~A Bitter Swallow~

I finally got my insurance cards. I looked up some local providers, and plan to make an appointment with a doctor this afternoon. In my haste to find a doctor, I just realized I forgot to look up optometrists and dentists. Oh well.

However, in signing up with the insurance through my workplace, I was able to sign up with a service called "Living Well". It offers incentives for making and maintaining healthy choices. Since I've been trying to do so on my own anyway, I figured this would be a great opportunity for me to get some extra motivation going.

So, I did their assessment test. I actually got a good "score". Better than I thought I would get. I set up a food journal, so I can start keeping track of what I eat and when. It came at a good time, too, as I just got a cookbook containing 200 recipes, all containing less than 200 calories! I figure keeping track of what I eat, and having to actually look at it, might help me to start making better decisions regarding what I put into my body.

I had also just a couple days ago decided to drink more water. I came up with a system for while I'm at work. I am to drink a full 16 ounce bottle of water between each of my breaks. That is about 2 to 2&1/2 hours time. It's going pretty well so far, and ensures that I drink at a minimum, 3 bottles a day. Plus, I have a huge water bottle sitting on my desk at home, that I drink off of all day. The good side of that is not only do I drink more water, but it gets my kids to drink more water as well. The bad side is that my kids drink all my water, so when I go to drink it, it's gone! However, that makes me have to get up and fill it up, so I'll just count that towards keeping active :)

The one area I'm failing miserably in is exercise. I really want to join that Pilate's class. Even moreso- I want a treadmill. I have no idea where I would put it, but I would use that baby. I know I would, which makes me not having it even worse. I have grand ideas of taking a walk every evening... the waning sunlight strewn through our tree laden drive. Yeah right. It's dark by the time I get home now, and the last thing I want to do is go for a walk in the cold. (If you didn't already know, I'm a huge wuss when it comes to cold.) But I need to get active somehow. I need to find something to spark and hold my attention long enough to keep me going. I am one of those people who needs others around to motivate me to keep moving. Others who are also moving, not just cracking a whip while they point and laugh.

So, this is my quest to get healthier, and stay healthier. I need to bunker down and go through those cookbooks and gather ingredients. I need to stop focusing on the cost of the foods, and focus on the cost those high fat "cheap" ones are charging our bodies. I need to pull myself out of my chair and do something. Get creative, get active, get mind-challenged.