Updated 01/18/2012
I'm married to my first serious high school boyfriend. We dated in high school, split up and went our separate ways, and got married after college. We complement each other well, he tolerates my insanity, and we have two gorgeous boys.
I've been a vegetarian - well, probably my whole life, although my mom didn't throw in the towel until I was 13. She told me I could stop eating meat if I studied nutrition and how to get adequate protein. I didn't. I was training to be a ballerina. I had a very negative body image, and I got really skinny. I lived on plain bagels, pasta, and gardenburgers.
In college I always worked in restaurants and ate most of my meals there, otherwise living on Pasta Roni (the garlic & olive oil flavor), topped with tomatoes, Caesar vinaigrette dressing, and parmesan cheese.
And then I was married, with a real job, and had to learn to cook. It had never interested me in the past. I started watching the Food Network all weekend (hubs worked day shifts on the weekend), writing down recipes, pulling pages out of food magazines. Then I started buying cookbooks. But we still ate mostly pasta, salad, and enchiladas.
When Gavin was young, I still thought "healthy" meant adding corn and peas to boxed mac & cheese. That poor kid. I wish I had known more about nutrition when he was a baby, those years are so important.
Someone introduced me to the book Healthy Child, Healthy World, and it changed my life. Literally. It opened my eyes to so many things. I can't really remember what happened after that, I don't know how I converted, but I gradually eased into my current way of life.
I try to use environmentally cleaners as much as possible. I'm not perfect. I can't find a dishwasher detergent that isn't full of chemical smell, yet leaves my dishes clean. That's the only one though. Except for the can of Lysol that comes out if a stomach bug hits our house.
I'm a vegetarian, and I do the cooking, so the family eats mostly that way. I prepare a dish that has meat in it maybe once a week, if that, and also try to incorporate fish once a week (although I really don't eat it). We started getting an organic grocery delivery service that has been amazing - lowered my grocery bill, increased the quality and variety of foods we've been eating.
I just bought Veganomicon and am venturing into vegan cooking. I'm also interested in raw - but haven't dabbled much there yet. My pantry is starting to fill up with weird items like nutritional yeast, hemp seed, arrowroot powder, etc.
I'm a horrible baker....but I try anyway.
A year and a half ago, I got serious about working out. I hated, hated, running, but did it anyway. I was not technically overweight, but the heaviest I had ever been. I made fitness a priority. I was lucky to find a good group of friends that also ran when I changed companies - they were a huge motivating factor in allowing me to stick with it in the early months when it was not so much fun. I literally couldn't run a mile on the treadmill to begin with. Then I could. Then I ran 1.1 miles......eventually it turned into 2. I remember the first time I was able to run our 3.3 mile outdoor route without stopping. I had started working out in March, 2010, and by September I could finally runs 3 miles!
2011 - new year, new goals. I was determined to run a half-marathon. You can read my posts by clicking the "running" label on the sidebar. I was plagued with injuries in the months leading up to the race, and did not run the race I wanted. I know I can perform so much better.
2012 - I'm still struggling to lose weight. It's annoying, but all I can do is keep working at it. We joined a gym, so most weekdays I make it to the 5:30 am class - Body Pump or Spinning. I strive to run 25 miles a week, although with my knee flaring up, some of those miles are walking. But that's ok.
I work full time. I work out 7-8 hours/week. I cook meals from scratch almost every night. This spring I will help coach the youth track team. I keep track of two very active boys, and help my husband with his business.
Sound like a lot? It is. I wake up at 4:30 on weekdays, and try to get 6 hours of sleep. I drink a lot of coffee. I'm not telling you this to sound like super woman.
I'm telling you this, because (as Adrienne Maloof says) "having it all is easy IF you're willing to work for it".
Fitness, health, time with my family - these are all non-negotiables. So I squeeze it in. I work out before the kids wake up so I don't take time away from them, and also run over lunch, or during nap time on the weekends. My husband takes care of the morning routine, so I go straight to work from the gym - allowing me to leave earlier, and have time at the end of the day to get homework done, dinner cooked, kids run to activities.
It's not rocket science. Find a way to make it work. I am inherently lazy, and have to work hard against it. If I can do it, you can too. Life has no remote. Get up and change it yourself.
Like all of you, I am a work in progress. I strive to always make small, sustainable improvements in our life. I hope you find some inspiration and motivation here.
