One Goal for 2012.
Apart from a healthy dinner made by my husband, yesterday was spent eating nothing but junk food and not drinking nearly enough water. I’m paying for that today with a general feeling of NOT WELL, a stomach ache, and a not so great mood.
But I still got up at about 6am, worked out for a few on my indoor bike trainer, and ate a healthy breakfast… again, made by my husband, haha. And I have plans to eat well the rest of the day and spend at least 20-30 more minutes on the trainer when I get home today. That may be difficult as the staff in my department is having lunch out, but I need to just remind myself that making the healthiest decision I can amongst not so healthy food is better than giving up and choosing whatever.
For the past few years, I’ve been making a conscious effort to really eat healthier and exercise more. Or at least I’ve made an effort at times. For spells. And then I’m inevitably back to my less than awesome habits.
However, in the spirit of celebrating victories rather than failures, one awesome thing I did this year that I’ve really stuck to is transitioning from drinking mountain dew to water. I was literally drinking nothing but mountain dew (for years!), and about 6-8 weeks ago I quit cold turkey and starting drinking water.
Post-holiday season I hope to work on my junk food eating, which has actually gotten a lot worse in the past few months. Connection between giving up sugar-laden mountain dew and suddenly enjoying sugar-laden cookies, ice cream, and chocolate? Probably. But I’ve also just been doing too much snacking, and not enough treating treats like treats. I also want to work on my exercise habits — get at least 30 minutes of exercise 5 days per week.
When setting abstract goals (get healthy!), I think it’s important to give yourself really good reasons why you want to follow through, because it’s easy to say that falling off the wagon isn’t a big deal when you’re not able to really measure progress. And it’s also important to define what your goal means to you, because “get healthy” means something different to me, a pro-athlete, and an elderly person.
Just a day or so ago, I received the results from a bunch of blood tests that the doctor ran to find out why I’m so tired all of the time. Some nights I go to bed at 5:30 and don’t get up until 7 or 8 (or later)! They all came back completely normal, which is simultaneously awesome and frustrating.
But it tells me one thing for sure: I must not be treating my body as well as I should be. It makes me really take a look at the way I’m fueling my body, my slight obsession with food, and my tendency to spend leisure time doing nothing. Knowing that I am entirely responsible for the way I feel each day is a huge wake up call. It seems obvious, but even though I have a master’s degree in thinking and talking sometimes the former is so much harder than the latter.
So my “get healthy” is really about habits and decisions. Not about weight or calories. If I make the best decisions I can make most of the time I make them then I will feel like I’m making positive changes in my life. That’s what I want for 2012.
hi! welcome to prairie simple :) i'm rachel and i'm married to zac, dog-mama to lux and teddy, and full-time worker bee at a university. this blog is my little memory box, which means i write about my real life and hobbies (like cooking and crafting). i live a simple life, but not on a prairie. though that sounds pretty cool!
