health kick

After taking a half-hour walk around the neighborhood with my brother today, the topic on my mind right now is health. Everyone nowadays is on a health kick, so being the trend-follower that I am, I'm coming along for the ride. Of course, I know being healthy shouldn't be viewed as just a 'trend' or a 'phase.' In fact, my brother and I were discussing how this is our parents' perception of our recent endeavors to be healthier.

Our biggest obstacle right now is that we're still relying on my mother to do the grocery shopping. Neither of us has a full-time summer job, which means limited personal spending money. My brother has tried (and failed) to get my mother to set aside a certain amount for us to shop on our own. See, my mom has a compulsion to buy sale items, which has resulted in an over-the-top supply of cookies, chips, and other junk-food-ish snacks. Not to mention enough cans of food and boxes of cereal to help us survive a six-month natural disaster. She asks us to tell her what to buy, but my brother and I would much rather go into the store, see what's there, and pick out stuff more on a whim. So we're a little bit stuck at the moment.

My own personal obstacle is my affinity for late-night snacking. I'm not a big breakfast person and I usually don't get hungry until later in the day. But because I miss out on all my eating in the morning and early afternoon, my body craves food until the late hours of the night. The problem became very evident when I was trying to get myself back to a regular sleeping schedule. I got in bed around eleven, and by the time midnight hit, I still wasn't asleep and suddenly needed to eat, to the point where my hunger was distracting me from sleep. That's when I knew I had to seriously overhaul my sleeping and eating schedules.

On top of all that, I have minor stomach problems that would probably go away if I ate healthier. I'm thinking of completely dumbing down my diet to basic foods - stuff like plain scrambled eggs for breakfast, salads for lunch, and whatever my mom cooks up for dinner. This is a LOT easier said than done, but I'm going to try.

My two main goals are more exercise and better diet (so unpredictable, I know). I hope to walk for a half an hour every day, eventually mixing it up and throwing in some jogging when I get the stamina for it. Plus, our On Demand has free workouts, so I'll probably start doing one of those every other day. As for my diet, I think I'll start off super basic - cut out all processed foods, including my ever-reliable microwaveable meals. Eventually I'll probably add some things back in, but mainly for the sake of my stomach problems, I really need to go down to the bare bones and figure out if my problems are related to a specific food or additive.

And with that, I suppose it's time for me to get to bed, because sleeping well is just as important as eating well and exercising.