#healthy me

(all photos in the frames are from Devine Photography)

When Christopher was told he had cancer I was the type of person that read through as many white papers, online articles and books I could find to find out more about cancer. I wanted to know everything I could about it. How it grows. Why it happens. What have people found to make going through treatments easier? In the end I was a wealth of cancer knowing information. 

I took everything that I had read and applied it to our lives. I changed the way we ate. How we went about our daily lives. Christopher even went as far to try mental warfare on his cancer. Whatever it took; we did it. When Christopher passed away I knew right away what this all meant for my muppet. His chances for cancer are higher than most kids, but he has leg up on those other kids because his mom knows the type of cancer that he might be predisposed to and how to fight it before it can ever happen. It's not all about diet, but most if it is. 

See colon cancer LOVES a diet that is high in fat and low in fiber. And I won't lie when I read that fact I had to shake my head and ask myself why no one told Christopher this when his mom was diagnosed with cancer. But then again when she was diagnosed her doctors also told her she could drink soda and fatty foods to keep the weight on during chemo and NOW we know that was wrong because cancer eats sugar for breakfast, lunch and dinner. 

So knowing all that I do know about cancer and how it "thinks" so to speak I change the way my house thinks about food. I don't buy canned foods (green beans don't come from a can around my house). I cut out red meat for most of our diet. This means very little pork and steak. Yes you heard me right - pork. Pork is NOT the other white meat. Ask any nutritionist and they will confirm what I just typed. Pork is so high in fat that it's actually classified as red meat on a nutritional scale. 

Now while all this sounds great and YAY me for doing all this for Ethan. I sorta left me as a loop hole. Yes when all this changed I lost around 40 pounds (basically I lost all the extra baby weight that I was struggling to get rid of). But then I hit a wall. I could run, workout, and try my hardest to keep losing weight, but I never really could get below a certain weight and feel like I was making progress. Then a friend of mine got really into fitness. She was doing what I did with cancer. She poured over books and read everything she could about it (following her on twitter was an eye opener - follow her on Twitter at @SheIsStrong). 

It made me want to change the way I saw myself. I've always viewed myself as physically strong (heck I carried a 45 pound Ethan almost a quarter of a mile asleep on my shoulder one night on the way back from Disney World and didn't blink an eye). I'm strong for someone who's only 5' 2". But I've never been happy with the amount of fat that I carry around. Yep I said it. FAT. Want to hear it again? FAT. FAT. FATTY. FAT. You know that little extra stuff you carry around your middle. Muffin top? Love handles? Buddha belly? Whatever you want to call it - I got a little of it. And it's all from drinking too much soda, eating fast food at lunch when I shouldn't and snacking on tasty treats that pop up into the office or my house.

Now don't get me wrong. I'm 5'2" and 127lbs (on an average day). I'm not overweight when you look it up on the height and weight ratio - but I am what you might call "skinny fat". I carry around a little extra fat than someone else my size. So my goal this year wasn't to lose weight. It's to lose fat. And yes, losing fat will cause me to loose weight - BUT that is not the goal.

Ok hear me out. If I say I want to lose weight; the average person (myself included) would try to watch calories, maybe cut carbs and work out harder. However, when you change the way your mind thinks (like wanting to lose fat over weight) you allow yourself to eat more fruit than normal or not take that one Hersey's Kiss because only one has 25 calories (or whatever it is that we tell ourselves). I can continue to work out the same amount as I do without having to kill myself with hours upon hours of work outs.

I guess the bottom line is Ethan only has one parent and I need to make sure that I am there for him through as many years as I can. My honest goal is to live to be 100. Yeah I said it. I want to see my muppet turn 70! Yeah yeah - big goals; but hey I dream BIG! ;)

Now for those people who want to try and change the way their mind thinks about health, food and working out I strongly suggest checking out CoachCalorie.com. This site is amazing! More than amazing - I've learned so much and just taking a few articles that I've read and applied the thoughts behind them to my life over the past 5 days I've lost 2lbs. Yes that's more than I want for a week (I really don't want to lose more than a pound a week if I lose weight), but what that tells me is that my body was used to all the C-R-A-P I put into it. It means that there is nothing wrong with my metabolism and it's running at the pace it should be. I was just putting all the wrong things into my body for it to do what it needed to do. 

What did I change you might ask? Well I didn't go cold turkey on soda; I just told myself that I could have one can (or small glass) of soda a day for two weeks. Then I will go to every other day, to once a week, to none at all. It's hard. Don't get me wrong when I went out to eat recently it was hard to order water when I normally go for a Coke. But I did it and I was proud of myself for doing it (hint: order it with a lime in it if you don't like the way water taste - it adds a little something to it). I also bring my breakfast, lunch and snacks to work everyday and I sit the lunch bag right on my desk to remind me that it's there (it also keeps me out of the break room from anything that might tempt me). I'm changing things slowly and benefiting from it already. 

For anyone that wants to follow what I do I'm going to post on the Living Strong Facebook page some of my meals and workout with the hashtag of #healthyme. It's just another way to keep my self honest and moving forward towards a healthier and happier me in 2012. I challenge all of you out there who want to change what they see in their lives to start now. Not in a month or when things slow down in your life. NOW. TODAY. Right this second even. Our lives are our gifts to ourselves and our children. And like my parents taught me - any gift from anyone is a gift that should be accepted and accepted with graditude because it means that someone took time out to think about us. So start thinking about a healthier you. Take care of the greatest gift we have. Ourselves. For all those people that bring joy into your life. Make 2012 a #healthyme.