What the heck does "healthy" even mean?

Recent events have led me to reevaluate every portion of my life. Before all of this happened, I was ready to move to Stillwater, start life as a grad student/aspiring writer, and get in the best shape of my life. Now that it's seeming like Tucker's going to make it through this, I have to piece my life together as best I can, and make sure I'm living a good life that can lead myself and others to mental and physical health.

I went on my first diet at the end of my sophomore year in high school. I'd always been a little thick and more muscled than other girls my age, but when I stepped on the scale and saw that I weighed 181, I knew I wanted to lose weight.

Sophomore prom, right around 180 lbs.

I "successfully" lost weight and dropped down to a "healthier" weight of 161 at the lowest.
I looked thin, but I was obsessed about what I could or couldn't eat and spent the majority of my day thinking about what I would eat next.

Right around 165, after volleyball camp, before junior year.

I'd finally started to find some balance between my diet and fitness when I tore my ACL.

The brace did make for a good prop though.

I don't handle injuries well. By the end of the ordeal, I packed on all the weight I had lost and more. By the time my doctor cleared me for regular physical activity, I weighed 192 pounds.

Senior homecoming, right around 190lbs.

I didn't weigh myself over that six months, so I don't know whether that was my heaviest or not. I had a dream of competing in state weightlifting (since I'd broken 3 out of the 4 school records in the 165 weight class my junior year). So, I started dieting again. I did a little better about maintaining a healthy outlook, by eating healthy and just going for a 3 mile walk every evening. Six months later, I weighed 164 pounds and placed third at state weightlifting.

Here I am doing my absolute least favorite thing... in public. I weighed about 168 lbs here.

After that, I went to college and hovered around 175. I didn't diet hard, but I tried to work out at least a few times a week. It seemed like that was a healthy weight for my body.

My first/last/only picture with Willie. I weighed about 175.

Fast forward a year and a half and I returned from study abroad, sitting at 185 pounds.

It doesn't help when you have someone as handsome as Ty as your posing partner! (Weight is about 185.)

Also, the giant ice cream cones didn't help. #IIFYM

I started getting nervous, made resolutions with Ty to work out and get strong and healthy, so we signed up for a Crossfit membership.

I stayed around the same weight for my two months of Crossfit, but I got so much stronger. This is me around 184-188 lbs.

I loved Crossfit. It combined weightlifting, which I loved, and the competitive nature of high school sports, which I missed. Unfortunately, two months in, I sustained a back injury, which was only successfully diagnosed two months ago. A bulging disc. My back hurts almost all the time and it's taken all of my willpower to keep working out. I gained another ten pounds and now I'm sitting around 194--my heaviest weight ever.

I've gotta say... it's a pretty good looking 194 lbs. :)

I know I need to make some changes in order to be healthy. I realized one of the most important things in my life is to be able to do a cartwheel. (I know it sounds weird, but I explain it here.) So I'm trying to think about what healthy is to me. I'm trying to think about what I need to do to live well, so I'm making a list.

1. Start each day by sharing a cup of coffee with Jesus. Sure, I pray every night before bed and I send God a few prayers throughout the day, but I want to make scheduled dates with him other than on Sundays. I want to go to daily mass at least one day a week, and the other days of the week spend fifteen minutes in the morning getting to know Him better.
2. Let people know they are loved. After this whole deal, I've thought back to all my interactions with Tucker. It all boils down to one thought: Did he know how much I love him? Now the answer is "I think so" but in the future, if I'm ever wondering that question, I want it to be a resounding "yes." So every day, I will try to do something so someone in my life knows that someone cares about them.
   
3. Continue writing. Writing is a therapy and a passion for me. Writing time is not wasted time, so I want to know that I'm spending a couple of hours every other day doing something that makes me happy.
4. Exercise 3-4 times a week. Exercise benefits people in so many ways, and I need to invest in myself. My body is a temple, and I need to care for it as such.
   
5. Recreate my relationship with food. I hate depriving myself of anything. I need to treat "depriving" myself more like caring for myself so I can sustain whatever weight loss I have from living this healthier lifestyle.
   
6. Less Facebook, more face time. Facebook has been a way for me to feed my social anxiety and avoid meeting with people face to face. That's gotta change. On Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, social contact with other human beings is incredibly important for happiness. In a new place it will be especially hard, but one of my favorite phrases is "life begins outside of your comfort zone." Well, life is in session.
7. Don't let school consume my life. As an undergrad, I was obsessed with building my resume. I had a 4.0, community involvement, leadership skills, and no life. This time around, I'm going to ease off of resume building, and focus on life building.

There are a few general things I want to keep in mind: having a loving heart, being slow to anger (I really need to work on that one), being patient, actively seeking out new adventures, keeping a grateful attitude, and fully recovering from my back injury.

So, great, I have these seven steps and moral goals, and sure, seven is a lucky number, but how is that supposed to affect my life? Well, I'm still myself, and that means that I'm going to write every single one of these things into my planner and check them off of my to-do list each day. In my perfect day I would be able to do all seven of those things, but I can't. There's not enough time and I don't want to burn out.

I'm going to have some of the items be every day things, and some every other day to work on keeping balance. I'll shop and meal prep once a week so I can make sure I'm giving myself healthy options. The additional benefit is that since I'm living on a grad student stipend, I'll need to pinch pennies wherever I can and meal prep will help. For exercise, I'll attend the group classes that the Oklahoma State University rec center offers to keep working out fun and interesting, and that can double as some face time.

This is my tentative fitness schedule. I'm planning to have a big poster in my home so I can check off items as I complete them, and so I can see how consistent I'm being with my goals.

A few weeks ago (I can't believe it's been that long) when Mom and I were talking with her personal trainer, he told us that it takes a year to make a fitness habit. After a year, it's a part of your life, and you're more likely to stick with it. 

Planning is going to be key. I'll stick with this loose layout for a month, and then once the month is over, I'll reevaluate my goals and how well the system is working. A month is long enough to get settled into the habit, and also long enough to decide what I need to tweak to make it better. 

It seems like everyone's trying to get healthy. There are so many posts all over social media of photo-shopped women with six-pack abs, and augmented breasts, and it's hard to realize that that's not really realistic and it's not always healthy, and most of them have dedicated their entire lives to diet and exercise for years.

There are so many opinions about healthy living, and so much of it is absolute crap. So many people say you have to eat organic to be healthy. Research has proven that organic food isn't any healthier than conventionally raised food. They warn against BST (bovine growth hormone in dairy cattle that increases milk production) which our body processes as a protein and doesn't harm us at all. They warn against GMOs. The protein they engineer into corn comes from a bacteria that organic growers spray on their plants as a natural pesticide. Even the WHO claimed red meat is a carcinogen, without considering other dietary factors. (For example, a lot of red meat is grilled, and the char on the meat is a carcinogen.) The truth is, we know more about how to create a healthy, balanced diet for pigs than people. 

Crazy, we know.

The best thing we can do is eat foods in a good balance (protein, carbs, and fats), stay active, and stay mentally healthy. Learning about myself and what works has been a lifelong system of trial and error, so hopefully this is getting me on a better track.

EatHarmony

By: Ty Stelting

They always say two heads are better than one... Well... I believe two stomachs are better than one. When you have another person on your side going through the tough battle of healthy and cheap eating, it is a smoother transition. My wife and I are together in this journey and she has already made it where I feel our meals are better than a pre-made fried processed salty french bread pizza-thingy you get for $2.99 at the corner store. We live in a world full of temptation and it is so easy to be able fall off the wagon and go get a box meal and not spend the extra time and effort on making something from scratch or fresh items.

Well trust me, when you make your own food and use the materials that are cheaper, it becomes a complete transformation in the way you  think about and approach every meal.

Kelsie and I have completely stopped buying small quantities of things we use on a regular basis. We began making things cheaper by buying things fresh. We don't buy things down the freezer aisle (other than the occasional pint of ice cream for indulgent purposes).

Life is so much easier with two because it can be such a daunting task to actually food prep and prepare meals, and you might be thinking those are synonymous but they definitely are not.

We buy tomatoes, onions, bell peppers, potatoes, fruits, and lettuce, all at one time and cut it up and store it for later use. We can add the vegetables to any dish, make fries, eat a salad, and still spend less than what you would spend on one big bag of frozen fries and a bag of salad. Food prep is the hardest because it would be nice to just set a whole pepper in a meal but it is very hard to do that so you must chop it up.

Now that you food is actually chopped up and stored in reusable tupper-ware, you can draw from it any time a meal you want calls for it. Say you want chicken breasts and corn-on-the cob, you can add sauteed onions and tomatoes to the top, or enjoy a nice salad. It is much healthier and cheaper than buying a lean cuisine or a Stauffer's frozen chicken dinner. After a week those fresh ingredients will taste better and make you feel better.

Another advantage of having a partner is that you guys can plan for the future and actually not run into this moment where you have no clue what you are going to have to eat and just go down to that corner store. You will always want to make the other person feel as if they shouldn't be disappointed in you so it holds you accountable. And if the meal is not something that you both don't normally enjoy but it was on sale, than you can suffer together or vice versa. Really enjoying a meal together can be powerful in making a better you, and you can instantly feel that. Tip: Set days in advance where you (and your partner) can indulge and enjoy a meal out, setting those days together will help you not cheat as much. Don't ever stop yourself from enjoying things you used to enjoy, just use in moderation; this can help stop you from having a binge.

The last and final thing is working out together. If you are lucky enough to be able to do the same workout as this person, you can actually coordinate meals and figure out if the plans will work or not. The pressure of finishing all the food you prepped can keep up the intake during exercise and make your taste buds accept it as better than that expensive pre-made stuff.

This other person can push you, help make change, help you feel good about what your doing, and make it a lot easier to become that healthier you. You will also do the same for them. My wife and I are figuring out that it can be easy to have an expensive healthy life style, but if you make all the right choices, wise buys, and stick to it, things can be cheap, easy, and better than anything you did before in a much healthier way.