I have always been big on eating healthy food (or at least my interpretation of what I thought was healthy). Sure, I eat plenty of junk food along with the good stuff, but my philosophy has always been that the crap food is ok to eat as long as you're eating plenty of nutritious foods too. Admittedly this has also been extremely easy for me since I LOVE vegetables of all sorts in any shape or form. Vegetables are really my favorite food. Fruit, not so much. I can eat some, but mostly I just opt for the veggies. In addition to that, I have no desire for sweets, never have. That is probably a big part of the reason I'm not a big fan of fruit. Chocolate, cakes, cookies...yuck. It's weird, I know. I love to tell my kids that in elementary school I used to trade my chocolate chip cookies for others canned green beans! True story! Apparently, this is genetic because Jake refuses to eat candy. He does like chocolate, but not candy. Since he was little, little, he would spit candy out of his mouth if you put it in there (it was Hailee pushing this by the way, not his parents). People tell me I'm lucky that I don't like sweets, but there are plenty of other junk food items that I can't live without. Chips, popcorn, fried foods, mmmm.
My biggest problem with being healthy has always been exercise. I hate it, bad. I always said that I will do plenty of recreational activities that will keep me fit. Over the years, our lifestyle has slowly changed until I realized recently that I was living a sedentary lifestyle. The most activity we got (on a regular basis) was walking the kids from ride to ride in Kiddie Land at Lagoon every Saturday. My job doesn't require much movement either. It probably doesn't count walking from one clinic to another or from one meeting to another a few times a day. I take the elevator AND ride the shuttle, meaning I don't even have to walk across the parking lot! The shuttle drops me off right at the front door! Ty and I even bought a one year gym membership a couple of years ago and I think we both could count on one hand the number of times we went.
I do have a point to all this rambling...Being someone who has managed to maintain the same weight for the past 10 years, even after having two kids, I have felt like I didn't need to make any changes. But my body certainly didn't look the same and I didn't feel the same. So I started running. I never thought I would run. I'm not here to say, "oh, just try it, you'll like it. It's addicting!" (I heard that a lot), because none of that has been true in my case. Honestly I thought I COULDN'T run because I hated it. One of my coworkers was telling me one day how he runs, a lot, and he hates it. I've been waiting all this time to hopefully come across some type of exercise that I would enjoy and that comment made me realize I don't have to like it! It's funny how sometimes it takes someone to just make a comment that makes something "click" like that. So I run, not a lot, around 2 miles 2 days/week. It's definitely been crucial that I have friends to run with or I never would've stuck to it his long. I am here to say, though, that I never thought I could do it, and I can, that I definitely "tolerate it" more than I used to and that after about 30 weeks of running, I have some results. I've lost 5 lbs! That may not seem like a lot, especially since it took such a long time to lose it, but I think that's a lot since I've been the same weight for 10 years. Also, when you think about 5 lbs. of fat, it's kind of amazing to think that much has actually come off my body. Where is it?! Where did it go?! Running (of all things) has been easy for me to stick to. You just go and in 30 minutes, you're done.
Here's me running. I had Ty snap a picture while I was on the move.
Ok, so I'm just trying to break up my VERY long-winded post with some pictures:)
Although I have not intentionally changed my eating habits, I realize they are changing. All of a sudden I'm grossed out by foods I've been eating for years. I actually get sick to my stomach when I eat too much fried food. I ate a bowl of fruity pebbles the other day and it made me nauseous! WTH?! I have been following a blog, which I've mostly been reading for entertainment sake and not for the purpose of actually changing any of my eating habits, but this guy has done some serious research and I'm fascinated with his blog. In fact, his blog was my original purpose for this post. I wanted everyone to know it is out there. He has a great idea of coming up with one healthy change each week, so you'll have made 52 lifestyle changes by the end of the year. Here are a few of my favorite posts.
Waking Up In The Bread Isle: He talks to a grocery store manager about how they decide where to shelf each type of bread (in his grocery store, there were 72 different kinds). The answer: Slot Fees! The bread companies actually pay for where they want their bread placed on the shelf! The manager said they make more from slot fees than for selling the actual bread. He also found that only 3 out of 72 passed his "test" for healthy bread (which is 100% whole grain and contains more grams of fiber than sugar).
The Short and Sweet of It: I love this quote from the blog...In 1925 the noted English scientist R. H. A. Plimmer warned: “The Americans, with their love of candy, are the largest sugar eaters in the world. Incidentally, cancer and diabetes, two scourges of civilization, have increased proportionally to the sugar consumption.” Plimmer’s genius was to make the connection between sugar and chronic diseases. His failing was an excess of optimism about our ability to change: “ . . . as we now realize our predicament it should not be a difficult matter to rectify our mistakes.” Nothing was rectified; our sugar intake grew and grew all through the 20
th century.
Anyway, I have just learned a ton from reading it so I wanted to share it with you. I have added his blog "Word of Wisdom Living" link to my sidebar.
Note: In case you were wondering, despite it's name, the blog has no affiliation to the LDS church or it's teachings.
The Pioneer Woman Cooks: This is my favorite cookbook ever. This is not just a book of recipes. This woman has stories in here about her life on a farm, which is hilariously written since she grew up a "city girl". She also has step by step pictures on how to create each recipe. It's perfect for someone like me, who reads cookbooks cover to cover. Reading each step of the recipes is entertaining in itself because she's so funny and real. I also now subscribe to her blog, which is one of my favorite things to read when I have a spare minute. Oh, and the recipes in this book are good too!
IPAD: Everyone needs one. Everyone. In any walk of life, in any circumstance. I just can't come up with any scenario in which an individual would not need this device. 
ChorePad: I really should do an entire post on my favorite apps, but I thought I'd at least give a shout out to this one here. They actually linked to my blog on their facebook page, I'm famous! :) This is a great app! It is extremely easy to use, customizable and the kids LOVE it! You can set up a profile for each kid, program in what chores you want them to have and how many stars each chore is worth. You can also set up any rewards you want how many stars each rewards costs. My kids have "saved their stars" to buy things like pillow pets, 30 minutes tv time, ice cream date, songs for their ipod. I've used similar apps and I love the feature that each chore can be worth different amounts since all chores are certainly not created equal! My kids love that they can easily mark off when they've done a chore and they love to watch and listen to the stars rack up on their total. "Ching, Ching, Ching!" Oh, and my kids are 2 and 5, so they don't have to be able to read since you can add graphics to every chore. Also, the creators listen to user feedback and update it all the time.
Hope you all enjoy! Let me know what things make you just hap, hap, happy!
