Part of our Continuing Series on Improving Health for Your Family
Being a vegetarian does little to guaranty that you enjoy better health than your peers. It is just as easy to have a horrendous diet even though you consume no meat. And you typically carry more guilt around when you struggle to maintain your weight as a vegetarian. People assume that you should be a shining example of a healthy lifestyle. But it is our experience that a pint of ice cream is just as irresistible to a vegetarian as it is to a carnivore.
At the ThriftyRambler Headquarters (TRHQ), we began 2012 as the Year of Owning It. We spent the entire year trying to look carefully at our family’s daily life. We strove to take responsibility for all of our actions. We did our research and we educated ourselves about the many different paths open to us to meet our goals.
So now, in 2013, it is time to turn towards Actualization. Now we need to take the ideas and knowledge we amassed during 2012, and put everything to good use within our family. We intend to work towards making the changes that want to see happen in our lives. We know that the method that works best for our family, and many other families, is to make a series of small changes over time, rather than try to flip our entire lifestyle and routine in one day.
One change we’ll be pursuing this year is getting back to diet basics. Not dieting – but diet. This is a very important distinction to make. We’ll be raising the bar on our purchases of fresh fruit and veggies while limiting our consumption of juice, alcohol, and chips. We’ll also try to pay more attention to our intake of processed sweets, cheese, and white flour pasta. But we won’t be counting calories, following a specific program, weighing ourselves, or chastising any family member for indulgences. And if our kids notice the subtle changes, we’ll explain that we’re trying to create a greater, well balanced food experience for everyone.
We’ll also refocus on the importance of exercise. The older you get the less likely you’ll notice any positive effect from just maintaining an active lifestyle. When those mid 30’s and on up approach, you will probably need to engage in some sort of designated exercise to maintain your weight. We TR adults will be reinvigorating our relationship with our stationary bike, as well as walking and outdoor biking more as the weather permits. Our kids already get fantastic exercise with their swimming, soccer, and daily walks to and from school.
We suppose this may be a part of embracing our 40s. It is time to begin taking our health seriously if we want to be around for the next 50 or so years. How do you maintain a healthy lifestyle or are you still steeped in the indulgences of youth?