Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Lent: Giving Up Things So I Can Be Healthy

Lent started today, and though I did not go to church and get my ashes like I should have, and even though I have already started the day on the wrong foot, I think I may actually give something up for Lent.  When I was a kids, we always went to church and we always had to give up something for Lent.  I used to give up ice cream, candy, cookie, that sort of thing, not really thinking it was a great thing to give up except they were things that I wanted as a kid.  Thinking about it now, I am going to use Lent as my way of really kick starting my health journey.  I am going to give up foods that are processed, full of sugar, not in their whole form, and not refined (I'm sure that there are other things that I am going to be giving up, but I just can't think of them tight now).  I am going to start treating my body like the important structure that it is.  I am far from a religious person.  I have not really followed any real traditions of my faith for a number of years and for a number of reasons that I won't go into here, maybe another posting.  But, with the Lenten season upon us and Spring rapidly approaching (I can only hope), I think it is perfect timing to start living the way that I dream of living with regards to my and my family's health and wellness.  I won't go into details about exactly what this means to me, other than what I have already stated.  Unfortunately, my son's 3rd birthday party is Sunday, but I don't think that I will partake in any cake.  I will be making sure that I have food there that I want and can eat, like my kale and white bean soup and maybe even my Indian spiced beans and rice.  We will have the meat sauce and macaroni that is a stable at any party in my family or my husband's.  I really need to make this a true life change and not just change for a couple of days and then go back to my bad ways!

I will start treating my body the way I should be treating it.  I will be fueling it with foods that will help nurture and support it.  I wrote, in a previous post, that my mom has breast cancer and now I want to start taking care of myself since she is the 3 generation in a row to get breast cancer.  I don't want to be the fourth generation.  The good news regarding my mom is that her lymph nodes are not involved.  Hopefully that helps with her prognosis and maybe there is a chance that she doesn't carry the gene.  I am not holding my breath on that last one.  For me, it doesn't really matter if the cancer is genetic or not.  I need to start taking care of my body and protecting it from any sort of invaders.  I have enough illness in my family to know that I need to change my bad habits or else my body will not be protected!

I will try to post more details about what I am doing as time goes on.

Amy

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