I took a supplement last night that’s supposed to help people who lift weights to gain more muscle. It’s called ZMA. Nothing exotic; just zinc, magnesium and vitamin B6. Within an hour I wasn’t feeling great; in two I was miserable. It’s hard to pinpoint how I felt, except to say that my head hurt and I was jittery in a strange way. I looked at the label and the B6 dose is really high, like over 500% of the daily recommended dose. I looked up side effects of excess B6 and it can cause nerve damage. Good grief! Why in the world are companies permitted to market and sell a product purportedly to help someone get healthier, which can actually cause physical harm? Unbelievable.

The lesson I learned from this is one I should have already learned. Do the research before you start taking the supplement, or medication, or anything else you put into your body. Get the majority of your nutrition from natural food, not pills and powders. Believe it or not, I did look at the ingredients in ZMA, as I do the other supplements I take, and thought it’d be good because what it contains are natural substances that the body requires. Problem is, you can take toxic amounts of some vitamins and minerals. I think that was the case with this product.

While I was experiencing the reaction to ZMA I was praying that God would heal me. I ate a little, vomited a little, took an over the counter pain reliever, drank water, and waited. I believe God answered my prayer fairly quickly. Within an hour I felt well enough to lay down, and I eventually fell asleep. I feel great today! Thank God.

I wrote an essay about balance last week, and this is another example of the need for that practice in life. Too little vitamin B6, zinc or magnesium will cause a variety of physical problems. Too much of these essential nutrients is toxic and causes different problems. What we need it proper balance. I am in balance today and I feel healthy.

Today is leg day in my weight workout schedule. Legs are difficult because it’s such a large muscle group. I’m in the middle of a protocol known as German Volume Training or the 10 Sets Method. The idea is to do ten sets of ten repetitions of two different exercises in a superset. On leg day. I do squats, which require a lot of effort normally, but they are paired with leg curls. You do ten repetitions of squats, wait 90 seconds, then do ten reps of leg curls, wait 90 seconds and go back to squats. Back and forth I go until ten sets of both exercises are completed. It takes a lot out of you. 

I didn’t want to do that leg workout today. I started to make excuses: I don’t feel well because of last night, my legs feel tired, I feel tired. However, I went to the gym and did the workout. Actually, I did eight sets because it felt like there might actually be something amiss. Now I feel great. Balance. The body needs to be active in order to remain healthy. If I would have sat around it wouldn’t have been healthy. If I would have pushed it, it may have been too much (today). 

The Bible has something to say about discipline, which I believe applies here. “All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but in the end it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness” (Hebrews 12:11). That verse is speaking about receiving discipline from God, but it applies to self-discipline as well. In fact, if you discipline yourself by being obedient to God and doing what He says, He won’t have any reason to correct you with outside discipline.

So, eat healthy, stay active listen to God and do what he says. He speaks through Jesus Christ, the Son, and in the Bible, his written message. In this way you’ll stay in balance and be happy.