I’ve been giving a lot of thought to priorities lately.  And choices.  And stress.  And “to do lists”.  And how much or how little time we actually have in a given week.  And how much control over our lives or rather how little control we may or may not have.  And money or the lack thereof.  And what I’d like my life to look like.

OMG!!!  I’m having a mid-life crisis!

Eeeeeeeekkkkkk!

*PANT*  #GASP#  “I need bon-bons!”  Where’s my fuzzy slippers and my tiarra?!

*Ahem*  Sorry about that, my inner Drama Diva took possession of me for a moment.  In all seriousness, I’ve been giving a lot of thought to basically three ideas which are intertwined:

1. Being healthy, living healthy is HARD.

2. Being healthy, living healthy takes TIME, lots of it.

3. Everything is connected to EVERYTHING

Which means friends and neighbors that if you make living healthy a priority, then it is going to take time, it is going to be hard and it is going to affect everything!  So, that’s where the “start with something small” comes in.  And celebrate every completed goal, even the smallest of who’s.  Oh, sorry, wrong story. Smallest of Goals is what I meant!  [a moment aside….  Those who are new to my blog and who didn’t get that I just alluded to the character of Cindy Lou, one of the smallest Who’s in the Christmas story “The grinch who stole Christmas“…  well stick around a while.  Soon my world will seem normal and everyone else will seem weird and yes, to those who are interested, that really is how my mind works. Squirrel!]

So, back to the topic at hand. 

Here are, in no particular order, things I’d like to do, and plan to do, to improve my health.  This list is unique to me, but maybe you’ll find some that will work for you as well dear reader, all four of you who are actually reading this blog.    I’m sure that you can come up with some that are not on this list.  I’d love to hear suggestions from you!

• Eliminate sodas from my diet.
• Drink Green Tea instead of soda.
• Reduce the number of times I eat at a fast food restaurant to almost zero
• No caffeine after lunch.
• Only two cups of coffee in the morning (unless it is at some gawd awful obscene hour of the morning and I have to be in the ballroom to dance, then we’ll have as many as it takes!)
• Don’t eat out at restaurants as a routine thing, make it the occasional thing or special thing.
• When I do eat at a fast food place or a restaurant, choose the healthiest thing on the menu.
• Drink more water.
• Get a good night’s sleep (note: I’ve been tested and I’m allergic to dust mites and dust so some of this list are things to control dust and dust mites in my room so I sleep better)
  — Buy new pillows
  — Replace my old comforter
  — Replace the anti-allergy liner on my bed.
  — Do a spring cleaning
  — Replace the carpet in my room with hardwood floor
  — Look into the appliance that my dance partner was telling me about that controls snoring.
• Stretch
• Lift weights
• Take a daily vitamin supplement
• Until told otherwise, continue taking my high blood pressure medication.  I really should mark this one as “done”.  🙂  I have no idea why, but I had gotten lazy and had fallen out of the habit over the past year.  When I went in for my physical this year, my doctor gave me a firm talkin’ to…I felt like a little boy who had been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.  As well I should have!  LOL  I’m back on my meds and if my plans for this year work out, I’ll be able to go to her at next year’s physical and say “Hey Doc, can we try weaning me off the meds?  I don’t think I need them any more.”  Now that’s a goal worth shooting for!
• Get back on Jenny Craig.  This could also be said as “Join Weight Watchers” or “Plan and follow a healthy diet”.  Diet as in food plan that is balanced and nutritious.  What Jenny Craig or any other creditable weight management plan does is make it easier for you.  In exchange for money, you get the professional skills of chefs, dietitians, etc.  It makes it easier and more convenient and more likely for you to succeed, it is not a magic pill.  These plans are not Harry Potter and this isn’t Hogwarts!
• Increase my aerobic activity either through more dancing or by cycling or both
• Go out social dancing (no beer).  Yeah, like that is going to happen!  LOL  Ok, ok, just three beers for the whole evening!  That I can do.  🙂   And dear reader, “Why?”, you ask, “…is social dancing healthy?”  Well, mental health is important too and being around friends having a good time definitely improves overall quality of life.  So there!  And it is good exercise.  It’d be better without the beer, but let’s not get carried away here, I’m trying to be healthy, not a saint!
• Park at the edge of the parking lot at work or when I go to the grocery store, etc.
• Make wise food choices at the grocery store like:
  — Buy whole wheat bread.
  — Drink only 1% milk
  — Buy only organic foods.
• Stretch and warm up before a dance lesson or practice.
• Take an adult ballet fitness class offered by the Texas Ballet Theater
• Install the “Stretching” software program on the computer at work so I don’t tense up my shoulders and neck from staying in one position too long.
• Get a monthly massage (or more often if I can manage the cost)
• Take a Tai Chi Class (I did Tai Chi for a while and I really really REALLY loved it).

Well that is my list for now.  When you have your list, share it down below in the comment section.

The next trick is to put the list into some kind of order, then pick one thing from the list, and do that thing until it becomes habit.  If you’re like most folks you’ll probably want to do a lot of these things all at once, but only do one or two at a time.  Focus on those things, do them, rejoice in the success of doing them and let the momentum build.  Keep on doing the early things while adding to them.

This is a process.  It isn’t like that home makeover show where they decide the house is in such awful shape that they just blow up the old house and start from scratch.  Nope.  Like it or not, the body we’re living in is the body we are gonna have to live in.  We can’t blow it up and start over.  But we can renovate the place and if we replace a brick at a time, by the time we’re through, we’ll have a house, a body, that is worth living in.

See ya on the dance floor!

Related articles / Links

• Healthy at every size! (txcowboydancer.wordpress.com)
• Getting Healthy is complicated and it takes time… …lots of time! (txcowboydancer.wordpress.com)
• Getting Healthy is complicated… …and it takes sleep, if you can get it. (txcowboydancer.wordpress.com)
• Getting Healthy is Complicated… …so do it one step at a time. (txcowboydancer.wordpress.com)
• Photo Credit:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/deerwooduk/682390157/  (Original photo modified with permission under Creative Commons Licensing)