, with autism. If you have a child with autism, I hope these help.
You wish you could do more to help them make friends.
This has been one of the toughest things for me. My heart breaks on a regular basis when I see my son ignored or rejected by other kids. Autism isn’t a visible, easily recognizable disability so other teenagers just tend to see him as weird or quirky. When they exclude him, he notices and it hurts. At youth group, he usually sat alone and came home feeling sad.
It’s hard for him to make friends online as well. Having a very black and white outlook on life, he’ll usually “call out” people for swearing or inappropriate behavior. As you can imagine, this opens the door for all sorts of negative reactions from people who don’t understand the real person behind the avatar.
Since it’s so difficult for my son to make friends, I try my best to be a good friend to him. I check in on him often, invite him to walk with me, and play games with him. He really is a treasure and I pray often for him to make good friends.
You have to learn a new language.
Imagine living with someone who only speaks Italian. You work hard at learning to speak Italian yourself, but then you realize that the person SPEAKS Italian, but UNDERSTANDS French. Then you have to learn French, but don’t get too comfortable because you might need to brush up on your German once in a while.
The point is, communication isn’t always easy between myself and my son. I’ve learned to ask a lot of clarifying questions before responding to what he says to me. I’ve also learned that I can’t always count on his tone of voice or body language to make things clearer. Unless he’s angry. Then it’s pretty clear.
I have to be patient, listen actively, and talk in ways that do not communicate too many ideas at a time.
Your hopes and aspirations for them have to remain fluid.
We all have hopes and aspirations for our children. We dream of them becoming successful writers, pastors, entrepreneurs, doctors, and missionaries. Sometimes our children don’t want to do the things we dream for them, and sometimes they just don’t have the capacity.
When I heard about Temple Grandin and John Elder Robison, I thought, he could do something amazing! He might. Or he might not. Either way, I’m ok with it. He IS someone amazing and I love him no matter what.
Earlier today, I took him down to the local community college to get enrolled. He wants to be a medical transcriptionist. He has mad typing skills and I’m super proud of him.
You have to take initiative for them.
My son likes to be alone in his room…a lot. He likes things with screens. He likes the computer, the phone, and the television. When company comes over, he goes to his room. It’s not that he doesn’t like company, or exercise, or creativity. He just needs someone to take him by the hand and draw him out.
For many autistic kids, hypersensitivity to the world around them is a problem and there’s comfort in being alone and focusing on a screen to tune everything else out. If he hasn’t gotten exercise in a while, I’ll invite him on a walk. If there’s a fun activity he might like, I have to encourage him to get involved. Sometimes he protests to playing a game or hanging out with the family, but he’s almost always glad that he did.
You have to remember that they are fearfully and wonderfully made.
I used to pray a lot that God would heal my son. I know now that he is just as God wanted him. As Temple Grandin says, “Different, not less.” A disability is a bend in the road, not the end of the road. My son has taught me so much about childlike faith, friendship, and love. Being his father has made me a better person; more caring, patient, and kind.
I wouldn’t trade the 18 years I’ve spent with him for anything. I see Jesus in him. I love the way he worships (he plays bass on the church worship team), I love the way he jokes with me (he has incredibly well-timed farts), and I love his smile. He really is fearfully and wonderfully made.
If you have a child with autism, I hope you don’t grow weary. Keep dreaming for him or her, and be an amazing friend.
