You tend to take for granted how active you are until someone pays you to sit on your butt for eight hours a day. In the time since I finished college, my life has become increasingly unhealthy. Lucky for me, my health is something I can change. I’ve tried taking big strides, but it’s always difficult for me to keep up the motivation and I eventually fizzle out.

When I was in college, and for a while after, I was vegan. That was probably the healthiest I’ve ever been in my life. I tried going back, but I’ve become a bit of a foodie (as much as one can be while being a picky eater anyway) and there’s certain things I just don’t want to give up. I can talk more on my ethical reasonings another time.

We bought a treadmill a couple years ago, and it’s by far the most expensive coat rack I’ve ever owned. Let’s face it, even when you’re watching Law & Order reruns, walking on a treadmill is still boring. So I’ve realized I need to take baby steps. I can’t make a big change overnight. But if I add little changes to my routine, I will adopt them with ease.

Out of necessity at home we’ve become much more active with our dogs. It’s vital to their behavior and health. Magically, when we started taking them on longer walks instead of just out in the back yard, Harper stopped chewing on all the furniture. We try to add in several trips to the dog park weekly. This involves us walking them quite a bit beforehand so they’re not too excited. There’s beautiful trails by the park, so it’s convenient. We’ve also found they get tired out pretty fast hopping over the ties in the park’s long lot used to dry dock boats in the winter. We’re trying to grill as much of our food as we can, because in addition to being quick and easy, it doesn’t really require any oil and adds a lot of flavor.

I still have a lot of changes to make at home, but for right now I’m going to try tackling being healthier at work in smaller phases. This will involve:

• Giving up Starbucks, and their rainbow cookies. Yes, we have one of these in the office. Also giving up anything that comes out of a vending machine.
• Giving up Diet Coke. I have this cut back to one a day, and am replacing it with water. I’m hoping to be done with it altogether by next week.
• Keeping water at my desk at all times. If it’s there, I drink it. Lots of water is good for you, so this is easy.
• Eating breakfast. I never do this. It’s important. When I even eat just a banana in the morning it gets my metabolism going and I’m hungrier for lunch earlier and don’t want to eat as much at dinner.
• Getting more fiber in my diet. This ties in to the breakfast thing. I am going to find a healthy bran muffin recipe and start making these so I can take a muffin and some fruit each morning for breakfast.
• Eating lunch in. I pretty much do this already, with the exception of the occasional cheeseburger meeting. Our cafeteria is great, so if I don’t have time to pack lunch I can still get a healthy sandwich and soup for lunch. This was more of a problem at my previous jobs. I still need to start getting up most mornings and packing myself though, because I like the sandwiches I make better and it saves money even though our cafeteria is pretty inexpensive.
• Eating fewer carbs. I love pasta and potatoes. So this means no leftover pasta at lunch, and no soups with pasta in them. No french fries is a given, but I really only have to worry about this on the rare occasion we go out to lunch for someone’s birthday.
• Taking a walk or two around the building each day. We have long hallways that go around the perimeter of our enormous building, and employees are welcome to use them for leisurely strolls. I hear we may even be getting outdoor walking trails soon. When we had take your dog to work day I couldn’t believe how much better I felt just after taking my dog for a stroll outside.
• Eating a snack in the afternoon. If I have something simple like a banana or a Luna Bar around 3:30 or 4 I am not ravenous when I get home and don’t snack a bunch and ruin my dinner. Also the drinking water thing helps a lot in cutting out the bad snacking.
• Possibly attempting to bike ride to work. It’s only 5 miles each way, but this has been a pretty hot summer and I don’t necessarily like the idea of showing up to work all sweaty. Though I carry a waterproof messenger bag made for cyclists already, so bringing a change of clothes would be easy. I just don’t want to invest a lot of money in a bike since I’d probably only be riding it to work, and that might not even be every day. It just depends how much I can handle. Also, the time thing is an issue. One of the most wonderful aspects of my new job has been all the extra time I have without a long commute each day. We’ll see how this pans out.

These steps seem simple to accomplish and will dramatically improve my lifestyle for the first half of my day. After working them into my daily routine, I can begin working on how to be healthy once I get home. Maybe then I can figure out some awesome gym routine like Dave Seah.

Friday, August 3rd, 2007 at 10:30 am | Leave A Comment | Comments Feed
Filed under: Culture, Food, Health