Getting Healthier This Year

I've never done well with resolutions --- they just have never worked well for me. I'll start off great and then a few days into it, the old habits will creep back in. I'm just not good at sticking to a weildy type thing such as a "resolution".

This year I've got some goals in mind though. The first one is to get healthier this year. I know that seems like a very unfocused goal, but I will have some concrete ways to measure my achievements towards the goal. We had a health screening at work back in December. They basically did your weight, BMI, cholesterol, blood pressure and sugars. Blood pressure and blood sugar were perfect. They told me I need to lose weight. I did actually know that. They also told me my cholesterol was borderline high. Not refer me to a doctor and get on meds high, but do something about it so you don't have to get referred to a doctor and put on meds high.

So, I'm doing something about it. First, I don't think I'll ALWAYS make the healthiest choices regarding food, but I am going to give it a shot. For instance, last night I had a meeting to go to right after work. Usually, I hit the drive thru on the way to this meeting and get a bacon cheeseburger combo to take with me. Last night however, I still hit the drive thru at Wendy's and instead of getting that bacon cheeseburger combo, I got a half salad and diet coke. I am under no illusions that a fast food salad is the healthiest thing I can eat, however, after checking the nutritional information on the Wendy's website, I realized that by making that single choice I prevented over 800 calories and 41 grams of fat from going into my body. So, it was the bettter choice. And as a nice bonus, I didn't have the munchies when I got home from the meeting!

I've also started participating in a twitter challenge "Tweet the Streak". A local organization has set up a challenge where you do at least 10 minutes of something active each day and then tweet about it. I'd been pretty good for the first 2 days, but work, then yesterday's meeting plus a storm front coming through last night limited my options. So, during a break period at work yesterday, I went out to the parking lot (we have a large hilly parking lot) and walked around it in HEELS for 15 minutes and then tweeted about it -- I even won the tweet of the day award from "Tweet the Streak" for it.

So, I'm not making any radical lifestyle changes, yet, but taking small steps to get healthier this year. And at this coming December's health screening, I'm hoping to see the changes! Wish me luck!