"IT'S A RENTAL"

May 17, 2011Read: 1 Corinthians 6

"You are not your own. You were bought at a price, so honor God with your body." --1 Corinthians 6:20

Somewhere, on some rental car lot -- with the sounds of inbound flights drowning out the hum of transit buses coming and going from the terminal -- an economy sedan sits in solitude, used, beaten and soiled. Coffee stains, cigarette ashes, Slim Jim wrappers. An inadvertent pen mark is making a home in the upholstery and the suspension on the car is aching from the accumulation of sharper-than-normal turns and a Dukes of Hazzard approach to the speed bumps on the return route to the terminal.

Why are we so hard on our rentals? Because we don't have to take it home with us, of course! Strangely, the same person who would put their Avis in peril prefers to park their high-priced Mercedes in the remotest corner of the grocery store lot at home.

Our bodies are rentals -- they are only ours for a fleeting moment of time in eternity -- but we need to treat them more like our own credit depends on the condition in which we return them. Today, take to cleaning out your personal make and model -- better fuel, a spotless interior and a shiny, polished coat. You'll feel better and the ultimate Lessor will be appreciative of the upkeep.

--E.V.

DARK CHOCOLATE PRE-WORKOUT?

It may sound like the most counterintuitive performance training advice ever, but having dark chocolate with approximately 70 percent cocoa pre-workout, can actually make your workouts more productive.

Subjects in a study published in the European Journal of Nutrition consumed a single, 100-gram serving of dark chocolate 2.5 hours prior to a cycling routine. Researchers found that consuming the dark chocolate before intense exercise caused an increase in antioxidant status and a reduction in a compound called F2-isoprostane, which is an indicator of oxidative stress.

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