Steps Toward Health

So it's now the following morning and unfortunately the hub is still tied up at work.  The cat is swishing his tail on the window ledge enticing Roxi to leap at him through the curtain.  In other moments the dogs are busy holding their own combatives tournament in the middle of our living room.  At this point in the day everyone has been fed, loved on, and gotten ready for today.  Hopefully the husband will be home in the next hour or so and will be able to get some decent sleep as our bedroom is on the back half of the house.  However after being awake since 5am yesterday and at work for over 24 hours now, I'm not banking on him going on our evening run....

Like others who are attempting to get healthier with the New Year, the husband and I have doing an evening run together and trying to eat better.  Ironically our "get-in-shape" steps are due to my being weighed at my annual exam, realizing my "fat" jeans that were easily pulled off while still buttoned last December are now incredibly tight, and the hub feeling a bit too solid around his middle after a month's absence from morning PT.  Implementing an evening run has been really wonderful as it gives us something to look forward to together at day's end while releasing workday and household frustrations, and it allows us to push each other more than we could on our own.  His one rule for me is "no stopping and no walking," but as long as we keep moving I can jog as slowly as needed. So far it's worked and I've been able to get over my one tricky spot in the neighborhood. 

Additionally, after finishing Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food, I've been incorporating more whole foods, especially fruits and veggies, into our diets.  I really enjoyed the different viewpoint of that book and its reminded me to look at ingredient labels and to return to a more veggie-based diet.  Since getting married I switched from a primarily vegan diet to being vegeterian but I am realizing that an increase in carbs, dairy, and portion size has led to the increase in my wasitline.  Although my husbad isn't a huge eater, for some reason in recent months I had convinced myself that it was healthy for me to match my portion sizes to those of a 6'4" man! ;-)  Somehow an increase in produce on our 1st grocery run of the month cost just a little more, but our food supplies and meal variations are also stretching more.  Unfortunately....weight never comes off quite as fast as it piles on ;-)

While on the topic of health, I'm also contemplating going back to school....again.   I've researched going into nursing (or other direct health practice options) many times over (as that's where the jobs are), but have always hesitated due to the additional cost and the need to complete prerequistes.  However I've discovered that I could reasonably take many of the prerequiste courses online (or locally) during the coming months.  The biggest catch is the competition that exists to get into nursing school back home (490 applicants, 48 slots for the one year program), but completing the prerequistes would serve me regardless due to their related nature to my current fields and the continued mental stimulation.  While financially this might not make the most sense in the present, I feel the long term pay off may be more beneficial.  (And most financial advisors agree that educational debt is one of the few debts that pays off in the long haul.)  A recent news article estimated that 600,000 nursing jobs will be created within the next 8 years, and many of the jobs that I'm most interested in for public health would require a nursing degree in the rural sector.  So while it's just a thought at present, it is an option that I'm going to start planning toward....something to keep me more mentally occupied here and something to keep me working toward the future that I hope my husband and I will be able to have together.

Still have a few topics left to cover but will get to these later. ;)  Enjoy the day!