Empty Calories

In the desert, water is life. With the temperatures as hot as they are over here, you cannot go through the day without drinking water, and I mean, a lot of water. Part of the problem is that a lot of people have a problem drinking water when it has an aftertaste due to the purification process used or because it isn’t a “pure” water, such as mineral water. Often soldiers will add a powdered drink to the water to help them be able to drink down the several quarts of water they will drink throughout the day.

The most plentiful powdered drink over here is Gatorade, and there are a million different ways to mix it. People mix it like they would Kool-Aid; some people prefer it strong, some people prefer it weak. Some people prefer to mix their flavors. I used to drink Gatorade all the time until I read the packet. Each packet contains 4 servings, and a serving has 50 calories. That’s 200 total calories for a packet poured into a liter (quart) bottle of water.

Gatorade sells itself as one of the drinks that replenishes minerals and salts that your body depletes as it sweats. While this is certainly desired in this environment where I find myself sweating profusely through the heat of the day, I find that 200 calories for every liter of Gatorade can add up over the 4-8 liters I drink each day (depending on my outdoor exposure). If it is a full day of being outside, that is 1600 calories I’ve consumed without counting my meals. Add 2000-2500 calories for meals consumed and I can find myself with almost 1100 extra calories that I am consuming each day.

Somewhere during the course of my day, if I continue mixing the Gatorade into my water, I just consume empty calories, and those calories become something that I don’t want. What if our religious experience has been nothing more than the spiritual equivalent of empty calories because we couldn’t accept our lives as-is?

Posted by: HarryTick™ on 3. August 2007, 20:30 |